just like everyone else.


I’ve been writing a lot of blog posts, but all of them in my head recently. By the time I get to the end of the day, and the opportunity has risen to write it, the words have abandoned me. I am tired, I am weary, and my head is battered and empty from a fierce day.

And there have been better days.

Think about what I am not saying.

Last week, I saw our dreams get kicked away again. Being in the final two of 550, but not the winning place. And, as any fule who watched Top Gun knows, there are no prizes for second place.

With it, I saw our hopes, dreams, and ambitions kicked away. There aren’t always many opportunities out there. Each one is rare. There would be months of notice periods and waiting, but at least I would know there was an end to our current, less than satisfactory circumstances and a future that would be more enjoyable. With that, it is now at least six months, and probably longer, before the quality of our lives improve. Six months of struggle, if not the rest of my life. Six months of seeing my career ambitions unfulfilled, if not the rest of my life. Six months of not being any nearer to achieve the dim ambitions of having a half-decent house, a wedding, and some new clothes. Every second of my life is defined by debt and commitments, and it cannot continue forever.

We have been struggling financially recently, but coping. I make no secrets out of it. Much like everyone else. We’re all in a pointless race to the bottom to appear competitive and efficient in a society that values prosperity but only for a few.

I'm faced with a practically shrinking income and immovable costs. Just like everyone else.

40% of my income – two days a week – goes to tax. 15% of my income then goes to my son’s mother. And that 15% often means that my family, my partner, our son, have to go without. It hurts and denies my family what is rightfully theirs, the fruits of my labours, disgusts me. That 15% denies my son and my partner the tiny luxuries. Just like everyone else. This isn't news to anyone, in any way.

My income has been frozen – irrespective of any inflation – for two years. And it may very well be another year, or two, or three, or a lifetime of that to come. Some companies have made a healthy surplus in challenging times and denied their staff even one percent of that surplus. A £1,000 payrise for everyone in a business might not even be 3% of that surplus. In real terms, whilst the Consumer Price Index – at 4% per annum, and the Retail Price Index at 6% per annum, and food at 5.7%, and fuel at 15.8%, and train fares at 12.8% per annum, have risen the past 20 months, the salaries of millions have not moved one penny. An average salary has shrunk by at least 8%. The financial space where we live is now very small indeed.



I get up every morning at seven, and spend an hour and a half on a train, and we have to do ever more with ever less, and be lucky, and be grateful I’m not one of the redundant on the scrapheap of life, be grateful I have to spend half the day out of my house a day, to spend four hours with my family, before I go back to sleep, and start again the next day, and to do so twenty two days a month, with wages frozen, and it’s all over the papers that information about the bonuses and salary increases for chief execs and bankers whilst the worker bees underneath have to scrape and hope to be thrown a bone from the tens of millions left in the pot. People get to the end of the month barely able to feed ourselves. Bills go up. Debts have to be paid. Travel rises 12.8% every year. Tax goes up. Child Benefits are cut. Food rises in cost. Libraries close. Schools close. Hospitals close. The Public Sector are vilified as lazy, parasitic, useless, fat cats with gold-plated pensions. Every house is squeezed and the money disappears from our wallets and disappears from the high streets and it can’t be spent in the shops because families simply don’t have it to spend. I spend 22 days a month, and 238 hours a month, away from my family for what ultimately turns out to be, after the bills, the mortgage, the debts, and the rest of the parasites, less than minimum wage.

I’m running a business called my life, whether I like it or not, and it is challenged Just like everyone else. My suppliers are all putting up their prices. My customers aren’t increasing the price they pay.

The trickledown theory of economics, that the poor are subsidised by the rich. It’s more the other way round : companies making profit are subsidised by my poverty. The trickledown theory of economics works for the poor and the rich : anything left over from the mere business of staying alive and maintaining that level of food, heat, and a roof, goes on something else. When there’s not much left over, then the shops close because no one is spending anything, because there’s nothing to spend.

The fundamental paradox of capitalism is that it intends to maximise profit by minimising costs. You are a human resource. The less you cost a business, the more money it makes. The less you get paid, the less you can spend. The less you spend, the less customers a business can have. The less money a business can make.

Naturally, my suppliers have put up prices by whatever way they see fit. There’s no recession or austerity restraint applied to my life by Southeastern, who have put up my train fares by 12.8% : or £400 a year, and after tax, several days of my life every year. Or for that matter, my electricity supplier, my water supplier, my food suppliers, all of them have raised prices. Couple with the fact that 15 months ago, we had an awesome beautiful baby, and my partner has gone back to work part time, we’re certainly financially as pressed as I think I have ever been. We’re, just like most of Britain, under the hammer, working, working, working, all hours, for what feels like no money at all.

What other option have I got? Stop getting the train to work? I could drive I suppose. But cars are expensive habits to keep. Stop paying the bills? Well, I quite like electricity, water, and somewhere to sleep. The space between the bills I have to pay, and the money I earn, is small. And that is where we live. And it’s getting smaller. Just like everyone else.

Every month is a race against time. The taxman takes his share, then cuts all the services we use. The bills and mortgage payments and debts and Child Support Agency thieves steal the rest of it. At the end of it all, when the basics of our lives – food, water, shelter – are paid for, there’s not enough left. No quality of life at all. We scrimp and save and hope to God something doesn’t break or fall down or rot. It’s about the money. It’s not about me choosing to be poor. No one would ever choose that. It’s about the money. It’s about the money. It’s about the money. . Just like everyone else. And we all wish it were different.

I am meant to feel lucky I am not unemployed, supposed to feel privileged for the opportunity to work long hours for little disposable income. Supposed to feel lucky I am not homeless, merely cashpoor.

I’m not going to be a rock star. I’m not going to be an author. I’m not going to be a comedian, or famous, or anything. The only thing I can do that I am good at and earn money for is the thing I do for a living. The economic reality is that we are not rich.

The usual deflection tactic is the Orwellian doublethink that I am meant to feel honoured that I am one of the millions. It could be worse they say. Of course it could. We could all be gangraped, drown in lava, or with cancer.

Am I meant to feel lucky for having to spend three hours a day going to and from London every day, and for spending 2 days a week earning tax to be spunked by my idiotic government on socially and economically-illiterate capitalist dogma? For the rest of my earnings to vanish on the tightrope of debt and bills and for, in practical terms, the money we have for our lives to be earnt just one day a month? I’m an economic unit of production. And the government in this country think its more important to bomb Libyans than keep my libraries, my schools, my hospitals and my society open.

If we have to work for a living - and we all have to work for a living - I know that I’m going to do all I can to ensure that the business of my life goes as well and as profitably as it possibly can. I am a worker, selling his labour. I know I’m profitable, and good value for money.



Where am I? I’m working, but have no disposable income. Just like everyone else. My career has seen some great opportunities the past six months, and I was unsuccessful in them.

What hurt was not that I didn’t get the job because I didn’t try.

Because what hurts now is that was within a breath of achieving a level of financial and professional satisfaction that has eluded me, and achieving what I know I am capable of, and what I want to achieve, and seeing it taken away from me. Give me a chance to shine.

Knowing that now, many of the ambitions I have for our lives are choked by cashflow. These aren’t wild crazy dreams. I’d like to be able to fix the leaking conservatory without borrowing money from my father-in-law. I’d like to be able to go out for a meal with my partner. That’s how tight it is. Just like everyone else.

But most of all, what hurt was knowing that our dreams to achieve things with our lives – a modest level of comfort – are slipping away months at a time with each rejection. Six months away. A year.

We can’t get married now, for at least another year. Even though after all we have been through, and the strength we have together, we are stronger, better, and permanent than any other time in our lives, more so than any other experience either of us have had in our lives. Our dreams, a train ride, a wedding, ice cream, fish and chips and a lighthouse, all dashed for another long year.

That’s why I have been diagnosed with borderline moderate / severe depression. Our dreams are slipping away. Crushed by money and debt and a casual cruelty that comes from being alive, yet unable to live. I wish it were different : but it isn’t. We barely have any quality in our lives, apart from what you cannot buy, and we know that doesn’t go far in this world. Our dreams are being pushed back. Just like everyone else.

I'm faced with a shrinking income thanks to rampant RPI, CPI, and other rising costs, and immovable costs I cannot remove : I can't make my mortgage redundant, after all.

We may never get married. Our dreams are being destroyed by money. Doors are being slammed in my face whilst I am being crushed to death by money. It needs to change. I may be alive. But this isn’t living. It isn’t the life I wanted to live. Just like everyone else.

We're all in this together, right?


- posted by Mark @ 10:33 pm