Thursday 30 July 2009

Would women have caused the credit crunch?

I found this article by the BBC's Robert Peston interesting in the way it touches on some of the differences between men and women. Noting that nearly all those who are, at least in the eyes of the media, to blame for the credit crunch were men, he asks whether it's just the absence of women from top jobs that has enabled them to escape blame, or whether there is a way in which perhaps women are more cautious

The difference he picks up is one of motivation: "I know very few women who measure their success in life by the size of their respective bank balances, whereas I know an astonishing number of men for whom the only thing that matters is "the score"." Although I don't think you can attribute this purely to the difference in sex, I think there is a real difference, at least in the way men and women are portrayed in media and literature, and perhaps less noticeably in real life. Men are still viewed- by themselves as much as anyone, although perhaps subconsciously- as providers, going out and winning the bread. Women are often the ones who work part time, or flexibly, adding to the household income but also combining this, often, with housework, childcare, or just the general organisation of the household.

I'm not sure that I agree that all of this is down to sex, whether genetic or cultural expectations. It's too close to the stereotypical notions of 'men's work' and 'women's work.' But I do think there is some truth in it. Cultural or not, it's generally the mother, not the father, who takes time off work to look after the kids when they are young or ill, it's generally the mother who society blames if things go wrong, before they blame the father.

Because women's motivations are different, and because, it is alleged, they think more about the consequences of decisions on people and are reluctant to take risks if people are going to get hurt, it's suggested that more influential women could change the culture at the top of banking. As Peston puts it, "men are more prone than women to simply run like a train at the goal, and never mind who's flattened along the way." Rather than some of the male traders who had detatched the 'products' they were trading from any connection with reality, and seemed to have forgotten that somewhere this would impact on people, it's suggested that women, looking at this in a different light,would have brought these traders down to earth. Whether or not that could have happened, or could happen in the future, I don't know.

I also found the point raised by some people commenting on the post interesting, when they pointed out that women were equally or even more to blame than men for the soaring levels of personal and credit card debt. Perhaps this fits in with the stereotypical idea of women as addicted to shopping and shoes. But in my experience men may buy different things (computers, TV's, gadgets, football season tickets) but I don't think their spending is that much less than womens'. It's interesting too that much debt is linked with homelife- furniture, for example- which is traditionally seen as a women's area.

I'd suggest that the difference between men and women as discussed here and in Peston's article, is about priorities. The priority of the men who 'caused' the credit crunch was to make money for themselves. Women, it is supposed, are less focused on this and more on ensuring that the people around them are happy. While I hate stereotypes like this- and I'm sure there are plenty of men out there who care more for their family and friends' well-being than for wealth, just as there are women who care more about wealth than well-being- I have to admit that there is some truth to it.

And I don't think it's a bad thing. Maybe it's just because I'm a woman, maybe it's got something to do with my faith, but I think public and business life would be none the worse if those in high positions put the good of their employees/ customers/ family before their own bonuses and wage increases rather more than seems to be the case at present. And if that means getting more women into high positions, I'm certainly not going to complain.

Tuesday 28 July 2009

Isn't moving fun?

You probably remember me ranting about how many people can't cope with people sharing a house. Having just moved house- well, I'm still in the process of trying to sort everything out- I can report that the curse has struck again. Somehow it seems to be designed to be a hassle and that the hoops various companies make you jump through are there to make you reconsider whether you actually want to move or whether you should just stay where you are- or perhaps that you should live nowhere, but somehow keep paying them?

It might help if companies looked or listened more carefully at what you have written or said in the first place, rather than trying to fit you into their own expectations and rigid plans for what they think you should want. The idea that you might want more than one name on a bill, or that more than one person might be ringing up about the same account as it's convenient to you just seems a bit beyond most companies' imagination, but surely it's not that difficult to comprehend? The idea that you're only on a 12 month contract and therefore can't commit to an 18 month broadband (for example) deal often means that you have less choice and probably end up paying more. The quite bizarre council tax payments system means that once they've eventually got your details correct (ie three months or so after you moved) you have to pay the entire year's worth in about half the time everyone else got.

Perhaps I'm being a bit stressed and pessimistic here. Perhaps it's just the fact that I'm fed up with having to sort this all out from the start EVERY YEAR. Partly because I can't just change my address in the same way that, say, a family moving house could, while keeping the same supplier because I'm living with different people, and different numbers of people. And because certain companies seem to go out of their way not to make it easy for young people in my situation.

Monday 20 July 2009

What's your role?

I heard a sermon at the weekend that I thought was good. As well as a good point to the talk- about our calling as a church- the preacher (Dave Magill, a youth worker at my church) said some interesting things about how we interpret the Bible.

The Bible, he pointed out, was written to us as a people. In the Old Testament, that would have been the People of Israel, while today it's the Church, God's 'people,' in the world. Not everything is applicable to us as an individual, but perhaps if we look at whether it applies to us as a people, as a church, we will understand better what it is saying to us. It can make more sense.

Within the people of God, we all have individual roles. The apostle Paul has a lot to say about being a people where everyone has different skills and gifts- some to be teachers, some to be prophets, some to do the administration. And some, he says, to be evangelists.

Apparently about 10% of the church* are gifted as evangelists, and are called to exercise this gift. That in itself is a reassuring figure- it can explain why, no matter how hard we try, nothing seems to happen. But it doesn't let the rest of us off the hook. We are not all evangelists, but we are all witnesses.

Dave used the analogy of a courtroom to explain how this works. In a court case, it's the barrister who does most of the talking and questioning. An evangelist, like a barrister, is perhaps someone skilled at explaining the gospel in a way that makes it clear to the hearers. But behind the barrister is a solicitor (or more than one) who is responsible for gathering the evidence and working out what's important, doing all the paperwork and background work. And there are clerks and legal secretaries and others in the background who all contribute to the barrister being able to stand up and speak, and hopefully win the case.

And then there are the witnesses in the case, ordinary people without perhaps any special training or big role in the church, but people who, by the way they live their lives, give evidence to what is true. People like you and me. It might seem that what we do in our lives- office or shop work, chatting to friends, getting on with the business of life- doesn't have much to do with evangelism, but perhaps it does. Just the way you respond to an event may be a witness to someone- perhaps you don't kick off and swear at someone pushing in front of you in a queue; perhaps you're willing to help clearing up after a meeting when everyone else rushes off; perhaps in a conversation about a news item you have a different perspective from other people. And last but very far from least, there are the people who pray.

Small things, and so often it can seem like they don't make a difference. I'm certainly no shining example when it comes to all of this. It's so easy to get discouraged, to become envious of those who are 'evangelists' and who see many people coming to faith- perhaps because of the groundwork done by someone else. Especially when some of those evangelists don't seem to understand that it's not as easy for everyone else as it is for them. Of course I'm glad when people come to faith- but there's always that bit of sadness too.

So how do we find out what our role is? I guess, to an extent, by experimenting, by considering what you'd like to do and seeing if you can do it. It can be hard when sometimes churches want to fit us into whatever they need extra help with, like running cafes, or helping with kids' work- both of which are excellent things- when perhaps that's not where you feel you're gifted. I'm still not sure where my role is, although I'm probably more of a solicitor than a barrister. But when we find that role where we can use all the gifts and talents which God has given us, that's when we and the work we are called to can really flourish.


*I'm afraid I have no idea where this figure comes from, although I've heard it quoted several times. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

How not to be cynical

It's struck me several times over the last few days what a cynical world we live in at the moment. The media delight in finding scandal and bringing down any institution that once commanded respect: the church, parliament, the police, banks. Now the media tell us that we can't even trust the media! This article by the most cynical of cynics, Charlie Brooker, just about sums it up (yes I know- or at least hope- that he's exaggerating for comic effect, but it still paints a pretty bleak picture of the world.)

What really gets me when I read this kind of thing is the comments people make in the discussion below. I hope they're exaggerating too. But they convey the idea of a world in which we can't trust anything or anyone, where everything is bad and we can't expect better, where there is no hope that we or anyone or anything else can make a difference. It's a very fatalistic viewpoint, and very depressing too. It diminishes the role of the individual in the world and effectively absolves individuals of responsibility of their actions- what else could they do, in such a messed up world?

Well if that's the best people think of the world, if there's no hope of anything better, I don't know why they don't just stop panicking about swine flu or [insert current disease scare here] and wait for it to reach them, or fill their pockets with cash and go for a walk through a drug-infested, gang-ridden inner city and wait for someone to stab or shoot them.

The world is a mess. We know that. But that doesn't mean that we should give up on it. Besides the stories of war and deceit, abuse and pain there are stories of hope and joy. The young man who was recently found alive after two weeks in the Australian wilds, after most people had given up hope, for example. We can't ignore all the terrible things that go on- and we shouldn't- but neither can we say "oh well, the world's a mess, but there's nothing I can do about it except make sure I live as comfortable a life as possible." People can make a difference.

Last Wednesday my cell group were looking at the passage in Philippians 4 where Christians are told to "rejoice in the Lord always." Someone pointed out that some Christians take this to ridiculous extremes, thinking that they should cry "Hallelujah!" when they bang their head! But without falling into this trap, we thought about how we can 'rejoice' when the world is in such a mess.

The point is, I suppose, that there is still someone we can trust in this downfallen world, and that's God. Human institutions, even the church can mess up, but God doesn't. We can rejoice in that. When Paul wrote that we should rejoice, he was under house arrest, chained to a Roman soldier, awaiting probable execution. Elsewhere he writes about all he has suffered: beatings, constant travel, hunger, thirst, midnight escapes. And yet he has learnt to be 'content in any and every situation." He knew what he was talking about. And he hasn't lost his faith in people either- his letters are full of commendations and expressions of love and thanks to his friends.

Perhaps we can take a hint from that. We can't ignore the fact that many things in the world are not as they should be. But it doesn't mean we should give up hope, or turn into cynical, fatalistic people who don't think we can make things any better so don't try. We can't restore the world to how it was supposed to be. Only God can do that. But he calls us to help in his plan for restoring the world, and humanity, and to rejoice in how great that plan is.

Friday 17 July 2009

Rental rant

We are a nation where home ownership, rather than renting, is seen as normal. Perhaps that's why, from what I've seen, the media tends to take the side of landlords where there is a dispute between tenants and landlords. For example this article I saw today about landlords not being paid rent because local government can now pay housing benefit to tenants rather than landlords. (I'm slightly confused when they say this only began to happen last year- it happened to me nearly three years ago, although it was a slightly different system).

I'm not saying this doesn't happen- I'm sure it does. But the article says nothing about what percentage of tenants don't run off without paying their rent, or anything about the struggles tenants go through to have enough to live on. It says nothing about what happens when the amount of benefit and the amount of rent don't add up. If it comes to a choice between paying the fuel bill and buying food, or rent, what do you do?

And given that we have actively encouraged a debt culture of 'buy now, pay later' over the last couple of decades is it surprising if people perhaps don't take falling into arrears as seriously as they once did? There seems to be a presumption in the media- or am I reading too much into it?- that the tenants are to blame, that they aren't paying because they don't want to. Rather than recognising that mostly these are people who are struggling to get by, and need help.

The article also says nothing about the standards of the rented properties, or whether the rents charged by private landlords are fair. Having lived in and visited a variety of rented properties, I know there are widely different standards and rents, and that the two don't always correlate. Do those landlords keep the house in a state where they would be happy to live in it themselves? Or is the paint peeling, is the heating broken, are there rats in the kitchen? A year or two ago many landlords objected to the new deposit guarantee scheme the government brought in to protect tenants who often find it hard to get landlords to return the deposit they pay on taking up the tenancy. Again the landlords were the ones who got media coverage for their complaints at government 'interference' in their business arrangements. But most landlords aren't businessmen, but people wanting extra money on top of their day job, with little time to devote to looking after their properties and even less willingness to spend money on them. So is it any wonder that the properties are often in bad shape, and landlords seize the opportunity to make tenants pay for things that in reality, are just the consequences of not enough attention being given to the property. For example, piece of furniture or equipment broke through improper use, it would be fair enough to charge that to the tenants, taking it out of their deposit. But if it broke while being used correctly, just because it was old or improperly maintained, that's not the tenants fault but the landlords', and the tenant shouldn't have to pay. So should we sympathise with landlords because they can no longer get away with this kind of thing? Or with tenants who are now slightly more protected from it? Of course, not all landlords are like this, some are brilliant, but there will always be some who try to make as much profit from as little input as possible.

If we can't provide adequate accommodation for those in difficulties, because of homelessness, joblessness or family breakdown, what do we expect people to do? I know someone who, through no fault of his own, suffering from severe mental illness would be on the streets or in a homeless shelter if it wasn't for the help and support of friends and church.

Perhaps we should be providing more support and encouragement to landlords to take on these higher risk tenants. There has been a lot of fuss lately about government trying to help people at risk of loosing their homes through defaulting on mortgage payments- perhaps some kind of similar scheme could be extended to rental tenants, who are usually on lower incomes and the more vulnerable. Plus better training of council staff (at least in York, where in my experience you can find out more from the council website than council staff) so that they can actually help and advise people who are in danger of falling behind what help is available, rather than in one or two cases I know giving them wrong information which leads to more struggle and difficulty.

Surely it's better to try to deal with the problem here, to stop people becoming homeless in the first place, than to have to try and pick up the pieces of shattered lives once people have lost everything and are living on the streets?

Wednesday 15 July 2009

Sharing

I'm not sure if I should publish this post. But here goes. It's not aimed at anyone in particular or with the intention of making anyone feel uncomfortable. It's just a metaphor for how I feel sometimes.

Imagine that you have discovered something- a piece of information, perhaps, or a book or a film or a place or an experience, which has made a big impact on you. You think it's amazing, and has made a difference to your life (OK that sounds like a big claim, but just imagine).

So naturally you want to tell your friends about this amazing thing. You try to talk to them about it and the effect it's had on you- maybe that's hard, but you try. Or you invite them to somewhere they can see or read it for themselves.

And they generally respond in one of three ways. Most often they're just not interested. They think it's nice that you like it, but it's not for them, it's not their cup of tea. Perhaps they can't understand what you see in it, they think you're a bit strange. Perhaps they're cynical about something that has those kind of effects.

Or they are interested, but they don't do anything about it, for any number of valid reasons. Perhaps they have too much on, or can't access it, or just don't feel they can cope. But for one reason or another it passes them by and they loose interest.

Or perhaps they take offence at what you're saying. They think that you feel that you're better than they are because of what you've seen, or read, or been to. They get annoyed, refuse to listen. Perhaps they treat you with suspicion, thinking you've been brainwashed.

So perhaps you give up for a while. But you can't keep quiet for long about something that's such a big part of your life, and some time later you try again to interest your friends in whatever it is you're so enthusiastic about. But you get a similar response. It's difficult, because you don't want to annoy your friends by harping on about something they don't care about, because you know that'll only put them off more. But this thing is really important to you, and you want to share it with your friends, so you keep trying, without much success. No one does anything about it; despite all your invitations, nobody comes.

This hurts. When you care deeply about something and, because of your love for your friends, you want them to understand and recognise that thing to be real, but they don't, it saddens you.

Some people react in an even worse way. They accuse you and people like you of being not just wrong, but acting in a way that is evil. They say you are trying to drag people into a dangerous cult, a group that destroys people by taking away their capacity for rational thought or freedom to do as they please. They think you should be stopped from talking about this thing that to you is so wonderful and liberating that you want everyone to know about it. They think that it is harmful, and that you are either sadly misguided or trying to harm other people mentally or even physically. Because some of the people who claim to agree with you have acted in ways that are wrong, they think you are all tarred with the same brush and lack credibility.

This hurts even more. Especially when you can see that your friends are more willing to accept this negative view of what you believe than they are to accept what you say about it.

Perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised. In the parable of the sower Jesus describes the different responses people would make to the message that he brought, a message of God's love for all humanity and of restoration for the world. Sometimes people would hear the message, but not understand, and it would just pass them by. Sometimes people would listen to the message, but not put down deep enough 'roots' to allow them to cope when tough times come. Sometimes people would listen to the message, but other things going on in their lives would drown it out and distract them from doing anything about it.

But sometimes people would listen, and would take the message of God's love on board and believe, going on to spread the 'seeds' of the message to many other people. I suppose the right response in the light of this is just to try and deal with the hurt- not to ignore it, because it can lead to prayer and crying out to God for my friends, which is a good thing- and not to give up. Because some of these 'seeds' will, I hope, be like the ones that fell on the good soil, and will be fruitful in their turn. I hope.

Monday 13 July 2009

What's important?

Last week I heard a discussion on the radio where a Conservative MP said that "the first priority of government is to sort out the country's finances." It it really? I wondered. What he was referring to was the massive public debts that are being run up by the government to try and dig our way out of this recession (or Moneygeddon, as I like to refer to it) and how to reduce them.

Whilst not denying the importance of economic policy, I'd like to perhaps be a little controversial. I don't think that this is the most important issue facing the government. Or at least, not the most urgent part of that issue.

As a historian, I know there have been many debates over the centuries about what government is 'for' and that views of this have changed. For many centuries, the monarch was the government, and the oath that monarchs took (I have no idea about the modern version) was to protect the church, to do justice, and to protect the laws and customs of the realm. So law making and the workings of the judiciary were a major focus. At other times the defence of the realm and support of the armed forces has been seen as the first duty of government, particularly in war time.

Today there are still different views of the purpose of government- should it be a light or heavy touch, can the market right itself or do government agencies need to intervene? But my view, which I'm not saying is the only 'right' one, is that the government is there to act in the best interests of the people of the country (and, I hope, of the world).

People. That's what should be at the heart of government. Policies and process are there to serve them, not the other way around. So health, education, job creation, surely these should be at the heart of what the government does? And perhaps, if we can follow this through, it might help with the financial problem we started with.

To reduce government debt, either spending has to decrease, or tax revenue has to increase. At present, it seems that most people are agreed that neither of these can happen, at least not by huge amounts. But for the future, one or the other or both will probably have to. Debt isn't good. I don't like the idea of a decrease in government spending. I'm sure there are areas where the same work could be done for less money. But the problem is that when you start cutting down on government 'waste,' most people seem to conveniently forget that this usually means cutting jobs. Often not very highly paid jobs. Which only adds to the problem (saying that paying Jobseekers' is cheaper than paying their salaries doesn't make it right).

So the other area is to increase tax revenue. Again, there are two ways of doing this; to increase the amount each person pays, or to increase the number of people paying it. Given that I'm on a fairly low income, I don't like the sound of the first, at least not as an across-the-board increase, which is bound to hit the lowest paid hardest. Better, it seems to me, to increase the number of people who are eligible to pay tax by increasing the number of people in work. That's one reason why I'm glad the government has at last recognised the problem of youth and graduate unemployment. Education provision is also linked to this, and so is health- a well-skilled and healthy workforce can contribute to the economy more than an unskilled and unhealthy one. This was partly why the post-second world war government introduced the welfare state- to cure the 'social ills' that had been brought to light during the war.

People so often seem to forget the reason taxes exist: to provide services. It's easy to moan about taxes when you're not dependent on the services they provide- if you can afford private healthcare and education, and have savings enough not to have to worry about pensions or benefits.

Of course, I know that this isn't an ideal world, and that the ideal that increasing jobs would solve our financial problems is probably too simplistic to work just like that. But I can't help but think it might help. That perhaps a better way to get out of this slump is to do for our own country what we try to do to help those in the third world: to give people the tools (skills, start-up grants, training and support) to work their way out of dependence, so that they can contribute to the economy.

As I say, that's probably too simplistic. I've never studied economics, or even politics, except where they interact with history. But hey, maybe there's something in it.