Work so hard you cripple yourself

[artie]

Artie 18kg is nowhere near a cwt ! 1cwt = 50.80kg 18kg = 39.68lbs and yes when a young fella almost everything came in hundredweight bags, coal, cement, grain, etc I could lift it no problem but now I have difficulty with 25kg [55lb] [1/2cwt] bags

How old are you, are you in good health?

 

[Jacob]

Artie 18kg is nowhere near a cwt ! 1cwt = 50.80kg 18kg = 39.68lbs and yes when a young fella almost everything came in hundredweight bags, coal, cement, grain, etc I could lift it no problem but now I have difficulty with 25kg [55lb] [1/2cwt] bags

1cwt sack was OK on your shoulder if taken from a height i.e. off back of a truck, but not so easy off the floor. We did it all by hand, including loose bricks - pallets hadn't been invented as far as I recall! (1960s)

 

[Sapper]

Like you RD 360 I worked on the building when younger (87 now) and used to handle one cwt bags no probs. Often 2 of us would unload 5 ton and carry to cement shed.
On one job we had a huge Irishman working with who was a really nice very quiet guy who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Good thing really because he could carry a bag of cement on each shoulder and a bag of lime under each arm, 3 cwt in total.

 

[Diver Fred]

My second apprenticeship with the chap I was working alongside we would lift and carry two 2&1/4cwt concrete banister rails between us. End of each one in each hand. Couldn't do that now.

 

[Fergie 307]

My mistake - I did that from memory - and I should not have done that - I apologise (maybe my in-head figures are from across the privatised water industry??) What we both ought to be able to agree on, bearing in mind the sewage being pumped directly into rivers, is that the infrastructure is incontrovertibly in a bad state and in need of investment.



I too am comfortable and some might even say "well off" - and like you I do not begrudge or feel any anger towards "wealthier" folks than me. What I do feel is a cold, hard, unemotional, and dispassionate opinion that paying out huge dividends is not appropriate when the standard of the infrastructure is going backwards and the "extra efficiency" of private sector "competition" is proven to not exist - and could never exist from the outset - particularly when we can both clearly agree that private equity exists as a SOLE means to generate dividends/profit while everything else plays second fiddle, including investment, and good management - it's just another banks/rail/energy situation where profits are privatised and losses/costs are socialised.

Got to say I'm not generally a fan of state ownership, but I think Water is so important that it really should be under state control. The current arrangements have hardly been a resounding success.

 

[Fergie 307]

Like you RD 360 I worked on the building when younger (87 now) and used to handle one cwt bags no probs. Often 2 of us would unload 5 ton and carry to cement shed.
On one job we had a huge Irishman working with who was a really nice very quiet guy who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Good thing really because he could carry a bag of cement on each shoulder and a bag of lime under each arm, 3 cwt in total.

I had a go once at carrying a hod of bricks, much to the amusement of the brickies working on my house. Never again.
The guy they had doing it was a skinny little chap but he was up and down scaffolding with a full hod like the Duracell bunny.
One trip was enough for me.

 

[Amplidyne]

I had a go once at carrying a hod of bricks, much to the amusement of the brickies working on my house. Never again.
The guy they had doing it was a skinny little chap but he was up and down scaffolding with a full hod like the Duracell bunny.
One trip was enough for me.

I remember once, a mate and myself got roped in to mixing plaster for a plasterer doing a foreigner. Must have been around 1973. We seriously had a job to keep up with him. He told us that one labourer normally mixed for two plasterers.

 

[Jacob]

I had a go once at carrying a hod of bricks, much to the amusement of the brickies working on my house. Never again.
The guy they had doing it was a skinny little chap but he was up and down scaffolding with a full hod like the Duracell bunny.
One trip was enough for me.

When ar worra lad, I seem to recall occasionally being loaded with two 1cwt cement sacks off the back of a wagon at a time. Bricks were by hand thrown down in a loose handful side by side to be caught, i.e 3 bricks or more if you could catch them, was it 6 or more? Long time ago.

 

[Amplidyne]

Got to say I'm not generally a fan of state ownership, but I think Water is so important that it really should be under state control. The current arrangements have hardly been a resounding success.

I agree in general, but then state ownership of anything always ends up being an expensive fiasco. It wasn't that great when it was state run before, and it ain't that great being privately run.
I worked for the steel industry during the 70s and into the 80s, and although we were by no means the worst example of nationalisation at work, you could see a lot wrong with it.

Where's all the British industry gone?

 

[Jacob]

..

Where's all the British industry gone?

Privatised, sold off, insufficient state investment, should have been nationalised. 45 years of tory madness, including Blair and PFI.
The crazy thing is various parts of railways, water, power etc and others are now foreign owned by foreign nationalised industries.
They were not committed to the loony anti-state ideology which has decimated british industry.
Remember ICI?

 

[Amplidyne]

Privatised, sold off, insufficient state investment, should have been nationalised. 45 years of tory madness, including Blair and PFI.
The crazy thing is various parts of railways, water, power etc and others are now foreign owned by foreign nationalised industries.
They were not committed to the loony anti-state ideology which has decimated british industry.
Remember ICI?

To say nothing of over powerful unions, years of Labour misrule, and the change in world markets of course.

A little bit of lots of things.

It was a rhetorical question, we will never agree on the causes, suffice to say that it all went extremely wrong.

 

[Jacob]

To say nothing of over powerful unions, years of Labour misrule, and the change in world markets of course.

A little bit of lots of things.

It was a rhetorical question, we will never agree on the causes, suffice to say that it all went extremely wrong.

Started with Thatcher, Unions had no power to stop it.
Labour only had a short period in office and Blair was a Thatcherite too in many ways. PFI etc
It's more or less 100% down to tory ideology - all the way to Brexit craziness.
https://centreforpublicimpact.org/p...-the-uks-nationalised-industries-in-the1980s/
The past has to be recognised so things can move on.

 

[Amplidyne]

Started with Thatcher, Unions had no power to stop it.
Labour only had a short period in office and Blair was a Thatcherite too in many ways. PFI etc
It's more or less 100% down to tory ideology - all the way to Brexit craziness.
https://centreforpublicimpact.org/p...-the-uks-nationalised-industries-in-the1980s/
The past has to be recognised so things can move on.

Started in the 60s and 70s before Thatcher. Unions holding too much power and strangling British industry.

You can "prove" whatever you like, with internet links.

People on the internet prove that the Earth is flat.

Things have moved back as far as I'm concerned with the last election result.

Not that they were brilliant anyway.

The two horse race has failed us all.

 

[Hypnotic Chimera]

Started in the 60s and 70s before Thatcher. Unions holding too much power and strangling British industry.

You can "prove" whatever you like, with internet links.

People on the internet prove that the Earth is flat.

Things have moved back as far as I'm concerned with the last election result.

Not that they were brilliant anyway.

The two horse race has failed us all.

I don't understand. Not just yourself. But when people say stuff like "moved back", I don't understand on what basis that they claim this. It's only been around 3 months. Nothing really has settled yet. We have 5 years.
And normally the people that claim negative outcomes (which have yet to become any kind of outcome) they are part of the 99.99%, not a part of the 0.01%.
Which begs a question - which means I doubly don't understand.

 

[Diver Fred]

Privatised, sold off, insufficient state investment, should have been nationalised. 45 years of tory madness, including Blair and PFI.
The crazy thing is various parts of railways, water, power etc and others are now foreign owned by foreign nationalised industries.
They were not committed to the loony anti-state ideology which has decimated british industry.
Remember ICI?

One part of Maggie's ethos that either failed or she didn't recognise is the British 'hatred' of savings. We need better education on Money matters in this country.
I worked in the USofA for a couple of period, probably around 20 months in total, it was very noticeable that the people I worked with all had stock holdings (shares in companies) in multiple companies, some as little as $100 in a company some as much several $1000, in many cases such purchases were lifetime buys.
I had the chance to buy BT shares when it was privatised - unlike many of the people I worked with I've kept mine. Similarly I've acquired small numbers of shares in other companies. So what happened when people sell their shares? are they owned by foreign holders? Pension Funds? Other investors? I guess in the main not bought by other small investors.
Do they do wrong? Have I done wrong? I'd say the long term return has been worthwhile (for the TaxMan if not for me!!!).

Yes I do remember ICI. And IMI, GEC.

A big business inhibiter in this country is the inability of companies to fund their developments in one devision from the profits of another devision, instead relying on debt. Accountants having little respect for designers & engineers putting short term high profit over long term lower return when higher quality with low profit at the same price will eventually sell more.

 

[Chris Puttick]

Got to say I'm not generally a fan of state ownership, but I think Water is so important that it really should be under state control. The current arrangements have hardly been a resounding success.

Though worth noting Dŵr Cymru is a not for profit and things there are not exactly going swimmingly (sorry). Problem is water services have many challenges that are not overcome by state ownership; building new reservoirs is hard - not the actual building, but getting the planning permission in the area that need the water (cf. Abingdon reservoir). Expanding sewage systems to cope just with increased peak rainfalls let alone the changing habits of the population, the growing population, the ageing population is also hard; again not the actual building part but nobody, absolutely nobody wants road closures while sewers are upgraded, while as for finding a location for new sewage treatment works...

 

[Jacob]

Started in the 60s and 70s before Thatcher. Unions holding too much power and strangling British industry.

Why would they do that? Union fights were more often about keeping jobs and preventing run-down and closure.

You can "prove" whatever you like, with internet links.

It certainly helps if you want to know things. Interesting how the right are so sceptical about information sources and prefer their made up fantasies!

 

[Jester129]

@Jacob:
Started with Thatcher, Unions had no power to stop it.
Labour only had a short period in office and Blair was a Thatcherite too in many ways. PFI etc
It's more or less 100% down to tory ideology - all the way to Brexit craziness.
https://centreforpublicimpact.org/p...-the-uks-nationalised-industries-in-the1980s/
The past has to be recognised so things can move on.

-Change the record, I wish you would move on!

 

[Jacob]

@Jacob:
Started with Thatcher, Unions had no power to stop it.
Labour only had a short period in office and Blair was a Thatcherite too in many ways. PFI etc
It's more or less 100% down to tory ideology - all the way to Brexit craziness.
https://centreforpublicimpact.org/p...-the-uks-nationalised-industries-in-the1980s/
The past has to be recognised so things can move on.

-Change the record, I wish you would move on!

I wish everybody else would move on!

 

[Chris Puttick]

Why would they do that? Union fights were more often about keeping jobs and preventing run-down and closure.

That's exactly how you strangle industry. Obviously in a properly run world things would never change so everything could work just as it was. But beyond such an authoritarian fantasy scenario stuff does change. British manufacturing has for the record not shrunk. It employs a lot less people, but that's change; the end result has been cheaper and/or better quality goods, alongside massively increased employment. British manufacturing entered the doldrums in the 70s, dropping at the end of the 70s into the early 80s, took a hit during the financial crisis and then a huge dip during COVID (at the bottom of which value of output was way above the 1970s) and has taken another hit post-Brexit and is currently plateaued. But overall it's much healthier than it was in the 1970s, and the causes of the current plateau are mostly easily resolvable (although a Trump election would do some damage).