26.1.15

First World Problems

two scones with cream and jam
Jam on cream? Cream on jam? #firstworldproblems
It's a weird phrase and one that many dislike 'First world Problems' . It appears to have been created at first to poke fun at people that have it all but still manage to complain about it - to make them think about what they are saying and as a gentle prod to remind them that many people would be glad to be able to moan that their shower water was too hot, that the white wine ran out and you had to drink red etc...shades of Marie Antoinette and her (probably fake) announcement that if the peasants had no bread, they should eat cake.

It was then appropriated by people as a tag, at least on twitter, to show they knew, they knew they were being a a bit silly, that the complaint was at best petty, but they wanted to moan anyway. And why not. Saying you cannot have a problem because someone else has worse ones is as silly (in my eyes) as saying you can't be having a good life because other people have better ones!

So I had a little snigger at this tweet earlier


It's a problem I'm very familiar with. I'm 49 and have used a lot of toasters and a lot of sliced bread in my life and I have NEVER found a toaster to toast the top 1cm of a slice. I'm with the tweeter above, why don't toaster manufacturers and bread makers go out for a beer and sort this out! Surely it can't be too complicated after all, as Spencer pointed out, the future is here!


Also today I was reading the BBC article, quoting bank Credit Suisse about where the 1% of the wealthiest people on earth live. It's based purely on assets and takes no account of cost of living or income, so it's a statistic rather than a useful fact but it's still interesting. The top 1% of the wealthiest own £530,000 or more each (and there  are 47 million of them, so I doubt they all play golf together)  the top 10% have £50,000 of assets and the top 50% only £2,400 in assets! Makes you think doesn't it.

But what of actual income vs cost of living? That would make more sense. So I had a hunt and found a site that would compare that with the rest of the world too. Another surprising statistic. A single mum with one child taking home £10,000 in the UK for example is in the top 18% of the world and earns 6.3 times the global average. Try it for yourself and see what you think.

I'm pretty sure that we are all richer than we think and the #firstworldproblems tag is no bad thing as a reminder sometimes. We can complain of course but if you are reading this chances are you are high on the list of wealthiest people on the planet even if some months it's hard to believe.

2 comments:

  1. Gosh, that's a pretty thought provoking statistic at the end. But also makes you think how the UK society and norms compares to poorer countries. Oh, and cream on jam looks kind of wrong.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Angela27/1/15

    Amazing to find we are in the top 8%....and we are retired!!

    ReplyDelete

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