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Cadwell NOT Caldwell

Choose gambling and parental oppression

[9 minute read ] 

Freedom

Economists find it difficult to accurately map how people go about their lives; whether they will or won't spend money or invest resources; by resources, I, of course, mean, time; money; support from relationships; and opportunities (anything that could be used by an individual in a fashion to either maintain or improve their existence).

Economists have methods to map out and understand human behaviour, yet they can never be confident that people will  just do as they are predicted to do. However, economists do know some things.

People get stuck on one way of looking at a problem and only accept information to support their view. All other information gets ignored.

https://www.simplypsychology.org/framing-effect.html

Recently, I came across a young person on the 'Student Room' web site, who professed to having a problem and was seeking advice. It seemed the problem that this student thought they had was a financial one, but only by looking at two avenues to finance their university studies. The student has some capital (an undisclosed amount) and has eyed a loan from Student Finance for England (SFE). The dilemma, from the student's point of view seems different to my, rather different, point of view.

This angst-ridden student felt that they were 'ghosted' because they did not get replies from potential employers when they applied for jobs. I can't help but think that this student fails to recognise that they are never going to be the only one to apply for a single position, without being exceptional in their field and  finding a role for which the potential employer has created such parameters on the position that the exceptional candidate is the only one that could possibly believe they may have any chance of success in their application for the position.

This student seems to be unable to consider any potential employer's available resources. Of course, all business people crave in-depth information on their competitors and their industry market; that is a given. I mean, when we apply for a job, many of us have an expectation that there is someone whose sole job is to read CVs and cover letters, and then personally respond to every applicant with detailed feedback on why they have not got the job. When it doesn't happen, some people may feel as though they have been dismissed, or purposely diminished, or indeed, 'ghosted'. And why not? Leaving school and entering the job world is a huge transition in thinking. There is, to my knowledge, no interim staging post; a place where school-leavers are disenfranchised of their belief that they will get coherent and encouraging responses from a leader (teacher) on a individual basis, after they leave school.

This all fits in with, People get stuck on one way of looking at a problem and only accept information to support their view. (above); but only loosely. It would seem that the problem the school-leaver faces is not being able to get a job, and not knowing why. But, I suggest that the true problem is something else. School children today have an expectation of 'to and fro' conversation that is made up of snippets of information passed over a long period of time, with each piece complimenting or negating all previous information. It is the nature of schooling that advice changes as the student grows both in personality and capability. All this comes to a sudden stop when they leave school and all that is left are their friends who perpetuate the dribble of information to which they are accustomed. So, many school-leavers only accept information of a particular style (slow over a long period with immediate gratification thrown in for good measure).

The second part of the definition I wrote in my scrapbook for 'Framing Bias' is: [they] only accept information to support their view. All other information gets ignored. 'That' needs no further explanation, I suggest.

Back to the dilemma the student on the 'Student Room' website has:

The parents are pressuring their child to use a Child Trust Fund to pay for British Citizenship; hopefully for the application of citizenship! This, in my mind, presents a whole web of problems, not least is that the almost-adult (still attending school) would potentially wipe out a capital that would, I suspect, be extremely difficult to replace without good work prospects; and we know that is no guarantee, even if they are able to shed off the reliance on teacher-pupil type transactions to which they are accustomed.

How does this child not have British citizenship? It seems obvious that the parents never applied for it on their behalf - perhaps immigrants cannot make a blanket application for their family, and so immigrant children have to make the application after they reach legal maturity. (Later, I noticed that there is a lower fee for children to make an application for British citizenship, so the parents could have made an application for the troubled student, but seemingly didn't. All sorts of questions can be mounted as to why this might be. But this is not about immigrants and their legal status, outside of the expressed problem at hand. (coercion, debt, capital, and education)

I can't remember what the criteria are for eligibility for a SFE loan. I think it wouldn't be a bad guess to believe that you need to live in England, and not in Scotland or Wales; you have to be legally responsible for the debt; and crucially, there must be some expectation that the loan will be paid back. This latter part probably means that you can be legally chased across the world by the British Government, and a garnishee order can be legally placed on earnings. In other words, without beating about the bush, you have to have British Citizenship. 'Ding' changes to 'Dunk' as the bell suddenly cracks.

Not to put too fine a point on it, applying for British Citizenship solely to reap a financial gain is an extremely sensitive area for a lot of people. SFE loans, by accruing interest and being only repayable when a pay threshold is reached, could mean acquiring many years of work experience before someone achieves a suitable financial income to make even very small repayments.

To re-iterate - This is not about immigrants. That is only a single channel of perceiving this issue; and for many people, it might be the first thing that comes to mind; quite simply because there is a tendency in many of us to follow the latter part of 'Framing Bias' in that many people tend to ignore evidence or information that doesn't fit with their initial evaluation.

The troubled student on the 'Student Room' website probably believes they have a problem with their demanding parents. A reply by another student, to the framed question, alluded to the expectation that SFE has for parents to continue to fund their offspring while they study at university; it went along the lines of eligibility for a maintenance loan. I have no idea how that works, because I am an Open University student with no accommodation to pay for, other than my own home.

Paraphrasing the troubled student: 'I can't get a job, so I would, if I don't give my parents the full SFE loan and they pay for my phone bill and give me some food money, only have £17 [per week or month]' (either way it is not a great amount). The dilemma is whether to give up a financial cushion in the form of capital; the 'Child Trust Fund' is spent on British Citizenship, or seemingly give up the ongoing parental support. Yeah, I know, the information given was not really clear, but what can you expect from a confused person with practically no experience of money matters, adult personal relationships, and in possession of only poor information?

It seems to be an opportunity cost problem.

Putting the confusion and 'bobbling' aside. There is a practical solution, I feel, to the student's dilemma. But we have to approach the problem in a different way. Why can't the student get a job?

Lack of appropriate experience in the industry

Personality and Character issues

Poor education

General lack of knowledge

-isms

But here is where it gets tricky.

The 'Prospect Theory' holds that individuals are more influenced by the possibility of a loss than the prospect of an equivalent gain. (Tversky & Kahneman, 1981). I didn't reference this in my scrapbook, but it is likely I got it from 'Simply Psychology'. I have the book, but here is a web address:

https://www.simplypsychology.org/framing-effect.html (accessed 20 June 2026)

Again, I am coming from the angle of looking at lost opportunities. If the student spends their trust fund on British citizenship, which I think costs around £1,839 for naturalisation (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fees-for-citizenship-applications/fees-for-citizenship-applications-and-the-right-of-abode-from-6-april-2018) then that same money cannot be spent on education that would boost the student's desirability as a prospective employee and  thereby ease later undergraduate study in the same field. The gain from appropriate education is a rise in financially rewarding prospects in the short-term, and a further rise in financially rewarding prospects from gaining a better degree, through applying prior knowledge. This, however, is not guaranteed. It is gambling. Losing £1,839 for naturalisation is guaranteed; so what needs to be done to minimise the maximum loss? (minimax)

Applying for British Citizenship, and getting it, with the £1,839 for naturalisation, means that there is a clearly advantageous return; not least the prospect of being eligible for a government-funded loan for education. However, there is a problem that may not seem obvious, unless we are still looking at the problem from an opportunity cost angle. By going to university for three years and not working, valuable opportunities for gaining work experience are lost. Often, graduates cannot get the job they wanted, the one they hoped a degree would assist them into, and they find themselves competing for the same low-paid job as someone with three years work experience, who may not have attended university. 

While most of us, who can trace our British ancestry back to ten or twenty generations ago, would struggle with some of the British History and British Culture questions that are set for immigrants seeking British Citizenship, it really is a question of education. Everybody, including me, I strongly suspect, if I had to apply for British Citizenship, needs to learn about Britain to pass the tests; so inevitably, time, as a resource, is spent in one area, and the same time cannot be spent studying something different or elsewhere. No worries! At least failed job applicants can be assured of benefits if they have British Citizenship. It seems then, that the safe bet, using a Child Trust Fund to pay for naturalisation, really is, just taking the obvious route of positioning oneself above a safety net; a safety net that catches, yet does not propel.

Even with a vast handful of qualifications, someone may still not be able to get a job. I had my CV assessed a few years back by a professional trainer and recruiter (Reed Recruitment). I had already discovered 'Applicant Tracking Software' is used to 'read' CVs, and I had become aware of the U.S.A Department of Homeland Security's 'Automated Targeting System' which is designed to assess suitability for ingress into the United States of America; so I arrived at my appointment with my CV, fairly confident that it was perfect; after all, there were no lines separating either paragraphs or areas of interest.

       'We need to remove all the full-stops.' I was told by the Reed trainer.

My two-page CV, less than three pages, but still more than one, is not long enough to list all my qualifications and have enough room to explain the job roles and responsibilities I have had. Even if everything is fine, employers may look at my social media interaction, and make a decision based solely on my projected personality. This, is after getting past the automated CV checks that resulted in a suggestion that a real person actually reads my CV. Whether all of a two page CV gets read is anyone's guess.

My advice to the distressed student in the 'Student Room' website was 'not to apply for British Citizenship with the sole intention of becoming eligible for accruing a significant and crippling SFE debt that is only repayable once a pay threshold is reached'. Using capital to accrue debt for education just makes no sense to me. The same amount of money, £1,839, if spent on a course through 'Reed Courses' or a whole bunch of other places, should result in a valid and recognised qualification, that should significantly boost a job applicant's desirability, especially at a young age. 

'AAT Level 3 Diploma in Accounting with Work Experience' £510, not including a £96 exam booking fee, or registration fee with AAT, offered by KBM Training. A six month course.

'Microsoft Office Skills (Microsoft Excel, Word, PowerPoint) Administration & Office Skills' 33.5 hrs self-paced, £15 (no recognised qualification, but still a good addition to an empty CV)

With gainful employment at age 19, the pressure that parents might bear on the decisions a young adult may be faced with, certainly with the example I have exposed, are hugely dissipated.

I may not have made it clear, but the parents of the confused and distressed student on the 'Student Room' website, seem to be attempting to alleviate, or offset, some of the cost of the accommodation the student would need, in order to study away from home, by having the whole SFE loan handed to them (the parents), and then determining how much to give to the student. Who really wants that  kind of oppression from their parents? (I have also read the woes of an autistic student who is not trusted to function well by herself, in the 'Student Room'). Can we really expect that someone with a degree but no valid practice on managing one's own resources would do well in the harsh world of work-hardened adults? I suggest, these parents may be inadvertently smothering the future welfare of their own genes. This flies in the face of 'altruism' which many people believe exists, only towards members of the same family.

As long as the student has a right to work in the UK, I suggest finding work and sticking to it, should be the first priority, and any capital should be spent on action that has the best chance of rapidly replacing the same capital; the reason for this is quite simply, not to allow education be a bar to opportunities. Well, perhaps, not let the pursuit of further or higher education be a bar to opportunity.

Alternatively, spending £1,839 on the hope of British naturalisation would practically guarantee a £4088 SFE loan for a single Open University module. I suppose Essex University online modules cost a similar amount; or £7,335 for two modules per year, to complete a degree in three years.

What we may not be considering is that by gaining qualifications online, there is no need to apply for a maintenance loan if the student stays at home with their parents. Importantly, the total loan is lower, and the accrued interest is less impactful.

The student on the 'Student Room' website seems to see their problem as only being solved by attending a brick University, and an attendant (though distracting) lack of money, which gambling on an imagined future by getting a degree will supposedly eradicate. The real problem is actually, 'How do I get a job?' tomorrow, instead of in three years time. In economics, this is similar to being offered £1 today or waiting for £10 in a years time. It is 'Discounted Utility'. It is calculated as the present discounted value of future utility. However, if the student is stuck in thinking the 'utility' of £1 today is ten times less than £10 in a years time, they are only considering money in a bank and not opportunity. Admittedly, a single pound doesn't give much scope for opportunity, but if it is scaled up, the possibilities are endless. 'How do I get a job in three years time?' is likely to be the wrong direction to take. It certainly requires a quite linear form of convergent thinking, in that one has to believe there is a valuable future available to oneself and everything understood today will be the same in the future. 

       'I have a good job. I will get a mortgage and repay it over twenty-five years, and in twenty-five years I will be free of debt.' Ha ha!

An aside:

I was once denied a £1,000 bank loan, even though I was self-employed with a lot of money going through my bank account (about £190,000 per year), because I transferred £5 per month to a William Hill betting account. I explained that the William Hill account was used for a weekly £1 stake in the Irish Lottery, which has better odds than the English Lottery; (13 million to 1 chance of winning the English Lottery at the time, and 11 million to 1 chance of winning the Irish Lottery. My bank balance was over £14,000 at the time of the loan request. The loan was for work equipment.

       'You're a gambler!' I was told.

       'So are you!' I replied.

All my posts: https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/view.php?u=zw219551

 

[ 7 minute read ]

References to gambling

In a dog eat dog world be a cat

Once upon a time I needed some money. I was living with my brother at the time; he was my legal guardian on account of our ages and our parents had fled; first our mum from our dad, and then our dad from my brother. My dad is the sort of man who would rather put himself in hardship than put hardship on others, so he would never have thrown my brother out on the streets.

It was five in the morning, I was sixteen and I needed money because I was going to run away from home; from my brother. Romanced by the story of Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest, I stole some potatoes from the sack in the larder. My brother wouldn’t buy anything else with the ‘rent’ I had to pay him; which was practically all the money I had each week. There was never anything else in the home. My friends told me that every time I farted, they could smell chips. I think when my brother farted, his friends smelt burgers, pizzas and beer, lots of beer.

With the potatoes and a duvet in my backpack I hitch-hiked north in the direction of Nottinghamshire, England, where I knew Sherwood Forest to be. ‘I will live inside an old tree that has been hollowed out by time and rot, and is now clean, I thought to myself’. I had only about two English pounds of money; enough to buy four bags of chips when I got to a town near the forest.

After a few lifts up the A1 and frequent long looks at the map I had I decided that Ollerton was a town inside Sherwood Forest. When I saw the sign for Ollerton on the A1 (major north-south road in England)

I used to read maps for bedtime reading; and dictionaries. They were the only books I could persuade my brother not to burn to keep the house warm in Winter. During that cold season, he was convinced that I was possessed and evil because his bedroom was above the living room, which was the only room that he would allow to be heated. My bedroom was above the kitchen, which was scarcely used, other than for making chips and cups of tea, so it was really cold. All the doors in the house had to be kept shut for some reason.

I set off walking towards where I thought Sherwood Forest was at the time. When Robin Hood was around, I would not have to have walked far from the A1. After a while, I came across a small town, and weary from my travels decided that I wanted to go home. It is strange that when we are young and tired we just want to go home, even though it would be an ordeal to get there. All I really had to do was rest. I was used to sleeping rough; I had done it countless times in the village in which I lived, to get away from my brother. But, sleeping rough in your home village is not the same as sleeping rough in a strange place.

I bought a picture postcard, which had ‘Greetings from Sherwood Forest’ on it, and a stamp, wrote a message on the back, signed it, addressed the postcard to myself, and posted it. Being young, it was not difficult to hitch-hike back home. I walked back in the front door at eleven in the morning. My brother asked where I had been. He wasn’t able to find me for some task he had planned for me.

‘Sherwood Forest,’ I told him.

‘No, you haven’t!’ he cried, in disbelief.

‘I bet you five pounds that I have.’ I offered.

He took the bet, certain that I could not prove it. Two days later, my postcard arrived and I showed him the picture of Ollerton with ‘Greetings from Sherwood Forest’ across it. He turned it over and read, ‘Told You.’ Surprisingly, he paid up, but it was my money he paid me with anyway, so no great loss to him really.

I slept in his abandoned seven and a half litre Ford Torino car in the rented garage up the the road that night. His pride would overcome any sensibilities he had over the course of his drinking that night and I was sure I would be woken with a series of punches in the face until I was unconscious again. He liked to surprise me like that. 

I managed to escape a couple of years later and lived in a Bed and Breakfast place in the nearby market town. About a year after that, I got my own place and turned to gambling for money. No, no no! Not like the gambler who loses his weekly wage or chases his losses. I had a formula that actually worked.

It came about when there was nothing on the telly and I decided to watch horse-racing. I thought I would make a small bet at the local bookmaker, to make it more interesting. Don’t do this! I don’t get addicted to ANYTHING, not alcohol, cigarettes, or gambling. I don’t know anyone else like me. Don’t do it.

My bet won. I immediately bought The Sun (English newspaper) which had the racing form in the back pages. I studied the horses, the distance, the course conditions, and the jockeys. I made my bet with my formula and won. In fact I won forty-six consecutive times. People would ask me to make bets for them and I always paid them their winnings. The reason they didn’t always want me to make more bets for them is because they didn’t trust me to pay them the full winnings; but I always did. They didn't understand that each-way betting pays less than betting to win, but increases the chances of a payout. Disappointment with a windfall will do that to some people (cognitive dissonance). However, I made, on average 120 GBP every Saturday for the whole Summer. When I say I am not THAT sort of gambler, I mean this: I said to myself that when I lose my stake and do not win, I will not bet again. I had been betting on the horses running on courses without fences. When that season ended, the jockeys were able to cheat a little because they could make their horses hesitate at the jumps (fences). I lost my stake money in the first race of the steeplechase season on which I made a bet. I stopped betting.

I stopped betting, until Lewis Hamilton didn’t win the 2007 Formula 1 championship. He was the first black man in the sport and 2007 was his first season. No rookie had ever won the World Championship. He only needed to come third in the last race of the season, and was leading the race right from the beginning. Suddenly, his car developed engine problems and he got overtaken by a series of cars until he was tenth. Then, miraculously, his car started running well and kept up with the cars in front; race pace. He did not win the 2007 Formula One World Championship. I was certain that Formula One cars cannot develop engine problems and then return to race pace; they fall apart really quickly if they are not efficient. It had to be that his engine was electronically controlled to run slower. Of course Bernie Ecclestone, the man in control of Formula One knew the public would soon tire of another superstar like Michael Schumacher, who had just retired from the sport. To my mind, Lewis Hamilton was promised the win in 2008, before the 2007 Championship was finished, during that last race. Lets face it: how exciting is it for a car in tenth position to fight its way through the pack and the driver become World Champion?

In 2008, amazingly, in the last race Lewis Hamilton only needed to come third again. I had already staked quite a large amount on his Championship win. At the third to last corner of the entire race Hamilton was fourth. ‘Hang on’, I thought, This isn’t right.’ Then it happened, and this is why I don’t gamble like THAT gambler. The third place driver made a mistake and went wide two corners from the finish line and Hamilton overtook him. He finished third as the 2008 Formula One World Champion. I am not going to say that I saw the driver deliberately go wide. Oh No! 

I have mentioned it before. There is always a clue. There is always something that isn’t right. There is always an advantage that can be gained. Seeing it is the hardest thing in the world if you are honest.

For a while, in about 2017, I analysed the Formula One tracks, the driver attributes, the cars, and the weather, and using probability made small bets across about five drivers for each race; hedging my bets. I always came out on top. Because I am not THAT type of gambler, the total stake amount for each race never exceeded two GBP, and I only ever won about thirty or forty pence for each race. Just Fun. DON'T DO IT. If you need the money, do something else - look for a misalignment or an advantage, not a probability. Misalignments precede probability assessments. 

Most of us are familiar with the saying; ‘In a dog eat dog world, be a dog.’ I have adapted that to ‘In a dog eat dog world, be a cat.’