Benifits Cap at 26k

dilemna

I take my hat off to those on benefits who have a £26k cap placed on them. I don't earn anything near this and would love to earn this salary even paying NI and tax on top which I guess benefit scroungers don't. The whole emphasis is wrong. People who have a life of sloth on benefits shouldn't be rewarded with more benefits if they have more kids, this is plain wrong. It's absurd and wrong gvien there are millions of people who workhard for a lot less with no financial support whatsoever, paying income tax which is then re-distributed to benefit cheats who like lying on their backs creating babies so they get more benefits and given bigger houses - which are financed by the income tax other tax payers and I pay. It's all topsy turvy - mad. But this was new Liebour's way.

If there are to be benefits then they should be capped at a level erquivalent to 30% of the average salary which should be about £6,000 - 7,000. That would encourage the feckless and work shy to get off their backsides or cut back on their lifestyles as they clearly could not afford or more correctly us tax payers could not afford to keep subsidising them. A neighbour of mine hasn't done a legitmate day's work in 7 years since he moved to the area. There are 5 kids all from different parents in the household. Visiting by the various parents is a noisy raucous affair when all these benefit layabout types get together. They invariably get drunk or stoned or both. Anyway the guy has a rent paid house courteousy of my local authority paid for out of my council tax contributions. He bought an Audi A4 estate last summer. I work and no way could I afford such a car. Neither would I want one which is a different story. He sits on his ar$e, does what he wants when he wants, has Sky, supplements his benefits with drug dealing so cash in hand and thus has a far superieur existence to me. I and thousands of others are the fools working long hours in jobs we hate, paying tax to subsidise the can't work won't work feckless ar$eholes that are my neighbours! Where's the fairness in this? There is absolutely no incentive for him to get a job. What a role model for the scrote kids in the household? I and thousands of others like me are the mugs. We are the ones who have been taken for a ride by the politicians, bankers and the benefit cheats. Nothing will change as no one will listen or is prepared to tell the truth to say enough is enough. If you don't have the money tough, you are going to have to get off your backside and do some hard work to support your lifestyle or make drastic cut backs. It really as that simple. UK plc is far too soft.

Cleat Eastwood

Hehe dilemna is funny - he'd be richer than the queen if he saved all the money he paid in subs to the BNP.

Jez mon

Squaggles wrote:

No takers to live on £50 a week then ?

I wonder how many people have spent that amount on one meal

When I was on placement last year I spent it in one sitting down the pub with some old school mates :twisted:

Cheers for the careers advice everyone. Don't worry I was only being tongue and cheek about the whole saying you're an engineer thing. Sorry for taking it off topic!

Back on topic, the one thing this thread has made me even more sure of, is that it's no where near as simple as having a cap on benefits, I think as a news item, it's probably done it's job, it plays on the massive anti benefit sentiment from some, and the general feeling that some benefit claimants are just taking the pee. Undoubtedly, there are far wider social issues at play here, it's not just than just, "he gets more from the state than I get from my employer".

What's needed is a grown up debate answering;

1) How do we deal with unemployment, which is massive amongst my age group
2) How do we, as a society, ensure children born into families on benefits are put in a position where they can grow up to be productive members of society
3) How do you balance benefits being an undesirable life, without making them unnecessarily humiliating.

Now the first one, I have a rough solution for, unfortunately it involves spending some public money. Basically, we have a clapped out transport system which is rapidly reaching capacity, invest in it. Secondly, we have a large number of power plants closing in the foreseeable future, guess what, we should build more. Big public/private projects, we need them and we need the employment. Also, encourage scientific and engineering excellence, considering we as a country build the first nuclear power station which was connected to a grid, it seems a shame we now have to resort to buying french/american nuclear power stations.

The second and third are more difficult. For the second, we need an education systems which doesn't treat everyone like they're equal. Filter out the bright kids, put the less able ones in smaller classes and don't try and make everyone go to university. It's a waste of money, time and resources. Instead, help the ones who don't go to university with to find some-kind of work, so they can learn a trade (etc.) provide some kind of incentive for employers to employ young people.

For the third, it's often tempting to say that some kind of food stamp system is the answer. But it just is not. It would humiliate me if I ever got into a situation where I needed JSA, but I'm just the kind of person who would feel humiliated by the process anyway. It wouldn't stop benefit claimants doing cash in hand work, and would open up a black market for stamps.

EKIMIKE

verylonglegs wrote:

You mean well no doubt but christ you sound young and naive.

:roll: That the best you got? Maybe if young people were given more faith than simply 'the people whom older people patronise' then we'd be in a better situation than cheap politicians throwing cheap shots at each other through their respective media backers.

It's boring, it's old, it doesn't work and it's all been played out before. So please explain how i am naive for at least attempting to explore a different avenue?

Perhaps you are the naive one for subscribing to the status quo? I said ignorance is the common denominator a few pages back. Clearly i'm being proven correct if all you can muster is a dismissive, ignorant, 'young and naive' snipe.

If these issues are confined to the respective left wing/right wing discourse then what hope do we really have?

EKIMIKE

Jez mon wrote:

So the first hand experiences of those on here boil down to shaky anecdote?

Yes. In the wider context a single anecdote is shaky. Considering your comments on statistics i'm surprised at how contented you are with such a pathetic sample from which to draw analysis.

Nowhere have i expressed an opposition to reform. That would be blind assumption. The blinding element being the dogma/ideology - 'he doesn't agree so he must disagree'.

I mean someone earlier mentioned that there's a middle ground in housing between London and the sticks, and without wanting to advocate such a policy, i'd contend that there is a middle ground between the left wing dogma and the right wing dogma on this subject. Christ, the two aren't even mutually exclusive.

In a world where people idolise 'out the box' thinkers like Steve Jobs, you would've thought we could see beyond the crumbling old wreck that is Right v Left politics and the politicians who today fight the same battles they have done for the last 10/20/30/40 years. We may have new poster boys (David and Ed) but the old cranks are still there and as influential as ever on both sides. It's just such a ZZZZZZzzzzz fest.

verylonglegs

I apolgise for being so brusque and in fact I share a lot of your frustrations regarding politics. I guess the accusation of being naive stems from me once saying similiar things as you. However I think the current situation of 2 or 3 parties fighting over largely the same ground in order to win the popular vote of the middle-classes was inevitable given the way the electoral system is set up.

There is no real left wing party at the moment, that has gone from our political spectrum for now and I wouldn't want to guess when or if it will reappear. Milliband appears to realise he can not stray too far away from the centre. Despite the poor economic situation there is still not enough pain felt amongst middle-class voters to provoke any real change and I should imagine as long as the main parties can keep them soft enough the status quo will continue with radical thinking confined to blogs and forums.

On this thread both anecdote and newpapers/media are dismissed as unsuitable sources of information for discourse but if you take them away what else do people have to form opinions on then? The majority of the population are either too busy living or don't want to put the effort in to wade through books on economics and sociology so make their decisions based on what is readily available to them. That's not to say I'm negative about the situation but that I came to the conclusion a while back that rather than wasting energy fretting about the set-up it's much better to get yourself into a good postion first and then try and help locally in whatever way you can, it's much more satisfying.

Right, serious stuff done then, time for that Friday night beer....

Jez mon

EKIMIKE wrote:

Jez mon wrote:

So the first hand experiences of those on here boil down to shaky anecdote?

Yes. In the wider context a single anecdote is shaky. Considering your comments on statistics i'm surprised at how contented you are with such a pathetic sample from which to draw analysis.

Nowhere have i expressed an opposition to reform. That would be blind assumption. The blinding element being the dogma/ideology - 'he doesn't agree so he must disagree'.

I mean someone earlier mentioned that there's a middle ground in housing between London and the sticks, and without wanting to advocate such a policy, i'd contend that there is a middle ground between the left wing dogma and the right wing dogma on this subject. Christ, the two aren't even mutually exclusive.

In a world where people idolise 'out the box' thinkers like Steve Jobs, you would've thought we could see beyond the crumbling old wreck that is Right v Left politics and the politicians who today fight the same battles they have done for the last 10/20/30/40 years. We may have new poster boys (David and Ed) but the old cranks are still there and as influential as ever on both sides. It's just such a ZZZZZZzzzzz fest.

Ok, it's an incredibly small sample size, but generally, I would rather see the anecdotes as case studies, if you will. I.e, what can go wrong with the current system. I would also say that it seems unlikely that the stories are completely unique. I'm not particularly happy about drawing conclusions from such a small sample size, but it's the best I can reasonably do without spending all day going through unemployment stats.

I don't particularly recognise modern politics as left v. right. All three of the main parties occupy the middle ground, with various leanings on different issues, the majority of the difference between them seems to be the delivery rather than the message itself. For sure, generally labour are more on the left, but neither are particularly left wing. It guarantees the possibility of mass appeal, but I think the lack of a clear hard ideology can lead to apathy amongst voters.

As for a new political movement, I definitely can see room for an alternative, there's plenty of dissatisfaction with the current system and current society. But then I look at the coverage the occupy movement gets, and realise that those with the passion to try and do something, invariably seem to lack the ability to articulate their goals and manipulate the media.

piquet

[quote="Jez mon"

I don't particularly recognise modern politics as left v. right. All three of the main parties occupy the middle ground, with various leanings on different issues, the majority of the difference between them seems to be the delivery rather than the message itself. For sure, generally labour are more on the left, but neither are particularly left wing. It guarantees the possibility of mass appeal, but I think the lack of a clear hard ideology can lead to apathy amongst voters.

a.

[/quote]

As Blair put it in 1996/7.... the old politics of Left and right are gone, in the future parties will be picking policies out of the same pot, the difference will be the priorities/ordering of the polices.

There would seem to be a congruence between what he said 15 years ago and what you describe now.

Cleat Eastwood

Wow is this still going I thought it was all settled when we agreed the best solution was more fat womens plappys

MaxwellBygraves

Nice

Excellent article in the Guardian on the bait-and-switch masking tactics used effectively by the Republicans in America and Cons at home, which I was attempting to outline earlier in the thread.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... tory-trick

tim_wand

Ekimike. I dont know if you have a job? I dont know or care how old you are, I dont know what experience you are basing your opinions on, I am not trying to condescend you,

Could I suggest however if you are employed that (In the middle of a massive economic downturn where we are likely to being heading back into recession) you go in to work on Monday and ask you employer for a Pay Rise.

IMO that will add significantly to your experience.

rake

id like to know the idea behind not helping people in training to get off the dole. the minute anyone goes training their money gets stopped. that cant be helpfull.

Jez mon

MaxwellBygraves wrote:

Nice

Excellent article in the Guardian on the bait-and-switch masking tactics used effectively by the Republicans in America and Cons at home, which I was attempting to outline earlier in the thread.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... tory-trick

Interesting, but I don't think it's a solely Tory trait. New Labour managed to preside over our society for 13 years,13 years in which IIRC the gap between rich and poor grew. Now the Tories are back in charge, certain elements of society can start foaming at the mouth about the nasty party etc.

The nature of democracy is that in order to win you have to be popular. In order to get the popularity you need to have policies with mass appeal. In order to spread the message, you generally need policies which also take care of the rich. Simplistic, but a glance at our recent political history shows it's generally true IMO.

Frank the tank

Jez mon wrote:

MaxwellBygraves wrote:

Nice

Excellent article in the Guardian on the bait-and-switch masking tactics used effectively by the Republicans in America and Cons at home, which I was attempting to outline earlier in the thread.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... tory-trick

Interesting, but I don't think it's a solely Tory trait. New Labour managed to preside over our society for 13 years,13 years in which IIRC the gap between rich and poor grew. Now the Tories are back in charge, certain elements of society can start foaming at the mouth about the nasty party etc.

The nature of democracy is that in order to win you have to be popular. In order to get the popularity you need to have policies with mass appeal. In order to spread the message, you generally need policies which also take care of the rich. Simplistic, but a glance at our recent political history shows it's generally true IMO.

Hence the reason we;re in the sh1t is 'cos we've been run by a tory government for over thirty year (never mind the colour of the rosette).

Frank the tank

tim wand wrote:

Ekimike. I dont know if you have a job? I dont know or care how old you are, I dont know what experience you are basing your opinions on, I am not trying to condescend you,

Could I suggest however if you are employed that (In the middle of a massive economic downturn where we are likely to being heading back into recession) you go in to work on Monday and ask you employer for a Pay Rise.

IMO that will add significantly to your experience.

Ekimike, ask for that pay rise. The current economic climate is being exploited by employers to hold down wages.

My son handed in his notice with his current employer, he'd not had a pay rise for three years, the firm couldn't afford it. They are setting TWO people on to do the work he did. There is no way they'll only be paying them half of what he was earning, 'cos if that were the case they'd have zero applicants.

I told him, there you are you've been doing the work of two men, LAUREL & HARDY, they've had you for a clown.

Big Hairy Wallapers

Dilemma.

Bang on and well said.
Define the safety net but make it uncomfortable so people don't choose to sit on it forever.
Simple evolution, the decent hardworkers will thrive and scum won't.

daviesee

Good line from the new George Clooney film :?

Not used to describe this scenario but I find that it applies.

"Give them enough to do something but not enough to do nothing".