The UK benefits system

[sexNcandy]

I didn't say governments did get a say in wages... they do in minimum wage though and that's barely changed in years. It's not even close to keeping up with inflation. If it was it would be over a tenner an hour by now - quite a bit over a tenner an hour at that. Are big bizniz struggling horribly? Are executives and CEOs and shareholders on the breadline? No. They're grubbing away money in tax havens whilst the rest of us have to rely on food banks. If we even qualify for those. You don't even qualify for a food bank around here unless you get literally nothing from any source. That's a common enough situation given all the benefits sanctions that they have to take priority and even those people are on a waiting list. That's for food and bog roll not luxuries. And all the time they are getting worse and worse off cos the bills don't go away when your income is suddenly cut off for no good reason.

Blaming those who have no real say or control over there situation is the wrong road to go down. We have nothing so taking it away only means we will have to take it directly from others or literally starve to death on the street. People don't do that cos there's that survival instinct thing - it overcomes morals eventually and that applies to everybody. There's nothing left to squeeze from the poor - the pips are long gone - the rich get away (literally sometimes) with murder. The very least they could do is pay their fair share same as everybody on low wages do. It's not those on minimum wage who are spending fortunes to save fortunes to add to existing fortunes.

The whole idea of "work hard enough and you'll get there in the end" is utter bollocks. Of course some do. Most don't. There's only so many well-paid jobs to go around and not everybody has the entrepreneurial spark required to start their own bizniz. And even if they did somebody still has to be their customers. Dead end jobs are called that for a reason. The very least we could do is ensure those people at least have enough to pay the bills, buy the groceries, and maybe have a lil something extra once in a blue moon. That is not the situation and it is has nothing to do with benefits.



Definitely. Sleeping rough in midwinter and freezing to death in a shop doorway is a dream for some of us

You are kind of a bleeding heart and you take the discussion to that side... the homeless quote I already explained.


But it just can't work that way.


The government doesn't have that much say in minimum wage. It can try to impose a higher one, but what will happen is that it will drive business out of the country, as well as investment and capital because you will become less competitive. Other businesses would try to pay employees under the table, and that means all the problems of deregulation as well as no taxation for the government. Increasing minimum wage to unreasonable levels would to a lot more to increase poverty than to reduce it. The businesses who remained in the country would of course increase all the prices to be able to get by or make the same profit as before.

So now you get 20 quid an hour but the cod with chips cost 15 quid... and the price of everything else sky rockets. Plus inertia in inflation would probably mean your purchasing power would turn out lower than before.

Give the poor some trucks full of money? Sure, great idea if that money fell from the sky. Very humanitarian. But if you are taxing someone to do that, you are creating a negative incentive to anyone who has wealth or businesses in your country. All the capital would flee away and any business that could move would promptly do so. There are always countries more than willing to offer minimal taxation and benefits to have businesses and industries come.

You act as if the rich businessman will just sit there bummed out that he lost some money, and won't do anything about it. In practice he does do a lot about it. First he will try to pass the costs on the consumer, so he's making as much money as before. And if that fails he will move. All these companies who you think aren't taxed "enough" - if they were, they would probably choose to set up shop somewhere else. That means the government will get zero in taxes from them.


You are a nice person, but the total lack of financial and economical knowledge make your suggestions unreasonable.

 

[Shambles]

The rich don't seem to mind getting "free shit".

This point cannot be made often enough.

 

[Shambles]

You are kind of a bleeding heart and you take the discussion to that side... the homeless quote I already explained.


But it just can't work that way.


The government doesn't have that much say in minimum wage. It can try to impose a higher one, but what will happen is that it will drive business out of the country, as well as investment and capital because you will become less competitive. Other businesses would try to pay employees under the table, and that means all the problems of deregulation as well as no taxation for the government. Increasing minimum wage to unreasonable levels would to a lot more to increase poverty than to reduce it. The businesses who remained in the country would of course increase all the prices to be able to get by or make the same profit as before.

So now you get 20 quid an hour but the cod with chips cost 15 quid... and the price of everything else sky rockets. Plus inertia in inflation would probably mean your purchasing power would turn out lower than before.

Give the poor some trucks full of money? Sure, great idea if that money fell from the sky. Very humanitarian. But if you are taxing someone to do that, you are creating a negative incentive to anyone who has wealth or businesses in your country. All the capital would flee away and any business that could move would promptly do so. There are always countries more than willing to offer minimal taxation and benefits to have businesses and industries come.

You act as if the rich businessman will just sit there bummed out that he lost some money, and won't do anything about it. In practice he does do a lot about it. First he will try to pass the costs on the consumer, so he's making as much money as before. And if that fails he will move. All these companies who you think aren't taxed "enough" - if they were, they would probably choose to set up shop somewhere else. That means the government will get zero in taxes from them.


You are a nice person, but the total lack of financial and economical knowledge make your suggestions unreasonable.

I'd say the complete faith in financial and economic theory makes your suggestions irrelevant. They don't work. We've had that for years and things are getting worse for everyone other than those at the top. Do higher taxes really make the rich and big business flee the country? Maybe. They do that anyway - is this a race to the bottom? They should be expected to pay the going rate. I'm not saying squeeze the rich til the pips pop I'm saying apply existing law properly and stop adding loopholes to get your (government minister's) friends out of paying tax. The fact half the MPs are pocketing half a dozen or more "consultancy fees" each from the very people they are also making laws to supposedly affect big business is utterly ridiculous. It's no wonder they make sure there are plenty of loopholes cos their noses are so deep in the trough they need the get out clauses themselves.

You seem to think things - people, business and government - are so irredeemably beyond the pale we may as well just give in completely. Fuck that. They are as much a part of this world as the rest of us and they should pay at least as much proportional to income as the rest of us.

 

[Vurtual]

OK, here's my usual 'lefty elite' waffle:

It's hard to discuss benefits without thinking about the macro picture as it's a fundamental part of it (sorry owen). First off - 'from each according to their ability to each according to their need' is where i start from, so i begrudge noone their share of humanity's wealth (that means yours too RLP ). Secondly, as the 6th richest country in the world why does anyone believe the bollocks that we haven't got any money? We've got plenty (and currently print extra on demand for banks) - there's no need for cuts; it's a massive con. (And RLP: 6 Billion pounds is not much really (out of 2000 billion) - and basic income schemes are liked by plenty of 'rightys' as they could reduce bureacracy (ie cos it's done through tax as nexgative taxation))

As i understand it (probably badly) a steady pool of unemployment is desired for the functioning of neoliberal economics (ie all major parties, ukip and the EU) to 'discipline' the labour force - this is purposeful admitted economic policy since at least thatchler. They need/want unemployed people because the alternative is to return to keynesian full employment type policies, which elites didn't like because their profits dwindled over time, though the common people got better off (simplified but true i think). They argued their way out of these policies, saying that their increased profits would 'trickle down' and make everyone richer - and we know how that worked out (or some of us do).

They also need to accomodate an increasing pool of unemployed people as outsourcing and automation reduce the work needed over time - in earlier days people used to say 'in the future we'd only have to do 2 days work a week and have loads of lesiure time due to automation' - the neoliberals decided they'd just pay us much less and keep us working constantly (or unemployed). Since neoliberalism kicked off in britain and us (thatch's mate pinochet dd it first) productivity has been steadily increasing while wages have more or less stagnated (though not totally flat in uk iirc)

The tories (and labour) play a double game attacking people on benefits when they/their backers need them to keep wages low/profits high (this is just a reprise of their traditional work house policy - "give them poor relief but make it so shit they still come and work/die in our mills and factories"). All the attacks on benefits scroungers are to further discipline people so they accept even shitter wages cos how terrible people think you are when on benefits (and cos the benefits are cut) - this is also the reason the elite likes mass immigration so much to help the race to the bottom.

I think maybe the elite just have an awareness that wealth can only exist relative to poverty (in extremis, if everyone had roughly the same wealth who would be wealthy?). The wealth of the west could feed the hungry of the world without breaking a sweat (even UK alone could easily pay for this - look up the numbers), but then who would they outsource to so cheaply?

...

Why do people even accept that people should have to work for someone else for much less than the value of their labour, let alone worry about people getting some of their share of humanity's wealth in the form of benefits? (that's rhetorical...) The balance should be tipped the other way i think, and power given to the real wealth creators - the actual people who do the work (go the wobblies!)

Like immigration, people seem to too easily fall for the old divide and rule tactic - "don't look up here, look down there: dole scroungers!" Take the beam out of the elite's eye (£100bn in our tax havens, trident, QE etc etc), before starting on the mote in the poor people's (ie ~£4bn unemployment benefit/£16bn housing benefit bill)

 

[Si Dread]

Nice one in more ways than I can highlight & quote! Clearly a stand-up member of the lefty elite

You seem to think things - people, business and government - are so irredeemably beyond the pale we may as well just give in completely. Fuck that. They are as much a part of this world as the rest of us and they should pay at least as much proportional to income as the rest of us.

Here here!

 

[sexNcandy]

I'd say the complete faith in financial and economic theory makes your suggestions irrelevant. They don't work. We've had that for years and things are getting worse for everyone other than those at the top. Do higher taxes really make the rich and big business flee the country? Maybe. They do that anyway - is this a race to the bottom? They should be expected to pay the going rate. I'm not saying squeeze the rich til the pips pop I'm saying apply existing law properly and stop adding loopholes to get your (government minister's) friends out of paying tax. The fact half the MPs are pocketing half a dozen or more "consultancy fees" each from the very people they are also making laws to supposedly affect big business is utterly ridiculous. It's no wonder they make sure there are plenty of loopholes cos their noses are so deep in the trough they need the get out clauses themselves.

You seem to think things - people, business and government - are so irredeemably beyond the pale we may as well just give in completely. Fuck that. They are as much a part of this world as the rest of us and they should pay at least as much proportional to income as the rest of us.

Corruption is a different issue. It's part of the problem, but it's structural, it happens everywhere and it's hard to deal with.

You say make the rich pay the going rate. If that happens, the rich will just take their fortunes elsewhere, as well as businesses, industries and the jobs that come with it. So it will be "you", the "average man", who will actually be paying. You will have no job, there will be no growth or investment in your country, there won't even be any money for welfare. You can't "make them pay", forget about it. Inequality is here to stay, instead of getting mad at how rich the rich are, it's better to focus at making everybody richer and raising the standard of living of everybody.

 

[THECATINTHEHAT]

Five pages and growing.%)

 

[Shambles]

Corruption is a different issue. It's part of the problem, but it's structural, it happens everywhere and it's hard to deal with.

You say make the rich pay the going rate. If that happens, the rich will just take their fortunes elsewhere, as well as businesses, industries and the jobs that come with it. So it will be "you", the "average man", who will actually be paying. You will have no job, there will be no growth or investment in your country, there won't even be any money for welfare. You can't "make them pay", forget about it. Inequality is here to stay, instead of getting mad at how rich the rich are, it's better to focus at making everybody richer and raising the standard of living of everybody.

That's been the standard excuse forever and has never happened. Yes some people are such utter scum they really will leave the country if they are actually expected to pay a similar proportion of their income in tax as the rest of us but good riddance. We don't want that type of person here. They are not welcome. The majority grumble and whinge and whine and pay up. Cos most people are fundamentally decent and only take a modicum of reminding of that with a waft of the stick without being beaten over the head with it.

And it's not corruption - it's legal. That is the problem. Race to the bottom. Everybody loses except those that can afford to pay off a politician or few for a get out of jail free card. When money buys legal exemption from laws that are rigorously enforced on the rest of us purely out of fear they'll take their lack of paying taxes somewhere else to not pay them those people can fuck off cos they are parasites anyway. They provide nothing of value.

 

[tunesey]

you can always talk to MA the money advice service for people that don't have any. Apparently if you re-use your Teabags 3 times the next year you can afford a family holiday. Just more government bullshit sitting back on there fat cat salaries laughing at us poor folk. Scamming their expenses. Dont get me started on that smug cunt Cameron

 

[Si Dread]

Five pages and growing.%)

I insist that posts be useful, this one fails.

 

[parttime crackhead]

Do countries with higher tax than us have no rich people? Just a few poor fuckers who couldn't afford to move? I don't know. I doubt it.

OK, here's my usual 'lefty elite' waffle:

It's hard to discuss benefits without thinking about the macro picture as it's a fundamental part of it (sorry owen). First off - 'from each according to their ability to each according to their need' is where i start from, so i begrudge noone their share of humanity's wealth (that means yours too RLP ). Secondly, as the 6th richest country in the world why does anyone believe the bollocks that we haven't got any money? We've got plenty (and currently print extra on demand for banks) - there's no need for cuts; it's a massive con. (And RLP: 6 Billion pounds is not much really (out of 2000 billion) - and basic income schemes are liked by plenty of 'rightys' as they could reduce bureacracy (ie cos it's done through tax as nexgative taxation))

As i understand it (probably badly) a steady pool of unemployment is desired for the functioning of neoliberal economics (ie all major parties, ukip and the EU) to 'discipline' the labour force - this is purposeful admitted economic policy since at least thatchler. They need/want unemployed people because the alternative is to return to keynesian full employment type policies, which elites didn't like because their profits dwindled over time, though the common people got better off (simplified but true i think). They argued their way out of these policies, saying that their increased profits would 'trickle down' and make everyone richer - and we know how that worked out (or some of us do).

They also need to accomodate an increasing pool of unemployed people as outsourcing and automation reduce the work needed over time - in earlier days people used to say 'in the future we'd only have to do 2 days work a week and have loads of lesiure time due to automation' - the neoliberals decided they'd just pay us much less and keep us working constantly (or unemployed). Since neoliberalism kicked off in britain and us (thatch's mate pinochet dd it first) productivity has been steadily increasing while wages have more or less stagnated (though not totally flat in uk iirc)

The tories (and labour) play a double game attacking people on benefits when they/their backers need them to keep wages low/profits high (this is just a reprise of their traditional work house policy - "give them poor relief but make it so shit they still come and work/die in our mills and factories"). All the attacks on benefits scroungers are to further discipline people so they accept even shitter wages cos how terrible people think you are when on benefits (and cos the benefits are cut) - this is also the reason the elite likes mass immigration so much to help the race to the bottom.

I think maybe the elite just have an awareness that wealth can only exist relative to poverty (in extremis, if everyone had roughly the same wealth who would be wealthy?). The wealth of the west could feed the hungry of the world without breaking a sweat (even UK alone could easily pay for this - look up the numbers), but then who would they outsource to so cheaply?

...

Why do people even accept that people should have to work for someone else for much less than the value of their labour, let alone worry about people getting some of their share of humanity's wealth in the form of benefits? (that's rhetorical...) The balance should be tipped the other way i think, and power given to the real wealth creators - the actual people who do the work (go the wobblies!)

Like immigration, people seem to too easily fall for the old divide and rule tactic - "don't look up here, look down there: dole scroungers!" Take the beam out of the elite's eye (£100bn in our tax havens, trident, QE etc etc), before starting on the mote in the poor people's (ie ~£4bn unemployment benefit/£16bn housing benefit bill)

Great post.

 

[ColtDan]

Agreed, brilliant post

 

[Si Dread]

Agreed, brilliant post

lefty elite scum, the pair of ya's!

 

[furrball]

So..
Is the general consensus that everyone is, and should be regarded as, equal ?

 

[ColtDan]

NSFW:

 

[sexNcandy]

OK, here's my usual 'lefty elite' waffle:

It's hard to discuss benefits without thinking about the macro picture as it's a fundamental part of it (sorry owen). First off - 'from each according to their ability to each according to their need' is where i start from, so i begrudge noone their share of humanity's wealth (that means yours too RLP ). Secondly, as the 6th richest country in the world why does anyone believe the bollocks that we haven't got any money? We've got plenty (and currently print extra on demand for banks) - there's no need for cuts; it's a massive con. (And RLP: 6 Billion pounds is not much really (out of 2000 billion) - and basic income schemes are liked by plenty of 'rightys' as they could reduce bureacracy (ie cos it's done through tax as nexgative taxation))

As i understand it (probably badly) a steady pool of unemployment is desired for the functioning of neoliberal economics (ie all major parties, ukip and the EU) to 'discipline' the labour force - this is purposeful admitted economic policy since at least thatchler. They need/want unemployed people because the alternative is to return to keynesian full employment type policies, which elites didn't like because their profits dwindled over time, though the common people got better off (simplified but true i think). They argued their way out of these policies, saying that their increased profits would 'trickle down' and make everyone richer - and we know how that worked out (or some of us do).

They also need to accomodate an increasing pool of unemployed people as outsourcing and automation reduce the work needed over time - in earlier days people used to say 'in the future we'd only have to do 2 days work a week and have loads of lesiure time due to automation' - the neoliberals decided they'd just pay us much less and keep us working constantly (or unemployed). Since neoliberalism kicked off in britain and us (thatch's mate pinochet dd it first) productivity has been steadily increasing while wages have more or less stagnated (though not totally flat in uk iirc)

The tories (and labour) play a double game attacking people on benefits when they/their backers need them to keep wages low/profits high (this is just a reprise of their traditional work house policy - "give them poor relief but make it so shit they still come and work/die in our mills and factories"). All the attacks on benefits scroungers are to further discipline people so they accept even shitter wages cos how terrible people think you are when on benefits (and cos the benefits are cut) - this is also the reason the elite likes mass immigration so much to help the race to the bottom.

I think maybe the elite just have an awareness that wealth can only exist relative to poverty (in extremis, if everyone had roughly the same wealth who would be wealthy?). The wealth of the west could feed the hungry of the world without breaking a sweat (even UK alone could easily pay for this - look up the numbers), but then who would they outsource to so cheaply?

...

Why do people even accept that people should have to work for someone else for much less than the value of their labour, let alone worry about people getting some of their share of humanity's wealth in the form of benefits? (that's rhetorical...) The balance should be tipped the other way i think, and power given to the real wealth creators - the actual people who do the work (go the wobblies!)

Like immigration, people seem to too easily fall for the old divide and rule tactic - "don't look up here, look down there: dole scroungers!" Take the beam out of the elite's eye (£100bn in our tax havens, trident, QE etc etc), before starting on the mote in the poor people's (ie ~£4bn unemployment benefit/£16bn housing benefit bill)

Conspiracy theories, misinformation and a total lack of understanding of economics:

You can find it in EADD!

 

[Shambles]

^ Soundbites are kewl - I 'em and make sure to post plenty - but when posted in response to a post with some substance it is not a winning look

So..
Is the general consensus that everyone is, and should be regarded as, equal ?

Well obviously. That is not the same thing as suggesting everybody should be redistributed into absolute equality, mind. It's a matter of common decency meets common sense in my book.

 

[sexNcandy]

I guess if you believe in conspiracy theories there is plenty of substance. I was actually a bid disappointed he didn't mention the incarnated angels part in all these evil doings.

 

[furrball]

Well obviously. That is not the same thing as suggesting everybody should be redistributed into absolute equality, mind. It's a matter of common decency meets common sense in my book.

Hrmm..
I'm not sure I agree..
I do think that the current system is fucked - every citizen should have free and equal access to the essentials ( housing/food/education/medical care ).
But - I don't think that just living and breathing makes you as valuable to the corpus as any other member..

 

[Vurtual]

Conspiracy theories, misinformation and a total lack of understanding of economics:

You can find it in EADD!

Along with name calling in place of debate it seems...


i'm no economist (I did say it was waffle), but i think i understand what i've read about it (books/writers following my own biases of course).

So tell me how i'm wrong, as i'm sure i am (i want to learn (that's not sarcasm))