Is this really what people want?

'nice'guy-

But the world we live in is complicated. In order to 'share' the money, we have to have money in the first place. And clearly when our deficit is so large we don't. Despite a crackdown on tax avoidance and tax rises we're still borrowing £120 billion per year.

Please quote your source for £120 billion. Whatever the figure, the larger amount is the current deficit, not the structural deficit. The current deficit is the amount we're paying now because we're in the midst of a recession, and tax receipts are drastically reduced.

Secondly, the Tory scum are not cracking down on tax avoidance. In fact, they're doing the opposite, as they have reduced funding for 'HM'RC.

So...do we look at the short term, stick our heads in the sand and keep borrowing?

We invest in infrastructure and create jobs, thereby bringing us out of recession. Bleeding the patient is not a cure. It makes the patient weaker.

Or do we look longer term and accept that if we live within our means that more people can be looked after for longer?

The goal of this government is not to 'live within our means', as we can already see that the drastic cuts are harming the economy and thereby increasing spending. The goal is to reduce the size of the state.

If the UK actively and aggressively went after tax avoidance, it could collect tens of billions of pounds annually in revenue. We can start by doing that before removing disability living allowance which is killing disabled people.

You only have to look at Greece to see what happens when a government just keeps borrowing regardless of ability to repay that debt.

The UK is nothing like Greece in either debt or deficit. The two are not comparable in the least.

The more you tax the rich the less is available for the poor they have found so I expect the poor would rather like the rich to be taxed at say 20% so they can enjoy their benefits as now. That is the perverse effect of high tax rates.

Also most people wouldn't work at all if they didn't have to so simply doling it out like sweets never does those who are choosing not to work but could much good.

But the world we live in is complicated. In order to 'share' the money, we have to have money in the first place What about if we had NO money?

We could share equally all resources and commodities far easier than sharing money! The reason for this is that money is both a commodity and the exchange medium between all other commodities. It is precisely because we have more that we can never hope to even come close to equality or even providing half the globe with a life worth living.

...I thought it was to work in the best interests of all the people

Yes except 'best interests' is subjective.

Your interpretation is that we should share the money in the country around fairly and ensure the poor/disabled are looked after. If the world was as simple as that and that statement could stand alone then I'd be right behind you.

But the world we live in is complicated. In order to 'share' the money, we have to have money in the first place. And clearly when our deficit is so large we don't. Despite a crackdown on tax avoidance and tax rises we're still borrowing £120 billion per year.

So...do we look at the short term, stick our heads in the sand and keep borrowing?

Or do we look longer term and accept that if we live within our means that more people can be looked after for longer?

You only have to look at Greece to see what happens when a government just keeps borrowing regardless of ability to repay that debt.

If you don't vote you won't be courted by politicians. You want change - vote for it.

We had to move with my DH's job.So when my Ddad ill I was not there to help my DM.then when DM was ill I was still a 150 miles away so again I was little help 'On your bike' all very well but it dis brake up familys

Hasn't Duncan Smith said to get on your bike to go where the work is. Well I live where the work is and there is not enough housing, it is also extremely expensive and with caps on housing benefit it will be very difficult for unemployed people to relocate here in order to find work. What is more, not all young people want to move miles away from their families and support net work and so moving north to south is not the answer.

Then we have young people who do want to move to take up work and then they are told no HB and work for 6 weeks for less than minimum wage.

I do wish these muddled up Torries (and Xenia for that matter) would get a grip and realise that none of their policies are coherent or joined up.

I am just saying we cannot afford the current system and care by family members has been the default in just about every culture. I believe even in Scotland there is a legal obligation to support adult children up to a certain age.

Xenia you really do need to put a bit more thought in to this (fairy) land of yours For example these "other" family members that are to be found. Would you penalise them if they did not take on the care? How would that work? How far away should these family be before they are discounted, next city, other end of the country, different continent?

If the old person has friends, social life, hobbies, other responsibilities, and does not want to move away, do they get forced? If you as a grand daughter go off and have your own family, work, house, other costs involved in supporting your family, and paying your taxes. What would you do to find your the last relative left standing and are now to be responsible for the care of an adult? I suspect part of the answer would need to be cut back on your work so putting the rest of your family plus your responsibilities at risk.

Volume, you don't have to justify your/your sister's decisions to Xenia. Although maybe she does need educating.

I think this might be the apprenticeship scheme Xenia is talking about.

What they are offering are not apprenticeships. Some of my DS' friends are doing/have done apprenticeships. They last several years, involve learning real skills (plumbers, electricians, mechanics, computer technicians) and at the end the apprentice has a real, recognised qualification.

What is being offered at these nursing homes is 6 weeks of cheap labour. The only ones who benefit are the owners; the young people gain nothing, and the people who live in the homes are being cared for by staff who have no interest in being there - I wouldn't want my mother to be treated like that!

We all have parents and some relatives. I am not saying have no where for anyone to go but if the general obligation were as I think in Scotland and much of the rest of the EU your parents have a legal obligation to support you that might help us a bit out of the current mess.

The minimum wage for the very young does not exist and then for under various ages it is a veyr low sum mostly because they tend to be living with parents. Even those of university age tedn to be living with parents in university holidays.

What about people that don't have family support Xenia?

I have asked her to move in with middle aged me, my middle aged husband and our small child and our marriage problems (appealing or what?), to sleep on our living room sofa, and commute two hours to this job thing.
But when she moved for the job, she borrowed money to pay the deposit for an 18 month lease, which she'd lose, so she's stuck really. She wanted to do it all by herself anyway, she was trying to do it properly. Be independent.
I didn't know landlords could get away with being so awful these days, even to those who can hardly pay anything. It isn't right, and I don't think it's right to expect people to live on less than minimum wage either. :(

As a nation we have never been able to afford for young people to be set up by the state in their own place even renting a room in a house. The apprenticeship gives people a chance to make something of themselves.

I think we need a massive shift from state responsibility to family responsibility. As we can afford nothing else it is likely to happen anyway.

Xenia - why should she have to??

If a person is working for £2.60 an hour, how many options do you think she has? Feel very sorry for her, Volume, and angry on her behalf.

Why can't she live with a relative or you?

I've got one of those plug in oil radiator things but I don't want to give it to her because she won't be able to pay for the bills, they're so expensive.

My young sister is working for £2.60 an hour on one of these apprentice schemes. She supports herself, is not at home with parents, hence she's living in a horrible mouldy shared room in a flat with no heating, and no cooker. Now it's getting to winter sometimes when I ring her she cries because she's so cold. She can't even have a hot dinner.

I watched the Friday night programme on BBC2 Servants. Interestingly it quoted from newspaper articles in the 1920s and 30s about young people choosing to go on the dole rather than take work as servants when there was a desperate shortage of servants. Politicians proposed that there should be no dole for those who could do that work. Plus ca change.

There's no right way of doing it. Either you're soft and you let people get away with doing nothing while on benefits, or your hard and some people suffer. We've been soft for too long. There are too many people living it up on benefits at the expense of everyone else.

Thanks for posting this mcmooncup. It gives the rest of us just a tiny insight into what it must be like.

Couldn't agree more, MiniTheMinx.

"His company was paying £4 an hour"

We are talking about work that is poorly paid even at the full rate, where staff are poorly trained, poorly supervised and supported, where there is little or no career advancement. This work is very unlikely to provide a stepping stone into other employment. Where private companies charge more for beds from private patients, offer enhancements for better food that is never provided and then these same profiteers of human misery exploit their workers on poor pay. NO wonder there is so much abuse in residential elderly care.

"Perhaps we need a shift ni attitudes in the UK that family supports you when you are young, ill, old rather than the state, a new kind of personal responsibility which many other countries still have and which perhaps benefits them in difficult times such as those through which we are going"

Make up your mind Xenia, either you want young people wiping bottoms for a pittance in factories of misery (made that way by private companies and their greed) or you want WOMEN to do this work for free in the hidden sphere of home and family. Of course this wouldn't entail you wiping a bum or two you could pay someone to do that anyway!

The chances are you are just trumpeting your right wing spiel about personal responsibility that is as usual ill conceived.

Our local job centre has closed, the nearest one is 13 miles away (3 miles to the bus, even if you have the fare).

The well meaning, but hopelessly disorganised, lad next door has huge difficulty getting there. His family never have working cars and he's never got any phone credit.

He does try to find work, but it's almost always temporary seasonal stuff and coming on and off benefits is a nightmare.
(I know because he often comes and borrows my landline, he doesn't run out of credit when they stick him on hold).

I feel enormously sorry for him, it is not his fault that he was born with not very intelligent in to a dysfunctional family. He's really sweet and he really tries.

The system he has to fight with is shit!