Is this really what people want?

'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.'

Because they are expected to work all hours 6 or 7 days away for peanuts. I watched the series, too.

Plus ca ne change pas!

Oh bless you Xenia for thinking I am idle (a benefit claimant), I was employed full time for 30 years before March this year. I stopped work when the combination of that and caring for my disabled child got too much and I was making errors in work.

I don't expect a benefit "rise" as I occasionally had in work. I do expect not to go hungry or cold though given my caring responsibilities.

Yes some benefit claimants are bone idle, the majority of us though are NOT and are struggling to know how we will cope once these changes begin to bite. Am looking forward to Xmas this year...I don't know how I will do it on benefits and it will be e first occasion I have had to do so. Am thanking God for a big family who will ensure DS has a nice time.

What the OP is saying is horrific to be quite frank and I am increasingly concerned about the most vulnerable (and I am not talking about the bone idle here...they will be fine) who are and will continue to suffer.

Surely the measure of a good society is how it treats the vulnerable and needy. We have an obligation to look after those fellow human beings less fortunate than ourselves. It is a disgrace that disabled people are being victimised in this way. It does seem that OAPs are the only group who have not been targeted for any welfare cuts why are they so immune when there are. Many mega rich ones out there.

There are no changes which will result in people not eating. The 20% cuts labour proposed and 25% of the coalition are all going to ensure the welfare state remains.

I do not see why benefits claimants have had increases over the last few years when hard working people have not had pay rises. Why is that justified? Why featherbed the idle at the expense of hard workers who have seen no inflation increases and indeed often pay cuts in order to keep jobs?

@mini.

There's nothing wrong with my grasp of economics. Whilst I don't claim to be some sort of economics guru, I do grasp the basics. I just don't agree with the left wing views that everything was fine before the Tories and that taxing the rich is the answer to every problem.

What I do hear in your post though is the usual socialist mentality of "There is a solution but you are too stupid/uncaring to understand" The idea being that your moral superiority means you must also be cleverer. Hence why all the long complicated sentences sprinkled with bullshit bingo which frankly are just designed to confuse your average reader into thinking you must know better.

I suspect the real fear is that your average reader actually understands and thinks "Wait a minute....that won't work!"

That's probably the same reason why posters like Ttosca like to poo poo analogies between our economy and a household budget. Whilst there are of course differences, as an analogy I think it's closer than you'd like to admit.

Cuts are inevitable. Is anyone here seriously suggesting they are not? We have a huge deficit which after 3 years of cuts is still projected to be £120 billion PER YEAR. And if you accept that cuts must be made, just where do you think we can save £120 billion from? Hell, even half of it?

It's not about what we should or should not do. It's about what we can realistically do. Right now we're skint. And so we must look at what we're spending money on and decide if it's affordable or not.

Never mind 4 hour contracts, mooncup, I know two people (both teaching/ training professionals) who are on zero hour contracts. Great for the employer. No security whatsoever for the employee. As a 'carrot' the employer is holding out the promise of an 6 hour a week contract if they are still working for them in two months' time...

You are right. It's not just stupid, it's vile.

cheekymonkey

I hear you....., in fact full of fury at the Cuntservatives.....

We don't all have parents or relatives who can help Xenia.

I grew up in foster care as mum went AWOL. Dad - never knew him not even his name. Family? Mum had one brother who she doesn't talk too.

So who would support me if I was on £2.60 an hour etc?

Would you take in a relative who earned a pittance? Bet you wouldn't.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/3157570.stm

I work in a jobcentre and have about about 90 people on my caseload, ie, I am their personal adviser. When i joined I was told off for not getting enough people into work, now, now tha I am gettingt more people into work, i am told off for not stopping enough people's money!!! It is not a 'target' but the general opnion is that stricter benefit regime results in more people signing off. We have been told that if our stopping peoples money rates do not drastically improve that we will be on a performance improvement plan. I notice some staff have no qualms with it and do seem to relish it. Most however, do not enjoy it and take the wrath of their manager over a sleepless night worrying about stopping someone's money. We all refer to a decision make to make that final decision on whether to stop the money but obviously if we choose to ignore it there is no chance the sanction can be imposed. For me there are many genuine cases but i have been told off for being too gullible and even been told to wise up by my boss. it does seem to be assumed that most people are lying and i agree with the comment that the unemployed are demonized! i have a mixture of all sorts, some lazy 18-19 year olds that are comfortable at home and no motivation to get a job, a few in their 50s really lacking in confidence and have worked for years. today i saw a single mum, who was 43 and had done 4 hours work in her life but she hadn't had the life of riley, her son was disabled and she looked like life had been hard. Esteem is often low and I notice that people look worn down by the whole system. On the other hand a guy the other day wanted help with clothes for an interview but instead tried to purchase casual clothes with the invoice he had been given. I love my job but am always shocked at how isolated, disengaged, unlucky and uncared for some people are from society. people aren't born equal, at all :(

Actually I think the best way forward is to burn all money and base all human relations not on exchange values but use value.

We can not feed the world on money, only on what we produce, what we consume should be based on need.

My father worked in Nigeria in the 70's, the Nigerian's tapped into the BP oil pipes because they ran along the surface. So poor were they that they tapped into them for miles and flooded hundreds of hectares of farm land. Still we had servants and air conditioning, guards and a driver. So we were fine but it is very dangerous.

Once the chief asked my father's party to move tables in the club. A little later a man came in and sat down, five minutes later he had been shot dead in full view. He was dragged out, when my father left, the dead man was being eaten by the pigs on the side of the road. If children are run over, the driver gets out, pulls the body to the ditch and drives on. When the chief in Benin died many people fled because if you were of a different tribe, you were apt to be beheaded.

I would never call Nigeria a happy place.

Certainly we should all try to keep a sense of humour however bad things are. Nigerians are the happiest people on earth and not the best off. Money doesn't determine happiness.

My own view is that we just don't have the money for the benefits system as it now is adn the debt labour took on. However we certainly need much more radical policies to encourage industry and the economy.

Wasn't it Oscar Wild who said there was only one thing worse than people talking about you, being ignored.

Actually I think X is rather amusing, she always makes me laugh.

Well let's hope that Mrs Squeezed Middle who fucked up her contraception and ended up with three kids (or had twins in her 2nd pregnancy) doesn't lose her job and end up on benefits then Xenia.

Or does that not happen in Xenia-land? Quite ironic how inhospitable you are, considering one of the meaning of the name Xenia

I certainly saw the bit about servants wanting better conditions but the issue was the same as we have today - some (by no means all) people preferring to live off the backs of hard working mothers who pay tax and stay on the dole than take on work which may not be the kind they want.

There is a huge mood in the country to do something about the squeezed middle who work very hard indeed to support those who don't work. IDS today has commented again about benefits being capped at two children as most people decide to have two children only as that is all they can afford except for the poor who are supported by the squeezed middle who are incentivised to have large families . I think something like 2/3rd of British people support that stance in a recent survey so I am hardly alone in this.

thank you for that twofingers, that has made me feel better about ignoring in future.

just seen xenia comments re servants. i have a horrifying feeling that they are not tongue in cheek.
vicar - I have a policy of reading Xenia's posts, having a private laugh at the ignorant viewpoints expressed therein, and not responding.
Her comments about people not wanting to work as servants post-World War 1 really highlighted for me how she notices what she wants to notice and is completely blinkered to everything else. The television programme that she refers to talked a lot about the outrage of the middle and upper classes when people no longer wanted to work as their servants. They were outraged at the demands of their previous servants, which included the right to be paid a basic wage, the right to have their own beds (ie. not to share with other staff members), the right to have clean sheets on those beds periodically, the right to have access to a bath once a week. Clearly, Xenia is of the opinion that they should have been happy carrying the piss and shit of their employers up and downstairs, sleeping on the kitchen floor, and working a sixteen hour day, while averting their eyes and doffing their caps, presumably.

What I saw when I watched that programme was a group of people standing up for themselves and saying they were not prepared to be exploited any longer. What she seemed to see was a bad case of 'workshyness...'

Her comment 'I am right etc etc.' creased me up TBH. Such joyful ignorance. Such a woeful lack of empathy and emotional intelligence!

Honestly, you'll feel much better if you don't respond to her observations directly... Sometimes I think they're designed to get a rise out of us. I wouldn't give her the pleasure, frankly.

its appears the unreasonable cannot be reasoned with. i am xenia, therefore i am right. Happily for society, i think you are in the minority.

i typed an answer, then deleted it because there are no words. so you just carry on.

bums not buns!

well, stop moaning about the tax you pay and go and find a relative to care for. Take enough hours out of your day wiping the buns of the elderly and you two can halve your income thus reducing your tax bill. hey presto.

1. I am right because it is true that everyone has a parent - we don't make babies in bottles yet.

1. Although a few people don't have relatives they can stand not even a granny, uncle, sibling, the vast majority of people do so if we started with making them responsible for their relatives not the state that would relieve the burden on hard working tax payers.

Just had to C+P these from my post on the Hameron thread-

Shameron, Scameron, HamFaced Cameron-

This is enough to give you nightmares (if he hasn't given you them already)-

www.awwwards.com/gallery/65734/7

And this makes me laugh........

todolist.org.uk/love-from-london-maiden/

With regard to neo-liberalisation and the shrinking state, cuts to welfare and state intervention and state ownership, there is a correlation between deregulation and falling tax revenues, which points to the fact that workers also pay less in tax on lower wages, have falling incomes and there is LESS demand in the economy.

"The changed competitive structure of capitalism has altered the political posture of big business with regard to economic policy and the role of the state, turning big business from a supporter of state-regulated capitalism into an opponent of it" which is the real reason the state MUST be shrunk, it must be shrunk because a large state is in opposition to the interests of individual capitalists Although this is short sighted and obscured and caused by competition between capitalists.

There are a number of reasons why one would not expect the neoliberal model to promote rapid accumulation. First, it gives rise to a problem of insufficient aggregate demand over the long run, stemming from the powerful tendency of the neoliberal regime to lower both real wages and public spending. Second, the neoliberal model creates instability on the macroeconomic level by renouncing state counter-cyclical spending and taxation policies, by reducing the effectiveness of automatic stabilizers through shrinking social welfare programs,and by loosening public regulation of the financial sector. This renders the system more vulnerable to major financial crises

Shrinking the state and cutting welfare is ACTUALLY DETRIMENTAL to the capitalist economy not to mention the harm that is being done to billions of ordinary people. In fact if you cut welfare when the need for welfare is both growing in terms of expenditure and need it will negatively impact upon ALL of our jobs and actually disinsentivises investment and precludes capitalist accumulation.

people.umass.edu/dmkotz/Glob_and_NL_02.pdf interesting paper here from the UMAS