to think that it is disgusting that in 2011...

[StuckinTheMiddlewithYou]

So many people cannot raise a family without state support. The economy is so skewed towards the needs of the rich that it is almost impossible for many to support themselves entirely.

Wages are too low. Housing costs are too high.

Attacking those who have no choice but to rely on the state, is missing the point.

Slightly bonkers, though - not only would that plunge us into the morass of social problems endured by India & China (possibly worse, due to the lack of land here), but it would also put us at the bottom of the market. Once you sell cheap, it's really hard to reposition.

Living on a crowded island has little to do with anything, it's a matter of management. The Netherlands, Singapore and Hong Kong seem to be doing okay despite being more crowded.

I agree that the social housing sell-off has led to ridiculous anomalies. I live in a 2-bed house, on my own, rent paid by HB. I like my house but it's rickety; clearly hasn't had any attention since the 1960s. It's owned by a London property investor who bought all these houses in 1971. Most of the others have been brought up to date, but they've told me they won't touch mine until I leave and/or stop getting benefit. Reason? They get the same rent from HB that the renovated houses bring in from private tenants. It should be rented to a small family but, for that, they'd have to spend money on it.

If we still had adequate social housing provision, I'd be in a 1-bed with double glazing & heating and my landlords would have to raise their game. The current system just prints money for lazy property owners - not to mention greedy B&B landlords! That's 1,000 times worse!

The computer & broadband thing is a red herring. Even the government admits you can't get anywhere these days without the internet (assuming it doesn't drop dead this August, but that's a different thread). I get £65 a week - yes, that's SIXTY FIVE - for all my food, bills, expensive plug-in heating & such. 20% of that goes on my phone/broadband and mobile. Numerous community broadband schemes have fallen flat on their faces, usually after receiving development grants. I assume this is due to vested interests blocking progress. Why hasn't the government forced these through?

Bailing the 'finance' creators out with real money - ours - was a logical stopgap but an insane policy for the long or medium term. Most observers believed the bailout recipients would have to pay back the money, with interest. What's happened? We're paying THEM ! Brown's government, and this one after it, have been gloriously shafted and we are the ones carrying the cost.

I still don't get why the debts aren't called in. Fear of losing face? Could it be that pathetic? Surely not??! Fear of losing talent is bullshit. UK commercial bankers are still among the most highly-rewarded in the world.

I just don't believe there is any strategic policy in government any more. (In business, yes.) None of them think beyond securing their own jobs for a further 4 years.

Heck, I didn't realise I'd written another essay Sorry!

I think scrapping the minimum wage would mean that there were more entry level jobs to help people get into work - you can't justify paying someone £5 an hour to make cups of tea in an office for example, but it would be a great stepping stone for someone leaving school, living with their parents and wanting to work in an office and see what it's all about.

Minimum wage isn't supposed to support a family, and it doesn't matter what rate you set it at, because it will always push up the cost of living. A vicious circle.

And if the low tiered jobs are paid less, it means there's money there to incentivise people to work their way up the ladder and earn more. The saved wages would go onto the more skilled jobs.

And 40% of small businesses would hire more staff if there wasn't so much red tape. And they could afford therefore to make the flexible, part-time jobs that so many mums want.

There is the need for workers in this country. There is the potential for expansion. But right now it's being artificially hampered by the very laws which were supposed to protect workers. If everyone wants to end up working for large companies like Tesco who can afford all the government red tape, then fair enough. But if you want to have a choice of employers, we need to help small businesses.

Also if people want Tesco to pay their employees more they need to be prepared to pay more for their food. Food is cheaper in the UK than in any other country in the developed world, because we have the world's most sophisticated, developed and competitive supermarkets.

PigValentine, the charities have all had their funding cut, too. So there won't be anybody to recruit, organise & train volunteers, or direct their services to the right places.

So ... Big Society means a whole lot of people milling around, going "What shall I do?"

I don't like Tesco by the way in case anyone thinks I do. I just think it's like clothes we need to realise why things are cheap.

Also if people want Tesco to pay their employees more they need to be prepared to pay more for their food.

Er no Tesco's profits reduce, that will happen anyway if people haven't the money to spend, I fully intend to start growing my own veg and will give it to the neighbors too if things get too bad, we won't suffer but Mr Tesco's will.

To be fair to the Universal Credit scheme, it does allow for a bit more economic mobility - in that earning something won't immediately knock your benefits down.

Which, interestingly, is exactly what New Labour's New Deal did. That didn't last long, either.

AgeingGrace exactly! There's this massive hole in the centre of it all, which they won't acknowledge. So when a community doesn't have a library (for example) it will be the fault of all the people milling around, not knowing it was now their job!

I'm lucky in that I work for a charity that has never had statutory funding, but we are now competing for money with organisations who have lost theirs, and our work is sadly low priority for a lot of funders anyway

tyler80 Sun 20-Feb-11 18:10:27
"I thought this thread was about state help being required for people who have jobs, so all this talk about foreigners taking jobs etc. isn't really relevant in the context of this discussion."

it's totally relevant

the fact that british people didn't take the jobs means welfare benefits are too generous -- people chose not to work

that's not an immigration issue, it's a laziness issue

and if so many British people are unemployable,that's a laziness issue and an education issue

education was screwed up by labour, they overpaid benefits and voila -- why is anyone surprised at the result

And what happens if Tesco starts making a loss in the UK mamatomany? emmm let me think, they will exit the UK, leaving fewer supermarkets behind, which equals less competition, which will result in higher prices for food all round. Not to mention the 1000s of employees in the UK who will of course lose their jobs. And before you say it wouldn't happen, believe me it would, all of Tesco's growth and ambition is outside of the UK.

By all means grow your own veg - I think that's great. Just don't be naive about the long-term effects. Corporations are not charities - they do not care about individuals and they do not exist to make our lives better - they exist to make a profit, if something is no longer profitable then they will stop doing it.

Britain's biggest retailer posted underlying pre-tax profits of £3.4bn for the 12 months to the end of February, a 10.1% rise on the previous year. For 2010. Profit still rising.

www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/20/tesco-rings-up-record-profits-again

Tesco's will exit the Uk ? I don't think so.

Anyway Tesco is a diversion from the point. Everyone hates Tesco (including me) even if they are the reason UK food is so cheap.

The point is benefits and whether we should be able to live without them. I think while theoretically people should there is no way they can and still maintain a reasonable standard of living. But then that was someone else's point. Mervyn King said very clearly about a month ago that our real standard of living would fall this year. Unfortunately it will continue to do so.

mamatomany - why not?

are you and Terry and Phil best mates then?

I'd be more than happy to pay the farmer direct, infact when I can I do. The super markets have exploited farmers, some are living on less than 11,000 a year. Of course we can't live without Tesco because those who's wealth rely on its profits have ensured our dependence upon it.

It is not sustainable to keep buying cheap food and cheap clothes manufactured through cheap labour producing mountains of waste and huge profits for bankers and investors.

For a start they have invested heavily in commercial property and land and secondly they have the government subsidized cheap labour along with the farmers by the balls, what's not to like for a big corporation ?

i am fairly sure they have sold and leased back (on 15 yr leases) most of their UK property

Yes I wonder what effect Tesco has had on property and land prices. They are buying up huge amounts of land, long before they are given the right to develop it.

They buy up the land to ensure their competitors can't which I'm not sure is legal, certainly isn't cricket.

Queenbathsheba If you live in an area where you can buy reasonably priced goods direct from farms you are very lucky as most areas either do not have farm shops/direct sellers at all or have ones that cater to the middle class and are more expensive (and that's before the cost of the petrol to get to them!)

Where I live we have a choice of M&S Simply Food, Sainsburys and Tesco Express in walking distance, not a farm in sight. I tried a farm delivery box scheme, to try to support farmers, and was stunned at how little veg I got compared to the same spend in the supermarkets.

options like buying direct do vary geographically (we can do that but have the oposite problem- no markets without having to hrave city centre parking costs, something I refuse to do more than once a year at Christmas LOL)

Should we be able to live without benefits if we are working? Absolutely; would be better for all. can we ? Nope. We'd have a post-redundancy income of £12k all in for 6, with £6k of that going straight out again on rent and a compulsion to run 2 cars (before I get jumped on no I;d rpefer not but DH travels many miles one direction with no public transport and are shared over 4 schools some 10 miles away due to SN. Not our choice, we'd ned to be sectioned if it were).

I am not sure what will happen to minimum wage; on one ahdn we have tories tabling EDMs to scrap it, on the otehr a tory proposal to not count a business making less that minimum wage as trading for icnome purposes (thereby losing TC equivalency)...... not entirely sure how that fits with tory ideology either: surely someone tackling unemployment of sickness by starting up soemthing even if it brings in a bit less initially is doing the right theing mroally, by the state and in terms of role models for their family?

be intersting to see how that turns out.