to be fed up of George sodding Osbourne and his Knobbish Ideas

[avivabeaver]

The economy is proving harder to fix than he first thought

Solution- suggest cutting £10bn from the benefits budget and "limit the number of children people can claim for". So- are you supposed to choose your 2 favourite and just feed them then? Or what?

infact it was you who used the term 'Guardianist Sneering' - which is rather snidey and unpleasant - because I links 2 two articles from that paper - that served to evidence or illustrate a point I had made ...I am baffled as to what is our of order or smeary in that

I really get what you are saying Bunny, I work for myself and DP works very long hours too, so yeah, I know it has to be done and I also know others are not working. However if you take a quick peek over recent history you see that one wage kept a family after the war, when the men came home and sent the women packing back to the sink. A few liberal feminist won employment rights for women of a certain class, they stayed on and some rose to the top. But women make up 2/3 of the world poor, 2/3 of the world workforce now. Capitalists didn't capitulate to equal wages....extra workers contributed to downward pressure upon wages....just as surplus labour does in the form of unemployment.

When two wages were no longer sufficient, the capitalist class (who this year will have a capital surplus absorption problem of some 50 trillion US $) lent the money to families. Effectively people have burrowed money that SHOULD have been their wages.

What is more, by making cuts to welfare, cutting the number of children who are consumers strikes at the real economy. Cuts are shrinking the real economy faster than the days when capital doubled it's output and financified all it's profits. the net effect will be more money rising to the top and a greater downward pressure upon wages.

Not one of us here is going to be insulated from this.

You haven't read what I said or if you did, you didn't understand it. Never mind. the point is not everyone who is to the right of you politically is the sort of idiot who reads the DM, as you clearly implied.

I was engaged when I got pregnant, had lost my job (due to staff cutbacks) and was being supported by my fiancé. We split up before I knew I was pregnant. So yes, for the past two years I have been living in a council flat, funded by housing and council tax benefit. My bills are paid with my Income Support, I spend my Child Benefit on my driving lessons (because driving will make it easier to find a job) and my Child Tax Credits go on food and everything else. I rarely have a night out at the pub, and yes, I do smoke, but I think I'm allowed a few luxuries!

Would I be deserving, because I got dumped for another woman and left to raise his child? Or undeserving, because I chose to bring said child into the world anyway? The whole idea of deserving and undeserving is bloody ridiculous.

Social pressures mean we all need more of everything, or we are effectively shut out of society. Almost everything is done online now, so we all need the internet, for example. That makes it even harder to make ends meet, for everybody.

Growing up in a council house, in a family claiming top-up benefits, only staying in school until I'd done my GCSEs - and yet I had a full-time job, my own flat at 17, and a stable committed relationship. From what I've read on here, nobody expects that from a girl who had to wear hand-me-down clothes.

Yes, the benefits system is flawed. Yes, MPs have far too many perks. Yes, it's unfair that a family of 13 that doesn't work has more than a family of four that does. If you have a solution, become an MP (or PM!) and make it happen. If not, don't complain that the government is doing it wrong. As they say, if you want something done right...

apology accepted :)

not everyone who disagrees with you is a 'sneering Guardianista'

be like Jesus - accept that there will be poor always - make sure they don't die as a result ...

WAD means testing child benefit wouldn't nearly be enough.
Means testing child benefit, DLA, bus passes, winter fuel payments might collectively make a difference and would be immensely more sensible and fair than the current proposals but will never happen I'm afraid. Unfortunately this government - like any other- is only concerned with keeping those who go to the polls happy.

Jesus kicked the money changers out of the temple, pitty we can't kick Osborne out.

I hate to break it to you, gordy, but the central premise of this thread is personal insult ... see the title. In this context, whining about "Guardianista sneering" looks a bit out of place, no?
I suspect like many of your political persuasion, you're quite happy with insults and snide remarks when they're being levelled at those you disagree with, but not otherwise.

How do you know? True, Flick, and I don't see it as right. But cutting benefits as a whole won't fix the problem, it will only make things worse for people who are already struggling.

"I'm not sure the solution is to limit the number of children someone can claim for - hate the thought of children suffering."

But they absolutely ARE suffering and will continue to suffer - every single act that takes money from the pockets of the poorest (for example the latest housing benefits cuts) WILL definitely impact on the health and welfare of children. You can't impoverish parents and expect it not to impact on their children.

And all the things which should act like buffers - breakfast clubs, decent school meals, free after school clubs, good quality subsidised childcare, are all being chiselled away at.

It really will hurt children. There is no doubt about it.

So true Fabs, all this just so Gideon and co can shore up their class privilege.

The impact upon the future health of these children will be dire. Not only will they never reach their full potential but their childhoods will impact upon their long term mental and physical health. That should concern the right wingers because it just defers the costs.

Who says they'll never reach their full potential? A lot of kids from poor families do ok for themselves - and people are always amazed when they find out about their background.

The only time poor children don't reach their full potential is when adults tell them they're hopeless and will never amount to anything. Then they either give up trying - or become very successful just to spite them. Unfortunately, it's mostly the former.

Will no one think of the children?

This is about limiting the money for children born while parents on benefits, not existing children. There is a situation now where children are born into poverty or likely poverty because of the expectation that the state would always be there to pick up the pieces, however many children you have, or even as to be seen as a cash cow. That is not good. There's been no social mobility under Labour and we have a lost generation of badly educated, unmotivated young people because of what happened during their thirteen years in power. There were some good things about Labour but this is not one of them.

I'm amazed at the blind stubbornness of people who say, it never happens, no one ever has a baby or is careless about having a baby because they know other people will pay, and will pay more and more. It's absolute denial, refusal to admit it never happens, even when people say yes, people I know, my relatives, live this way. It's like closing your eyes because you don't WANT to know!

Flick - the justification is that if usual doesn't know someone who's experienced it, it can't be possible. Apparently.

It's at times like these that we turn to those two gurus

Karlos please do show me where I have been insulting or made snide remarks - please

you are confusing me with some one else

I will take it as a round about way of apologising for the snidey things you keep saying to me though :)

I think you like me

I think George is well out of his depth.... but then I think our current problems are far more structural than anyone is daring to admit. For most people on middle incomes real wages have been falling (since way before the recession). This was all fine when things were booming, we still felt like we had money to spend (and indeed spent it) because of a combination of increased personal borrowing and government subsides (credit cards, taking out equity, government tax credits). Effectively through ours and the governments borrowing we subsidized large companies to pay below a living wage..... and we are finding it hard to extricate our economy from this problem. However abhorrent (or not) you find George assault on the welfare state it really is deck chairs on the titanic stuff.... It seems to me it must be ideologically driven because it does absolutely nothing to address the deep structural problems with our economy. We are still overly reliant on the service (in particular financial services) sector, we haven't invested in industries that we could be skilled in (hi-tech, renewable technologies, design, biotech etc) and we are still subsiding companies who pay poor wages.....

Also the insistence that if you don't think people should have endless babies paid for, they also don't want to pay ANYTHING towards people with disabilities or anyone that cares for them. That's a total non sequitur. Some of those who know people with disabilities are particularly angry at the ones taking the mickey - because their own payments are being deeply scrutinised for fraud (partly because of fraudsters) while OTHER payments may be completely legal but vulnerable to mickey-taking.

not quite as much as you like missing the point, gordy ....