AIBU to be worried - Reintroducing the Truck System for the unemployed in the UK

[nickymanchester]

It has been reported that the UK government is starting a small trial in Manchester to pay (what I presume is) Job Seekers Allowance to people in a brand new blockchain currency called "GovCoin" - similar to BitCoin.

And that what this "money" is spent on will be tracked by the government - initially, the tracking will be on a "voluntary" basis.

So instead of actually paying real money in to a person's bank account they will now provide them with a crypto-currency on their mobile phone which can only be used in certain retailers and where the government will be tracking what the money is spent on. I can well imagine where this will lead.

One of the main backers of this is Lord Hunt, who is the Minister for "Welfare Reform" - boy does that phrase ever put the fear of god into me. As an aside, Lord Hunt was the government minister who, in 2014, said that disabled people were "not worth" the minimum wage. He is also the person behind the move to Universal Credit that, while it may have very laudable aims in theory, in practice it has been a nightmare for many of the people on the receiving end of it.

This is a quote from one of the sources:-

GovCoin Systems tests blockchain-based platform for social welfare payments in UK

Speaking at the Payments Innovation Conference 2016 on 4 July, Minister for Welfare Reform at the Department for Work and Pensions Lord Freud highlighted the ongoing trial saying:

We have been working with GovCoin Systems (and their partners, Barclays, RWE npower and University College London) for this trial. Claimants are using an app on their phones through which they are receiving and spending their benefit payments. With their consent, their transactions are being recorded on a distributed ledger to support their financial management.

Jeremy Wilson, Vice Chairman, Corporate Banking at Barclays, explained that the initiative focuses on adding an additional layer of richer data and identity onto payments, so that a deeper and more effective relationship can be established between the government and claimants.

www.econotimes.com/GovCoin-Sy...s-in-UK-233316

There are many other sites reporting this as well which you can find through googling them, for example:-

www.cityam.com/245128/governm...ain-technology

www.fstech.co.uk/fst/GovCoin_...ents_Trial.php

So why the title of this post and why my concern? Well, at school, one of the A levels I studied was history and a major part of that was the Economic & Social History of Britain in the 18th and 19th Centuries (the other part was Britain and Her Relations with the World 1914-1945, not that anyone's interested). Anyway, the Truck System was an infamous form of payments that became widespread in the UK and led to a great deal of abuse.

While, currently, these are just trials that are happening at the moment, I really do see the awful potential to become a fully fledged Truck System where the state monitors exactly what unemployed people are spending their money on, where they spend it and eventually will be able to control these things. This bit is really scary:-

so that a deeper and more effective relationship can be established between the government and claimants.

AIBU to worry about where this might lead or is it just an example of how new technologies can help young unemployed people so that they don't have to worry about pesky little things like actual having some cash in their hand but have to have pay for a mobile phone in order to access their benefits?

One of my friends is currently doing research papers on cryptocurrencies. One of the biggest potential innovations would be having several tiers of currency that can be used for different forms of purchases

and the ability to form Smart Contracts which can be executed by external events being written into the blockchain.

I was at a recent blockchain forum event, and was intrigued that the techies were outnumbered by the lawyers who were quite candid saying they were looking into the ability of blockchain contracts to be controlled by the state. (Australia being mentioned more than once). The suggestion being that contracts the state doesn't like (either as a matter of law, or in a more sinister twist "that are not conducive to the public good") could be revoked before execution. Or even after execution.

Lemonlady22 Mon 11-Jul-16 14:38:33
people do what they have to do.

Absofuckinglutely Including working in the sex industry. I worked in a sex chatline office years ago taking payments and doing the calls.

Gosh i hope i didnt talk to the husbands or partners of any of the high and mighty on here while they wanked off at the sound of my voice saying very explicit things

Ghost made a comment upthread about sucking cock being a more attractive prospect than this scheme.

Well she wont be the only one thinking that!

".i had my sister/mother/whatever family relative or friend mind my children overnight.....i survived on minimal sleep...i was doing 12 hour night shift, picking children up taking them to school and looking after the baby during the day(slept when she slept) the going back to work that night, i was practically a single parent.....there was no tax credits then, no child care vouchers, but WE had to support our family, WE chose to have them, WE are responsible for them.."

EXACTLY Lemonlady. So what would you have done if your mother/sister/friend etc had said "no im not minding your kids overnight. YOU chose to have them YOU are responsible for them so you look after them.

They would only have been showing the same attitude as you!

Vague aside, sparked by HelenaDove but this thread is becoming very 'An Inspector Calls' isn't it? I can absolutely imagine some of the posters here as the Birlings.

Those of you worried about this widespread lifestyle-on-benefits culture might be interested in this link, which disproves many of the myths around benefit claimants using actual studies and statistics (as opposed to "well I know loads so it must be true everywhere" anecdata).

Mythbusting

Tabsicle that is EXACTLY what i was thinking of when i wrote that post.

In fact i mentioned this play in a previous similar thread.
I think its high time for a version of An Inspector Calls set in the present day.

Its been done with Sherlock Holmes and some Shakespeare plays.

A good friend of mine is a head teacher for a primary in a deprived area. She has referred various parents to food banks but she said that only in a handful of occasions was it not self inflicted poverty. Her most recent family couldn't feed their dc but had a very expensive new tattoo. I know that sounds like a dm story but the mother admitted it. She said she was entitled to pamper herself. Couldn't see what she'd done wrong at all

Your "head teacher friend" is breaching confidentiality by revealing such details about one of the families in her school. She's lucky she hasn't been sacked.

Your "head teacher friend" is breaching confidentiality by revealing such details about one of the families in her school. She's lucky she hasn't been sacked.

Only if the family could be identified ...

Until schools get their own house in order by not charging poorer parents high amounts for uniform so they dont "look poor" then quite frankly head teachers like that one should STFU.

Another one here wondering what Lemonlady would have done if her friends and relatives had insisted she follow her own mantra and look after her own children...

I'm always genuinely amazed at how people know so much about the intimate financial details of people who are supposedly funding a lavish lifestyle on benefits. Presumably they're acting as guarantor on all their benefit-claiming-friends' BrightHouse credit deals and recommending the best payday loan companies based on their own experiences.

It's also interesting to see how much of what they're told about acquaintances' financial situation they take at face value, without ever stopping to consider that some of what they're hearing could be bravado, face-saving or downright lies. Yet woe betide the MN poster who includes a minor possible-inconsistency in their mundane AIBU...they'll be given the third degree, have a metaphorical light shone in their eyes and generally disbelieved because they had the audacity to say they got the number 23 bus when everyone knows that bus doesn't run on Sundays so their entire post must be a complete fabrication.

Tabsicle that Inspector Calls reference is spot on. Makes you think...

So lemon if it was pre tax credits then you benefited from significantly cheaper housing, and the fact lower paid jobs weren't mainly zero hour contracts. And I'm a bit confused, if your dh was working away, how exactly were you a single parent?

Oh yes, that's right, your situation isn't remotely similar, you are just making irrelevantly smug comments because you don't have any knowledge of the subject except what you read in the mail.

I'd be ok with the idea of benefits being paid by a Blockchain derived currency as long as the Blockchain itself was a public one, open to mining and limited to a certain amount of coins, as bitcoin is. But it will be a private, closed to outside miners Blockchain which they will be able to set parameters on what it can be used for, or indeed who can receive it. The Blockchain is the future, that's a fact you can take to the bank. The banks will all use at least one, and many jobs will be lost in the process.

The way we treat the poor, the unemployed, the homeless and disabled in this country is utterly disgusting. Dawndonna, people like you are my heroes. You save the country untold billions, and I believe you, and others like you, are undervalued and underpaid.

Well, if you take money from the state as opposed to being paid for a job, then it is free money?

No it isn't. I've paid National Insurance for the last 30 or so years, so it's money I've already paid that would now be getting back. You could try doing the tiniest bit of research before posting utter tosh.

Maybe we should have MPs paid in the same way?

As long as John Lewis accepted the payments.

In case you're interested, here's what welfare claimants in one US state are allowed to spend their money on.

Holy crap. They dictate what kind of cheese you're allowed!

I've paid National Insurance for the last 30 or so years, so it's money I've already paid

This. It's an insurance policy, hence the name. It's called National Insurance because, by paying into it, we insure the nation against epidemic diseases of poverty, escalating crime and all the other unpleasantness that comes with high levels of destitution.

Having just scaled my total contributions up to today's value, I see they were worth £750k. No way have I had that back, even taking into account my lifetime costs in health & education - and, obviously, they should be worth far more than I paid as the government was able to invest it. I've always been happy that my taxes & NI were helping to keep my country safe, healthy & stable.

I'm pretty shocked that so many Brits now seem incapable of understanding what it's for.

Hmm, I work, I get DLA, I pay my taxes and my business' taxes, I've never had a penny in tax credits, I'm one of the few who is a net putter inner not a taker outer.

I really don't give a monkeys what people on benefits spend their money on, as long as they are doing right by their kids. For every hopeless, undereducated waster there are twenty, thirty, goodness knows how many decent households just trying to get by.

I'd rather pay for a few wasters than live in some horrible joyless mean spirited society.

Those of you who suffered from profligate parents, I'm sorry for that. But I can't see that this policy is the best solution.

So if you are on Jobseekers and being controlled to within an inch of your cheese, how do you muster up the confidence and the look of potential success you need to impress a future employer? How do you even manage to get hold of the second-hand suit and the haircut you need for the job interview? Or pay the bus fares to get to the Job Centre? Where is the point of "incentivising" people if you make it impossible to get work?

MonkeysWAGMug

Interesting that this is slated to trial in the Manchester area. Am i right in thinking that Universal Credit was also piloted in some metropolitan boroughs of Greater Manchester (and Warrington)?

All the new DWP pilots are tested there first as far as I'm aware.

Unless anybody knows different?

By the way, according to the reports this has already started as they talk about the "ongoing trial" - it's just that this seems to be the first time that it has been reported

Tinkly ^ What you said.

I'd be ok with the idea of benefits being paid by a Blockchain derived currency as long as the Blockchain itself was a public one, open to mining and limited to a certain amount of coins, as bitcoin is.

I really wouldn't use BTC as the template for virtual currencies.

Just no.

But is the whole Job Seekers, Job Centre system seriously about getting people into work or is it about finding ever more novel ways of denying people their benefits?

Because in a modern society, people could sign on online, they could be treated like adults and trusted to do their own job hunting. There will always be people who want to work and people who are unable to work (whether by physical or mental health or poor upbringing). How much money could be saved by simply giving everyone enough to live decently on without expecting them to jump through hoops?