To think that people are actually getting more ridiculous in their expectations??

[Youmadorwhat]

I mean ffs, 9.99 for Netflix per month Is justified because it’s entertainment but never mind the fact that you are in deficit every month🙄

Childcare, anything medical (including hospital car parks), education, school dinners and housing should all be subsidized substantially or FREE (and 24/7) I mean should the government not just collect the babies from the maternity ward and hand them back at 18!

I even saw a thread a while back where someone stated that all extra curricular activities should be subsidized for children 🙄

I know people are struggling I get that but the government CANNOT afford to prop up everyone!! Especially when a lot of people are actually at a tax deficit anyway!! Rant over!!

Agree with you NationalAnthem

OP no one expects education and healthcare to be FREE as you put it. They expect the service to be provided by the staggeringly high tax we pay in this country: tax, NI and VAT. Should we get nothing for our money? It adds up to about 50% of our earnings which we've worked for.

@woodcutbirds They expect the service to be provided by the staggeringly high tax we pay in this country: tax, NI and VAT...It adds up to about 50% of our earnings which we've worked for Actually not comparatively very high at all - you can see from my link that the tax wedge is 30.9% Although I get that it can sometimes feel higher! Figure 2 tax burden - the vast majority of OECD countries pay a higher percentage than us!

taxfoundation.org/publications/tax-burden-on-labor-in-the-oecd/

If I may ask, how many people here would consider joining a virtual, digital union focusing on the NMW/digital/ gig economy? I read countless posts suggesting that it is the atomisation of the workforce that means each person individually has to wade through all the palaver making it hard (or impossible) to negotiate sensibly on T&C of casual employment from a position of reasonable numbers, yet there is nowhere for such workers to stand together. The sheer number of people in work like this, from carers to warehouse pickers, is huge. If you could sign up for a union to represent you via a phone app, at a small cost, how many of you would subscribe? Unions really need reinventing.

Far more money is lost via tax dodging than by benefit fraud. I have no problem at all with a few people managing to fiddle a few extra quid a week out of the government when said government are happily lining their own pockets and further enriching their pals to the tune of millions of pounds.
If anyone manages to get away with a bit of benefit fraud at present, I salute them. Call it a form of justice on behalf of all those sanctioned to death by an ideology that wants to starve the poor into absolute submission.

I think the benefit fraud is a bit like the NHS inefficiency - it costs more to discover than we even save but it is an excellent political tool to avoid increasing budgets and blaming those who have the least. Everyone knows the least imaginative leaders bang on about cost cutting - much easier to cut costs than encourage growth - that takes courage, investment and vision - something that has been sorely lacking in politics for quite some while.

Does anyone read threads once they get long, as this has, rather than simply making their next point? So much thought seems to get overlooked. Apologies if this ends up as a cross post; the last posters were probably composing replies as I wrote my last. I'm not of a mind with Reanimated morally, but would agree with NationalAnthem.

Agree with SGB

XingMing I know a couple of people I can ask, I think at least one would be interested in a virtual trades union.

@XingMing I think it's an interesting idea but unions usually only work if they can capture a large percentage of a particular workforce and I think given the zero hours workforce are already on the breadline I doubt there is much of an appetite to pay union fees with such a big risk of being under cut by a sizable non unionised workforce. I think we need tougher legislation but not something that totally bans zero hours - we use these contracts very successfully, mostly with people who'd like to do a bit of work for us but we are not their sole employer, often they are often SAHMs who are skilled and want to work flexibly and we completely respect their right to say no and we pay them them generously.

I wasn't thinking of the digital union as being a moneymaking app, just a nearly free (£0.1p) add on to a lot of apps. It couldn't work if it were workforce-specific.

I'd like to invent a digital union concept that links the past and present. In the business I know a bit about, skilled workers and tradespeople are retiring, and their skills are being lost because there's no way to link past and future, craft and high-tech. A lot of the very old tech is now high value know how. Without getting militant about who does what, both the businesses and the workforce are losing basic skills in the chasm. If unions had more options for full members post retirement, stronger links into FE and apprentice training, as well as information, and it could be an add-on linked to a representational service, on an ad hoc basis to start (this is a personal hobby horse, not a trailer) I do wonder whether anything useful could be made of it.

I would really welcome the input of a union member/shop steward to establish the credibility of this idea.

And, because I don't have the skills to make it happen myself, if you are a trade union official and like my idea, feel free to take my musing upstairs and make it happen.

That's an interesting idea @XingMing.

I used to do a bit of work in sampling. I remember giving out full sized bottles of branded soft drink, and people would still complain. Even when something is free it seems it's 'not good enough'. A little gratitude wouldn't go amiss.

If you can't afford to have kids don't have them

@Poloshot and what do we do with the people who have kids and can't afford them - let the kids starve?

Or people who have kids and then fall on hard times. Somehow people like poloshot never consider them,

Hmmm people have been millionaires and lost it all.. Jesus some folk here need a reality check.

I could afford my kids, then the eldest one fell ill and passed away and the youngest has autism and psychiatric illness which leaves me unable to work. Care to swap in exchange for his DLA?