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!!

@XingMing I have lived in several countries too and travelling has made us appreciate home more - we run a business too and we pay our staff very well - but I still feel as a country we are letting the hard working poor down. The pyramid economy needs to be flattened - just a bit, I'm not arguing for a socialist economy but it has gone too far the other way.

But who gives the money unconditionally to the poor ReanimatedSGB? If I give willingly give money to another person at my own instigation it's direct help... if the authorities require and disburse it, it's taxation, and I might feel that I am better equipped to make the choice. Most middle income/comfortable non-plutocratic types don't have hidden offshore accounts, and those that have them are few and far between. The people that do are (stereotype) Russian oligarchs, not astute Yorkshire bung manufacturers.

@nationalanthem, on the flattening of the pyramid, I totally agree. But I think that the widespread use of benefits has allowed huge companies, like the supermarkets, to take the mick on the definition of what is a proper wage and use the public purse to subsidise their payrolls, but that in it's turn has helped keep the cost of the weekly supermarket run below the equivalent of, say, France. If we were to move from the cost of groceries to the cost of housing, the tables would shift again. UK property costs, owned or rented, are bonkers, but this is a small island, and work/employment opportunity isn't evenly distributed.

99% of people are not facing the type of unforeseen, horrific circumstances which PP seems to think we should make unilateral allowances for!

There is a fundamental unwillingness to accept responsibility on MN and in real life.

Yes. You could have a child with a disability who requires constant care and means you can no longer work - but that’s very rare. Making the decision to have children you KNOW you cannot afford - unfortunately common!

It’s not a case of ‘poor people being told not to reproduce’ but if you want something save for it, make other sacrifices, have 1 child instead of 3! LIVE WITHIN YOU MEANS!

If you have an issue with the concept of ‘living within your means’ - if you don’t like that! Then YOU are the problem!

Why should people 'live within their means' when they are being systematically robbed by the rich? Property speculation has pushed housing costs stupidly high, yet wages are still kept low: nurses, teachers etc are using food banks and social mobility is going backwards. Yet taxpayers' money was used to bail out the banks when their staff's greed and incompetence were the main cause of the economic crash.

99% of people are not facing the type of unforeseen, horrific circumstances which PP seems to think we should make unilateral allowances for

Really? You have stats that show that only 1% of the people living in poverty are not suffering from chronic illness/disability/MH issues (their own or a child's), have not lost jobs through no fault of their own, are not subject to zero hour contracts or other forms of casualization which leave them in poverty despite being in work?

“If I give willingly give money to another person at my own instigation it's direct help... if the authorities require and disburse it, it's taxation, and I might feel that I am better equipped to make the choice.”

Of course individual people feel they are better equipped to decide but that is where the problem of the deserving/undeserving poor arises. People want perfect, grateful, ever-so-‘umble recipients of their benificence who the donor has deemed not responsible for their misfortunes and many real life people who need support just don’t conform to that, and why should they. Which is why the support needs to be mostly based on fair wages and decent public services with broad entitlement to access. The alternative is a patronising Victorian way of doing things

I know the thread you're talking about op. Netflix, 2 cars, 4 step kids, 2 cellphones?

People want everything these days. Avocado and Netflix. Starbucks. Prosecco, slices of cake, nights out, holidays, cars etc etc.

So entitled.

Then people complain they have no money.

SIL is the same. Whinging. No money. Oh what did you do at weekend? Soft play and Frankie and Bennys, because, you know, we deserve a treat.

We are not rich, we live in a cabin on our own land. It’s 120 acres,

^

Ahkkaaayyyyyy.......

@NationalAnthem @ReanimatedSGB

'The Spiders Web - Britain's Second Empire' is a documentary about the rise of of the UK's financial service sector in the wake of the collapse of the colonial empire. The main contributors are John Christensen ( investigative economist), Alex Cobham (Tax Justice Network) and Nicholas Shaxson (author of Treasure Islands). British offshore tax havens and lack of transparency/UK government's unwillingness to regulate and the special status of the City of London. www.ft.com/content/7c8f24fa-3aa5-11e4-bd08-00144feabdc0

"Yes. You could have a child with a disability who requires constant care and means you can no longer work - but that’s very rare"

It's not very rare. I can't. Another family member can't. I have a dozen friends who can't work because childcare doesn't exist for their child or no school will take their child.

People (mostly parents) seem to want everything free these days. A lady I work with moans every day about the cost of nursery for her 15 month old. She’s pregnant with her 5th.

Indeed Sleepy I can't work many of my friends can't work because of our children's disabilities,my son was born with a rare chromosome disorder,and consequently has complex disabilities,including severe autism and learning disabilities,he is in school as he goes to.a special school,but my time is very limited and quite frankly it can be exhausting .

The real disgrace isn't low income families spending £10 on Netflix. It is the amount of extremely well off people walking around feeling as though they deserve their money because 'they worked hard for it' as though someone on minimum wage goes to work to doss.

I see this in my own mother, who feels so fucking pleased with herself that she has money even though she was a sahm most of her adult life and worked in a shop prior to that earning fuck all.

The cost of rent is astronomical for a very modest house where I live. It makes me so sad for families who cannot afford to get a mortgage and are kept poor as a result, no chance to save or progress in life.

The Tories fucked the social housing model by axing life long tenancies and forcing housing associations to introduce rent levels which are at 90% market level.

The truth is that society will always contain those that can and those that can't. It is our moral duty to support those who can't.

Wow how judgmental of you 2eternities

People who suggest that people in poverty shouldn't have children, how do you think that should be implemented? Compulsory sterilisation for anyone claiming benefits? Existing children removed from their parents and taken into care? Forced abortion/adoption if poor people get pregnant?

And I also have been forced out of the jobs market because of two disabled children. My ex-Manager ripped up my 20 year career citing that 'she was worried about my presence in the office' because I had to leave to change my son's cannula at his school one day and continue working from home.

Try interviewing and needing flexible, part time working (not just wfh on a Friday fgs) because you have children who are disabled. Employers will pick the unburdened interviewee every time. And the childcare I bought for one of my son's cost me 30% more because he needs extra care.

You have a very narrow view of reality and economics.

You seem to think that the government only makes money from income tax. If the government wanted to spend more on X, Y or Z it wouldn’t mean taxing individuals more to pay for it. It could mean reallocating funds from elsewhere (like not wasting billions on brexit - but that’s a whole other post). It could also mean taxing corporations appropriately and actually insisting the UK operations pay the tax that they are meant to. Income tax is a drop in the ocean compared to the billions that multinational corporations are evading every year. Just look at Vodafone and Amazon.

You also totally fail to understand the benefit of government funded (or subsidized) childcare and education. We ALL benefit from those things regardless of whether or not we have children of our own. We need an educated workforce and education leads to less poverty and a wealthy economy. If childcare was free or cheaper more people would be able to return to work and contribute to the economy by paying more in taxes.

And free parking at hospitals would just be a nice thing to do. There are better ways to raise funds than charging sick and dying people and their relatives.

Your understanding of how these things are all interconnected is severely lacking.

So if you are disabled and cannot work, are you not allowed to spend some.of your benefit money to make your fucking shit life a bit better?

🤔 @mrsbobdylan

No I believe the real disgrace is the families (much like a chap I worked with in a shop whilst at uni) who have £20k cars and are very proud of that, whilst moaning about their council house being too small for their 3 children and in a ‘bad’ area- so their car insurance premiums are very high.

‘Maybe you could have used the car money as a deposit for a house bob (not real name obvs)’

‘Nah, at the end of day, council won’t buy me luxuries - but they HAVE to house and feed my kids!’

^ That attitude and manipulation of a good western benefit system IS THE DISGRACE!

Thank you MrsBobDylan for your post. Life can be a struggle with disabled children.

Don't you want to live in a country that looks after it's population?

Views on this thread about the NHS needing to be pulled back are fucking scary. That would mean people who couldn't afford to go private would be getting sub-par health care. That is practically Dickensian and how can that ever be fair.

Employers should pay decent wages before they line their own pockets, and not expect the taxpayer to fund their wages bill.

I know you mean this generally, but as a small employer, its only after 9.5 yrs that I 'line my pocket', before that I had two members of staff earning more than me and another two earning equal to me. Why to keep my business finances healthy and to ensure that if we hit hard times I could still pay my staff.

@Frazzledandfedup Dh just told me when he was senior civil servant a very well know investment banker came to see him and threatened to pull out all his funds unless they loosened certain rules. Dh of course did not yield and the investment banker was true to his word and pulled out his millions - but what shocked me was that the investment banker had the belief to ask and threaten, I'm sure it's not a one off.

And as a tax paying parent, I am quite happy that there are children out there who receive free school meals and nursery education. You are paying tax into a generalised pot and a Government makes decisions about how that pot is spent. If you don't like what a Government is doing, vote for a different one or start your own political party or do some campaigning. Nigel Farage is an idiot but at least the man is out there standing up for what he believes in.

THIS^^^