to think some people actually wish we didn't live in a welfare state?

[milkgoddessmakesthefinestmilk]

all this talk, about whether it is right for parents to choose not to return to work, and why do people keep having children when they are on a low income.
and all the other million threads on MN about people on benefits etc.

makes me wonder, do you actually wish we didn't live in a welfare state?

i certainaly don't, no NHS people dying because they counldn't afford treatment.
people that are disabled, sick and unable to get a job, struggling to eat, living rough etc

be a pretty unpleasant country then you know.

pilatum oilatum

river, im just simply replying to your don't try to dig your way out comment.

you know i saw it, made me lol

made the rest of us laugh too

misdee, yes try the red cross, thats what i'd do

well thats ggod all around then river

oh yes!

yawn....

I love the fact that we look after people in need, I hate the fact that so many people think the welfare state is to enable them not to work. It annoys me that some people have many children with no means to pay for them, while most of us make choices based on economics expecting to pay for them ourselves. Jeez sounds like Cameron has my vote, wonders will never cease.
Just to touch upon a couple of things.... as we live in a capitalist society everything has a value including employment, some things generate money and some things have high human value, both are paid better than the woman scanning my shopping and quite rightly. It is awful how little we pay our care staff though, truly awful.

jammi that's truly terrible.
I agree with you that it should be one way or the other - either state funded legal aid for both sides or for neither.

I think, jammi, that when it's family breakdown and access the state/private mediation ONLY should be used and be the ruling body. So if both parties income is taken into account then fees are charged accordingly on an individual basis. No more courts and many more objective counsels that sit and decide these matters.
Maybe this is a little dreamy and impractical but I only see good things.

I think janni makes a lot of good points. There are some aspects of the welfare system that are downright wrong. EMA particularly grates with me as I know a number of sixthformers at fee paying schools who get it!! £30 a week for staying on at school, simply because the parents have split up and the teenager has 'main residence' with the mother who does a nice little part time job for pin money and thereby stays under the threshold for losing entitlement to EMA. Meanwhile, dad along the road can be earning 200K and paying school fees!! In most cases I know, the teenagers move freely between both homes anyway!! That's £120 a month these kids get, and in cases like this, believe me, it's not spent on costs relating to study, it's booze money. Fecking joke!

sorry it's jammi innit!

I agree with TenaciousG 100%!

Benefits are designed as a safety net for people on the bare minimum or worse, not to improve the lifestyles of people who make choices to own their own home, be a SAHP, etc.

Tenants have nothing as valuable as a home to sell up and quite possibly will never have equity in any place.

Tenants who privately let also live with the insecurity that goes with knowing you may lose the home you are living in with as little as two months notice - depending on your tenancy agreement - and the eventuality that their kids and they will have to move schools, jobs, friends, etc. more often than a person who owns their own home.