Confused re attitude to benefits and work experience

[catontheroof]

Your thoughts please - why has it become so politically incorrect to suggest that fit adults in this country should be expected to work for a living?

I believe that we need a safety net but cannot understand why people should not have to take jobs that they are qualified for if those jobs exist. I also cannot understand why people "deserve" tax credits etc.

If large chunks of our population do not work then our GDP is low. The only way that we can afford to have so many on benefits with a relatively high standard of living is by importing goods from other countries where the workers live and work in atrocious conditions.

Why do we think that it is right and proper that people in this country sit around being paid not to work whilst tens of thousands all over the world work in sweat shops to provide them with a lifestyle?

If our fit population all worked then we'd increase GDP and have money to help people in other countries where there is real poverty.

That's over simplistic tilly. I worked hard at school. I worked hard at Uni (In class 9-5 Mon-Fri, worked part time to make ends meet and nursed my dying Dad still getting a good degree), I then worked hard for years.

I am now 34 and on the scrapheap with no prospect of a future. What do I get for all my work on job applications? NOTHING, not even a thanks but no thanks. For each application you have to work a bit harder because each no reply chips a bit of self belief away. Nothing left now, any idea how hard that makes it to state why you should get that job?

Tilly you must be intelligent to have got where you are but your comments here are absolute proof that brains and common sense are too different things.

Hey maybe right wingers dont like common sense because its got the word "common" in the title.

carer - ho ho to your quip but if you are going to tell me i lack common ssense can you please explain why your reasoning?

Hecuba sorry to hear about your dad. you must have been very strong to study, work & look after him.

i thought my career was over a decade ago - it wasnt.

I KNOW my career is over I get more evidence daily, every time I check my email or when the postie passes.

Sorry things are so hard for you at the moment Hecuba.

I agree with Tilly that if you work hard at school and beyond you have a greater chance of being one of the lucky ones. However, unless you are exceptionally resourceful, resilient, flexible, intelligent, mentally tough and a little bit ruthless, hard work is no guarantee of anything, except possible exhaustion. But that's not the message you are given at school. At school, you are told the world will be your oyster if you get a good education. But what constitutes a good education is under debate, which doesn't help. Why are children being forced through a longer and longer education if all employers really want of them is an ability to read, write, add up, work hard and use a computer? Do employers REALLY know what they want, or do they just know it when they see it and know what they don't want and know what they aren't willing to pay? If employers really knew what they wanted and how to get it, wouldn't we have a better education system?

Some people are too nice to do really well. Some are a little bit too stupid. Some are downright unlucky, or happen to have the wrong sort of skills for the world they live in. Some people overdo the hard work and regret it later on, when they have a breakdown. Some people are really exceptionally smug about their success, as though they earned it all by themselves and other people and luck haven't had anything to do with it. Some people do really well by ruthlessly exploiting others, or relying on others who provide what they do by ruthlessly exploiting others. In fact, we all rely on ruthless exploitation of others in this country, since we are not remotely self sufficient. We don't produce enough food for ourselves, we don't have enough natural resources, we don't want others to get to these things before us. We don't even see the need to be nice to each other within our own shores.

Hecuba, you just sound so down on this thread.
You will not end up on the street, and you will get the benefits you need.
I was in a similar position 7 years ago, my marriage broke up, I lived in a tied job and I had an 8 year old son.
I was as desperate as you and looking at leaving this small village and going into hostel accommodation when I was lucky enough to get an HA house, one of the very few around.
There is still a benefits system, the con/dems haven't managed to destroy it yet, and people like you are the ones it was designed for.
As for getting a job, it'll happen eventually, but until then get yourself to CAB and find out what you're entitled to.
Good luck.

Rabbit - I like your analysis but your view of business is v negative. There are bad businesses that have too much power, but they are not the whole story. Most people in the UK work for small businesses where the balance of power is completely different. And businesses anyway are shaped more by their client than owners.

Tesco is more shaped by British consumers wanting cheap food than some pension fund manager looking for a return. They want cheap food. He wants Tesco to meet the shoppers requirements, which could be Fairtrade and high welfare. But they aren't at the moment.

I'm afraid you don't understand Publicly Listed Companies, Tilly. The model is completely different from a privately owned company.

Once you're listed on the stock exchange, your ultimate products are your share price and investor returns. Your intermediate product, whether food retail or building warships, is just a means to increase the above. In the same way, customer service is simply a means to achieve profit, not an end in itself. The lower staff might believe they're there for the clients; the board don't harbour any such illusions.

I'm not adducing any moral value to this: it's just the legal duty of a PLC to serve the interests of its shareholders.

Which is why it was so bonkers when Cameron stood up and complained people viewed PLCs as just out for profit! Er, they are! That's what it says on the tin!

Quite why we persist in confuddling ourselves with a notion that PLCs should somehow be moral entities, is a mystery.

Tilly, I've worked as a lawyer in the City and I didn't really like what I saw. I think it's because I've only ever worked for big business that I'm a bit anti-business, even though it always did very well by me, personally. I agree, the balance of power and philosophy in small businesses tends to be different - because everything is so much more personal (and personally risky).

Sorry, that sounded like I think privately-owned companies don't exist for profit.

They generally do, of course. But that's slightly different from existing to serve the share price.

Also, a small set of private owners can make the decision, if they so choose, that profit is not their raison d'être, eg a private school might be interested in profit only as far as it allows them to continue delivering their service.

Serial, I am current working on a small, well not as small as I would like, but vital part of merging two companies with a combined annual profit of £0.4 billion, so I l know what a plc is!

(and they pay tax in th UK)

Back to Tesco: so how does tesco generate its income? By shoppers choosing to spend in their stores. If tesco does not provide, what they want, shoppers will go elsewhere.

So who controls whether tesco sells Fairtrade & highwelfare or as cheap as possible?

Serial what's wrong with companies making a profit?

'Quite why we persist in confuddling ourselves with a notion that PLCs should somehow be moral entities, is a mystery.'

Because they can do more than one thing at a time - they can make a profit and chew gum at the same time. They are not out to make a fast buck, to be here today and gone tomorrow. That is why they care about employee satisfaction, customer satidafaction, product quality and their interaction with the local, national and international community.

Many PLCs do lots of moral things, and often teh bigger the company is, the more cash and capacity it has to do good things for its staff and the community.

Nothing wrong with companies making a profit.

Plenty wrong with deluding oneself that companies are acting for the public good. Generally speaking, they will act for their own good.

There are many areas where this naturally overlaps with the public good - and many areas where they have to be forced by regulation to remain within the public good (minimum wage, trading standards, H&S, accounting requirements, pollution control, etc).

Which is why companies lobby for de-regulation: regulations restrict their search for profit to this area of public good (or at least public not-harm).

The government role is to represent the people in this conflict of interests. When governments forget this, or kid themselves that company good is public good, we get the deregulation of the banking industry, the banking crash, and the biggest recession since the 1930s.

Banks act in their own interests. Wow, who knew?

"Many PLCs do lots of moral things"

And many don't. It's an optional extra, not their raison d'être.

If you kid yourself that morality is an indispensable part of the mix, you will be perpetually surprised every time a Union Carbide gasses a Bhopal.

Oh and btw, the motivation for a lot of "moral things" is simply advertising, brand building, etc. Enlightened self-interest if you like, but still self-interest.

It's nice when the public and company good overlap, like a company sponsoring a festival. But don't read more into the relationship than's actually there - he won't respect you in the morning.

Btw, I should say that I'm pro-business. I've personally funded various micro-businesses (not all of which have been successes) started by friends in countries where a few thousand pounds sterling go a very long way.

But I understand what business is for, and don't expect it to be a charity or the arbiter of public good.

Business interest is a damn good engine for a country. But you wouldn't want to let it drive.

'Oh and btw, the motivation for a lot of "moral things" is simply advertising'

Are you referiing to government spin doctors or things which businesses put back into a community. Let's not slag private enterprise off, just because some businesses are bad. The overall majority do good things and also make a profit. Free enterprise is part of a free system.

Not all governments are moral. Power corrupts and absolute power coirrupts absolutely. No business has absolute power, since it always has competitors. The majority of governments, like the majority of businesses do good, moral things.

serial - i see the situation as customers as getting the type of business they want.

most people favour cheap food - so we ended up with a small numbers of suppliers selling cheap food & all the problems accociated with that.

tesco could meet a different demand for food, if it existed, in sufficient size. but it doesnt, hence their business is a reflector of our society.

I don't think most customers get what they want, as what most people want is unrealistic. They get the bit of what they want that is most profitable for the company providing it and either close their minds to how that is achieved or remain blissfully unaware of the reality, or think they can't afford it to be any other way. I'm sure most people would love fair trade food and for it to be very cheap and would rather that than cheap rubbish produced on the back of others' exploitation. Just as most people would like a world class education and health system, but without paying more tax to afford it. The link between the buyer at one end and the producer at the other is too far removed for the buyer to feel any great connection between his behaviour and its effects on others.

(or affect)

(Actually, no, when I come to think about it!)