Just been on a course about new benefit system

[buggyRunner]

Christ it's a big shake up.

I say this as someone who won't be personally affected- it is harsh.

Basically if you claim any benefits other than child benefit you're probably going to have a loss.

KarlosKKrinkelbeim is the fish in The Cat in the Hat, garlic. Your knoweldge of children's literature is as poor as your geography. You complained about British companies re-locating to friendlier tax regimes, among them the Netherlands, which is in the EU. No doubt you are trying to insinuate I am racist. Defamation, incidentally, is also against the law.
If the Government were to take steps to prevent them doing this, it would not be "closing a tax loophole." It would be acting contrary to EU law, unless an exception were made for other memberstates. It would also, I think, be unenforceable more generally; you'd need legislation to force previously UK-domiciled companies to disclose and pay tax on assets located in other jurisdictions. The US is trying something like this at the moment; they can get away with it, probably, although most US lawyers I have spoken to about it acknowledge that it's unwise politically. I doubt we can.

OOh, someone mentioned workhouses!

crosses it off Hysterical Leftie Speak bingo card

Really?
So when we withdraw community care, benefits to offset the cost of being disabled, housing benefits and the other things that allow vulnerable people to remain in their own homes...

What is left jupiter?

Because I worked in a long stay hospital in the 80s.
The people who lived in it were not a different breed of disabled and elderly people with MH issues.

They people with the very same disabilities and MH issues that people have today who use their benefits to stay in the community.

When they are gone, when parents are no longer supported to care for their disabled children what do you think is going to happen?

You're right, KKK, I don't read children's literature.

Why have you avoided my comments about Switzerland, which you previously tried to dismiss by talking about EU trading rules? Boots, Cadbury (Kraft), Walkers and other bigh High Street names are based in Zug.

Since HMRC is some way through a process of closing the loopholes that rely on outdated laws applying to Luxembourg and the Netherlands, they presumably disagree with your statement that they aren't loopholes.

I am certain we'd disagree over the principle that money earned in the UK should be taxed in the UK. I believe the same rules should apply to corporate entities as to wage-earning individuals. The reasons why they don't are extremely outmoded.

Returning to my point, which is not about capitalism-bashing: It is insane to look ONLY at how to reduce expenditure when there are opportunities to increase income.

Exactly Mrs D! Where oh where will we put all these homeless, people that we have just created by turning them in to burdens on their families or on charities. After all we cannot have people stepping over them on the way out of the Opera can we now.

The name of the care establishment that was featured on the panorama show, the one with the members of staff beating the shit out of the residents with Learning difficulties is an example of the poor house that we have coming.

So now where is me bingo card, I know I had just one to tick off for a full house? Ah yes casual dismissing of facts by person who knows nothing about what they speak, thank you Jupiter. I think the last part of your name sums you up pretty well.

As a matter of interest and I am addressing Grlicbutter, did you have a look at either of the links I posted? Did anyone?

If Tesco had to pay all it's staff £10 an hour, they would adjust their business to eliminate most of the unskilled roles.

Yes, Leith. Still reading.

But nobody is advocating ending the welfare state altogether, they are merely saying it needs to be cut down which is true. Even if we were not in debt, why is it a good idea to pay people to have more children or to pay people not to work for over 10 years? The current welfare state is not only financially incompetent, it is also socially incompetent.

The welfare state should provide excellent provision for the disabled and excellent short-term benefits to those who have been made redundant. This can only be done by reducing all the waste of benefits that are not needed so that more can be given to those genuinely in need.

And what josephine?

Perhaps our education system would then HAVE to improve.
Perhaps right whingers would stop going on about people caught in the benefit trap as no one would be
Perhaps Other companies would follow suit and we could have a better paid more motivated workforce in Britain where no one felt they were being over worked and under payed.

Now that would be good hmmm

But there wouldn't be nearly as many jobs.

I didn't read your links, Leith, because I am a potential 'benefits suicide'. I prefer not to dwell on this fact. I already know the content of your other link, the one about aggregated losses. Why did you choose to ask me if I'd read them?

Orwellian: Again go do some reading, what you are saying is almost without argument what people agree with. Yes shock horror even disabled people agree, in fact disabled people organisations have never, ever said that disabled people DO NOT want to work but wallow at home with no purpose. However what is being done will in NO WAY alter what you say is the problem. It will however make it even more unlikely that long term unemployed, sick and disabled, people with short term periods of ill health or unemployment will ever get a job.

Taking benefits away and saying people will either work or starve is cod psychology. Many people will do the latter having been sent round in circles in a system that is paid by how many people they process not by how many they actually get in to sustainable work

I am sorry Garlic I did not mean to distress you my deepest apologies. I only asked indeed I only joined this battle as I saw you fighting a tide of ignorance singlehanded. I hope we are pushing back the reason of the insane but I fear we both have our own demons much closer to home.

Do not give up my friend, no joy can come from you letting them win. others like me and many many others share the places you have been and will go. What is that quotation, something about not going quietly in to the night, I may well go but it will be far from tranquil.

Josephine that is the bloody point,, why are you and others only happy if people have shit lives with poor pay, why cannot they have decent lives, decent hope, something good to aim for. If jobs were paid more more people would choose to work, more kids would demand a better education, this country would have to invest in science and industry, we would stop churning out factory fodder because we had people who want to work.

If Tesco had to pay all it's staff £10 an hour, they would adjust their business to eliminate most of the unskilled roles.

They already are. Tesco make around £14,000 profit from each employee; that figure would be higher if they had fewer employees so it's in their interest to reduce staff. The taxpayer basically funds them to have lots of people in unskilled roles.

We fund these jobs because there's already a job shortage. It's just a way of faking employment, at taxpayers' expense. Even so there aren't enough jobs.

If every vacancy was filled by an unemployed job seeker, only 10% of the seekers would get a job. The other 90% would still be unemployed and there would be NO vacancies. This includes part-time jobs with unsocial hours, by the way.

The problem isn't like a household budget. Unless we stop the rich (people and corporations) funnelling taxpayers' money out of our economy without putting it back, we will all end up in the gutter. As I said before, corporate giants will not walk away from a huge revenue stream if they're made to put more back in & reduce profits. Right now, we're simply giving money away and saying "Never mind, our vulnerable people can make up for it." Soon it will be "Our working classes", then "Our middle classes".

I'm not exaggerating, this is common sense and we need to grow some balls/ovaries!

Thank you, Leith.

But there wouldn't be the jobs for them.

"Choosing" to work shouldn't be an issue.

Raising the minimum wage to £10 an hour wouldn't create many, if any, jobs. It would just eliminate many of the jobs currently paid at less than £10 an hr.

disabled people organisations have never, ever said that disabled people DO NOT want to work

But the funding was still removed from Remploy, which provided gainful employment for thousands of disabled folks. That's how much commitment there is to helping the less-able back to work.

Josephine, can you think of any good reasons why the government doesn't, for example, demand more payback from the banks and pile that money into grants for start-ups?

Because it wouldn't be a good idea? If it was, the banks would do it themselves. Banks are in the business of making money. If someone comes to them for a loan with a good business plan, they will get the funding.

Just because I am pointing out that we cannot afford the status quo and therefore that rationing is an inevitability, this does not mean I am some sort of evil right wing capitalist pig who wants to see the poor & destitute on the streets so I can sit in my luxury mansion like Mr Burns laughing at the little people.

Nowhere have I said we shouldn't have a welfare state. But regardless of how misguided you perceive me to be, the simple facts are:

1. We cannot afford the system as-is
2. Rationing is an inevitability
3. No serious political party has offered an alternative which doesn't involve cuts.

If someone has a comprehensive plan which will sort out the deficit without the need for any cuts then please will they tell David Cameron. I'm sure he'd love to know, as would the rest of us.

One of the main reasons the govt are introducing Universal Credit is to eliminate one of the worst aspects of the current system which is that it provides little incentive to work and actually traps many. For that reason alone I support it.

As for the main topic which is the govt are using UC to make further cuts, well politically this may backfire on them. But economically cuts must be made regardless of who is in power.

So as I have said in other threads. If you don't want to see tax credits cut, who should have their funding cut more to pay for tax credits? What about pensioners? Nurses? Soldiers? Council workers?

We must move away from the idea that the government has some secret money tree which they are keeping just for their rich mates. There isn't. The money comes from working people and taxes are already high enough.

Reformating Access to work, raising the bar at the amount of hours that a disabled person needs to work in order to qualify for help. Not very good examples of "helping" Josaphine.

Also no one on incapacity benefit or ESA as is is told they can get the additional top up to start their own business/ In fact a friend of mine had to take a letter from the EHRC saying that they would take out a discrimination case against the dwp in to his local job centre to even get the forms to apply for the start up money.

Niceguy thats not what I accused you of the claimin that we need to make cuts is what I said you had bought in to. The fact that as you rightly say no mainstream politicle party and certainly not any of the big 3 / 4 say anything diffrent speaks absolutly bloody VOLUMES

I will apologise to you for possibly misreading your politics, however the consequence of what you said are still that which I described. For anyone in a first world country to talk about an ideology that will see people die as a direct consequence not just unintended or unknown but as an explicit part of the policy, and just stick to the "austerity" mantra shows a lack of reality if not compassion.

What additional top-up, Leith?

Niceguy, I agree there should be graded incentives to coming off benefits although I think the current proposal is too punitive.

Josephine, you've been arguing that large corporations need taxpayers' money to maintain jobs. I propose that, if our money is going to be used for job creation/maintenance, it should be invested in ground-level startups. Perhaps there could be an added incentive for creating at least one employee.

This is likely to keep more of our cash circulating in the domestic economy than going straight into tax havens. I believe.