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.

ffs.
As I said, not everybody is able to do that. I have three children with disabilities, I could not, cannot and would not double them up.

If you have contributed 0.5MM in tax, you've kept a bit more than this. What have you done with it?

You should have savings or other assets.

If you have lived the high life or gambled, then you only have yourself to blame. Maybe you have been altruistic, but you should always make provisions for your own future.

I don't think this applies to people reliant on disability benefits.

Why do threads always get derailed by people who are entitled to different benefits in their own right? This is about able bodied people who should be getting out of bed in the mornings.

Tilly: This is from George Osborne's 2011 party conference speech.

"The second mistake was made by banks who ran up staggering debts of their own, buying financial instruments even they couldn?t understand.

"The banks and those regulating them believed that the bubble would never stop growing, that markets were always self-correcting, that greed was always good, that their ponzi schemes would never collapse, and that none of the debts would ever turn bad."

The entire structure of our economies is now based on debts. There are not enough tangible assets in the world to cover all of the debts. Money is created by new debts, which are traded at a profit between banks (to simplify). It's all just game money. It can't keep going unless people at the bottom keep taking on more debt.

Have a look at www.positivemoney.org.uk/ and neweconomics.org/.

A Ponzi scheme is one where investors are told they're getting a fantastic return on their money, where in fact there is no investment. The scammer has to keep pulling in more investment money; each time, he uses the new money to pay 'dividends' to previous investors. It's a sort of hot-air-based pyramid selling scam. Charles Ponzi.

Clarebunting you clearly don't know what you are talking about if you think this doesn't affect people on disability benefits.

It does

FFS, Claire, I thought I had! Did you know all those insurances stop paying out after two years? It's in the small print. Did you know pension funds are frequently embezzled? Both mine were. I got ripped off by my ex, developed a life-limiting illness, and here I am. You are so rude.

Tilly - see reply to Claire :)

Disability benefits are included in the £26K cap.

ESA is included in the £26K, and a household is only exempt if someone receives Disability Living Allowance (ie not merely that they can't work, but that they actually need help with bathing or food prep, etc, or that they need mobility assistance). And the plan is to reduce the number of people getting DLA even further.

So unfortunately, this is about disability benefits.

You are wrong.
ALL DLA claiments are going to be reassessed.
Do you really imagine that all those that are entitled to DLA are going to be still entitled to it when its all over and done?

People in comas have already been deemed fit to work.
They are reassessing people with incurable and degenerative diseases.
Why would they do that?

They are changing the definition of disability.

My OH and my DS are 'entitled' to DLA. I think it is very unlikely that they will retain their benefits.
One has MS and one has ASD/LDs +

This is what could happen:
OH loses his DLA.
This means he loses his car
This means he cannot get to work
This means he loses his job
This means that we will not be working enough hours between us to qualify for WTC
This means I have to leave the job I am qualified for and pays a decent hourly rate and find a full time job.
This job would have to allow me to drop the children off at school and nursery (three seperate settings) pick one up at lunchtime and then pick the other two up in the afternoon.
I will not find a job that allows me to do that.
I will be out of a job
We will no longer be on top up benefits, paying taxes.
We will be on IS and contributing nothing, claiming free school meals and living in poverty.

I cant wait to be in that postion after nearly 30 years of paying taxes.

GB - thank you for the answer and the comments about ponzi. i agree part of the financial system (CDOs) is like a ponzi scheme but not the whole of it.

Claire
Come back when you know what you're talking about.
THIS AFFECTS PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES.

Josephine - Wouldn't you have rather had the £1/2 million?
That doesn't come into my thinking. I was contributing to your education, health and safety (assuming you're younger than me) and helping to keep our streets clear of suffering beggars. I believed in the kitty system. And it should work. It's just a massive insurance & pension scheme. As we've seen so many insurance & pension providers fuck off to the Bahamas with contributors' money, so something very similar has happened to our collective provision.

GB - It's just a massive insurance & pension scheme i am sorry to say this but it isnt. & noone has f**ked off with the money, its just been spent and more besides.

OK, Tilly, that's a difference in perspective and language. I don't like getting into financial forensics, so I'll stick with my plain english.

"It's just been spent"

On what?

Spending within the national economy doesn't remove money from the domestic supply. If you hand the lot out in benefits, it will almost all be spent within the UK thus lubricating economic movement (creating money and jobs).

The money has gone. So it must have been "spent" outside the UK. How did that happen, did we buy a bunch of tropical islands for our collective holidays? () We have imported more stuff than we export. Our lack of production is one of many reasons I support start-up funding, btw. However our current account deficit has been reducing impressively, thanks mainly to intangible exports. Looking only at the current account balance, we should be in good shape. Current account will be in the black by 2014.

But the money's still left the country, right? We didn't overspend on imports, at least not too badly, and we didn't spend it here or we'd still have it. So you tell me, what did we spend it on?

VERY interesting question. housing? so its sitting there doing nothing?

did a google found this [[http://news.sky.com/story/797637/the-total-value-of-the-uk-6-7-trillion}}

"The UK is worth £6.7 trillion, according to an estimate based on the value of the nation's assets. Housing is the most valuable asset, adding up to giant total of £4,048bn."

Ooh, that IS interesting! It's reminded me of some stuff I researched for TooManyCuts ... and am trying to get off my keyboard for a while, so may have to delay this. Damn!

You DO realise that while benefits have been cut, in order to get employers to raise their wage to one that people can actually LIVE OFF, people will have LESS money coming into their household than they can ACTUALLY LIVE OFF. The change won't happen instantly.

So what happens to all these people who are meant to go out and take jobs that don't pay them enough to live off?

They starve or don't pay their rent, so that they DON'T starve...

The wages need to rise to a liveable amount FIRST, or we are setting the poor up for starvation and homelessness.

EITHER the Government can't see this, or they choose to ignore it even though they can see it.

And I know which is true. As it is spelt out in the Universal Credit Policy Briefing Notes in the passage that states that "Due to a reduction in their income after the changeover to Universal Credit, some families will become collateral damage"

So IMO, the Government KNOW what the outcome of cutting the welfare system now WITHOUT sorting out the reasons WHY it is the way it is first, they KNOW that it will cause homelessness and starvation on an as yet unimaginable and unprecedented in modern memory level but they just don't give a shit.

The money IS there, the legislations HAVE been proposed that could cut the Welfare budget by the same amount without causing this level of deprivation, but they just won't act that way.

Putting in Rent Controls would slash the Housing Benefit budget. If LL's that were overstretched lost their 'extra' home, they would still have somewhere to live, but it would flood the house sales market with extra houses for people to buy. As there would then be much more availability, house prices would drop, more people would be able to afford to buy, thus slashing the Housing Benefit bill even further. And it also has the added effect of more money circulating through the UK's economy.

It'd hurt people left in negative equity too, but it's short term pain for long term collective gain (after all, we're all in this together, so Call-Me-Dave tells us). It would lower the overall Welfare bill, which would put less pressure on the taxes paid.

The other thing that would drastically lower the Welfare bill would be to raise the NMW to a liveable level. Which is roughly £10/hr. As Garlic says upthread, Tesco et al are hardly likely to stop trading in the UK and lose one of their main income streams just because they are made to pay their staff a living wage, are they - it wouldn't be the best thing for their shareholders, would it?

This would cut the Housing Benefit bill as those in NMW work would no longer NEED an income top-up in order to pay for a roof over their head. It would ALSO cut the Tax Credits bill as why would you need an income top-up if your wages are enough to live off?!

It's never going to happen though, whilst those in charge of the country are protecting their own interests (MP's with property portfolios voting against / dismissing rent controls) over and above the interests of the average person.

Well said couthymow

Does anyone have a meal plan for collateral damage? I'm sure we'll be enjoying that for dinner soon enough!

It's just a massive insurance & pension scheme

A very naive assumption. Tax is not like a bank account where you put money in and later take it out. We get taxed, the government spend it in our name.

I guess you could argue that national insurance was designed to be as it's name suggests some sort of insurance scheme. Except NI only brings in £96b per year which doesn't even cover the costs of the NHS, let alone benefits paid out.

The whole taxation/welfare system in this country is a total mess and it does need sorting out. Such a mammoth task will take a decade at least I think and people will have to start accepting that what benefits are given out will have tough conditions attached to them and in all liklihood be time limited.

In most European countries, unemployment benefits are time limited. Usually they taper off over time. This allows the government to pay more money out to claimants and provides an incentive for people to get back to work.

Couthymow. Answer me this.

Why would politician's whom want to get reelected force through highly unpopular austerity measures if as you put it "the money IS there"

The only reason the money 'has been' there is because the government have borrowed it. They borrowed it to spend straight away on things we couldn't otherwise afford to do. An 'investment' they called it.

Except like all loans, they must be repaid at some point and with interest. We cannot go on borrowing indefinitely.

The lib dems are looking at being wiped out at the next elections, the Tories.....well I doubt they will be in power for another term. Mervyn King said shortly before the election that victor will be out of power for a generation because of how tough the fiscal austerity will have to be.

Those who will rejoice at the Tories demise, their joy will be shortlived as Labour will be forced to continue the cuts.

It's not some ideological crusade. The maths don't lie. Go look them up.

Niceguy, I assume you can tell the difference between an insurance policy and a bank account.

If you know of any insurance policies where I can "put money in and later take it out" do tell! Do they provide insurance as well, or are they in fact not insurance policies but bank accounts?

Who named this "Patronise Garlic Day"??!

In response to your reply to Couthy, I share your gloom at our future prospects. As it happens, I disagree about the inevitability of extensive misery but, with every passing week, lose hope of the condems growing up fast enough to avert worse disaster. I don't want ANY of the contenders in government. They are all inexperienced and, imo, far too easily pushed around by both business interests and opinion polls.

By the end of this parliament, I will be living up to my tagline 100%.

.. should add, Blair looks as if he might come back. He's not inexperienced but is a narcissistic, greedy numpty like the others :(