How do we as a country eliminate 'benefit culture'?

[whomovedmychocolate]

Serious question, not asking for a bunfight but donning teflon knickers nevertheless.

We seem to have got ourselves into a right pickle over this - we have a myriad of benefits - which don't seem to fit together or make logical sense and which seem open ended.

Is this right? Should we say (with obvious exceptions for people who are going to need help forever because of health issues) 'right, we will support you for X months and then you are on your own'?

Should we require people to dispose of any and all assets before providing benefits? This would counter the 'well he has a plasma telly and is receiving JSA' arguments I've heard recently.

What about generations of families who have never worked. What do we do about them then? Do we do intervention stylee retraining for them all, and force them to work?

I'm really interested in the ideas you lot might have because I am finding it very hard to establish the extent of the problem or any solution.

And using a place to get as much cash as you can grab and then leaving is so much better than so-called 'a pretty sickening type of piety...' One's less moral than the other.

Okay.

If someone paid us to have cameras in here, I'd be happy to let them on in.

It's a shithole and the downstairs neighbours keep getting murdered or OD after doing their best to make our lives a misery with loud house parties all night and drug peddling.

That's how I know so many with 6 kids or who never worked.

Wanna swap so you can tell me how morally objectionable I am?

Cuz it sounds like you're actually able to save some cash. That would be cool.

Or can we move on from everything having to be personal and what we can do to get OUT of this whole before people like me become the people you see on 'Blood, Sweat and . . . fuckupness.'

wmmc - I agree that the expectation of wealth is a problem, along with an overwhelmingly strong sense of entitlement.

The sense of entitlement is ingrained in our thinking and even in our languauge - people don't ask 'what benefits am I eligible for', they say 'what am I entitled to'. Perhaps semantics, but imo, indicative of an overall attitude and mentality.

I;d support a limit on CB for those who connceive whilst on benefits; I know I have 4 and am a carer but I would never have conceived on benefits and always thought we would be self supporting.

but CB would be a financial penalty: TC is income support and I woudln;t take away all the money a child might have- whether or not parents are said to be deserving, child deserves a meal.

We're in a part of Wales where there are also very very few jobs and of course it amkes it hard; society needs to be understanding of the fact that if you lose your job and there isn't one to apply for then you need help. But absolutely people who don't work and do not have a person to care for (disabled, sick or very young) or significant health issues themselves should be made to accept work or lose money. And if not doing so means they cause ahrm to tehir children, well that's abuse isn;t it? We have systems for that.

Well, so much for a great discussion.

Coolfonz is here to tell everyone what a fuckwit they are - bankers, Tories, etc.

It's okay as long as he/she can fuck off with some cash.

The rest of us who are stuck here are just fucked.

Hey 15% of Americans go without food every year! Works for them! It's the modern way!

Lenin If children are starving when the each parents have their £150 a week allowance then something is very wrong wouldn't you say ?

Hell we both work full time and ours have been told this month to eat every scrap of school dinners, have two puddings because it's beans on toast, soup if you're lucky for tea.

But Expat, it's what our betters do...

Check out the rest of the world, it's even worse...

The people of the UK have had chance after chance to vote or even protest against the post-fascist neo-liberal right who run our country - and every time, they bottle it. Then they whine about single Mums/Muslims/Poles/the unemployed (like, there is a a recession right, that is what you get) and all the other dumb-ass crap they are fed...

If I were you - I'd move. Get the fuck out.

Oh wrt to assets

When dh lost his job years ago we did sell our home, we cleared every debt we had and made damn sure we never took any more out. My only debt is £9 a month for the mobile I need to keeep in contact with a myriad of specialists for the boys.

If we can't afford then we don't have.

Savings though- well maybe we could have afforded some if we didn't have to pay NI? Isn;t that what NI is- national insurance? Between Dh and I we paid 40 years, well DH still does pay.

But I love the fact people are saying we should sell any assets we have left (which ones? the TV fil gave us? PC DH uses for work / retraining? Car he needs to attend said training (no public transportt) or the one I need to get to the SNU? (no public transport...)- or maybe we should take the boy's DSi's away> That's be lovely wouldn't it- sorry but your disability emans Mummy can't work so let me punich you).

We dutifully cleared every penny we owed to everyone at penalty to ourseloves; we worked when I could / work was available and Dh works as hard as he can now albeit very poorly paid; please, if tehre is something else we should be doing- what?We copuld move to a less poverty struck area although that would mean the boys losing tehir speiclaist palcements with catastriphioc results and I have just got SSD support after 4 years of asking, is that really what people think we should do? And how- given that we'd not qwualify for housing in these aplces and tehre's a thread running simultaneously about not ginving private leases to people with a need for HB (which we'd have if Dh ahd to leave his training palcement and the related funding).....

Only 15%? After living there for 31 years, I'd have thought it was more than that. I've stood in line at food banks myself.

All whilst I was working FT.

Coolfonz - Presumably you are an intelligent person, so it would be 'cool' of you to post some constructive thoughts/suggestions instead of causing this thread to degenerate into the usual.

This is a real problem and it needs real solutions. So constructively, how could things be improved? Throw us some ideas.

Oh and last paragraph should have read....

but why are people looking at ways to hammer the genuine claimants who have paid NI for years when CB has a 98% take up? Surely there is an obvious policy option there.....

(I am not talikng about dodgy lazy types, I have no empathy opr understanding of that choice)

That is true, Lenin. But nonetheless, now the problems are here.

How do we get out of it?

Natural disasters are not the fault of their victims. But no one goes around wasting time about who's to blame for them.

It's about getting on with fixing things.

What's the fix here?

What do we do that's going to be acceptable to the Tory/LibDem coalition who are in power and will probably stop at nothing to stay in power?

oh FGS BarmyArmy - I've experience being poor, in a third world country, I lost my job, exH's job didn't even cover a fraction of the rent. No we weren't living in "extreme" poverty by that countries standards..........but if you compared how we were living with being poor "here" we were doing extremely badly.

I've also experience being poor here.

Both are shite

But hey Sanctimoany, the multiple homeowners are lobbying hard to keep their CGT at 18pc (thanks Labour!) and looks like they will get it!

John Redwood said CGT should stay low to "help entrepreneurs" - like somehow multiple landlords magically create housing!!

All the time in the UK we have handouts for the rich, crumbs for the weak to fight over, subsidies for the wealthy and "starve the poor" from business leaders (Digby Jones).

Well- i'dprobably have a CGT loophole for landlords if they are willing to rent to people on HB or low incomes; a mass exodus of available housing helps nobody, especially the poorest.

of course that's due to the council house shortage but that's not going to change.

'I;d support a limit on CB for those who connceive whilst on benefits; I know I have 4 and am a carer but I would never have conceived on benefits and always thought we would be self supporting.

but CB would be a financial penalty: TC is income support and I woudln;t take away all the money a child might have- whether or not parents are said to be deserving, child deserves a meal.'

Then perhaps the issue is to end cash payments? I know then you run into stigma issues.

Some people use CB for designer clothes, others use it on drugs or anything but the child.

Perhaps benefits should become something that is not cash?

I'm not sure how this would work, though.

How would you redistribute the wealth?

Ok...you want some basic answers.

Maximum wage, say £500k/yr. Treble the minimum wage to properly value unskilled labour.

Nationalise banking and take all the good assets, let the market take the debt.

Nationalise energy, rail...all transport systems. Nationalise pharma companies.

Peg the £ to the $/€ and don't allow currency trading (like Mahatir did so successfully in Malaysia).

Slash defence spending, scrap trident, withdraw from NATO.

Freeze currency movements to stop capital outflow and put control orders on every director of a FTSE 100 company and their families.

Then we break for elevenses...

I agree, Lenin, but I don't know if DC and Clegg do .

I don't think a lot of those people in power have a real idea of how most working peoples' lives are in the UK and that's a lot of the problem, too.

It's all theory to them.

Which is some of why the benefits system got some complex in the first place.