Benefit Culture

[deceptivex]

You keep working your way up until you can afford 2 nights out a week!!

 

If everyones a chief who's going to be the indians? Like almost as bad as the myth that "There are jobs out there for everyone if you just look".

[featured_spectre]

TBH @nephilim I tend to agree with you on the most part and think you do have valid points BUT you have luxuries yourself, your Sky subscription and your TV license. If you cut these out too you'll find that you have more than your £20 a month emergency money. If you struggled to pay a mortgage or whatever then the mortgage company would point these out to you as being luxuries that you can get rid of. Most of what is on Sky is dross anyway and rarely worth the money unlessyou have the sport packages (if you're into sports).

 

Have the sky package as follows - entertainment (sky 1 and the like), childrens (disney channel), movies (which we are thinking of dropping as we don't watch enough to warrant having it), telephone unlimited package (we upgraded after realising that evening and weekends wouldn't cut it as I had to ring places to enquire about jobs and it was costing more than the unlimited package was), and broadband - this is free for us.

 

TV Licence, as has been discussed before, if you have anything that can play live tv (even if it is not used) you still have to pay. But yeah I know what you mean

[DAZZD88]

Who's the real mugs here? us or them?

We are the mugs because we work hard for money that some people get (sometimes as much as 2-3x) from the government for not working. I get no benefits from working and earning my own wage. I won't get housing benefits when I get my house (which I'm looking to buy soon). Sometimes it really annoys me to know that there are people out there that are 'scroungers' but at least I can hold my head up high and say that I've paid my way.

[DAZZD88]

TV Licence, as has been discussed before, if you have anything that can play live tv (even if it is not used) you still have to pay.

 

Not entirely true but I suppose the faff on that you have with proving that you aren't viewing live TV using any of your devices means that you may as well pay it.

[featured_spectre]

easier to pay £15 a month than to be fined £1000 IMO

[Rydra]

I've always thought the simplest way of solving the issue, is to put benefits and unemployed to work for their money.

 

Failing that a darwinian survival of the fittest style crystal maze challenge, where if you want your check, well you'd better brush up on your Indiana Jones moves because that crushing ball of rock stands between you and your benefits cheque.

[Rydra]

With the digital switchover it's getting easier to avoid TV licenses. I don't own an aerial on my house at all, and having tried a few times, cannot get a reliable digital signal from an indoor aerial. Meaning if I ever dumped my Virgin TV, I could easily dump my TV license.

[localzuk]

TV Licence, as has been discussed before, if you have anything that can play live tv (even if it is not used) you still have to pay. But yeah I know what you mean

 

Just to correct, this is wrong. If you own something that can play live TV AND it is hooked up to do so, you need a license. If you just have a device with a tv receiver but it is neither tuned in or plugged in to an aerial, then you do not.

[HarryMonkey]

My other half lost her job a few years ago after undergoing an intense period of chemotherapy. She is unable to claim any benefits whatsoever as she didn't pay enough NI contributions during the time when she could barely stand up and walk let alone get to work.

 

The answer from the jobcentre is for her to get a job ... there are plenty out there if you really want to work. Well, yes, maybe there are, but as soon as an employer finds out that you can't work a certain day of the week because you have to go to London to get ongoing cancer treatment, that's it, end of interview.

 

It's gone on now so long that it's getting to the point where she will be unemployable. She did make enquiries about training but because she isn't on any benefits, she isn't entitled to any free training. So all of this getting off beneifits is working in her case, they took her off benefits and left her to get on with it.

 

Part of the side effects of the cancer treatment has meant that she requires regular dental treatment, cost over £200 last time (on the NHS) ... seems like the only people who can get free treatment are assylum seekers and the likes (and don't even get me started on the one).

 

I am so glad that we live in a caring society where the sick and the vulnerable are supported so well (Not) !!

[Haptic]

From reading the posts on this thread I think most people's frustration should be aimed at the government, rather than the individuals on benefits.

 

I thought it was called the poverty trap when it is more financially beneficial to sit and do nothing than it is to go to work. Now you have to ask yourself honestly, if someone said to you today that they will pay you more (including all of your bills) to sit at home, how many people would think actually "why go to work when I get more from not going?"

 

Until this issue is sorted out by any government in power, it will always happen and unfortunately it is human nature.

 

The Welfare State works in both theory and practice - It did in Japan before it was implemented here. The main two reasons being, they didn't receive more than they could earn by not working and they have a culture of pride and shame. Meaning that people do not want to sit on their backsides as they actually worry about others opinions of them. Pride and shame hey! ha ha

 

I will leave you on that cheery comment!

 

Chris

[sted]

From reading the posts on this thread I think most people's frustration should be aimed at the government, rather than the individuals on benefits.

 

I thought it was called the poverty trap when it is more financially beneficial to sit and do nothing than it is to go to work. Now you have to ask yourself honestly, if someone said to you today that they will pay you more (including all of your bills) to sit at home, how many people would think actually "why go to work when I get more from not going?"

 

Until this issue is sorted out by any government in power, it will always happen and unfortunately it is human nature.

Chris

 

fair point and i was unemployed after college for 18 months 2 years i hated it just wanted to do something sitting round all day with nothing i HAD to do was dull to say the least and drove me round the twist i honestly dont know how people can do it for years/decades

[Haptic]

fair point and i was unemployed after college for 18 months 2 years i hated it just wanted to do something sitting round all day with nothing i HAD to do was dull to say the least and drove me round the twist i honestly dont know how people can do it for years/decades

 

 

You should have become a student, then it is official and you never get bored!

 

 

 

Chris

[Earthling]

If everyones a chief who's going to be the indians? Like almost as bad as the myth that "There are jobs out there for everyone if you just look".

 

Has anyone out there stopped to think that we work, or have worked, in the one industry that's been responsible for putting more people out of work and removing more jobs from the 'market', than any other industry in history?

 

Wake up, folks, smell the bacon sarnies, look out the window.......and realise that there will never be enough paid employment to go round anymore, not unless we drastically shorten the working-life of every employed individual, enforced retirement at 45-50, something like that.

 

Read Alvin Toffler's 'The Third Wave', he predicted exactly this situation back in the 80's.

 

Unless we all stop thinking of those without jobs as 'The Unemployed', as 'Benefit Scroungers', as uneducated, lazy, something-for-nothing layabouts, we're not going to evolve enough as individuals or as a society to cope with the even greater changes to come in the future.

 

I thank a non-specific deity that I'm on the verge of retiring to somewhere where this is not an issue, because everyone's poor, and that I don't need to come up with or be part of a solution. But I also remind myself every day that, as my skill-set increased and became more remunerative, so that skill-set put other people out of work......for ever, in some cases.

 

@nephilim, I've had my times out of work while I had a young family, they're not easy, I know, but I found anger and ranting to be so counter-productive. Try and channel it into something more positive.

[localzuk]

Has anyone out there stopped to think that we work, or have worked, in the one industry that's been responsible for putting more people out of work and removing more jobs from the 'market', than any other industry in history?

 

Nah, I don't believe this. It has also created jobs on a scale never seen before. Look at all the jobs in China that wouldn't exist now without our industry.

[Earthling]

Nah, I don't believe this. It has also created jobs on a scale never seen before. Look at all the jobs in China that wouldn't exist now without our industry.

 

When I first started, it took between 12-32 people to run a computer room 24/7/365, depending on the size and complexity of the m/f being operated, and that would be in one regional HQ, district HQ, so multiply that by the number of counties in the country, for example. Now it takes a quarter that number, if that

 

What about all the manual jobs that have been/will be replaced by process-control computers?

 

Sounds more to me like your in a bit of denial, there.

 

As I've said, read Alvin Tofler's 'The Third Wave'. The book he wrote before it 'Future Shock' is an education too.

 

Not believing is the first step to not evolving.

[localzuk]

When I first started, it took between 12-32 people to run a computer room 24/7/365, depending on the size and complexity of the m/f being operated, and that would be in one regional HQ, district HQ, so multiply that by the number of counties in the country, for example. Now it takes a quarter that number, if that

 

What about all the manual jobs that have been/will be replaced by process-control computers?

 

Sounds more to me like your in a bit of denial, there.

 

As I've said, read Alvin Tofler's 'The Third Wave'. The book he wrote before it 'Future Shock' is an education too.

 

Not believing is the first step to not evolving.

 

Nope not in denial. Look at companies like Foxconn or Samsung. Foxconn employ almost a million people. Samsung nearly 350,000.

 

So, there are jobs that have disappeared, sure, but there are many that have been created.

[Earthling]

Those jobs will disappear too, in time, or be relocated back here or somewhere else when the same wages/cost of living spiral hits those countries. My guess is that they'll disappear, really, technology is only going to get 'cleverer'. Eventually, we'll have motherboards making motherboards, and yeah, I know, who makes the first motherboard? It's historical that wherever a machine has been invented to do a job that a human was doing, the human gets put out of work.

 

You seriously believe that with the world population rising as it is that there's going to be work for everyone?

 

[deceptivex]

Nope not in denial. Look at companies like Foxconn or Samsung. Foxconn employ almost a million people. Samsung nearly 350,000.

 

So, there are jobs that have disappeared, sure, but there are many that have been created.

 

They have been created at the expense of others, and even they are routinely cut down.

[localzuk]

Those jobs will disappear too, in time, or be relocated back here or somewhere else when the same wages/cost of living spiral hits those countries. My guess is that they'll disappear, really, technology is only going to get 'cleverer'. Eventually, we'll have motherboards making motherboards, and yeah, I know, who makes the first motherboard? It's historical that wherever a machine has been invented to do a job that a human was doing, the human gets put out of work.

 

You seriously believe that with the world population rising as it is that there's going to be work for everyone?

 

 

No, you stated that our industry had wiped out more jobs than any in history, and I'm saying you're wrong.

 

Yes, eventually there will not be enough jobs for the population as a whole, but as it stands, technology has not put everyone out of work, it has merely shifted it around, moved it to different countries, created new jobs etc...

[Rydra]

The key behind it all is information.

 

50-100 years ago, only a chemist knew how to make those drugs, only a carpenter knew how to work wood in that way, only the plumbers knew the intricacies of plumbing, pipework, pressures etc.

 

Over time we've standardised these things, making the information on how they are standardised. Then we've improved availability of the tools required to do these jobs.

 

As a result, now, if you want to know the standard thickness of a radiator pipe for a medium sized house, you can go on the internet, or walk up to the (underpaid) bloke in the DIY shop and he'll tell you. You can buy a lathe to do your woodwork, and then go buy a DVD about how to get the results you want out of it.

 

In short, we're all smarter and more versatile and adept than we used to be. Once, it was X person's job to do X thing. Those lines are much more blurred now, and obscured in places by the improvement of technology that replaces some aspects of these roles, but the process of making this technology doesn't remove a job, just shifts and obscures it.

With increased knowledge also comes increased expectations, and usually expect it for less, be that less time, money or effort.

 

Services by professionals used to be a necessity; only they knew how to do what they do. Now these things are more of a luxury, it has shifted the balance of society.

10-15 years ago barely anyone knew how to operate the internet properly, now we have people in their 60's/70's/80's and beyond texting their great grandchildren the funny pic of a cat with an amusing caption.

I can fit my own doors, repair my own leaking taps and decorate my own house. I don't have the money to pay a professional to do these things, and invariably the quality of work I expect from these individuals exceeds their abilities more often than not.

 

The sooner people realise that noone is incapable of "working" and that there is a job out there for everyone, the sooner our economy and our society will correct itself.

Put the lazy to work. And use those who want to work but can't in a position to help those who they can.

[Earthling]

What other industry has wiped out more jobs? Or even on a similar scale? It continues to wipe out jobs as computers are able to do more and more.

 

The combine harvester put farm-hands out of work, but it stopped there, it didn't put road-sweepers out of work, or lighthouse-men. Computers are still finding their way into every area of work and wipe out most jobs where they can be used, instead of using people.

 

Deny it if you will, say I'm wrong if you will, have the last word/post, if you must.

 

But I'm right.

 

[SC92]

Yes, it annoys the hell out of me. But I'd rather work and deserve what I earn as an individual and actually feel like I have achieved/done something with my life, albeit work, but you get the idea!

[CapEnd]

Shoot me down if you wish, but, there are too many people on this planet, with the resources available. Yet, we still give money and try to save people from starvation around the world.

I have said this before, and have been called a lot of things for saying it, but I am in no way a racist, and hate racism of any kind.

 

We give so much to save people from starvation, so they can produce more children that we have to also save from starvation.

 

Its like putting a fish that eats all other fish into a large lake. Eventually the population of the big fish will grow and grow, and they will run out of little fish to eat. Then they all die.

 

Thoughts?

[gmj]

Heard the same (well…similar) big fish in a lake eating all the other fish and thus death for all point before. Perhaps it does indeed ring true.

 

Over population of the plant is indeed quite a problem…with being enough resources to go around and all that. My vegan better half always like to point out that if the human race were all on a vegan diet there would be plenty many times over for us all…..think its something to do with all the food used for beef production and what-not…..normally at this point into her mini rant I just focus on my bacon/steak or puka pie though.

[localzuk]

My vegan better half always like to point out that if the human race were all on a vegan diet there would be plenty many times over for us all…..think its something to do with all the food used for beef production and what-not…..normally at this point into her mini rant I just focus on my bacon/steak or puka pie though.

 

Yup, it requires a huge amount more resources to raise cattle than it does to grow grain or other produce, and the outcome is more food from the grain growing than the cattle raising too.