There are too many people on benefits

It supposedly comes from Milton Friedman who is the wet dream of the current crop of world leaders. But they ignore a lot of what he said. The guy supported a negative income tax (you give money to people who do not earn enough to pay tax).

If you were wealthy you'd do the same. Hell I only earn 30k and it's frustrating seeing so much of my tax going on welfare.

Most benefit claimants are actually in work though, they need the state to top up their piss poor wages.

I have to ask - how many of you have actually lived on benefits? Oh, and we all don't get £26k per year. Only some people do.

A lot of you appear to watch that **** they constantly show on 5 and assume we all live like that. We don't.

Many benefits are paid to people in work because their wages are too low.

Do you realise how stupid you sound? "£153 million goes on pensions, £!£5 billion on health £2 billion on unemployment" How does this validate your point?

Secondly "Most people who have a lot of money got there by exploiting the poor, tax simply takes back a little of what they stole." This is the attitude i was talking about working class people, in what way have "MOST" well off people stolen from the poor? Please explain how they "steal" from the poor?

Also you seem to have come with the view point that people are saying that benefits should be completely stopped, however no one has said this. People including myself have said benefits need to be reduced as the amount of people on them is a joke. Furthermore im not listening to propaganda my opinions are formed from real life people.

Yeah but you will be the first to call for their state funded treatment to be taken off them when a morally bankrupt government comes into power telling you how they arer all a bunch of scourngers. People like OP will actually die no matter your intentions since the desire for vindictive punishment of people who may not even exist is so high. You all say, "no we don't mean the people who deserve it, only the scroungers" at the same time people who need it are actually dieing.

Like what's happening now and in this very thread. If I was the person you were talking to I would not take comfort in your concern and insurances. It provides no guarantee at all the current evidence is that people like myself will be thrown to the scrap heap.

Well said. There's so much sensationalist 'reality' TV these days that people start to think that it really is real. Channel 5 are only interested in appealing to people who enjoy being outraged by those on benefits.

I get more money than someone on Jobseekers Allowance as I'm classed as long-term ill, and that adds up to less than £8000 a year (almost £3000 of that bypasses me and goes direct to my landlord to pay my rent). There's a thread on this very site that is active right now asking whether £10000 is a lot of money to people and many people over there are saying that it's not. For me, that's more than the money I get in one year. Most people on benefits are in the same position as I am, or worse off (particularly the under 25s who, if on Jobseekers Allowance, get less than £60 a week even if they live alone and therefore have all their own bills - as well as jobseeking costs - to pay). I doubt many people even in parliament are educated on exactly how much us 'welfare spongers' receive per week.

No one is saying benefits should be stopped but my point is the attitude of most "poor working class" is that the rich OWE them, and they HAVE to provide for them which is not the case, and until this mindset is not eradicated this whole thing will never end. Also benefits should not/can not be stopped, however they definitely need to be reduced, the sheer quantity of people on benefits is unsustainable, so you either cut benefits and cater for the majority or cut the number of people on it and provide larger sums to the needy. Also in this country there is NO incentive to work, why would anyone in their right mind want to get jobs in retail paying them £15k a year for 40 hour weeks when you can get upto £26,000 in benefits including child tax credits etc. Infact at the private school i attend my head of sixth form used to be a manager of a high street shop, she told us how when jobs were advertised, at one time there were 1000 applicants for 4 places, when it came to interviews she said 1/2 of the people turned up in tracksuits/swore/attitude stank basically made it impossible to be hired but they had fulfilled the requirements of the benefits therefore went home and saw another £70 in their account.

Interesting. Are you an atheist? I wonder if I should be the first person to mention natural selection. Survival of the fittest is why humans have come so far.

Anyway , I am sure that by mentioning natural selection,this whole thread will blow up, because TSR seem to be run by emotions as opposed to logic,so I'm most likely not going to respond to anything else.

I've said my bit, and the tax situation in this country isn't going to change no matter how much I post,so whatever.

I've just done a little bit of maths for you based on easy to find information on the internet. Per year welfare costs you £564 (that is not including pensions which independently cost you £782). Of that £564, £12 is spent on unemployment benefits. Now, I don't think that's making much dent on your income.

After tax if you work a 40 hour week you earn about £11 an hour. So in ONE YEAR, the tax you pay that goes on unemployment benefits equal the amount you earn for approximately ONE HOUR of work.

Honestly it was hard for me to try and word what I had in mind. Apologies if I offended anyone, it was only after I read it that I realised it was pretty extreme. The point I'm trying to make is that if we give everyone a free ride in education,nhs etc, society will not know how lucky they actually are. This is where we are going...I have said in other posts how education is abused by kids who give teachers a hard time and those who bunk off (compared to kids in India, Africa who would give their right arm to sit in a lesson ). And I have said that people abuse the nhs by going to the GP for a cold (or other stupid reasons) or ending up in A&E every weekend because they can't handle their drink .

What I would like to see is people actually appreciating the benefits this country gives,and besides making people pay for what they use ,how else can we do this? Free "allowance" perhaps? I don't know.

I admit i was a bit vitriolic but as i say, if healthcare was PAYG i'd be dead so i have quite the investment in the subject.

People never appreciate what they have, its human nature. If there is a service people will maximize their usage of it, in a free society we must allow these people in order to maintain our principles. Personally i have considered benefits being handed out as limited gift cards so they may only purchase certain items ie food on what looks to everyone else like a credit card - no discrimination as there is no visible difference - and they get some cash in hand for recreation. I dont see why people on benefits shouldnt be allowed a few luxuries on their money like an ok TV and a laptop/internet (if for no other reason than so many jobs are only online now anyway) and if they wish to save their cash in hand for a holiday i suppose - though i oppose it, its their right.

The point that needs to be clear about benefits is they are a living entitlement. In law, using assets for something other than what they are granted to you is obtaining them by fraud or appropriation so i dont see it as such a leap to narrow what benefits can be spent on. Jobseekers is already provisional on seeking a job so that seems adequate, though i do personally think the centres should take the CV's in, plump them up if necessary and submit for the jobs requiring any positive responses to be accepted as a stipulation of the benefits. I do see some ground for abuse here in either direction however (ie the staff might not care or commission based pay might cause them to lie, pull strings and endanger people).

As for education as with any right it is not taken seriously though i would say modern education does itself a disservice in so far as in pushing this everyone is brilliant and a special snowflake agenda in conjunction with the merciless requirement for grades and no focus on personal development (at least none that isnt essentially a government programme of think as we tell you) has raised a lot of people who have delusions about their stations in life and think they are the most special being in existence rather than having any sort of stoicism - a value i consider more important by far. On the other end of the scale are those who cannot keep up either due to lacking intelligence, motivation or not being able to think how education requires (anyone who believes it doesnt promote a certain way of thinking is categorically wrong) and therefore rather than be told they suck they rebel and people copy this behaviour. Its no coincidence the worst behaved schools are comprehensives and that they are mostly filled with people from the lower socio economic class who both commit the most crime and indeed rank the lowest in intelligence (as defined by entirely arbitrary factors) due to the fact psychological development is actually indirectly linked to wealth in so far as stimulation from a young age by varied resources is key. This then becomes cultural, then normal, then gets worse.

With the focus on hyper individualism nobody is happy unless they are better than the person next to themselves, they want to be tougher, prettier, more rebellious, smarter, bigger, blonder, darker, taller, thinner, more attractive, everybody wants to be something they're not instead of trying to be the best them as they constantly compare to those around them. This is natural but society has lost the idea of community, most people dont know or dont like their neighbours, and with this unknown has come wariness, dont go out at night and all this. When people dont get to feel useful and wanted, they get depressed and give up. This is symptomatic in our education system. It makes people feel stupid and without a place often enough (all of these statements are backed by people with a combined 35 years in education at all levels excepting adult). My point is education isnt respected or valued because it isnt for everyone and to admit you suck and are what society would deem stupid is too hard for anyone to handle, especially kids who reach a stage where their peers judge everything.

In lesser developed countries the kids are so joyful for a chance to learn they dont focus on any of this as they recognise their privileged position relative to their peers and whilst this will still go on its to a far lesser extent. When you slam people from different backgrounds with so many different personal factors without any attempt to promote proper cohesion what other outcome is possible?

edit - before the inevitable you rich muppet how dare you slander poor people nonsense let me point out that i am poor, my parents skipped meals to buy me stuff as a kid so in the long run i'd get into uni. Not all people can do that, so i'm more lucky than anything else. The facts simply are intelligence equates to socio economic class in no small part because clever people change their class quite rapidly. Also genetically clever people are more likely to have clever kids.

I agree with everything you have said here Gronville, apart from the last point, that intelligent people are defacto of a higher class. Which stinks of elitism i'm afraid to say. Class mobility works both ways you know?

Good, when I have the chance I'll be doing the same.

If I'm rich enough to want to open an off-shore account, I'm not particularly interested in funding schools or NHS when my children will get private education and private healthcare.

I'd prefer a "pay as you go " approach to calling police, fire brigade etc - what's the harm in paying for what you use?

I find tax like everyone going to a restaurant with friends, and everyone ordering significantly different priced meals, and then at the end "splitting the bill equally" ... and you end up paying for your friend's 5 glasses of wine. It's BS.

Love reading about a cheeky bit of trickle-down economics in the morning

So your example does this.

You call the police the local gang of drug dealers are outside and you have seen a gun. You live in a poor area hence the gang and the police charge you 2k to come out when you could be in danger or doing your civic duty.

Meanwhile in the rich area there are many less calls as there is less crime.

So basically you punish the law abiding poor.


Posted from TSR Mobile

I may have put it across badly, my point is society values intelligence therefore the intelligent increase their class ranking by making money from their intelligence so they move from working class to upper class, class mobility means that the intelligent become higher class eventually therefore increasing the concentration of higher class individuals who are intelligent

Good, when I have the chance I'll be doing the same.

If I'm rich enough to want to open an off-shore account, I'm not particularly interested in funding schools or NHS when my children will get private education and private healthcare.

I'd prefer a "pay as you go " approach to calling police, fire brigade etc - what's the harm in paying for what you use?

I find tax like everyone going to a restaurant with friends, and everyone ordering significantly different priced meals, and then at the end "splitting the bill equally" ... and you end up paying for your friend's 5 glasses of wine. It's BS.

America has a workforce of 360million, China 1.4billion. UK 60million. So yeah in what way should we be competing with these 2 countries and why do you think shaving a small percentage off of our already relatively small (when compared to neighbouring countries) welfare budget would make any tangible difference to your goal? Also we already pretty much match and exceed both of these countries in gross income per capita which would be my metric of choice when comparing such different nations.

Just because you read a tory infographic doesnt mean you have the slightest grasp of macroeconomics.