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Proposed benefit cuts |
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Guest_xjay1337_*
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Feb 2 2012, 06:49 PM
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QUOTE (blackdog @ Feb 2 2012, 05:51 PM) I've cropped your reply to concentrate on just a couple of points.
Mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder can be totally debilitating - a friend of mine spends a few months every year or two in hospital having been sectioned during the manic phase. This is followed by months of severe depression when they could in no way be considered a responsible adult - barely able to speak to anyone, often suicidal. This is a pretty severe instance of bipolar disorder - but the chap's wife could have it that badly, if so I certainly do feel sorry for them.
A cap is most certainly not fair to all - most people on benefits get less than £26k - so it's okay that they can carry on buying their fags and booze while this family can't? I can understand what you're saying, perhaps it's just my cynical nature, that when someone who has been claiming off the state for 10 years says their wife is ill, yes she probably has some sort of problem but not bad enough to make her unable to work. A lot of people are claiming for mental illnesses when the degree of their disability is not bad enough to mean you are unable to leave the house. Sorry about your friend as well. You'd expect me to come up with some inappropriate and quick witted comment but even I have limits so I respect that and hope they can progress out of their situation. I didn't say what the level should be capped at, there needs to be a maximum which any household can get which I personally think should be the national average income (that's like what £21k a year?) - In the case of this BBC report, you could easily cut down their living to £350 a week rather than £540 by cutting out the Sky, the booze and the alcohol and the stupid amount of shopping they clearly do. I have a mental picture of everyone and I imagine these people to be the sort of fat people sitting on a piss stained sofa, who would appear on an Ocean Finance advert. (ok that last bit was a gag from a Marcus Brigstock gig but my point is there) Regardless of this womans frame of mind, which we can only guess at this point, the fact is her husband has been on the dole for 10 years+ - This is a joke. He is, or was rather, a qualified Software Engineer which is big bucks jobs. Today you get £40k+ for that.. They COULD get by with their essentials on £21k a year. Literally just, but they seem to be having a comfortable life!! Where's the justice in that... So, what I think would be good cap benefits to the national average Salary, design some sort of chart which has a base benefit rate upon your circumstances, area, whether you're single/partnered, having children or not, and then after 3 months you should have to go to the job centre or council offices and go through your statements with the claimant to see what their outgoings are, shopping reciepts, etc. If they are reasonable outgoings and they are still struggling to get by then you could give them a small increase in money. Likewise people who are living comfortable (like the "couple" in the BBC story) should get theirs cut. You know, go up to say, 5 children living at home. If you are unemployed and continue to keep sh**ing out babies then sorry but you are not fit to be a mother or you seriously didn't pay any attention in sex-ed class. I did, ladies... What I'm trying to say is that having 8 or 9 children should not mean the taxpayer should have to fork out for your 8 or 9 children. One or two children is the norm, perhaps 3 - If you want more then you should have the finances and security to pay for them YOURSELF.
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Feb 2 2012, 09:44 PM
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QUOTE (NWNREADER @ Feb 1 2012, 10:54 PM) If benefits are 'cash in hand', how much would someone have to earn to be left with the same amount of cash? Including any other benefits that come on line because the person is on benefits? According to the Minister, apparently the 'worked-for' equivalent income would be around #35k..... I reckon that is more than enough. I try to be fair-minded, but I do struggle with people who have children with no means to support them. Funding bringing up children is not the responsibility of the state benefit system.
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Feb 2 2012, 09:49 PM
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QUOTE (NWNREADER @ Feb 2 2012, 09:44 PM) According to the Minister, apparently the 'worked-for' equivalent income would be around #35k..... I reckon that is more than enough. I try to be fair-minded, but I do struggle with people who have children with no means to support them. Funding bringing up children is not the responsibility of the state benefit system. Thing is, what do you do about it? Fortunately not that many people are 'reckless' like it.
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Feb 2 2012, 10:56 PM
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QUOTE (NWNREADER @ Feb 2 2012, 10:10 PM) 'It'? 'Reckless'? You mean the money or the creation of children? Creation.
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Guest_xjay1337_*
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Feb 3 2012, 04:02 PM
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QUOTE (JeffG @ Feb 3 2012, 09:59 AM) I would have gone for the children thing myself, except that reading about this case, it's a "manufactured" large family caused by two people with existing children joining up. It's not as though they were pumping out children while he was on the dole. Fair enough they didn't conceive children but they are still responsible for those children, still 8 children from 2 separate marriages is a large number... and that's not the responsibility of the tax payer. And what for these children as they grow up, seeing their parents both stuck at home on benefits, do you think they will go out and be empowered and encouraged to get jobs? I worry more for the children than I do the elders...what will they have to look forward to in life? Their future is looking bleak. (like Tracey Beaker but she turned out OK, and quite hot as well)
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Feb 4 2012, 03:12 PM
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QUOTE (NWNREADER @ Feb 4 2012, 01:49 PM) Found this in the Oxford MailThe vox pop comments are interesting As they say - you couldn't make it up!
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Know your place!
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Feb 5 2012, 10:40 AM
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QUOTE (xjay1337 @ Feb 3 2012, 04:02 PM) Fair enough they didn't conceive children but they are still responsible for those children, still 8 children from 2 separate marriages is a large number... and that's not the responsibility of the tax payer. It's actually six children. The problem with examples such as this is that we really don't know enough about the circumstances. It is, for instance, entirely possible that for months on end the chap was the sole carer for a seriously sick and incapable wife and six young children - a situation where it could even have cost the state more if he had gone out to work. As the children grow up this will become far less of an issue (apart from funding the seemingly mandatory mobiles) - but the chap would now have an employment record that goes a long way towards rendering him unemployable. Of course he could equally well be a work-shy scrounger ... The individual case is used to obscure the inherent unfairness of a cap - that some are having their benefits cut while others, no more deserving, aren't. It is okay to fund the fags, booze, Sky, mobiles, etc for one family because they only get £25.9k but the family next door with an extra kid will have to give them up. If we have to cut benefits then cut them fairly.
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Feb 5 2012, 12:32 PM
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QUOTE (Strafin @ Feb 5 2012, 11:51 AM) Actually it's 8 children from two marriages, six of whom still live in the family home. My poersonal opinion is that more than two children is pretty irresponsible anyway, for anyone. Oi!!! They have rights.......
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Feb 5 2012, 04:16 PM
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QUOTE (Strafin @ Feb 5 2012, 11:51 AM) Actually it's 8 children from two marriages, six of whom still live in the family home. My poersonal opinion is that more than two children is pretty irresponsible anyway, for anyone. Sorry I was going by the six at home - the other two don't influence the benefits paid. I sympathise with the idea of two kids being enough - the world is ludicrously over-populated. But then we would need more immigrants to keep the economy going.
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Feb 5 2012, 04:26 PM
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QUOTE (blackdog @ Feb 5 2012, 04:16 PM) I sympathise with the idea of two kids being enough - the world is ludicrously over-populated. But then we would need more immigrants to keep the economy going. Interesting thought.... we need more people to create economic growth, but more people need more jobs/services/benefits. We need more people to pay tax to pay for the services...... We need to reduce the use of limited material, but we want more people using them. A circular argument, surely?
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Feb 5 2012, 06:25 PM
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QUOTE (NWNREADER @ Feb 5 2012, 04:26 PM) Interesting thought.... we need more people to create economic growth, but more people need more jobs/services/benefits. We need more people to pay tax to pay for the services...... We need to reduce the use of limited material, but we want more people using them. A circular argument, surely? True - but it is the basis of economic theory that we need growth (good) -more people, more consumption and all that entails - or suffer recession (bad). Until we can figure out how to handle recession without pain we will continue to strive for growth. Eventually it seems inevitable that the whole teetering edifice of world economics will collapse - and there will be real hardship, not just the little cutbacks we are seeing at present. Being selfish I am hoping it won't happen while I'm still around.
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Guest_xjay1337_*
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Feb 6 2012, 11:53 AM
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How would people feel about imposing a limit on children that you can have? I'm not saying I'm for or against it, but for example in this situation we have a family of 8 being supported by our state benefit system, which isn't what it's designed for. I'm not saying go all communistical like the Chinese and kill babies who are born but, clearly we have a bit of a capacity problem, especially with the influence of immigration and increased childbirth...how many of those parents are claiming off the state?
Something fair to all would need to be worked out...but if you are unable to pay for your own lifestyle then why should you have (more?) children and further suck the system dry...?
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Feb 6 2012, 04:42 PM
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QUOTE (xjay1337 @ Feb 6 2012, 11:53 AM) How would people feel about imposing a limit on children that you can have? It's a moot point in the UK as the birth rate is already too low to sustain our population level - those who have lots of children are doing those who don't a big favour.
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Feb 6 2012, 06:28 PM
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QUOTE (blackdog @ Feb 6 2012, 04:42 PM) It's a moot point in the UK as the birth rate is already too low to sustain our population level - those who have lots of children are doing those who don't a big favour. Only if they get jobs and pay tax.
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Dec 11 2017, 12:02 PM
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QUOTE (massifheed @ Feb 1 2012, 02:17 PM) Was just reading this... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16812185and wondered what people's thoughts were. The example family in the link get approx £30,000 per year in benefit, and could stand to lose £4000 if the cap were introduced. Looking at the family's ougoings I find it hard to have a great deal of sympathy. The guy has been out of work for 10 years (so one wonders why he hasn't retrained or at least found something in that time), they manage to find the funds for a Sky TV subscription - with movies, 200 cigarettes and 24 cans of lager a week. They clearly go without in other areas - they have no car and don't go on holiday every year (although many other people don't either!), but it seems obvious to me that if people are able to be in receipt of the equivalent of a respectable salary (30k is way more than I earn) without, in theory, having to leave the house or even get up in the morning, then we will end up with generations upon generations of families who will simply choose not to work. Cutting benefits so that people can no longer afford to use them to fund Sky TV, 24 cans of lager and 200 fags a week may be the start needed. The benefits system here in the U.K functions in such an abysmal way... This link/story isn't even the worse example I've seen of people taking advantage of the benefits dished out by the government. When compared to other European countries, the U.K benefits system is almost comedic. 30k a year equates to a take-home salary of almost £2,000 every month tax calculator which to me is just ridiculous, considering this person has not worked for 10 years. I've been working all my adult life so far, pay taxes and still don't have a take-home salary of £2,000 per month. Whilst cutting benefits may seem unfair to some, I do empathize with those who are genuinely unable to work or have to care for sick relatives etc, it is absolutely needed. Or as you rightfully said we will end up with a generation of spongers is the only way to put it. Choosing not to work should not be an option, it infuriates me that my taxes are going towrds the likes of this and as mentioned that isn't even the most extreme benefits story I've read.
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