And about time to, lazy bas***ds

[marchantsuk]

For what it's worth here's my view.

I'm almost 40, have worked (in a variety of jobs) since 18. In all this time I have paid taxes and NI for which I have claimed very little. I have probably used the NHS for 2 major things in 22 years, used the standard doctor/dentist service less than average. I have no kids, I don't regularly use many local services such as public transport or leisure services.
Therefore what benefit do I get for my taxes..... very little, but I'm ok with that because I contribute to running of a business known as the UK. Will I get a state pension when I retire, probably but it's certainly not something I factor into my future planning.
We are all incredibly fortunate to live where we do. Living below the breadline in the UK means you have to cope without the nice things in life, but you still have the basics that should be a human right; running water, power, food. Now take this same category to somewhere like India or China where living below the breadline means you have F**k all.
I travelled to India a few years ago and I can tell you it was a humbling experience. We visited a village that has no running water or electricity, we were welcomed with smiling children, offered food and tea and at no time did anyone beg, ask for handouts or look to exploit people.
In my view people, (not just children who can't have the latest xbox game) should spend some time learning humanity and humility from people around the world. As there are much worse places to brought up in.

In summary
Society will always have different levels, there will always be the privileged, whether through heritage or hard work. Those at the either extreme will always try and make the system work best for them for very different reasons. It always has been and always will be this way.
It does not matter who is in power, the balance of fairness will tip slightly one way or the other. For those of us in the middle (the vast majority) it makes little difference, some times we tighten our belts, sometimes we gorge.

Life is what YOU make it, if you want it to be better then YOU have to do something about it.

 

[Dav the wheel nut]

Society will always have different levels, there will always be the privileged, whether through heritage or hard work.

Perhaps you should add deceit and luck to that list.

 

[jim80]

Long term unemployed should have their benefits cut by 20% after 6 months. With the option to regain 30% if they work for the local council cleaning graffiti, cleaning up the parks, cleaning up fly tips, gardening in the local parks etc. this might promote some work ethic into these people and inspire them to seek proper employment. It would also enable them the achieve a reference therefore making them more employable! Or they should work for a charity to enable full payment of their dole money. I am 32 years old and have never had a day out of employment! I am not a university graduate but still earn £60k a year. I have achieved this through hard work and a very high work ethic, that was taught to me by my parents/grandparents. So I do agree that if I were to lose my job now I would struggle to find a job that could support my current lifestyle. But employment would be easy for me to find.
I believe that people on the dole should only have children that exist already or a maximum of two children supported by the state. That, I believe, is how it works in the states. After all if you choose to have a child when unemployed you must have made the decision that you can afford that child!


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[marchantsuk]

Society will always have different levels, there will always be the privileged, whether through heritage or hard work.

Perhaps you should add deceit and luck to that list.

Good point Maybe my rose tinted glasses needed time to grime up a bit this morning

 

[cj_eds]

I think the idea of the NHS and the welfare state are something to be proud of. I'd hate to live in a society where if you get ill, all that matters is how fat your wallet is. Your insurance policy (if you have one) has a limit, and once you reach it you're screwed. And as mentioned above, if you lose your job then that small amount of help from the DWP might be what keeps your head above water.
Sadly there's always going to be people to take advantage of it though. Too many people seem to get help for no good reason, or it's far too easy to continue on without ever even trying to find a job. There's an entire class of people who know their way around the system, know how to do sweet FA and live their whole lives on hand outs. They're the ones that need targeting and stopping.

 

[Anonymous]

This will amount to zero change

How can it when companies aren't taking on new staff?

I know of a large construction company that is in the £1m to £60M contract range and they always require site labourers for the minimum wage, the only people that turn up for interview are Eastern Europeans (who have all their documents) who are so keen to start work it's unbelievable, they are conscientious workers, polite, and will do any job without moaning about it, and also when it starts to rain they just carry on, unlike the indigenous population who run for cover.

At every site Immigrants call in daily asking for work, never does a British DSS recipient ever call in!!

I think the UK has been ruined by uncontrolled immigration, however the Immigrants that are the hardest workers are the Polish and the Albanians and I'd employ those every time than 90% of the British DSS brigade.

It's about time the British DSS got off their fat backsides and turned daytime TV off and started looking for work, because if you want a job I can tell you it's out there.

Ah, that feels better

I wonder how many contributing to this debate would work for the minimum wage?.
Companies like the one mentioned above see this as a good time to screw the people at the lower end of the labour market.

I can assure you this company doesn't "screw"anyone :roll: it's a preferred Government contractor and part of a large group in Yorkshire, and I do know one of the major shareholders is a bit of a 911 fan (so it must be ok) :wink:

 

[original guvnor]

You can debate all you like about who should pay what but it doesn't get away from the simple truth that we can no longer afford the size of state and safety net we used to have and it's only going to go one way in the future too so you better get used to it!

 

[RichardG]

I know of a large construction company that is in the £1m to £60M contract range and they always require site labourers for the minimum wage, the only people that turn up for interview are Eastern Europeans (who have all their documents) who are so keen to start work it's unbelievable, they are conscientious workers, polite, and will do any job without moaning about it, and also when it starts to rain they just carry on, unlike the indigenous population who run for cover.

At every site Immigrants call in daily asking for work, never does a British DSS recipient ever call in!!

I think the UK has been ruined by uncontrolled immigration, however the Immigrants that are the hardest workers are the Polish and the Albanians and I'd employ those every time than 90% of the British DSS brigade.

It's about time the British DSS got off their fat backsides and turned daytime TV off and started looking for work, because if you want a job I can tell you it's out there.

Ah, that feels better

I wonder how many contributing to this debate would work for the minimum wage?.
Companies like the one mentioned above see this as a good time to screw the people at the lower end of the labour market.

I can assure you this company doesn't "screw"anyone :roll: it's a preferred Government contractor and part of a large group in Yorkshire, and I do know one of the major shareholders is a bit of a 911 fan (so it must be ok) :wink:

The fact that it is government preferred contractor does not impress, the are probably the biggest crooks out there.

As far as the East Europeans are concerned in my experience they came over here took the low paid jobs as they were better paid at the time (due to exchange rates) then anything they could get at home and survived because they shared houses and I don't mean individuals, it was not unusual to see to see 2 or 3 families sharing and splitting the cost so it was easier to make a minimum wage job survivable.
Minimum wage is not liveable and companies justify paying it because it is a government set amount.
Just look at any of the TV shows where they take a CEO and stick them back on the shop floor for a reality check (I know the TV shows have an agenda and can skew the programme) they all surprised at what is expected of their employees.

The biggest problem is the last government opened the floodgates and made it so easy to claim for everything.
I know of one family who's son has very mild autism he attends a normal state school where he gets 1 on 1 tuition, nothing wrong with that. Somewhere down the line the system allows them to claim for a carers allowance and mobility, they recently got a brand new car for £600 and I can't for the life of me think why it's not like at 4 years old he can drive the thing and they now get paid for looking after their son. No other parents in the country look after their own children do they?

This is a typical knee-jerk government reaction to a problem of their own making (even it was the last one). Rather than cutting benefits they should be out promoting Great Britain PLC and creating jobs and getting people off benefits full stop.

 

[Anonymous]

The fact that it is government preferred contractor does not impress, the are probably the biggest crooks out there.

Ah well thank you for that, :roll: if I was trying to impress I could have said a hell of a lot more, minimum wage is livable just don't expect to be able to afford 55" TV's etc

 

[Ricey01]

Without wanting to get too deep into this debate I'd like to just throw the thought in there as well that I think we as a nation have forgotton how to live on Minium Wage.

Our grandparents generation (for anyone in their 30's) lived in tiny shitty little houses with no amienity, no spare cash, no luxuries and worked in ICI/Brunner Mond/BICC *insert any other god awful underpaid blue coller job*.

They washed nappies, made more than 1 brew from a single tea bag and handed clothes down from elder child to younger.

As it is we are absolutely brainwashed (myself included) that we MUST have flat screen TV, new clothes for every child (with a designer brand), flash sports car (my nan nearly wet her pettycoat when she saw I was driving a BMW), interest only mortgage (so we have even more money to spunk).

The reason we won't work for minimum wage is not due to laziness (yes there will always be doley's) but because of an ingrained belief that the world owes us more.

I know a 22 year old lad who's bright as you like. He wants to study auto-cad but in the mean time he cannot get any work at all. All he can get is packing boxes of coat-hangers ETC on adhoc days here and there........I mean what is that adding to his CV? I'd be less including to employ him WITH that work experiance as without it.

I just tried to get him a job doing bog standard admin in our office but his CV is so poor from experience perspective that he didn't even get a phone call to shine him on.

Generation on the scrap heap if we're not careful

 

[wantanM]

A lot of interesting posts, and a very difficult debate/problem to solve.

I don't think anyone is against a welfare state for those in need.

I agree with a lot of Original Guvnor's points.

The UK is very possibly already finished, - could it be salvageable if the country/politicians wake up? The BRICs and the global economy are very worrying. And I just can't see any real solutions. Society in this country might be past the point.

But "everyone" thinks they have a right to a plasma and sky TV. (I looked at the price of sky the other day and was genuinely shocked! - who can afford that!?)

 

[Ricey01]

I don't consider myself to be someone who struggles month to month by any means but I REALLY had to consider if I wanted Sky or not at that price........I still resent paying it now!

Yet I have customers who are over 20 payments in arrear with their mortgage (thats right nearly 2 years behind with payments) yet they are still happy to spuzz £80 a month on Sky and £200 on fags - all paid for with tax credits and DLA of course.

 

[original guvnor]

Do people still do interest only mortgages!!!???

Wow. Rather them than me. I like to know I've paid for things and when i will have paid for them too.

 

[gannet]

Do people still do interest only mortgages!!!???

Wow. Rather them than me. I like to know I've paid for things and when i will have paid for them too.

in theory ours is interest only, but then it's also a flexible deal so we overpay (handsomely) anyway...

 

[Ricey01]

Do people still do interest only mortgages!!!???

Wow. Rather them than me. I like to know I've paid for things and when i will have paid for them too.

And this is another point.....I am reasonably well educated, have a good managerial job in a company I was headhunted to set up and EVEN I have an interest only mortgage with NO repayment vehicle just because it allows me more cash to jizz on V8 Mercs and Z4's.

Strewth! If people like me who are working in the banks have that kind of attitude the Jeremy Kyleites have got no chance!

I work on the basis that 'something will crop up' and I go have a pension that 'may or may not' give a lump sum sufficent to clear the balance but in general I have literally no plan whatsoever!

In fact my mortage is 2.34% at the moment and I'm still too demoralised by the insummountable balance outstanding to even think about over paying because 'whats the point - I could be made redundant in a year and then the bank just gets all my equity anyway when they sell it at undervalue because its been repossessed'.

Maybe I've got it right but its my way of thinking that is creating a nation of people who are totally inadequately prepared for the future.

Granted the next mortgage i get will have to be repayment because I won't be able to get I/O.......until that time though

 

[Adamski]

Wow - we are onto mortgages now :?

I was going to take out a mortgage before I was made redundant. Glad I didn't now. Would have been up s:!:t creek with no paddle. Mortgage is a bigger commitment than marriage now

Tough times


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[wantanM]

Wow - we are onto mortgages now :?

I was going to take out a mortgage before I was made redundant. Glad I didn't now. Would have been up s:!:t creek with no paddle. Mortgage is a bigger commitment than marriage now

Tough times


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I get what you mean about the commitment! By the way was glad to see your situation was looking up on your redundancy thread, congrats fella

 

[original guvnor]

Mortgage is a bigger commitment than marriage now

Believe me it isn't Adam!! Not even close. It's a lot less painful to extricate yourself from a mortgage!

 

[john56]

Does'nt matter how much you earn it appears most live beyond their means and i think easy credit in the past has compounded the situation, the digital age has created a whole new market of consumer goods, TV's, Computers, Camera's etc, etc and the Advertising companies have been awesome at selling them to us and the credit companies have been willing to give us the money, in the first 20 yrs of marriage we had 2 TV's, in the last 10yrs we have had 4, the amount of money we have wasted on all this lot is frightening , what a waste, we have been well and truly sucked in by the marketing people and the media, escape to the country telling us we need to buy a cottage in the country and the granite worktops to go with it, it just goes on and on.
I have been lucky in my work and always paid my way even through mortgage rates at %15 but i look back and think about all the money wasted on consumer goods, houses and cars and how it all could have been so much easier.
God knows how the young today get through all this with so much dept, house prices and unemployment, my generation sure have been lucky.

 

[lacroupade]

But people have been encouraged and allowed to live beyond their means by the financial system that continues to benefit from doing so, even after writing millions of bad loans off.

I wholly understand though, on the one hand the desperate need to get spending into line as well as clamping down, not only on the welfare state, but public spending generally, but that at the same time, there is 'mutiny in the ranks' because of major corporates and bankers simply taking the piss and either cooking the books or offshoring assets and revenues to end up paying little or no tax. As things stand, a single mother stands to lose child benefit at the same time as slimeballs like Bob Diamond walk away with millions after screwing the tax man, the goivernment and the man in the street.

A few years ago I worked inside the bank on a large IT project and it was well known even then that Barclays Capital just gave the rest of the organisation the finger whenever it felt like it, mainly because their devious shennanigans made all the money.

And while we are at it, we should ban all this dubious financial activity around derivatives, futures and so on which just allow hedge funds and investors to do stuff like making massive profits on commodities they will never even handle, artificially inflating the end user price in the process. I never used to be anti-capitalist, but the older I get the easier it is to see that point of view....

I'm all for this idea of political parties being state funded only, leaving them free to come down like a ton of bricks on people and companies who continually escape their obligations.