The recession, benefits, the safety net, and the learning curve

Max_Headroom wrote: »

Aww that's so sweet, thank you.

I'd love to do it too, but I seem to lack the right idea and capital.

I guess I just want a well paid job and to start cracking on with life again,

I know that feeling - I should be practising what I preach but that regular steady income is addictive.

I think you probably do have an idea. There's probably something you think you could make a go of but it just seems too much of a pipe dream and you've always been too busy working hard and paying off the mortgage to take the plunge.

Well what do you know, the mortgage is paid off and you've now got time on your hands. You've got the internet and intelligence. Honestly, being a wage slave is no utopia, directly generating an income out of your own talent is priceless.

Everyone on here seems to be unanimous in their appreciation of your articulate turn of phrase. Time to make it pay.

Max_Headroom wrote: »

My feeling is that they ought to try and be a bit more selective. I'm sure there are those that need more help, but surely when they have a guy who pitches up at the sign in once a fortnight with a list of recently applied for jobs and had a couple of "almost" interviews they ought to be able to take a view that actually he doesn't need/deserve "detention, he's doing the best he can.

It'd also have the benefit of freeing up more time for those who need it.

Or is that a little too much like common sense?

Whilst i agree with you in lots of ways, let me explain the dilemma...

Jobseekers Allowance (brought in by the Tories, carried-on by Labour) has procedures built-in to it to do more checks on people in terms of their efforts to find work. I recently interviewed someone who blatantly didn't want a full-time job, wanted to carry-on doing his part-time university course, but still receive an allowance for job seeking. In his forties, spent his whole adult life in further education, never worked, lived with mum and dad.

Now, on the conversation screen, staff had written every two weeks..."Excellent jobsearch", because he'd written several jobs he'd 'applied for' in the last fortnight. Yet he knew, and I knew, that he didn't want a job.

What do we do in today's society? Do we go back to Unemployment Benefit, where you just got money because you didn't have a job, and were left to your own devices, or do we apply more rigorous rules, to check taxpayers aren't just paying people to sit at home watching daytime TV?

Both political parties want to do the latter, and judging by the usual discussions we get on here, so do most MSE'ers. Unfortunately, you are now in the eye of the storm of this debate, because the rules and procedures have to apply to everyone, genuine or not, to check they are fulfilling the rules for claiming the benefit.

Staff will become aware that you are genuine, but they still have to apply the rules to everyone, unfortunately.

Max_Headroom wrote: »

Aww that's so sweet, thank you.

I'd love to do it too, but I seem to lack the right idea and capital.

I guess I just want a well paid job and to start cracking on with life again, at the moment I feel like I'm just tearing pages out of life's diary and screwing them up and throwing them away...

Sometimes you can start out with zero capital...an idea can be enough...and a client or 2.

It's a rollercoaster...just come off another of mine....alive.


I never like to state earnings but in 23 years we have had about 5 bad ones. The good ones are so amazing that they compensate for the bad ones...that can be horrendous....on every level.

Overall, we may have earnt more than we would have done employed PAYE within our sectors...but have had masses more freedom of mind.

I don't like to write it down as it sounds braggy but I have forgotton what it must feel like to have a secure, regular wage land in the account every month.

PasturesNew wrote: »

My friend just told me he's been laid off, in the US. He rents a 1-bed apartment and will now get 6 months' half pay, then absolutely nothing. The thing is, half his pay = his rent. So instantly nothing to live on. Mid-50s, nothing special about his skills/experience, I think it might be the end if he doesn't get something within that 6 months. He was about 4 hours from ending it all when I resurrected him last time. Poor sod.

What the hell do I do/say? I'm not a good people person, but I DO care.

It's an ongoing debate, which social security system is better, the British one, or the American/Australian one, where benefits are just cut at some point?

Would we have riots, as some think?