Return of the Workhouse. It's now Official

Loughton_Monkey

treliac wrote: »

Whatever happens, times are hard and we're all going to feel the impact, whether we caused them or not. We've all consumed too much and that'll be changing.

I think this is true.

I may be a boring old f*a*r*t but I simply cannot pull myself back from understanding basic economics. UK has had (for about 15 years) a severe and growing "Balance of Payments" problem. Ultimately, this is the key issue, since by definition, UK can only be getting poorer (by comparison with other nations).

We see 99.9% of Government focus, and 99.9% of public opinion focussed avidly on 'internal' issues such as who is paying themselves too much (BBC boss and Local Authority CEO's for example). How much are we taxed? To whom does the tax money get paid out? How many new Coffee shops or sandwich shops have opened up to employ a few more people.

But this is simply working hard on how the dwindling resources are distributed amongst all of us. Governments and Free Markets are hugely influential in distributing wealth.

But every day there is less wealth to go round. Full stop.

Confucious he would say "Chinese Ducks attracting the crowds. Pulling more bread in each day. English Ducks not attractive any more. Fewer people throwing them bread. And all they can do is fight over it."

Lakelady_2

Well whilst everyone is debating this, someone is missing a great business opportunity. That is the massive amount of money to be made from organising all of this. Who wants to set up the agency.


However if they were to provide work placements - do it usefully in an area of employment that inspires people and not punishes them.

My daughter, a recent graduate tells me all our attitudes are wrong. If you see a load of youths hanging around a street corner - do you think - there`s a load of layabouts or there`s alot of potential skills and talent?

Rochdale_Pioneers

The problem with this is that in targeting the genuine workshy dossers that exist, they sweep up everyone else. If the unemployment level was down to the hard to shift, and in a booming economy there were plenty of jobs they could take but choose not to, thats one thing.

But, when we've already had a million working people laid off, and another one and a half million about to join them, whilst at the same time the availability of jobs plunges, then its not about shifting the dossers, its about retribution. As the programme already carried out in New York demonstrated, employers see this as free labour, thus reducing their incentive to hire in expensive agency staff or full time posts when they can have the unemployed work for free. In NY there were examples of people being laid off from manual labour jobs finding themselves back doing the same thing for no wage at all.

And at the same time of course we know that friends of the Tories will be making fat profits off this - contracts are there to be let in managing the unemployed, arranging placements, handling employer contacts and so on. The unemployed won't get paid, but someone will.

sjaypink

ceridwen wrote: »

- not expecting anyone who is genuinely too ill to do so (be it disablement or a temporary genuine illness) (that really WAS beyond belief to find that a few people are claiming to be too ill to work because of being grossly obese.....no-one else was there presumably propping open their mouths and ramming food down them a la geese for foie gras...).

Problem with paying out sickness benefits is that you can't easily (as a government/ atos medical officer/ decision maker etc) differentiate between mental illnesses.

Ah, but is being greedy and lazy - therefore grossly obese - a mental illness? Well, if you are to assume others that inflict harm on themselves and act in seemingly irrational manners (anorexics, alcoholics, ....dare I suggest depressives?) are mentally unwell then the grossly obese are too.

No agenda here as fortunately I currently do not fall into any of the above catorgories, just interesting how it does seem that the divide and conquer process, as mentioned above, does appear to have filtered into many peoples views, we all seem to have a 'yeah but' steroetype ... mines ADHD kids

joke! :A

MRSTITTLEMOUSE

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

The problem with this is that in targeting the genuine workshy dossers that exist, they sweep up everyone else. If the unemployment level was down to the hard to shift, and in a booming economy there were plenty of jobs they could take but choose not to, thats one thing.

But, when we've already had a million working people laid off, and another one and a half million about to join them, whilst at the same time the availability of jobs plunges, then its not about shifting the dossers, its about retribution. As the programme already carried out in New York demonstrated, employers see this as free labour, thus reducing their incentive to hire in expensive agency staff or full time posts when they can have the unemployed work for free. In NY there were examples of people being laid off from manual labour jobs finding themselves back doing the same thing for no wage at all.

And at the same time of course we know that friends of the Tories will be making fat profits off this - contracts are there to be let in managing the unemployed, arranging placements, handling employer contacts and so on. The unemployed won't get paid, but someone will.

Well said and this is exactly why no one should be made to work for anything other than the going rate.
People are going to be exploited otherwise whilst others rake in in at their expense.
It's criminal.

sticky23

LydiaJ wrote: »

That's interesting. Do you know what happens to unemployed single parents in Denmark? Do they get free childcare to enable them to spend their days in the jobcentre? And what happens about childcare if you get a job that starts the next day?

In this country a single parent could never be available to start work the next day unless their kids were old enough to supervise themselves, or their kids were at school and the job just happened to fit into school hours (allowing time to travel from school drop off to work). Getting a place at nursery or after school club takes time, and often there are waiting lists. And childcare is expensive, so you wouldn't want to start paying for it until you knew you had a job to go to.

Yes, everybody on low incomes gets free daycare - government run, and in my experience of very high quality.. Most children from the ages of 3-6 are in nursery anyway. One of the conditions of receiving benefits, is that you must be able to work the very next day. That means that if you want benefits, you need to have the childcare sorted before you even apply.

Loughton_Monkey

MRSTITTLEMOUSE wrote: »

Well said and this is exactly why no one should be made to work for anything other than the going rate......

.....It's criminal.

In a perfect world, 'no one should be made to work for anything other than the going rate.'

I agree the sentiment, but we have to put it into the context of the whole of society as it currently exists. One could probably float another few sound-bites about a better world, and these might include:

*No-one should be made to work for anything other than the going rate, except for convicted long term prisoners who should be made to work hard to rehabilitate themselves and pay for any luxuries.

*No-one should be allowed to receive anyhere near the going rate for their skills and experience when they choose not to work.

*No-one should be allowed to claim benefits while working hard mending cars, painting houses, and odd-jobbing for extra money on which they do not pay tax.

My understanding is that the new measures have been introduced primarily to address the latter two issues. And to that extent I applaud it.

With 2½ million unemployed, these measures can physically be targetted only at a very small percentage of these. Provided they select the right constituency, I believe it will do a lot of good.

neverdespairgirl

Lakelady wrote: »

My daughter, a recent graduate tells me all our attitudes are wrong. If you see a load of youths hanging around a street corner - do you think - there`s a load of layabouts or there`s alot of potential skills and talent?

Throughout recorded history people have moaned about the youfa today.

StevieJ

Lakelady wrote: »

Well whilst everyone is debating this, someone is missing a great business opportunity. That is the massive amount of money to be made from organising all of this. Who wants to set up the agency.


However if they were to provide work placements - do it usefully in an area of employment that inspires people and not punishes them.

My daughter, a recent graduate tells me all our attitudes are wrong. If you see a load of youths hanging around a street corner - do you think - there`s a load of layabouts or there`s alot of potential skills and talent?

Oh for the optimism of youth

StevieJ

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

But every day there is less wealth to go round. Full stop.

Confucious he would say "Chinese Ducks attracting the crowds. Pulling more bread in each day. English Ducks not attractive any more. Fewer people throwing them bread. And all they can do is fight over it."

Are you saying that a quasi Communist command economy is more efficient than the Capitalist model