Freudian Scenarios.
Freud’s grandson, David, is an interesting man. Let us see if he can survive in his present job long enough for me to write this article. Stay where you are for half an hour David, for pity’s sake!
For the best part of 60 years, he was just plain David Freud, a jobbing hack. You probably never noticed him. Then the Labour government took an interest in him, and he became Sir David Freud – in charge of reforming their welfare plans. His old friends on the Western Mail may not have even realised he was the same person.
No sooner knighted than he apparently felt that a different government would be more likely to implement his plans. He switched sides, and a grateful Conservative government turned him into Lord Freud.
Labour were so angry that when he spoke at a fringe party meeting and said that ‘there was a small group of disabled people who were not worth the full wage’ – a statement of the obvious when you consider that some of those receiving disability payments may not even be sentient – Labour spin claimed that he had said that ‘the disabled were not worth a full wage’ and demanded his resignation.
Cameron stood by him, and he became (*quick check on this morning’s activities*) Minister of State at the DWP, in charge of enhancing the Universal Credit scheme.
Without Freud, Gordon Brown’s laborious tax credit scheme might never have been ‘unpicked’. Freud was told that it would take 8 years to build the computer that could handle payments to 20 million people and speak simultaneously to both HMRC and Employers – he introduced the government to VocalLink, a company who had already developed the payment system required, and it worked.
Now that I have breathing space to catch up on my reading, I discover that whilst we have all been consumed by the high wire antics of the more colourful and egotistical politicians, David Freud was quietly rolling out a revolution.
It appears under the innocuous name of ‘distributed ledger technology’ – I’d never heard of it either. To put in it crude terms, it is Bitcoin by another name. It is designed by GovCoin Systems. I would have preferred ‘TaxpayerCoin Systems’ as a name myself.
From the 4th June 2016, some Benefits claimants in the North West were receiving their benefit via an app on their smart phone. They will be able to spend it with selected retailers. At the moment that is limited; Barclays Bank, npower, and a German utility company – RWE. Obviously the inclusion of Barclays broadens the opportunity to spend your money – but this is only a very small trial, to see if the system does work.
If it does work, and is rolled out nationwide, it could herald a revolution in more ways than one. The usual suspects are out and about screaming about the possible risk of claimant’s data being lost or misused. The government claim that they are only using the data that is returned from the spending pattern to ‘help clients with their budgeting’….
That may be their intention, but it will inevitably raise a wider question.
When the government discover, and this is purely hypothetical you understand, that 60% of the welfare budget is ultimately being re-routed to the coffers of Messrs Irn Bru and Co., or that in Wales 98% of child benefit was paid out to on-line pornographers – there will be Hell to pay.
Perfect ammunition not to increase benefits…
There will be a wail of protest from benefit claimants that how they spend their money is their business – but is it? It is ‘everybody’s’ money.
Ms Raccoon has been spending most of her disability payment on swimming lessons – an oxymoron? Why should the rest of you contribute to my desire to turn into a performing seal? On the other hand it’s keeping me healthy and out of the hands of expensive Doctors.
So, how would you feel about hypothetically learning that 60% of Irn Bru’s turnover was coming from your taxes? Or that Sky would be bankrupt were it not for the ‘GovCoins’ flooding into their coffers. And why? What about the impact of near 10% of the government’s spending bypassing the banking system?
Is Freud treading in dangerous waters here?
*Phew* Still seems to be in the job – press ‘Publish’ quick…..
- Mrs Grimble
July 14, 2016 at 10:35 am -
Just what is the problem with claimants spending their money on “Irn-Bru and fags” (even if they do)? The money will be spent in local shops and will pay local shop-workers wages and hence will contribute towards taxes and rates; it will not be immediately put into overseas tax havens. In any case, it’s far more likely that the benefit money that isn’t being spent on food and utlities is going towards loan and credit companies. And let’s not forget that Housing Benefit, which makes up the bulk of most claimants’ benefit, mostly goes to private landlords – of which there are a few sitting in Westminster.
- Don Cox
July 14, 2016 at 11:01 am -
Very interesting. I wonder if any other countries are so far advanced. Digital money is bound to drive out paper money.
The big question, I think, is whether there is still any point in collecting taxes, now that money is just a number in a digital system. Taxes made sense in the Middle Ages, when money was physical gold and jewels. Less so with paper money, which can be printed in any quantity provided you don’t print so much that inflation gets out of hand. There is really no need to collect ten pound notes from the public when the government has a good supply.
The main reason for taxation today seems to be to preserve the fiction that the government can only spend with the permission of the voters — no representation without taxation.
- leady
July 14, 2016 at 3:01 pm -
I suspect people might baulk at the 45% inflation that a money printing tax system would cause.
- Don Cox
July 14, 2016 at 4:13 pm -
They would, but if inflation gets that high the economy is in big trouble anyway.
The system has to somehow limit the creation of new money so that inflation stays below, say, 2%. A problem at present is that most new money is created by the banks, not the government, and so is not under democratic control.
- Don Cox
- leady
- Roderick
July 14, 2016 at 11:03 am -
I’m still trying to work out the problem to which this Vocal Link payment thingy is the solution.
- Bandini
July 14, 2016 at 11:10 am -
Memories of seeing folk trying to flog their food-stamps (at a loss) outside American supermarkets…
I don’t think too many would have a problem with the ‘lifetime scrounger’ facing restrictions on what any money could be spent on, but for those finding themselves unemployed after years of ‘contributions’? A double slap in the face…
I’m a bit out of touch with the UK benefit system, but I’d have less problem with, say, child benefit (if it still exists) being ring-fenced (real food, children’s clothing, etc.). As Mrs Grimble says above, the majority of the cash goes straight into the pockets of landlords; how about having THAT money’s use – or a percentage of it – restricted: 20% to annual maintenence, perhaps? Don’t all rush at once, slumlords!
- Bandini
July 14, 2016 at 11:13 am -
GovCoin site:
“Merchant money systems work alongside Sovereign Money Systems, under a taxable license, CREATING a new money supply and distribute this…” - Mudplugger
July 14, 2016 at 11:19 am -
One is reminded of the Truck Acts of 100+ years ago, which prevented employers from paying their staff in tokens which could then only be used at the ‘company store’, for often over-priced and unwholesome goods. It is not a huge leap from that to our 21st century government defining the range of permissible recipients of those virtual ‘GovCoins’, hence returning to the pre-Truck era.
That may not be a bad thing with ‘our money’ benefits payments, but it should only be introduced with full knowledge, open debate and acceptance of its objectives.
If State Pensions were included, then clearly Werther’s would need to be on the list of acceptable recipients or zimmer-riots would break out. - Matt Quinn
July 14, 2016 at 12:10 pm -
A simple point – and in making it I stress that I have no need for government handouts. In fact, in almost 30 years of self-employment I’ve never received a solitary penny (in cash or kind) by way of government ‘support or encouragement’, despite all the alleged schemes that supposedly exist(ed) to let us ‘Scheemies’ drag ourselves out of the swamps and into entrepreneurship. Such sweeties seemingly being only for the ‘special weans’… But I digress…
The only people this mad-ass scheme benefits are the well-heeled technocrats behind it…
Frankly, it’s a complete load of crap to suggest that this system ‘works’; it almost-certainly doesn’t! – The UK Government is notorious for pissing public money up against the wall on IT projects that never work. Or, looked at another way, lining the pockets of its incompetent well-connected cronies by diverting public money into things that are designed-to-fail. There are very simple reasons why this system CANNOT work today…
1) – Not everybody HAS a smartphone! Even as a relatively comfortable self-employed professional, I don’t own a phone that would be compatible with that sort of ‘service’. – Mine is an ‘ancient’ iPaq, which is a business-oriented device that receives emails satisfactorily, has a real-ish keyboard and is built like the proverbial tank. But I don’t ‘do’ Android, iPhone or even a modern version of Windows mobile. And I’m FAR from unique. – My daughter has one that I pay for; I see the bill coming off my account every month. It’s circa 10% of the income of a disabled/unemployed family of four that happen to be tenants of mine. – Freud needs to go analyse himself by the sounds of it! The technology isn’t universally affordable to its proposed end-user!
2) – Not everyone has access to a mobile network anyway. Six miles from Edinburgh and within sight of the Forth Bridges I have to walk outside to gain reception. Which makes text-based verification services impossible to use and thus several online services practically unavailable to me. – We have a workaround; but it’s not simple and wouldn’t be available to anyone without a soldering iron and the skills/knowledge to create such a solution.
I’m aware of people ‘falling back’ to paper forms to complete certain HMRC returns; they’ve introduced a text-verification service which many people cannot use. Travel to places like South Ayrshire or the Highlands and the situation is much worse. – I imagine the people in those parts are to be left to starve under this brave new regime?
The work I do requires mobility, and there is good reason why we fit CB radios (yes, you can still get them) and PMR (two-way business radios) to our vehicles just like the gas and electricity boards used to back in the old days. We have them because there are patches throughout the length and breadth of the British Isles where mobile-phone reception is just a non-starter.
Besides which, what of the stigma? Does society benefit from forcing its underclasses to be visible? Back in the day the infamous ‘milk tokens’ were often put in the bin because many a decent person could not face the shame of presenting one at the till; people went without! Personally I could not care less what Ms Racoon or any other benefit recipient spends THEIR money on. And until society can ensure that every adult of working age has access to full-time work that pays them a PROPER living wage which frees them completely from the receipt of any kind of benefit then it is THEIR money! Particularly if they are receiving it because of a disability. Whilst I can think of at least one miscreant who perhaps deserves ‘tagging’ on the basis of their trading in pornography they are untypical of the Welsh. And having grown up through the 70s, and even lived for much of the 80s on one of the poorest estates in Europe I can tell you that even the relatively-generous ‘handouts’ there were back then left families struggling to meet ends meet. – How people exist today on the sums I’ve seen ‘handed out’ is completely and utterly beyond me.
Now we learn that these ungenerous amounts are to be paid in such a way as to definitely stigmatise the poor. Just to add to the fun, they may choose only ‘selected retailers’ – no doubt selected for their ‘close connections’ (that’ll be your local corner shop out of the equation, unless it’s owner is a lodge member!). And, to put the icing on the cake, a good deal of public money is to be diverted into the pockets of the technological fat-cats who will make and run these completely-unnecessary systems…
Why not simply have the poor line up at government run soup kitchens? While we’re about it; why not just electronically tag anyone from any household that fails to acquire sufficient money to be completely out of the benefits system? Or perhaps have them wear bright-dayglo badges with a big six-pointed-star on them so we know who the unclean are? I mean; you wouldn’t want them to have the opportunity to live down their unfortunate circumstances and aspire to anything now would you?
There Is already a perfectly-good system in place for paying benefits out. – Clearly this Freud clown is simply trying to devise yet-another means by which our tax money can be diverted into the pockets of the already-rich. I’d suggest he shoves it where is GSM signal doesn’t reach!
- windsock
July 14, 2016 at 12:12 pm -
I wish I had written that!
- Mudplugger
July 14, 2016 at 12:56 pm -
“Why not simply have the poor line up at government run soup kitchens? While we’re about it; why not just electronically tag anyone from any household that fails to acquire sufficient money to be completely out of the benefits system? Or perhaps have them wear bright-dayglo badges with a big six-pointed-star on them so we know who the unclean are?”
Some parties wish they’d written that in their manifesto – stay tuned for 2020.
- Mudplugger
- Bandini
July 14, 2016 at 12:35 pm -
(Off-topic, but I’d never heard of the iPaq before & have always blamed Apple for starting the trend of shoving a little ‘i’ in front of any and everything; now I know it was Compaq’s fault!)
- The Blocked Dwarf
July 14, 2016 at 1:38 pm - JohnM
July 14, 2016 at 10:34 pm -
Not to mention that, for instance, the vast majority of smartphones use an OS that is distinguished by the large amount of malware available. Even the more secure phones/OS are vulnerable to an ever-increasing amount of criminally-installed software…never forgetting that this government is pushing through the banning of end-to-end encryption (which presumably means that whatsapp will have to be made illegal) and probably also will have a look at the secure connection used for banks etc.
- windsock
- Mr Ecks
July 14, 2016 at 1:38 pm -
This Freud creep is an extremely evil man.
A cashless society is the dream of political and bureaucratic scum. They know everything about you and can exert total control.
It won’t work ultimately as anything can be used as cash so long as the parties agree and a cash economy can be recreated, Drug dealers in the US have used Tide washing/detergent liquid as currency in drug deals with success.
Time to stand up and be counted against this evil garbage.
- tdf
July 14, 2016 at 6:25 pm -
Norway is pretty much almost a cashless society already. For whatever reason Scandinavians seem to be more comfortable with the idea that most other races.
- tdf
- The Blocked Dwarf
July 14, 2016 at 2:55 pm -
One of the things i loath and detest about the nation of my birth, the nation forged (as in forgery?) by Blair & Brown, is that sooo many of us seem to live in FEAR all the time. Fear that someone somewhere might actually be enjoying themselves and fear that that enjoyment might be at their (The Frightened Sheeple’s) expense. Fear the rest of the world doesn’t realise it is actually still 1945 and we have just won a war.Fear that someone might be getting something for nothing. Fear that life is UNFAIR to them.
A wise man (actually my o’l Dad) once said to me : “You know, my son, when they said life was going to be fair? Well, they LIED…alveady” (Dad is from London and sometimes slips back into the accent of bombsites when he is making a point-although he doesn’t actually make the ‘r’ into a ‘v’ sound, i just put that in for dramatic effect…Landsman).
Of course other nations have the same fears but , as far as I can tell, to a far lesser degree….and I should point out that a lot of the world considers us a nation of ‘benefit scroungers’ because of Working Tax Credits (try explaining that concept to an American or a European sometime).
Not so long back I wanted to check on the rules for taking foreign holidays whilst claiming Income Support. Now, for reasons, I assume, of keeping apoplectic fit inducing headlines off the top of the Daily Hitler, the Income Support website is written in such a way as to be totally unclear about the rules for foreign holidays. Or at least it was when I last checked. Googling I stumbled upon a thread in on ‘Mums Net’ type site. A mother on benefits asked her sisters on the forum if any of them happened to know the rules, for sure, about people on benefits taking foreign holidays? How long can one go for without losing benefit?
The vitriol heaped upon her by the sisterhood took my breath away. I never knew ‘Busy Working Mums’ lived in such abject terror at the prospect of someone on benefits being careful enough with their money so as to afford a foreign ‘holiday’ (ie staying for free with relatives abroad). The amount of comments that started ‘I WORK 800 hours a week and i CAN’T AFFORD a foreign holiday..how very dare you take a holiday on MY money!’It was a choice between signing up under an assumed gender and kindly informing the Sisterhood that it wasn’t ‘their money’ -it’s the Bank Of England’s or The Queen’s, you pay to use it, like your passport- and that anyone of those Busy Working Mums claiming tax credit or Child Benefit was a ‘scrounger’ temselves, or of closing the tab on my browser for the sake of my stomach ulcer. I chose the later.
*red mist descends so the Dwarf is off to take The Bestes Frau in The World for a walk in the sunshine before it BREXITS as well*
PS.
I’m proud to be a benefits scrounger! Before you (any Daily Mail reader passing) start telling me to ‘get a job’ you might like to check the cost of residential care in somewhere like Rampton and compare it with the 1 1/2K or so we get in benefits a month. Think you’ll find I’m saving you money….so much so that you really should feel ashamed of yourselves for getting all right wing about the 60 a day i smoke, my owning a car, my steak based diet or the foreign holiday i take annually.- windsock
July 14, 2016 at 3:28 pm -
I wish I had written that too.
- The Blocked Dwarf
July 14, 2016 at 3:44 pm -
Now you know how i feel about a lot of your comments.
But for the sake of balance…or rather for the sake of my not appearing totally UNbalanced, i would like to present you all with an email I got from my Eldest yesterday. Infact I won’t copy-pasta it as I would be ashamed for you all to see how illiterate he is, so I shall summarize and simply say he was begging for money from the Bank Of Dad and was grizzling about having to live on a mere £300 a month (that’s his DLA for diabetes , he is on yet another sanction from ESA cos he couldn’t be arsed to get up before the crack of noon and get a GP’s sicknote)! And I do mean ‘live on’, his rent for the centrally heated Crack Den he lives in, in a very desirable part of Norfolk ( a ‘Chelsea By The Sea’ kinda place) is paid for by a grateful nation (grateful no doubt for the child he fathered and doesn’t support, doing his bit for all your pensions). Apparently £300 will not keep him in Monster energy drinks (his main source of vitamins), Chocolate Digestives (his main source of carbohydrates) and cigarettes (his main source of other nutrients).
Nor will £300 a month, apparently, allow him to wash regularly or take the 30 or so black plastic sacks of rubbish out of his flat nor clear the empty lager, cider and monster cans off his stair way.
So yes, I detest the sense of ‘Entitlement’ of many benefits claimants almost much as I loathe the bre-xenophobic fear of all them foreign Johnnies coming over here and using our NHS without having contributed.
- windsock
July 14, 2016 at 3:56 pm -
He’ll be e-mailing you more once he has to go through the migration process from DLA to PIP (compulsory for all current DLA claimants). Have you see the criteria? I know the specific aim was to cut the bill by 20%, but even quadraplegics are failing….
- The Blocked Dwarf
July 14, 2016 at 4:08 pm -
Don’t get me started on PIP/ATOSsers. Mind you, even Crippled Son (a spaz wheelcahir bound since birth so ‘genuinely’ disabled) thinks it is a little unfair that his diabetic brother only gets a £100 a month less DLA than he himself does…so I can see the argument for ‘adjusting’ the system. But I filled in the ATOS form for Crippled Son and it very quickly became clear to me that there is no way to answer the questions without appearing ‘fit for work’. The questions are formulated in such a way as to compel a ‘wrong’ answer-even by the rules that govern the awarding of PIPs.
For example, they didn’t ask ‘can you walk at all?’ but rather ‘can you walk 1, less than 50 m 2, less than a 100m’…sorta thing (I don’t recall the exact figures). So that’s what a paraplegic with a terminal brain tumour was found fit to work…or was it the trick question about ‘doing up shirt buttons’…
- The Blocked Dwarf
July 14, 2016 at 4:10 pm -
PS. sorry my spelling and grammar slip the more annoyed I become….and ATOS make me want to go give their CEO a disability of his own to play with.
- windsock
July 14, 2016 at 4:19 pm -
I know the feeling… I also want to apply that to IDS, Crabb and Freud.
- windsock
- The Blocked Dwarf
- The Blocked Dwarf
- windsock
- The Blocked Dwarf
- windsock
July 14, 2016 at 3:41 pm -
P.S. A little while ago the DWP called me. Their calls are always weird… they insist that I go through an identification process before they identify who it is who is calling me.
Anywho, they were calling to check about my ongoing income support claim and asked if I had been abroad within the last 12 months. Answering truthfully, I said I had been on a day trip to France. The reply was “I think we can allow that.” Condescending alliterative word!
- The Blocked Dwarf
July 14, 2016 at 3:49 pm -
“I think we can allow that.”
I dread to think what my retort would have been…probably involving the reach of GPS signals…..(to quote Matt Quinn).
I would have also have asked if they were going to up my benefit by enough to pay UK Duty Paid prices for my fags.
- The Blocked Dwarf
- JohnM
July 14, 2016 at 10:39 pm -
Never forgetting that the state pension is a benefit….
And that the expats living in Spain etc will still get their pension paid after we depart, albeit minus any future rises!
- windsock
- Hadleigh Fan
July 14, 2016 at 8:05 pm -
For those genuinely in need of state funding to even live, the sums given seem to me to be parsimonious in the extreme, and doled out by some of the meanest Scrooges in the country. But, it is equally the case that there are some people cheating the system and making the state (which means the taxpayer) pay for their lifestyle choice. Sure, the latter must be greatly outnumbered by the former, but those of us robbed by the state at threat of imprisonment really ought to be forgiven for not liking it. What amazes us (assuming I’m not in a minority of one!) is that those genuinely needing support aren’t as incensed as we are, since the money isn’t infinite, and every person who abuses the system and extracts money they don’t deserve robs those who do just as much as those who contribute the money in the first place. My take on it is that they have a genuine fear, based on experience, that any ‘economy drive’ will hit them, and leave the shysters untouched.
Surely we don’t expect the unemployed or disabled to have to live without the occasional treat, and indeed, to live in some sort of decency, but I really don’t see why those for whom living on benefits is a lifestyle choice should do so in any sort of luxury.
- Mr Ecks
July 14, 2016 at 8:44 pm -
The Governments Benefits cuts are a reflection of BluLabour’s stupidity.
The tiny amounts saved will be wiped out several times over by the cost of HS2 Toy Train set (so well-off, middle-class, cultural Marxist London-Bubble Remain voting twats can get into “town” 20 mins quicker and buy a better house for less money further out).
In addition they have provided ZaNu with a bullshit “Austerity” narrative that the left have milked endlessly.
The Welfare/Warfare state does need to be gone. But it must be dismantled over a 50 year period giving millions of people time to recover their spirit and self-reliance gradually.
- tdf
July 14, 2016 at 9:03 pm -
Mr Ecks,
Given your hero Thatcher destroyed traditional manufacturing industries in Britain, how will the jobs required by your plan to dismantle the Welfare/Warfare state over be provided over your proposed 50 year timeline? Let’s hear some specific proposals if you please, not Daily Hate or Tebbitite sloganeering.
- JohnM
July 14, 2016 at 10:44 pm -
Particularly as the manufacturing that has gone, is not coming back. The money is not there to invest, the labour available abroad is educated to suit the work available, and the logistics in those countries is unavailable in the UK.
Yes, I know, we make engines and export them. But the parts are imported first (and soon to have tariffs added) - Don Cox
July 15, 2016 at 9:35 am -
Traditional manufacturing industries are characteristic of a particular stage of economic development. As other countries enter this stage, they will always take work away from the pioneers because their wages are lower. The only way to keep such industries is to hold down wages to (currently) Chinese levels.
This is what happened when the British toy industry was replaced by the Germans before WWI, or when the Nottingham lace industry moved to France. It is a feature of economic history. Thatcher had nothing to do with it.
Minimum wage laws and health-and-safety regulations help the workers but destroy competitiveness. The way out is toward higher technology products, and toward the information and entertainment markets.
- JohnM
- The Blocked Dwarf
July 14, 2016 at 11:39 pm -
recover their spirit and self-reliance
What makes you think we have lost it to start with? With the exceptions of those like my Eldest, I would argue that a life on benefits can impart spirit and teach self-reliance. Or to put it another way: “Being ‘unemployed’ is bloody hard work!”. Going back to my example of the single mom on benefits who saves all year to go on a cheap foreign holiday, do you have any idea of the self discipline she has to muster, the force of will she had to bring to bear, the sacrifices she has to make inorder to save the £however much a week to be able to have that holiday?
- Mr Ecks
July 15, 2016 at 2:25 am -
tdf–Thatcher was all talk. She achieved very little compared to what was needed.
Jobs don’t need to be “provided” –they will be arriving when the meddling, wasting scum of the state are removed . Freed of thieving, debt-burdening, regulating, inflating clowns prosperity will return. I’m not wasting my time giving you plans cos central planning is the problem not the solution. And you only want justifications for people to be told what to do.
BD–Sorry but I don’t care. A woman who gets herself up the duff because she is careless or worse because she thinks that marrying the state is a better deal for her than finding a proper Father for her kids gets zero concern from me. Admittedly she might have some trouble finding a man not a parasite himself and also a decent bloke because 60+ years of welfare have done such wonderful things for the character of large numbers of British males. And feminist legal bullshit means that the man has far more to lose by making a commitment.
Your son would be cut off from all taxpayer cash right away were I running things. I think he would prefer to develop at least a minimum work ethic rather than starve to death. His choice.
- windsock
July 15, 2016 at 8:23 am -
“I don’t care” + “scum of the state” = bye bye civilization.
- Mr Ecks
July 15, 2016 at 12:09 pm -
Only if you are daft enough to believe that the most evil of institutions–the State –is somehow your friend and protector. A commonly held idea but not one that holds much water.
- windsock
July 15, 2016 at 12:23 pm -
No, I don’t think the State is my friend – but it is the guarantor of last resort with regard to defence and the law (no matter how badly our own particular state is momentarily performing those particular functions).
- windsock
- Mr Ecks
- The Blocked Dwarf
July 15, 2016 at 10:15 am -
Your son would be cut off from all taxpayer cash right away were I running things. I think he would prefer to develop at least a minimum work ethic rather than starve to death. His choice.
If I were King Of The World that would be my first choice too! However sometimes the simplest solutions aren’t the best. Cut off benefit to my son and his ‘ilk’ (the BennyStreet Entitlement mob) and he/they just go out and steal, deal drugs, go on the game etc and keeping people in Prison is , I’m sure, more expensive than paying them benefits.Or they just starve and end up costing you money in NHS care.
Eldest has been on sanction after sanction – and he still can’t get his head around the idea that ‘free money’ isn’t free. You have to do something to get it, like get up and go to the doctors or go to any job interview you are told to. There have been weeks when he hasn’t eaten, literally…death by starvation holds no terror for people like him…I don’t have a solution (and I actually respect IDS for at least trying to find one, even if I despise his methods).
- Mr Ecks
July 15, 2016 at 12:07 pm -
Both drugs and prostitution should both be entirely legal so you son would be working like it or not.
And as for crime–since full gun rights should be restored to this nation along with the right to self defence (not entirely gone but TPTB would much rather you were a victim than fight back. People with the balls to fight might fight them) your son would be embarking on a lifestyle much more dangerous than it presently is.
Easier to just get a job.
- Mr Ecks
- tdf
July 16, 2016 at 12:24 am -
@ Mr Ecks.
In that case, my apologies. I had mistaken you for a Thatcherite, but you seem to be that rare thing, a genuine minarchist.
- windsock
- JuliaM
July 15, 2016 at 8:24 am -
Blocked Dwarf, is that ‘self discipline, force of will and sacrifice’ any the greater for having all the time in the world to do it, while the rest of us put in a full day at work to pay for her?
- windsock
July 15, 2016 at 9:13 am -
That is an unanswerable question when we do not know the reason why she was claiming benefits. A carer, saving the state money, perhaps? Looking after young children? An abused wife whose partner had left her? We COULD always resort to stereotypes, of course… That makes judgement a lot easier.
- The Blocked Dwarf
July 15, 2016 at 10:33 am -
Jools, back when i was working or rather back when I wasn’t doing the toughest job in the world 24/7/365, I worked a minimum of 324 hours a month with up to 2 hours travelling time a day. No, i’m not slipping into dwarvian exaggeration, I still have the pay slips to prove it. Infact many months it was nearer the 400 hours mark.
Thing is, back when i was clocking such insane hours, I seemed to have more time than I do now. I know the Unemployed are reuired by statute to lounge on the couch in their boxers all day watching Kyle, eating crisps and swigging from 2 litre cider bottles but I’m apparently too stupid to get the hang of it. I should probably try harder.
- windsock
- Mr Ecks
- tdf
- Mr Ecks
- windsock
July 14, 2016 at 8:32 pm -
Hadleigh Fan – DWP figures released 2015:
Detail
This report provides estimates of fraud and error levels in the benefit system in Great Britain for the financial year 2014/15. The main points from the report are:
•1.8% of total benefit expenditure was overpaid due to fraud and error (the lowest recorded rate of overpayments)
•the estimated value of overpayments is £3.0 billion (a fall from the 2013/14 estimated value of £3.4 billion)
•the net government loss, after recoveries, is £2.1 billion, or 1.2% of benefit expenditure
•0.9% of total benefit expenditure (or £1.5bn) was underpaid due to fraud and error, both unchanged from 2013/14Those of us on benefits can see many ways to improve benefits efficiency and save money. But the government doesn’t talk to us and treats all claimants badly. Also, any, ANY, system can be gamed, but that doesn’t mean all claimants are gamers.
- Anon
July 15, 2016 at 7:52 am -
I don’t happen to think a lot of our politicians are worth the full wage they get either or the jobs they’re in. But I still wouldn’t want to see them so poorly paid that they couldn’t afford to pay their electricity or put clothes on their backs.
- Don Cox
July 15, 2016 at 9:37 am -
It might be a good thing if MPs were paid locally by their constituents.
- Don Cox
- Fat Steve
July 15, 2016 at 10:25 am -
i haven’t commented earlier coz I have little knowledge of the issues addressed by the landlady but I wonder what everyone thinks of the notion that everyone irrespective of their financial status be paid a living wage by the state (as per the manifesto of Greens in this country and as put to the Swiss in a recent referendum and as implemented in parts of Finland) . I personally find the idea rather attractive even though it is counter intuitive.
- The Blocked Dwarf
July 15, 2016 at 10:43 am -
Me too! The longer I ponder the issue the more I see the sense in the idea. The world has changed , and excepting nuclear Armageddon or the Zombie Apocalypse, that change is pretty much irreversible. With the advent of the Pill and abortion on demand the workforce , or potential workforce, doubled whilst the advent of computeryness meant there is an ever decreasing number of jobs available. Does anyone seriously still think the ‘job for life’ exists (with very rare exceptions)?
As you say ‘counter intuitive’ but once you get over that initial culture shock, it actually makes sense and made sense to a surprisingly large number of that, particularly in financial matters, race the Swiss…who really aren’t known for their love of Social Welfare.
- windsock
July 15, 2016 at 11:02 am -
It really depends at what level it is set, doesn’t it? If it is set at a level which only meets basic needs (i.e. current JSA/claimant rate ESA) and then things like sickness benefir/disability benefit/housing benefit/child benefit are abolished, it really would result in mass chaos. If it were set higher to include those issues, how would that affect wage rates and the rental market?
If you retain the top up benefits, what’s the point as people are being assessed anyway?
In theory, it’s a great idea. In practice, how to get there from here would be the biggest issue.
- The Blocked Dwarf
- The Blocked Dwarf
July 15, 2016 at 10:44 am -
edit* “that hard headed, particularly in financial matters, race the Swiss…”
- windsock
July 15, 2016 at 10:57 am -
Who rejected it in their referendum by a massive majority!
- Fat Steve
July 15, 2016 at 11:16 am -
Thanks for your comments Windsock and Short One from the Flatlands. One of the things that appeals to me strongly about the idea is that it would redress the imbalance of bargaining power between the managerial class and the ordinary worker and i think that would have a hugely benificial effect economically and socially …..it would confer a measure of dignity on all……basically the ability to tell the bad prefects go F off if they don’t treat people with at least some respect.
- The Blocked Dwarf
July 15, 2016 at 11:26 am -
Indeed they did. But , as the progenitors of the referendum said themselves, something like a 1/4 of the population could see the sense in the idea. …that is a result that can be built upon.
I agree entirely with you about the ‘here to there’ of it though…it would be like having to renegotiate every major treaty the UK Government has signed during the last 30 years…absolute insanity.
- Fat Steve
- windsock
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