Jump to content

Benefit Street; Channel 4 Documentry Series.


Habakure

Recommended Posts

Ah I see, that makes a fair bit more sense. Though it would be a hard one to justify as given what you would rather cut, funds to the 'scroungers' or funds to the 'sweet old people' (going by the opinions of Sun and Mail readers) you know where the votes would fall. It is always the way though it seems, when wrangling for votes appeal to the ideas of the idiot majority as they are easily swayed. :P

 

 

'FireKnife'

 

yeah exactly. Don't get me wrong - I'm not Owen Jones by any means  & I'm not saying that benefit fraud doesn't happen and there are problems in the system however once you get into the idea of "scroungers" then you also put vulnerable people who are more deserving at risk. Notions of napalm and shipping off to islands is ok as a bit of tongue and cheek however there has to a proper solution. Don't ask me what that is though! 

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • Replies 130
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Anywho will be watching the reports to see if anything is done about these 'Benefit Street' people given how it seems some of them need a good stern prison sentence and one in a prison that is an actual deterent.

 

'FireKnife'

 

it costs  65k for the 1st year then 40k per year thereafter to imprison someone in this country. i suspect that money could be spent better elsewhere.

 

most of the ppl in prison are there for crimes committed for monetary/financial gain, very few are there purely for violence etc, usually its due to a situation where there is a distinct lack of money.

 

most of these ppl are not 'bad' per se, they are often just poor and, much more importantly, poorly educated.

 

if u wanted to save the country money (and the victims of these 'criminals' all of the anguish) logic says we should give the ££ straight to the poor so they have no need to steal, deal on the black market etc, and only imprison violent individuals and sex offenders.

 

ofc no politician could get elected with such a mandate so its a bit of a moot point, but if u want to lower the prison population (usually seen as a good thing) and save the country a lot of money then we should be paying and educating people to stay out of prison, not paying more officials more ££ to find more ways of putting poor people in prison

 

deterents dont work. eg just look at how much of a detereent the death sentance is in the USA, or how much of a deterent their much harsher prison system is..

Link to post
Share on other sites

We could just burn all the investment bankers and take 40% of their capital as inheritance tax. Then, with all of the money from that, we could build a new planet out of golden tits.

 

Cost of JSA, yearly: £4.91 billion

Cost of bank bailout: £124 billion

Yearly cost of paying back the above loan: £5 billion

 

 

!

 

edit: Hotelkilo couldn't agree more. Here's a related article from the joseph rowntree foundation which is food for thought:

 

 

http://www.jrf.org.uk/reporting-poverty/journalists-experiences/deserving-undeserving

 

"In the week I spent visiting the estate, the girl became a kind of volatile guide, turning up every day and hanging around and asking questions and then storming off in a rage. After a friend of mine had been mugged close to the estate and terrorised by a girl gang, I asked whether she ever felt anything for the people she mugged with her gang of girlfriends.

"No," she said. "The way I see it, no one ever gave a *fruitcage* when my mum got kicked down every flight of stairs in our tower block. And no one ever gave a *suitcase* when I went into care. So don’t expect me to give a *fruitcage* for anyone else."

Yet she clearly did. She radiated loneliness. The problem was a gap in experience – how to explain to people that this girl in a hoodie, with a face made ugly by violence wasn’t all she seemed on the surface. That life had made her that way."

Link to post
Share on other sites

Regarding pensions. That is a slippery slope with most people who are teachers/doctors etc. how about no pay increase for 5 years but your pension increases. Then they want more contribution to the pension and still won't give a pay increase. So work for less and pay more into a pension that you'll likely never see due to retiring at 68. Then maybe last 5-6 years on a pension that you've paid I to since you were 22.

 

I know of a person who would sleep in a freezing house and saw her mother regularly beaten. Yet they didn't grow up to be a thug, they turned it around and they sought work/education to better their situation. It's okay to say "society made me this way", but isn't that just to justify being (low end) evil and knowing that you're evil, after having experienced it yourself? I mean low end evil, not Charles Mansion evil.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I know of a person who would sleep in a freezing house and saw her mother regularly beaten. Yet they didn't grow up to be a thug, they turned it around and they sought work/education to better their situation. It's okay to say "society made me this way", but isn't that just to justify being (low end) evil and knowing that you're evil, after having experienced it yourself? I mean low end evil, not Charles Mansion evil.

 

See that is the example of what I mean about 'oh I am this way due to you (society)'. I am sure if everyone tries they can make something of themselves. I knew a similar situation with someone that had an abusive father and lived in poor conditions but they stuck with education and now own a rather popular joinery and general repairs business that easily nets them near enough what I make as a trained professional. I bet though that many of these people wish now at the age of 30+ that they bothered with school and such.

 

 

if u wanted to save the country money (and the victims of these 'criminals' all of the anguish) logic says we should give the ££ straight to the poor so they have no need to steal, deal on the black market etc, and only imprison violent individuals and sex offenders.

 

So you mean the benefits system? That is essentially taking tax payers money and distributing it amongst a certain portion of the poorer families. It would work a lot better if it just wasn't so easy to abuse.

 

However I personally think we should have a kind of 'compulsory charity' system. If a person earns a certain amount (we are talking over £25,000-£30,000 minimum here) then they must take a small percent of that each money and it be distibuted to a local poorer family that is trying to work and be educated. If this scheme works then when those people start earning and if they reach above that ceiling they do the same so it is a system of someone pulling you up only for you to help pull up the next person too. I know to some this just sounds like the taxing system but we all know how that just hits local councils and the Government and gets spent on all kinds of rubbish.

 

Oh and while we are at it cap salaries for MPs (and many others) to £50,000 (or even less) because why they need more than that I really don't know. I am sure on £50,000 a year most of us would be bloody chuffed.

 

'FireKnife'

Link to post
Share on other sites

The biggest scroungers are the mps . Subsidised for everything , the biggest portion of benifits actualy goes to people who are working . Wages are so pitifull nowadays that the goverment has to top them up so people can.make a living wage .

Sort out minimum wage levels paid by employers and it will stop the fat cats skimming off the cream ..

Link to post
Share on other sites

Stick MPs on minimum wage, and see how quickly things turn around when you have MPs that want to be there to make a difference instead of line their own pockets.

 

But then no-one would do the job so you would have to give an incentive (money, the reason all of us work lets face it) and that would just make it awful again :P.

 

Though hey if I raised a party that capped MP wages at £50,000 it would be noble but lets face it the bigger parties would just bully you out.

 

'FireKnife'

Link to post
Share on other sites

Mps need to have a set wage and that's it , end of . No more subsidised bars / alcohol , food , switchable property's . Its either your second home or its not . Not changed when you feel its time to claim works / repairs on it .

Some mps expenses claims exceed their wages . Time for accountability to be transparent . Also mps should be removable if they are found to be slacking or not fulfilling the voters requirements .ie turning up for half a day per year to claim parliamentary benifits , yet no where to be seen or heard the rest of the year. Some mps don't even hold surgerys in their constituencys , yet still claim benifits for being your appointed local mp .

As it stands now . It is a never ending gravy train for them . With no comebacks till they come to the publics attention ..

As they say . " we are all in this together "

Link to post
Share on other sites

You never know. I'm hoping to start my own graphic novel (very early days) and I know for a fact it's going to take a bloody long time. But sod it, no-one gets anywhere without hardship and having a positive view towards longevity.

 

Minimum wage is a joke. There is no incentive for people to work, as it costs too much to live (we spend more on helping people who work, than those who don't). House prices are so, that only people on a decent wage can buy a two up two down (£35,000 wage).

Link to post
Share on other sites

You never know. I'm hoping to start my own graphic novel (very early days) and I know for a fact it's going to take a bloody long time. But sod it, no-one gets anywhere without hardship and having a positive view towards longevity.

 

Minimum wage is a joke. There is no incentive for people to work, as it costs too much to live (we spend more on helping people who work, than those who don't). House prices are so, that only people on a decent wage can buy a two up two down (£35,000 wage).

 

I plan on writing my own 'airport reads' novel as I call it so I know what you mean :P.

 

But still I just think we need to start from scratch with a lot of things rather than just path up the holes. Government and benefits are easily things that need change, pensions too.

 

'FireKnife'

Link to post
Share on other sites

House prices are so, that only people on a decent wage can buy a two up two down (£35,000 wage).

I addressed this in my deleted post with retards to FK's suggest charity tax against people starting around 25k, but it's worth highlighting. A single income young person on 25-30k hoping to buy a house will struggle like heck to get on the property ladder and pay their bills these days. I'm on a fairly decent wage and living in the North and it's still going to eat most of my wage to the point I'll probably have to work overtime to afford any luxuries and hobbies. Why should that person past the 25k wage point have to pay money to a family because they happen to have worked toward a decent wage, when buying a house and the associated costs are going to leave them skint themselves anyway? I already give loads in tax and NI, why should I pay more to someone who doesn't get paid as much as me? Where is the incentive to aim for a well paid job if the well paid people are having to give their money they earn to people who haven't earns it?

Link to post
Share on other sites

Sorry?! Did I read that right fire knife? If someone's earns a certain amount then they should be forced to give a percentage to some random less well off person? No. Just no.

 

And who's salaries would you cap to £50k besides MP's? Where is the incentive for people to go out and better themselves? Ideas like that would drive innovation and talent out of the country as they'd go where they could earn a competitive wage. We would end up with a very sorry looking country (not that it isn't already but that's another discussion..) with the "capped" industries stagnating.

 

Just as an FYI I'm not a banker or MP so don't flame me!

Link to post
Share on other sites

Just outright collapsing.

 

Unfortunately what you are all addressing is the post-modern dilemma. Unemployment will probably not return to the equilibrium it was at before the crisis, because those jobs have either gone, been outsourced or been replaced by technology. Therefor Welfare spending skyrockets. If you think the bankers are the root of all evil, then sadly you are mistaken, whilst reckless borrowing and lending was a major cause of the recession, it was not the only one.. I was once confronted by a student who completely in ironically was holding a sign stating "Bankers caused the credit crunch, not overspending on welfare". Which is obviously hilariously wrong, bankers were the catalyst but our governments crippling debt incurred largely through welfare over spending and fitting utterly pointless wars was a major major part.

 

Now we can cry, and wail and pull out our hair, blaming bankers or scroungers or Blair or Cameron, or indeed whomever you want. But it won't help.

 

Unfortunately the only viable way to get out of the current situation is that we have to become *albartrotheth*. If you want to claim benefits, you should be working. Wether that is cleaning streets up, scrubbing off graffiti or making shoes in a government factory, frankly I don't give a flying *fruitcage*. The jobs should contain training opportunities and encourage people to move to civilian jobs. If you have been unemployed for more than a year and you aren't willing to take one of these government jobs, then you should be given clothes to wear (made in said factorys), food to eat, accommodation and a television that works from 1800-1900 each day and only shows BBC One.

 

If you murder someone, or wave a gun in someone's face, or repeatedly rob people or commit any other serious crime, then you forfeit your rights. Those classed as serious drug addicts should be prohibited from having children. As should those who have proven themselves incapable of looking after them.

 

That's it.

Link to post
Share on other sites

It's all well and good saying 'put people in government factories making shoes or something' and only giving workers benefits but even this has been proven by history to not work. The best example of this would have to be East Germany. It provided a large welfare state where everyone was given jobs, access to education, etc. There was very little in the way of serious crime or drug misuse and there was a culture of working being something exemplary. An entire nation of workers, with a government that provided welfare for those workers, much like you are suggesting, and yet by the late 80s the government there finally accepted that it was unsustainable. Over the 40 years, it became more and more of a strain that increased exports of East German goods couldn't remedy it and it was determined that the living conditions of the people would have to be reduced further by a third to sustain the system they had in place. When you consider that the living conditions were pretty bad compared to Western standards at the time, it would have been disastrous.

 

Considering that East Germany couldn't manage it on a lower standard of living, what makes you think the UK could with a much higher living cost and a population that is three times larger?

 

Its like when people say we need to bring back National Service, all well and good, but who is going to pay for it? All those extra people that need to be paid, housed, fed and equipped for two years at a time. Where would the money come from to make it possible?

Link to post
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use and the use of session cookies.