Britney's Piers
-
Posts
1,656 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Posts posted by Britney's Piers
-
-
If you strip away the hot air, he is right. There are some disabled people who are not worth the minimum wage. There are some perfectly able people who are not worth the minimum wage.
But this statement only covers one of those groups. The one conveniently least able to have a riot in protest over it.
-
Some of you really think wages wouldn't fall if the minimum wage was scrapped? You really think employers would voluntarily pay these rates?
Minimum wage may be maximum wage in some places, but if MW were scrapped, maximum wage would head downwards spectacularly fast, there and everywhere else.
You're forgetting before minimum wage we had unions with real power.
-
The same argument is going on right now in the U.S. The incomes of their poorest workers is falling in real terms, so some republicans are suggesting that they copy the U.K.'s tax credit system instead of raising the minimum wage. i.e get other taxpayers to pay a subsidy instead of shifting the burden to where it should belong - employers.
That was the job of unions and collective bargaining, which conveniently subsides with the introduction of min wage, TCs and the like.
-
The employees at my local Aldi work bloody hard.
They pay a decent hourly rate for the job but the successful applicants will be required to put a lot of effort in.
Yes, when you offer a decent wage, you will find plenty of people to put the graft in.
I think I should write a paper to inform mainstream economists and politicians of this revelation, it seems to have passed most of them by.
-
'The poilitics of envy' gets rolled out every time there's a discussion on income inequality, but I don't know what I'm supposed to be envious of.
I'm certainly not poor by the definition here, and I don't envy these rich families either. I'm comfortable, although I work extremely hard for it.
Inequality does bother me though.
It's not the inequality itself, as there will always be inequality, but in the past it was defended with the orthodox theory that even if the gap widens at least everyone is seeing an increase in living standards and income, that capitalism is a rising tide floats all boats etc. However due to monetary policy since 2008 that theory is now broken and the rich are getting richer while the poor are staying static or getting even poorer. That is the thing that creates discontent.
-
Yes. They are there to work, pay tax and rent so the oldies can enjoy their retirement. The young accept the situation so the oldies take everything they can, free this, free that, as they deserve it.
Of course they deserve it, they almost fought in two world wars, you know.
-
Single and childless, you may as well settle into your matrix human battery pod now.
-
I don't care what you believe. I want facts.
You state at first that it is mathematically impossible and then all of a sudden it is just your belief?
I have known people who have done it. It is possible. Difficult, humiliating and degrading but entirely possible. How about you walk a mile in their shoes before calling them liars and regurgitating the crap you read on the Daily Mail website.
Workfare, just as with Universal Credit, is pure ideology. It will not reduce the benefit bill. It will not increase the tax take.
Well, I defer to your first hand knowledge. Apparently I have not crossed paths with one of these people, of whom there are so many.
Although if it is possible it only supports the case for an affordable CI.
-
Yes you can, and most people do. You need to go back to school if your maths is that poor.
They either have kids, or they managed to get on the DLA which starts the avalanche of other benefits. In a few cases they are defrauding the system claiming under multiple NIs.
Someone living on 71 GBP pw for years with nothing on the side? I don't believe it.
-
The real reason for workfare is to flush out the people claiming and doing cash in hand work. No one (childless) can claim JSA for years and survive on it without another income from somewhere, it is simply mathematically undoable and they know it, hence the workfare/daily sign on/etc.
-
I often think an interesting test in how much a job is BS, or not, is if you took the government, corporations and all their regulations away whether anyone would phone you up wanting to pay for your 'skills' on a self-employed basis.
Edit to add: I don't think that many, particularly graduates, don't employ some kind of self-delusion their job has purpose. People just don't cope well without believing, on some level, they have it. Even government make work schemes digging holes and filling them up would really need to pay a different set of workers, ignorant to the origins of the holes, to fill them up.
I think it would persist even with benefits recipients. I suspect, some perfectly able to work ones, would pass a polygraph test that they had some ailment. I would think it's very uncommon for them, even amongst themselves privately, to say they don't work because they're just too lazy.
I think this is a good insight. This made the rounds a few years ago.
http://www.phimatrix.com/pepsi-arnell021109.pdf
It cost 1 million dollars to produce. It is hustling, pure and simple. No different to running a game of Find The Lady on a street corner as far as I can see. It is happening to a lesser degree every day all over the place.
-
Half of all the people doing the "BS jobs" provide no value. The problem is, it's hard to tell which half.
-
Say £500 per person per month or £6,000 p/a gives you an absolute minimum subsistence income.
Giving that to 65,000,000 people is going to cost the country the small matter of £390 billion pounds per year.
Not sure how that's going to ever be affordable.
Why have a fixed amount? Simply set the CI budget as a percentage of tax take for the year.
-
Another question: I will assume money saved from benefits can`t go in a bank account because that is traceable? What is to stop me sticking 30 quid under the mattress every time I get a benefit payment, and then turning up at a social work office and saying that I have overspent and can`t afford to eat?
Nothing. The question you have to ask is, is the help to the genuine needy worth putting up with the few people who try it on (who will as you said, always exist whenever charity is given even after measures to stop them). Nothing is going to be 100% perfect.
-
I thought this was the Big Society (what happened to that?) in action, apparently not so good looking in practice.
-
The Prime Minister used his speech to the Tory party conference to set out his vision of Britain as a 'land of opportunity' where everyone has the chance to get a decent job, buy a home or start a business.
You mean, how it used to be 40 years ago.
-
Damik, I'll tell you why many of the unemployed sit at home doing nothing. They have little choice unless they break the law.
Doesn't take long for lack of motivation to set in and while I agree they 'should' be out there doing something, for their own good, not as a punishment. imo the 'should' must come from them and not be forced onto them. In the minds of most people, work = reward and if we do an activity for it's own reward, then we call it fun, not work.
A guy I know of had a little 'earner' looking after a couple of guard dogs. He'd turn up every day, clean up the mess in the back yard, then take them out for a walk. About 40 minutes a day. The shopkeeper then gave him a small packet of tobacco. The snoopers turned up one day and his neighbour told them he was at work.
Full on sh*t storm followed and he went for about 3 months on £20/week hardship allowance. By the time his dole was reinstated he looked terrible, horribly thin.
Many people on the dole are wary of doing anything 'productive' in case it is viewed as work and they end up on hardship benefit.
Another vote here for the citizens/social wage. Corporate seems to have forgotten that their customers need to have some disposable income in order to buy tat and every adult being given say 25% of NAW would be a consumer base immune from recession. No more HB, WTC, JSA, state pensions etc. and rents get to find their true level.
Here's a scary look at automation:
I thought was precisely the sort of thing that UC was meant to solve?
Someone had a good idea in the comments of one of the papers. Let people keep their benefit and tax any work done on top at 50%, ie not applying the tax free allowance for as long as the benefit is being claimed.
To prevent people doing some work they can get, while the government know statistically there is not enough job offers to go around, seems bizarre.
-
...the lazy foreigners without drive, tenacity, and persistence tend to stay in their own countries....thus the reason why many also leave our shores looking for new better hopeful horizons.
This is a good point. The sample is biased. Comparing economic immigrant labour to native labour is not comparing like for like.
Foreign immigrants should be compared to British emigrants.
British labour in Britain should be compared to Polish labour in Poland.
I would say yes, there may be some difference in attitude in Britain to work and so on due to difference in welfare systems and the silly culture of the last decade, but if you want to know the true extent then at least do fair comparisons. Comparing a sample of immigrants from one country to the entire population of another is intellectually flawed.
-
I guess that that model only works if you are renting, if you had a mortgage it would be a different story?
We had considered something similar to this - using our 'deposit' to buy around 10 acres of farmland and then claim self employed and rent a property as sure as hell would not be allowed to build on on our own land.
that way we only have to make a small income selling eggs, cider (under 50 hectoliters
) and we get to keep our wealth (the land) and get a free ride from the tax payer.All excess income can easily be transferred into 'expenses'.
They seem to be clamping down on this racket now in universal credit. DWP are getting responsibility for it, no longer HMRC, and theres a set floor at the equivalent income of 35 hours NMW per week, after the JC+ check out your expenses.
-
I struggle to fathom how, in this country, someone who isn't wasting a great deal of their income needs a food bank.
I'm not the greatest fan of this country, but one thing we do have is affordable, reasonable quality food ingredients.
Likely because of the new sanctions regime.
-
The ONS noted that the birth increases are being driven by large numbers of women in their 20s and 30s who are becoming mothers along with an increase in the number of migrant families in the UK. The number of non UK-born mothers is about 26%, the ONS said.
-
I've a borderline autistic cousin booted off of the sick and onto JSA a couple of years ago whose been repeatedly sanctioned. He's not "all there" (and I really don't mean that in a horrible way) so lord knows who they expect to employ him. He was fostered originally by my Aunt who can't afford to support him now (both his real parents were suicides). Poor sod was arrested for stealing food last week as he literally can't afford to live. Awful awful feeling he'll be pushed the way of his mum and dad.
Meanwhile the country celebrates the birth of a baby that will cost it tens of millions.
He might as well go on stealing. If he gets a prison sentence at least they are obliged to provide food and a roof/heating.
-
The BNP told you so.
-
the question is whther it's the shopping centre that creates 1000 jobs or credit card limits being raised?
It is private sector Keynesianism.
Household debt 90 billion Gbp. And rising.
Will Russia invade Ukraine and what happens if it escalates with NATO/US getting involved
in Current affairs
Posted
And its the folks who, for the last 40 years decried the concept of altruism as evil and promoted self-interest as the highest of morals ideals, now wish to turn that tanker around on a dime and expect self sacrifice to come as natural from a population in which they've expediently cultivated the most radical forms of individualism. Whoops! That was silly wasn't it.