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Dirty Spongers?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Should people recieve generous unemployment benefits, how should the system be administered, is the current system working?
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Let me revise welfare for sociology first, then I'll know more. (Actually this thread will help my revision. Ahh the message boards do have a purpose.)
To me the real waste right now is CEO salaries.
I agree that there seems to be very little perspective on what executives are worth compared to what most people would consider to be a reasonable salary, it is quite disgusting really..
I don't really believe in benefits of any kind. Welfare generally creates dependency and the welfare state is based on fraud and theft.
Does that make it right? No. Yet another product of the Thatcher revolution!
The case of cutting off benefits actually makes bad economic sense - in a recession with benefits cut off after a few months as in America can lead to someone with a degree flipping burgers in McDonalds wasting their economic potential. Therefore I wouldn't stop unemployment benefit after a certain time period. As for the level of benefits part of me says we should make it so that people can have a reasonable living standard but the other part says it should be low to avoid dependency issues. So I don't know on that one.
But I have thought about what to do about fat cat pay and I think I've come up with a pretty good solution. Limit the amount of shares an individual can have in a company to an initial 2% and then for all new share issues sell 40% to the workforce, 10% to existing members of the board (unless they are over the 2% threshold) and put the rest on the open market. Then have the shareholders vote on directors pay increases starting with a basic cut, hold, increase option and then working out the level of the cut or increase. Thus directors are on performance related pay, as shareholders are not averse to rewarding their directors when things go well, you increase the involvement of the workforce in firms by making them shareholders and increasing their long term wealth by share ownership.
I have also mentioned before that I have seen the idea that unemployment in the Great Depression was a result of benefits dependency torn apart, there is little proof of it.
Basically the benefits and tax system has to be worked so that it is always beneficial to go back into work when you are unemployed, that incentive alone should allow the economy to function.
In what way are benefits based on 'fraud and theft'?
It isn't clear that it is all going to 'the rich' but it wouldn't suprise me if they were the ones to profit the most........
So in thinking about this question again. Whether it's a Western government that isn't keeping controls on its multi-nationals or the multi-nationals that are always firing people or changing directions and laying people off...let them pay unemployment benefits. Maybe the cost of that will keep them in line a bit.
Oh, my God I'm a liberal. :shocking:
Now thats all changed, but I think people will come up with a way to fiddle the system.
A friend of mine has actually worked out quite recently that if she went back to work by the time she paid all her bills she would be at least £5.00 a week down, compared to the benefits that she receives now.
your streets would become ever more dangerous and desperate.
shops, garages market traders etc would be closing down as those billions were taken out of the lower end of the economy.
how much fucking more do some of you people want? you are already living better than the kings and princes of all previous generations before you ...and still you want more ...still you want to grind those at the bottom ever further down. shove em all in jail for stealing food. shove the more enterprising single parents in jail and their children into care because they dared to do a bit of cleaning on the side for an extra fifty quid a week. you make me fucking angry!
if you stopped the benefits i'll bet you wouldn't dream of pouring the saved money into decent housing for those at the bottom would you? well , wouldn't be much point as they wouldn't be able to afford to live there.
of course some fiddling goes on. get fucking real.
man is a social animal by nature. time to join the HUMAN race
...bunch of selfish bastards!
Which is one reason why benefits are bad.
Another one of your sweeping statements.
Can you back this up?
Certainly, I found myself in this position a few years ago.
Basically when you start work you lose benefit entitlement immediately. However it could be six weeks before you recieve your first pay cheque so you are living without funds for a while...
It is this problem that the Govt needs to overcome, rather looking for more scapegoats
M.Roll I agree with a lot of what you said, who was it aimed at? (society i guess :rolleyes: )
No need to.
All I'll say is that funding for the welfare state is based on taxation (stealing money from people to fund the state).
If you want to aid the poor, why not form charities or other voluntary organisations?
A private system of contributions for the poor would suffer form free-riding and would be insufficient, that is why the welfare system was created, donations were not enough.
Mono: Why do you see taxation as theft?
Give me a reason why taxation qualifies as 'stealing' and the CEO of Ford Motor Company earning 25 times more than a floor worker does not.
First you have to define stealing. In a simplistic sense, it's taking something that does not belong to you. The state takes money from people in the form of taxation by force, as if you don't pay the government punishes you.
The CEO of Ford earns a wage as everybody else in the workforce. He gets paid more as his responsibilities to Ford are greater than others in the organisation. From whom (if we assume that his salary is set at a specific figure) has he stolen from?
So who is he stealing from? Well the other workers, since every single penny of profit (or money destined for wages anyway) should we divided equally between all employees of Ford from the top down.
Now, I don't actually believe in this communist/socialist ideal. But I don't believe in savage free-market capitalism either. And frankly, saying taxation is stealing is as ludicrous as saying my boss is stealing from me because he earns more than I do (although it certainly makes a little more sense than the taxation bit).
Not to mention than inequality, poverty and unemployment are often the cause of capitalism. So the very least the rich can do is put part of their massive earnings back into society.
we all pay tax. everytime we spend money. those with the most get to keep the most and SHOULD ...also put the most in. that to me is like some kind of 'natural' law. it is 'unatural' to not want to share out some of the excess produced by a highly productive society. having a few wealthy people and a bazillion struggling ones doesn't make sense. surely those who are better off materialy don't want to live in an ever increasingly run down and dangerous country. surely progress is measured by a societies entire structure. good housing. fresh and plentiful food and water.
good comunications and transport systems, health ,education etc etc. i have no problem with some having lots more than others, that is also natural. but when those who already live very good lives ...most of us ...start planning how to make life less easy for those below them i have problems getting my head round that. so a few people actualy like living off the state on fifty quid a week ...whats the big deal? these people aren't exactly going to cause society to collapse or you to go short now are they. they must live frugal lives. so some of them hand that money over to the brewers and bottlers ...the money is moving around.
if they commit crime ...catch them, punish them.
those who intentionaly defraud ...catch them, punish them.
sadly it would seem, that those with lots, see it as 'natural' ...
to opress and blame all those below them.
Mono: I think you will find that most people choose to pay taxes, contract liberalism and all that.......
Basically we gain from being part of society, the govt administers many of the functions necessary for society to work and these need to be paid for by the members of society, simple really........
Surely using your logic the Ford worker could take all the cars he helped make for his own?
Respect for the law can also be involuntary. But under your 'total freedom' ideal no one should stop me from murdering a rich person and stealing their money. Which would be of much worse consequences for the rich person than paying tax.
In some cases at the moment people are barely a few pounds better off by going to work, so no wonder they choose to remain on benefits.
where a primitive society which nursed and nurtured it's young with great care and attention, gave their elders rest and comfort, cared for their domestic animals, would advance in leaps and bounds.
right wing thinking is animalistic self serving survival of the fittest kind of thinking. the fittest, usualy translating more correctly as the meanest. society stagnates. conservative, afraid of change.
liberal thinking is far more advanced. finding ways to change just about anything and everything. caring, sharing, teaching, nurturing, growing, diversifying.
i'm sure someone will tell me i'm wrong. but can you show me i'm wrong?