Re: Benefits for the poor are spent on drugs and gambling
 

It is a real blight on the country that some people, like the woman in the article posted by Jay, fiddle around the system taking money away from those who are truly incapacitated and in need. What i don't understand though is why her case was not revued regularly by doctors -surely someone must have rubber-stamped her claim... The type of disability a person has must fall into different classes from permanent, degenerative, partial or transitory -I don't know how the system works but there must be some parameters for evaluating a person's problem and revueing them if necessary...

It is hard to say what is a "necessity" of modern living -I'm sure a Phone, a TV and computer are a godsend for the house-bound for example, and no-one would want them to suffer the cold -I think the main gripe here is not for those who are deservedly on Incapacity benefit but more for those who are permanently un-employed. Time perhaps for them to have to contribute something to the community in order to merit the benefits they claim...

Re: Benefits for the poor are spent on drugs and gambling
 

What usually pees me off with some of the posts on here is happening again. Blaming the poor and the powerless for their poverty. "Welfare culture" ... bs ... it doesn't exist; it's created by a sensationalist media for the entertainment and reassurance of those wearing those blue leather blinkers, embossed with "13" ... the magic number used by tories to explain away with screw ups of the tory government (and forget about that "coalition" horse manure ... it's a tory govt. with a few whining Lib-Dems struggling to be heard). The story of someone cheating on welfare has folks calling for cutbacks on all the poor. Sure as hell ain't too many people using the scientific method here ... coming up with a general hypothesis based on a few isolated examples and wacky extrapolations ... very medieval.

Ok, if we are looking for "welfare bums", those living off excessive govt. hand outs, we should be looking in the board rooms of the major corporations ... that's where the big bucks are heading. The real bums are the "corporate welfare bums", who seem to be getting an undeserved free ride in this thread. Who put the world into the last recession:confused: A few thousand welfare cheats, or the big businesses whose executives proved they couldn't organize an orgy in a whorehouse, let alone run a business? These, by the way, are usually the guys who used govt. bailouts to give themselves performance bonuses. When the guy on the production line at GM screws up, he gets fired. When GM management screwed up, they got bailouts and million dollar bonuses.

The Government of Ontario spends hundreds of millions on welfare ... but, when GM and Chrysler went cap-in-hand for bailouts, it came up with five billion:eek: And the Government of Canada with about another twenty billion. The workers in the plants in Oshawa and Windsor took pay cuts and reduced benefits to help out ... more billions. And the US and European banks and financial institutions ... enough said.

The UK is a wealthy country ... no citizen should be left behind ... Share the wealth. Don't buy into the "trickle down" bs ... you know, "let the private sector create the jobs ... give them hand outs and tax breaks in order to create jobs".:rolleyes: Kinda like Bell Canada ... give them breaks and incentives, and what do they do. Well, in my community they moved 465 call centre jobs to India for chrissake ... folks over there work for less. Makes good business sense ... trouble is, it puts folks in my community onto welfare where they can be conveniently blamed by local tories for being a drain on the economy.

Corporate welfare - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Re: Benefits for the poor are spent on drugs and gambling
 

I know where you're coming from Eric -as long as the little people keep accepting that things are out of their control, the world will carry on pretty much as it has since time immemorial. Power and wealth in the hands of the few and an illusion of well-being to those in the middle which has recently been shown up for the scam it is - as to the less well-off...an easy scape-goat. The media always goes to town on the benefit scrounger stories but, as a comparison, Sir Fred Goodwin got off pretty lightly considering the sums he siphoned off and the damage his good management did for the Royal Bank of Scotland... How many days of community service did he get for his misdemeanors i wonder?

Re: Benefits for the poor are spent on drugs and gambling
 

Thing is most people wi sense know why the moneys evaporated, n it sure aint benefit scroungers, whilst it does need sorting no doubt, the media/goverments/ n dickheads on here will blame em, NO PARTY at all has or will get to grips wi the real reason, cos as is widely known,they all pee in the same pot, so highlighting this is a valid reason to em.:rolleyes:

Re: Benefits for the poor are spent on drugs and gambling
 

...and drink from the same cup Cashy!!!;):D

Re: Benefits for the poor are spent on drugs and gambling
 

Eric, I don't blame the poor for being poor, but I do blame those who are workshy for being so....but to be honest it isn't all their fault. It is the fault of a benefits culture.....and despite you declaring it to be BS, it does exist...if it didn't then why would you have three generations of a family(and there are many of these) who have not worked?? Have no intention of working, but will happily take whatever the state gives out and then cry poverty.
If there was no benefits culture then these people would be in work, contributing their taxes rather than taking.
Handouts do not work...they just foster dependence.
Some responsibility has to be placed on people to sort themselves out. It seems that everyone want the government to do it all for them...this infantilizes the population.

It really comes to something when i can see families on benefits who are better off than me.....who has worked all of my life.....contributed, and am still contributing(mainly because a Labour Chancellor doubled my tax contribution).
I do not begrudge giving a helping hand to those in need, but why should I have to be a crutch for their lifetime, to keep them in a lifestyle that I cannot achieve?

Re: Benefits for the poor are spent on drugs and gambling
 

Eric, I don't think I qualify for wearing true blue blinkers, but I think you're wrong, about the U.K. nowadays.

Many people are better off claiming benefits, than working for a living.

That system, not necessarily the people, is wrong, because ultimately it's not sustainable.

I answered you similarly, in this thread...
http://www.accringtonweb.com/forum/f...s-59903-3.html

Re: Benefits for the poor are spent on drugs and gambling
 

Companies who go to our government hoping for bailouts get short shrift........they are told to look for a buyer who can invest. The exception was the Banking industry.......they got tax payers money because it was felt that not to bail them out would be more dangerous in the long run.
We, the tax payers, are told that we will be paid back, we were also told that the mega bonuses would stop.....it hasn't happened yet.(and this government sold Northern Rock off to Richard Branson at a knock down price - but there are rumours that this was agreed in principle, by the previous incumbents)

Oh yes, and as to welfare, we have migrants in this country who are claiming benefits and sending the money back home - where this money will not only buy more goods and services, but will help their economy too.
Pretty soon anyone from any of the countries in the EU will be able to come to our country, and as soon as they step on UK soil they will be entiteld to the whole raft of benefits into which they have paid nothing......nada, Zilch, diddly squat. How long do you think this 'rich country' can sustain such folly?

I saved all of my life, so that when it came time for me to retire, I would not be a burden on the state - I prefer to pay my own way where possible. It would have been just as prudent for me, not to have bothered.
Saving does not pay.

Re: Benefits for the poor are spent on drugs and gambling
 

In those days there was work to go to!

Re: Benefits for the poor are spent on drugs and gambling
 

That doesn't mean that physically fit people, should be claiming sickness benefit they are not entitled too, that's the problem, because your out of work faining illness to receive money your not entitle to is the reason a lot of people say I'm no better off working, it shouldn't be more profitable to sit on your arse doing nothing than earning an honest living :mad:

Re: Benefits for the poor are spent on drugs and gambling
 

I know where you are coming from hon ... same generation as me ... I think that we have a stronger sense of fair play, or, maybe of what is right and what isn't. And a strong work ethic, any work: "Where there's muck, there's brass" eh. But ... there's always a "but" isn't there;) ... I don't see much of a culture of welfare abuse. And if this is going on for several generations, I don't see any benefit for blaming the kids born into welfare. The answer is simple, and unfortunately therein lies it's complexity. The jobs are gone. Not the hamburger flipping opportunities, but the well-paid industrial jobs ... Britain's manufacturing sector has shrunk more than that of any other developed country. When 30% of the economy is crammed into one square mile, something is wrong. Look at Germany (preferably thru the bombsights of a Lancaster, great plane, designed and built in Britain, by Brits) .... they are doing so well 'cause they still make stuff ... Nips (those wonderful folks who brought us Pearl Harbor) ... they make stuff too, damned fine stuff. Don't see them shipping off jobs to the Third World in order to boost profits.

Anyway ... what pees me off is that a bunch of welfare cheats are taking all the flack, and the real assholes, the one's in suits, are getting off almost scot free. Ok, the odd Bernie Madoff goes to the joint, and Conrad Black (ex-Canadian, you guys made him a Lord:rolleyes:) does a little time ... but in general, the corporate welfare bums get away with it.

Ah well, "Mother of 27 uses welfare to buy a Mercedes" (fine car, made in Germany) makes great headlines, and diverts attention from the real freeloaders and their political buddies in London ... or Washington ... or Ottawa for that matter. The western economies are in deep doo doo ... and it sure as hell aint a bunch of welfare cheats who are responsible for the whole mess.

Re: Benefits for the poor are spent on drugs and gambling
 

Yes, there might have been if you were in good health.........my mother worked at three jobs......to try and keep us fed and clothed(it was mostly jumble sale stuff) we certainly got very little in the way of benefits to sustain us during this period.
As soon as my father was able he got work....but things were still very tough.
My point was that people talk about poverty, yet many of these who talk of poverty have not experienced real poverty......they have the goods that we could only dream of.....and they may be in debt because of it.....maybe that is where my mother went wrong...if she couldn't pay for something then she wouldn't get it....nothing on 'tick'...nothing on 'slate'.

I am led to believe that there is work for those today who would accept it....but it doesn't pay nearly as well as benefits do.

Re: Benefits for the poor are spent on drugs and gambling
 

I know a chap who I've met through another WebSite I use, who believe me will do anything to earn money for his family, he's always going to the job centre going for interviews, take part time jobs that only last weeks, he won't turn his nose up at anything, he's just started delivering mail in the run up to Christmas, this guy to me is a star, what I've always called the salt of the earth and he deserves all the luck and breaks that are going

Re: Benefits for the poor are spent on drugs and gambling
 

Right on, bud. You got it in one. When I was a lad ... back in the hoss and cart days, serious;) ... and lived on Rishton Rd., every afternoon at knocking off time, you could see them in their hundreds streaming down Charles St., workers from English Electric earning a decent wage which they used to raise their families.

Re: Benefits for the poor are spent on drugs and gambling
 

Eric, I know we are from the same generation...and I think a lot of what you say is true.
If children are born into a situation where it is seen as normal to claim benefits, they are not instilled with any kind of work ethic........that cannot be right.
Why would they go to work if they could live off folk like me? Who is the mug here?
The jobs are gone....are they? The polish workers come here and seem to get jobs OK...because they have a work ethic...they want to work.
I know our manufacturing base has shrunk......maybe that has something to do with the EU and how they place the criteria for tenders(e.g. the Siemens deal that took work away from Bombardier in Derby...the EU skewed the criteria for the contract so that Bombardier were ineligible to be considered for the contract) there are other factors at play too...everything that can be manufactured, is manufactured in China - a place where the workforce is cheap to employ - so their goods are naturally more competitive.

We exported our jobs....yes we sold looms to countries that could make stuff far more cheaply.......and then wondered why there were no British made cotton goods for sale here. I was a casualty of that shrinkage.....originally a weaver...until all the mills closed down.

Yes corporate bums do get away with a lot......many of the huge businesses are registered abroad for tax purposes...they pay no tax in this country.......that should be tackled, but I won't hold my breath on that one.

There are many inequalities, and one does not cancel out another.
The rich are never going to complain about the benefits system...it doesn't touch their lives.
As I have said in a previous post.....I do not mind offering a helping hand to those who have genuine need......but I do resent being a lifetime crutch for those who want to stay at home and watch Jeremy Kyle on daytime TV.