Harry chose to leave out the third part of my post that he quoted but it contained my most important point so I have quoted it myself below:
Quote:
Originally Posted by FredSpencer
There are, of course, lots of other factors that need to be taken into account when discussing this subject, but for many people it's easier just to take a headline and rant about it. Unsurprisingly the powers that be also like this because it divides people who really ought be sticking together.
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This is the way I look at it. Even if all unemployed people had a job the income to the exchequer wouldn't come anywhere near that lost by tax avoiders and evaders not being made to pay up. The fact that there aren't jobs available for everybody means the amount taken in/saved would be significantly smaller even if all the unemployed were keen to get a job.
Look at the history of our welfare state. It started as a safety net, had strict controls to ensure benefits were only paid according to the rules and was new. Over time it developed in some good ways and some bad ways. I doubt anyone would argue against the NHS principle of treatment for all free at the point of delivery. Or pensions that allow older people to live a reasonable life. Or even helping out people who weren't able to get a job, either because there weren't enough, or they weren't capable of doing one.
Much that was good was part of the welfare state but it's the case, in my view, that it was hijacked from an early date by politicians to hide the real condition of the economy. The unemployment figures have long been a measure of how well a government were doing and manipulating them was a way to make things look better than they were.
Some examples of this manipulation:
The very expansion of the welfare state itself, employing more and more people to do things in the public domain whether they were really appropriate within its original concept.
Shifting increasing numbers onto the scrapheap of disability regardless of whether they could do some sort of work or not. It should be remembered that until 1994 businesses were required to employ a ratio of disabled people. When that was scrapped it naturally had an effect on the unemployment figures and it was easier to switch people onto a disability benefit, effectively pensioning them off, than to keep them unsegregated in the unemployment total. As well as artificially reducing the unemployment figures it looked like the government cared, a double win for their popularity overall.
Moving into the field of education, the school leaving age was raised to 16, every kid then had a right to go to university and 17 and 18 year olds were paid (EMA) to stay at school.
All of these examples and many others came at a cost, of course. This cost wasn't met simply by taxation but by governmental borrowing.
All political parties had to borrow to meet the ever increasing cost of running the state machine, although some of the cost was met by selling off state assets (another can of worms).
Some welfare expansion was instigated by ideology, as was the relationship between the state and private sector. At different times we've swung between some sort of socialism or private enterprise which have either accelerated or slowed the state expansion. But expand it has, whether a good thing all the time or not.
One consequence of this system over the time it has been running is the creation of of a group of people who were never likely to get a job, there simply weren't enough. This group were effectively sidelined and, unsurprisingly, their offspring quite naturally fell into the same situation. It is now a multi-generational thing and no-one has the slightest idea how to deal with it. It's not surprising that some people have no motivation, either personal or imposed, to work, or indeed much idea about how to go about getting a job.
I am generalising somewhat as some people do get on in life while others slip the other way depending on personal circumstances. I am, however, firmly of the belief that the situation is the fault of successive goverments.
In the recent financial crisis, not the fault in any way of the public sector, the majority of the private sector or the habitually sidelined people that are targeted in this and other threads, a situation has arisen where the current government are working hard to set people against each other to switch the blame and, I have to say, they are having a high degree of success.
By and large other countries haven't developed a state the way we have. They also aren't as large an economy as we are. We (governments really) have actively built a scrapheap of not much hope but over the same time joined in with Europe and created the conditions where anyone from Europe can come here to work. Given that they don't have the same possibilities of work at home and the conditioning of our welfare state for more than 60 years, it's not surprising their worth ethic is different.
That's not to say they shouldn't be allowed to come here. What we really need is an expanding economy. Successive governments have done nothing much about that. We don't encourage and help innovation and enterpise like a lot of other countries do. We don't manage what we've got, whether public or private, very well. And we. the people, don't do anything to change this. The majority of people just buy the message being peddled and spread it with no real thought.
Despite all their efforts in these times of austerity the government is still borrowing 10 billion a month. If we had no unemployed and there was zero benefit fraud it wouldn't equal a months borrowing. The biggest share, by a long way, goes on pensions, then income support for low paid people in work, then the disabled. The NHS is its own entity but, of course, another biggie.
It's been suggested that everyone should have to do some work. What should that be? You could simply go down the route of undercutting wages which would lead to the majority of peoples' living standards being noticeably reduced. You could make them do unskilled manual work presently done by waged people and increase the unemployment level. Job sharing has been suggested. Does this mean no houshold can have two wage earners while there are unemployed people in the country? Totally unworkable methinks.
You could reduce some services, although this would have to be quite extreme. People who are expensive in the medical system could have their treatment withdrawn. Pensioners on only state pensions generally have other benefits. Shall we remove those and expect families to provide accommodation and care, for instance? Shall we refuse any help for disabled people, even preventing them being born in the first place? Should we just allow people involved in serious accidents to die because their treatment is expensive and they might well need support for the rest of their lives?
We could go down the route of private pensions being compulsory, but incomes are already reducing noticeably and it would be something a lot of people genuinely couldn't afford. We could introduce compulsory health insurance but, again, most people couldn't afford it.
i'd like to hear from the people who have a go at the unemployed what they would be prepared to do to really tackle our problems, given that getting everyone into work just isn't going to happen and the cost of them sitting at home watching daytime TV is miniscule in the overall scheme of things. So come on people give it some real thought and post up your suggestions. Just one rule though, you cannot suggest stopping immigration or suggest repatriation of immigrants already here. That is a whole other matter and a complication we don't need, especially as it's a complete red herring. How about it? Thinking caps on and give us your best suggestions. No prizes though, I'm afraid ..... times are hard
