If the government is around to take the role of daddy - many young men who father children won't bother.
That's the real problem the welfare state has created - far more fatherless kids. Because the mother is better off as a lone parent than being in a couple with the father. And then who becomes the father longer term - the gang.
And that ignores the potential for fraud e.g. who knows who is living with who really.
Germans pay 20% of their salary into compulsory insurance which covers them for unemployment, pension, healthcare and old age care.
They still have a debt problem though its almost as bad as the UK's.
I pay 12% of my salary each year less allowances into compulsory insurance.
The only reason we are in the shit is that both Labour and the Conservatives have given tax cuts we cannot afford to buy votes at the same time we have allowed corporations and rich individuals to get away with murder through tax evasion and loophole tax avoidance.
There is no getting away from the fact it is the suicidal policy of pandering to the rich, from a lot of countries, that has got the global economy in the mess it is in.
I pay 12% of my salary each year less allowances into compulsory insurance.
The only reason we are in the shit is that both Labour and the Conservatives have given tax cuts we cannot afford to buy votes at the same time we have allowed corporations and rich individuals to get away with murder through tax evasion and loophole tax avoidance.
There is no getting away from the fact it is the suicidal policy of pandering to the rich, from a lot of countries, that has got the global economy in the mess it is in.
And yet they still want more. More cutting of the public sector, more privatisation, further reductions in tax. When will enough be enough? Even more galling is the search for a scapegoat for thee problems they have caused - we've settled on the poor and infirm. They caused the crisis in capitalism and cutting off their state lifeline is the only moral path. This is what we're being sold.
I thought it might be a confession, with an apology to follow, from the Capitalists who diverted their investments to foreign lands in pursuit of cheap labour?
Known as: 'The Maggie soft-shoe-shuffle'.
Very good.
Except now the same people are also importing their own cheap Labour,at a cost to the UK based low paid worker you may have added.Blair opened the floodgates to the delight of corporate interests,he also offered even to subside their low pay with Tax Credits.
Still lets attack the benefits culture instead of part of the cause.:(
The £208billion bill for 2012/13, disclosed in statistics released by the House of Commons library, compares with a total of £201billion for 2011/2012.
Around £48billion, just over 23 per cent, will be spent on benefit payments to unemployed and low income claimants.
The biggest share of the expenditure, around 42 per cent or £87billion, will be spent on the state pension.
But keep trying to scaremonger just so your tax bill will go down, which it won't anyway.
We should pay people more for the first 20 hours when they are fresh than for subsequent houra when they are getting tired. If you are not tired after a full working week you are obviously not working hard enough.
It still comes to £380bn with pensions included, so the newspaper article was underestimating.
Only because you're including healthcare.
The most common breakdown I can find for 2013 from looking at a few websites is 117 billion on welfare, including housing benefit, disability benefits and other in work benefits, 138.1 billion on pensions and 126.2 billion on healthcare.
Generally quoted separately unless people are conflating them to make welfare sound as scary as possible.
Many of whom then start going going on about workers and shirkers which in context is clearly silly.
The governments of the social democracies have proved that you can't abolish poverty by giving people money. Meanwhile, the money is running out. National debts are approaching the point where it becomes impossible to pay the money back, and impossible to borrow any more from any sane lender.
Actually, it depends on how you define poverty. How many people in the UK we worried about how they were going to feed themselves before the banker-created global depression? Even now it's relatively few, and things should improve, if only temporarily unless the bankers are muzzled. We still have a good healthcare service, free education, access to clean water, and most of us have a roof over our heads, and so on. I'd say the social democracies with social safety nets are still superior to the available alternatives.
I'd ask you and the OP what you think the purpose of an economy actually is?
The most common breakdown I can find for 2013 from looking at a few websites is 117 billion on welfare, including housing benefit, disability benefits and other in work benefits, 138.1 billion on pensions and 126.2 billion on healthcare.
Generally quoted separately unless people are conflating them to make welfare sound as scary as possible.
Many of whom then start going going on about workers and shirkers which in context is clearly silly.
Well healthcare is a benefit, its paid for out of general taxation and it non contributory.
Pensions are not really benefits because they are paid for by the NI contributions from the recipients.
They can be classed as a benefit if those that receive them haven't contributed.
Well healthcare is a benefit, its paid for out of general taxation and it non contributory.
Pensions are not really benefits because they are paid for by the NI contributions from the recipients.
They can be classed as a benefit if those that receive them haven't contributed.
In the context of this thread have pensions, healthcare and in work benefits "created legions of single mothers, fatherless children, and jobless boys and men" (from the OP*)?
If not why are we including them in the figures used for the conversation other than to muddy the waters?
*not that I agree with that particular bit of bollocks either
by Martin Durkin
February, 2014, 12:44am
CITY A.M.
It is about the transformation of a once independent, prosperous people into a demoralised, dispirited, lumpen mass. It explains why we marry less and divorce more (and the terrible human cost).
The cost is huge in money terms. “Benefits” alone account for about £200bn a year – more than the combined GDP of 30 African countries. But the result of this Niagara of handouts is not contentment. The real victims are those whom welfare is supposed to help. It has created legions of single mothers, fatherless children, and jobless boys and men. For them, the welfare state hasn’t given, it has taken. It has taken their savings, dignity, independence, initiative, pride, it has denied them full lives as productive economic agents.
And don’t mistake the leftist apologists for big-hearted fools. Behind the welfare state is the cancerous growth of a self-interested bureaucracy – the vast, tax-eating, paternalist, public sector “New Class”. These people must justify their existence, to us and to themselves.
So true. Nothing really more to add. Decades of a failed social policy resulting in widespread poverty and disillusionment. Who has really "benefitted"? No doubt those administering the welfare state. I don't see how anyone with a conscience can continually justify keeping hordes of their fellow citizens in penury and despair.
Right! Like before the welfare state every citizen lived a life of prosperity! And just look at those north European counties, with their generous welfare, I think their standard of living and quality of life is worse than Somalia!
And we must end the biggest welfare pay out of all, that which goes to bankers, I'm sure you agree.
In the context of this thread have pensions, healthcare and in work benefits "created legions of single mothers, fatherless children, and jobless boys and men" (from the OP*)?
If not why are we including them in the figures used for the conversation other than to muddy the waters?
My guess is that people like the OP assume that everybody is like them and makes every decision on the basis of economic considerations only
In the real world there are a variety of motivations some more rational or virtuous than others. Money is far from the only reason people marry, divorce, have children etc. If it was they would often make very different decisions and IMO probably have less children
If working people didn't need to claim benefits to make their wages up it would help, but to do that employers would have to pay better wages to their hard working employees....
If the government is around to take the role of daddy - many young men who father children won't bother.
That's the real problem the welfare state has created - far more fatherless kids. Because the mother is better off as a lone parent than being in a couple with the father. And then who becomes the father longer term - the gang.
And that ignores the potential for fraud e.g. who knows who is living with who really.
Oh yes, that is probably it. The men gave up on their children because they thought that the government should pay for them and that is the woman's fault because?...Well it is because she chose to do the right thing and raise her child while the father carried on living his life with no responsibilities at all. The law needs to be changed with regards to absent parents being it the mother or the father. I think that the likes of REMO should have more powers and be a lot quicker and seeing as we are in the European Union, we should be able to have the same rules within Europe as we do here and that the CSA should be able to get money from an absent parent wherever they are in Europe but for some reason that law has not been made.
No one is better off as a lone parent, it is bloody hard work raising a child on very little money but I am glad that people have the choice to be one instead of having to live with a violent or abusive partner.
£110 Billion of which is pensions, £23 Billion of which is housing benefit, the rising cost of which is down to government policy - when house prices go up, so do rents, interesting that the former is great and the latter somehow the people in need of its fault.
Another £40 billion or so goes to working people.
So tell me cloudy, who as a banker is in a job due to the biggest welfare payout in the country's history, which of those do you think should be cut?
If you all want to live in a land of low wages and high housing costs, then this is where you pay for it.
Think on that next time you are cheering another 8% property rise.
I'm sure those Tax avoiding corporations costing the Country Billions are far worse than the poor people getting their scraps from the Government to survive. We instead decide to target the poor and allow the real scroungers to get away with it. I'm sure the bankers are also still enjoying their huge bonuses at our expense. The real reason more people depend on benefits is because of this corrupt banker controlled system.
No one is better off as a lone parent, it is bloody hard work raising a child on very little money but I am glad that people have the choice to be one instead of having to live with a violent or abusive partner.
In 1971 only 8 per cent of children lived in lone parent households. By 2011 the proportion had risen to 26%.
Presumably this wasn't due to a tripling in the proportion of young men who abused their partners?
Simple facts are lone parents are more than twice as likely to live in poverty as two parent households. Almost on every measure their children do less well in the world in terms of educational performance and future job prospects. Sort of proves the points the OP observed - more single parents equals more kids living in poverty and ultimately being less successful in life.
I stand to be corrected, but during the mid part of the twentieth century it was an offence for a man not to maintain his family. Does anyone know whether this is true? The offence was eventually abolished.
Comments
That's the real problem the welfare state has created - far more fatherless kids. Because the mother is better off as a lone parent than being in a couple with the father. And then who becomes the father longer term - the gang.
And that ignores the potential for fraud e.g. who knows who is living with who really.
I pay 12% of my salary each year less allowances into compulsory insurance.
The only reason we are in the shit is that both Labour and the Conservatives have given tax cuts we cannot afford to buy votes at the same time we have allowed corporations and rich individuals to get away with murder through tax evasion and loophole tax avoidance.
There is no getting away from the fact it is the suicidal policy of pandering to the rich, from a lot of countries, that has got the global economy in the mess it is in.
I don't think that has any bearing on the local German budget.
Of interest, they are implementing a law to make budget deficits illegal.
With Pensions included it comes to £380bn.
And yet they still want more. More cutting of the public sector, more privatisation, further reductions in tax. When will enough be enough? Even more galling is the search for a scapegoat for thee problems they have caused - we've settled on the poor and infirm. They caused the crisis in capitalism and cutting off their state lifeline is the only moral path. This is what we're being sold.
Very good.
Except now the same people are also importing their own cheap Labour,at a cost to the UK based low paid worker you may have added.Blair opened the floodgates to the delight of corporate interests,he also offered even to subside their low pay with Tax Credits.
Still lets attack the benefits culture instead of part of the cause.:(
The £200bn includes Pensions already.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/368324/Britain-s-welfare-bill-to-hit-record-high-of-208billion-this-year
But keep trying to scaremonger just so your tax bill will go down, which it won't anyway.
It still comes to £380bn with pensions included, so the newspaper article was underestimating.
We should pay people more for the first 20 hours when they are fresh than for subsequent houra when they are getting tired. If you are not tired after a full working week you are obviously not working hard enough.
They are a bit like burglars who object to houses having security, because it makes it harder for them to rob us
Only because you're including healthcare.
The most common breakdown I can find for 2013 from looking at a few websites is 117 billion on welfare, including housing benefit, disability benefits and other in work benefits, 138.1 billion on pensions and 126.2 billion on healthcare.
Generally quoted separately unless people are conflating them to make welfare sound as scary as possible.
Many of whom then start going going on about workers and shirkers which in context is clearly silly.
Actually, it depends on how you define poverty. How many people in the UK we worried about how they were going to feed themselves before the banker-created global depression? Even now it's relatively few, and things should improve, if only temporarily unless the bankers are muzzled. We still have a good healthcare service, free education, access to clean water, and most of us have a roof over our heads, and so on. I'd say the social democracies with social safety nets are still superior to the available alternatives.
I'd ask you and the OP what you think the purpose of an economy actually is?
Well healthcare is a benefit, its paid for out of general taxation and it non contributory.
Pensions are not really benefits because they are paid for by the NI contributions from the recipients.
They can be classed as a benefit if those that receive them haven't contributed.
Well seeing as the majority of people have paid at least VAT then healthcare cannot be seen as a benefit.
In the context of this thread have pensions, healthcare and in work benefits "created legions of single mothers, fatherless children, and jobless boys and men" (from the OP*)?
If not why are we including them in the figures used for the conversation other than to muddy the waters?
*not that I agree with that particular bit of bollocks either
Right! Like before the welfare state every citizen lived a life of prosperity! And just look at those north European counties, with their generous welfare, I think their standard of living and quality of life is worse than Somalia!
And we must end the biggest welfare pay out of all, that which goes to bankers, I'm sure you agree.
Maybe euthanasia for pensioners should be introduced then, considering most of the benefits is spent on them.
Not a far fetched notion I suppose, in the Neo Liberal world of the present government.
My guess is that people like the OP assume that everybody is like them and makes every decision on the basis of economic considerations only
In the real world there are a variety of motivations some more rational or virtuous than others. Money is far from the only reason people marry, divorce, have children etc. If it was they would often make very different decisions and IMO probably have less children
Oh yes, that is probably it. The men gave up on their children because they thought that the government should pay for them and that is the woman's fault because?...Well it is because she chose to do the right thing and raise her child while the father carried on living his life with no responsibilities at all. The law needs to be changed with regards to absent parents being it the mother or the father. I think that the likes of REMO should have more powers and be a lot quicker and seeing as we are in the European Union, we should be able to have the same rules within Europe as we do here and that the CSA should be able to get money from an absent parent wherever they are in Europe but for some reason that law has not been made.
No one is better off as a lone parent, it is bloody hard work raising a child on very little money but I am glad that people have the choice to be one instead of having to live with a violent or abusive partner.
Great post!
In 1971 only 8 per cent of children lived in lone parent households. By 2011 the proportion had risen to 26%.
Presumably this wasn't due to a tripling in the proportion of young men who abused their partners?
Simple facts are lone parents are more than twice as likely to live in poverty as two parent households. Almost on every measure their children do less well in the world in terms of educational performance and future job prospects. Sort of proves the points the OP observed - more single parents equals more kids living in poverty and ultimately being less successful in life.
Not very pc I suppose - but that's the reality!