working for your dole......

Firstly if you are working full time you deserve more than JSA.

The job centre doesn't have the resources to do this so it is going to require a lot of money to run and all we get is some litter picked up.

This is probably one of the worst Tory ideas I have heard yet, Can't see it happening tbh.


Reducing benefits for under 25s is also stupid, not all young people can live at home, what are they going to do.

All this to me screams that they think people are choosing not to work, when in reality there just aren't enough jobs.
 
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The problem with this government is that it's all stick and no carrot.

They remove EMA and increase university fees and then, at a time when there's 2 million unemployed and only 300,000 vacancies, tell the young that they won't receive any benefits if they're not 'earning or learning'.

Where's the investment in giving the young opportunities?
 
The government is only pandering to Daily Mail and Telegraph readers and they are doing pretty well in demonising whole waves of society.

Their latest attack on the under-25's is not shocking but disappointing. The government policies have created mass unemployment in the under 25 rather than address the issue all they are now doing is removing any financial support that could have helped.

Look at the figures and see who takes the most from the welfare state !
 
starfighter said:
All this to me screams that they think people are choosing not to work, when in reality there just aren't enough jobs.
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Is that not a false dichotomy? Isn't it a bit of both?

There certainly are people who simply don't want to work and are happy living off benefits, there are also people who are long term unemployed yet want to work and look everyday.

Either side trying to pretend it's all one or the other are lying. The key is to come up with a policy or create an environment where it becomes impossible or undesirable to choose to live off the state without punishing those who begrudgingly have to.
 
I'd also add until we have a jobs surplus forcing the long term unemployed (who don't want to work) into jobs will ultimately just cause people who want work to be unable to find it.

It's not an infinite pot of jobs & currently I'd prefer the jobs go-to people who want to work.

Besides, as a society we need to wake up & understand it's entirely possible that we could find ourselves in a position where we will never have enough jobs to go around a population - managing the fallout (those out of work) would seem to just be a known downside to our economic system.

It's akin to a game of musical chairs, 20 people 15 chairs - then deciding which of the 5 who didn't get a seat to punish for not trying hard enough - it's simply idiotic.

Even if 1 of the 5 who didn't get a seat didn't try - ultimately it makes no difference.

We also have to factor in as technology increases the jobs per citizen ratio could increase or decrease (to a large surplus all the way to a huge deficit) - pending on how society manages the fallout from the loss of the service sector (once that get's automated).

We may need to let go of the idea in society that "everybody has to work" - it may simply be not enough work to go around as technology progresses - considering the purpose of most technological advances was to free humanity from labour, we sadly seemed to have missed the point of it all.
 
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The more people employed in the private sector, the more jobs created though. It's not as if there are only X number of jobs available for all time. Every time someone is employed, more job opportunities come up because that employed person is now buying more products and services.

It might not be possible to achieve 100% employment. But 98-99% might be obtainable.
 
Thompson_NCL said:
The more people employed in the private sector, the more jobs created though. It's not as if there are only X number of jobs available for all time. Every time someone is employed, more job opportunities come up because that employed person is now buying more products and services.

It might not be possible to achieve 100% employment. But 98-99% might be obtainable.
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More people will be employed if demand increases, demand will only meaningfully be increased by the average consumer have a greater share of the total wealth, not to mention I doubt a single person on minimum wage will have enough spending power to result in a further jobs being created (in any meaningful way).

You are also forgetting that people on benefits also buy goods & services, the money given to the unemployed doesn't get sent into some parallel dimension.

Yes, in a system which much greater income equality we could have much closer to 100% employment.

But if you could tell me what's really achieved by chasing this 100% employment goal I'd be interested in knowing.
 
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Removing benefits from under 25's totally? Nice generalization Cameron. What if you came from abroad to work here and are between jobs for 2 months? Go live in with your parents back in wherever you came from? Alright, everyone hates immigrants anyway.

For that house prices thing.. I work 48-54 hours each week, all jobs are not on minimum wage (still under a tenner though), but it would take me 10 years just to save up for a house deposit in Edinburgh. I wonder how it's gonna be for the future generations?

No money for your own house, No benefits under 25, Education ****** up, all property owned by old people, Pound gone down in value, everyone living at home with parents till 30. Only way to get wealth is to win a lottery or inherit it.

Sounds like the middle ages to me. I wouldn't want to be born in 2013. Luckily I am a bit older so maybe there's a piece of the cake left for me too.

Edit: I'd still like for us to move towards that sci-fi society where machines do the work and we just chill.. or at least do less work. Right now it seems to be the opposite.
 
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Pretty much the crux of it, society is being slanted in favour of those who already got to enjoy a free education, cheap houses & now want to deny the younger generations the same opportunities.

It's no surprise that people who no longer need the aid of the state are usually in favour of cutting it down, yet these are the people (if say had an accident & suffering an injury which resulted in a disability/inability to work) would be the first crying for more.

House prices as they are now is crippling to consumer demand, as the average core worker in the UK is spending a huge amount of their annual income on either rent or mortgages.

High cost of living, wage repression & absurd house prices have damaged the success of businesses to an incredible degree (due to diminished demand).

Really we should look at introducing policies which increase the disposable income of the working classes significantly, in the short term taxing corporations/the wealthy is a wise move, as in the long term it gives the corporations a healthy customer base to sell products to.

Ideally, policies which increase the disposable income of the standard sub-20k worker by a few hundred pound a month would be a good start.
 
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Bear said:
Because your current deal ran out ? Usually to save yourself some money or lock yourself in so you know how much you have to pay out every month.
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i always remortgage when the deal runs out. can save yourself thousands a year doing it.

Caged said:
So we're at least agreed that a two-party system where each spends their term trying to undo what the previous lot did gets us nowhere, and meanwhile we have a ton of problems that are seemingly not solvable?
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agreed. its like 2 spoiled children all the time. both pointing fingers and nobody ever taking the blame.
 
estebanrey said:
But why would you "re-mortgage"?
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Usually to make sure you have piece of mind, and possibly a better interest rate once your current fixed rate period ends.

We finally managed to buy a house in 2011, but had to have a 29yr capital repayment mortgage.

Our fixed rate was for 2 years and we have just remortgaged with a different provider because I do not like the idea of having a variable interest rate.

Now, the new provider offered a better interest rate, so we could have reduced our monthly payments. However, we elected to pay the same, and by doing so, knock 4 years off the mortgage term. We felt it was a better use of the savings as otherwise we would squander it on useless thigs like take aways and beer! :p

In another 2 years time we will have dipped below the 60% LTV band and qualify (hopefully) for even better rates, and should hopefully again be able to knock a few years off the term.

Thats why we remortgaged anyway. I'm guessing most people do it for the same reasons.

But others add money to their mortgage in order to make improvements, release equity etc. Like my brother in law who remortgaged and added money onto it so he could build a conservatory. I personally think thats a losing game, but I suppose I can see why people do it if it is a 'forever home'.
 
nick.lidgett said:
I cant believe how much hate there is in these forums towards home owners and landlords.
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It's not home owners who people have a problem with at all, if you own your home then great, its buy to let landlords who gobble up property with no risk for themselves from 100% mortgages who have destroyed the housing market (along with banks).

I earn more than the national average wage, have one child, yet am unable to buy a family home where I live, I would need 12x my wage to purchase a three bedroom semi, yet I could have purchased the same house in 1999 for 2x my wage. Yet on the private rental market it would cost me more than the mortgage to rent, probably from someone who purchased it for pennies 10 years ago, these landlords are bleeding the working class dry. Do I wish I had purchased a house 10+ years ago? Of course I do, but try telling a teenager that buying a house with a 25 year mortgage is a great thing to do.

I did work it out before for a laugh, and I would at least be the same off as I am now If I rented a home I would like to purchase, and then just quit my job and claimed benefits. The jokes on me I guess for wanting to work!

There is a massive problem with the market when its impossible for someone who works hard to purchase a home for their family.

The only homeowners who irk me off, are ones who purchased their place in the 90s or before, for an absolute joke of a price compared to today, yet are the ones who cry the loudest if their property would ever fall in value.

Should just consider yourself lucky, my generation is totally screwed, I have no rich parents either, both close to retirement and being sucked dry by the same system since they never purchased (got divorced in the 90s).
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10604117
A few months after the start of the recession in 2008, unemployment started to rise sharply. When the global financial crisis hit, the unemployment rate was a little over 5% or 1.6 million.

Towards the end of 2009, with the UK coming out of its severest recession since the 1950s, it was almost a million higher at 2.5 million, or 8%.

Unemployment peaked at almost 2.7 million at the end of 2011, its highest level for 17 years
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What's the reason for the current high unemployment? Anyone have any ideas?

Also note that there will always be unemployment as x% will always be between jobs (both voluntary and involuntary).

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frictional_unemployment

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_unemployment
 
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Lord-Jaffa said:
Immigration? Population increase? The death of the high street? No industry? List goes on :P
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Well the inference is that the recession has caused unemployment to increase, not the welfare state. Unless the welfare state was changed in 2008.

The current policy of trying to punish the unemployed when the jobs aren't there is laughable.

With the economy recovering though unemployment will fall. I wonder what the current government will actually attribute it to. Their rubbish policies of course.
 
muon said:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10604117


What's the reason for the current high unemployment? Anyone have any ideas?

Also note that there will always be unemployment as x% will always be between jobs (both voluntary and involuntary).

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frictional_unemployment

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_unemployment
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A lot of places just aren't hiring and stretching their current employees thinner and thinner to cover the workload (some fear taking on a load of people and then economy slowing down again leaving them with a lot more staff than they need and/or can afford).
 
So was this just Osbourne just blowing hot air out of his ass to give the impression they are being tough, to appeal to their base supporters, or is there an actual timetabled proposal for this?
 
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