Kansas legislates what welfare claimants can spend their money on..

FishFluff said:
You've not really thought this through have you? I suggest you go look up the costs of keeping children in care...
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It's a recurring theme to all his posts.

I love it when people walk blindly into a subject they know nothing about & declare they have discovered a silver bullet solution to a complex social problem.

Hallelujah we are saved!

h53Lo7U.png
 
It seems to be following the common theme nowadays where government points to a tiny minority (workshy, irresponsible spending etc), causes uproar amongst the sheep via media reports/TV programmes and then introduces a blanket solution that negatively impacts the lives of a far wider range of people.
 
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drunkenmaster said:
If the rich were paying a massive amount of tax, and people who should be on welfare are getting their fair share, then encouraging people who CAN get off welfare to do so isn't a bad thing. However if rich people were paying their taxes, and education system had more money in it, and the health care system, and public works/infrastructure had money, then there would be many more jobs with better pay and welfare payouts to those out of work without genuine reason would be pretty low anyway. But if you can save a little there and put that saved money into even more education/healthcare, why not.

With heavy taxation you end up spending loads on public works which creates jobs, improves infrastructure and that creates even more jobs, which reduces welfare payments. When you allow the rich to keep their money they just add it to a bank account. Going from 60 to 80million really doesn't fundamentally change your life, nor 600 to 800million, or 6 to 8 billions. One guy getting a bit richer at that level will live in the same house, have the same number of staff, basically do everything they same but have more money in their bank account. They are hoarding money rather than putting it back in the economy.
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Then you have bizarre social institutions such as professional sport. In this country millions of middle to poor income people spend a fortune to go and see some people kick a ball about for a bit (a small number probably getting themselves into debt as a result). This then makes 1000's of multi-millionaires with more money than they know what to do with, all because they can run a bit and control a ball with their feet quite well.

I am being a hypocrite here as I do like football, and F1 and I know I technically contribute to this stupidity simply by following it (I would never spend large amounts to see a match/race or subscribe to sports channels though). However, the salaries that professional footballers get in the premier league (just as an example) is ridiculous.

If all the fans just said "no, im not paying that much for a season ticket" then the football clubs would have no choice but to make things cheaper for the fans and pay the players less.

When you really think about it, it is absurd and I don't know how die hard fans who pay for season tickets put up with it.

The same goes for film and tv. I will never buy a new full price dvd release again, simply because I won't pay £15 for a film when they gave tom Cruise £20 million to star in it. Give him a few hundred thousand and charge half the price for the damn film. I will never pay full price at the cinema either.
 
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Rroff said:
Indeed a lot of people don't comprehend the implications of the fact that we've shifted dramatically away from being a manufacturing led industry to a service one.



Thing is not everyone is the same and none the least you had motivation that a good many don't have. If your not a reasonably outgoing person naturally that kind of stuff is a LOT harder than if you have a reasonable level of self confidence (or just don't care) and have good social skills - working hard is just one part of the puzzle.


EDIT: No doubt there are a lot of time wasters and scroungers on JSA but there are some living off those kind of benefits through force of circumstance - in my old job there was a lad who was there "voluntarily" doing some course related to JSA whose self confidence was completely shattered by an incident in his life (and left with a disability that meant he lost his old job but didn't stop him being able to do other jobs) and it took him quite awhile to get back on his feet.
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FishFluff said:
You've not really thought this through have you? I suggest you go look up the costs of keeping children in care...
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It is expensive, I do get that. Surely it's better to take them out of that environment, though. Remember, we are talking about the "lower" part of the JSA claimants. We all know that there is a large percentage of those that use the system how it is designed to be used.

elmarko said:
It's a recurring theme to all his posts.

I love it when people walk blindly into a subject they know nothing about & declare they have discovered a silver bullet solution to a complex social problem.

Hallelujah we are saved!

h53Lo7U.png
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Dude - no reason to call me an idiot, when you know nothing about me. Wind it in a bit. Perhaps I'm walking too closely to my quasi-anarcho-capitalist ideals, but that's me looking at the world from my own frame of reference. We all have different points of view, and like I tell my daughter, "if we were all the same, the world would be a very boring place". So chill out and have a Horlicks.

To oversimplify my view on this: Government are not our keepers. Humans are awesome and do awesome things. We have created a system where some people are better off not working than contribution to society. This is wrong.

Also, the government doesn't have any money. It's our money, and it's not fair on an individual to be forced to support, via proxy, someone they've never met, and might not even like if they did meet them. It's more a property right issue, in my opinion. My money = my property.

With that being said, I am also a realist, and understand why we have the welfare state we have. Being jobless with no means to support yourself is horrible, I've been there, and I suspect lots of people on this forum have. With the government being the intermediary between the taxpayer and the benefit recipient, they have an obligation to ensure that our money is being spent in the most cost effective way possible. Maybe that's giving the bottom of society types money for booze to keep them compliant, I don't know; but to me it seems that morally it is wrong to give people money for things they need, like food, shelter, water, etc, and allow them to spend that money on alcohol/fags/drugs/gambling. That's all I'm saying - otherwise, we should all just get £70 sent to us each week to subsidise the lifestyle we want.
 
Thinking about it, now that the Tories changed it so that drug dealing, prostitution and other illegal practices are counted towards the countries GDP (so that they bang on about how the economy has grown), if the Tories win this years GE they could implement this to ensure that they get elected for a third term if they can force all benefit claimants off welfare and into illegal practices before the end of their second term, imagine the GDP then!*


* screw the social harm it causes.
 
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it's not fair on an individual to be forced to support, via proxy, someone they've never met,
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That is the basis of society though. Do you want the police to stop a thief/murder/rapist even although you have never met the victim? Should the fire-brigade put out fores for houses other than your own? Should he government build roads you will never use?
 
mmj_uk said:
Thinking about it, now that the Tories changed it so that drug dealing, prostitution and other illegal practices are counted towards the countries GDP (so that they bang on about how the economy has grown), if the Tories win this years GE they could implement this to ensure that they get elected for a third term if they can force all benefit claimants off welfare and into illegal practices before the end of their second term, imagine the GDP then!*
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I thought the black market counting in GDP thing was an EU rule????
 
We have had a similar system in the Northern Territory to what Kansas is trying to do. They call it the Basics card and its effectively a bank account that the government pays into and you can only use it to buy groceries etc. You cant buy alcohol, gift cards or pornography.
Its been working reasonably well here for a few years, though i dont have any first hand experience of it
 
Food stamps, free health care card, accommodation supplied.

THAT should be what you get in benefits, not cash.
Then you wouldn't need all that legislative red bloody tape.

Excuse me while I go boil my own ****
 
I get the impression that people seem to think that all people on welfare/unemployment spend the money frivolously on booze and "trips to Alton Towers"

Are we just being stupid because its OcUK or do we actually believe that?

I agree so some extent about the "Basics" card as written above. That sounds like a decent enough idea as long as it worked with all supermarkets and didn't line the pockets of one particular company and their party supporting executives. Its still open to abuse.

it's not fair on an individual to be forced to support, via proxy, someone they've never met.
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I know it sickens me to have to pay for your kids schooling and vaccinations by proxy too but I'm sure most of us believe in some kind of society..... Thank god..

(no real gods were thanked in the writing of this post)
 
mmj_uk said:
It seems to be following the common theme nowadays where government points to a tiny minority (workshy, irresponsible spending etc), causes uproar amongst the sheep via media reports/TV programmes and then introduces a blanket solution that negatively impacts the lives of a far wider range of people.
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While we're busy looking down at people, we're not looking up at whats going on up top.
 
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