mac4mac.co.uk

It makes me cross that every JSA/benefit recipient the news has interviewed has said they dont want to work for their benefits or that they dont see a point getting a job!... It makes me cross for 2 reasons;

Firstly, I cant believe that there are people out there who claim to want to work but will refuse to work for their benefits! Its like being given a job with no interview, you turn up do a couple of hours and get some benefit money in return! Who knows, you might like it!..

Secondly, why didn't they even attempt to find an interviewee who wants to work? Its not like every unemployed person is a lazy sod, there are bound to be people searching for work, wishing there was more help out there, so why the bloody hell didn't the BBC find one and ask them for their opinion?

These people might want to work, but only at something of their choosing and the fact that they are qualified to do absolutely nothing should be no bar to their preferences. No cleaning bogs or sweeping the streets for them.

Don't know which news you saw, but the article on Breakfast this morning had two people out of work and looking for work. They are skilled men. But there are'nt any jobs for them.

So would you clean bogs if you were skilled and qualified to a level to manage. Of course not. So why expect others to do a job you are not prepared to do yourself.

As for being disabled, do you really think people who are disabled enjoy it.

I am not talking about the skilled worker who through no fault of their own becomes unemployed, but rather those people who are fit to work yet have no education, skills or training. These are the people who think they can pick and choose what they do. Incidentally, I don't want to sweep the streets or clean lavatories and it is precisely why the immigrant population is currently so large. They are doing the jobs we in this country won't do and getting abused into the bargain.

I was made redundant on the 13th feb 2009. By the time I'd driven the 8 miles between my place of work and home, emma had made all the calls and arranged the interviews required to get me onto JSA, housing benefits etc... 4 months later I got a job. I enjoyed the time with my family but got fed up of feeling like a nothing!

Anyone who genuinely wants to work will find work, regardless of the job! Cheryl from bradford who claims shes been looking for work for over 12 months since leaving college is clearly looking for the wrong job! Just because you leave school thinking you deserve £2m a year, it doesnt make it so!

The BBC is being uniformly hostile to the government at the moment for their own reasons - the BBC strikes are another symptom of the BBC pinkos not being aware of the UK deficit and being completely blase about financial probity just so they can continue with their over paid pensions. I once had a client with a BBC pension - it was even better than the Civil Service pensions, and that's the one that MPs vote for themselves!

Every news broadcast has tried not to discover the truth about what the govt is doing, but to do all it can to create an argument, or 'slap down' a minister. It's all a bit unfair really when I think this is the first fairly responsible govt the UK has had for decades.

_________________
iMac, iPad, iPhone, Nikon and

_________________
I don't mean to sound bitter, cold, or cruel, but I am, so that's how it comes out.
Bill Hicks

'If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people'
Tony Benn

l l

Dave , do you really want someone who likes watching Jezza and doesn't want to be there, associating with your kids in a youth club ?

_________________
I don't mean to sound bitter, cold, or cruel, but I am, so that's how it comes out.
Bill Hicks

'If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people'
Tony Benn

l l

Ok, maybe not a youth club,...

I am unemployed and can't claim any benefits other than the stamp even though I have paid into the system for 38 years doing long hours...

JSA runs out after 26 weeks but even if it didn't it's hardly the high life is it ? I could not even get a free eye test so it was a good job I didn't need glasses which I also could not claim for. On top of that after being very fit all my life I have now got high blood pressure and don't seem to have the energy I used to have (half marathon in 77 mins ).

I thought with a good work record I would have been able to pick up a job easily but have found at 55 years old a lot of employers seem to prefer younger people. Don't think it might not happen to you one day as I never thought I would be in this position.

_________________
i phone 13 pro, 2008 Mac pro,i Pad pro 9.8 in , ATV 4
Canon 6D, Canon 1Dm2, 17-40L, 24-70L, 70-200Lis, 300f4L,100F2 and loads of other stuff.

_________________
iMac, iPad, iPhone, Nikon and

Well they probably didn't do it because they are not tories.. The gov. is proposing that everyone should be in a private pension scheme, this mean a drain of currency to private companies rather than for the good of the people. Yes people have to pay for pension but it should be an economical public fund.

The tories would never have invested in schools, hospitals and public services, don't forget we are all in this together ( but each for his own).

It' is verging on criminal that millionaire ministers who benefited from a free education are imposing vast debts on the next generation (even thatcher will be turning in her grave !!)

The whole idea of the 'austerity' theory was to avoid leaving the next generation in debt, so lets saddle them with 60K loans at 25.

We will end up with more educated immigrants because our children will not be taking up higher eduction. The whole thing stinks to high heaven.

ps I thought you were in the finance field, how come you have fallen for the "as bad as Greece ' line ?

pps Dave look what you've started

_________________
I don't mean to sound bitter, cold, or cruel, but I am, so that's how it comes out.
Bill Hicks

'If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people'
Tony Benn

l l

I hate reading things like this and commenting, but I can only say how I see....

At the moment, it just seems like everything is going up. The whole tuition fee's thing is ridiculous, and I think the protest (as out of hand as it got) was great. It seems to me that the Tories are doing the usual, making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Yes, the more 'well off' may be paying a higher rate of tax, but surely if they're paying that higher rate, it's because they can afford it, yes? Taxing the less fortunate, all be it a little, makes a difference.

With regards to benefits, it's the frauds who need to be ratted out. People who genuinely need it, should get it. And lot of the time, it's the people interviewing them fortnightly who need a kick up the arse. When I spent 2 months unemployed I heard one lad tell the person at the desk, when asked if they had been looking at jobs, tell the Job Centre staff that he couldn't look for work because his brother hadn't been round to fix his computer. The staff member signed him off. Tw*t. It's people like that that are clearly draining the countries resources. Everyone who goes on the dole should be given some sort of special login info so that the job centre staff can see that this person has been looking for work when they login to the JC website, or something similar. It's too easy not to work. And I agree with Dave, give them something to do to help the local community. Like a community service or something. For some people, the longer they sit around the easier it is to get use to that lifestyle. Hit the long term people, the ones who are there week in week out. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see what people want to work, and which ones clearly don't. Sometimes you can judge a book by it's cover...

Don't hit the disabled. No lie, my brothers friends Dad has a disease or something. He has lost an arm, 2 fingers and has half a leg missing. He's in pain most of the time, but he likes to keep as active as he can, so goes to town: takes him a while, but he goes. They threatened to stop his benefits when they told him he could be a bingo caller and he said no. That's just not fair. He paid into the system all his life and he genuinely needs help, yet they wanted to penalise him.

I have a bit of an insight into the benefits system as my father has been on benefits for 14 years. He had a nervous breakdown after working several 90hr+ weeks, but unfortunately alot of stuff came up that went right back to his childhood. He's ended up with a very complex and rare disorder called D.I.D. (Dissociative Identity Disorder: not to be confused with schizophrenia). This doesn't affect him physically, but mentally it is a nightmare. I know because I've lived with him for all that time. But because he has no physical disability, people judge him all the time, accusing him of 'sponging': because they only see the face that he put's on to cope. There have already been a plethora of letters sent to him since the whole benefit shake up, and he is absolutely scared silly of what could happen. His mental state is not good enough to send him back to work (although he does want to eventually), but at 55, you can guess the stigma he'll be up against... Do people really think that living of £8.5k a year is a luxurious lifestyle? (Yes, thats all they get for a couple).

I guess the point i'm trying to make is why should people like my Dad be targeted, when there are people who can help there own situation but can clearly not be bothered to do so. Thats where this countries problem lyes... The prisons are another area to target, I know it's an old one, but take away there luxuries. Make it like it used to be, make it like Shawshank! Make people think twice before they commit a crime! And, stop immigrants being able to claim benefits for children that were born before they even got to this country: and only let them in if they have a job to go to! For god's sake Britain, we fought a war to beat the Germans, and now the EU are dictating everything we do and this country no longer has a backbone to stand up for itself!

I can see an anarchic state forming if things keep going the way they do, and if they can force change, then who isn't going to jump on it?

You have to remember that pensions are really deferred salary. Eventually they become a salary replacement. I can't see a public fund working too well - just look at how neither the BOAP nor the SERPS nor Graduated Pension Schemes have ever been funded other than as they went (your NIC today is your father/grandfather's pension tomorrow). This means that with no investment pot for the money to grow in, the public fund will soon be too small to pay out the liabilities of an aging population (there will be more people taking out than putting in...)

In Switzerland the pension system is compulsory for everyone, and employers have to pay in a at least the same as their employees pay in, and that starts at 5.05% each. They are run by private companies, but must grow by a minimum of 2.5% every year - not "average growth" but real growth. With inflation less than 1% nearly always, that's a real rate of return that is rather good.

I agree with you that education should be free, it's one of the big world problems at the moment that the World Bank pushes the mantra that children should pay for schooling. In the UK though, perhaps the question that should be asked is do too many people go to University? If fewer people went, costs would go down and the money saved could be used to give more people better and more suitable technical and vocational education more suited to their needs. There are far too many people coming out of University with degrees that mean very little, and too few people who can turn a lathe or operate precision tools in heavy engineering. I won't even mention plumbers.

How do you get to 60k loans when the cap on fees will be £9,000? Few graduates stay longer than three years to complete their degrees. A tiny minority do a one year Masters or a three year PhD. If they study a 7 year course in medicine they will soon be earning £100,000 a year; likewise Vets (7 years) and Architects (7 year sandwich course) earn a lot more after qualifying and can pay the extra fees more easily.

No, the UK doesn't have as much debt as Greece, but it was a question of when did some of the debt need to be renewed, and would lenders invest in a country's currency that depended on a debt laden economy?

_________________
iMac, iPad, iPhone, Nikon and