Grendel
Well-Known Member
So there are no other benefits? Housing costs, energy etc?
Immigration and Asylum (6 Viewers)
- Thread starter mmttww
- Start date
So there are no other benefits? Housing costs, energy etc?
The issue is that you believe that society can be conveniently divided into ‘productive’ and ‘unproductive’ categories, often defined by characteristics that aren’t necessarily predictive of their economic status (i.e. whether they were born in this country) and often splitting hairs over what kinds of government expenditures should be taken into account (welfare payments bad, free schooling good etc).
Like most topics on here, everyone agrees with the central point that our welfare system (or asylum system, or healthcare system etc) is in need of reform. But the attempts to hijack the process in the name of advancing pet projects on immigration etc mean we just go round in circles until we’ve all been bludgeoned into submission by your extended essays.
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
Are those contingent on being unemployed?
skybluetony176
Well-Known Member
Ahh the doff capping plebory of regurgitating the private sector is more efficient than the public sector. How do you even measure that for starters. You can’t measure public sector work in terms of turnover or profit or production capabilities etc etc. Public sector work is not measurable by the same terms and vice versa. It’s a lazy trope at best. Where’s the evidence other than a few right wing politicians and political commentators repeating it enough for the plebs to believe it.
Captain Dart
Well-Known Member
Yeah we can trust whatever claims the European Federation of Public Service Unions make.Ahh the doff capping plebory of regurgitating the private sector is more efficient than the public sector. How do you even measure that for starters. You can’t measure public sector work in terms of turnover or profit or production capabilities etc etc. Public sector work is not measurable by the same terms and vice versa. It’s a lazy trope at best. Where’s the evidence other than a few right wing politicians and political commentators repeating it enough for the plebs to believe it.
Mucca Mad Boys
Well-Known Member
It’s not a belief, it’s a fact and it’s why we have progressive taxation.
Immigration status is actually taken into account. The Beveridge Report in 1942 specifically mentions UK citizens. It was through numerous EU treaties that extends this to EU citizens as a whole and ILR as we know it today was set up in 2003. Net migration has increased significantly from then and was assumed a low % of migrants would be self-sufficient and net-tax contributors, that’s no longer the case. 1/6 UC claimants being foreign is clearly a big problem. In 2022, payments to foreigners on UC was £6bn, surpassed £10bn in 2024 and projected to be £12bn this year…
With respect, it’s you that was trying to play silly games and ended up looking silly when it become apparent you couldn’t (or wouldn’t) distinguish public services and welfare handouts. The clues are in the names; National Health Service, Personal Independence Payment, Universal Credit.
One final point, if yourself and others articulate “the need” for reform on immigration or welfare and yet, offer no ideas, decry any suggestions made and use straw man arguments or ask stupid questions like ‘why are the elderly/children not classed as “unproductive” and not working age adults?’ At best, you’re playing a fool…
Earlsdon_Skyblue1
Well-Known Member
Bugsy
Well-Known Member
How is it right to offer sex offenders money.
Fucking insane.
Romanian grooming gang boss offered £1,500 to leave UK while awaiting trial for 10 rapes | UK News | Sky News Romanian grooming gang boss offered £1,500 to leave UK while awaiting trial for 10 rapes
Fucking insane.
Romanian grooming gang boss offered £1,500 to leave UK while awaiting trial for 10 rapes | UK News | Sky News Romanian grooming gang boss offered £1,500 to leave UK while awaiting trial for 10 rapes
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
Some of those suggestions included suspending all benefit payments if someone is unemployed for too long and turning the £25/week child benefit payment into a voucher. If there were others I missed, let’s discuss them, but the dialogue is all about being punitive on people for being unemployed as though it’s a lifestyle choice. That’s where I take issue unless you’ve got empirical rather than anecdotal evidence. Take places where there really is a lack of work/opportunity and you’re denying people a social safety net for reasons beyond their control. There is nobody here who thinks unemployment is or should be more attractive than work or study.
We spoke about the pension too which, again, is the most expensive benefit for the state to provide. Funnily enough I think the American social security system is the model to follow on that one. To me anyway solving the problem of how we fund state pensions is the most pressing issue for the welfare bill and the more interesting one to discuss in the context of shifting age demographics.
Sick Boy
Super Moderator
WTF...
Bugsy
Well-Known Member
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
Reminds me I wonder how that chap who got paid £500 to behave on a plane is doing.I know and it's not the 1st time either
Mucca Mad Boys
Well-Known Member
Let’s be honest, there’s nothing stopping him coming back.
Grendel
Well-Known Member
it’s one of the lowest
Pension Breakeven Index: How the UK State Pension Compares to Europe
We've compared the UK's pension system to the rest of Europe’s countries to see which one offers the most to retirees. Check it out here.
www.almondfinancial.co.uk
Grendel
Well-Known Member
he’s delivering a pizza near you
Mucca Mad Boys
Well-Known Member
Did somebody say Just Eat?
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
Too late. Bastard’s eaten half of it
Sky_Blue_Dreamer
Well-Known Member
Except that the aims and objectives, as well as the scope and remit of both are completely different.
Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts,.
Sky_Blue_Dreamer
Well-Known Member
Says the person who made the sweeping statements that all children are future tax payers, all pensioners are previous tax payers and all unemployed people (including migrants) have never and never will be tax payers.
Sky_Blue_Dreamer
Well-Known Member
So you're saying this idea that work brings you prosperity and meaning is nonsense then. And if they're that poor and relying on wages from employment and not state handouts, who should be taking the blame that these people lived in squalor?
Sky_Blue_Dreamer
Well-Known Member
So lets say that all housing benefit goes through the crime budget rather than the welfare budget as homelessness plays a significant part in crime due to things like drug abuse and vulnerable people ending up in crime gangs or prostitution. In fact while we're at it let's put people having money to buy food so they don't have to steal it from shops put in there too. State pension can go against the health budget as it reduces the number of pensioners requiring medical treatment and bed blocking
With a bit of creative accounting we can move pretty much the entire welfare budget into public services.
Sky_Blue_Dreamer
Well-Known Member
So a person currently not working/paying tax but helps run programmes that help keep people off the street or out of gangs/crime - are they not contributing?
Stop this ridiculous idea that the only measure of whether someone contributes or not is purely down to tax/welfare. Or even tangible measures in general.
Mucca Mad Boys
Well-Known Member
Let’s agree that measuring public sector productivity is more difficult than the private sector… In any case, whatever measurements are, the public sector is producing less of what it is currently measured on.
A public service = a tax funded, government run
Welfare benefits = handouts to selected groups
Housing benefits or state pensions are not public services…
Mucca Mad Boys
Well-Known Member
It’s not a ridiculous idea. A welfare state can only survive if the number of people paying into it outnumbers the people taking out of it.
This thread demonstrates that a lot of left leaning people do not grasp this or simply don’t want to confront this.
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
The whole discussions around the state pension revolve around literally that topic.
Sky_Blue_Dreamer
Well-Known Member
So do you ignore all the aspects like costs of policing/courts from crime which has led from things like homelessness and joblessness. Do we then ignore the health costs of those affected by such crime (such as robbery) potentially leaving the victim in need of emotional support and being unable to work for a time as they recover (if they ever do?) It's way more complicated and nuanced than the simplistic version of paying tax = good, not paying tax = bad,
And given the age many people are reaching these days, even someone who has worked their entire life and drawing a pension will likely end up taking more in welfare than they paid in tax, even adjusted for inflation. And that's before you take into account the health and social care such people will almost certainly need.