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Thread: Benefits Street

  1. #17
    ALT0153™ Rob_B's Avatar
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    Re: Benefits Street

    Quote Originally Posted by Spreadie View Post
    Clearly those people are cannier than me, because I wouldn't have a clue how to survive on benefits. I was made redundant after 16 years and was entitled to £65 a week! Thankfully, I found another job within a few months, but it was the first time I have lain awake in bed wondering how I was going to provide for the family.

    The job centre was an eye-opening experience too - as I was just out of long term employment, I was whisked upstairs and assigned a handler to help me get back into work. When I asked why the dozens of Chav baby factories downstairs didn't get the same treatment, I was given a resigned look and unofficially told "because we know you want to find work, and we wont be wasting our time".

    Heaven forbid you fall into that demographic but actually want to find work - you'll get no help at all.
    My wife had a similar experience, plus she knew someone who worked in a job centre so heard the stories. People who they know want work will get it, she got a job after about 4 weeks of looking and they were almost amazed as most of the people there had been on it for a long, long time. Most long enough to get the 'bonus' they did/do? i.e. be out of work for over 3 months (I think) and they gave you something like a couple of hundred quid!
    Last edited by Rob_B; 08-01-2014 at 05:56 PM.

  2. #18
    ho! ho! ho! mofo santa claus's Avatar
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    Re: Benefits Street

    Quote Originally Posted by TheAnimus View Post
    If you haven't watched the episode, sorry for the spoilers (and why comment!) but you seriously think that someone steals trousers, magazines and booze to feed their heroin habbit because they are been squeezed?
    I have seen the episode. I don't recall making the statement you seem to be attributing to me? I did say that I don't condone stealing.

    Quote Originally Posted by BobF64 View Post
    Only if they don't get paid. A slave isn't the same as paid mandatory labour.
    If you 'pay' peanuts, it is.
    Last edited by santa claus; 08-01-2014 at 08:04 PM.

  3. #19
    ALT0153™ Rob_B's Avatar
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    Re: Benefits Street

    I'm all for working for benefits, assuming it is at least minimum wage levels of course, I don't agree with that work being for private companies though, that just makes things worse for everyone apart from the company benefiting from free labour.

    £71.70/wk JSA* = 11.36hrs per week at minimum wage**

    *25yrs +
    **21yrs+

    I'm sure there are plenty of local improvement/cleanup/social initiatives to keep everyone busy for a 11hrs a week.

    I don't agree with removal of benefits for under 25s at all, it should be for everyone with encouragement to get off them or if 'working' for JSA is agreeable to all parties then if people wished they should be allowed to continue doing so.& maybe be allowed to get a part time job as well.

  4. #20
    ho! ho! ho! mofo santa claus's Avatar
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    Re: Benefits Street

    We might also not let a cheapshot programme divert attention onto a few skint people and concentrate on the big time swindlers who claim more in expenses for an overnight stay than those poor sods get in benefits for a week.

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    Re: Benefits Street

    Quote Originally Posted by santa claus View Post
    We might also not let a cheapshot programme divert attention onto a few skint people and concentrate on the big time swindlers who claim more in expenses for an overnight stay than those poor sods get in benefits for a week.
    Who?

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    Moderator chuckskull's Avatar
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    Re: Benefits Street

    I haven't seen the show, but I'm pretty sure I've seen the kind, pick out the worst few on the street while the vast majority who're striving everyday are too 'boring' to get any air time.

    Just remember the numbers about 5 million(2.5m unemployed, same again underemployed) people looking for work and 500,000 jobs available for a few years now before you judge someone for not having a job.

    Drug addiction and criminality are separate issues that are simply conflated by politics and geography; whether you're just unlucky or genuine scum, you get housed on the same estate, which is why I have career criminals and old biddies who worked their whole lives in the(now closed)steel works and have never broken a law in their life as neighbours.

  7. #23
    ho! ho! ho! mofo santa claus's Avatar
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    Re: Benefits Street

    Quote Originally Posted by wasabi View Post
    Who?
    Elaborate?

  8. #24
    Seething Cauldron of Hatred TheAnimus's Avatar
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    Re: Benefits Street

    Quote Originally Posted by santa claus View Post
    I have seen the episode. I don't recall making the statement you seem to be attributing to me? I did say that I don't condone stealing.
    You said what I quoted, not to blame them.

    Who do you blame for the stealing?

    I wasn't shocked or surprised by the program tbh. But what is really odd, is the extreme types on the left have started condemning it. I think it has done more to show the need for a progressive drugs rehabilitation program than you could have asked for. Untreated addicts cost money. You don't save money cutting such services. You either put them in prison (expensive) or help treat them. This program shows the consequences of doing nothing.

    It's funny, this program I think shows nicely the impact of cutting costs around such health care.

    Yet at the same time, it shows a family who where fraudulently claiming £1,500 a month. So obviously it's horrific propaganda. Pull the other one. There are plenty of 'undeserving poor' in this world, it's churlish to pretend otherwise. Complaining its not fair and balanced isn't going to redress that.
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    Re: Benefits Street

    Quote Originally Posted by TheAnimus View Post
    You said what I quoted, not to blame (1) them.

    Who do you blame (2) for the stealing?
    You're linking two separate points:

    (1) I don't blame them for their predicament.
    (2) The thief.

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    Re: Benefits Street

    Quote Originally Posted by santa claus View Post
    Elaborate?
    Who are 'the big time swindlers who claim more in expenses for an overnight stay than those poor sods get in benefits for a week'?
    Last edited by wasabi; 08-01-2014 at 10:30 PM. Reason: typo

  11. #27
    Seething Cauldron of Hatred TheAnimus's Avatar
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    Re: Benefits Street

    Quote Originally Posted by santa claus View Post
    You're linking two separate points:

    (1) I don't blame them for their predicament.
    (2) The thief.
    So on #1, you don't blame the thief for stealing to feed their drug addiction.

    What should we do?
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    Re: Benefits Street

    Morally speaking, it's a swindle that well paid MP's claim £000's from the taxpayer for utility bills pertaining to their second homes whilst people down on their luck are trying to survive on a few quid in benefits.

    Quote Originally Posted by TheAnimus View Post
    So on #1, you don't blame the thief for stealing to feed their drug addiction.
    Didn't say that. Sigh.

  13. #29
    Seething Cauldron of Hatred TheAnimus's Avatar
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    Re: Benefits Street

    Quote Originally Posted by santa claus View Post
    Morally speaking, it's a swindle that well paid MP's claim £000's from the taxpayer for utility bills pertaining to their second homes whilst people down on their luck are trying to survive on a few quid in benefits.



    Didn't say that. Sigh.
    *sigh* It doesn't matter what a few hundred people steal from us. It only matters when it's higher. Seriously think of the maths, one kind of crime is far more costly than the other.

    However I'm all for throwing those MPs in jail, or applying some kind of justice too mind.
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    Re: Benefits Street

    Quote Originally Posted by TheAnimus View Post
    *sigh* It doesn't matter what a few hundred people steal from us. It only matters when it's higher. Seriously think of the maths, one kind of crime is far more costly than the other.
    Are you enjoying one of your Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds evenings? Stealing, by anyone, is wrong in my opinion. Stealing, wrong. Stealing, not right. Stealing w-r-o-n-g. Hope that does it....

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    Seething Cauldron of Hatred TheAnimus's Avatar
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    Re: Benefits Street

    Quote Originally Posted by santa claus View Post
    Are you enjoying one of your Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds evenings? Stealing, by anyone, is wrong in my opinion. Stealing, wrong. Stealing, not right. Stealing w-r-o-n-g. Hope that does it....
    So you condem the people in the TV program?

    Honestly they to right wing me, required help.
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  16. #32
    RIP Peterb ik9000's Avatar
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    Re: Benefits Street

    Quote Originally Posted by santa claus View Post
    Yes, I understand that Rob but they are trapped; fags, drugs and booze are comforters. Walk a mile in their shoes and all that. Incidentally fungi said he had suffered abuse as a child that had affected him mentally - a scrounger, nah, a lost soul more like.

    The only thing I didn't like was that some turned to stealing but those trying to survive on a few quid a week have nothing but my sympathy.



    I think the Job Title for that is "slave".
    actually no it isn't. We are made to do work, idleness and unemployment are unpleasant because they strip us of the purpose for which we intrinsically know we have. I think workhouses of a humane form are a good thing. So would chain gangs be for inmates and juvenile offenders. Our roads would be in a much better state... but that aside the original workhouses set up by Count Rumford in Munich were actually welcomed by the poor. It gave them a place to actually work and contribute. They were kept clothed, warm and fed rather than begging on the streets. The transition was a popular one. And unlike many of the upper classes, the poor who actually were made to work in them held a great appreciation of Rumford much because of what he did in setting up the workhouses. They weren't the draconian misery of our victorian style affairs - the work was assigned according to ability and they were treated humanely. See extracts from a source book here http://forums.hexus.net/members/ik90...3197-part1.jpg and here http://forums.hexus.net/members/ik90...3201-part2.jpg

    Money for nothing is fine to a point, but it should not go indefinitely. And if the cry that comes back is "but there's no work" then it makes perfect sense to create some. Sorting recycling, sending plastics to UK land banks instead of shipping it off to be burnt overseas, sorting metals, stripping disposed of electricals into components for further processing, crop harvesting, road repairing, cleaning graffiti, sweeping the streets, fixing up the manky council toilet blocks in parks, shoot there a heap of things they could contribute to it return for benefits. And if they're not willing wtf not? It's us taxpayers who have to pay for their upkeep.

    He (who is able) and refuses to work should not eat. (St Paul)


    (edit: probably worth pointing out that Thomson = Rumford (same person) or that text in my links might not make sense)
    Last edited by ik9000; 09-01-2014 at 12:51 AM.

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