[Pasture Farm]

I wish i hadn't bothered to read

[jaykay]

I think once you've heard with your own ears someone ridiculing you for 'paying for their holiday' as we have with a certain man who lives near here, it makes my blood boil but like I say I'm actually thinking this with people in my mind who I know are laughing while others work (because they've said so!)

Yes, that would make me pretty cross!

[YorkshireLass]

Anyone holidaying on benefits...well, wish they would tell me how. I barely kept a roof over my head. And yet, who can blame someone who will financially be better off on benefits than working? Doesn't that tell us that wages are too low? Reinforced by the subsidisation of business via tax credits (instead of actually paying a living wage)


I watched the middle class tv prog with the artist, was quite interesting actually, I'll have to catch up for the working class one and see where I fit

[deepinthewoods]

I wish i hadn't bothered to read

why?
 
because maybe its scary? that you can work your whole life and still not get the security of a home to call your own? for some, maybe quite alot of people on this PUBLIC forum this is a fact of life.
ive lived under 2months notice to quit all my adult life. im qualified, i work damned hard and im the best at what i do. im a father who wants the best for my daughter, i have to live with the fact ill never leave her a house or home and i get SICK to the back teeth of people telling me to get a B>>>Y window cleaning round. GET a GRIP.
there are NO houses left to start on this moneymaking bandwagon. these grossly inflated mortgages ARE the countrys debt. and guess what, im helping pay that off my 'benefits' have been cut by £40 a week in a year, and i owe nothing to anyone!!!
 
when this country goes broke, it wont be my fault.
 
im rather p.....d off that this naive and  patronising topic has come up again. i will, whenever this subect comes up keep repeating what ive said in the hope that it eventually sinks in. and no, i wont go away.

[YorkshireLass]

One word: scapegoat.


Sure explains all the lurid headlines. Easy to rip each other apart over £40, £60 a week than to take a cold hard look at the entire system of doing business and (not) paying taxes...

[Berkshire Boy]

It seems to me that this argument only ever comes from one side of the fence. I have no problem with the benefit system in principle. It was brought in to help people in need but nowadays it is a meal ticket for some.I think the majority on benefits are deserving and many deserve more but the ones we always hear of are the scroungers but that is the world we live in bad news is good news.
My wife owns a successful business that she has built up over the last 12 years and employs about 30 people and treats them very well. We are also in a new business partnership with a friend of ours and employ about 15 people at the moment which will double this year. We are high earners, we pay all our taxes but more importantly we have risked everything we own to be where we are today and if it wasn't for people like us a lot more people would be without jobs.
So like the people on benefits don't label all high earners as shallow money grabbing buggers.

[Sylvia]

I'm not very good at debates, especially heated ones and never know how to put what I think in order.
When I finally came back here from Ireland, broken by exhaustion and anxiety, I found that what our home over there sold for wouldn't have bought a large garden shed in England (and that was 25 years ago) Boy!! was I grateful for the benefits system here, with four young children and nowhere of our own to live (thank God for family or what would I have done)
I was thankful daily that I could bring up my children and help them to adjust to such a new way of life all the while thinking of a black South African friend who had to leave her children with her family to work in England just to get her children a decent education so that they could find a better life.
Dave, your daughter needs YOU, not the trappings that money can bring, no-one would grudge you a bit of benefits to help bring her up.
On the other side (if you haven't fallen asleep or given up reading ) there is a man who lives across the road who recieves disability benefits. He recieves these because he carries a walking stick.....and I mean CARRIES a walking stick. It does touch the ground occasionally when he's not doing a bit of dog walking or gardening for others and he relies on it heavily when going to the doctor's surgery   I know it must be nigh on impossible to police everyone who claims benefits but it is such as this man who makes it hard on others and makes folk think that everyone on benefits is a fraud!!
As to the haves and have nots, well if every single person in this country were stripped of what they own and all given the exact ammount of money  I am sure that in five year's time there will still be those that have and those that have not, it's the way of human nature
Hope you can make sense of my ramblings

[plumseverywhere]

I think you've both said what I was trying to (but I messed it up!) basically the people my problem with are the fraudsters who laugh about what they are doing NOT people like DITW (who I have a lot of admiration for by the way, I think you are a brilliant Dad and a really nice person). I claim child benefits so would be a hypocrite to be saying otherwise!
If I were to divorce my husband now, I would be heavily dependent on benefits to get me back on my feet and that's no-one's fault (like you've rightly said, Dave)
LIkewise, I couldn't have taken on my Dad's business as I never earned it (nor did i have enough passion or interest in what it was about). I wanted to work hard and make my own way in life (even though I'm never going to be rich !)
I hope this makes sense?
I felt very uncomfortable going to bed last night that I'd upset people on this thread and that was never my intention. We have a benefit fraud (well 3 or 4) near us and one of them is the man who threatened to harm  my children and turn my goats into curry (he's a total ar$e) so every time I think of 'benefit fraud' I get a surge of hatred, mainly aimed that that little twonk. There is a huge difference between benefit claimant and benefit FRAUDster 

[jaykay]

We need a group hug smiley 

[Sylvia]

Plums, you would have to work a bit harder than that to upset us

[jaykay]

She would   

[deepinthewoods]

absolutely.
 
my vitriol is only aimed towards those who think benefits are payed to the lazy.
a 'one up one down' starter home here in cornwall will cost you best part of 250000. not 50000 like 20yrs ago. thats the problem,  the average wage in cornwall is 16000. the majority of people do not stand a chance. a mortgage used to be 3.5times your yearly income, fully achievable with hard work. now its more like 20times your income.
i often employ people as subbys to cover my lack of hours but as yorkshire lass said this is all propped up by taxcredits so people who want work doing get it done subsidised by the government. it makes no sense.
its admirable that businesses employ people but i would humbly ask how many of those staff are on benefits aswell. if they werent, and a proper wage had to be paid would there be any profit left?
to be honest, i dont do badly, but i havent had a proper holiday for 7yrs and i spend 150 a year on clothes(for me), its all about priorities and my daughter goes without nothing and thats how i judge myself. Not by how many homes i own (paid for by people on housing benefit).
thank you for listening!!! rant over
 

[Berkshire Boy]

DITW yes some of the people my wife employs are on benefits of some sort but surely it is better to be working even with a little state help than being on the dole.That is what benefits should be for not as a substitute for working. It is all about work ethic, I would rather be working even on a low wage than claiming benefits and not working.
People today all seem to think they are worth £30k a year, well it doesn't work like that. As Sylvia said if you gave everyone the same amount of money you would still have the haves and have nots. To me it doesn't matter what you do for a job we are all part of the big picture wether you clean the sewers or are Prime minister we are all important and society can't function without any of those people, maybe with the exception of traffic wardens But saying that traffic wardens were welcomed back on the streets of Aberwystwyth recently so even they are wanted.

[plumseverywhere]

But saying that traffic wardens were welcomed back on the streets of Aberwystwyth recently so even they are wanted.

Oh I don't know...didn't some awful deep floods hit those very streets too         could it be a sign?![size=78%] [/size]

[Fowgill Farm]

It seems to me that this argument only ever comes from one side of the fence. I have no problem with the benefit system in principle. It was brought in to help people in need but nowadays it is a meal ticket for some.I think the majority on benefits are deserving and many deserve more but the ones we always hear of are the scroungers but that is the world we live in bad news is good news.
 
So like the people on benefits don't label all high earners as shallow money grabbing buggers.

Ditto agree with this, we have a small building firm, and given the amount of money we give to HM govt each year we both get really riled by the scroungers and cheats(everybody knows somebody on the fiddle!) whilst deserving cases often do not get the real help they need. I have currently spent a year on the NHS getting my back seen to, at every turn they push you to go private and to be honest we can't afford to what really riles me is how many fiddlers are bunging up/abusing the system, often i go to my clinic and people who are crippled at hospital are seen skipping down the high street half an hour later! We both work very hard for what we have,as BB says maybe its just all we hear about is the bad stuff and thats what rankles and causes division & jealousies.
There will always be a class that can afford the jewllery that MAK's son makes always has been, the USSR tried making everybody equal didn't work, Mugabe has tried it in Zimbabwee hasn't worked, Cuba doing it and most of poulation live in poverty. Its the way it is and you do the best you can with the stuff that life throws at you.
Mandy