Benefit cuts: The how and the who
What do we cut - and who would it hit? When the comprehensive spending review starts in earnest in a few weeks' time, those two questions are going to be right at the centre of public debate.
The Budget on 22 June will set the scale of the challenge: the amount by which spending needs to be cut. The review has to decide the what - and the who.
Ministers have already made it pretty clear that benefits and tax credits are in the frame for cuts. As they keep reminding us - every penny saved from these is a penny that does not have to taken away from front-line services. It seems clear to me that child benefit for the middle and upper classes is not long for this world.
The Conservatives' promise to protect it was always shaky: yes, David Cameron promised to protect it in one speech, at the party conference last year. But - as I pointed out at the time - it was not in the party's manifesto. By and large, he and other ministers would "forget" to mention it in the litany of benefits that they would keep. It was left to advisers to assure us, off camera and "on background" that the benefit would indeed be kept.
What better time, then, to have some basic facts about what our £200bn benefit system actually does - and who actually receives the cash. The ONS has just released a treasure trove of data on this, in a report showing how taxes and benefits affect household income.
The facts show that income inequality, after tax, was roughly the same in 2008-9 as it was 10 years earlier. You might see this as an indictment of Labour policy - but inequality would have risen without Labour's increases in benefits and tax credits. It inherited a very redistributive - or progressive - system, and then made it more so: before taxes and benefits, the top fifth of household earned £73,800 a year in 2008-9, fifteen times more than the poorest fifth, who earned, on average just £5,000. After taxes and benefits, the richest earn only four times more than the poorest, on average: net earnings at the top fall to £53,900, whereas the income of the bottom fifth goes up to £13,600.
Interestingly, the system is even more redistributive when it comes to retired people, and has become more so in recent years. For those households, income in the top fifth starts off 16 times higher than the bottom fifth. After taxes and benefits, the ratio falls to just three to one.
If that was all you knew about the benefit system, you'd think that cutting benefits would be a disaster for the poor. But here's the really interesting fact from the ONS document: the poorest 40% of the population only receive just over half - 56% - of the cash benefits paid out in a given year. Put it another way, nearly half of all cash benefits go to households that are not poor in income terms.
Though they may not believe it, the "middle classes" do pretty well: for households in the middle fifth of the income distribution, 20% of their net income came from cash benefits in 2008-9. Even for families in the quintile just above them - that is, in between the middle and the top fifth of households - nearly 10% of net income came from benefits.
On the basis of ONS figures, the think tank Reform has previously calculated that the government spends more than £30bn a year on benefits for middle-class households. They define middle class as an income of more than £15,000 a year for every adult, and £5000 per child - or £40,000 for a couple with two kids, in 2007-8 money.
Now those benefits include state pensions: indeed, that's one reason why the system has a bigger effect on retired people. But, as the Social Market Foundation points out in a timely report out tomorrow, they also include other universal benefits which, in the context of a "fundamental" review of government's priorities, stick out like a sore thumb.
The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have already stuck their toes in the water when it comes to taking away tax credits from the better off. But you have to assume that the spending review will prod them to go much further.
There are nine questions which any public spending programme will supposedly have to answer; for those who want to read the list it's on page eight of the Spending Review Framework released by the Treasury on Tuesday. The key ones are "Is this activity essential to meet government priorities?; "does the activity provide substantial economic value?"; and "can the activity be targeted to those most in need".
When it comes to child benefit, the SMF and many other think tanks say that the answers are, respectively: "no", "no", and "yes." Means-testing child benefits and removing the family element of the child tax credit from all households in the upper half of the income distribution would save just over £6bn a year - the same amount that departments are laboriously finding in cuts this year.
The SMF also wants to make only the basic winter fuel payment to over-60s - now £200 a year - universal, and means-test the higher payment of £300, which now goes to everyone over 80. That would save £1.3bn a year. To further stick the boot in for pensioners, they also want to freeze their - higher - personal income tax allowance for five years. That would save £1bn. It would not be popular, but it's worth noting that their allowance is already very close to the coalition's professed goal, for everyone, of £10,000 a year.
The think tank also wants the government to remove the VAT exemption from magazines, books and newspapers, which now costs the Treasury £1.5bn a year - on the grounds that the vast majority of the money goes to families in the top half of households. But, as a share of their income, poorer households spend more than richer ones on these products. And newspapers are already having a hard time competing with the web. I'm sure Mr Osborne is thinking about doing this, but he may well decide that the extra £1.5bn in revenues is not worth aggravating all of Fleet Street.
I'll have more to say about VAT in a few days. All I would say now is that I think it's inconceivable - both from a political standpoint and an economic one - that the government would raise the standard rate of VAT substantially but leave child benefit and other pillars of "middle-class welfare" untouched.
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~12~RS~)
I'm 
© MMXI
Comments
Sign in or register to comment.
I currently work in a school, as an ICT Technician. The ammount of money that is presently been thrown into the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) 'campaign' could quite easily be cut. It seems obvious that the money that is been put into the building works them self is required, however, there is an excessive amount been thrown at 3rd party companies (Managed Service Providers) to provide ICT Support to the schools. The money that these companies will receive anually far out reaches that which schools are current given to provide ICT budget and hire staff.
As such, i believe that if the government wants to cut public spending, this should be the first place to start.
Complain about this comment
I have always understood "benefits" to be payments made by goverment not covered by Hational Insurance Contributions. When and how did the basic State Pension become a benefit when I contributed for 45 years and my employer deducts 50% of the basic state pension from my company pension to represent the contributions they made?
Complain about this comment
Stephanie
Given the scale of the social protection budget (this year, forecast as £200 bn, two sevenths of total public spending, and therefore around two fifths of the spending that is "cuttable", with health protected and debt interest rising), the cuts will have to go beyond child benefit for better off families.
If the social protection budget has to find 40% of the cuts, that represents around £25bn a year, to be fully in place by,say, 2015-16. As you say, limiting child benefit to poorer families would gather in about a quarter of that. But to get the other three quarters, I reckon we would have to do most of the rest of the list below, at least to some extent:-
(a) freeze all benefits/tax credits given to able-bodied jobless for at least next year and give below inflation increases for the remainder of the Parliament;
(b) means test all disability benefits;
(c) abolish (or at least reduce for pensioners not on means tested pension) the Winter Fuel Payment, and abolish free TV licences for over 75;
(d) raise means tested benefits to pensioners and disabled people by less than inflation during the course of this Parliament;
(e) consider ending open ended benefits for able bodied people below pension age - say allow receipt for only 6 months a year, or 24 months in any 4 year period; and, last but no means least,
(f) consider means testing what is by far the biggest single benefit - basic retirement pension.
I wonder what your colleague Nick Robinson would make of the political implications of a list like that?
Complain about this comment
There are a lot of difficult decisions to be made by the incoming government on the 22nd June as you say Stephanie, and they will no doubt be causing something of a headache. I notice also that you are still very defensive of Labour's policies...
One area that is not debated much is something that I remember reading in the analysis of notayesmanseconomics.
"One curiosity is that all of our three main political parties are committed to increasing overseas aid by £4 billion a year by 2013. One might think that someone would question whether in our current financial situation we can afford it, for example is it more important than schools or the NHS? As far as I can tell this appears to be the most sacred of the sacred cows."
It still appears that some cows are more sacred than others...
Complain about this comment
Easy way to save £50billion in 5 years and you don't have to punish pensioners, cut the foreign aid budget. I'm still trying to work out how they can justify the british taxpayer subsidising country's that have space programs and nuclear weapons programs. Answers on a postcard please....
Complain about this comment
The problem with comparing income inequality over a decade is that, say an average 5% rise in income for a poorer person equates to a lot less than a person on a higher income getting 5% increases each year. This money divide gets worse each year unless the tax and benefits system redistributes the wealth.
However income disparity gets a lot less when fiscal drag occurs i.e. personal tax allowances are not increased, so if we recalculate the wealth gap it's probably less than we think - still too much for those earning £5000 per year - how do they live on that?
Whatever the why and wherefores, everyone is going to feel the pain whether rich or poor!
Complain about this comment
As you say, we have a £200,000,000,000 benefits system. If we can smash this by twenty to thirty per cent, then that is the vast majority of our structural deficit.
Cut child, housing, disability, longterm unemployment etc and we'll have a better society
Complain about this comment
If the plan is to hit middle income families (and why not - they will not starve - provided the rich are hit harder) then there is an anomaly in the current tax system that needs dealt with.
Where one parent works and earns £60k they pay a large chunk of their income out at 41% tax. The other parent may stay at home and bring up the children although this happens rarely now.
Where two parents both work and earn £30k each none of their income is taxed at 41%.
This devalues the contribution of the homemaker and makes the system inequitable.
If benefits are to be based on household incomes then so should tax bills.
Complain about this comment
Interesting, Perhaps the most telling points made ware:
"income inequality, after tax, was roughly the same in 2008-9 as it was 10 years earlier." and
"the poorest 40% of the population only receive just over half - 56% - of the cash benefits paid out in a given year."
It is against these facts that we have idiots on this blog demanding draconian cuts in benefits with little or no reference to the 44% of cash benefits paid to what they would call the undeserving poor!
Complain about this comment
I'm married with two kids, both under the age of 12 and have just learned that I'm NOT "middle class" by dint of the fact that our household income is 20% below £40,000. Yet I pay £thousands in tax, that the rich can treat as voluntary, simply because I can't afford an accountant.
One other reason the Tax system is so unfair is the unfair and regressive Council Tax! Even a property valued at say £5million plus in central London is still ONLY in Band H for council tax. But I cannot claim housing benefit to offset my Band D council tax burden - apparently I earn too much. It's sick!
Complain about this comment
Please , please find something better than the censorship called moderation, or make it work within a reasonable timescale.
Complain about this comment
As you intimate Stephanie, calculating post tax income adjusted for individual and household benefit receipts(and accounting for a considerable array of allowances) is prety complex. However, if we include the (non-wage/none-salary) income of sole traders and the self employed (and given that their final remuneration is frequently down to the prowess of their accoutant), then does this not muddy the income distribution picture further? While bearing in mind that this non-PAYE sector of the workforce has grown significantly over the last 30 years.
Complain about this comment
Do you think that instead of endlessly rabbiting on about cutting univeral or near universal benefits from the endlessly attacked middle classes we might consider large number of teenage to thirty year olds who have made benefit a way of life.
There is a strong case for declining benefit for those who decline to work and simply see it as a way of getting enough money to provide for their booze and fags.
Can we please restrict benefits to those who really need it and stop giving it to those who cannot get up in the morning and who find work beneath them.
As a start if you have been on benefit for 6 months you should be required to take whatever job is offered.If you loose it due to a less than enthusiastic effort to carry it out then you should not have benefit reinstated.
Complain about this comment
You are living on another planet if you think that cleggmeron are going to seriously attack middle class benefits no matter how convincing the figures are (and they are convincing).
It would be more progressive to have a carbon tax and reduce VAT and it would demonstrate a real commitment to green policies and Road Tax could be abolished to give a low cost road pricing effect. To produce more tax income without large deflationary effect try a fixed term wealth tax.
Complain about this comment
"The system as it stands is profoundly progressive: before taxes and benefits, the top fifth of household earned £73,800 a year in 2008-9, fifteen times more than the poorest fifth, who earned, on average just £5,000. After taxes and benefits, the richest earn only four times more than the poorest, on average: net earnings at the top fall to £53,900, whereas the income of the bottom fifth goes up to £13,600."
I think it is worth pointing out that the ONS data isn't just talking about taxes and cash benefits. It is also including "benfits in kind" - ie the estimated value to each of us of things like the NHS and State Education. If you *just* look at the effects of Tax and Cash Benefits, the system is no-where near so progressive (highest 20% on £49k and lowest 20% on £7k). So it's Government spending that is making the big difference not the benefit system.
It's also made clear in the report just how regressive indirect taxes such as VAT are - with the poorest 20% losing a much higher proportion of the income on indirect taxes than the richest 20%.
Complain about this comment
Judging by the waistline of many parents at my local school the child is the last place this benefit is spent.
I say Scrap child benefit to all parents and give them free uniforms and school meals.
Complain about this comment
Thought: Could we (1) throw away entirely the ghastly business of Income Tax with its myriad rules and intrusiveness (2) issue to every household a minimum amount needed to cover true essentials and which would perform the role of old age pension, unemployment pay etc and cancel those special payments (3) increase (double? triple?) VAT to compensate? This would remove the unfair differences in which people earning the same gross salary get differing amounts of take-home pay, remove the burden from employers of dealing with Income Tax, leave businesses with a mechanism they already have for handling VAT (simply changing the %age and so a few minutes' effort). Yes; goods cost more but (2) would reflect that. Govt bureaucracy and its cost would be reduced and the whole business of collecting revenue to pay for state-provided services (roads, defence, NHS etc) would be simplified. Those who enthuse over making higher earners pay more tax should be satisfied, for those higher earners spend more and so contribute more via VAT. This leaves little scope for the politics of envy, so beloved by Labour and its shirking classes and could give us a rather nicer society.
Complain about this comment
"Now those benefits include state pensions"
Do you mind? I worked 40 years for my state pension for which I paid, not tax but national insurance, so that I would have it in my old age. It is not a benefit but something I have earned.
Complain about this comment
My goodness! An hour and one half ago I sent in a two line complaint about the time taken to moderate, and about the fact that it exists at all. There are nine others in the queue ahead of me also awaiting moderation! Wow will Britain really manage to extricate itself from the mess.
Complain about this comment
My combined income is circa £58,000 and I can assure you that this after income tax /NI, paymement of all household expenses, mortgages, stealth taxes etc there is not a lot left as disposable income. Take away the £42 child tax benefit and tax credit of something similar will be a hardship. The upshot is that my disposable income will be reduced, reducing my purchasing power on say local services, restaurants, shops etc. Oh by the way, and very, very importantly I am not Middle Class!
Complain about this comment
I have a vested interest in that I am a pensioner and I do draw the basic state pension.
I find it hard to think of a reason that pensioners should get a higher personal allowance than anybody else. I would see myself as typical of many pensioners. No huge income. Some savings - but crucially my mortgage is paid off. We get a winter fuel allowance - which is derisory when set against the cost of heating - but I have invested heavily in insulating my house. So, yes, freeze the pensioner's personal allowance till every body else catches up.
I am reluctant to see child benefit means tested. It does get paid direct to the mother tax free. The father may earn £200,000 a year, but that doesn't mean that he gives the mother sufficient money to feed and clothe her children. In that income bracket, there is a strong probability that his income goes on booze, fast cars and a mistress.
Other pillars of middle class welfare can be slashed, but child benefit cuts could cause massive damage to the next generation.
But the bottom line is this, Stephanie. The government is short (ie income less than expenditure) by £2500 per person. Unthinkable though it sounds, in our modest household that means we will have to be £5,000 a year worse off or we go the way of Greece.
Economic revival may reduce this burden as people get off the dole and businesses pay more in corporation tax. But as you rightly identofy at the end of your piece, we will definitely pay more VAT and I expect the scope of VAT to be broadened.
Complain about this comment
I believe as a society we need to balance: (a) the protection for our low income people and (b) sufficient incentive for people to be motivataed to work and (c) strongly penalising those who wants to sit at home without work
we need to check our benefit system which has become rotten.
Govt hands out benefit in 'CASH' - a portion of this cash is used by the benfit receivers to buy alcohol, to have sky, to go to vacation and to go to theatre.
I think we should minimize the 'CASH' component of the benefit system and go towards "PAYING IN KIND" mehanism of benefit system when people get vouchers for buying strictly grocery, clothes, medicines and utility bils rather than for paying for those items which are not necessary.
Also this 'Kind' payment system will ensure that the benefit reaches the right entitled person (i.e., the child actually gets proper diet and care, rather than their guardian blowing the money). This "kind payment' system will also less appeal to the small section of the society who are doing benefit cheat and fraud.
Guys - we go this route - we can save billions and billions!!
Complain about this comment
There you are, the answer is in Stephanies text.......If 44% of £200 billion benefits cost is paid to people who are well off then just stop it now. That's £88 billion by my reckoning !
Then we get rid of a good ? percentage of backroom staff and pen pushers (or keypad knockers) in the public sector !! Yes we'd have higher unemployment but the Governments Bill would be vastly reduced. We might actually get answers when we have a query to a public body because there'd be no one for them to pass the query to ! Or better still some of them might get proper jobs, or even start Businesses, and begin to contribute to a leaner Economy.
And beleive it or not I'm left of centre :-)
Complain about this comment
From the DFID website....UK Expenditure on Development (International Development) in 2008/2009 was £7 Billion.
I know this area, like the NHS has been ring-fenced, my question is.WHY?
Surely we should be using proportions of this immense figure to lessen the 'Pain', David alluded to the other day.
I realise we have commitments, but really, we should be putting this country back ontrack first before we start to worry fully about other countries.
Complain about this comment
I agree that we need to means-test benefits, as I cannot see why we are paying huge benefits sums to median-to-well-off people.
But, beyond this, I'm also concerned that a broad brush approach will hit those in genuine need, whilst protecting those who are not. According to the latest figures, whilst jobseeker allowance is paid to 1.5 million people, the total (of working age) living on benefits is over 5 million. Of the 3.5 million difference, more than 2.5 million are on incapacity benefit. Are there really 2.5 million people unable to work on health grounds? Given Britain's generally good health status, this really seems too hard to believe.
Complain about this comment
Why can prisoners not be forced to sell their houses and possessions to pay for their keep while in jail - like we make the elderly do when they need to go into care?
Complain about this comment
If we are talking of means-testing benefits, let's not forget the state pension.
Complain about this comment
If, as seems likely, some benefits currently paid universally are changed to a means tested variety (and which, ideally, is a sound stance to take in order to attain 'fairness'), then of course there has to be a new or expanded bureaucratic layer aded to the public sector to do the testing, the appeals, etc etc. At a time when the public sector should be shrunk, not enlarged, this has to be a concern. As with so many suggestions for supposed cuts, is anyone actually doing the calculations that would produce the NET cost savings accruing from such a change to means testing, after allowing for additional staff needed to execute the policy? It is the net savings that matter and that should form the basis for any decision making.
Complain about this comment
"There are nine questions which any public spending programme will supposedly have to answer; for those who want to read the list it's on page eight of the Spending Review Framework released by the Treasury on Tuesday. The key ones are "Is this activity essential to meet government priorities?; "does the activity provide substantial economic value?"; and "can the activity be targeted to those most in need"."
One question that does not appear in the Spending Review Framework list is "will it alleviate or worsen poverty traps". This should be near the top of the list especially if Ian Duncan Smith's aim of getting people back into work is being taken seriously.
There are currently some appalling poverty traps in the benefits system - e.g. docking unemployment benefit (and other benefits) once someone finds a part time job; not giving Tax Credits unless someone is working at least 30 hours per week (£9000+ even on minumim wage); the subsequent tapering of such tax credits; means testing of benefits; etc, etc. Any attempt at cutting the cost of benefits that makes these poverty traps worse and actually forces people out of work and on to the dole would be hopelessly counterproductive. On the other hand fixing these poverty traps and helping people into work (even if only part-time) would be highly beneficial to the economy.
Joined up policies needed here....
Complain about this comment
philof 1949 wrote
(e) consider ending open ended benefits for able bodied people below pension age - say allow receipt for only 6 months a year, or 24 months in any 4 year period; and, last but no means least,
(f) consider means testing what is by far the biggest single benefit - basic retirement pension.
e As a single man with £16 in the bank this already happens. No benefit, I pay Council tax, prescription charges and dental charges. Despite being unemployed and having no income other than interest payments charged at 20% I pay more in Taxes than I earn!
f so why have I paid NI for nearly 40 years. This is not a benefit it is my pension bought and paid for in the same way as a private pension.
Complain about this comment
Good place to start would be payments that are based on income rather than wealth. For example, how can it be that payments such as tax credits, child tax credits and EMA are based on the past years income irrespective of whether or not you are a millionaire? In fact with EMA, the second years payment is based on the first years income with no need to declare what the second years income actually is, even it had risen ten-fold! Point is that these payments are getting to people who don't need the money as well as those that do. How complicated can it be to have another 2 columns to fill in when you do the application, one that shows cash savings and the other that aggregates other assets such as property equity, shareholdings etc? I have a feeling that this would stop payments being made to less deserving causes and save the exchequer a packet into the bargain. Dare one go as far as to suggest the same for State Pensions and winter fuel allowances?
Complain about this comment
Stephanie, you didn't mention the huge administrative burden there is in all this DWP complxity. Figures I have seen suggest that perhaps £50Bn + is the cost of the department to run the 50+ benefits with £145Bn actually delivered. Given that the OAP is nearly half what is actually paid out and which is cheap to run it's apparent that some of these benefits probably cost more to administer than they deliver. It seems likely that simplification to 25 benefits could save about £15Bn without cutting the total actually delivered.
Complain about this comment
"thatmcgrath" doesn't seem to be interested in the subject to hand only in complaining about moderation (or "Censorship" as he calls it) Bet he/she doesn't like peodophiles, murderers or rapists being DNA tested, or caught out by CCTV cameras as well !!
Complain about this comment
Come on people there is no point in pretending the world is other than it is.
#2 Jeff there is no national insurance fund that contributions go into and benefits are paid out of. There is a small and reducing amount of benefits which are non means tested and you get if you have paid enough NI. But the employee and employer contributions go into the general taxation and the benefits are paid out of general taxation. But the inputs do not relate to the outputs. NI is not an insurance its simply a payroll tax.
#5 We do not pay overseas aid purely out of the goodness of our heart. Its a means of influencing other countries to do things we want or need them to do. It is a lot easier to get the police interested in finding lost tourists if you have trained some of their senior officers at Hendon. It is probably better to eliminate a contagious desease in Africa by innoculation than to wait for it to arrive here with the next wave of illegal immigrants. The best way to reduce the amount of opium poppies being grown in a country may be to provide aid to set up the infrastructure to grow strawberries for sainsburys. Indeed sometimes, when you need that base for some covert operations or overflying rights for your planes. you may not always be in a position to question if a mercedes benz car is the best thing for distributing agricultural supplies in the bush.
Believe you me if we stop being a responsible world citizen we will find a lot of discussions with other countries begining and ending with the words "We Sympathise with your problem ambassadour but we are a poor country with many demands on our limited resources". They are right we can't expect them to be concerned with our problems if we don't help them with theirs.
Complain about this comment
Cuts ? Higher unemployment. Who are affected not the rich not mp's, not celebs, not footballers, not 6 fig council bosses, not nhs bosses. The 'rich' have created the problem, bankers and the rest, let them pay the debt.
Why do the top make the mistakes and the 'bottom' suffer for it.
The problem is what top earners are earning, governments seem affraid to hit them. Make the hit global then they can't go anywhere and hide.
We haven't heard from Sir Freddy recently. Has he gone into hiding?
Complain about this comment
What do we cut - and who would it hit?
I've been listening to 'two brains' on student fees and grants - this is really a form of complex simultaneous contributory benefit payment.
The sums looked like this students 1.5 Million fees that the student pays 3250 fees that the Government pays (the benefit payment!) 7500 so each student costs 10250 a year to teach(!).
Quite obviously this situation does neither suit the student nor the Government.
So looking at alternatives:
the present situation cost us 112.5 bn (out of a total cost of 161.25 bn)
Lets try getting rid of the fees entirely which would suit the students - we could then afford to send just 1.05 million students to university.
Lets try giving a full living grant to student as well as spaying all their fees - this would be a wonderful thing for students (assuming everyone got a full maintenance grant) then we could afford 0.71 Million students for the same cost as now.
OK lest make a 20% cut to save some money too so this would result in 0.57 Million students. Just over a third of those who presently go to university!
Downsides: we would have to close 2/3 rds of universities, university places, university staff, and of course unemployment would rise by a million. But we could afford it, and the student experience would be roughly the same as universities were in their hey-day.
(I'll post the computations if anyone is interested, but they are fairly simple!)
This is just an example of the consequences of fiddling with just one benefit - everything has consequences - mainly in raising unemployment!
Complain about this comment
#36 continued
Oh and the housing market might recover a bit quicker because graduates would not be burdened by absurd debt levels!
Complain about this comment
It is inaccurate and misleading to call the State Pension a Benefit. It is not. It is an entitlement paid for by contributions to National Insurance over up to a lifetime of work, and that is how it was defined in the 1911 Act which first set up state pensions separate from the old Poor Law.
To means test state pensions would be a strong disincentive for anyone to save for their own private pension, unless they were so rich that they could disregard the loss of state pension. Does the Government really want that to happen? You would need to build up a pension pot which would give you a private pension significantly larger than the State Pension, with associated benefits added, housing and council tax benefits. Few people can now do that, with all the expenses of living and raising a family taking priority.
Geoff
Complain about this comment
@10 "...Yet I pay £thousands in tax, that the rich can treat as voluntary, simply because I can't afford an accountant."
Surely if you think an Accountant can save you £thousands, it would be worth spending a little of that on an Accountant's fees?
Complain about this comment
I think we are making this too complicated. We need to reduce government spending and it is going to effect all of us in some way or another. Rather than cherry pick or means test benefits (remember the reason we stopped means testing was because it was too expensive to administer) lets just cut all benefits by a percentage amount. I would suggest something between 5 & 10%
Complain about this comment
At the expense of seeming pedantic I think the verb `earn' has been inappropriately used in the blog. If we all earned our income this country would be an exceedingly productive place.
The welfare system in Britain has been used as a means not to redistribute wealth on the principle of equality but on the basis of buying votes from interest groups. This has had the affect of penalising many single people on low wages who are just as hard-working as families.
We are now in the situation where the entire take from income tax is less than the total welfare spend. This is just silly and needs to stop.
The tax and welfare system needs major reform. The proposal by the coalition to take people earning less than GBP 10,000 per annum is a sound proposal. I don't think it goes far enough but it is nice to see some sense finally coming from the political class.
Sure, there are going to be winners and losers. I expect to lose my Winter Fuel Allowance which has been much appreciated since I turned sixty. At the moment I don't need it so the money would be better spent on the halt and the lame but there will come a time in the not too distant future when such would be welcome.
I think we need to get back to a principled welfare that sustains those without rather than a process by which people have what they paid in tax given back to them; often incorrectly.
Complain about this comment
2.5m on incapacity benefit - i think as a society we need to come together and change the definition of "incapacity"
All this sounds like a joke - with money earned by hard work being 'robbed' from honest people!
Complain about this comment
We're all in this together I heard somewhere - presumably the banks that received hundreds of billions pounds of taxpayer's money to keep them from the poverty line will be queuing up to find out how to hand it back then?
The 'undeserving rich' have been by far the greatest beneficiaries of state largesse to date, I'm sure Mr Cameron will redress this with alacrity however.
Complain about this comment
I would support in principle the slashing of the overseas aid budget, mainly because there is well-documented abuse whereby the agencies charged with administering it are directing it to speculative commercial development rather than developing economic self-sufficiency for the poor, especially in food supplies.
That abuse arises because the agencies are managed by people on six-figure bonuses for generating 'economic benefit' money using the aid budget. A shopping centre, electronics factory, mineral exploitation or office block generates money and gives them bonuses - feeding the poor or teaching & helping them to feed themselves doesn't.
Nor should we be pouring taxpayers money into economies whre governments are using funds to run 'national pride' projects - space programmes being a good example.
There is the argument that overseas aid provides diplomatic and political 'goodwill' but it seems a ridiculously expensive way of 'buying friends'. We should recognise that having lost an empire we cannot buy a new one.
Complain about this comment
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
"Govt hands out benefit in 'CASH' - a portion of this cash is used by the benfit receivers to buy alcohol, to have sky, to go to vacation and to go to theatre."
Are you real?
Why even bother giving them vouchers? Just reintroduce the Workhouse. I'd go a step further and repeal the Child Labour Laws. Get the blighters up a chimney or down a pit by the age of five. They'd soon appreciate the value of a day's work for a day's pay eh? They might be dead by twenty two but hey, think of the billions we'll save not having to pay 'em a pension.
Complain about this comment
One way of saving money could be to move away from cash based benefits to electronic/token based payments.
A vast proportion of benefit payments will end up being spent in Supermarkets. If a proportion of benefits were vouchers only redeemable for food/clothes (not booze, fags etc) then the government could get Asda/Tesco to tender for being the voucher provider, and supply them at a discount to the government.
It must be worth at least 5% to a Supermarket to ensure that the benefits are spent in their store over a competitor, so this could reduce the cost to the government by 5%.
Complain about this comment
"when people get vouchers for buying strictly grocery, clothes, medicines and utility bils rather than for paying for those items which are not necessary."
And then what we could do is send people round to their houses and count the number of people in the family and count the number of pots, pans, plates, knives, forks, spoons etc and make them sell any surplus cutlery, crockery, furniture and anything else.
Y'know. Proper means test 'em.
Go away and read The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell. And then resign your job and try a bit of "Love on the Dole" yourself.
Complain about this comment
JOHN FROM HENDON
Having accused me falsely of having personal debt problems, will you withdraw that false, and in other circumstances, libellous comment
If you do not it simply tells everyone that you are a 'man' beneath contempt
Complain about this comment
@20 (angrymiddleclass) no one on a salary over 20k needs benefits. If your mortgage is too big, downsize. That'll bring your bills down too. You can't expect the tax payer to fund your lifestyle.
@35 (c1rt5r) if you're reading this blog, surely you'll sufficiently educated to know that it isn't the rich who've created the problem. The government has been spending more than it receives in tax - mostly because it's been employing too many people (often on fairly low wages).
@36 (John_from_Hendon) sure, some cuts will mean greater unemployment. But cutting benefits - child benefit, tax credits - from those on, say, over 40k family income (I'd go lower - 25k family income) - won't result in public sector job losses; perhaps fewer lattes sold at Starbucks, and lower employment by them, but that's what austerity means these days: fewer lattes. One of the things we *must* get away from is paying people to have children: if you can't afford another child (on your own income), don't have one.
Complain about this comment
Very fundamentally the entire taxation and benefit system needs to be simplified
To save money, target resources better, and cut staff numbers
That alone would save I reckon £40bn each year, every year, and not only that, it would improve the benefit received, thereby ensuring it was pain free
Complain about this comment
If we are really serious about Saving Tax-Payers money, and in the re-distrubition of Wealth then Shut down ALL the Government Departments in Whitehall, and let just a handful of Civil Servants Work from Home,
Secondly, Sack 500 odd MPs' and spread out the rest across ALL Government Departments [ in Name only ], while also Working Full - Time from Home, upon a Fixed - Income.
Thirdly, Get rid of the Monachy altogether, and convert ALL of those current Royal Residents into Homes for the Homeless, this should get many from the Cardboard Cities living in Boxes off of our Streets.
Also convert the House of Commons and Government Building into Rented accommodation for the Homeless.
Fourth. Tax ALL UK Resident Millionaires at a FIXED Income Tax-Rate of 95%.
Fifth. Scrap Trident.
Sixth. Scrap ALL Quangos.
Seventh. Scrap Overseas Aid.
Eight. End ALL British involvements in Overseas Wars.
Ninth. Place ALL Banned Drugs onto Prescription.
Tenth. Raise ALL Pensions to the same levels across the board in whatever Sector People Work.
Eleventh. Reduce the State Retirement Age downwards to between 55 - 57 Years of Age to allow our Younger Generation a chance to know what having a Full - Time Job is ALL about.
And Last but not least, allow Banks to fail and Ban the Payments of ANY Bank - Bonuses, also scrap the TV Licence along with ALL the other methods of levelling any Standing - Charges upon Gas, Electricity and Phone - Line Rental etc: and Cap the fuel-rises in these same Areas.
Complain about this comment
Local government needs to be on the list too, my local city council spends 26% of its budget on "leisure and recreation" and another 20% on "museums and tourism" - only 9% is spent on housing! Priorities!!
Complain about this comment
I'm curious, how do you define poor and how do define rich?
People throw these terms around like there were confetti and without really understanding what they mean. We're in serious danger of falling apart as a society if we keep judging everything based purely on financial terms.
I know plenty of people who are poorer than me financially but who are far richer than me in terms of their quality of life because they are simply not prepared to sacrifice quality time with their partners and children, even if it means earning more money.
I don't see why I should be penalised through higher taxation and less benefits just because I'm prepared to make the sacrifices that others won't.
Complain about this comment
Means testing benefits just creates work for bureaucrats. Why, oh why do we pay for one army of bureaucrats to manage a progressive tax system and then another army of bureaucrats to manage a means testing system.
What you actually need to do is *increase* child benefit to a sensible amount, scrap tax credits and recover via the tax system - probably by equalising the personal allowance with the NI thresholds. (To be honest a 1p increase in income tax would be a good thing to finally break the 'taboo' that government's can't raise income tax).
Complain about this comment
magnetic_monopole
can you give us an example of an 'undeserving rich' person?
And not just based on your opinion but on objective and undeniable facts that they don't deserve their richness.
The only ones I can think of are Footballers but I'm sure many will argue differently.
Presumably you have no problems with deserving rich people?
Complain about this comment
Brilliant, as always. One question comes to mind though, do pensioners who have sold their homes to fund living in a residential home get the winter fuel payment? There are implications here. Obviously people go over their figures very carefully before taking such a step and Government changes could very well have an impact. There has been a lot of talk about allowing pensioners to stay in their own homes, but what if they don't want to, what with maintenance, gardening and not least, security. An endless stream of 'strangers' doing these things and providing care may not be to everyones' taste, besides which 'care in the community' might be hard to come by. Regards, etc.
Complain about this comment
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Mortgaged_Mike
"@20 (angrymiddleclass) no one on a salary over 20k needs benefits. If your mortgage is too big, downsize. That'll bring your bills down too. You can't expect the tax payer to fund your lifestyle."
Downsize from what? a Flat to a caravan?
58k doesn't buy much these days or haven't you been keeping up with the property & mortgage market?
Complain about this comment
46. At 6:28pm on 10 Jun 2010, Dearne Valley Lad wrote:
"Govt hands out benefit in 'CASH' - a portion of this cash is used by the benfit receivers to buy alcohol, to have sky, to go to vacation and to go to theatre."
Are you real?
Why even bother giving them vouchers? Just reintroduce the Workhouse. I'd go a step further and repeal the Child Labour Laws. Get the blighters up a chimney or down a pit by the age of five. They'd soon appreciate the value of a day's work for a day's pay eh? They might be dead by twenty two but hey, think of the billions we'll save not having to pay 'em a pension.
----------------------------------------------------------------
I've got a better idea, get rid of ALL the Pen - Pushing Job and put ALL Workers onto Hard Manual Labouring Jobs, then perhap they might realise how easy it really is to get a Sore Back, but then I know how blistfully keen ALL the Office Lovers are in looking forward to this very Hard back-aching Work in ALL Outside Weathers.
Then after Work you can ALL hold your Heads high, that is if you can still manage to stand up.
Complain about this comment
*34 The fact that politicians never put money aside to make future promises does not negate their obligation to fulfil that promise.
A Social Security Benefit comes from general taxation and is not a promise for contributions made.
There is little diference in the relatioship between employee and employer and between employee and government as far as basic state pensio is concerned - it is still the same as a comercial contract.
Complain about this comment
How about the hundreds of £billions of 'benefits' and 'tax credits' given to the banks?
Complain about this comment
I am happy if benefits are cut provided there is a reduction in my National Insurance contribution. If the benefits are means tested and exclude me why should I contribute if it an insurance scheme ? What exactly does national insure you against if you have been prudent and saved your money ? I have already contributed for 42 years.
Complain about this comment
56. At 7:11pm on 10 Jun 2010, I_IS_McCool wrote:
magnetic_monopole
can you give us an example of an 'undeserving rich' person?
And not just based on your opinion but on objective and undeniable facts that they don't deserve their richness.
The only ones I can think of are Footballers but I'm sure many will argue differently.
Presumably you have no problems with deserving rich people?
----------------------------------------------------------------
If being Poor was so good for ANYONE, then why would ANYONE want to be Rich deservingly, or otherwise in the First-Place?
Complain about this comment
Steph wrote "
"What do we cut - and who would it hit? When the comprehensive spending review starts in earnest in a few weeks' time, those two questions are going to be right at the centre of public debate.When the comprehensive spending review starts in earnest in a few weeks' time, those two questions are going to be right at the centre of public debate."
But hose are not the questions for the spending. In Milton Keynes on Tuesday the Cameroon said:
'How we deal with these things will affect our economy, our society - indeed our whole way of life,'' he said.
''The decisions we make will affect every single person in our country. And the effects of those decisions will stay with us for years, perhaps decades, to come.'
This is of course 'the change'agenda. The spending review (invented in its current form I think by J Gordon Broon) is aimed to ensure that the strategy of the government is carried out within the resources likely to be available as forecast from the progress of the economy and fiscal policy.
So it is about the 'effects of decision' .. actually the effects that the government thinks it has a mandate for and wants to bring about. So cuts (dropping policies and practices) and refocusing resources on the achieving the 'desired effects' within what is possible the purpose of the review. It is in no way business as usual with a chop here and a chop there.
So this issue around benefits and taxes (benefits for taxpayers can be seen as tax reductions for particular groups of the population.) is their purpose and effects within the overall political philosophy of the government cabal... the politburo indeed.
Cameroon intends a revolution here without a doubt. But above all it is about the outcome this faction of the Tories wantIt is not going to be business as usual (just slightly less!)The constitution empowers government to do this and if too much legislation can be avoided places the executive beyond the reach of Parliament.
Random consultations are false participation, designed to pretend to 'Invite you to Join the Government of Britian' and gain your good feeling about things.
Complain about this comment
My 'Big Idea' is to end the payment of Child Benefit after the second child.
I have read that child births will rise from previously circa 585,000 per year to over 700,000 putting huge strains on our child centred services.
This country appears to completely child centric and ending CHB after the second cild (in about 10 months time - i.e if there is already a bun in the oven!) would start to reduce the numbers over time.
The benefits would be no means testing of this benefit, less GP, midwifery,hospital effort to ultimately less schools and infrastructure as our population is reduced gently rather than heading towards 70Million.
Anyone who has three or more children (Cameron/Clegg?) would pay for the children themselves.
Child Benefit (Family Allowances) only used to be paid for the second child and not the first so there is some precedent to an extent.
How could anyone complain they need a benefit that would be no longer payable for a person who doesn't exist?
Complain about this comment
Testing, Testing one two....
Since when did my state pension become a benefit, eh aunti beeb....?
How come I'm paying your wages then you moderate me.......???????
Think I'll offshore the lot, tally ho!
Complain about this comment
There is no reason to cut benefits at all. The Structural Deficit is negligable as worst - why - the official estimates are based on how low the Unemployment Rate gets before inflation sets in. This is called NAIRU and is set at about 5%. Most economists use this to calculate the Structural Deficit to be about £80Bn plus. Progressive economists know that the true rate for NAIRU is roughly 2%, not 5%. As a result the Structural Deficit is actually negligable, so no need to cut for this reason.
More info see: Structural Deficits - the great con job
No need to cut to pay back government borrowing either as it is nowhere near out of control yet, though it will be under this government, because of the cuts.
Complain about this comment
How come you moderate my perfrectly legitimate post out, yet it took 3 attempts by your incompentent moderators to remove a post containg my email address.....?
WHy are you moderating people's thoughts / idea's ?
Complain about this comment
Post number 20....thats a good one, you have a combined income of £58000 per year and you think you should get child benefit LOL, I assume that as you have a combined income, you are taking advantage of two personal tax allowances too, that means that at LEAST 12,000 of your household income is free of tax
My situation is that I earn £19,000 per anum, have a wife and two teenage sons and my income is the only money coming in to the house, I also cant afford any form of pension despite being fully aware of the importance of making some provision, I just cant afford it, I am very well qualified but salaries in the private sector are now under such pressure as small companies are struggling for survival, the only reason that I have a job at all is because I am very good at what I do.
So to be honest my opinion is that nobody on £58,000 per year should get universal benefits....we just cant afford it, I cant even afford to heat my house...we just freeze and put up with it, and I DONT expect any help with my heating bills either, its my problem
Just out of interest...does all or part of that £58,000 come from employment within the public sector by any chance ?
Complain about this comment
Remember we all have to get old.
Complain about this comment
Come on Mortgaged Mike!
I'll tell the kids we are moving to some sink estate, lets call it downsizing!
The only tax payer funding my lifestyle is me which I don't have problem with. I do object to the idea that I'm deemed one of the middle classes who have to cough up!
Complain about this comment
66
It is a fair enough idea, yet will save very little money I am afraid
Complain about this comment
LondonHarris wrote:
"If being Poor was so good for ANYONE, then why would ANYONE want to be Rich deservingly, or otherwise in the First-Place?"
I don't understand your point.
I wasn't trying to compare rich versus poor, I was merely suggesting that people should think more carefully before they start throwing words around like undeserving and deserving.
The same arguement could equally apply to undeserving versus deserving poor people.
But to answer your point:
Firstly define poor? Are we talking Ethiopian Poor or UK Council Estate Poor?
Secondly, I know plenty of people who are 'poor' and glad for it, as they don't want the responsibilies that inevitably go with earning more money.
Complain about this comment
68. At 8:03pm on 10 Jun 2010, Charles Jurcich wrote:
There is no reason to cut benefits at all. The Structural Deficit is negligable as worst - why - the official estimates are based on how low the Unemployment Rate gets before inflation sets in. This is called NAIRU and is set at about 5%. Most economists use this to calculate the Structural Deficit to be about £80Bn plus. Progressive economists know that the true rate for NAIRU is roughly 2%, not 5%. As a result the Structural Deficit is actually negligable, so no need to cut for this reason.
More info see: Structural Deficits - the great con job
No need to cut to pay back government borrowing either as it is nowhere near out of control yet, though it will be under this government, because of the cuts.
Utter fantasy
Complain about this comment
This comment has been referred for further consideration. Explain
Cominsenz
What planet are you living on?
We have an ageing population in this country which is why our pensions are knackered. We need more children to be born to ultimately pay for those pensions.
The population growth that you are talking about has not come from child births, it has come from unchecked immigration.
Complain about this comment
I notice no mention or accounting of the biggest wealth transfer of them all, social housing.
Having 1/5 of households benefitting from life long charity rent because for a few months many years ago they had a genuine housing need is bizarre.
I pay my taxes to help the poor, not to provide high quality charity housing to those with middle class incomes.
That politicians lack the courage to allow the building of adequate family homes with gardens is not my fault, and i certainly don't want to pay for it.
Complain about this comment
What a surprise to discover that the Boy George doesn't want to upset his new friends in Fleet Street. If successive governments feel constrained to do the right thing for ALL members of society by a few whisky sodden hacks who have sold their souls for thirty pieces of silver then God help us.
A free press is an essential part of a healthy democracy, but just how free is the press with editorial power concentrated in so few hands. Reading Stephanie's remarks above clearly indicates her view - that the press (and the wider visual media) does not serve the interests of the people as a whole.
Are we now to believe that Dave, Nick, Boy George et al have to clear their agendas for government with people like "the dirty digger" (a quasi Aussie/US citizen depending on which rag he is subverting), then what was the point of voting.
However, given that Dave's only work experience was in PR, he must feel right at home peddling the sort of nonsense we read in the poodle Tory press. The most imortant question is - "is he fit for purpose" - when it comes to the monumentally important task of steering the country through its biggest crisis in 65 years, or is he all surface gloss and pointless preening. Certainly, President Obama was heard to comment, after meeting Dave for the first time, "what a lightweight".
So Dave, do you have a mind of your own, and do you care about society (as opposed to the Tory shibboleth that is Mrs Thatcher) as a whole, or are you and your team of public school chums just a bunch of spolit brats who think running the country might be "a bit of fun - something to keep you occupied for a while"?
Complain about this comment
We are in a fascinating position. The solution is simple - spend £20Bn less than we take in taxation until the national ebt is repaid. This will mean cutting current spending by £180Bn per year. The real issue issue is that the vast majority of people think that someone else should pay and that it is not their issue issue.
Some great posts here and we had to wait all the way to 30 odd before we got the first "soak the rich" comment. The problem with that is there aren't enough of them and they tend to leave.
The real issue as I see it is that we have confused "right" with "privileges". I was reading yesterday a comment by a woman on "jobseekers allowance" (what a misnomer - she had quit her last job) and 2 children complaining that she had to choose between food and putting petrol in the car. How can people without jobs expect to have cars? From my perspective benefits should b there to stop people starving or freezing to death - not to maintain any kind of "lifestyle".
We need to make work worth it. It is immoral to create a system where the working poor feel like mugs for working whilst they see people on benefits enjoy things that they cannot. I would end income tax and the minimum wage, allowing people to keep what they have earned. The minimum wage creates unemployment and underemployment, protecting those in work from the unemployed. This minimum wage is then taxed. You really could not make it up.
Pensions- the state pension is a ponzi scheme, plain and simple. The term National Insurance should be scrapped as it fraudulent. We are not insured against anything - current contributors are paying for current recipients and as there is a demographic timebomb about the explode, it will go pop. I am over 20 years aways from state retirements and expect it to be bust by them. This is another example of individuals confusing "rights" with "privileges". Bernie Madoff promised people great returns - he didn't pay out either.
Complain about this comment
Mangizmo,
TBH I have no idea how you can provide for your family on your stated income.
In answer to your question, 80% of the combined income is mine from the private sector -never been employed in the public.
Complain about this comment
70 - You are exactly the kind of person who suffers the most from the current system. You pay income tax to people who are not prepared to take low paid work as it is beneath them. Good luck to you.
Complain about this comment
The situation in the UK is the fact we have a benefits culture, its so easy for the benefits system to give out money , i grant you there are genunie cases yes! but would it not be better for the benfits agency rather than give out money to claiments , maybe they should introduce a voucher system for those on benefits for example, food, clothing,vouchers , a type of credit card style voucher, that the benefits syetm can credit each week or month however it may work !!!so the benfits agency knows that the money is being spent food clothing etc we live in a nation that has a drink and drug problems ,we hear it on the news all the time ,we see supposedly grown up adults spending their benefits on drinks/drugs with no respect for the true purpose for what it is supposed to be for, it has to change
Complain about this comment
Someone needs to explain to me how the middle classes receive so many cash benefits. Other than £20 child benefit, which i would agree we don't really need, what else would a family with joint income of £55000 receive?
Also, clarify what constitutes a poor income? Then we can put some context to your statement that "nearly half of all cash benefits go to households that are not poor in income terms.".
Complain about this comment
Complain about this comment
Stephanie, your figures seem to imply there are 13 million people aged over 80 in the UK - or have I misread?
Complain about this comment
I do think there is a link between the daft rise in residential property value and increase in consumer spending since the introduction of Child and Working Tax credits. You've only got to look down any surburban street to see how many families run two newish cars; and looking through windows it is not hard to miss the mahousive televisions adorning the walls, decorated in the latest tat from the large DIY retailers.
I appreciate that the cheap money era has stoked house prices, but I also suspect that Tax Credits have a played a part in stoking the fire.
Don't get me wrong, I'm neutral about Tax Credits, but I am interested to speculate what effects cutting/reducing these benefits will have on the economy. With less cash in people's pockets, it's going to hit the non essentials, like for example, the fast food retailers, mobile phone shops and DIY stores etc...a resounding yes, I hear many of you say.
But will some good come out of this - will it encourage some individuals to realise that the only way you can get money in this life is by working for it (other than stealing it or winning the jackpot)! Will it encourage people to save money, rather than spend, spend spend?
Complain about this comment
@20 / 72 (angrymiddleclass) - are you seriously maintaining that 58k income is not middle class? You're trying to tell me it's working class?
If I read this page (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=334) correctly, 80% of the country earn less that you. If that's a joint income from two earners, then that comes own to 60% of the country.
If we're going to get anywhere with this deficit, anyone earning over 20k needs to take a hit - and some below that.
Complain about this comment
78 Sizzler - spot on, both housing benefit an social housing are so widely abused that in my view it would be better to have flat benefit allowances and allow the market to settle on private rents. I heard a girl on the bus yesterday gabbling into her mobile to a mate, advising her that she should not stop at 4 kids, because you have to get to 5 to get the extra bedroom (this is not an urban myth)
Complain about this comment
#49. Kevinb wrote:
"JOHN FROM HENDON
Having accused me falsely of having personal debt problems, will you withdraw that false, and in other circumstances, libellous comment
If you do not it simply tells everyone that you are a 'man' beneath contempt"
I did not say any such thing - try actually reading what is written.
Your one lines stupidities that maintain that all debts must be forgiven might quite reasonably lead any rational and independent observer that you have personal debt problems related to negative equity or you are completely, irrationally and stupidly maintaining that people who borrow money don't need to pay it back. You are encouraging people to fraudulently believe that they do not have to pay their debts back in that you maintain that borrowing must be forgiven to get out of the crisis we are in.
Let me first ask you this very simple question, so simple even you should be able to understand it!
1. Do borrowers need to meet their legal obligations to repay their debts? (A simple yes or no only.)
then : Assuming your answer is yes and you do not encourage fraudulent default - which is against the criminal law.
Explain why you persistently encourage borrower to believe that they will not have to repay their debts?
Complain about this comment
Today, around lunchtime, I drove past one of the bigger music festivals that is about to start in the Midlands and what an experiance. The streets were awash with young people carrying cases and cases of beer. I wonder how many of these fine examples of todays youth are students, unemployed and general parasites on the rest of society.
Where do they get all the money from? and why aren't they at work or trying to find work. Actually I think I have just answered my own question cos judging from some of the appearances beer money had taken precedent over soap money, razor money, shampoo money and money for any kind of personal hygeine product
Complain about this comment
79
No idea what you are trying to say at all
Try again
Complain about this comment
#90 addendum.
Kevinb, you will see that the 'you' described in my posting was the general you and no even in response to a posting from you.
You (and this 'you' is you Kevinb) are acting like a raving lunatic!
You fancifully write garbage and the nonsense that you write is just gibberish. You have demonstrated time and time again that you understanding of the law relating to finance is almost non-existent.
Complain about this comment
Angrymiddleclass wrote
TBH I have no idea how you can provide for your family on your stated income.
---
Seemingly you personally are in the top 20% of earners in the country - and most of those below you seem to manage to provide ok?
Complain about this comment
#36
decimal point error in the line
"the present situation cost us 112.5 bn (out of a total cost of 161.25 bn)"
should read
the present situation cost us 11.25 bn (out of a total cost of 16.25 bn)
sorry
It does not change the conslusions or the arguements.
Complain about this comment
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
truths33k3r
You are totally right and this confusion between rights and priviledges is at the heart of wider problems in our society.
There are many people out there who seem to think that just because they are born they have a God given right to whatever they want without having to work hard for it, in fact they will do anything but. This will include anything from running up rediculous debt to out and out theft, anything but earn the money first.
God help us
Complain about this comment
KevinB
On Mervyn King
You are fiercly and abusively protective of Mervyn King, why?
You never address the issues and the analaysis of his actions and inactions, why?
Are you being paid by the Bank of England or associated with the Bank of England or the Treasury?
Let me ask you one final simple question:
If someone can be shown to have known that their actions created a gigantic problem is it right and proper that we should let them off of the hook?
Complain about this comment
angrymiddleclass
To be honest, its tough, but we are happy enough, we just have to live within our means, we cant afford holidays (although we live in a beautiful area so that helps), I have personally never flown in an aircraft and I am 48 !!, we genuinely can not afford to heat the house in winter BUT I have no debts because if I cant afford it...we dont have it...simple, my take home pay is £1200 per month, no overtime or bonus, no pension, no health insurance, no company car...nothing, and that has to support a family of four , my two sons eat like a horses and I recieve and expect no state help whatever
I dont mean to be harsh, but what I do not consider fair, is the idea that you should recieve child benefit so that you can continue to frequent the local resteraunts....it is questionable whether even I should get child benefit
Complain about this comment
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
I think we need to define Incapacity from an employers perspective. Would an employer give a job to a middle aged person who had some kind of intermittent health problem that may mean that they have to take say a day off a week or a week off a month due to illness? If the answer is No then obviously that person is eligible for some kind of benefit, the thing is that person may be able to do something for the days when they feel well enough. Will they lose money or not? Who would employ a person like that? After all its not their fault they are ill is it?...One of the problems with our benefits system is that there are no grey areas, for instance, if you claim JSA then you have to be willing and able to take ANY job within 24 hour notice...if you are not then you have no option other than to claim Incapacity Benefit. The reason being that if a person on JSA was able to say 'I didn't go to that interview the other day because my health was bad' then no-one would go for any job interviews. Its a ready made excuse for the work shy isn't it? So what happens to those people who could do 'something' but whos health means that no employer would touch them with a barge-pole? They can't just be left high and dry, and just throwing them off IB isn't going to make them magically 'employable'.
Also what about the massive increase in 'in work' benefits? More jobs are now advertised at the minimum wage because the employers know that the employee can fill out a form and get more in handouts paid by the rest of us than they get in wages. That is where the real savings could be made, shame employers whos profits are above a certain level in relation to the number of staff they employ if those staff are paid so little they have to get state help to bump up their wages.
Complain about this comment
oellph
You are totally right. I think people are exaggerating what the middle classes get in the way of benefits other than child benefit, which most middle class people would probably agree to give up any way.
Complain about this comment
Why not keep it simple? Remove all means tested benefits and make them flat rate, payable to all who qualify, but at a lower level that costs the same overall. Tax credits would disappear (with minimum pay at £11000 pa we don't need it), unemployed would all get unemployment benefit (unless they refuse a job offer), child benefit (well targetted) would stay. A huge army of bureaucrats would no longer be needed. Get rid of disability living allowance where it has been given to those who could work. Let charities take up some of the slack - they won't hand out cash to spongers!
Raise the rate of income tax from 20% to 22% or 23% or whatever. If that doesn't balance the books, raise VAT and reduce all benefits by 5%.
Repeat as necessary.
Once we have a balanced budget, start to address those most in need.
Complain about this comment
Mortgaged_Mike
I agree that a household income of 58k is middle class but as for the page you refer to it's utter rubbish like all ONS data, as it doesn't take into account the black economy or undeclared income.
I personally know several Pumbers, Electricians, Builders, Plasterers etc. who's 'declared' income is borderline poverty conveniently for tax purposes, yet they can pay for things in cash that I only dream of.
Unfortunately, I don't get paid cash in hand so my income is taxed at sourced by my employer. Relatively speaking, I earn less than them after tax, despite having a far more responsible job requiring longer hours of work.
Complain about this comment
anyone else feel like opting out of the UK tax system? Seriously tell me what I get for all the cash I pile in????
When it comes my time to collect, the pot will be empty, so why should I bother paying into this system?
There are alternatives currently in use by rich folk, non doms etc......? Why should I pay for the wasters, the moderators and the Rich.....???? Is anyone there.?
My top tip, David Milliband for PM in less than 18 months, currently taking bets.......
Complain about this comment
You dont need to be an economist to understand that we are punishing the many for the mistakes of the few if we remove to many benefits.
The key is to make the benefit befit the situation, and cap to avoid incentivising things like having more kids to get a better house or having kids young to get a flat. If we introduced a system that stops people making the system work for them they wont want to be part of that system.
The savings over time could be priceless.
I say this cause currently if young unemplyed single mum has a fatherless child then has another to get more cash how many tax payers over the childs life have to contribute to support said kids and mother?
Rent, council tax, child benefit, income support, grants and fees for housing maintenance and redecoration, school meals. The list of what we the taxpayer pays for goes on and on and must take many taxpayers per family to cover these costs.
This is just of many examples I could list
Complain about this comment
78. At 8:40pm on 10 Jun 2010, sizzler wrote:
I notice no mention or accounting of the biggest wealth transfer of them all, social housing.
Having 1/5 of households benefitting from life long charity rent because for a few months many years ago they had a genuine housing need is bizarre.
I pay my taxes to help the poor, not to provide high quality charity housing to those with middle class incomes.
That politicians lack the courage to allow the building of adequate family homes with gardens is not my fault, and i certainly don't want to pay for it.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
'Once upon a time, when I was a lad, before the war' 'tis true that council (social) housing was enjoyed at something of a discount to commercial (private) rates and because of that transfered wealth down the 'ladder'. I am not so sure that council rents are so advantageous now. I don't have the latest numbers to hand, but I am interested in this because we do have something of a housing crisis in all sorts of ways.
I seem to recall that average council rents - or semi-privatised housing association rents - were recently of the order of £120 per week. I don't know the average private rent but guess that in the south-east of England (incl. London and the Home Counties) it must be 50% more than that - say £180-£200 per week.
I think we are going to have to build a whole lot more social housing unless a lot of the folk who've moved here in the last fifteen to twenty years up sticks and leave. Until property prices return to something like three times average salary + 10% deposit, a lot of people are going to be excluded from home ownership.
Complain about this comment
On Cuts and Tax Rises
Taking money out of consumption during the worst depression in the last hundred years is bad news. Cutting spending has exactly the same overall effect as raising taxes.
Please don't start disputing 'the worst depression in the last 100 years' phrase - if it is not that bad why has the Bank of England lowered interest rates to one fifth of its previous lowest rate in the over 300 years (since the bank started)?
This is precisely why the Bank failed to raise rates today. It knows and is admitting that the situation is desperate. So desperate that even though inflation is rampant in the economy it cannot raise rates, even though it knows it should, by all rational economic standards. The money supply is hugely inflated which will inevitably lead to hugely damaging inflation quite soon down the line. The Bank is clinging to the hope that the NSO will mange to create sets of figures that demonstrate growth so it can then start to control the rampant money supply - but this is highly unlikely to happen.
Cuts take spending out of the economy in the same was a tax rises - the only difference is that a different sector is injured. Look today at the furore over BP being bullied into stopping its dividend, by President Obama. Apparently this will hurt pensioners on both sides of the Atlantic and because of that the dividend 'must' be paid. Doesn't this argument demonstrate that BP is 'too big to fail', just like the Banks. So now the taxpayer has to support BP too! Well, just like the Banks, we can't This supporting of banks and businesses is a massive fault line in capitalism and along with the actions of the Bank of England shows us all that the whole financial infrastructure is at risk of failure - indeed has already failed!.
Complain about this comment
86. At 9:11pm on 10 Jun 2010, mabbbb wrote:
Stephanie, your figures seem to imply there are 13 million people aged over 80 in the UK - or have I misread?
You seem to be forgetting the means testing caveat she put in
Complain about this comment
90
John from Hendon
I am sick to death of your lies and smears
Below are the links to YOUR COMMENTS which YOU NOW DENY
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2010/06/which_governments_face_biggest.html#http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/stephanieflanders/2010/06/bad_news_is_good_news.html#P
No wriggle out of that....
Like I said, you are shown up for what you are
Complain about this comment
Sorry Mortgaged_Mike but I'm with angrymiddleclass on this one.
I think you're making it up.
My sister earns about the same as you and she can't even afford to leave home and buy/rent a house + bills, let alone support a husband and two teenage sons.
Complain about this comment
Saving money on politicians.
Today the education secretary 'two brains' Willetts suggested that students could get a degrees from a university without having to physically attend - by means of internet based distance learning.
Now it occurs to me that perhaps politicians should adopt the same idea.
Parliament by ip-cam. No need for any of them to come to Westminster, let them all stay in their constituency home in front of a large screen terminal and ip-cam. No second home or travel expenses would be needed at all. The ministries and ministers could do the same thing as could all of the civil servants - so no huge expensive office bills.
If they want a social life too - let them use Facebook!
That should save a bob or two! (It also might ensure that the internet data rates were sufficient everywhere in the country.)
Complain about this comment
John from Hendon
In case the links don't work, I have been able to cut and paste YOUR comment
This is from Stephanie's Bad news is good news blog
112. At 11:28am on 09 Jun 2010, John_from_Hendon wrote:
#99. newblogger wrote:
"Why can't we fully nationalize RBS and LLoyds?"
If we did the liabilities of these banks would be seen part of the public debt. They as our public debt would be the worst in the World we would be lucky if we had a B- credit rating. Then our interest rates would be forced up to 10 % to 15%. The economy would immediately collapse along with sterling.
Rather like a country having a personal debt problem akin to KevinB's (and the others who want debt forgiveness) - we would be bust. The IMF would then step in and we would be forced to sell the banks in a fire sale, unemployment might go up to 20 or 25%, end of the NHS, end of the state pension and an end to all social security payments - and the City of London would declare independence!
So we dare not even mention hanging on to the banks!
Not only do I have to put up with your smears, which would see you in court if you did it in a newspaper, I then have to endure being called stupid, and have you deny you posted this!!
Have you no shame?
Complain about this comment
101
You make some good points, however an Employer would be breaking the law if he didn't employ someone because of an illness or disability
Complain about this comment
98. At 9:46pm on 10 Jun 2010, John_from_Hendon wrote:
"KevinB ..On Mervyn King....You are fiercly and abusively protective of Mervyn King, why?...You never address the issues and the analaysis of his actions and inactions, why?"
JfH, you are continually banging on about Mervyn King. He was NOT IN CONTROL. The hon. member from Kirkcaldy was. Let me ask you this one question, even if Mervyn had said to HM from K, do you think you might rein in your spending a tad Mr Brown, do you thing he would have listened?
Your answer please. I'll give you a clue, it's a 2 letter word starting with... N... and ending with ...O!
Complain about this comment
102 - This really is opening up a can of worms. If we take benefits to be pure cash handouts / allowances then people up to very healthy salaries can get tax credits. My boss at work earns a very very healthy salary and he received state discounts on childcare. He should pay for his own.
On wider issues the state interferes with so many aspects of our lives that it could be argued that the middle classes have all kinds of protections from a fair, free market. For example the increase in banking deposit insurance to £50k was to protect the richer side of society. The poor do not have £35k in cash in the bank. In fact the entire banking bailout was about protecting the rich from losses.
0.5% interest rates are an attempt to maintain the price of houses, the government protecting householders against losses so that others cannot afford to buy a house.
What about egregious local and national government contracts on ego trip construction - the middle classes and rich benefit at the expense of tax payers.
The reality is that the rich are going to have to give up more welfare than the poor.
Complain about this comment
105. At 10:05pm on 10 Jun 2010, JavaMan wrote:
anyone else feel like opting out of the UK tax system? Seriously tell me what I get for all the cash I pile in????
When it comes my time to collect, the pot will be empty, so why should I bother paying into this system?
There are alternatives currently in use by rich folk, non doms etc......? Why should I pay for the wasters, the moderators and the Rich.....???? Is anyone there.?
My top tip, David Milliband for PM in less than 18 months, currently taking bets.......
No chance with the Miliband bet.....he won't win the leadership, so that is a kind of setback in your cunning plan to begin with
Complain about this comment
For anyone who is interested, private home ownership was around 33% just before WW2
So the huge expansion in that has been in 70 years
Complain about this comment
108 JFH
We have allowed so much credit expansion through the banks that there either has to be debt deflation through a contracting money supply, or huge inflation to ease the debt burden.
Both are extremely bad and there will always be a reckoning. My view for what it is worth is that we cannot continue to borrow and spend to solve a crisis that has been caused by too much borrowing and spending.
Complain about this comment
There seems to be a lot of knocking the rich here, I'n not rich at all but I don't begrudge anyone in a Capitalist Society becoming wealthy (providing they've done it honestly and without ripping people off)
I do begrudge them getting any kind of benefits at all including state pension ! ( i wish I could underline those last 14 words) I'm sure a lot of them actually feel guilty taking it ! I know one Guy who's 78 and has had his state pension paid into a deposit account thats never ( and will be never) be touched. Sure they've paid their NI contributions but that's not the point, they don't need it, and if anyone is going to be treated "unfairly" from the State Welfare System (and unfortunately there's always some unfairness)it's better that the highest earners are the ones, and a great proportion of them wouldn't deem it unfair so it's politically acceptable.
The Guy who's on £58k a year and claims he'll suffer "hardship" if he loses his £42 per week benefits is talking (a word I can't use on here ) , deserves all the flak he's getting !! He's either got a spending problem, or more likely a borrowing problem , so shouldn't try and justify however he's mismanaged his life by such arguments. He's certainly not rich but he shouldn't get these child benefits !
Complain about this comment
Up2snuff - the real reason that governments started with social housing was post war housing shortages. Shortages now are government made through strict planning laws that protect prices through scarcity. The government have announced only this week that people will no longer be able to build in their gardens.
If much more land was available for people to build, land prices would fall and there would be a balance of supply and demand and the government would not need to get involved, plus first time buyers would get a look in and builders would be employed.
Architecture would also improve as proven by Grand Designs - individuals, given the choice, would not build uniform shoe boxes as dished out by the big builders.
Social housing creates ghettos and stigma.
Vive the market!
Complain about this comment
One of the beauty of these blogs is that you see humanity at it's best and worst. A lot of folks need to experience life: it really isn't black and white, and every cut (and benefit) has a consequence you haven't thought about.
If you really have to make cuts in your personal life, it's suprising how easy it is to do it, you basically have to exchange money for time. However, it gets to a point where you can't economise further because you can't reduce your fixed costs. Ultimately the only way to do this is to move to cheaper accomodation, but after decades of inflated house price rises, and the current market conditions, this is now very difficult.
I reckon you can cut 5-15%, from average peoples personal budgets, but after that, the debt collectors will start to call.
It's going to be interesting...
Complain about this comment
In response to a previous poster, Tax credits are about as follows: The maximum benefit is about £9000 for incomes below 12K and it tapers off rapidly after about £25K to £500 a year for couples on 50-60K.
Council tax benefits are very mean, and you have to earn about £150 a week or less (~£7500pa) in order to get your council tax repaid fully, incomes over about 15K will not get any rebate. You also have to fill in a very intrusive form compared with claiming child tax & working tax credits.
Complain about this comment
109: Stephanie wrote "The SMF also wants to make only the basic winter fuel payment to over-60s - now £200 a year - universal, and means-test the higher payment of £300, which now goes to everyone over 80. That would save £1.3bn a year."
This says the £200 would be universal, but the top-up to £300 for over-80s would be means-tested. £1.3bn/(£300-£200)=13m.
I presume it's the £200 for over 60s the SMF proposes to means test, and the £300 for over 80s that would be universal?
Complain about this comment
Have the Con Dems considered that tax revanues are proportional to benefits? i.e. by cutting benefits net tax may actually FALL?
This could be due to many factors, such as, less stressed people spending more on taxable items, or motivational incentives of a good saftynet. But before they get too axehappy, I think it should be noticed by the 'minority government' whether, the most productive nations have evolved comprehensive benefit systems, and the Labour party system was conducive to a long and sustained period of growth FOR GOOD REASON.
Complain about this comment
Stephanie,
I wanted to know how "saving" the money spent providing benefits to the 2nd, 3rd and 4th quintiles can be done, without worsening the effective marginal tax rates that the conservatives campaigned against.
Simply modelled (and this might be the problem with my understanding of the issue) a tax system that takes progressively from all and gives back equally to all will have rising marginal tax rates and one which takes proportionally from all and gives "progressively" (ie to only the poorest/most in need) will have high, but falling marginal tax rates as you rise up the income scale.
Are the new Government just learning about this inevitable difficulty in making an even-moderately generous benefits system that doesn't become a trap, yet remains affordable?
Complain about this comment
Limit child benefit and child tax credit to a maximum of two children per family. It is also wrong that someone working the minimum 16 hours per week and for example earns £96 per week can then claim working and child tax credits which come to much more than £96, in other words their income is more than doubled by tax credits. The employer should not be subsidised by the tax payer and should pay a higher hourly rate. 15 million people of working age claim no state benefit apart from child benefit where applicable. Most of the remaining 45 million who consist of 7 million who work in the public sector, 5 million on benefits, 7 million subsidised by tax credits, pensioners, and young people, are to a lesser or greater degree supported by the 15 million which is unsustainable in the long term.
Complain about this comment
Oh dear Oh dear Oh dear,
2 years on and the muddle class begin to wake up to what is already in progress. Too late, button pressed ages ago. Shutters dropping on the exits.
Just where do you expect the cuts to be made. Statut'e limits many on the bottom of the ladder getting stiffed, quite apart from the fact they dont have any money to be extracted. That leave the rich, well there are not that many of them and they pay a fair old wack anyway, the top 1300 paid an average of a million each last year and saved the treasury forecast. Well you gotta laff, the muddle class have been the beneficaries en masse so they will have to pay.
Mrs Thatcher - The trouble with socialists is they run out of other peoples money
Liam Byrne, Nulab, - Theres no money left dudes or similar, rofl.
Lord Desai - Lets stop subsidising the middle class (or to put it another way theres a lot of them so it costs a lot)
This really is the United Kingdumb if the muddle class thought they would avoid the bill.
But hey there may even be some marches if they can get past the health and safety risk assessment. Just how peeved are they going to be when the house prices ease down. What a muddle eh.
And it would be no different if Incapability Brown was here, because the moneys gone dudes and the bill is here.
How can anybody be so stupid.
Complain about this comment
74. At 8:34pm on 10 Jun 2010, I_IS_McCool wrote:
LondonHarris wrote:
"If being Poor was so good for ANYONE, then why would ANYONE want to be Rich deservingly, or otherwise in the First-Place?"
I don't understand your point.
I wasn't trying to compare rich versus poor, I was merely suggesting that people should think more carefully before they start throwing words around like undeserving and deserving.
The same arguement could equally apply to undeserving versus deserving poor people.
But to answer your point:
Firstly define poor? Are we talking Ethiopian Poor or UK Council Estate Poor?
Secondly, I know plenty of people who are 'poor' and glad for it, as they don't want the responsibilies that inevitably go with earning more money.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Being Poor/Rich as anyone well knows is defined against the surroundings in which you live in your everyday Life - Cycle of circumstances, and whether you are deemed as being Poor satistically or not, doe's not in anyway itself mean that because of what you are also terming as being a responsibility that it would further mean again gladly or otherwise that you or anyone else would inevitably not know what to spend any additional Money onwards, should you or anyone else find themselves in any favoured positions to be fortunate enought to have a Wind - Fall.
So therefore, in defining Rich/Poor it ALL depends upon the Gender -Culture in which one is currently Living whereby being Poor is set by your attainment against a Set Standard League Table upon a Pay/Earning - Scale, which is self defining by assessing more or less in Weekly disposal Income levels terms as to where you, or anybody else comes within the Top to Bottom regions upon that Scale.
The Issues about Deserving/Un-deserving relates as to the belief as to whether you believe, or not that just because someone is Classed as being Rich, therefore again by definition it must be a true fact that they are deserving of their Status in fortune even thought they may have never done a Days Work in their Lives, or contrastly that having Worked ALL their Lives People find upon reaching Retirement that they don't have ANY Savings to fall back upon, and will therefore be Classed - Sacled as being Poor.
This, and whatever else is the reasons for the vast divide of Wealth - Gap in the UK has lead us to see today that around 95% of the UK's Wealth is in the Hands of just 5% of this Countries Population, while of that 95% upwards to 8 Million whether registered Unemployed or not, are already out of Work which is predicted to rise over the life-time of this current CON-DEM Government to between 10-12 Million by 2015, and I doubt for one minute that ANY of those either currently Unemployed, or soon to become Unemployed would Class themselves as being in the Rich - Brackets of Life.
Complain about this comment
101. At 9:51pm on 10 Jun 2010, muggwhump wrote:
I think we need to define Incapacity from an employers perspective. Would an employer give a job to a middle aged person who had some kind of intermittent health problem that may mean that they have to take say a day off a week or a week off a month due to illness? If the answer is No then obviously that person is eligible for some kind of benefit
I can't agree with you enough. People misunderstand mental and physical illness, and that includes the DWP. When we argue that someone either can, or can't work, we are falling into a trap psychologists call 'digital thinking'. Capacity for work is a continuum, and therefore the correct question is 'How much' are you capable of work?
In a report about the inadequacies of the assessments by the DWP of people claiming ESA and Incapacity Benefit, they noted that 60% of employers would never employ someone with a history of mental health problems. Employers (like most people) are generaly prejudiced against anything unusual or different. It is not just 'Can you work?', it's also about 'will anyone employ you?'.
Complain about this comment
In response to a previous posting
(a) freeze all benefits/tax credits given to able-bodied jobless for at least next year and give below inflation increases for the remainder of the Parliament; I agree
(b) means test all disability benefits; I agree but be fair - some people really need these benefits. Those with "back injuries" or "work-related stress" need not apply though.
(c) abolish (or at least reduce for pensioners not on means tested pension) the Winter Fuel Payment, and abolish free TV licences for over 75; What the hell are you on? One of the fundamental problems with our society is the loss of respect for the elderly without whom we would be speaking German. Anybody over 65 has done their time and should be able to look forward to more than a free bus pass. This applies equally to the prudent who have saved for retirementt and those who have been less fortunate.
(d) raise means tested benefits to pensioners and disabled people by less than inflation during the course of this Parliament; See above comment and remember that you will be old and on a fixed income one day. I'm am neither of these, by the way, just disgusted by your Soylent Green attitude.
(e) consider ending open ended benefits for able bodied people below pension age - say allow receipt for only 6 months a year, or 24 months in any 4 year period; and, last but no means least, That is gibberish and deserves no comment.
(f) consider means testing what is by far the biggest single benefit - basic retirement pension. Are you kidding? It's about 50 quid a week. Some idiotic housing association has decided to house a bunch of chavs at the end of my street. The mother knocked out 11 completely brainless and untrained kids and now these kids are old enough to breed and are repeating the process. They don't understand the concepts of work or silence for the benefit of others and can barely assemble a sentence. Contrast that lot with the current elderly who contributed too society, by and large, and who now deserve a decent retirement.
Somebody else mentioned foreign aid and I would agree were it not for the fact that most of the foreigners in receipt of the aid already live here. Come to England and denounce our way of life! Insist on Sharia law and have 12 kids. I'll pay. My annual tax bill is somewhere North of £50K. That will cover at leat two unmarried mothers pr one family of fundamentalists.
Everybody has rights these days yet so few of us seem to have any responsibilities.
The lunatics truly have been running the asylum.
Complain about this comment
Ah, yes, pre-moderation. Explanation: it means that we can't really express our views on a BBC website unless our opinions are cleansed. My last post is surely destined for the recycle bin in that case. Alas! Poor Freedom of Expression. I knew him well...
Complain about this comment
101. At 9:51pm on 10 Jun 2010, muggwhump wrote:
I think we need to define Incapacity from an employers perspective. Would an employer give a job to a middle aged person who had some kind of intermittent health problem that may mean that they have to take say a day off a week or a week off a month due to illness? If the answer is No then obviously that person is eligible for some kind of benefit, the thing is that person may be able to do something for the days when they feel well enough. Will they lose money or not? Who would employ a person like that? After all its not their fault they are ill is it?...One of the problems with our benefits system is that there are no grey areas, for instance, if you claim JSA then you have to be willing and able to take ANY job within 24 hour notice...if you are not then you have no option other than to claim Incapacity Benefit. The reason being that if a person on JSA was able to say 'I didn't go to that interview the other day because my health was bad' then no-one would go for any job interviews. Its a ready made excuse for the work shy isn't it? So what happens to those people who could do 'something' but whos health means that no employer would touch them with a barge-pole? They can't just be left high and dry, and just throwing them off IB isn't going to make them magically 'employable'.
Also what about the massive increase in 'in work' benefits? More jobs are now advertised at the minimum wage because the employers know that the employee can fill out a form and get more in handouts paid by the rest of us than they get in wages. That is where the real savings could be made, shame employers whos profits are above a certain level in relation to the number of staff they employ if those staff are paid so little they have to get state help to bump up their wages.
---------------------------------------------------------------
You are of course quite right, for NO Employer in their right mind would waste His/Her time by Employing any Person with an Un-controllable Disabliity.
By Un-controllable, I am referring to the FACT that many People with some forms of Disability do not so much have any ideas as to whether they can turn in to Work Tomorrow, but moreover their Disability may mean that during the course of ANY Day they may well need to Sit down, or even LAY DOWN for some lengths and periods of time with could be for Hours at a time.
There are also many Disabled People that have MORE than one Disability and even perhap 2 or 3 to contend with, including taking Medication that my make them dizzy.
Also, ANY Employer would have to attain a Higher Liability Insurance Cover BEFORE engaging to employ any Person whom is Disabled in case any Disabled Persons Medical Conditions are made all the worse by the nature of the Employment, and also too Cover for any Third-Party Insurance in Case any Disabled Person lost their Self - Control and accidently Injured someone.
Therefore, for many reasons getting Disabled People back into the Work-Force in the main with a very few exceptions is a complete NON - STARTER.
Complain about this comment
108. At 10:07pm on 10 Jun 2010, John_from_Hendon wrote:
On Cuts and Tax Rises
Taking money out of consumption during the worst depression in the last hundred years is bad news. Cutting spending has exactly the same overall effect as raising taxes.
John,
This point seems correct to me, as we need growth first as this creates tax revenue. Your further point about rampant inflation is not however correct. The headline figure (i think it was 3.7) was mostly caused by changes in the tax structure and, as Stephanie reported, the underlying figure was 1.9%. This is important as tax changes can be reversed very quickly to control inflation, whereas underlying factors can't be.
The threat at the moment is Deflation, and the measures so far to prevent it have worked, but this only makes your first point more true. If we take money out of domestic demand now the deflation risk will get worse, and growth will go into reverse. This is what has happened in Japan. They have enormous debt coupled with deflation (although this may be changing now). Instead of spending, their population were saving, and saving does not stimulate the economy into growth. While people are saving (or in our case, repaying debts, which is the same), the only source of growth can come from public spending and that requires the government to borrow.
Fortunately sovereign nations with their own fiat currencies can manage this, as Japan has done, although it is not ideal. The first thing is to legally ignore Credit Reference Agencies, who are qualified to judge companies, but not sovereign nations, as this is not just economics, it's macro-economics, and CRAs do not understand macro-economics.
As I understand it there is no problem with money supply in the UK, and there will not be providing we can get back to reasonable growth.
Complain about this comment
Morning Stephanie,
well, once again, you have started a blog that is deliberately provocative and divisive!
The comments here are equal to any political comment to be read in the tabloid press. Scroungers, benefit cheats, benefit claiments and so on and on and on.
Ordinary taxpayers and families cannot decide how benefit cuts need to be made since there is always a self interest at work.
What is certain is that whatever decisions are made, someone will be upset and will complain .... however I digress.
The statistics that you provide are interesting (as always) but you and I know that statistics can be presented to prove any case you wish. The real sadness here is that the most vulnerable in society, those who do not have a voice or who cannot afford to pay for an advocate will be the worst hit (was it ever thus).
Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne are being very unfair (I wanted to use a different word here) in suggesting that the public at large could be consulted in any proposed cuts. One million people demonstrated against the Iraq invasion and they were ignored by Parliament so what chance would any individual have to influence Government policy?
No, I think that it's best for the Politicians to make their budget proposals and for the electorate to vote them out of office if they don't agree (isn't that what Democracy is supposed to be)?
It won't be long 'till the first Budget of the coalition but as far as I can see nothing has changed with our new Government. Foreign policy is the same, no movement on the "too big to fail" issue, good ideas from the Liberals are being watered down or kicked into the long grass, big business is still setting the agendas to be discussed and their ideas for solutions. Didn't someone once remark that taxes are only for the little people to pay?
It may be an interesting intellectual exercise to discuss benefit cuts (and I'm all for reasoned debate) but nothing will come of any ideas presented here and I suspect that we will all be overtaken by more shocks to the financial system very soon.
Complain about this comment
Very interesting statistics on benefits although the state pension cannot really be called a benefit can it? It's only a benefit for those who have never worked and paid in which only represents a minority.
As for cuts in this recession, one should take a very simplistic and pragmatic view and ask these questions.....
Question: Who are the lucky ones and are quids in? Answer: Those in work and those with mortgages (low interest rates)The two go together in most cases.
Question: Who are the unlucky ones? Answer: Virtually everyone else.
Question: What sole action would affect only those who are lucky whilst not penalising the unlucky? Answer: Raising INCOME TAX! (The standard rate at least)
These days its a privelidge to have a job. It it not only fair for those who are privelidged to pay for the budget deficit?
No cuts please Mr Osborne!
Complain about this comment
"Scroungers, benefit cheats, benefit claiments and so on and on and on."
And, of course, it's easy to eradicate the parasite from the system without killing the host!!! Or do you just end up DDTing your weakest individuals while the parasite redistributes?
Complain about this comment
1. Tighten up checks on those who receive benefits. Many of us will know of at least one person in their neighbourhood who can manage to dig their garden, complete DIY projects, play football with their children, etc but whose 'back pain' etc prevents them from working. Same goes for those who are just 'too depressed' to work. Those who have for years dragged themselves out of bed to struggle to work on crowded public transport in the freezing cold of winter, despite battling at the same time with personal problems, would also have found it easier to allow others to keep them, while they sat at home in track suits and fluffy slippers watching TV - but they soldiered on. It's time this social security madness came to a halt.
2. Drastically reduce, if not stop altogether, foreign aid programmes. You don't give a hard-up friend £100 if you haven't paid your gas bill - the same principle should apply to government spending. Secondly, in any case, unless the countries in receipt of these benefits stop breeding irresponsibly, it's money down the drain. The more money they receive, the faster their populations grow, just producing more children to suffer. I say this as someone who has given very generously to foreign aid organisations in the past.
Complain about this comment
Why don`t we just rent out the British establishment to the rest of the world as a giant army of circus freaks for their amusement?
Complain about this comment
128. At 00:42am on 11 Jun 2010, YellowBrickRoad wrote:
Oh dear Oh dear Oh dear,
2 years on and the muddle class begin to wake up to what is already in progress. Too late, button pressed ages ago. Shutters dropping on the exits.
Just where do you expect the cuts to be made. Statut'e limits many on the bottom of the ladder getting stiffed, quite apart from the fact they dont have any money to be extracted. That leave the rich, well there are not that many of them and they pay a fair old wack anyway, the top 1300 paid an average of a million each last year and saved the treasury forecast. Well you gotta laff, the muddle class have been the beneficaries en masse so they will have to pay.
Mrs Thatcher - The trouble with socialists is they run out of other peoples money
Liam Byrne, Nulab, - Theres no money left dudes or similar, rofl.
Lord Desai - Lets stop subsidising the middle class (or to put it another way theres a lot of them so it costs a lot)
This really is the United Kingdumb if the muddle class thought they would avoid the bill.
But hey there may even be some marches if they can get past the health and safety risk assessment. Just how peeved are they going to be when the house prices ease down. What a muddle eh.
And it would be no different if Incapability Brown was here, because the moneys gone dudes and the bill is here.
How can anybody be so stupid.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Brilliant post Sir.
I can`t wait for the BBC to do a re-run of their "rise and sprawl of the middle classes".
LOL
Complain about this comment
Post 111 IS McCool said
"Sorry Mortgaged_Mike but I'm with angrymiddleclass on this one.
I think you're making it up.
My sister earns about the same as you and she can't even afford to leave home and buy/rent a house + bills, let alone support a husband and two teenage sons"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
I assume its me that you are refering to, I am the guy that earns £19,000 P.A and has to support a family of 4
I wish I was making it up, but are you saying that there are no people in the country that are forced to make £19,000 support a family ?? I make it work because I have to, as I said in another post, we dont do holidays, , I have never flown in an aeroplane, we have never been abroad we dont heat the house even in the depths of winter, through pure prudence, I have cleared my mortgage by the age of 48 by never ever spending a penny more than I earn and never borrowing a penny other than my original £30,000 mortgage, I have no pension, no company car, no health insurance....but we manage
The guy on £58,000 a year (joint income so he will be getting two tax free allowances btw) claims he needs the £42 pw child benefit otherwise he wont be able to have any disposable income to spend in the resteraunts and shops (he really said that see post 20) and expects people like me to sympathise, I cant remember the last time we ate out, I think it was about 25 years ago
I am actually quite happy, I wish we had more money....but we dont...I have 2 choices, manage on what I have, or be miserable and complain....I dont expect any help from anybody and still believe that one day soon I will secure a decent well paid job with a pension.
Take a look at average salaries offered in the newspaper vacancies, many many skilled and capable people just dont earn that much, particularly if they have a single income....but we manage, and certainly feel no sympathy for the idea that housholds on £58,000 pa might be hard done by if they loose their child benefit....I dont even think I should get it !!
Complain about this comment
Ok, honest talk time. I have a take home of £1800 per month. My wife, £1400 per month. We're very lucky to have two well paying jobs and I've never thought otherwise. Take away child tax credits and benefits from us. You're right, we don't need them. We can also afford to pay some extra taxes to help get the country out of this mess. But don't demonise us.
Where people genuinely need help and assistance to get back to financial independence then I'm all for extra taxes and redistribution of wealth. But it has to be an enabler to becoming independent, not a crutch to rely on.
Complain about this comment
oellph post 142 said
"Ok, honest talk time. I have a take home of £1800 per month. My wife, £1400 per month. We're very lucky to have two well paying jobs and I've never thought otherwise. Take away child tax credits and benefits from us. You're right, we don't need them."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well done for being so honest
The problem is that if you increase the supply of cash, housing will just rise to meet the ability of people to borrow, most people who are incredulous that I can manage on £19,000 with a family of 4 probably have taken out big mortgages and possibly borrowed on top of that to support their lifestyle.....Because I have always had a low income, I have just restrained myself, and if we had all done the same, then house prices would never have ended up where they are.....In an economy, if everyone was suddenly paid double, prices would soon double to match and nobody would be better off
We all need to get real and understand that we have as a country been living way way beyond our means.....and its all about to change
Complain about this comment
Let me be frank... I'm one of the "well off middle class", I've got a decent job and a good salary. The news is that I also work really hard, long hours under high stress. Its worth it. For the pay. I earn my money and deserve to keep most of it.
Take a bunch more tax off me and what will I do? I'll pack the job in, get something part time, less hours, less stress and probably more enjoyable. I can do this because I don't have debts and I don't have mortgages, I worked to pay mine off and didn't simply borrow more on the back of it.
There is no way the sweat of my brow is going to support profligate debtors and lazy chavs hanging around on street corners or pay inflated civil service pensions to people retiring at 50.
I'm very busy making my savings tax efficient and protected from the tax-man, legally of course.
The bond of trust between taxpayer and government has gone, the system is no longer "fair" to those who actually work hard. The country seems to be intent on killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.
Complain about this comment
Have read the comments on this thread with great interest-my own observations are:-
1.we all know,or know of the permanently unemployed who do not want to work.
2.Likewise with those on incapacity benefit who manage to convince their GP that they cant light their fags or get their can of strong cider to their lips without their backs giving them intense pain and therefore their "carers" have to do it for them.
3.Ditto for the economic migrants to the UK who come because to them the benefit system is the proverbial "land of milk and honey.
Now I chose to escape this madness and move to another EU country,where I currently live and work with my family.Now by no means am I rich or well off to be able to have done this,I was just hacked off at what the UK was becoming.
Just to provide an example of how the local system works here,my local friend was made redundant from the construction industry here just prior to Christmas-after THREE months on the local equivalent of the UK's "dole" and being unable to find another job he was given a position with one of the local authorities at a pay rate of his "dole" equivalent.If he did not accept this his benefits were immediatley stopped.His work now comprises of anything his employers chose for him-street sweeping,painting,tidying public areas etc etc(you get the picture).
We here are not governed by legions of "elf & Safety" tsars who insist on three day courses to understand how to pick up litter and then a method statement and risk assessment on the dangers of sweeping the streets with a broom.Nor are there advice centres,solicitors etc freely available to advise the economic migrants who arrive here(on their way to the UK no doubt)on what their "entitlement" to the local benefit system is.There are forms available in the equivalent of the UK's town hall or civic centre(to pay lip servive to the EU directorate)but these are inthe language of this country-therefore if you dont speak the lingo you dont get anywhere-end of.
Now this adopted country of mine is probably seen as somewhat third world by many but in my estimation we could teach the UK a thing or three.
Complain about this comment
130. At 01:03am on 11 Jun 2010, Charles Jurcich wrote:
101. At 9:51pm on 10 Jun 2010, muggwhump wrote:
I think we need to define Incapacity from an employers perspective. Would an employer give a job to a middle aged person who had some kind of intermittent health problem that may mean that they have to take say a day off a week or a week off a month due to illness? If the answer is No then obviously that person is eligible for some kind of benefit
I can't agree with you enough. People misunderstand mental and physical illness, and that includes the DWP. When we argue that someone either can, or can't work, we are falling into a trap psychologists call 'digital thinking'. Capacity for work is a continuum, and therefore the correct question is 'How much' are you capable of work?
In a report about the inadequacies of the assessments by the DWP of people claiming ESA and Incapacity Benefit, they noted that 60% of employers would never employ someone with a history of mental health problems. Employers (like most people) are generaly prejudiced against anything unusual or different. It is not just 'Can you work?', it's also about 'will anyone employ you?'.
It is actually illegal to not employ someone for health reasons, and contravenes the Disability Discrimination Act in the case of a mental illness which has been there for more than 12 months
So Employers need to tread carefully
Complain about this comment
142. At 07:56am on 11 Jun 2010, oellph wrote:
Ok, honest talk time. I have a take home of £1800 per month. My wife, £1400 per month. We're very lucky to have two well paying jobs and I've never thought otherwise. Take away child tax credits and benefits from us. You're right, we don't need them. We can also afford to pay some extra taxes to help get the country out of this mess. But don't demonise us.
Where people genuinely need help and assistance to get back to financial independence then I'm all for extra taxes and redistribution of wealth. But it has to be an enabler to becoming independent, not a crutch to rely on.
------------------------------------------------------------
You put your money where your mouth is literally. Very honest. Thanks.
Doing some quick sums suggest that you will be paying some more tax, as things stand, anyway, unless GO undoes all of AD's March Budget.
The big questions are - should you pay significantly more, together with those below you on the income ladder? Or should that burden be pushed further up the ladder? And if it is, how can those further up the ladder be made to pay their share? They appear to be very greedy (not all but a significant proportion) and have the means and methods to pay as little tax as possible.
Complain about this comment
145
Which country?
Without naming it, you destroy the point you seek to make
Complain about this comment
121. At 11:09pm on 10 Jun 2010, truths33k3r wrote:
Up2snuff - the real reason that governments started with social housing was post war housing shortages. Shortages now are government made through strict planning laws that protect prices through scarcity. The government have announced only this week that people will no longer be able to build in their gardens.
If much more land was available for people to build, land prices would fall and there would be a balance of supply and demand and the government would not need to get involved, plus first time buyers would get a look in and builders would be employed.
Architecture would also improve as proven by Grand Designs - individuals, given the choice, would not build uniform shoe boxes as dished out by the big builders.
Social housing creates ghettos and stigma.
Vive the market!
--------------------------------------------
Agreed up to a point. The other reason for social housing was to improve the housing stock and also to provide competition to private landlords some of whom were, in times of shortage, not behaving too well.
As to quality, a lot depends on existing conditions - drab run down terraces being replaced by modern apartments with better facilities seemed a really good idea at the time. Fashion; architectural, social, political, is also a significant factor. For example, some Prescott controlled housing was built with inadequate car housing/parking and road access because Labour decreed the car was evil in 1997. Hence tremendous problems on new estates - which were built by ... er, private companies and ... sold, not rented, to the inhabitants. They were not state-provided rental accommodation or if they were housing association properties they were on a mixed tenure basis. Whether they will become ghettos, only time will tell. Remember, they are not council housing estates, but I do agree already some have a certain drabness about them.
The problem for Dave, Cleggie and Co is: do they collapse the market and make houses affordable? There is still a shortage of need to supply so the same underlying problem persists and eventually will reassert itself. Or do they maintain house prices and keep in place one of the causes of the credit crunch and hope that inflation (one of the other causes of the credit crunch) will take care of affordability? Probably impossible that one, because at the moment we have inflation with falling incomes for a significant proportion of the population. So it won't happen for a half a lifetime at current rates. Or do they keep the scarcity going and risk creating a bigger collapse at some point in the future - perhaps in less than five years? And then, what about one of the causes of the housing crisis - immigration? What happens if a lot of people leave Britain in the next few years? Or if a lot more try to come and live here? What effect will that have? Oh dear! You get an idea of the scale of the problem?
You are right about releasing land for building but the back garden move was more I think about reducing planning disasters and preserving a good environment as well as removing a 'nonsense' from the system. A garden is not brownfield, by any stretch of a sensible person's thinking.
There are plenty of ways to make housing available. I think councils should sell their properties and should be allowed to re-invest the proceeds in new ones. And employ good, really good architects to design them. Unfortunately the Iron Lady and Great Clunking Gordon refused to allow local authorities to do this. That ball is now in Dave's court.
More worryingly, a right-wing Labour government decided to privatise rented social housing both into charitable housing associations and into commercial not-for-profit (osensibly) housing corporations. I find this slightly worrying. I am not sure how much housing remains under LA control now. When I have an idle moment and think of it, I will try to find out.
The other problem about land is that builders, of all sorts and sizes, buy it up and often hold on to it, either because they cannot fund building thereon, or are too busy elesewhere, or are hoping its value will go up .. or all three. Should government get involved and force them to build? Well, in a time of healthy economic activity with no debt and deficit - maybe yes. But now ... ? Only eighteen months back, construction companies - commercial and domestic - were shedding staff or going bust.
Hey! Let's be careful out there today.
Complain about this comment
147
Just as a matter of interest in response to your question, those earning £100K plus, who contribute to their pension, will already be paying 25% more tax
Personally, I think that is enough of an increase, and as others have pointed out, it is those in the middle who are going to get hammered
Complain about this comment
#56. At 7:11pm on 10 Jun 2010, I_IS_McCool wrote:
"magnetic_monopole
can you give us an example of an 'undeserving rich' person?" ...
Yes - Fred Goodwin - remember him?
But of course there are thousands in the City of the same ilk, though perhaps not quite so egregious. Fortunately in the new climate of realism we are now aware that the financial industry is neither economically productive nor socially useful and it will be downsized accordingly. It is a bitter pill to swallow for the Tories and other City apologists like Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson et al, and it isn't yet palatable to them to pronounce the end of the era of unfettered market speculation in case it smacks of socialism, command economy and the like, but you only have to look at the centre right in Germany led by the admirable Angela Merkel to know that the game is up for the speculators and the state will increasingly outlaw their activities for the ultimate benefit of us all.
Complain about this comment
we have a social payments system built up by years of tinkering around the edges. It contains massive inconsistencies as many have reported in this blog. Many abuses are impossible to eradicate cost-effectively. People who pay in may not be entitled to payouts.
We have a state pension scheme which while embodied in lore as an insurance is infact a tax as contributions are both compulsory and re-distributive.
We have a taxation system that recognises poverty levels but continues to tax incomes below those levels (though maybe not for long) and then uses complex re-distribution criteria to pay back those taxes. This payback system is then abused by low-wage employers keeping wage levels lower than a free market bounded by a minimum wage will support
We have criteria which define the number of hours work you must do that are driven not by social need but by treasury and employer demands
We have a minimum wage system that is principled to prevent wage level abuse by employers, but because of its geogrpahic universiality leads to some employment constraints.
So let's consider a process for reform.
0. Do we have to have a social payments system
if yes proceed to 1, else go home and get on with life
1. On what principles below does one base a social payments system
safety net
protect and provide opportunity for young
protect old
protect those with incapacities
protect those seeking assylum
provide for those on low income below the poverty line
provide for those whose (low) income is restrained by full of part time care for young or incapacitied
protection at survival levels or
protection plus some 'quality of life' factor
all these? more, less?
each of these then requires a clear definition of what is and is not included which immediately on publication is out-of-date
2a. It is impossible to prevent abuse of the system either
return to point 0 and decide next step or
create a very intrusive and costly assessment system or
light touch with draconian abuse penalties or
anything goes
2b. How do you ensure all children in low income situations are not disadvantaged even when they were conceived in order to increase the social payments received (how do you prove this apart from hearing direct from the abuser)
3a. Everybody is entitled to choose the number of hours they work, but, given local employment factors, when is a low hours employee (without dependents) entitled to benefits (how do we separate choice from the job-hours constraints of the employment market)
3b. how do you define the acceptable level of employment for a person with dependents as the dependency can be full time on the carer
3c. what do you put in place to encourage as much employment as realistic for the carer for the care level needed by the dependent.
3d. what factors do you put in place to determine the acceptble level of employment for a person with full or partial incapacity (some of this needs to recognise the employability containts an incapacity may create)
4. what is the local basic survival cost of living for a single person
5. how does the system ensure that monies specified as benefit for dependents be used for that dependents welfare, and not spent by the 'carer' on themselves
6. How do you prove that a person is incapable of doing work
7. How do you assess the workshy/lazy. How do you differentiate these people from the victims of a major economic downturn who every week apply for a minimum wage job alongside 150 other low skilled workers
8. Change tax system to reduce marginal tax rates in low income area
9. Do not allow hourly wages to fall below a level that allows sustainable living for full time employment. Examine ways of taxing those who earn below the tax threshold but at high hourly rates
10. Remove a poverty definition that is based on the median income and replace with sustainable living definition.
11. Stop calling things insurances when fully paid up contributors may not be entitled to payouts - call it TAX
12. Once you call all NI a TAX then you can consider who gets free Health, entitlement to a state pension, Sick pay etc.
Complain about this comment
131. At 01:04am on 11 Jun 2010, Myoldmate wrote:
"Everybody has rights these days yet so few of us seem to have any responsibilities.The lunatics truly have been running the asylum."
Mom, when this mess is cleared up, the Lunatics, aka The Labour Party, will be back to spend all of our money again!
Did you realise you support 7.72 OAP's with your income tax! Thanx!
Complain about this comment
We need to go back to basics. Benefits have become entitlements. We need to get away from derivative data - coefficients of inequality are meaningless in a world where people in Indonesia are prepared to do IT work at a third of the cost of those in the UK without the entitlements or security.
The top 1% of earners pay 23% of all income tax. You have to earn more than about £115,000 to be in this category.
The top 10% of earners pay 53% or all income tax. You have to earn more than about £50k to fall into this group
The top 50% of earners pay 89% of all income tax. You have to earn about 25k working full time to fall into this category.
The bottom 10% earn less than about 14k and contribute about 2.5%.
According the the ONS 'health professionals' are the group with the highest median salaries of £53K. These employees also benefit from final salary pensions. MPs fall into this group too. Perhaps they aren't identified.
According to the charts in the report referred to by Stephanie 75% of households gain from benefits. That means you can earn over 50k and still 'benefit'.
This is crazed. Why tax the bit between 50% and 75% of all earners only to provide benefits to them unless you want captive voters
Why do single people with one child benefir most - an increase of over 100% from original income. Should we encourage single parenthood in this way requiring more homes, more consumption. Its crazed.
Its crazed to tax a household with one earner more than one with two earners with half the salary of the one earner.
50% more pay tax at 40% now than did 10 years ago. Would those earning 45k really consider themselves rich? What if you don't have a final salary pension? This is crazed.
How can you compare rent with mortgages when landlords, especially social housing providers maintain the property, this is a massive hidden benefit. Then offer housing and council tax benefit too. Its crazed.
Look at the report and see that all pensioners gain substantially from benefits paid, whatever their original earnings. They are the biggest users of healthcare and those that own their house generally own outright. This is crazed. Its particularly crazed when this is combioned with the median salary bit.
Young graduates have student debt, pay for prescriptions, travel blah blah. Are they less needy than their older relatives? Should they depend on the bank of grandad?
Its crazed because governments focus too much on relative poverty, relative incomes. Derivative data
Why would anyone be aspirational right now. Why would I go to university or climb some ladder or another. Why would I compete. Why would I get married and stay with my loved one. Why would I carry on doing a difficult if well paid job when I could get by on less and get some handouts.
Why would I support this government when I could vote them out next time and get some other government to look after me.
The whole kit and caboodle is a bloody mess.
Complain about this comment
You say that without Labour's benefits and tax credits, inequality would be even greater than it is. Are you sure about that? Are you not making the same error Gordon Brown made when he set up the tax credit system - of seeing the economy as static rather than dynamic? If you take money from the rich and give it to the poor in the form of means-tested benefits, then of course the immediate effect is a reduction in inequality. In the longer term, however, paying people to be poor and paying people to be single are more likely to increase inequality than reduce it. I wonder whether we would be a more equal or a less equal society if all the money Labour spent on tax credits had been spent on raising the income tax threshold and creating a transferable allowance for married couples?
Complain about this comment
I would like to know where they are going to cut benefits, I do think child benefit should be means tested!
i am currently a single parent after spliting up with my husband to the end of last year and i went on benefits as i have 2 children age 5 and 4, i gave up work 18 months ago as my youngest now 4 has epilepsy so i could look after him at home, he starts school in sept so i am looking for work. i went to see an adviser at the job centre who did a calculation for me she said i would be £45 a week better of, bareing this in mind i would have to pay £20 a week in school dinners and put something towards my childcare cost( i am unsure if tax credits give u 70% or 80% of your childcare cost) this was based on 20 hours per week. i would still go to work if after i paid my rent and childcare and school dinner money i was left with the same amount of money that i get on benefits! but i couldnt live on less.
for exmaple i recieve £96 a week in child tax and £65 in income support per week, i get my child benefit ever 4 weeks which is £132 so this buys the childrens clothes. so in total i get £194, during the winter my bills where very high like most other peoples in the country. here is a break down of my out goings in a month.
gas: £160
electric: £80
water: £38
home phone: £18
tv licence: £10
clothing: £133
shopping: £270
total: £709
that leaves me with £67 a month.
you may this my gas is high, but i am on a mete for this and this is what i was putting in it over the winter it has droped a bit recenly due to the warm weather but not my much.
since going on benefits i have canceled my broadband as i see it as a luxury and go to my mums when i need to go on the computer as i am today!
sorry for the rant., but if they cut tax credits i wouldnt beenfit from going to work, and this is really annoying. as being at home is boring.
another way aswell as cutting benefits would be to build more council house and then the rent could go back to the state, instead of these private landlords( which i am currently with) my rent is about £20 a week higher than council houses in my area.
Complain about this comment
151
I think you will find the game is up for Merkel in the not too distant future
Complain about this comment
The following figures, in billions, are out of date:
• Corporate tax avoidance: 85
• Business fraud: 14
• Government fraud in Whitehall: 5
• Tobacco smuggling: 3.5
• VAT fraud on mobile phones: 2.5
• Total welfare fraud: 2
• Jobseekers Allowance fraud: 0.19
• Bulldozer smuggling: 0.15
• Unpaid Overtime: 23
(Sources, respectively: Guardian, 12/4/02; BBC Radio 4, 'Today', 23/8/01; BBC Radio 4 News, 1996; Guardian 17/12/99; BBC Radio 4, 'Today', 3/7/03; DWP, 2003; The Informal Economy, by Lord Grabiner, March 2000; Guardian, 25/8/01; UK Labour Force Survey, 1999; Guardian, 30 Aug 2002; Press Association, Feb 26 2004)
The figures are out of date but the point is that much more is lost out of the economy by failure to address fraud and losses in areas that are hard to visualise. A bunch of work shy dole scroungers are a lot easier to get a reaction from than, say, the decent hard working middle class working mother who runs her own business and just happens to defraud the exchequer of thousands of hours of tax revenue: because that is what her employees work.
Immediately, the question is: who is this woman? For dole scroungers there is never any question. Yet, there was £23Bn in unpaid overtime as compared to £0.19Bn in Jobseekers Allowance Fraud. The priorities for cutting any waste should, surely, be with what creates the biggest impact financially.
Targeting welfare benefits might look good but, in fact, does very little. It is a quick fix solution. If it has not worked by the end of September we might as well go with a different set of idiots to do the cutting.
Complain about this comment
156
You are caught in what is known as the benefit trap
The point you make about housing is the wrong way round...the council rents need to go up by £20 a week
The benefit system is too rigid, and needs to be overhauled, hence the work to be done by Frank Field and Ian Duncan-Smith
Complain about this comment
130. At 01:03am on 11 Jun 2010, Charles Jurcich wrote:
101. At 9:51pm on 10 Jun 2010, muggwhump wrote:
I think we need to define Incapacity from an employers perspective. Would an employer give a job to a middle aged person who had some kind of intermittent health problem that may mean that they have to take say a day off a week or a week off a month due to illness? If the answer is No then obviously that person is eligible for some kind of benefit
I can't agree with you enough. People misunderstand mental and physical illness, and that includes the DWP. When we argue that someone either can, or can't work, we are falling into a trap psychologists call 'digital thinking'. Capacity for work is a continuum, and therefore the correct question is 'How much' are you capable of work?
In a report about the inadequacies of the assessments by the DWP of people claiming ESA and Incapacity Benefit, they noted that 60% of employers would never employ someone with a history of mental health problems. Employers (like most people) are generaly prejudiced against anything unusual or different. It is not just 'Can you work?', it's also about 'will anyone employ you?'.
_________________________________________________________________________
I totally agree!
I cant remember the exact figure, but I think there's a low denominator quoted in the common statement that 'a substantial proportion of those or IB CAN work' I think the number of people on IB that could work is grossly exaggerated(if not cherry picked) for the Tory press.
Seeing that an individual looks fine in a given instance is vastly different from observing their long-term state... Would an official pronounce someone fit for a marathon by getting them to trot on the spot for 30 seconds??
Complain about this comment
158
Your post is not really very logical
You cannot 'reclaim' anything from unpaid overtime
It is simply an estimate, an auditing exercise? It isn't real...like the estimated cost of child care costs should full-time mums not be at home
Unfortunately your figures are so out of date that they become pointless
Under Brown, and the over-complication of the entire tax and benefit system, the issue of accidental 'fraud' also becomes relevant as well
Frankly, the whole thing needs simplifying, and Tax and NI should be merged, and there should be one agency in charge of ALL benefits, so you have one point of claim and one point of contact
I am not sure of the overall point you try to make
Complain about this comment
159. At 3:43pm on 11 Jun 2010, Kevinb wrote:
156
You are caught in what is known as the benefit trap
The point you make about housing is the wrong way round...the council rents need to go up by £20 a week
The benefit system is too rigid, and needs to be overhauled, hence the work to be done by Frank Field and Ian Duncan-Smith
From the same people that brought you ...Thatcher - the milk snatcher... Coming soon to a place near you!!! The years box office smash...
...IAN DUNCAN SMITH - AND THE GREAT FREE SCHOOL MEALS LIFT...
Complain about this comment
162
I think you should follow the advice in your name
Complain about this comment
I am a parttime worker and I bought my own house. If government stops Childtax Credit/Working Tax Credt I will loose my house. If i loose my house plaese think about the impact on my family.
Complain about this comment
164
You appear to be a rather political first time poster.........
What a coincidence
Complain about this comment
Its all very well saying people on incapacity benefit who could possible work should work, but what jobs are they going to do, if they worked someone else wouldnt, ie there is a shortage of jobs in this country. What is needed to get people off benefits is in the main jobs.
However at the moment we have a society in which some people dont work and others work every hour of the day to keep their job. We need some form of work redistribution. For example people only capable of boring menial jobs need only work say 3 days a week and have their pay topped up with benefits, then it may be possible and not unreasonable to say that people receiving benefits should if they are capable mentally or physically do some work. More interesting and skilled jobs should also have hour limits (not what the French tried to make people work less and be paid same, but same overall wage costs shared by more people) sadly since most people doing the interesting jobs have probably also got large financial commitements they probably wouldnt be willing to take the necessary pay cut. Also one has to ensure that the cost of employing extra people all working shorter hours doesnt become burdensom for industry and the cost of training the people needs in some way to be centrally born.
Complain about this comment
When discussing child allowance for better off parents, fair treatment seems to be forgotten. Is it fair that a family with two children pay the same tax as a couple without children? Child tax credit can act as an alternative to giving a tax allowance.
We often hear complaints about the demographic 'timebomb' but tax policies seem to favour fewer children for those just above tax credit levels.
Complain about this comment
166
Basically we need to work out a way of getting the people who could work, and don't have a job, to be able to do some work , even for 2 or 3 days a week
Tidying up, painting walls, anything that would benefit local communities
This should be a scheme not too complicated, and by getting involved, there should be a higher rate of unemployment/employment and support allowance paid
The reason for this is that we need to stop the benefit culture, and starting with people who could work is sensible
Also, it is important to allow people to feel pride in what they are doing, and it will improve communities which is also important
I appreciate the two examples I give are rudimentary, yet it is only to be indicative
We need to alter the culture
Complain about this comment
I believe the 3-day week was tried in the 70's and Kevins idea is similar to ''workfare'' imported from the US in the early 90's.
Complain about this comment
169
I think the 3 day week referred to is the one from the recent left wing think tank, which suggested 21 hours a week working and 'full' employment
Not the power cut driven 1974 fiasco
Workfare was more of a stick, I would like the idea I suggest to be a carrot
Big psychological difference
Complain about this comment
If the majority of the comments made on this subject reflect the attitude of the population of the UK, then it is little wonder that the country has slumped to the level it has.
Whereas, perhaps, I can just accept that some have neither the education nor the common sense to string together a credible argument, I am nevertheless horrified at the ‘back biting’ and the general ill-natured attitude displayed by many of the contributors.
I also, regrettably, sense an overwhelming degree of envy in the vitriolic comments of quite a few contributors.
How has this ‘state of mind’ developed --- is it born of the ill mannered display of our Members of Parliament in that ‘bear-pit’ in Westminster?
Whereas I acknowledge that there are quite a few feckless youths in our islands who shirk work and think that they are owed a living by the state but, equally, there are just as many youngsters who are a shining example to us all with their courage and devotion to the service of others ---- our young servicemen ---- and don’t you forget it!
I also accept that there are young girls who set about becoming ‘mums’ just to exploit the benefit system to gain their independence – but please remember there are those who have been deserted by the ‘dad’ and need support to bring up a child. So please do not castigate them all.
I also have an observation for those below State Retirement age who believe their taxes are providing the money for those who are drawing their Pension ---- just remember that it was the taxes paid by those pensioners, when they were employed which paid for your education ---- even if you made no effort to benefit from that education. Furthermore it was their NI contributions, which secured for them their pension.
We are all, to some extent, in this financial hole together. For pity’s sake stop the carping and wait for the budget to emerge before making your observations. Dwell perhaps on the thought that it is better to remain silent, and be thought a fool, than to speak out and thereby remove all doubt.
Complain about this comment
# 156 mammamia04
I truly sympathise with your situation, and the financial difficulties you find yourself in. I hope that you are able to get a fair contribution to your children's upkeeping from their absent father.
Thankyou for sharing the details of your monthly finance with this forum. It will be an eyeopener to some of the contributors here, exactly how little you have available in your budget, and how unfair it would be to expect cuts from the social protection fund for those in your position.
You are indeed caught in the benefit trap - through a flaw in the system, and no fault of your own. I am sure that you would prefer to work part-time, as a release from the pressures of full time child care, but financially you would be worse off, so there is very little incentive.
The problem with the UK is there is a chronic shortage of real jobs. We have very little remaining manufacturing industry, the commercial sector has less requirement for office workers, and the public sector is facing 5 years of cuts and uncertainty - which will only lead to further unemployment, and staffing numbers made up with contract and agency workers. The service industry and finance industry will never replace the manufacturing base, that has widely disappeared.
Britain is heading for a situation, similar to that of the 1930s. I would recommend anyone to read George Orwell's "The Road to Wigan Pier" (available online) for and undestanding of the state of Britain in the mid-1930s. Unfortunately it took the second world war and a further decade of austerity until Britain got back on it's feet again. My father (b.1930) was a student in the late 40's early 50's and remembers the queues, the rationing and the lack of money. His was the baby-boomer generation, which after an austere life as a 20-something went on to achieve a much better standard of living than his father's generation. Unfortunately we are likely to see a reversal in this - how many of todays 20-somethings will enjoy a better standard of living than their parents?
The coalition speaks of a "Fairer Britain" - but whilst the words are well intended, there is likely to be little real action, and our economy will stagnate further. How many of the population have just £10,000 a year to live on? If this is dictated by the minimum wage or benefits, then the State needs to put in place the infrastructure that supports these low earners - eg affordable housing, so that they at least have some quality of life,, rather than a life of drudgery and depression.
A fairer state would support the low earners, provided that they show willing and are prepared to make an economic contribution to society. Those on middle income, who winge that they may lose child support and tax credits, should perhaps read "Wigan Pier" and see how lucky they really are.
If the State can no longer help it's citizens - then we have to learn to help ourselves again. Community projects, group child-care, more reliance on family members, local groups and social clubs offering activities and social support. Many of these things we have lost in our selfish pursuit for personal wealth.
Complain about this comment
Philof1949, I am horrified by your suggestion to means test the basic state pension. This would benefit those who have chosen profligacy over being prudent throughout their lives. Those of us who have sacrificed the new car, the expensive holidays etc, to save for our old age should not be penalised any more. We are already disqualified from claiming pension credit-enough is enough. Inflation will probably make us all paupers anyway.
Complain about this comment
" At 08:32am on 12 Jun 2010, terrypaineismyhero wrote:
Philof1949, I am horrified by your suggestion to means test the basic state pension. This would benefit those who have chosen profligacy over being prudent throughout their lives. Those of us who have sacrificed the new car, the expensive holidays etc, to save for our old age should not be penalised any more. We are already disqualified from claiming pension credit-enough is enough. Inflation will probably make us all paupers anyway."
I agree with you - but it is probably the fault of our generation for raising children who expected never to be refused anything. Where it is quite normal to take equity out of (inflated) property values to squander on consumables. Where teenage pregnancy was rewarded and if they chose not to work the benefits system would (at least in part) be there to support them.
Perhaps now is the only time in many years to start to redress the imbalance in our society and I would start by removing all incentives to have children and replace them with rewards for not having them.
After all over population of humans and their insatiable appetite for natural resources is the cause of all enviromental damage and the so called "global warming" so it is about time the world started to follow Chinas example and restrict population growth.
Complain about this comment
I dont see these droves of unmarried mothers, the media use to wind people up. I generally see hard working youth, and the most brave and admirable abroad fighting for our freedom to moan about our having to contribute a little to the less fortunate through taxes.
Complain about this comment
"getrealbill"
Agree with you about the lads and lasses in uniform - but just take a look around you in this country to see the real mess we are all wallowing in.
Complain about this comment
I agree, it will be instantly fairer. Stop all benefits, now.
There will be kids working down mines, old people taken out to the snow to die, no sick to have a second chance to contribute something inspired, and no handicap to pave the way for innovative genes... What a dark-age paradise we will live in!
Complain about this comment
I am so frustrated that we accept the continued tinkering with a broken system. The banks need to pay. We don't.Well, not all of us though there are some who tried to be greedy with btl schemes and other anti-social 'investments'.
What we going to do people? Just sit back and let them shaft us some more? Or make a stand and ask for something more equitable?
Complain about this comment
Kevin-it matters not where I am,only the fact that what I posted was factual for this country.Somehow I think that we (as a UK nation) should return to looking after their own and NOT apply EU directives as a matter of fact-my adopted country and those around it interpret EU law to suit themselves and their native population.
I do not see armies of EU inspectors trolling around here taking people and traders to task for not applying EU rulings,nor do I see Eu standards being applied.This is not to say that the EU is responsible for our ills,far from it-But it is time we started to look after our own.Forget about economic migrants,forget about EU directives and let us have power and policy to put our own house in order-now ,as you can see from my user name,I'm not a "little englander" and I'm not a european.
Things have gone far enough-time to take control of our own destiny.
Complain about this comment
What is the rationale of giving the unemployed free money for sitting at home - and rather not enrolling at the local council - and then local council can take their help in: (a) small construction projects, (b) keeping our parks clean, (c) cleaning our streets, (d) watching our neighbourhood.....i mean there are so many things in the society where an unemployed person can contribute
Complain about this comment
What we need to do is to police the current benefit system more thoroughly. These are three areas of abuse I am currently personally aware of.
Children receiving full EMA (£30 per week) because they have chosen to live with grandparents who are pensioners yet their parents have a combined income in excess of £100,000 per year. The parents contribute massively towards their childs upkeep. Is this fair?
Children in so-called single parent households receiving large grants and subsidies at university when the absent parent earns a fortune and contributes massively to that childs upkeep. Only the income of the parent living in the family home is taken into account for these benefits. Is that right?
People with full time jobs reducing their hours and claiming benefits to make up some of the difference in income so they can have more time at home with a newly born child. If I gave up my job because I felt like it I wouldn't get a penny in benefits. Why is this any different?
Sort out these abuses and we might find that the need for cuts is not so great.
Complain about this comment
I'm just another armchair economist (and my limited education is in Physics/maths), but it seems to me you could set the welfare system up in 2 modes.
mode 1. High productivity - Most waste and wasters, but high-end productivity.
mode 2. High economy - little wsste and good feeling of social justice, but low productivity and spending activity, and high instances of people 'outliving their usefulness'.
In summary. The system is inherently harmonic, any attempt to 'cut waste' has a price.
Complain about this comment
At 04:51am on 12 Jun 2010, songshan wrote.
Thank you for understand, far too many people are narrow mineded and think people are on benefits cos they can't be arsed, but that isnt always the case.
another thing that annoys me is: other eu workers that live in the uk but have their partner and children in teh eu country they are from are entitles to child benefit and other benefits cos they work in the uk, this is a shame we have homeless children living on the strrets in the uk, surely they shoudl come b4 some child who lives 20000 miles away.
Complain about this comment
Another issue which seems to be missing in this discussion is the "cost" of administrating the 'benefit system" - i have no data, but seems that handing out £100 at least costs £10....
We should discuss more openly the idea of "all benefit always in kind" - i don't think state should kick in for the individual unless the individual is in a 'desperate' and 'complelling" need.
and then there are wider questions for fairness - suppose i work 80 hours a week and earn 100K and give 40K in taxes (which in turn is used to give benefit to someone who is sitting at home and in many cases hiding behind the excuse of incapacity or 100 other reaosns) - am i not justified to have someone who gets his food and cloth from money earned by my hard work - helps me if required in my - (a) garden work, (b) my household job, (c) taking care of my kids --- i think this is a fair ask from me if we want a society of harmony - every person has their own capailities and opprtunities around them - but then lets live like brothers - i help you for your food, housing bill - you give me hand with what you can do....
the concept of the word "free" is the worst and have never in the history of civilization has survivied...the countries finish - if they go by the route of "free"!
Complain about this comment
Recently there was a 'getting tough on the workshy' article in one of the broadsheets.
Apparently 'working in exchange for benefits' overwhelmingly cut idleness and outgoing welfare cash, in 90's USA... But, the americans had to put people in jail and left single mothers surviving on what most kids here see as 'pocket money'(converting to Something like - 30pounds sterling = per week). Recession or not, can you seriously see that being allowed, here? Can you imagine the Great British death penalty and the Great British chain-gang???
Complain about this comment
Hi I have been on benefits for years due to ill health I have recently applied for dla and have had to take it the appeal process which I am waiting to hear from. I am not a bum or a waste of societys money. I have suffred for over 10 years if not longer with I.B.S and Agrophobia, depression and anxiety. To the extent that it has now taken over my life completly! I find it really hard to leave my house due to the effects of my illness I have been trying to get help with getting well and getting my life back. I want to work! I'm just not well enough how is this budget going to affect me? Am I going to be forced back into work before I have got well?
Complain about this comment
Another question I have is the nhs going to be changed? In other words are peole like me who have been ill for such a long time going to get the help and care they need? Why have we not got more research into understanding I.B.S and other such illnesses? Come on is not to much to ask that when you do finally get an appoinment with the so called specialists that they have researched your illness and come up with ways to help you instead of ignorance and not much help?
Complain about this comment
Hi Shazza,
If you get badly treated as a result of the ConDems 'reforms' I would rattle the cages of the highest powers in the land.
As NO exaggeration, A depressed/agoraphobic person may manage to, say, take a walk in the park for the first time in years. To an ignorant/arrogant observer of that single event, this person is "fully capable of work and committing benefit fraud".
The disabled should in noway bear the brunt of sub-prime speculators.
Complain about this comment
Shazza,
I.B.S? I don't think there's a cure for that, is there? It's a bit of a paradox how medical research has hit a brick wall finding drugs for the 'common cold', yet has wiped out most pre-20th century diseases.
I wouldn't have thought the N.H.S researches such conditions directly. However, there must be labs researching I.B.S. many places in the world.
"The deficit" seems to be relatively mild and vastly exaggerated in order to scare us into a '2nd Thatcherite Britain' I cant honestly see how it will get so bad that YOU are forced into work.
Complain about this comment
Due to all these cuts the government have done on child tax credits it has caused major problems with families that are only doing change of circumstances? back in June my partner who is disabled, myself and my 6 children had to move due to domestic violence and as my partner moved in with us i had to add him to our claim? as a result of this we are still waiting for our claim to be sorted out? now over this time it has cost us for several telephone calls that is when you can finally get threw after it being engaged for ages and then being on hold for at lest 25 mins! just to be told at the beginning of July that they haven't processed our claim yet and to call back on the 21st July when they will be able to tell us more, in this time we received no letters or calls so on the 20th July we contacted them to be told that they had lost our form and that they would get our local tax office to contact us so we could go there to re fill another form out? this we did on the 21st July and we was told that it should be sorted out within a week, so we contacted child tax credit yesterday to be told rudely by one person our claim was not yet active and after this person continued to shout at my partner he asked to speak to a manager who informed him our claim is active but we have another 3 week wait? now as a result of all this we have been served with a notice to quit as we are unable to pay our services charges on where we live and i am receiving debt letters as i am unable to pay them as i am trying to feed a family of 8 on 182 pounds a week? as you can tell this is impossible to do and pay bills and child tax credit wouldn't care? i was also told when i went to my local tax office that if it wasn't sorted by this week we could telephone child tax credits to get them to refer us to them again as that is the only way for them to help so we could get a payment sorted out under hardship! but now child tax credits are refusing to refer us to our local office.Due to all these changes the staff are getting rude and frustrated and now taking it out on their "clients" and also children are suffering due to government legislation as we have a 5 month old caught up in this who at present is not even getting milk tokens so that is an extra expense we have to find!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Complain about this comment
At last Stephanie, I actually agree with you about something.
Complain about this comment
HI.
Some reason people have togo to work. But you can help who working hard keep the family with young children. At least tax relese or less than now.
Realy hard to geting there. I am mother with two children 14 and 12 years. For me realy hard to go to holiday one week with them.This school holiday poor my children. They are stay in the home I am working in the hospital.
If you can help at least for us that would be great.
Padma
Complain about this comment
Most people fail to realise that benefits are not just a social policy (and quite right too), they are an economic policy, designed to ensure the economy has sufficient aggregate demand. By this I mean, when people are made unemployed, they still have money to spend on goods and services, and this helps to support the economy. Money paid to other groups is also economically vital to make up for the fact that real wages have been falling consistently being productivity for 30 years. This shortfall in wages causes a shortfall in demand, and benefits help to plug the gap.
It is good to know that doing something 'right' is almost always good for the economy too.
Kind Regards
Charlie
Complain about this comment
View these comments in RSS