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'Smart cards' plan to stop benefits being spent on drink

scaramanga said:
Lol, touche!

If I'm not angering union member, " the world owes me a living" types then I'm doing it wrong.

Clever employers will never even get taken to tribunal for that kind of tidying of the workforce.
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Whilst I don't agree with your politics at all, I'm glad you like winding up people 'on the other side' -- as do I! :lol:
 
Rob said:
Interesting thread, only read the first couple of pages then skimmed the next couple but I haven't seen this side of the argument (albeit I would presume a controversial one).

Isn't this just another nail in the coffin of British pubs which are closing at a rate of 26 per week? Yes there are people who receive whatever amount of benefit and spend almost every penny in the pub but there are also people who have a good network in their local and who use this to find work at a point when they don't have any. From what I've seen, this is stacked heavily on the side of the self employed but I have seen (and personally been in) other instances where all sorts of job openings have been snapped up by a guy or girl who just so happened to be in the right pub at the right time. I've seen this applied to both short term and long term unemployed.

So now pubs are not allowed to have smokers on their premises in the same way that they used to and this proposal will mean pubs are also prevented from serving the jobless or those who solely rely on the benefits system to live for whatever reason is personal to them.

The Down's syndrome guy who comes in everyday for two pints of lager and a few games of pool. The pensioner who has worked all their life but now only receives a state pension. The single full time mum who comes in once a fortnight to let her hair down when her ex has the kids. The person who has been left unfit for work by an injury in the workplace before the days of claims direct etc but uses the pub as their only link to a social life. The person who was made redundant but the payoff wasn't much and now they're struggling to find work but they still want to see the people they would normally see after work every evening, even if it is only once a week til they can get back into work.

I wonder how much revenue will be lost on average by pubs which are already struggling and basing their weekly orders not on what they expect to sell the following week but on how much money they took the week before.

I can guarantee that, if this law comes in, there will be pubs which close as a direct consequence.
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I think it goes without saying that disability benefits and pensioners would be exempt from this system
 
It saddens me to read a lot of the comments. Have you all been brainwashed by the media so much that you believe every person claiming benefits "can't be bothered to go to work" ??? Do you honestly believe that everyone to a man uses their benefits to by the latest smart TV and go on three holidays a year? The majority of long term claimants have adapted their lives to get by on what minuscule amount the government has said they need to survive. They do just that, survive. They don't have a specific shopping list they just have a budget and go for as many of the flash price offers as possible in order to get the most they can for their money. If they want a couple of tins or a bottle of wine then they would be sacrificing something else.

How much money do you seriously think the average JSA claimant actually receives in their hands? Last I knew it was about fifty quid a week so it's probably about 70 now.... That's 10 quid a day ffs and that's for their utility bills as well, and any top up on their rent they have to pay.

**** me if I had to survive on that amount I'd NEED a stiff drink to get over the shock!

Yeah sure there are scum out there who leave their families in dirty clothes etc but this is so much a minority that it bewilders me how anyone can generalise an entire system based on it!!!
 
Rob said:
It saddens me to read a lot of the comments. Have you all been brainwashed by the media so much that you believe every person claiming benefits "can't be bothered to go to work" ??? Do you honestly believe that everyone to a man uses their benefits to by the latest smart TV and go on three holidays a year? The majority of long term claimants have adapted their lives to get by on what minuscule amount the government has said they need to survive. They do just that, survive. They don't have a specific shopping list they just have a budget and go for as many of the flash price offers as possible in order to get the most they can for their money. If they want a couple of tins or a bottle of wine then they would be sacrificing something else.

How much money do you seriously think the average JSA claimant actually receives in their hands? Last I knew it was about fifty quid a week so it's probably about 70 now.... That's 10 quid a day ffs and that's for their utility bills as well, and any top up on their rent they have to pay.

**** me if I had to survive on that amount I'd NEED a stiff drink to get over the shock!

Yeah sure there are scum out there who leave their families in dirty clothes etc but this is so much a minority that it bewilders me how anyone can generalise an entire system based on it!!!
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You sir are a ****ing hero.
 
Rob said:
It saddens me to read a lot of the comments. Have you all been brainwashed by the media so much that you believe every person claiming benefits "can't be bothered to go to work" ??? Do you honestly believe that everyone to a man uses their benefits to by the latest smart TV and go on three holidays a year? The majority of long term claimants have adapted their lives to get by on what minuscule amount the government has said they need to survive. They do just that, survive. They don't have a specific shopping list they just have a budget and go for as many of the flash price offers as possible in order to get the most they can for their money. If they want a couple of tins or a bottle of wine then they would be sacrificing something else.

How much money do you seriously think the average JSA claimant actually receives in their hands? Last I knew it was about fifty quid a week so it's probably about 70 now.... That's 10 quid a day ffs and that's for their utility bills as well, and any top up on their rent they have to pay.

**** me if I had to survive on that amount I'd NEED a stiff drink to get over the shock!

Yeah sure there are scum out there who leave their families in dirty clothes etc but this is so much a minority that it bewilders me how anyone can generalise an entire system based on it!!!
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End thread
 
Rob said:
It saddens me to read a lot of the comments. Have you all been brainwashed by the media so much that you believe every person claiming benefits "can't be bothered to go to work" ??? Do you honestly believe that everyone to a man uses their benefits to by the latest smart TV and go on three holidays a year? The majority of long term claimants have adapted their lives to get by on what minuscule amount the government has said they need to survive. They do just that, survive. They don't have a specific shopping list they just have a budget and go for as many of the flash price offers as possible in order to get the most they can for their money. If they want a couple of tins or a bottle of wine then they would be sacrificing something else.

How much money do you seriously think the average JSA claimant actually receives in their hands? Last I knew it was about fifty quid a week so it's probably about 70 now.... That's 10 quid a day ffs and that's for their utility bills as well, and any top up on their rent they have to pay.

**** me if I had to survive on that amount I'd NEED a stiff drink to get over the shock!

Yeah sure there are scum out there who leave their families in dirty clothes etc but this is so much a minority that it bewilders me how anyone can generalise an entire system based on it!!!
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It's not about assuming everyone's a scumbag, and all about incentives. The bigger gap there is between quality of life on benefits and in work, the more people end up in work - the more in work, the less we pay for. The less we pay for, the more our quality of life improves. Everyone wins.
 
scaramanga said:
It's not about assuming everyone's a scumbag, and all about incentives. The bigger gap there is between quality of life on benefits and in work, the more people end up in work - the more in work, the less we pay for. The less we pay for, the more our quality of life improves. Everyone wins.
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That philosophy would be all well and dandy,if most people on benefits were not in work.

You want to get the benefit bill down,pay a living wage.
 
Paxtonloudmouth said:
That philosophy would be all well and dandy,if most people on benefits were not in work.

You want to get the benefit bill down,pay a living wage.
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One of the people sat in the office outside mine was on working benefits until 3 months ago. At some point a year or so ago, he decided he wanted more, went to night school and learned the basics of accountancy.

I took him on within 2 hours of his interview and he's now earning significantly more than a living wage (an entirely bullsh1t term). If he stays with us for the next 5 years he'll have a very good future indeed and is unlikely to ever need government assistance again. So I'd replace your last sentence with:

If you want more, make yourself worth more.
 
scaramanga said:
One of the people sat in the office outside mine was on working benefits until 3 months ago. At some point a year or so ago, he decided he wanted more, went to night school and learned the basics of accountancy.

I took him on within 2 hours of his interview and he's now earning significantly more than a living wage (an entirely bullsh1t term). If he stays with us for the next 5 years he'll have a very good future indeed and is unlikely to ever need government assistance again. So I'd replace your last sentence with:

If you want more, make yourself worth more.
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Hence why I love the Unions. I wish your beautiful little convenient anecdote every success in the future.
 
Paxtonloudmouth said:
Hence why I love the Unions. I wish your beautiful little convenient anecdote every success in the future.
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That's not making yourself worth more, that's blackmail. Once the blackmail stops you're still a low-skilled worker in a highly paid job.

If only the Conservatives weren't so utterly sh1te at being a party, Thatcher could have finished her masterpiece, there would be no unions and this country would be far more successful for it!
 
scaramanga said:
That's not making yourself worth more, that's blackmail. Once the blackmail stops you're still a low-skilled worker in a highly paid job.

If only the Conservatives weren't so utterly sh1te at being a party, Thatcher could have finished her masterpiece, there would be no unions and this country would be far more successful for it!
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Rubbish,we will continue to strive on an economic system that is not riddled with contradictions and that aims at improving the life of as many people as is possible. Thatcher is dead,and the world is a better place for it. Sol Campbell; that Judas Tory loving **** is next.

92,never again. Keep having your hands out for a bailout. The real scroungers.

Anyway you ideological enemy. Get back to work you lazy ****. Even we Marxists have to do that.
 
scaramanga said:
It's not about assuming everyone's a scumbag, and all about incentives. The bigger gap there is between quality of life on benefits and in work, the more people end up in work - the more in work, the less we pay for. The less we pay for, the more our quality of life improves. Everyone wins.
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But there'll always be loopholes mate - it's all about tightening the system. If someone has 4 kids and they have a 5th then they shouldn't receive an equal increase in benefits as when they had their 4th. There should be a steady decrement each time - if you've got 4 kids then it's not that much more expensive to feed a 5th and they should be wearing hand me downs as well as new clothes ("best"). It seems as though the poor have forgotten how to live (although this is another sweeping statement and I don't me a it as such).

With regards the original point, the specific target group that these measures are aimed at will take their money-card, go buy electrical goods, sell it to a bloke in the bookies/pub/crack house at a mark down price and the people who are genuine will be the ones who suffer.

It seems the only guaranteed winners are the supermarkets....at a time when our high streets are suffering the most.

[Edit]

...sorry, I neglected to comment on the point you raised, which was a valid one but also a moot one in reference to the topic in hand. Yes, you're 100% right that it is too easy to live well on benefits and the trap is all too real where a person or family can be financially penalised for getting a job - council tax benefit + housing benefit + JSA > minimum wage 40 hour week. But this is not the way to solve that. Far, far from it in fact - it won't do a single thing to eradicate that. Those who abuse the system will continue to do so. Those feeling trapped in the system will still feel trapped as there is no change to how much money is being paid out whatsoever. This card won't greater the income gap between being on benefits and working, all it will do is penalise the poor by denying them their basic right to spend what little money they have on what they choose.
 
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I think we all realise its unfair to label all claimants scummy. I'm sure no one is doing that.

Take a moment to think of the guy who used my betting shop for 11 years. Never worked and in the bookies 6/7 hours a day. He showed me, proudly, pictures of his £10k music room with guitars, amplifiers and records etc...

He showed me the deeds for a £15k plot of land he'd saved up for and bought in Norfolk to set up a new home for his family!

All the while buying food from the 'reduced to clear' section from the CO-OP or local tescos for his family. He went to car boots every week to buy baulk items like toilet rolls etc.. All the while gambling his benefits and saving for this new lifestyle. Says to me he was being paid too much.

Now yes of COURSE it's an individual circumstance but if he is clearly being overpaid doesn't it lead to people thinking how many more are????
 
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