BENEFIT SHAKE UP
 

Just watching the news on BBC, they are going to give a universal benefit which includes housing, and all others in one.

It is said that people will always be better off working as opposed to someone in the same circumstances on benfits.

I hope it works.

Re: BENEFIT SHAKE UP
 

Where? Spain?

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no the UK.

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Here's a link

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/policy/welfare...11/index.shtml

and the main points

Anyone know what is meant by "Universal Credit"?

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I think it means that the claimants will be paid ONE BENEFIT which includes a whole host of them at the present.

Child bendfit, JSA, income support will not be paid seperatly and, and I think it might be a set amount for each group of people, ie unemployed with 2 children, get a set amount, 3 children a set amount, but I am not sure.

Benefits for middle classes will be further cut, in childcare help.

And people will be checked on after they have been on the sick for 2 weeks, to stop them drifting onto long term sick benefits, a sort of prevention method.

I dont know if they are going about it the right way, but the intention is good.

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It's amazing, they are putting 10,000 a week or more on the dole then going to get them all to feel that it's better to get into work than claim benefits, so clever :p

Sack a cleaner on 100 quid a week and give her 200 quid a week in benefits, yeah great idea:p

lolli pop ladies going today, how much is that saving?, maybe 2 hours a day, 25 quid a week, wow.

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I can't quite see how scrapping the proposed 10% cut in housing benefit for those who have been unemployed for more than a year is going to help ensure that working pays more than being on benefit, but maybe that's just me being thick.

Call me cynical, but I will believe none of this until I see evidence of unemployed people (and not someone who has just recently lost their job, either) with large numbers of children being moved out of rental properties in expensive areas that a working person would never be able to afford to live in. Oh, but hold on, if that happened it would be private landlords who would suffer as they might have to reduce their rents, and the Tories aren't going to let that happen, are they?

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Not a chance, lower rents would mean lower false claims:p

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On top of the benefit reforms they are also looking at the amount of sick time in the public sector.

To me the whole of the public sector needs overhauling. We just cannot afford the pensions liability that is building up especially when the private sector who are paying for these are suffering.

How is it right for public sector employees to be able to retire from 55 onwards when the rest are having their retirement dates extended?

It used to be that public sector pay was less than that of the private sector but that has not been the case for some time.

This is probably off topic but its all about what the country can afford.

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I think you have overlooked something. The government IS these people, and unless things change radically, they will get their perks trimmed shortly after Elvis returns from hangliding thru hell.

You (and the rest of us) don't matter a shit. We are there to be taxed, screwed and raped financially with our pensions robbed and devalued.

We saw this most clearly when we saw that the public money for the wine allowance for civil servants was not to be cut, while everything for Joe Public is being cut with an industrial size chainsaw.

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I’ve got a rather simple view of politics. When I was doing well in life, I voted Conservative; when my train hit the buffers, I voted Labour; when I had more time to read some of the bigger books, I voted Liberal.

I’ve been lucky enough never to have had to claim anything, and wouldn’t get anything if I tried now. There are genuine claimants and a whole bunch of cheats, but I was never in any doubt that the Conservatives would go all out to cut benefits, for obvious political reasons the people on them will never vote Conservative anyway, and the rest of the well-off will be cheering at any measure that makes them better-off than their council house neighbours.

It was always thus.

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No it wasn't.

There are plenty of wealthy Labour voters and plenty of moronic Conservative white van men.

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What is it they say? He who is not socialist in his youth is without heart, he who is not conservative in his maturity is without brain.

You ended up Liberal, so I guess you buck the trend.

Me, I hate them all. It saves time.

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Christ, ain't that the truth.

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Sorry Johnnyone, but I teach in Pvt sector, my wife in Public. She lost right to right to retire at 55 in 2002. Pay is not as good in Public, I earn 150% of what she does, yet she takes more than 150% of the crap I do...

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I would say that wealthy people who vote Labour are a rarity, and white van men that vote at all, an even bigger one.

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There's a lot of people who aren't well off who are under the delusion that the tories are the party for them.

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O, and just to say, also I finished school last Thursday for over two weeks half term, My wife finishes tomorrow for 1 week...

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Whereas the party for them actually is??

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Yes, I’ve come across those. Deluded is the right word. They probably still don’t understand that being allowed to buy their council house wasn’t an act of kindness by the Conservatives, but the biggest con ever imposed on the British public.

They might also not understand that they are paying a Dutch company for every glass of water they drink, and a French company when they turn their gas fires on.

But the good old Abbey National is still where they park their meagre savings. A good old British bank that took over that foreign bank with the funny name.

Maggie handbagged those Krauts, didn’t she?

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Did she? My eyes were watering too much to see. Selling off water, power and transport was so blindingly stupid that I simply don't have words to describe it.

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Don't forget that I hate them ALL.

I think that if you earn the national average or less, then the tories aren't your friends.

Not for nothing are they known as the Selfservatives. Their election slogan?

Britain's better off better off, are better off under the Selfservatives.

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The publice sector does not just consist of teachers.

I just believe that the public sector needs sorting out especially pensions, efficiency and absenteeism as the country just cannot afford the future costs that are building up.

There is only so much money in the pot and the inflated costs (costs are not just salaries) of the Public Sector needs reducing so money can be spent where it can be used more effectively.

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No... once again... wrong.... In fact a lot of VERY wealthy people not only voted Labour but supported Labour, many wealthy people did very well under Labour, much better than they will do under the Con Dems..... As Bil says, they are all obsessed with themselves and their own agendas, as someone once said to me... Old Torries, New Labour, same self serving crooks.


Can I also say, as an aside, that the recent Woodland Sell Off plans is a classic example of the media damning people whatever they do.... For generations we have said that we can vote the politicians in and we can vote them out but by and large once they are in, we are powerless to do anything about their policies... a classic example of this was Prescots disastrous house demolition program in the North East and North West towns.... we were actually destroying homes at a significant loss compared to potential grants to renovate them, the people living in these homes were paid a pittance to clear out of them and mass protests were arranged, but Labour ploughed on regardless and they now have hundreds of acres of barren land designated as "parks" in the middle of almost abandoned "sink areas" while green belt land is build on year on year regardless of whether the homes are sold or not (Redrow secretly runs at a 60% unsold percentage) yet............ the Con-Dems scrap the proposed lease hire of the public forests (It was never a sell off, it was always a lease hire) because of public pressure, which in my mind is a CLASSIC piece of DEMOCRACY, and they are slammed for being the U-Turn government.....

As I said, damned if they do.... damned if they don't. Lets not forget which genius financial masterminds led us to the unemployment levels and financial disaster we are experiencing at the moment.... Balls and Brown.... and isn't it funny how its only Labour councils who are having to cut libraries and essential community services, the Lib Dem ones are making cuts elsewhere, like pay cuts for top execs and curbs on spending waste.... suspicious? Nah... just the same old underhand vindictive spin we have lived under for the last 13 years in Britain.

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Anyone can retire at 55, if they have built up a sufficient pension, I retired at 59, don't get my state pension till next week, but as I had paid into the NHS pension scheme for 40+ years I was in a position to retire early. People are not stopped from retiring at an earlier age, just that the state pension will NOT be paid until the goverment retiring age is reached.

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People are stopped from retiring early as they do not have the benefit of a pension scheme that is as generous as most public sector schemes.

Current annuity rates are around 6% of the fund value at 60, so to achieve a £20000 p.a pension you need to have a pension pot of c£350000. If you have an index linked pension you can double that amount.

That is why people cannot retire early

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Thanks Matt. It's nice to hear from another Liberal on this forum.

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I used to be a political animal and believed that many have a conscience and do try. Then I came up against Blunkett, the most arrogant bully it has ever been my misfortune to meet and the way that the British police can be used to harrass anyone who disagrees with a politician. Luckily I knew the chief inspector who had the good grace to apologise but said his hands were tied.
The other act of utter stupidity, probably the biggest of recent times was Brown´s sale of british gold reserves. It totally defied any form of logic and was obvious to the most economically illiterate person that gold price was only going to go one way. Up.
Graham

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It's actually refreshing to see more people posting who hate the whole lot of them, and don't try and claim that their party are of course right, and everyone else wrong.

Of course this does throw up the interesting points that

a) more and more of us hate them all, and

b) they wonder why it is that voter turnout is falling faster than a lead balloon.

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I'd have thought there was some serious competition for Blunkett for that title, arse tho he was. I heard stories of the arrogance and rudeness of politicians that used to leave me breathless.

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[QUOTE=The Oddities;9185655
The other act of utter stupidity, probably the biggest of recent times was Brown´s sale of british gold reserves. It totally defied any form of logic and was obvious to the most economically illiterate person that gold price was only going to go one way. Up.
Graham[/QUOTE]

Hindsights a wonderful thing.

There is an article in todays Telegraph (Y16) by its journalist Paul Farrow about M & G closing its gold pension fund in 2001 due to its poor performance. ie the gold priced had slumped.

Interestingly Farrow then goes on to state that he had some sympathy for M & G as no one cared too much for gold at that time.

This is the very same paper that has lambasted Brown ever since he sold off the reserves yet when comes to their city cronies its a different story.

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Yeah, had things gone the other way after Brown flogged off the gold reserves, he would have been hailed as a hero.

As you say, Brown's an easy target, and it's one rule for them.....

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It was never going to go any other way for him mate, almost everyone told him it was a mistake, everyone could see the monumental rise of the new "Big Three" (India, China and Brazil) and over the years dozens of people wanted him to reconsider... he had it in his mind to sell it very early on in his political history. There was a really interesting article in the Telegraph a few days back talking about how Brown effectively set out to destroy England and nothing was going to stop him do it... maybe a bit extreme but something must explain why someone who everyone hailed as an economic GENIUS managed to steer us away from the same measures that Germany, most of Scandinavia and France took to minimise the devastation. We have all also forgotten what led so many Councils down the route they find themselves in now.... anyone else remember what happened to start this whole mess? Anyone else remember what DISASTROUS decision was taken by so many Councils in the name of greed?

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Someone on here once posted that tho politicians would like you to think they were in control, they are as much in contol of the country's trajectory, as a dandelion seed in a high wind.

I wish I didn't find that so easy to believe.

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It has nothing to do with hindsight, the discussions I had with knowledgeable and lay persons were at the time. Accountants and fund managers that I dealt with could not believe what was happening. Only a fool sells the family silver when the price is rock bottom and there has never been a time in history when gold has dropped and stayed down. Once the price rises then you sell and anyone who sells at rock bottom is either desperate or has very little grasp of the way gold performs. I hope that I never have a fund manager so incompetent as to tell me to sell when the price of any commodity is at rock bottom.
Graham

Re: BENEFIT SHAKE UP
 

I am not an expert on this, I was just pointing out that Brown wasn't the only one who sold gold and he must have been given advice from other so called 'Experts' before making his decision.
I wish I had your fund managers! From my experience the majority are are a bunch of overpaid sheep who follow the few competent managers and the majority of those did not forsee the stock market slump.
And surely for every buyer there is a seller, they cannot both be picking the right time to buy/sell, one of them must be getting their timing wrong.Very simplistic but I just do not have much confidence or trust in the abilities of the majority of fund managers.
The people we are relying on are the very ones who grossly/negligently undervalued state assets sold off during privatisation.

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Indeed. There also seems to have been a total media concentration on this Gold issue - I wondered how much was involved... So I googled and found that the total estimated loss by selling the gold at the wrong time was £2 billion.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle1654931.ece

So, by no means pennies - I'd like to have 1% of that £2 billion - and it looks as though Gordo ignored good advice on the issue. But who could have reasonably predicted at the time that gold would increase three-fold? Also, that £2 billion has to be put into perspective - look at the £20 billion bailout of Northern Rock (again under Nu Lab), or the £10 billion the Tories magicked up last year to help bail out the Irish banks. I wonder also how many billions have been spent in Iraq? Or, how many billions in lost tax revenue and extra benefit payments will be caused by the forthcoming increases in unemployment? If we're criticising Brown, I'd sooner concentrate on his lack of action to stop the housing bubble and regulate the banking/credit system, that has led us to the economic mess in many western countries. But the media will gloss over that, partly because the Tories were also in favour of the cheap-credit de-regulated financial system, and also because we were nearly all involved in supporting ever-increasing house prices.

Re: BENEFIT SHAKE UP
 

I do not recollect any other country selling off their gold reserves, the point of having these reserves is to underpin a country´s economy. If one really must tinker then at least sell when the price is high and buy when it is low.
So fundamental.
Graham

Re: BENEFIT SHAKE UP
 

I getting into stuff here I probably don't fully understand.
Gold is a commodity, no more and no less and traded as such. Shouldn't the question be whether the money raised selling gold was reinvested sensibly if at all.
I have no idea of the answer but if it had been reivested into something that had achieved better growth than gold ( eg the Chinese stockmarket )it would be seen as act of genius, on the other hand if it had been reinvested in something that crashed it would be seen as sheer stupidity.
Many countries do not carry large gold reserves relying on overseas investments.

Re: BENEFIT SHAKE UP
 

The money was probably pissed up the wall, as when the tories flogged off the public assets.

They are all scum.