hodgy0_2

wait for it

cut benefits -- what a surprise

maybe they need a shake up maybe they don't, OK OK for all the tory boys out there they probably do

but boy, i would not want to be at the bottom of the **** heap when they get into power next year.

My advice buy shares in soup kitchens -- they will be a growth industry

hang on to your hats (and jobs) -- its going to be a bumpy ride

yeeeha

TelBoy

Sorry, maybe i'm missing the point here. Are you saying that we should increase the benefit burden? Not enough people on handouts for you or what?

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

I suppose we should be thankful they have at last announced a policy. I watched an interview on BBC News 24 with a Tory who's name escapes me the other day and he would not answer one question directly regarding policy. Not one! Mind you Brown is so bad the Tories could actually get elected without announcing any policies LOL

hodgy0_2

what i have said

they probably need a shake up, but boy, i would not want to be at the bottom of the **** heap

what else are you missing telboy?

TelBoy

Well for a start, that's it's a "surprise"?

It's not really, is it?

EddScott

Do you mean those currently on benefits? If so I have had first hand experience of people within the benefit system who view it as a god given right rather than a means to fal lback on in hard times.

Free house

Free money

Free house renovation (Heating, bathroom, kitchen etc)

If they are on the sick whether self induced or otherwise:-

Cheap new cars

Free house conversion (£17K on a downstairs wet room)

Doesn't seem like a bad deal to me. How are the tories going to take that away? They can't and they won't. They'll say we'll cut benefits to please people like me who feel hard done by for actually making an effort in life but they'll miss targets or let it get worse and spend their first term in office blaming the Labour party. The 2nd term they'll muddle through and then they'll probably lose on purpose (much like labour now) and then allow the other party to take the flak (much like they will now)

its utter cobblers.

FlightMan

So we have a cut in benefits for the poor. And an increase in the threshold in inheritence tax to £1m for the rich.

And it's taken them how long to decide they're going to do what they've always done?

hodgy0_2

is irony totally lost on you?

the sad fact is, is that its just a continuum of a theme

the rich have been subsidised massively over the last ten years – culminating in a bailout to the tune of trillions of pounds

multimillion pound pensions for bankers are being paid by for by the taxpayer – and will be for years

it's the bloke stuck on PAYE who is getting totally but fvcked

Simon K

Come on, we all know of people that are milking the benefits system. The mid 20's/30s year olds that dont work because its easier to claim. Christ, there are some that havent worked for over 12 years, and people that have never worked at all.

It those the tories are gunning for, not the people that honestly cant work due to illness etc etc.

SBK

TelBoy

Stop stop stop, before your bandwagon really does career out of control.

In what way have the rich been subsidised? So you're saying that we should live under a form of communism where everybody is looked after exactly the same, that there are no rewards for getting an education or striving ahead in your career. Is that the deal?

Pensions paid for by the taxpayer. Tell me in one syllable words how you work that one out then. My pension hasn't got a damned penny of taxpayers' money in it, but feel free to make a contribution if you want

I'm PAYE and i don't feel like i'm being but(t) fcuked. Is this just a sour grapes rant??

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

I don't even know why this is making the news. This policy is exactly the same as the one that is currently in effect. Every year every person who is on Incap is re-assessed to see if they can be taken off the benefit. If they are removed from the benefit they immediately become a Job Seeker. The proposed rates are the same rates that are in effect today. This policy is just the same as Labour's drive to get people off Incap, and will be done using the same tools that are already in place.

What I would like to see is more done to get the millions who are Job Seekers back into work. Putting more people onto Job Seekers allowance will not save much money. Even if you move 250,000 people all you are saving is £25m (and not even that as Job Seekers get free health care, whereas those on Incap do not). The benefits burden is billions. Its getting people into work that counts, not shuffling people around different benefits.

MattW

Tel, it's an ideological argument, you can't win.

EddScott

And how do you stop them? Without encroaching on their civil rights?

Tories are jsut as full of bull as Labour. Neither can sort this mess out because to do so would be to abandon democracy, freedom and human rights.

It would be a case of the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.



Nothing wrong with the idea, its the implementation and subsequent abuse that ruins it - much like any other regime.

stilover

If you watched Benefit Busters, the opening titles stated that now in the UK, Benefit handouts are more than the money generated from Income Tax.

And you think that's OK?????

The Benefit system nowadays means people are worse off getting a job. So they don't, and let you and me pay for there house, food, education, healthcare, electricity, gas, water, and Alchohol.

Wurzel

iTrader: (1)

I am also PAYE and AM getting but(t) fcuked! But I guess that is the price you have to pay being single in a socialist country.

stilover

Sounds good to me.

Leslie

The real point is, after the destruction of this country's economy over the years, the pointless squandering of all our cash on uesless items, the gross overborrowing to make the economy appear to be good when it was actually failing, plus the absolute failure to monitor what the banks were really up to, what can you possible expect as the country has slid into virtual bankruptcy? Our present beaurocracy is so far over the top in order to artificially reduce the jobless total and in an effort to buy votes anyway, that the country can no longer afford to maintain it any more.

If this useless band of plonkers did actually get re-elected, you would see the most incredible imcreases in taxes in every possible direction so that they can **** it against the wall all over again!

Les

hodgy0_2

let me get this straight then --- you don't accept that billions of pounds worth of assets bought and sold (with profits filtered away in tax havens in the last 10 years) have ultimately come to be owned by the tax payer.

and trillions of pounds worth of additional assest underwritten by the tax payer too

That the sacked (and ex) directors of taxpayer owned institutions such as northern rock and HSBC are getting pensions paid for out of the public purse.

we have obviously been living in different times

MattW

HSBC??!!!! I think you need to revisit that!

hodgy0_2

Also FYI I am not on a bandwagon

if you understand the nuances of my original post – which was obviously lost on you half of me couldn’t give a flying fvck

I personally will do very very well under a Tory government

What I can’t stand is the incessant whinging, if you think it is bad now it's gonna get much worse for quite a few people

TelBoy

There's a lot that needs re-visiting

Hodgy you're obviously one of the many "all bankers are ba$tards" breed and ok, if that's what you think, i won't let the facts get in the way of a good rant

But what has that got to do with reducing the fraudulent incapacity claims of over 500,000 in this country? Let's get back to the point you first made? Or are we saying "leave them alone, the rich tossers in the City could afford to pay for them to sit on their ***** all day"? I'm just struggling for the theme.

hodgy0_2

yep dead right -- I think i meant RBS -- oops

SJ_Skyline

edit: whoops too late to join the bandwaggon

hodgy0_2

Not at all (although the collective term for bankers is a wunch)

but seriously TelBoy -- what is your analysis - in a paragrah or two, of the last 7 years in terms of assets, debt, debt securitisation, capital financial movements, private versus state onwership of assets etc

you obviously work in the finance sector, I would be interested -- it doesn't need to be detailed just an overview of how we got where we are

FlightMan

Well it may sound good to you, but it's complete crap. Not everyone on benefits is work shy, some pensioners, whilst poor and dependant on benefits, were not work shy.
People on benefits are not all under 30, lager swilling, *** smoking yobs with flash cars and 15 kids. Those that are should get 12 months to get a job before the money runs out. End of.

My parents worked their entire lives, in poorly paid jobs, and now try and survive on the state pension. My mum worked until she was 73, and had 2 jobs on the go between the ages of 66 and 71. They were never work shy.

Borat_Drives_A_Scooby

Do the tories plan to scrap the home information pack as i seem to remember that they had that as one of their policies in the past ?

TelBoy

How we got where we are is simple. The mortgage backed asset desks in all banks became massively over-leveraged, it was the hot new potato, but something that nobody really understood. I remember being in meetings with some fairly influential people, all complaining that these black box products were all well and good, but nobody knew how to price them. The alarm bells should have started ringing a lot sooner. But when there's money to be made, bankers can be the model of discretion.

Few people expected the US housing market to implode quite as badly as it did of course. It was all a bit South Sea Bubble. You had an asset which was worthless, overnight. Nothing you could do about it either.

Should Lehmans have been bailed? Possibly. The world really was on the precipice for a few days last year. Should the UK Government have rescued the British banks? Perhaps not, but at the time they did, believe me, there seemed no other option. Goodwin's pension has of course hit the headlines, but paying for that is a lot, lot better than the consequences we got very close to facing.

Lessons learned? Yeah, stop the bankers inventing make-believe products. Which they've effectively done now. Let's be clear, this whole thing was created by something like 300 men in the world, a pretty scary thought, not The Whole Banking Industry as many suggest.

The UK banks will almost certainly be returned to the private sector, as many of the US banks have already done. They won't get any second chances though, that's in no doubt. Do banks regret this whole thing? Of course they do. A few have spoilt it for the many, although it's hard to argue that the bonus culture isn't in some ways unhealthy. But there needs to be a balance between incentive and reward, and believe me, that's more in the spotlight than ever now.

And sure, some sectors of society will have been put under considerable strain by the whole episode. I'm not immune. All bankers are now working in a much different environment. Some are still in denial, but it's changed. The balance between public and private ownership has changed beyond recognition, but probably only temporarily. Hopefully the UK Government's QE programme will prove an effective stimulus (like it isn't at the moment) but if the recession has forced a radical re-think about who gets what, whether it's a banker on a £500k bonus or a work-shy dosser watching daytime TV, then it might not be the worst thing we've ever had to live through.

hodgy0_2

and the tax system they paid into for 50 odd years has gone into underwriting the finance industry -- buying assets that had been bought and sold -- with all the profits being taken out, but the ending being part owned by your parents

crazy and scarcely believable, and laughable if it wasnt so tragic

hodgy0_2

thats fine

although I always laugh when the say how complicated it is -- just a smoke screen really.

but you seem to accept that the state -- with taxpayers money bailed out the banks (and my point re pensions)

so i just dont understand your earlier comment "In what way have the rich been subsidised?"

you seem to understand one part of the equation not the other

or am i missing something

it seems to me that 300 people maybe -- but the beneficiaries were many many more developed a system of churning money around in a never ending money go round making illusory profits (although very real if you look at the yachts moored in Monaco) in a global Ponzi scheme

and when it all went **** up, the taxes paid by Flightmans parents for 50 years had to jump to the rescue

TelBoy

There was nothing complicated about it at all, you're right. But that's not to say the whole banking industry is a big merry-go-round of illusory profits. The end investor is alive and well. And as is human nature, he just got greedy when he saw the returns from the mortgage backed products. Can't price them? No problem, housing always goes up. Except it doesn't. **** badly burned.

But are you therefore just citing the few thousand employees of the bailed UK banks as having been subsidised? I don't work for any of them and i'll tell you as straight as you like, nobody's subsidised me by a cent. Or should the whole financial system have been allowed to fail? Teach them (us) a lesson? Prevent us going back to "normal"? Put us on the scrapheap and see how WE like drawing unemployment benefit? Trust me, there are a lot of people who DO think like that, i face it all the time. In some ways i wish it had happened, just to show those people what total anarchy we would have faced. Capitalism might not be perfect but i'll tell you what, the life you recognise almost ceased to exist in August 2008, a handful (in the scheme of things) of people with subsidised pensions (and that's not even struictly accurate) is the least of your worries...