IdleRich
IdleRich
Wonder how long this situation will stand for....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...sSheet=/news/2005/01/30/ixworld.html%E2%80%9D
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...sSheet=/news/2005/01/30/ixworld.html%E2%80%9D
Enforced Prostitution
- Thread starter IdleRich
- Start date
vimothy
yurp
WTF?
D
droid
Guest
Bullshit, and old bullshit at that:
http://www.snopes.com/media/notnews/brothel.asp
http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archiv...ng-forced-into-prostitution-by-welfare-state/
http://www.snopes.com/media/notnews/brothel.asp
http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archiv...ng-forced-into-prostitution-by-welfare-state/
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
There are plenty of other plausible situations where it would clearly be a violation of rights to make someone take a certain kind of employment - would they force a Muslim to work in a bar or a sausage factory, for example? It would hardly be any more reasonable to expect a woman to work as a prostitute.
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droid
Guest
Yeah - I remember it doing the rounds of right wing blogs in 2005 'political correctness gone mad' kinda thing.
BTW Rich, my response was aimed at the story - not your good self.
BTW Rich, my response was aimed at the story - not your good self.
noel emits
a wonderful wooden reason
It's kind of a similar situation in the UK, though obviously not with prostitution. That's why unemployment benefit is now called 'jobseeker's allowance', as it's no longer treated as a social security safety net. There's a shift in semantics. Jobcentres can use various tricks and threats to try and force people to go for certain jobs, or even unpaid work or risk losing their benefit payments, which are an absolute pittance in the first place. And there's very little attempt to actually try and help people or find out what they could be productively doing - as usual it's all about targets so there are various costly schemes that are basically scams for getting people's names off the official unemployment registers. Some private firms make an absolute mint off these things and some of them are notorious for operating by intimidating and/or bribing people into doing things they would rather not.
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
But at the same time, they're not much less than the remuneration offered by a lot of low-wage jobs, so it's hardly surprising that many people without much in the way of qualifications or experience (or, in all probability, expectations of themselves) make an entirely rational choice to live on benefits rather than take the jobs that are available to them and lose those benefits. I can't see why we don't have a system of benefits that rewards people for making at least some effort to support themselves, by supplimenting their income from low-waged or part-time jobs. This would decrease the expense of benefits to the public purse, as obviously the benefits would be less than what you'd get to live on if it were your sole income; people would have something to do and the satisfaction of earning, which I think would go a long way to tackling the depression than comes from boredom and low self-esteem, and the illness, antisocial behaviour, crime and general psychic squalor associated with it; they'd have more money; local businesses would find it easier to find employees without having to rely on immigration; and once in work people could gain experience and qualifications to get better jobs, that they're more likely to want to stay in.
Such as, for example, raising the leaving age for compulsory education to 18. :slanted:
noel emits
a wonderful wooden reason
Absolutely. It's quite ridiculous. If you are on benefits there are huge disincentives to doing short term or irregular work, both financial and just in terms of bureaucratic inconvenience.
I don't know about the cost to the pubic purse, I think that's pretty minimal even in total in comparison to say corporate tax fraud / avoidance or maybe a couple of cruise missiles, or a botched civil service computer system. You know the whole system haemorrhages money and state benefits are a tiny proportion in comparison. Of course everyone is supposed to feel grateful or guilty for receiving them. But what is for sure is that more work would get done! And yes it would create more opportunities for people as well.
Right yes, there's a big new one indeed.
I bring this up a lot when there a re economic arguments but there's a lot to be said for the idea of a 'Citizen's Wage' where everyone just gets a certain amount of money every week, no questions asked. It would save so much in admin* that it would be cheaper to run than the basic benefit system and in cases where it's been implemented it's been shown to stimulate economies and like we are saying, encourages people to take the work that they find available.
*This principle is already being used with Housing Benefit in parts of the country where they now award a standard amount depending on the type of property someone lives in. This saves a lot of mucking around means testing people so it works out more cost effective even if they overpay in some cases. It's worked well and I think the system is due to go nation wide. Basically vast amounts of money gets sucked into bureaucracy and accompanying incompetence, laboriousness and low grade corruption.
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Fair enough, and I am aware of it. People attach much more importance to it than it really warrants, thanks largely to the bloody tabloids.
noel emits
a wonderful wooden reason
Yeah, didn't mean to imply that you might not be aware of how inefficient the system is. It's just one of my pet hates. A bugbear if you will. Really gets my goat. And other strange animal metaphors.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
It's about the US system rather than ours - though I doubt the situation is bazillion miles away - but this Something Awful feature is pretty funny (and informative/shocking):
http://www.somethingawful.com/d/most-awful/government-waste-1.php
http://www.somethingawful.com/d/most-awful/worst-government-waste.php
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
Should really include this bad boy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-22_Osprey
mistersloane
heavy heavy monster sound
We do! It's called Income Support. Or we did in the 90s, I'm not sure if it's been abolished? I'm sure it hasn't.
noel emits
a wonderful wooden reason
It still exists but you can't claim it if you are deemed to be 'available for work'. That means most people under most circumstances.
"People who are required to be available for work are not normally entitled to Income Support. Instead they will need to claim Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA)."
"People who are required to be available for work are not normally entitled to Income Support. Instead they will need to claim Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA)."
vimothy
yurp
This is not even close to being true. In the UK government spending is approximately half of GDP, most of which - suprise, suprise - goes on education, health, pensions, and unemployment benefit.