Cer10Death: I believe this case CLEARLY demonstrates the Conservative point of view. This is the pinnacle of government wealth redistribution. Take from those who have worked hard and give to those who are able to work but won't.

And if the Sun said it, it must be true.

40 cigarettes a day? I somehow doubt that. That's way more expensive than those benefits will allow.

At any rate, if they are at one fourth that with the cigarettes, that poor baby.

Wolf892: Seems a solution might be to not grant the dole to individuals who are not physically disabled, or are not mentally incapacitated...If you are physically and mentally able to work, even shat jobs like McDonald's, then get out there and work. Life is suffering, get busy.
This would reduce stories like this and perhaps reduce the burden on the dole system...
Or perhaps government sponsered homes should be dorm style...just one apartment building with two families per suite, this would ensure that either you are desperate for a home or encourage you to better yourself as soon as possible.

Except shiat jobs like McD's don't pay enough for a 2 bedroom apartment and all the expenses that come along with kids. A better solution would be to require work but don't cut off benefits entirely when they get a job. Reduce the benefits by the amount of money they get paid.

The trouble is that we've created a system that is incapable of making that sort of adjustment to benefits. It's not possible to say, "You made $1234.56 at your McJob this month so your benefit check will be reduced by that amount." There are half a dozen agencies (if not more), each with their own regulations and bureaucracy. Many of them are either/or scenarios where they either qualify for benefits or they don't qualify. There's no "you qualify for 30%". The whole damn system is out of order!

fusillade762: Bucky Katt: There aren't any jobs in Britain anyway. Cameron and Osborn have made sure of that. The UK economy is in danger of triple dipping. Even the ghouls at the IMF think there is a problem.

Yeah, that austerity did wonders for their economy *snert*

We haven't actually had any austerity in the UK...

/ do carry on with your talking points, though.

I always get a kick out of people who claim they're entitled to welfare money because their parents pay taxes. For one, I seriously doubt their parents pay £17,680 a year in tax, and even if they did, don't these morons realize that taxes are meant to pay for things we benefit from every day like schools, roads, police, military, a court/legal system, trash/waste disposal, and (seeing as this is the UK) healthcare?

I've got family that are entitlement sponges ... liars and con artists, too, since they receive all kinds of benefits they legally don't qualify for.

I'm squeaking by working 50+ hours at a job and earning extra money on music and art projects, and they're not only bringing in more money than I am, but have all the free time in the world to drink, eat pills, smoke pot, party, play video games, eat out, and so on. They actually make fun of me "behind my back" for working (I guess they think I don't know how Facebook works).

Yeah, corporations need to stop getting government money (not to mention foreign countries), but so do welfare queens. The system is being abused on a rampant scale, and despite alleged initiatives to get people working and independent, entitlement workers actually advise people on methods of obtaining MORE in handouts.

Are those yoga pants she's wearing?

BigBooper: One of their points is that they would be worse off working than sitting home on their asses. Unfortunately, that's true in many cases. Instead of encouraging people to work, our system actually encourages people not to work. Lets take a single mom. If she doesn't work, she gets free housing, food stamps, and health care lets say $2,000 a month in benefits. If she takes a $10.00 part time job she will take home around $600-700 dollars a month, and lose every penny of her benefits. Why the fark would she choose to work?

In the UK it's not so much that they'd be worse off (the benefits system stops that), it's that there is a benefit withdrawal rate that is the equivalent of a 75-85% tax rate. Someone on the £7/hr minimum wage will end up about £10 better off for a day's work after tax and loss of benefits. Take off say £3/day for bus etc, and you're left with very little for taking 8 hours of crap rather than spending it with your family.

jtown: Or perhaps government sponsored homes should be dorm style...

I like this idea, as long as you're only applying it to those who need long-term housing help. It'd suck to have to sell your house and pay to store all your possessions just to get your unemployment check. ;)

If they want to live like parasites then go for it. I'd prefer if tax payers money went to more deserving people, but at least I can look at myself on the mirror unlike these spineless farks who will never amount to shiat.

Coco LaFemme: ......and we think the welfare system in THIS country is abused.  Won't look for a job because it would pay less than what they can suck off the government teat.  That's farking pathetic.

To be fair, this is the Sun. They've been known to completely take things out of context in order to humiliate someone in difficult circumstances, in the name of sensationalizing a non-story.

This likely how it went:

"Of course there are people that believe we think ridiculous things, such as: 'We could easily get a job but why would we want to work - we would be worse off.' In reality, we spend 80 hours a week looking for work, but there are no jobs. Businesses say it's the austerity measures."

The part in bold is the portion the Sun printed.

Lsherm: Ishkur: Liberals are always afraid that innocent people might be unfairly punished.

Conservatives are always afraid that innocent people might be unfairly rewarded.

Liberals always cheerlead a system that lets you take.

Conservatives always cheerlead a system that lets you acquire.

shiathead: [www.otf2.com image 328x450]

ah yes, that well known British citizen Frank Ribery... born in Boulogne, France

No Time To Explain: It's people like this that make get my paddle out

/back in my college days,I remember overhearing two Nimrods talk and one was going on about how he'll go on welfare and live off that, play his xbox and get weed everyday
//was two feet away from beating him with my text books

TBH, I think the joke's was on you.

FreetardoRivera: Lsherm: Ishkur: Liberals are always afraid that innocent people might be unfairly punished.

Conservatives are always afraid that innocent people might be unfairly rewarded.

Liberals Greedy bastards always cheerlead a system that lets you take.

Conservatives Honest people always cheerlead a system that lets you acquire.
I have many planets and stars to sell anyone that believes 'takers' are only found in one political affiliation.

whither_apophis: I honest thought it was going to be a story on the Royal Family.

I don't even know why I waste the precious seconds of my day on you, being that you are a conservative and unlikely to ever learn anything, but the royal family are a net gain for England due to tourism income.

Fark lazy people that want to play the victim role. These social programs are now crap because of lazy asses and ruin it for those true individuals in need who it was designed for.

From TFA:

The pair left school with no qualifications..

..while Gina's mum, 46, is a teacher..

I'm not saying we should blame the parents but it looks like this pair has been cruising for quite some time, probably too late for them to change now.

The big injustice here is that the baby will have to live with that name until she's old enough to change it legally.

/Tullulah-Rose?
//Seriously?

After looking over this thread again, I see the Sun was once again wildly successful in leading today's two-minute hate.

digistil: "Of course there are people that believe we think ridiculous things, such as: 'We could easily get a job but why would we want to work - we would be worse off.' In reality, we spend 80 hours a week looking for work, but there are no jobs. Businesses say it's the austerity measures."

Trust me, I could find these people a job within a day. A friend of mine got made redundant recently and while looking for another job (he wasn't going to be unemployed for long), he got a job in a pub. It took less than a day of walking around town to get a job.

The whole reason why UK supermarkets, shops and cafes are stuffed full of Poles, Ukranians, Russians and Romanians is that those shops just can't get the staff.

ALL OF YOUR THEORIES ABOUT PARASITES STEALING YOUR MONEY ARE CORRECT. NOW HERE ARE SOME BOOBIES.

BOOBIES!

Beowoolfie: jtown: Or perhaps government sponsored homes should be dorm style...

I like this idea, as long as you're only applying it to those who need long-term housing help. It'd suck to have to sell your house and pay to store all your possessions just to get your unemployment check. ;)

That wasn't my idea.

Humanity is an interesting mix.

Some people will go to great lengths, working darned hard, tryign to make de when they victim of a setback and reluctant to take a handout unless they just can't avoid it.

Others will turn down a higher paycheck for a much lower amount of free money, and will mooch, fake, lie, pretend to have whatever status it takes to keep getting that money.

It is hard to make a system that helps the former that isnt abused by hordes of the latter.

farkeruk: BigBooper: One of their points is that they would be worse off working than sitting home on their asses. Unfortunately, that's true in many cases. Instead of encouraging people to work, our system actually encourages people not to work. Lets take a single mom. If she doesn't work, she gets free housing, food stamps, and health care lets say $2,000 a month in benefits. If she takes a $10.00 part time job she will take home around $600-700 dollars a month, and lose every penny of her benefits. Why the fark would she choose to work?

In the UK it's not so much that they'd be worse off (the benefits system stops that), it's that there is a benefit withdrawal rate that is the equivalent of a 75-85% tax rate. Someone on the £7/hr minimum wage will end up about £10 better off for a day's work after tax and loss of benefits. Take off say £3/day for bus etc, and you're left with very little for taking 8 hours of crap rather than spending it with your family.

Over here in the U.S. we have people like the family man who lost his $40,000 a year job, and did odd jobs for cash while looking for a new job. His problem is that he reported his $100 a week that he was making mowing lawns and the like. So of course they took away every penny of his unemployment insurance payments.

The biggest problem that we have in our system is that over here we punish those who want to get out and work, while we reward people who are dishonest and find ways to game the system.

Another example is my situation. I got hurt at work. Not just a little hurt, but a serious spinal cord injury that left me temporarily paralyzed, and in the hospital for nearly a month. While I wasn't working, I earning nearly $600 a week for work comp disability. For the last six months, I've put every last bit of energy into my recovery. I've worked through pain unlike anything that I've ever known. All so I can get back my life, and get back to work. So now that I'm back to twenty hours a week of work, I get a little more than $50.00 a week in disability payments.

By the end of the day, I can hardly move I'm in so much pain, and for what? To earn less then if I sat on my ass and Farked all day? I know there are people in my situation that are on full disability; and I understand why.

Cute? I guess the British standard is really, really low. That's a hard 18 and 21.

My sister and her fiance were in the exact same position for a year after they had their child. They had a two-bedroom flat, which was disgusting, with horrific neighbours, and rising damp in the child's room which was one of the main reasons they moved out. They had a 50in television given to them second hand by someone else. My sister worked very hard to make sure the flat looked nice; but the furnishings were as cheap as possible and quite often, hand-me-downs from other people. Certainly, the two piece leather sofa was second hand. Admittedly, neither of them smoke, but they did spend money on a TV licence and two mobile phone contracts. The benefits they recieved while her fiance was between jobs were higher than his original wage. Thankfully, he managed to get a job paying higher, although eventually they realised they could no longer afford to pay the (subsidised by government) rent on the flat, and moved in with my mother. Although it is clear that some lifestyle choices differ between these two couples, I roundly refuse to get whipped up into a frenzy by the idea that it's easier to be on benefits than to find a job, or that two people managed to acquire a television.

EvilEgg: Lsherm: EvilEgg: "Their lounge is dominated by the huge TV"

Thirty five inches isn't dominating or huge.

Article said 47 inch TV.  Not huge, but big enough.

The one in the article hardly looks 47"


I recently got a 47" TV. In this room it does look huge. Unless that couch is deep enough to also be a footstool for normal sized people and these are secret British giants that is NOT a 47" TV. It *might* be a 37" TV. I mean come on, Look at that tiny end table with the laptop that barely fits on it. I'm not sure that little end table is ever 1.5 feet across and yet that TV might just barely be twice the width of it.

EvilEgg: "Their lounge is dominated by the huge TV"

Thirty five inches isn't dominating or huge.

Plus, nowadays those tvs are the cheapest ones, and anyone will be hard-pressed to find a cheaper and smaller tv for sale. I mean, even with monitors it's almost impossible to find one which is smaller than 22''.

Glad this could never happen here in the US.

barnacleboy: If they want to live like parasites then go for it. I'd prefer if tax payers money went to more deserving people, but at least I can look at myself on the mirror unlike these spineless farks who will never amount to shiat.

The problem with your judgment is that every single potential recipient of any welfare program can be argued by any moron that, no matter how much he had worked or how much taxes had he paid, he is a parasite who doesn't deserve any inch of any social safety net.

It all boils down to pettiness. Your kind should be happy that your society actually takes care of the poor. Instead, you kick and scream that they should be miserable and suffering.

Coco LaFemme: ......and we think the welfare system in THIS country is abused.  Won't look for a job because it would pay less than what they can suck off the government teat.  That's farking pathetic.

not as pathetic as you making overbroad conclusions after reading a sham article from a propaganda newspaper, but i digress.

Bucky Katt: There aren't any jobs in Britain anyway. Cameron and Osborn have made sure of that. The UK economy is in danger of triple dipping. Even the ghouls at the IMF think there is a problem.

There may be no jobs for uneducated chavs, but britain's economy is, taken as a whole, extraordinarily healthy. it's a similar situation in the USA - the only major difference is that in the USA there is a major drain to the economy by 'make work' jobs that are criminally inefficient from a public policy standpoint - this basically includes overpaid/overpensioned police/fire/other well paid government and related jobs (such as defense contractors) and most of the for-profit "health care" sector.

I HEARD THEY PAY YOU TO ABUSE CHILDREN.

ALSO I NEVER LEARN THAT "CUTE" IS SARCASM.

According to Wikipedia, unemployment in the UK in January of 2012 was at 8.3% Link. According to a report from Moody's, Food Stamps (not the only type of benefits, but certainly one type of benefit) gives the best return on investment for government spending (I had a link for this, but Fark didn't like it. Google Mark Zandi Stimulus Impact 2008).

The way I see it, with unemployment this high, the best "stimulus" a government can provide is in the form of welfare to the unemployed. So I don't begrudge these people their benefits. I certainly wouldn't trade places with them for anything.

/at least, that's what I keep telling myself so I don't have the urge to go homicidal

Sterilize the farkers.

BigBooper: One of their points is that they would be worse off working than sitting home on their asses. Unfortunately, that's true in many cases. Instead of encouraging people to work, our system actually encourages people not to work. Lets take a single mom. If she doesn't work, she gets free housing, food stamps, and health care lets say $2,000 a month in benefits. If she takes a $10.00 part time job she will take home around $600-700 dollars a month, and lose every penny of her benefits. Why the fark would she choose to work?

First off there is no free housing for anybody and there is no 2000 a month in benefits unless someone has like 5 kids. But she is not getting a 10.00 an hour job, it's more likely an 8.00 an hour job with no bennies. It's 149 a month max benefit per person for food stamps.

For those saying that they hate those taking a "free ride" I suggest that they quit their job and try it themselves.

GreenSun: It's just being smart. Why work if you'll make less than what you can get for free? Only work if you can earn more than you can get by not doing anything.
^ That up there.
Who's the bigger fool: the man who refuses to work because he doesn't have to, or the man who works to support him?

In the short term, the taxpayer is the fool. In the long run, the moocher is screwing himself because the funding will eventually dry up.

Any sort of means-tested welfare will always backfire. What we need in developed countries is a universal citizens dividend that everyone receives whether they are disabled and can't work, work all the odd jobs they can, has a steady job, or makes millions on real-estate. We could get rid of so many beurocrats and paperwork. And we can make any job worth having.

GoSlash27: In the short term, the taxpayer is the fool. In the long run, the moocher is screwing himself because the funding will eventually dry up.

THIS

I live my life by that quote from Apocalypse Now: "I'm in here, getting weaker and Charlie's out there, getting stronger". If you're in a jammy, comfortable place, you're probably going to get burnt when the jam stops. Far better to keep striving and be prepared for how things might change.

Coco LaFemme: ......and we think the welfare system in THIS country is abused.  Won't look for a job because it would pay less than what they can suck off the government teat.  That's farking pathetic.

The welfare in this country *is* abused.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a780LGWG7to

A SOLUTION. Long-term unemployed are required to log a minimum number of hours of community service in order to receive their welfare payments. Ta-da! Suddenly they must work either way, and contribute to society either way. This was done in Australia (blessed Howard by memory) and out came the bleeding heart libtards saying its disgustingly unfair.

Coco LaFemme: ......and we think the welfare system in THIS country is abused.  Won't look for a job because it would pay less than what they can suck off the government teat.  That's farking pathetic.

...and you don't think that happens here?

LiberalConservative: A SOLUTION. Long-term unemployed are required to log a minimum number of hours of community service in order to receive their welfare payments. Ta-da! Suddenly they must work either way, and contribute to society either way. This was done in Australia (blessed Howard by memory) and out came the bleeding heart libtards saying its disgustingly unfair.

Another solution? Maybe corporations could offer jobs that pay the job-seekers more than they get sitting at home.

But no, that would cut into a corp's profit, so that's right out.