the uk gov. stealing money off the poorest

You are right Goodstich, and this is why I am pleased this government is tackling the problem...I hope!   I also hope that Hayden will not see it as "stealing from the poor" Disability affects people from every walk of life. Even wealthy people pay tax and are as entitled to receive benefits if and when applicable.

In my Mothers case, her refusal to accept  help, ultimately led to a very quick decline in her welbeing. She didn't want to be a burden!! (her words!)

Sorry  but the mega cheaters are still at it  and all the promises from the mps  about the clamp down are only affecting the disabled  at the moment. By the way we will not be too affected by this  but many many disabled will be hurt very much. Just because the have chosen to live in another part of the eu should not be a penalty.if they live in London  Glasgow  Cardiff or Belfast they are not penalised is that not the idea of the comunity?

why have they stared with this  and not held the bankers to task for it was they mainly who caused the crises  lending to the poor  who they knew could not afford it  but the profit was there for the greedy and they are now getting the bonus  again. Come on  where would you start? taking  £50 off an old person or taking the  million £ bonus off the mega cheat

haydngj

I think you are about right on this. On the BBC news this morning, it was reported that only 1% of all benifit money claimed is fraudulant.  OK, so still a huge sum, but nothing like as big a percentage as probably most people think?.  As you say, the real crooks are mostly at the other end of the pay scale, but we know which party will look after them!!

I don't think any party  would dare to take the bull by the horns  and there by risking  the gravey  train they  are on

labour,  liberal,  conservative, in name only I think. Glory boys  90% of them, no idea how the other half live, sorry  75% of uslive.profesionl poloticians

£1.5 billion per year in fraudulant claims, enough to pay for 40, 000 nurses.

No disrespect to the nurses already employed, who do a brilliant job, but they could use the help as could the police, schools etc etc!!

Without any political verbals or blame game, some one needs to sort it out.

redsam79

yes, I don't think many would deny that, or haydngi's comment about ministers across the board not wanting to spoil their own gravy train.  This is where a balance is so important I feel. While most of  us feel that benifit fraud needs sorting, what also needs urgent attention is the obscene earnings, bonuses and pensions, tax evasions etc at the other end.  It's just fraud by another name and quite rightly will result in huge unrest if not accepted by those we vote for.

If you want to see where the real "stealing" from the poor to fund the rich is going on you need to look at the generational differences.  The baby boomers are the richest generation in history (based both on real, nominal and percentage or wealth) and yet look at who were the only beneficiaries of the austerity budget.

Child related benefits, slashed.  Pensions - uprating of linking to earnings (with a min or RPI or 2.5% floor!).  The only safeguarded area of spending, healthcare, and who uses that?

I really feel for anyone graduating at present, shedloads of debt, no job market, no chance of owning a house (let alone a place in the sun!). 

Right where shall we start!. Benefits I am going back in time now but when I had my children the first child did not qualify for family allowance or indeed any help, not like they get today now I am not having a go at what they receive in benefits, before I get jumped on.  Good luck to them I have a few grandchildren so I do know what they get. I know they do not have it easy but then neither did we..

Pensions in the UK we are paid the least out of all the EU countries and yes it should be cost of living related, we have worked all our lives I do not think that is asking to much.  But some might disagree. 

I also have a Grandson that is  at University he has taken a year out to work and found a job in London.  But yes you are right about him coming out with debt and not being able to buy a house, unless he lands a good job. Which we hope he will do.   He is still living with his Mother so it is not to bad for him. 

As for Healthcare I think you will find a lot of youngster's use it,  probably more then some pensioner's.   Believe me you do not get everything for free even at our age, there are a few things we have to pay for.

Pat 

You say you have worked all your lives but the reality is you haven't.  As a proportion you have worked a lot less than the generations before (who had a life expectancy of 70 and in reality very large numbers never even made it to retirement) and you will work a lot less than the future generation where we already see retirement dates being pushed upwards.

Each generation funds the one before.  The babyboomer generation had a large population to fund a much smaller generation before them and were aware of smaller generations coming behind to fund them.  They should therefore have been saving money (ie paying down national debt, ala Norway) to provide for their retirement.

Instead look at what the now retiring babyboomers are passing over to generations x and y.  Massive borrowing and the worst deficits in peacetime ever.  Doesnt matter though because they are dissappearing from tax paying status so the younger generations can pick that bill up.

Look at healthcare as another example.  20 years ago it was pretty crap when the generation before babyboomers needed it most.  In the last 10 years as the next generation starts to need it more ... massive investment (based of debt burdened onto later generations).

And why does this happen?  Because baby boomers have power due to large numbers, holding most of the countrys wealth, and they vote.  No political party can ignore the massive voting numbers from that generation so they get pandered to.  The young dont understand they are being exploited so dont bother voting so have no voice.

Youngers,

Strictly a Baby Boomer is one who was born between 1945 and 1965 (approx), so having been born in 1942, perhaps I don’t count as part of that generation, although my ever-youthful wife does.  However, let me point out a thing or two (or more!)

·         Although there was a sort of state funded pension before the creation of the welfare state in 1946, the payouts were meagre and means tested, so when the far more generous provisions were bought in, someone had to pay for them and that was the Baby Boomers as soon as they came of age

·         My Grandfather worked for 40 years, my father for 45 years (civil servant) and both benefitted from state pensions which they had not fully funded. I worked for 50 years before getting my state pension and have paid dearly for the now meagre amount I get from the Government.  I also still have to find occasional work to “bridge the gap”

·         The penury of the UK stems less from the profligacy of the baby Boomers than of their predecessors who indulged in two world wars (sorry dad I know the choice wasn’t yours) and left us bankrupt as a nation and at the mercy of the American money machine

·         I had to pay at least 45 years of contributions to get my state pension, but because of the system contributed for all 50 years without additional benefit.  There will soon be a requirement to work only 30 years to qualify, even though life spans will be longer from which you will benefit, so don’t tell me that I am a drain on your taxes

·         Few baby Boomers went to university; they went straight out to work and like me got their higher education part time.  I have studied virtually all my life and funded much of it myself, so any success I have achieved has been down to my own determination and hard work

·         I was always told “invest in a private pension and you can’t go wrong”.  After 40 years of saving and pension fund raids by Gordon Brown (to pay for current welfare benefits), I find that I have less than I paid in to buy a pension to live on and when I get some work to top it up, the Tax Man takes £1 of every £2 of that off my “free pay” tax allowance

·         The current massive borrowing has little to do with Baby Boomers, but the profligacy of successive Governments increasing welfare benefits and creating the dependency society who certainly are not Baby boomers.  Play your cards right and you can continually splurge out kids and get £42,000 a year from the state and live in luxury without the need to think about work

·         When I was young, there was a thing called a wage stop.  If you qualified for benefit, you were not allowed to receive any more that you could have earned at work (less travelling costs), can you imagine the screams of the post Boomers if this were applied today, it would certainly put an end to the cult of absentee fathers as there would be no payout or council accommodation for unmarried mothers

·         Healthcare was not crap 20 years ago; it was evolving just like it is today.  Whether a state funded system can continue to evolve in an ever more technological and costly care environment is questionable, but 20 years ago the stresses of the changes wrought 40+ years previously were beginning to show and more money from the baby boomers (who had yet to retire) was seen as the only option

·         Standards of living today are high, especially when compared to the post war years, until this year the availability of a university education was there for all, although far too few applicants go for the sciences.  On benefits, the state has provided this unaffordable parachute for all including unfortunately, the feckless and that is what is costing us all so much.  We must do our best to protect all of those in need, but they are being robbed by those who are happy to be parasites

·         Don’t worry though, if and when I require the institutional care that I thought I had already paid for, it won’t cost you a penny, they will sell my house out around my ears, so I will have ended up paying for everything anyway

Since 1946 we have all paid for the benefits of our predecessors.  Undeniably there are ever fewer to pay for the benefits of those that went before, but most Baby Boomers will be gone by the middle of the century and outgoings will gradually become more affordable as the boomer generations numbers decrease.  Then perhaps you can suggest that the Government then in power should make no allowances for your needs and concentrate on paying off the debt that they have run up on your behalf.  Whatever you do, don’t say that our generation have not paid their way as your whole life style is based upon the efforts we made in the last half of the 20^th Century.

I will stop now as I am beginning to “write the book” again!!

Mike

Xetog

  brillant  I was born in 1940 so not  a baby boomer, not many of my uncles  were around after the war and I thank them for doing what they were made to do, those that did come back had no councelling and went straight back to work and not on  a 35 hour week and not many days holiday so what has gone  wrong? i think human  greed is to blame keeping up with next door they have it so I want it, attitude Pay a child minder to bring up the younger generation must go to work, could that be part of the problem?

Having just re- read my previous post and that earlier in the thread by my wife, I feel that I should point out that we both post under the same name, except that she signs here G, whilst I sign mine Mike.  I feel I should point out that the views (rant's) that I post are not neccessarily the views of my wife, whilst I of course agree with all of her posts.

Mike

haydngj

it's true we all take what used to be thought as luxury for granted, and the baby boomers probably have it better than future generations?, but I don't think it's fair to blame women who want to have a family and go out to work, any more than we can blame men for wanting to do the same?.  I just feel very lucky to live in the present. Compared to previous generations, most of us have it pretty easy.........obviously too easy for those cheating the system at all levels!.  I think the next generation will find life harder, jobs, housing, welfare, etc. I think it's going to get very tough very soon unless we sort out out waste, fraud and greed pretty soon?

This is not a new phenomenon though.  I returned to work full-time in 1975, because my husband was unable to work at the time.  We had 3 children aged 3, 4 and 5, so I guess that we could have claimed benefits, however I was brought up to believe in the work ethic.  I remember my neighbour, who also worked full-time, complaining about another neighbour who was a single Mum with two young children.  She pointed out that our neighbour had all her bills paid, her children had everything that they needed and our neighbour also had new clothes.  "I remember that you wore that coat last year", she said.  "I am also wearing last year's coat! So who is the loser here?" 

I have to say that I wouldn't have wanted to face the problems of being a single parent, but I could also see what my working neighbour was getting at.  She felt that some of us were working hard to support ourselves and our families whereas other people didn't have to do anything.   I can't help wondering what happened to the single mum's children, having been brought up on benefits!

I worked from the age of 18 until I was 61, with less than five years at home (I worked part-time for a while before going back to work full-time).  I didn't get maternity benefits or other help when I first had my children, although we did get child benefit for a while.  My state pension is based on my contributions when working, plus I receive a couple of small private pensions from companies that I worked for.

I have no complaints.  I worked hard and I am receiving the benefits from this.  My children also work hard, and I am proud of them.  I do worry that they may not be as well off as I am when they eventually retire (though I am far from wealthy!)

I believe that my parents, especially my mother, passed on their values to me, so I try to do the same with my own children.  Of course there are spongers, people who live off the welfare state - but do we want to be like that?  Don't we all have some pride?  I have a close friend who has poor health (she has Sticklers Syndrome) and she hasn't been able to work for many years.  Her solution was to start writing, and she manages to support herself this way. 

We are the lucky ones.  There are many people who cannot work, through no fault of their own, and I have no problem with supporting them.  I would rather be fit and able, having had to work hard all my life, than live with some disability that prevented me from working.

Sue

suemac

looks like we are all saying much the same in that we are glad of the benifit system when it works for those gunuinely in need, but not when it throws money at those who can't be bothered to help themselves. There has to be an incentive to work because for various reasons the pride issue means nothing to some. I don't think it helps when we read of massive bonuses for failure and other incomes or pensions way out of proportion for the effort, and often by those who are telling others to work long and hard for very little return. It doesn't look right or fair, and often isn't, so doesn't encourage those being expected to have those values.

David is now having to take sweets off babies. I think he is trying, very!

get people back to work make them take state pension later

remove jobs to save money,

new jobs?????

Let's not forget which Government got the UK in the mess it's in at the moment.

Do you have a better solution?

...Charge convicted criminals board and lodgings maybe ?