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 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
What did the OP accidentally do to 30 million people?

He accidentally 30million people.






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 p_gray99 wrote:

 Mr. Burning wrote:

 p_gray99 wrote:
Yeah. I've heard also (though I'm definitely taking this with more than a pinch of salt) that due to families being given more money if they have kids, they have more kids, to trick the system...

But anyway, this discussion shouldn't be about how the UK system works, it should be about how it should work. I reckon we've pretty much discussed this to death, TBH.

Families can get larger houses part of fully funded by the state..

The system should work as it is, it does support those in need, you will always get chancers exploiting loopholes in any system.

Not looking for a job is a loophole in the system, and as far as I can tell there's more than just a few "chancers" exploiting it. There's whole neighborhoods doing this, and a society of it being uncool to work.

Claiming jobseekers you have a form to complete which is a log of your job search for a period of 2 weeks. You can fill this with anything, anything. You show it to your advisor, and they say keep it up. there is no incentive to delve into the veracity of the information provided. This loophole is caused by the public servants and the rules they follow.

Its almost cause and effect.

If you are caught out for not applying to work the punishment ranges from being kicked off to 3 years without any benefits.

 nomsheep wrote:
If you are caught out for not applying to work the punishment ranges from being kicked off to 3 years without any benefits.

Yes, but who checks on the veracity of the information? no one does. A job seekers agreement contains activities which must be completed each week/fortnight. These include 'checking' local papers and recruitment sites. So long as you log this info on your paperwork you are good to go. 9 times out of 10, with the current system, no one will bat an eyelid if it looks right, Its just not worth it to staff to check too closely.

 Mr. Burning wrote:

 nomsheep wrote:
If you are caught out for not applying to work the punishment ranges from being kicked off to 3 years without any benefits.

Yes, but who checks on the veracity of the information? no one does. A job seekers agreement contains activities which must be completed each week/fortnight. These include 'checking' local papers and recruitment sites. So long as you log this info on your paperwork you are good to go. 9 times out of 10, with the current system, no one will bat an eyelid if it looks right, Its just not worth it to staff to check too closely.

Quite often they will just decide it looks suspicious and send it off to decision makers' who then stop paying you. that happened to me even though my search was genuine so yeah it's a flawed system alright.

 Albatross wrote:
They can, which is how people end up 'earning' more on benefits than they would in work. My sister is entitled to around £600 in housing benefit, plus child benefit for three kids, plus Income support (iirc, it may be Jobseekers Allowance) because she doesn't work, all of which adds up to more than she could realistically expect to get by working for a living. And she's not even TRYING to game the system.

Whoops. That £600 in housing benefit is regardless of employment status[source], as is the child benefit[unless you earn more than £50,000].

Try again, Tory.

Yeah 30 million is a bit much, I think they could have made there point with a lot less.

 Testify wrote:

 Albatross wrote:
They can, which is how people end up 'earning' more on benefits than they would in work. My sister is entitled to around £600 in housing benefit, plus child benefit for three kids, plus Income support (iirc, it may be Jobseekers Allowance) because she doesn't work, all of which adds up to more than she could realistically expect to get by working for a living. And she's not even TRYING to game the system.

Whoops. That £600 in housing benefit is regardless of employment status[source], as is the child benefit[unless you earn more than £50,000].

Try again, Tory.

You know you're not actually refuting anything I've said, don't you? Housing benefit is means-tested, which means that how much you get is contingent upon how much you earn, therefore the less you earn, the more you get. That de-incentivises someone with little-to-no education and kids to support from actually taking a full-time minimum wage job and paying their own way, because they could not realistically earn enough to pay out £600 per month on rent alone. It would leave them with around £300 for utilities, food, transport etc. It basically traps people in welfare dependency.

And I'm proud to be a Tory. I'm not thick enough to treat that word as an insult, so you'll have to think of something else. If you can.

 Peregrine wrote:
There's this nice bit of Ayn-Rand-style social darwinism:

I'm the last person to defend Gray Templar, but I think you're reading a hell of a lot into his post.

I don't think he said anywhere that the status quo provided exactly as many opportunities as it should, or that we couldn't provide more. If he clarifies and says that no such thing is needed, then fair enough, I'll join you in criticising his opinion, but I'm not just going to assume it.


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 ENOZONE wrote:
Two things. First: Freedom does not equal Democracy - the Soviet Union, and all of the Soviet Revolutions that occured in Central and South America were revolutions to liberate those who were oppressed. Though many simply traded one dictator for another, for a time people lived a fragile, but nonetheless very real freedom communism promised.

Seriously? fething seriously? I mean, should we just start with first incorrect thing and start to work through it from there? There was no communist revolution in Russia. There was a general revolution that formed a provisional government, and then there was a coup by the Bolsheviks.

Chavez is loved in his country because he is a benevolent dictator that gives the people a working socialist state without curbing their freedoms - he actively tries to give the people what they want: education, healthcare, lower taxes, ect.

That's a horrendously simplistic narrative there. Chavez is loved by some, accepted by many others as preferable to the alternative, and disliked or despised by many, many more. He's a highly divisive figure.


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 purplefood wrote:
A true free market would be insane.

We've had true free markets. It produced child factory workers and companies paying in scrip and indentured servitude and a load of other problems. We saw all that, realised it sucked, and set up building the hybrid system we have today.

 purplefood wrote:
A true free market would be insane.

We've had true free markets. It produced child factory workers and companies paying in scrip and indentured servitude and a load of other problems. We saw all that, realised it sucked, and set up building the hybrid system we have today.

That's why I support regulation to capitalism; because people need it, otherwise they do immoral things because its easier and brings them more profit. Overall though I take a very libertarian approach to things. Except universal health care. Everyone should have universal health care.

Libertarian Socialism is my usual outlook on things.

 Albatross wrote:
You know you're not actually refuting anything I've said, don't you? Housing benefit is means-tested, which means that how much you get is contingent upon how much you earn, therefore the less you earn, the more you get. That de-incentivises someone with little-to-no education and kids to support from actually taking a full-time minimum wage job and paying their own way, because they could not realistically earn enough to pay out £600 per month on rent alone.

Well, that really depends on the taper for the benefit in question. For instance, if the benefit only declined by 1p for every £1, then there'd be little disincentive not to work as you'd only be losing 1p in housing benefit for every £1 you earned.

The problem, it seems to me, is that once you exceed your minimum income level, the taper that kicks in reducing your housing benefit is too extreme, as you lose 65p in housing benefit for every £1 you earn. So why work an extra hour to earn £10, when you lose £6.50 of it in reduced housing benefits.

If they reduced that taper (possibly balancing that by having it start at lower incomes) then I think it would work much better.

 Albatross wrote:

 Testify wrote:

 Albatross wrote:
They can, which is how people end up 'earning' more on benefits than they would in work. My sister is entitled to around £600 in housing benefit, plus child benefit for three kids, plus Income support (iirc, it may be Jobseekers Allowance) because she doesn't work, all of which adds up to more than she could realistically expect to get by working for a living. And she's not even TRYING to game the system.

Whoops. That £600 in housing benefit is regardless of employment status[source], as is the child benefit[unless you earn more than £50,000].

Try again, Tory.

You know you're not actually refuting anything I've said, don't you? Housing benefit is means-tested, which means that how much you get is contingent upon how much you earn, therefore the less you earn, the more you get. That de-incentivises someone with little-to-no education and kids to support from actually taking a full-time minimum wage job and paying their own way, because they could not realistically earn enough to pay out £600 per month on rent alone. It would leave them with around £300 for utilities, food, transport etc. It basically traps people in welfare dependency.

And I'm proud to be a Tory. I'm not thick enough to treat that word as an insult, so you'll have to think of something else. If you can.

"You may get Housing Benefit if:

you pay rent
you’re on a low income or claiming benefits
your savings are below a certain level - usually £16,000
"

If you're unemployed and getting housing benefit, you won't lose it if you get a job unless it's fantastically well paid.

You realise that if what you were saying is true, no one would work right? I don't work 40 hours a week in factory because I love being surrounded by immigrants

Basically housing benefit is independant of employment. You should probably tell your sister to check with the jobcentre about housing benefits being lost when you find work, since she definitely shouldn't.

Oh and Tory is an insult around here, usually appended with the word "bastard".

 Testify wrote:
"You may get Housing Benefit if:

you pay rent
you’re on a low income or claiming benefits
your savings are below a certain level - usually £16,000
"

If you're unemployed and getting housing benefit, you won't lose it if you get a job unless it's fantastically well paid.

You don't lose the benefit if the job is fantasically well paid. You start losing the benefit as soon as your income exceeds the government's assessment of how much a minimum income in your area might be. And when you exceed that amount, you start losing 65p for ever £1 you earn. That's a pretty harsh taper. It means that a person can be offered an extra hour of overtime, and think 'what's the point, the £10 I earn working that hour will reduce my housing benefit by £6.50?'

Funny...
My Grandma/Mum/Dad usually use scum instead of bastard...
Different stroke for different folks...

 sebster wrote:

 Testify wrote:
"You may get Housing Benefit if:

you pay rent
you’re on a low income or claiming benefits
your savings are below a certain level - usually £16,000
"

If you're unemployed and getting housing benefit, you won't lose it if you get a job unless it's fantastically well paid.

You don't lose the benefit if the job is fantasically well paid. You start losing the benefit as soon as your income exceeds the government's assessment of how much a minimum income in your area might be. And when you exceed that amount, you start losing 65p for ever £1 you earn. That's a pretty harsh taper. It means that a person can be offered an extra hour of overtime, and think 'what's the point, the £10 I earn working that hour will reduce my housing benefit by £6.50?'

That is a little harsh, but you're still better off for working than you are for not.

I accidentally 30 million people and all I got was this crappy T shirt.

 rockerbikie wrote:
Communism is yet to happen, thise "Communist" countries are socialist countries who have been corrupted back to capitalism over time.

In other words, you're admitting communism, like all "isms" failed.

 Frazzled wrote:

 rockerbikie wrote:
Communism is yet to happen, thise "Communist" countries are socialist countries who have been corrupted back to capitalism over time.

In other words, you're admitting communism, like all "isms" failed.

Capitalism.
Liberalism.
Federalism.

So, no.

 rockerbikie wrote:

 JEB_Stuart wrote:

rockerbikie wrote:It has only occured in 3rd world countries with low literacy rates and a devastated economy.

So you are implying that only societies that have an educated populace and/or fantastic economies will work with Communism? I find this to be extremely illogical. Considering that a fundamental idea in Marx's Communist Manifesto is that society is to be re-educated so as to eliminate class systems and facilitate a "transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society." It makes more sense that a generally uneducated society will be easier to re-educate since their preconceived notions are likely to be less deeply ingrained, and those who have a ruined economy are more likely to be willing to try a radical new solution. Could it be that is exactly why Communism has been tried in exactly those situations?

rockerbikie wrote:Also, Vietnam would of been a success if the US did not intervene.

Really? Sorry to burst your bubble but Ho Chi Minh was not the saint you make him out to be, despite what the People's Party publications in Vietnam tell you...

No. That's why it failed. If Norway became Communist, it would be successful. If everyone is educated than it is more likely to succeed. Ho Chi Minh freed his people from the French.

As the Brits would say: "bullocks." East Germany failed. Hungary failed. Czechloslovakia failed. Yugoslavia failed. Cuba failed. Poland failed. the USSR failed.


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 p_gray99 wrote:
The problem with Communism is that it requires a large government to keep so much under control, and so much power is bound to become corrupted in human hands. Until we can develop a computer that can reliably handle such important things with a 0% failure rate and have everyone trust it, I don't see communism happening. I just hope I live to see the day that it does.

No thats just the killy problem of communism. The problem of communism is that 1) there are still ruling elites who get all the goodies; 2) there are no markets to more efficiently allocate resources and labor vs. need/want. A better computer is not going to help that.


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 Grey Templar wrote:

 AustonT wrote:

 rockerbikie wrote:

It has only occured in 3rd world countries with low literacy rates and a devastated economy. Also, Vietnam would of been a success if the US did not intervene.

That's odd I've always thought of Poland, Germany, and Czechoslovakia as both first world and literate. Wierd.

Poland has been rather economically poor for awhile, as has Czechoslovakia. And both, plus East Germany, were part of Soviet Russia, it wasn't a revolution like happened in Russia. It was a foreign invasion that foisted the Communist way on them.

NO. THE USSR did not include any of those countries.
Prior to WWII Czechloslavakia, Germany, and Poland were quite prosperous. After the war West Germany became prosperous. Czeckloslavakia improved when it started down the path to reform.



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 Testify wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 rockerbikie wrote:
Communism is yet to happen, thise "Communist" countries are socialist countries who have been corrupted back to capitalism over time.

In other words, you're admitting communism, like all "isms" failed.

Capitalism.
Liberalism.
Federalism.

So, no.

UNfettered capitalism fails as well. It leads to revolutions and the other sims.
Federalism denies the desire of people to make other people do things. Power inevitably centralizes.
Liberalism, well without evil capitalists they would all starve to death.