The Tories are talking of making people on benefit do work of public
good, and the news media are talking of this in terms of picking up
litter and painting park railings.

I have no problems with any of that - or with doing old folk's front
gardens or taking chaps in wheelchairs for a walk or such things.  If
we are going to pay them, I'd sooner pay them for that than for
decorating their own sofas.

What I don't understand is what they will find to do.  Every week the
magistrate's court gives hundreds of hours of community service.  When
all that is resolved, surely there will be nothing left for the
unemployed to do?

On Tue, 8 Jan 2008 03:30:48 -0800 (PST), robertharvey@my-deja.com
wrote:

>The Tories are talking of making people on benefit do work of public
>good, and the news media are talking of this in terms of picking up
>litter and painting park railings.
>
>I have no problems with any of that - or with doing old folk's front
>gardens or taking chaps in wheelchairs for a walk or such things.  If
>we are going to pay them, I'd sooner pay them for that than for
>decorating their own sofas.
>
>What I don't understand is what they will find to do.  Every week the
>magistrate's court gives hundreds of hours of community service.  When
>all that is resolved, surely there will be nothing left for the
>unemployed to do?

It really all is missing the point really.
Cameron says he wants to stop people going off benefits and back on
them again - he seems to think that that's what people do to swing the
lead and keep their benefit claims going and maybe some do.
I have yet to hear a single poltician acknowledge that the flexible
labour market has created a swathe of temporary, agency and short term
employment, the biggest in any country in Europe, and this will
naturally result in people going on and off the dole, especially in
low-skilled employment. I have even written to my MP about this and he
passed my comments on to the relevent committee, who replied saying
that the system was already flexible enough. It isn't and ignoring it
is not going to make it go away.
They wanted a flexible labour market, they got one, they just won't
admit that it is one when it comes to paying benefits and making
people wait for 3 or 4 weeks to get any money.

On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 11:41:39 +0000, Maria
 wrote:

>On Tue, 8 Jan 2008 03:30:48 -0800 (PST), robertharvey@my-deja.com
>wrote:
>
>>The Tories are talking of making people on benefit do work of public
>>good, and the news media are talking of this in terms of picking up
>>litter and painting park railings.
>>
>>I have no problems with any of that - or with doing old folk's front
>>gardens or taking chaps in wheelchairs for a walk or such things.  If
>>we are going to pay them, I'd sooner pay them for that than for
>>decorating their own sofas.
>>
>>What I don't understand is what they will find to do.  Every week the
>>magistrate's court gives hundreds of hours of community service.  When
>>all that is resolved, surely there will be nothing left for the
>>unemployed to do?
>
>It really all is missing the point really.
>Cameron says he wants to stop people going off benefits and back on
>them again - he seems to think that that's what people do to swing the
>lead and keep their benefit claims going and maybe some do.
>I have yet to hear a single poltician acknowledge that the flexible
>labour market has created a swathe of temporary, agency and short term
>employment, the biggest in any country in Europe, and this will
>naturally result in people going on and off the dole, especially in
>low-skilled employment. I have even written to my MP about this and he
>passed my comments on to the relevent committee, who replied saying
>that the system was already flexible enough. It isn't and ignoring it
>is not going to make it go away.
>They wanted a flexible labour market, they got one, they just won't
>admit that it is one when it comes to paying benefits and making
>people wait for 3 or 4 weeks to get any money.

And actually even getting people in this newsgroup to ackowledge it is
a problem - I guess they mostly have cushy full-time permanent jobs
with little chance of redundancy.

On Tue, 8 Jan 2008 03:30:48 -0800 (PST), robertharvey@my-deja.com
wrote:

>The Tories are talking of making people on benefit do work of public
>good, and the news media are talking of this in terms of picking up
>litter and painting park railings.
>
>I have no problems with any of that - or with doing old folk's front
>gardens or taking chaps in wheelchairs for a walk or such things.  If
>we are going to pay them, I'd sooner pay them for that than for
>decorating their own sofas.
>
Old people don't have jobs and just sit on their arses all day
claiming everything off the state. Why should honest hard working
taxpayers fund these work-shy scum ? Let them push their own
wheelchairs like decent hard working Eastern European pensioners have
to.

On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 12:15:10 GMT, shaun.jameson@spam.ntlworld.com
(Shaun) wrote:

>On Tue, 8 Jan 2008 03:30:48 -0800 (PST), robertharvey@my-deja.com
>wrote:
>
>>The Tories are talking of making people on benefit do work of public
>>good, and the news media are talking of this in terms of picking up
>>litter and painting park railings.
>>
>>I have no problems with any of that - or with doing old folk's front
>>gardens or taking chaps in wheelchairs for a walk or such things.  If
>>we are going to pay them, I'd sooner pay them for that than for
>>decorating their own sofas.
>>
>Old people don't have jobs and just sit on their arses all day
>claiming everything off the state. Why should honest hard working
>taxpayers fund these work-shy scum ? Let them push their own
>wheelchairs like decent hard working Eastern European pensioners have
>to.

FFS...even Eastern European pensioners have more adequate pensions
than we do - we rank bottom out of 25 countries.

http://www.aon.com/dk/dk/about/whats_new/barometer2006.pdf

On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 03:30:48 -0800, robertharvey wrote:

> The Tories are talking of making people on benefit do work of public
> good, and the news media are talking of this in terms of picking up
> litter and painting park railings.
> 
> I have no problems with any of that - or with doing old folk's front
> gardens or taking chaps in wheelchairs for a walk or such things.  If we
> are going to pay them, I'd sooner pay them for that than for decorating
> their own sofas.
> 
> What I don't understand is what they will find to do.  Every week the
> magistrate's court gives hundreds of hours of community service.  When
> all that is resolved, surely there will be nothing left for the
> unemployed to do?

It is farcical.... there is plenty of work to do and not enough hands to 
do it quickly, the rail repairs over new year were a classic example of 
this shortage of skilled/experienced manpower

They should never have given any service to private industry to run, its 
like handing the keys of the bank to the foremost bank robber of the 
time....

but they needed (and still need to...) to shake up the old boy network/
cabal of the public services. and of government itself...

On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 12:37:29 GMT, FriarTuck  wrote:

>On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 03:30:48 -0800, robertharvey wrote:
>
>> The Tories are talking of making people on benefit do work of public
>> good, and the news media are talking of this in terms of picking up
>> litter and painting park railings.
>> 
>> I have no problems with any of that - or with doing old folk's front
>> gardens or taking chaps in wheelchairs for a walk or such things.  If we
>> are going to pay them, I'd sooner pay them for that than for decorating
>> their own sofas.
>> 
>> What I don't understand is what they will find to do.  Every week the
>> magistrate's court gives hundreds of hours of community service.  When
>> all that is resolved, surely there will be nothing left for the
>> unemployed to do?
>
>It is farcical.... there is plenty of work to do and not enough hands to 
>do it quickly, the rail repairs over new year were a classic example of 
>this shortage of skilled/experienced manpower
>
>They should never have given any service to private industry to run, its 
>like handing the keys of the bank to the foremost bank robber of the 
>time....
>
>but they needed (and still need to...) to shake up the old boy network/
>cabal of the public services. and of government itself...

No need for that - we have roads in Kettering that are almost ankle
deep in rubbish and dog shit. How hard can it be to get them to clean
that up and make the place half decent for all of us? They overprice
everything, take longer than estimated to do most things, cock things
up, waste money like the pipes leak water.
I'm begnning to think that perhaps we are as a nation simply
incompetent - can't run government, can't even run businesses very
well. Maybe as people we are just too lakcsadaisical. We are almost
like a communist state.
I declare the whole of Britain is just bloody lazy, and therefore we
should not be surprised if our doleys are also lazy. We've always been
lazy AFAICT.

robertharvey@my-deja.com wrote:
> 
> What I don't understand is what they will find to do.  Every week the
> magistrate's court gives hundreds of hours of community service.  When
> all that is resolved, surely there will be nothing left for the
> unemployed to do?

There's a huge amount to do, starting at sweeping pavements and removing 
chewing gum, going up through repairing roads to renewing sewers and 
railway tracks. This country is in a terrible state, and there is an 
enormous number of people either officially unemployed or doing 
makework. It's not a matter of money, they're being paid already.

Unfortunately, all the work that needs doing is much more difficult 
and/or unpleasant than sitting at home or behind a desk in a warm 
office. And there are no votes in changing that...

On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 12:42:36 +0000, Maria wrote:

> On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 12:37:29 GMT, FriarTuck  wrote:
> 
>>On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 03:30:48 -0800, robertharvey wrote:
>>
>>> The Tories are talking of making people on benefit do work of public
>>> good, and the news media are talking of this in terms of picking up
>>> litter and painting park railings.
>>> 
>>> I have no problems with any of that - or with doing old folk's front
>>> gardens or taking chaps in wheelchairs for a walk or such things.  If
>>> we are going to pay them, I'd sooner pay them for that than for
>>> decorating their own sofas.
>>> 
>>> What I don't understand is what they will find to do.  Every week the
>>> magistrate's court gives hundreds of hours of community service.  When
>>> all that is resolved, surely there will be nothing left for the
>>> unemployed to do?
>>
>>It is farcical.... there is plenty of work to do and not enough hands to
>>do it quickly, the rail repairs over new year were a classic example of
>>this shortage of skilled/experienced manpower
>>
>>They should never have given any service to private industry to run, its
>>like handing the keys of the bank to the foremost bank robber of the
>>time....
>>
>>but they needed (and still need to...) to shake up the old boy network/
>>cabal of the public services. and of government itself...
> 
> No need for that - we have roads in Kettering that are almost ankle deep
> in rubbish and dog shit. How hard can it be to get them to clean that up
> and make the place half decent for all of us? They overprice everything,
> take longer than estimated to do most things, cock things up, waste
> money like the pipes leak water. I'm begnning to think that perhaps we
> are as a nation simply incompetent - can't run government, can't even
> run businesses very well. Maybe as people we are just too
> lakcsadaisical. We are almost like a communist state.
> I declare the whole of Britain is just bloody lazy, and therefore we
> should not be surprised if our doleys are also lazy. We've always been
> lazy AFAICT.

I think its a fundamental flaw in the ranking of people in our system... 
fat twat politicians and civil servants get paid £60-900k to make as many 
unaccountable mistakes as they like and pass as many juicy govt. contacts 
as they like, where the binman is now time and motioned down to the last 
fraction of a second by some agency who cream more off the cost of 
rubbish collection than do the people actually doing the work.

Its is the publics fault but I would say its complacency, and that 
laziness/obesity/over consumption is actually positively encourage by all 
adverts and TV programs (MI7/Mockingbird) which helps those incompetents 
(all parties and the civil service) to stay in power while they (the 
govt) can go on TV with some fitness campaigns and portray the impression 
they are "concerned" while the PR agencies saatchi et al. organise some 
new con trick to keep the dumbed down populace in check and on side....

Just listening to brown-eye talking about 2% inflation when fuel has just 
gone up 17% and observing the lack of people falling about laughing 
hysterically at this obvious frigging of the figures sums it all up....

On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 12:54:18 GMT, FriarTuck  wrote:

>On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 12:42:36 +0000, Maria wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 12:37:29 GMT, FriarTuck  wrote:
>> 
>>>On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 03:30:48 -0800, robertharvey wrote:
>>>
>>>> The Tories are talking of making people on benefit do work of public
>>>> good, and the news media are talking of this in terms of picking up
>>>> litter and painting park railings.
>>>> 
>>>> I have no problems with any of that - or with doing old folk's front
>>>> gardens or taking chaps in wheelchairs for a walk or such things.  If
>>>> we are going to pay them, I'd sooner pay them for that than for
>>>> decorating their own sofas.
>>>> 
>>>> What I don't understand is what they will find to do.  Every week the
>>>> magistrate's court gives hundreds of hours of community service.  When
>>>> all that is resolved, surely there will be nothing left for the
>>>> unemployed to do?
>>>
>>>It is farcical.... there is plenty of work to do and not enough hands to
>>>do it quickly, the rail repairs over new year were a classic example of
>>>this shortage of skilled/experienced manpower
>>>
>>>They should never have given any service to private industry to run, its
>>>like handing the keys of the bank to the foremost bank robber of the
>>>time....
>>>
>>>but they needed (and still need to...) to shake up the old boy network/
>>>cabal of the public services. and of government itself...
>> 
>> No need for that - we have roads in Kettering that are almost ankle deep
>> in rubbish and dog shit. How hard can it be to get them to clean that up
>> and make the place half decent for all of us? They overprice everything,
>> take longer than estimated to do most things, cock things up, waste
>> money like the pipes leak water. I'm begnning to think that perhaps we
>> are as a nation simply incompetent - can't run government, can't even
>> run businesses very well. Maybe as people we are just too
>> lakcsadaisical. We are almost like a communist state.
>> I declare the whole of Britain is just bloody lazy, and therefore we
>> should not be surprised if our doleys are also lazy. We've always been
>> lazy AFAICT.
>
>I think its a fundamental flaw in the ranking of people in our system... 
>fat twat politicians and civil servants get paid £60-900k to make as many 
>unaccountable mistakes as they like and pass as many juicy govt. contacts 
>as they like, where the binman is now time and motioned down to the last 
>fraction of a second by some agency who cream more off the cost of 
>rubbish collection than do the people actually doing the work.
>
>Its is the publics fault but I would say its complacency, and that 
>laziness/obesity/over consumption is actually positively encourage by all 
>adverts and TV programs (MI7/Mockingbird) which helps those incompetents 
>(all parties and the civil service) to stay in power while they (the 
>govt) can go on TV with some fitness campaigns and portray the impression 
>they are "concerned" while the PR agencies saatchi et al. organise some 
>new con trick to keep the dumbed down populace in check and on side....
>
>Just listening to brown-eye talking about 2% inflation when fuel has just 
>gone up 17% and observing the lack of people falling about laughing 
>hysterically at this obvious frigging of the figures sums it all up....

There is something else too - like a built-in dependency factor, and
not just talking about people dependant on state benefits either, but
also on paid work.
I have a friend who is a trained accounts person with a PHD so
obviously not daft. Has no kids or husband to get in the way, and a
large mortgage to pay. She is not in the slightest bit lazy. She was
made redundant and couldn't find another job for months. We did our
best to try and persuade her to become a freelance book-keeper - she
is skilled and could easily sell her talent, but would she? No she
would not. She said she wanted the predictable monthly wage and
'security' that goes with that, and was too scared to go it alone,
even if it meant months of looking for work and getting into arrears
on her mortgage.
People seem to have little confidence in themselves. The difference
confidence makes is striking, when you see how the people who came
from the gutter and ended up running huge business empires (but mostly
in retail, which most people could do if they tried...)
In this country we have always felt looked after and those that have
stuff have always sought to look after us 9aka tell us what to do) -
how long has it been since people died of starvation here in any
numbers? Modern 'civilisation' seems to remove your will to
survive...maybe that's how we end up so dependant on paid work or
state handouts and anything else leads to sitting around and becoming
a druggie or alcholic or something through sheer boredom.

On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 13:10:58 +0000, Maria wrote:

> On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 12:54:18 GMT, FriarTuck  wrote:
> 
>>On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 12:42:36 +0000, Maria wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 12:37:29 GMT, FriarTuck  wrote:
>>> 
>>>>On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 03:30:48 -0800, robertharvey wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> The Tories are talking of making people on benefit do work of public
>>>>> good, and the news media are talking of this in terms of picking up
>>>>> litter and painting park railings.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I have no problems with any of that - or with doing old folk's front
>>>>> gardens or taking chaps in wheelchairs for a walk or such things. 
>>>>> If we are going to pay them, I'd sooner pay them for that than for
>>>>> decorating their own sofas.
>>>>> 
>>>>> What I don't understand is what they will find to do.  Every week
>>>>> the magistrate's court gives hundreds of hours of community service.
>>>>>  When all that is resolved, surely there will be nothing left for
>>>>> the unemployed to do?
>>>>
>>>>It is farcical.... there is plenty of work to do and not enough hands
>>>>to do it quickly, the rail repairs over new year were a classic
>>>>example of this shortage of skilled/experienced manpower
>>>>
>>>>They should never have given any service to private industry to run,
>>>>its like handing the keys of the bank to the foremost bank robber of
>>>>the time....
>>>>
>>>>but they needed (and still need to...) to shake up the old boy
>>>>network/ cabal of the public services. and of government itself...
>>> 
>>> No need for that - we have roads in Kettering that are almost ankle
>>> deep in rubbish and dog shit. How hard can it be to get them to clean
>>> that up and make the place half decent for all of us? They overprice
>>> everything, take longer than estimated to do most things, cock things
>>> up, waste money like the pipes leak water. I'm begnning to think that
>>> perhaps we are as a nation simply incompetent - can't run government,
>>> can't even run businesses very well. Maybe as people we are just too
>>> lakcsadaisical. We are almost like a communist state. I declare the
>>> whole of Britain is just bloody lazy, and therefore we should not be
>>> surprised if our doleys are also lazy. We've always been lazy AFAICT.
>>
>>I think its a fundamental flaw in the ranking of people in our system...
>>fat twat politicians and civil servants get paid £60-900k to make as
>>many unaccountable mistakes as they like and pass as many juicy govt.
>>contacts as they like, where the binman is now time and motioned down to
>>the last fraction of a second by some agency who cream more off the cost
>>of rubbish collection than do the people actually doing the work.
>>
>>Its is the publics fault but I would say its complacency, and that
>>laziness/obesity/over consumption is actually positively encourage by
>>all adverts and TV programs (MI7/Mockingbird) which helps those
>>incompetents (all parties and the civil service) to stay in power while
>>they (the govt) can go on TV with some fitness campaigns and portray the
>>impression they are "concerned" while the PR agencies saatchi et al.
>>organise some new con trick to keep the dumbed down populace in check
>>and on side....
>>
>>Just listening to brown-eye talking about 2% inflation when fuel has
>>just gone up 17% and observing the lack of people falling about laughing
>>hysterically at this obvious frigging of the figures sums it all up....
> 
> There is something else too - like a built-in dependency factor, and not
> just talking about people dependant on state benefits either, but also
> on paid work.
> I have a friend who is a trained accounts person with a PHD so obviously
> not daft. Has no kids or husband to get in the way, and a large mortgage
> to pay. She is not in the slightest bit lazy. She was made redundant and
> couldn't find another job for months. We did our best to try and
> persuade her to become a freelance book-keeper - she is skilled and
> could easily sell her talent, but would she? No she would not. She said
> she wanted the predictable monthly wage and 'security' that goes with
> that, and was too scared to go it alone, even if it meant months of
> looking for work and getting into arrears on her mortgage.
> People seem to have little confidence in themselves. The difference
> confidence makes is striking, when you see how the people who came from
> the gutter and ended up running huge business empires (but mostly in
> retail, which most people could do if they tried...) In this country we
> have always felt looked after and those that have stuff have always
> sought to look after us 9aka tell us what to do) - how long has it been
> since people died of starvation here in any numbers? Modern
> 'civilisation' seems to remove your will to survive...maybe that's how
> we end up so dependant on paid work or state handouts and anything else
> leads to sitting around and becoming a druggie or alcholic or something
> through sheer boredom.

You identify an interesting point...

Like we are socialised from a very early age to be dependant, only some 
develop the self confident attitude (private schoolies, oxbridge etc.)

Whereas we could all be schooled to be individual free thinkers with 
potential for great contributions rather than sheep in the herd to be 
rounded up and cajoled by the shepherds as and when they require some new 
corpses on their latest battlefield for control of resources for personal 
gain....

But seems to me, that is how deep the control of the masses goes... to 
call the hidden hand (well the monarchy and associates) incompetent is 
not correct as they are very competent at keeping themselves in power and 
very rich.... 

The Diggers song by Winstanley back in the 1600's

You noble diggers all stand up now, stand up now
You noble diggers all stand up now
The wasteland to maintain sin (?) cavaliers by name
Your digging does maintain and persons all defame
Stand up now, stand up now
Your houses they pull down stand up now, stand up now
Your houses they pull down, stand up now
Your houses they pull down to fright your men in town
But the gentry must come down and the poor shall wear the crown
Stand up now diggers all
With spades and hoes and plows stand up now, stand up now
With spades and hoes and plows, stand up now
Your freedom to uphold sin (?) cavaliers are bold
To kill you if they could and rights from you to hold
Stand up now diggers all
The gentry are all round stand up now, stand up now
The gentry are all round stand up now
The gentry are all round on each side the are found
Their wisdom so profound to cheat us of our ground
Stand up now stand up now
The lawyers they conjoin stand up now stand up now
The lawyers they conjoin stand up now
To rescue they advise, such fury they devise, the devil in them lies
And hath blinded both their eyes
Stand up now, stand up now
The clergy they come in stand up now, stand up now
The clergy they come in stand up now
The clergy they come in and say it is a sin
That we should now begin our freedom for to win
Stand up now diggers all
'Gainst lawyers and 'gainst priests stand up now stand up now
'Gainst lawyers and 'gainst priests stand up now
For tyrants they are both, even flat against their oath
To grant us they are loathe free meat and drink and cloth
Stand up now diggers all
The club is all their law, stand up now stand up now
The club is all their law, stand up now
The club is all their law, to keep all men in awe
That they no vision saw to maintain such a law
Stand up now diggers all

Maria wrote:
> On Tue, 8 Jan 2008 03:30:48 -0800 (PST), robertharvey@my-deja.com
> wrote:
>
>> The Tories are talking of making people on benefit do work of public
>> good, and the news media are talking of this in terms of picking up
>> litter and painting park railings.
>>
>> I have no problems with any of that - or with doing old folk's front
>> gardens or taking chaps in wheelchairs for a walk or such things.  If
>> we are going to pay them, I'd sooner pay them for that than for
>> decorating their own sofas.
>>
>> What I don't understand is what they will find to do.  Every week the
>> magistrate's court gives hundreds of hours of community service.
>> When all that is resolved, surely there will be nothing left for the
>> unemployed to do?
>
> It really all is missing the point really.
> Cameron says he wants to stop people going off benefits and back on
> them again - he seems to think that that's what people do to swing the
> lead and keep their benefit claims going and maybe some do.
> I have yet to hear a single poltician acknowledge that the flexible
> labour market has created a swathe of temporary, agency and short term
> employment, the biggest in any country in Europe, and this will
> naturally result in people going on and off the dole, especially in
> low-skilled employment. I have even written to my MP about this and he
> passed my comments on to the relevent committee, who replied saying
> that the system was already flexible enough. It isn't and ignoring it
> is not going to make it go away.
> They wanted a flexible labour market, they got one, they just won't
> admit that it is one when it comes to paying benefits and making
> people wait for 3 or 4 weeks to get any money.

You need to learn the difference between structural unemployment and 
cyclical unemployment. Depending which you fall into, you need radically 
different policies.

You are right however, about how the benefits system does not allow 
flexibility, it does not reward those who having difficulty getting work but 
are keen to do agency/temporary stuff, it might be they only work one week 
in four, can a system be devised that enables the pro rata of benefits to 
work days?



Gaz

Maria wrote:
> On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 12:15:10 GMT, shaun.jameson@spam.ntlworld.com
> (Shaun) wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 8 Jan 2008 03:30:48 -0800 (PST), robertharvey@my-deja.com
>> wrote:
>>
>>> The Tories are talking of making people on benefit do work of public
>>> good, and the news media are talking of this in terms of picking up
>>> litter and painting park railings.
>>>
>>> I have no problems with any of that - or with doing old folk's front
>>> gardens or taking chaps in wheelchairs for a walk or such things.
>>> If we are going to pay them, I'd sooner pay them for that than for
>>> decorating their own sofas.
>>>
>> Old people don't have jobs and just sit on their arses all day
>> claiming everything off the state. Why should honest hard working
>> taxpayers fund these work-shy scum ? Let them push their own
>> wheelchairs like decent hard working Eastern European pensioners have
>> to.
>
> FFS...even Eastern European pensioners have more adequate pensions
> than we do - we rank bottom out of 25 countries.
>
> http://www.aon.com/dk/dk/about/whats_new/barometer2006.pdf

It was the people *they* elected that devised the system they are now using. 
It hasnt changed much.

Gaz

"FriarTuck"  wrote in message 
news:d8Kgj.4981$O01.684@newsfe6-win.ntli.net...
> On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 03:30:48 -0800, robertharvey wrote:
>
>> The Tories are talking of making people on benefit do work of public
>> good, and the news media are talking of this in terms of picking up
>> litter and painting park railings.
>>
>> I have no problems with any of that - or with doing old folk's front
>> gardens or taking chaps in wheelchairs for a walk or such things.  If we
>> are going to pay them, I'd sooner pay them for that than for decorating
>> their own sofas.
>>
>> What I don't understand is what they will find to do.  Every week the
>> magistrate's court gives hundreds of hours of community service.  When
>> all that is resolved, surely there will be nothing left for the
>> unemployed to do?
>
> It is farcical.... there is plenty of work to do and not enough hands to
> do it quickly, the rail repairs over new year were a classic example of
> this shortage of skilled/experienced manpower
>
> They should never have given any service to private industry to run, its
> like handing the keys of the bank to the foremost bank robber of the
> time....
>
> but they needed (and still need to...) to shake up the old boy network/
> cabal of the public services. and of government itself...

Hear Hear

Redman

On 8 Jan, 12:49, Joe  wrote:

> Unfortunately, all the work that needs doing is much more difficult
> and/or unpleasant than sitting at home or behind a desk in a warm
> office. And there are no votes in changing that...

So what DO people on community service sentences do?

On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 16:35:21 +0000, Gaz wrote:

> Maria wrote:
>> On Tue, 8 Jan 2008 03:30:48 -0800 (PST), robertharvey@my-deja.com
>> wrote:
>>
>>> The Tories are talking of making people on benefit do work of public
>>> good, and the news media are talking of this in terms of picking up
>>> litter and painting park railings.
>>>
>>> I have no problems with any of that - or with doing old folk's front
>>> gardens or taking chaps in wheelchairs for a walk or such things.  If
>>> we are going to pay them, I'd sooner pay them for that than for
>>> decorating their own sofas.
>>>
>>> What I don't understand is what they will find to do.  Every week the
>>> magistrate's court gives hundreds of hours of community service.
>>> When all that is resolved, surely there will be nothing left for the
>>> unemployed to do?
>>
>> It really all is missing the point really.
>> Cameron says he wants to stop people going off benefits and back on
>> them again - he seems to think that that's what people do to swing the
>> lead and keep their benefit claims going and maybe some do.
>> I have yet to hear a single poltician acknowledge that the flexible
>> labour market has created a swathe of temporary, agency and short term
>> employment, the biggest in any country in Europe, and this will
>> naturally result in people going on and off the dole, especially in
>> low-skilled employment. I have even written to my MP about this and he
>> passed my comments on to the relevent committee, who replied saying
>> that the system was already flexible enough. It isn't and ignoring it
>> is not going to make it go away.
>> They wanted a flexible labour market, they got one, they just won't
>> admit that it is one when it comes to paying benefits and making
>> people wait for 3 or 4 weeks to get any money.
> 
> You need to learn the difference between structural unemployment and 
> cyclical unemployment. Depending which you fall into, you need radically 
> different policies.
> 
> You are right however, about how the benefits system does not allow 
> flexibility, it does not reward those who having difficulty getting work but 
> are keen to do agency/temporary stuff, it might be they only work one week 
> in four, can a system be devised that enables the pro rata of benefits to 
> work days?

The benefits system used to handle this sort of temporary work and benefit
payment in near real-time during the 1970's.

> 
> 
> 
> Gaz

-- 
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  / _ \/ __/ _ | / _ \  / _ \/ _ |/ / / / /
 / // / _// __ |/ // / / ___/ __ / /_/ / /__
/____/___/_/ |_/____/ /_/  /_/ |_\____/____/

On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 12:33:40 +0000, Maria
 wrote:

>On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 12:15:10 GMT, shaun.jameson@spam.ntlworld.com
>(Shaun) wrote:
>
>>On Tue, 8 Jan 2008 03:30:48 -0800 (PST), robertharvey@my-deja.com
>>wrote:
>>
>>>The Tories are talking of making people on benefit do work of public
>>>good, and the news media are talking of this in terms of picking up
>>>litter and painting park railings.
>>>
>>>I have no problems with any of that - or with doing old folk's front
>>>gardens or taking chaps in wheelchairs for a walk or such things.  If
>>>we are going to pay them, I'd sooner pay them for that than for
>>>decorating their own sofas.
>>>
>>Old people don't have jobs and just sit on their arses all day
>>claiming everything off the state. Why should honest hard working
>>taxpayers fund these work-shy scum ? Let them push their own
>>wheelchairs like decent hard working Eastern European pensioners have
>>to.
>
>FFS...even Eastern European pensioners have more adequate pensions
>than we do - we rank bottom out of 25 countries.
>
>http://www.aon.com/dk/dk/about/whats_new/barometer2006.pdf


Only some of us
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3137731.ece

On 8 Jan, 17:47, roberthar...@my-deja.com wrote:
> On 8 Jan, 12:49, Joe  wrote:
>
> > Unfortunately, all the work that needs doing is much more difficult
> > and/or unpleasant than sitting at home or behind a desk in a warm
> > office. And there are no votes in changing that...
>
> So what DO people on community service sentences do?

Nothing. It's a sham. How are you going to get unwilling people to do
useful work? You can make them turn up as a punishment and do a bit of
weeding. That's all. How much weeding is there? Enough for a million
unemployed say?

People say let them help the elderly. Has anyone got the slightest
common sense. Doing what? Within weeks someone would die in a fall or
something and the papers will ask why untrained people have been put
in to do such work near unsupervised.

Paint old people's homes? Unskilled and unmotivated people who know
they are being as slave labour? Help in charities? Everything requires
skills.

Then there is the cost of organising this forced volunteering. Who is
going to supervise? Any trouble they get blamed so they''ll play act
to avoid verbal abuse and violence.

People say it's not fair. I work and pay taxes they get dole. OK but
doing anything about it.......

Dead Paul wrote:
> On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 16:35:21 +0000, Gaz wrote:
>
>> Maria wrote:
>>> On Tue, 8 Jan 2008 03:30:48 -0800 (PST), robertharvey@my-deja.com
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> The Tories are talking of making people on benefit do work of
>>>> public good, and the news media are talking of this in terms of
>>>> picking up litter and painting park railings.
>>>>
>>>> I have no problems with any of that - or with doing old folk's
>>>> front gardens or taking chaps in wheelchairs for a walk or such
>>>> things.  If we are going to pay them, I'd sooner pay them for that
>>>> than for decorating their own sofas.
>>>>
>>>> What I don't understand is what they will find to do.  Every week
>>>> the magistrate's court gives hundreds of hours of community
>>>> service. When all that is resolved, surely there will be nothing
>>>> left for the unemployed to do?
>>>
>>> It really all is missing the point really.
>>> Cameron says he wants to stop people going off benefits and back on
>>> them again - he seems to think that that's what people do to swing
>>> the lead and keep their benefit claims going and maybe some do.
>>> I have yet to hear a single poltician acknowledge that the flexible
>>> labour market has created a swathe of temporary, agency and short
>>> term employment, the biggest in any country in Europe, and this will
>>> naturally result in people going on and off the dole, especially in
>>> low-skilled employment. I have even written to my MP about this and
>>> he passed my comments on to the relevent committee, who replied
>>> saying that the system was already flexible enough. It isn't and
>>> ignoring it is not going to make it go away.
>>> They wanted a flexible labour market, they got one, they just won't
>>> admit that it is one when it comes to paying benefits and making
>>> people wait for 3 or 4 weeks to get any money.
>>
>> You need to learn the difference between structural unemployment and
>> cyclical unemployment. Depending which you fall into, you need
>> radically different policies.
>>
>> You are right however, about how the benefits system does not allow
>> flexibility, it does not reward those who having difficulty getting
>> work but are keen to do agency/temporary stuff, it might be they
>> only work one week in four, can a system be devised that enables the
>> pro rata of benefits to work days?
>
> The benefits system used to handle this sort of temporary work and
> benefit payment in near real-time during the 1970's.
>

So what has really changed? The increases in complexity should be offset by 
the technology to manage it. But, i suppose if we look at tax credits, it 
seems to be reactive on an annual tax year basis, that seems a very long way 
from 'real time'.

Gaz

In article , Gaz  wrote:
>You are right however, about how the benefits system does not allow
>flexibility, it does not reward those who having difficulty getting work but
>are keen to do agency/temporary stuff, it might be they only work one week
>in four, can a system be devised that enables the pro rata of benefits to
>work days?

	Yes, of course.  "Citizen's Income" does this painlessly.
Basically, for those in work, CI replaces tax allowances, for those
out of work [for whatever reason], it replaces benefits;  for those
partly in, partly out, it replaces each pro rata.  As it is a flat-
rate income [accompanied by flat tax], the CI doesn't need to know
what it is replacing, and can just continue regardless.

-- 
Andy Walker
Nottingham

Andy Walker wrote:
> In article , Gaz 
> wrote:
>> You are right however, about how the benefits system does not allow
>> flexibility, it does not reward those who having difficulty getting
>> work but are keen to do agency/temporary stuff, it might be they
>> only work one week in four, can a system be devised that enables the
>> pro rata of benefits to work days?
>
> Yes, of course.  "Citizen's Income" does this painlessly.
> Basically, for those in work, CI replaces tax allowances, for those
> out of work [for whatever reason], it replaces benefits;  for those
> partly in, partly out, it replaces each pro rata.  As it is a flat-
> rate income [accompanied by flat tax], the CI doesn't need to know
> what it is replacing, and can just continue regardless.

The problem seems, administration, i can imagine gigantic fraud, on an 
organised scale. As this 'CI' would need to be freely available to all EU 
citizens, and the NI database has shown itself to be woefully inaccurate.

Gaz

In article , Gaz  wrote:
[Citizen's Income:]
>The problem seems, administration, i can imagine gigantic fraud, on an
>organised scale.

	In terms of failing to register deaths, falsely registering
births, impersonating other people, ..., there is no difference from
present fraudulent possibilities.  In terms of the sorts of fraud
when people claiming to be unemployed/sick/poor are in fact working,
well or wealthy, these would disappear, as you're entitled to the CI
anyway.

>		  As this 'CI' would need to be freely available to all EU
>citizens,

	I don't see why this is a bigger [or even different] problem
than already exists over benefits for EU citizens who happen to be
working/living here when they become ill/poor/unemployed/old.

>	   and the NI database has shown itself to be woefully inaccurate.

	True, but again I don't see the relevance.

-- 
Andy Walker
Nottingham