Why do you think that? Perhaps Bill has just done what I have done: talk to people who freely admit they are living off working-age benefits as they don't think it's worth doing* the jobs they could get. In my case they include some neighbours.
*doing openly that is: some of them show signs of work in the black economy
Nope. Taper off harder,
I accept that getting from point A to point B in any political spectrum is best achieved slowly otherwise there is a huge backlash.
Clearly you have found the wiki entries but failed to understand the words contained therein.
By being honest and assuming governments would be, too.
It's the gutter press, such as the DM, that spread the myth that all benefit claimers are doing it as a lifestyle choice. I'm sure most of them would rather be earning enough money to live off without needing the support of the state.
Certainly the people I know who claim benefits do so because they are unable to work or to get a job that pays a decent wage. I don't blame people, who are entitled to benefits, actually claiming them.
And there's the rub. A paint sprayer from London I chanced to meet (long story) said that he could get more money by claiming for his rent and unemployment than working as a paint sprayer. He preferred to work.
So long as any employment means total loss of all benefits and taxation as well, people are going to choose unemployment. Its the sane entrepreneurial thing to do.
Its one of those situations were you can't win either way... with a slow taper then you are open to the claim that you are not rewarding those that want to work adequately, and with a fast taper people will argue you are penalising the lowest paid with a very high effective tax rate since any rise in earnings is largely offset by the withdrawal of the payment.
You would be astonished at how much of a disincentive gov't & electrical co= mpanies impose on major electrical users. Take a chemical plant, the price = of electricity was ramped so high they simply bought their own gas turbines= & generator sets.
The reason is simple, once they are here they are captive unless they scrap= the plant. So the chance of new industry being built here is very slim alt= hough forex collapse (-40-60%) will eventually make it possible except othe= rs may do the same as competitive devaluation (Germany has done it for a de= cade re Euro!).
Industry wants rent free, rates free, if you try to impose them later you b= etter be sure they can't just up & walk (many companies write off the plant= in 3yrs flat and will walk if a council suddenly starts wanting a bite of = the cherry).
It is astonishing lunacy in terms of economic planning. In 1984 I got a Distinction for energy policy evaluation pre O-Level and al= l these long term issues were obvious then, and the solution. Coal was chea= p & we had century+ resource, a large baseband via nuclear was ideal, gas r= eserved for domestic heating although I recall suggesting a carrot of 10% t= ax providing free loft insulation discounts and free external or internal i= nsulation to the DIY market (you were to be charged if it was not installed= and got flogged).
Instead we created armies of clipboards & bureaucratic legislation for same= . Gov't can not create jobs effectively, it ends up creating cost and compe= titive disadvantage. As ridiculous as all the admin overhead in charging "t= ax" to public sector workers when a tax-free system is far better.
Yes, lights out is a good possibility - particularly if the the current "un= expected" Solar Minimums continue and we get severe winters for the remaini= ng part of the decade.
I've been there myself - I was out of work for a little over a year, as I had large debts and taking on a low paid job would have stopped my insurance payments, while not earning me enough to pay bills as they fell due. As it happens, I also had caring responsibilities due to three young children and my wife becoming ill as a consequence of the third pregnancy, so even a high paying job would have been pretty well impossible to take for much of that time. However I actually received next to no benefits as my wife's sick pay was considered too high, despite it being less than our monthly fixed outgoings before basic food shopping and the kids clothes, etc.
There is however another side.
My wife is a Community Psychiatric Nurse and deals with some very ill people. Some of those refuse to claim the benefits that they are entitled too and struggle badly to cope financially. On the other hand she has a large number of people (more than half) who have little or no mental illness and are simply trying to keep their disability benefits, council tax and housing benefits and to dodge the consequences of criminal behaviour. It is very quickly obvious who are the genuine and fake claimaints, but "confidentiality" prevents "shopping" of the fake ones.
SteveW
I have supported my partner since she stopped working around seven years ago - initially for a break, then realising that she had a debilitating illness for which there is virtually no treatment. We get not one penny for her - no benefit of any sort.
What seems rather unfair is that we cannot even swap over her tax allowance.
But I certainly don't think it wrong for others to get help.
Yep, the "poverty trap". Been in that situation myself, broke my ankle claimed Incapacity Benefit (as it was at the time) and claimed on my PHI. Combined they were slightly better than my normal income, there was certainly a great temptation to remain "signed off". Why bother working when you can get the same or similar amount of money staying home, doing what you want to do?
And don't forget the reduction in Tax Credits as your income goes up even if you aren't getting any of the other benefits like Income Support, Housing, Council Tax etc. I look to be having a good year this year, but I'm not sure how much of that extra money I will actaully see as new disposable income overall. I might earn another 8k extra but when the Tax Credits drop by 6k... There is no great incentive to work my balls off TBH.
...
A solid proof of the stupidity of climate denialists, is the fact that they do no understand that in science there is only one correct answer.
-- jo "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." Hanlon's Razor
Now exactly where is that electron?
But everyone knows politicians are crooks. Come on, admit it, there was a woman involved?
A bit like owning solar panels eh?
Provided all the factors are available.understood. I agree something is going on (with the climate). But it's not a thing you can afford to take chances on.
Why do you need to know?
The real problem with you is your religion. We all know that there are many religions and because of that we also know that they are all wrong. We also know that there are many cranks, and we know you all suffer from various delusions.
Science makes life simple. Do you need another model for the DNA molecule?
The real problem here seems to be your obsession with religion!
My question about the electron was intended to point out a) the result of a probability density function (as used by chemists) is a very odd form of "one correct answer"; b) the unknowability of the position and velocity of an electron suggests that the the number of answers science has is often less than one.
We do not know that all religions are wrong simply and solely on the basis of how many there are. We can suggest that the likelihood of any individual religion we consider at any one moment being wrong is very close to 100%. That is a bit like suggesting you don't exist because the chances of your DNA and everything else that has gone into making you who you are are vanishingly unlikely ever to have come together.
Yes. It's another one of the drawbacks of having individual taxation but benefits assessed on total family income.
There's much that can be done to reform benefits without taking a hatchet (or angle grinder - since this is uk.d-i-y) to them. For one there are two many different types of benefits. The number of them should be reduced but this should not necessarily result in the total amount of money being reduced.
In addition benefits should be withdrawn gradually as income rises to avoid the poverty trap.
Better means testing could also mean that people get the money they need rather than work on simplistic formulae.
There is no need for you to worry about this. If you cannot write a paper telling where James Hansen or any other climate scientist went wrong, you should trust them all.
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