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TC, I recognise some of what you are saying, and apologise for the needless aggression in my terse response. However, I maintain that your insistence that, effectively, burglary is an inevtiable byproduct of creating a haves and have-nots society is a good example of modernist 'over clever' thinking. This is something we've become extremely good at these days, i.e. using clever ideological arguments as a form of denial of, or PC counter to, the existence of an identifiable issue or phenomenon.
Complete equality in any society is a pipe dream, communism has been tried and seen to fail insofar as some within the regime were visibly seen to more equal than the rest. OK, I accept you are not suggesting we can achieve totality of equality, and of course what we have is a form of meritocricy. A few of us will rise right to the top and achieve an awful lot in our lives (this is the royal we BTW), most will achieve modest success whilst, inevitably others will be left at the bottom.
To those who achieve financial stability or better will come the trappings that such success can attract; nice house, new car,a veritable mothership of a home PC, regular holidays, the latest moby, DVDs, nights eating out etc etc etc. This was the ethos of the Thatcher years, work hard and play hard too but I do concede that society has perhaps elevated material wealth above its station so to speak.
So, what of those at the other end of the social ladder, how are we expected to treat them? First of all I recognise that there are an awful lot of people growing up in shocking circumstances, I know I've worked with a few kids from that sort of background and my wife does all the time. They are in an environment which offers very few escape routes, a vicious circle if you like. In contrast there are also those who are living like parasites off the backs of everyone else and in the middle are the rest, down on their luck, perhaps not trying as hard as they could etc etc. To use your words in a slightly different context...



Yet there hasn't always been what you called a "social safety net", it only really appeared in the post WW2 era. Prior to that you either swam or sank, the extended family was your safety net. BUT, people were satisfied with less albeit it world that did not have the capacity to dangle nice fancy 'wants' under their nose. Unfortunately, today the less well off 'want' (or at least appear to want ) those things that the rest of society has had to earn a living to buy, I won't repeat the list but its all the same shiny things you buy in Dixons or Game Station or Carphone Warehouse or Enterprise Car Supermarket etc etc. So where, as Johnsher suggests, does the line get drawn between the things people need and those they just want, how much should the social security net provide and how much should be available only to those who have risen out of the mire? You ask what we would expect if our luck were to change? I'd not be going away to Rome in a fortnights time thats for sure, nor would I expect the stae to pay for me to.
Of one thing I am certain, and I'm going to conclude by going back on the offensive here. I don't give a flying fig just how much someone from an 'unfortunate' background wants a new mobile phone (on which to video a 'happy slap' assault perhaps?), if I find one trying to steal my hard-earned stuff, god help them. No muddled social excuses are going to make me feel guilty that their level of social benefits means they can't afford one or convince me that there's a reason for them to be there other than to receive a damned good kicking!

Possibly quite a lot... But that's irrelevant.


But you didn't "support yourself" by burglary or mugging I assume..


I agree with you, but I'd like to be able to do so in my own way and own time - not by coming home to find the windows smashed and (yet another) video recorder missing.


The "safety net" is still there.

You seem incapable of distinguishing between "need" and "want". The "safety net" will, in the vast majority of cases just about manage to cope with the "need". However, it may not supply the latest in mobile phone technology or 32" widescreen TVs that many appear to "want".

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

What I found interesting when studying this subject in College was the difference between 'absolute poverty' and 'relative poverty'. There should be nobody in this country who is in absolute poverty, and therefore need to steal to support themselves, but the relative poverty gap is growing. However, this is not because the poor are getting poorer, but because everybody else is getting much richer. Therefore you could legitimately say someone was in poverty if they could not afford a TV. Does this give them them the right to go out and steal a TV? Of course not.

Personally I think it's a good thing to help those in relative poverty who are working in low paid jobs to afford a few of the wants we take for granted. I'm not saying they should be entitited to widescreen televisions and brand new cars, but a degree of assistance is right and proper. Afterall, we rely on those who are paid meagre wages to do many of the jobs in this country.

However, what I do find hard to swallow is paying thousnds and thousands of pounds to those who don't work and have no intentions of ever working. Usually because the difference in being on benefits and taking the few low paid jobs they are likely to be offered is so minimal they just can't be bothered. They should be only entitled to very basics in life - anything else they can go out and EARN.

The problem is in my book, some people think the world owes them a living and are not prepared to do a job that is or is seen to be beneth them. I fully understand it's hard for people if they have been made redundant from a high flying job, but what stopped them putting a little to the side when things were good? Some time ago I used to work as a car salesmen, and earned a fair bit of money, then without much warning the dealership packed up and I was out of work. It was approaching Christmas and I couldn't afford to wait around for work so I got a job packing christmas cards on the minimum wage - and had great fun there! Met some really nice people. Anyway I never went back to car sales as I never felt happy their, effectively ripping people off on sub-prime finance rates.

To sum up, the social safety net is there and should be to prevent people falling into absolute poverty. If they want to better themselves then they can go out and earn it. For those on low wages, we should offer a modest amount of help so they may afford some of the want items.

So maybe we should pay a little more to those in our service industries, no? Offering to pay someone so little that they may as well be on benefit -is hardly an incentive to work their fingers off, is it?



I've yet to meet anyone like that. I'll agree there are a couple of pisstakers out there, but I've never come across cynicism that intense.



For a start, the fact that with student/graduate loans they can and will take a significant amount of your pay packet once you're earning above a certain amount. Unfortunately, they don't take geograhical location into account, so if you live somewhere like London, by the time you've paid the rent and bills and food for the month and paid your loan instalment, you're left with barely anything to put aside.



I don't think it's there enough, personally... but I'll agree to disagree. To be honest it's not so much the social safety net that's the issue here, so much as employers and company directors increasing their earnings by orders of magnitude year on year while barely paying minimum wage to the shop floor... *That's* the attitude that really stinks to me. And it's that kind of behavoiur that is setting a bad example. If I was a kid on a sink estate, I'd hear about that and consider taking someone's telly to be small beans compared to that kind of larceny.

J.

I partly agree with that. Personally, I'd prefer the satisfaction of working knowing that I could get promoted and start to earn more money in the future. Granted some are dead-end jobs, but usually there are some avenues of progression. You mentioned bar work, a mate of mine started as a barman and now runs the pub - and there is nothing to stop him being regional manager etc. However, I understand what your saying, and perhaps the benefits system needs to be reviewed in order to make it more worthwhile to get a job.


Granted the problem is not as bad as the Daily Mail makes out, but there are plenty of people in this world who are just downright lazy.


A partial answer to this is to stop this obsession with everybody going to university. Of course we need graduates, but lets not pretend it's a quick route to mega-bucks. I would bet a significant number(because a lot of my peer group went to uni) go simply because they want to put off work for a few years and don't know what they want to do. Some of them would be better off learning a trade or getting some quality work expierence.


The answer is not to stop the rich getting richer, but to raise the living standards of those at the bottom. Who cares if a company director has a flash car and a huge house? It's through his efforts that many more people are employed in the first place.


I'm sure you will agree though that that isn't right. Apart from Bill Gates, there will always be someone better of then you. So where does it stop? Should I nick someones Ferrari because I can't afford one? I agree with you that it may grate with people on sink estates, but they can get themselves out of the mess. Granted, it must be very difficult for a young lad who is surrounded by crime and idleness to appriciate the value of working but we must try. There is no reason why he(or she) can't learn a trade if they are not academically strong. We have a shortage of tradesmen and some of them are on very good money. Certainly enough to have a comftable and prosperous life.

so you've never met anyone who's able to work but been out of work for over 6 months and 'just can't find a job'? What they really mean is "I'm a <insert job> and I'm not doing anything else". Unfortunately for them, all the employers I've ever spoken to about this agree that they'd rather hire someone who's been 'flipping burgers' to fill in the time than someone who's been sitting on their arse waiting for the right job to come along.

I was prompted to do this today when it was raised on another forum and scored:

Economic Left/Right: +1.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.77

However there aren't any questions about transport - if you think individual freedom of movement is a good thing, are you on the economic right, or a social libertarian?

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

I did the political compass and came out

Economic left/right +0.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian -2.87

Interesting I thought I was right wing.