Should be fun if the prediction of a triple dip comes true.

a line has to be drawn somewhere if you want the 'rich' to start paying more/losing more.
good lord. is cancer now a death sentence that makes it impossible to work? my ex boss had it all wrong, working almost to the end, when she should have been at home/hospital simply waiting to die.
absolutely it's fair.
you do know that the taxes you pay don't sit in your own special account somewhere, waiting for you when you're a bit strapped. pensions have to be paid, wars have to be funded, bins need emptying, the terminally bone idle need cigarettes, etc etc. there'll be a bit set aside for you. but not much.
they're being as fair as previous governments. i mean the 10p tax removal that screwed the very poorest in society, shameful. and shame on labour voters who are now moaning about similar coalition policies.

There's a big difference between being long term unemployed and being the boss in a job. I've had two uncles gone through cancer and it's the one with the most money who has been able to move forward with his life since treatment.


What made these people terminally bone idle?

Are some people just born lazy?

Good luck trying to get a job when you tell them you have any serious illness.

You've completely missed the point. Under the system implemented yesterday the richer pay less, the poorer pay moore.

In most cases yes. If I was diagnosed with cancer, getting a job would be furthest from my mind, with beating the disgusting illness top priority.

Again, missed the point. I've worked hard all my life. I worked 3 jobs, paying my fair share of tax yet when it comes to being fair, you think the threshold of 7.5k is ok??? My husband is more than happy to provide for me, but at what expense? We lose our home?????

Not that same at all and you know it. Screwing the poorest in society is making them pay tax because they have a spare bedroom, forcing someone with terminal cancer (if they have more than 6 months to live) to seek work or lose ESA, forcing someone on JSA to work programmes for tax evading companies for a paltry £71 a week.

Maybe I've misread your quote but my question is why is either of those scenarios getting child benefit?

I'm sure people will disagree but to me anyone be it combined or single earning over 40k shouldn't be getting tax credits/ child benefit. I also believe child benefit should be payed for a maximum of 2 children.

I didn't say they should be. I said the system implemented yesterday wasn't fair. Why should a combined household income of two parents earning 98k between them get child benefit, yet only one parent working earning 49k not get it?? I'm with you, anyone needing child benefit earning 50k is doing something wrong. Its the implementation thats not fair.

Because for a considerable length of time it was cheaper to pay the benefit universally than means test it,
the only reason the have come up with the current cludge is cost.

Compare and contrast, Obama has resisted full- on austerity and has now had 13 consecutive quarters of growth.
Cameron, on the other hand, is pursuing his mission to dismantle as much of the welfare state as he can.

Thanks for the reminder of what a twerp you made of yourself on that outing, with your chronic lack of comprehension skills.

Cameron wants to carry on Thatcher's legacy I think as he does worship as if she is a God. Maybe Cameron should take a leaf out of Obama's book and see how he did it with the US economy.

she wasn't the boss, just a manager/supervisor.

their parents.

no-one is born lazy, they just have it thrust upon them. but at some point you have to take responsibility for yourself.

how are the richer paying anything, more or less. people simply aren't getting as much as they did before.
. then you wouldn't get a job. others would, and indeed do.
you haven't paid your 'fair share', you've paid your taxes, as required by the government. 7.5k for what?
aaah, it suddenly becomes clear. there seems to be a difference in your eyes between the definition of screwing the poor dependent on political party. why is that i wonder. the 10p tax fiasco, deliberately and vindictively left at least 1m of the poorest in society worse off. that figure was far higher initially, until someone pointed it out. which actually worked out ok for me as i got a nice little 'cheque' even though i wasn't affected in the first place. giving people less housing benefit isn't taxing them, it's giving them less free cash. so, we shouldn't make people do a couple of weeks work every now and then for £71, we should let them do bugger all for their £71 which would give them an infinite hourly rate? and if you've over 6 months to live, why not work. why sit and wallow?

yes, i failed to comprehend how someone could come up with such a preposterous idea. then i realised it went along side paying people not to commit crime.

I am not entitled to Contributory ESA if my husband earns over £7.5k pa. That rules out 99.99% of people whose spouses do actually work, of claiming contributory ESA. (Contributory means I have enough NI/Income Tax contributions to qualify for the benefit in the first place but it is chalked off by the £7.5k pa household income rule)

How is that fair??????

Because I value spending my last months with my family over going to work and earning money for some rich, overpaid CEO who probably couldn't give a to$$ if I had cancer or not and would be replacing me a week after I died. Thats why.

You failed – repeatedly – to comprehend that it was not my idea, even though I had made it patently clear who had mentioned it, and that it was not suggested (by that original person or, later, by myself) as anything more than an example.

Then you twisted another comment – and have persisted in pretending that what you claim was said was said, when it never was.

You're either very stupid, a troll with nothing positive to add to any discussion or a combination of the two.

It will be fascinating to see how the French economy performs under Hollande in the next two years. It should provide a better comparison of the success or failure of the coalition's economic policies relative to a Labour style government.

That may be so but there is another reason why the benefit was universal. It is to do with, ironically enough, being "all in it together". If you pay into the welfare state via taxes and NI and you also benefit from it (in this case via child benefit) then you have a stake in the system. If it is all one way traffic in that some people only ever pay in and are never eligible for any form of pay out, then sooner or later the system breaks down as those people begrudge paying anything in at all and start to support parties from the right to who promise them just that. We are well down that road and it is quite deliberate policy from the right which is very divisive.

Why? You are assuming a UK Labour government would be a clone of the Hollande administration which it would not be and furthermore there are so many differences between France and the UK economically already you would not be comparing like with like.

It's far simpler IMO. Which is the better approach? The more pro-growth style of Obama or Austerity? It seems so far the yanks are winning that particular debate.

No one will win that debate until they reach equilibrium, a state of steady growth with the budget deficit under control. Both the UK and the US are a very long way off that. Obama may be in the lead now but he's nowhere near the winning post.

The French economy isnt the same as the UK's but it is more similar to the UK than is the US. And Hollande's policies are much closer to Labour than are Obama's. But even allowing for the differences, if the French economy significantly outperforms the UK's in the next 2 years, Labour will inevitably cite that at the next election as a vindication of their views on how the economy should have been managed. And ditto for the Tories if the French economy does worse. The state of the French economy will be a big deal at the next election.

Has anyone else stumbled across this cheery little number?

[url=http://www.moneyweek.com/endofbritainMoneyweek - The End of Britain[/url

It's a long piece, very alarmist in nature, and clearly the main aim is to flog copies of their 'Wealth Preservation Report'.

But leaving that aside, I'm wondering what people's views are of the [url=http://www.moneyweek.com/news-and-charts/economics/uk/the-end-of-britain-sourcesfacts and figures[/url within the article, and the outlook for our glorious nation? Moneyweek tend to be pretty good and the key facts seem valid enough. The Welfare State is not only a massive burden, but has morphed into a monster and in its present form appears to be completely unsustainable without radical changes to not only our economy but the expectations of our society.

Of course, assuming the article's projections are correct, it also ignores any intervention measures or other action that may help ease the damage. Presumably some of these are touched upon on an individual and national level in their much-vaunted 'Report'.

To save a little time, skip the exhausting promotional crap and start from the section entitled, "The downward slide has begun".

I'm no economic expert and would be interested in the views of my more learned peers on these fine boards.

Very good post.

The divide-and-rule stuff is really quite heartbreaking – at least in terms of how effective it is being at present. You only need to look at the survey that was released last week that showed the difference between what many people [ibelieve[/i is the situation on benefits being paid and the reality to see how effective it has been.

But then again, the right has the likes of Murdoch and the [iMail[/i group behind it. And a generally dumbed-down public discourse doesn't help.

My son and his family get them, no Nissan, no iPads just a struggle to make it last.