Work hard lads

[Gulliver]

Chicken is one of the cheapest meats you can buy, and all sorts of meals created from it. When i was a child we only saw chicken at xmas, now a lot of the younger generation will only eat the breast of the chicken, its a sad world KT

Correction Keith,the only part of the Chicken the kids eat these days is called the Nugget !

[Louis the Amigo]

Hi shipmate , Child poverty is back in the U.K{ sorry }but its not me talking but charitys ,with hands on knowlege of what is happening today !!! I know many of us grew up up with very little, and had a hard time but we were made of tough stuff back then and hardship was for many a way of life, we on this great forum are the last of our kind The make do and mend group ?or the one hand for the ship and one for yourself.

[Glenn Baker]

In reply , to those that think that people on the Dole are Bludgers, Would you like to go back to the days of the long March, and also when there was no Govt money or Dole office.

Many people procrastinate about unemployment , Join the ranks and see what it is like , if you can create One million Jobs the problem would be solved, but in the main people who have lost their Jobs through Govt Cutbacks do not deserve to be branded in any way.

I can remember some bosses actually threatening a worker many years ago and said there are 10 people waiting to come in the door, this is when wages were a pittance.

The best thing that could happen is a big Import tax on foreign Items which would re-incourage manufacturers to start up again and employ people.

Many people who have become unemployed in recent times would be horrified at the attitude of those more fortunate.
Umemployment Benefits have another invisible reason for being in Place and that is to limit crime such as stealing, shoplifting etc, if there was no safety gap such as this you would be right back to the chimmny sweep days , do you want that? in true figure unemployment figures are only a fraction of the total population, and as many were former tax payers who lost their job they have a right to assistance. Even when you do your shopping you are paying tax, even when the unemployed do their shopping they are also paying V.A.T so the Govt get most of it back on a fortnightly basis. all the best Glenn

[Les Woodard]

I can understand where Kong is coming from because yes we have welfare cheats here as well so you do not have the monopoly on them. Women get the single parents payments and the husband leaves and goes on the dole so that he is not up for maintenance payments. Guess what happens? He then moves back in with her but uses someone elses address so that they then get her payments and the dole for his self and we are supposed to feel sorry for them. If the authority's are informed about this they are not interested unless a big stink is done over it because it is to hard for them to get of their back sides and go and invistigate the matter. Yes the theory of welfare is so good and it works real well if used as it should be. In practice what has happened is that there are so many cheats in the system that it is at breaking point and when the authorities do finally do something it is the honest ones in the system that get the grief and the cheats know all the loop holes to escape detection. Maybe it is because no one wants to be instrumental in informing on someone that they think are cheating the system in case they end up targeting a fair dinkum case and end up with egg on their face. That is the major problem it is the one person who is in dire need of welfare that the mutiltude of cheats are hiding behind along with complancy of governements to take action. We blame them for no action and they blame us for not informing them and so the problem goes on.

I do not think my memory is that bad that I recall we used to pay the school about five bob a week in the fifty's for a three course meal at school at midday. Might have been two course now I think about it more. That was at a normal school not a private one. Was surprised Brian that the women you help can not even cook a decent meal now that is bloody sad and her own bloody fault as it is not rocket science to pour hot water over porridge flakes is it. Like yourself we are frugal in our life style from choice and habit. Tonight we have a banquet of heated up pie and steamed veg (peas, corn, carrot and mashed spud). Cost about six quid for two if that.

[Glenn Baker]

As far as Fraud on Govt payments , in Australia you would be very hard pressed uncover much of it simply because the Govt has made the detailing so hard now that people would be unable to carry out fraud for longer that three weeks which is the time the Master computor in Canberra would uncover any such finds.

As far as Adresses and housing are concerned all the different Departments such as the Housing ministry , local councils on rates Electricity etc they are all working in with each other with the Commonwealth unemployment departments.
Even an address with more than one person under a different name are investigated by the Centrelink agencies.
If you at all think Fraud is being committed you can write to your Member of Parliament of your specific area and have it investigated properly.
It saves accusing people without 100% proof.

[j.sabourn]

Even during the war years you had the element there from the highest to the lowest who took advantage of any situation to turn to their own gain. We used to call them spivs or black marketeers. These same people and their protogees have multiplied over the years and they consider it fair game to cheat what they say is government money. However it is not government money, it belongs to the people who were probably cheated in the first case by unfair tax systems. I know it is a sore point but I myself see what others call a police state, a terrible thing to live under, personally if I had the choice I would just as well live under such as see the violent crime which we see dailly on our streets nowadays. With a police state at least comes harsher penalties to clear the streets of the rabble, law abiding citiizens should have no fear of such. Its not so long back where looters were shot at the site, I dont think the western worlds sensibilities nowadays would accept this, and the useless idiots in a so called freely elected society would be thinking of their election chances if such happened. All in all I would say personally our Laws as such are too weak and ineffective. Bring back hard labour in the prisons as a sentence for starters, and I for one believe in capital punishment. Also a life sentence is just that for life, and not 15 or 20 years depending on some bleeding hearts feelings. Somewhere along the line the Law has to become an effective deterrent which at the moment it is not. Cheers John Sabourn.

[happy daze john in oz]

Brian,your post 60#.A woman has moved into your street with 5 kids,right away you have stereotyped her as being a benefit scrounger.How do you know her circumstances,have you seen her weekly income and where it is coming from? To presume anything in life is a very dangerous road to go down,always get the facts is what I was always taught be fore passing comment.I certainly dont know anybodys income or circumstance's in my road and in fact it's not my business.
Regards.
Jim.B.

Jim, I cannot comment on the situation in UK, but here regularly on the current affair Tv programs they will run a segment about some lady with a sad story usualy with five or six kids BUT NO HUSBAND to be seen or heard of. We had a system here a couple of years ago where you could get a $6000 bonus for having a kid. There are a number who will have kids, often with more than one partner and live without him just to live on benifits, pays better than working for some.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi All.
There but for the grace of God go I. I've never been religious but the saying is a good one.
Just before I retired for the first time I knew a truck driver, about 45 he like me; had never in his life been unemployed, one day in a conversation he was slinging off about the dole bludgers, I agreed that some people just didn't want to work, but that that wasn't the majority, he said there's plenty of work out there, no need for anyone to be on the dole. I met this bloke in a RSL about twelve months later, very sad looking. He said, not long after I had left he had got sack as work was slow, no sweat he thought, soon get something, a month later still no work, main reason he was at 45 too old, then after three months he more or less gave up looking, after six months and struggling with a mortgage and watching the bills eat into his savings, he told me that he had contemplated suicide, it was no joke he said. It was the thought that people were looking at him and he though they were talking about him being a bludger, he said he'd had to adjust to the fact that his wife was working and he was at home.
If that had been today he could have got a job with Gina Rinheart she would have tossed him $2 a day just like an African.
Cheers Des

[happy daze john in oz]

As far as Fraud on Govt payments , in Australia you would be very hard pressed uncover much of it simply because the Govt has made the detailing so hard now that people would be unable to carry out fraud for longer that three weeks which is the time the Master computor in Canberra would uncover any such finds.

As far as Adresses and housing are concerned all the different Departments such as the Housing ministry , local councils on rates Electricity etc they are all working in with each other with the Commonwealth unemployment departments.
Even an address with more than one person under a different name are investigated by the Centrelink agencies.
If you at all think Fraud is being committed you can write to your Member of Parliament of your specific area and have it investigated properly.
It saves accusing people without 100% proof.

I can agree with you to a point but the number of staff at the Missinglink has been cut back so far that they are finding it hard to keep up. Yes the big brother computers in Canbera do monitor all citizens but there are still many getting away with it.

[happy daze john in oz]

In reply , to those that think that people on the Dole are Bludgers, Would you like to go back to the days of the long March, and also when there was no Govt money or Dole office.

Many people procrastinate about unemployment , Join the ranks and see what it is like , if you can create One million Jobs the problem would be solved, but in the main people who have lost their Jobs through Govt Cutbacks do not deserve to be branded in any way.

Many people who have become unemployed in recent times would be horrified at the attitude of those more fortunate.
Umemployment Benefits have another invisible reason for being in Place and that is to limit crime such as stealing, shoplifting etc, if there was no safety gap such as this you would be right back to the chimmny sweep days , do you want that? in true figure unemployment figures are only a fraction of the total population, and as many were former tax payers who lost their job they have a right to assistance. Even when you do your shopping you are paying tax, even when the unemployed do their shopping they are also paying V.A.T so the Govt get most of it back on a fortnightly basis. all the best Glenn

One point about employment and the demand for jobs. A postion will only exist as long as there is a demand for the service or or goods in that area exits. Demand goes, so does the job. This is something many forget, gov in particulr when they say go and find a job, what job? But Roger has it right when he says the days of large number of employees is over, the modern factory is computerised with as little as 10% of waht was the work force.