Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5329|London, England
Many of our “leaders” want to make America more like Europe.  When President Obama was in Europe, he praised the “social safety net that exists in almost all of Europe that doesn't exist in the United States."

Vice president Joe Biden called paying higher taxes "patriotic."

Europe does have a bigger “social safety net.”  But the gain comes with pain: Europe’s higher taxes and bigger government lead to slower job growth and higher unemployment. Politicians always claim that the safety-net will be limited to “necessities for the truly needy,” but such government programs always grow.

An article in today's UK Daily Mail illustrates how over time,  welfare states begin to offer monstrous entitlements:

A single mother-of-six is getting more than £80,000 [$125,000] a year from the taxpayer to live in a £2million mansion in an exclusive London suburb.

Essma Marjam, 34, is given almost £7,000 a month in housing benefits to pay the rent on the five-bedroom villa just yards from Sir Paul McCartney's house and Lord's cricket ground.
She also receives an estimated £15,000 a year in other payouts, such as child benefit, to help look after her children, aged from five months to 14.

The four-storey house in Maida Vale has five bedrooms, two bathrooms, a double living room... two large flat-screen televisions ...

Welfare fraud? No -- the government stands by the payments:

Miss Marjam said: 'I moved here at the beginning of the month as I'm entitled to a five-bedroom house.

'I was in a three-bedroom council house but I needed a bigger place once my new baby came along. So the council agreed to pay the £1,600 a week to a private landlord as they didn't have any houses big enough...

A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman said..."Only a very small minority of people receive such high rates of housing benefit."

And here I thought my free golf cart from the US government was a grotesque scam. Serious freeloaders should move to England.
http://stossel.blogs.foxbusiness.com/20 … latestnews

Exception rather than the rule, right?
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
Jenspm
penis
+1,716|6703|St. Andrews / Oslo

There are indeed massive holes in these systems.

Nothing anyone can do though, besides changing the laws. Which takes time because of, umm, beaurocracy.


What's sad, however, is the fact that she sees it as a right to own this, when quite obviously she's dived through some sort of loophole. I can't see how she can live there with a clean conscience .
https://static.bf2s.com/files/user/26774/flickricon.png https://twitter.com/phoenix/favicon.ico
ATG
Banned
+5,233|6500|Global Command
Typical.
loubot
O' HAL naw!
+470|6549|Columbus, OH
women on welfare and having more kids in order to stay on welfare have no conscience. the same problem in the U.S. just not as outrageous as over there yet.

Last edited by loubot (2010-02-15 15:43:16)

Vilham
Say wat!?
+580|6737|UK

ATG wrote:

Typical.
Yeah typical. All 16 of them in the UK.
Turquoise
O Canada
+1,596|6376|North Carolina
Reforms are necessary in nearly every system.  This is just a very blatant need of one in the British system.

Last edited by Turquoise (2010-02-15 16:31:46)

Monkey Spanker
Show it to the nice monkey.
+284|6222|England
Daily Mail, lol just fuckin lol. that piece of shit rag I would'nt wipe my arse with it tbh, full of half truths & sabre rattling.
Quote of the year so far "Fifa 11 on the other hand... shiny things for mongos "-mtb0minime
https://bf3s.com/sigs/f30415b2d1cff840176cce816dc76d89a7929bb0.png
DUnlimited
got any popo lolo intersting?
+1,160|6434|cuntshitlake

Like oh my god every single bum in europe gets a free 5 bedroom house out of honest republican taxpayer's money. Totally.
main battle tank karthus medikopter 117 megamegapowershot gg
Hurricane2k9
Pendulous Sweaty Balls
+1,538|5672|College Park, MD
Fuck college, I'm moving to England
https://static.bf2s.com/files/user/36793/marylandsig.jpg
jmsprovan
Member
+18|5783|Alba
With Daily Mail stories you have to take it with a pinch of salt.

Often they will print/post a story riddled with inaccuracies to grab the attention of their Middle England readership, then when the story has been buried after about a week, will then go back and correct all the inaccuracies and essentially finish the article properly. But by then the damage has been done and their readership will have gotten the desired effect about the blacks/immigrants/gypsies/scots/irish/welsh/northern-english/muslims/americans ect ect that the editor has picked to ridicule that week.


There is probably a lot more than meets the eye to this story, which the mail has "chosen" to ignore for the reasons above.

Last edited by jmsprovan (2010-02-15 18:08:04)

ATG
Banned
+5,233|6500|Global Command
Like I fucking said. typical.
LividBovine
The Year of the Cow!
+175|6350|MN

jmsprovan wrote:

With Daily Mail stories you have to take it with a pinch of salt.

Often they will print/post a story riddled with inaccuracies to grab the attention of their Middle England readership, then when the story has been buried after about a week, will then go back and correct all the inaccuracies and essentially finish the article properly. But by then the damage has been done and their readership will have gotten the desired effect about the blacks/immigrants/gypsies/scots/irish/welsh/northern-english/muslims/americans ect ect that the editor has picked to ridicule that week.


There is probably a lot more than meets the eye to this story, which the mail has "chosen" to ignore for the reasons above.
So what are the innaccuracies?
"The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation" - Barack Obama (a freshman senator from Illinios)
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6077|eXtreme to the maX
Not unusual for the UK TBH, this is the bullshit side of socialism.
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
ruisleipa
Member
+149|6193|teh FIN-land
LOL all y'all don't know wtf you're talking about. I wouldn't trust the Daily Mail to look out the window and tell me the weather- It's a piece of shit newspaper that no-one with half a brain reads or trusts. Why bother trying to whip up some moral outrage from a source like that? You might as well quote the National Enquirer. Not surprising that the blog you quoted was a fox blog, and also not surprising the blogger trusted the DM - they're all part of the same bullshit-spawning machine. smuder201 and jmsprovan are absolutley right.

don't waste your time getting upset about this story published on some shite fox blog using a shite newspaper as its source. It'd be funny if it wasn't so pathetic.

Dilbert - not unusual for the UK??? prove it.

Last edited by ruisleipa (2010-02-16 00:15:08)

Braddock
Agitator
+916|6261|Éire
Firstly, the Daily Mail is literally not worth the paper it's written on. We criticize a lot of news sources in this forum but the Mail is definitely one of the worst, so as others have said, take the article with a large pinch of salt.

That being said, council housing is something that exists in many Socialist countries and is a concept that has never sat well with me personally. I applaud and accept the concept of jobseekers' allowance and disability allowance but the idea that the council owes you a place to live, and indeed that irresponsible family planning can fast-track this process, is bang out of order. If you can't afford to put a roof over your own head then the last thing you should be doing is having children. In Ireland council housing is generally not of the highest quality and not something one would aspire to in terms of lifestyle. You do get scroungers that have children just to qualify for council housing but they're the European equivalent of white trash.

I would imagine that the cases cited here are extreme examples of recipients identifying and exploiting loopholes in some way.
LividBovine
The Year of the Cow!
+175|6350|MN

ruisleipa wrote:

Useless dribble.

Dilbert - not unusual for the UK??? prove it.
While the frequency of this type of event is probably very low, the fact that it is possible is more the point innit.  At least the point I am taking from this is it is more common to have waste, fraud, and abuse in larger social programs.

The major problem with most subsidy programs is that people learn to expect a certain level of living from that program and eventually lose a lot of self motivation to provide for themselves.  As has been said here before, welfare should be uncomfortable enough for people to want to get off it.  This is a great example of that not being the case.
"The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation" - Barack Obama (a freshman senator from Illinios)
Braddock
Agitator
+916|6261|Éire

LividBovine wrote:

ruisleipa wrote:

Useless dribble.

Dilbert - not unusual for the UK??? prove it.
While the frequency of this type of event is probably very low, the fact that it is possible is more the point innit.  At least the point I am taking from this is it is more common to have waste, fraud, and abuse in larger social programs.

The major problem with most subsidy programs is that people learn to expect a certain level of living from that program and eventually lose a lot of self motivation to provide for themselves.  As has been said here before, welfare should be uncomfortable enough for people to want to get off it.  This is a great example of that not being the case.
The same could be said of unfettered Capitalism though... people abuse the system and exploit it until it all comes tumbling down. Moderation is the key, social programs should bolster society, not act as the foundation itself. A healthy society needs the right mix of competition, ambition and social cohesion.
LividBovine
The Year of the Cow!
+175|6350|MN

Braddock wrote:

LividBovine wrote:

ruisleipa wrote:

Useless dribble.

Dilbert - not unusual for the UK??? prove it.
While the frequency of this type of event is probably very low, the fact that it is possible is more the point innit.  At least the point I am taking from this is it is more common to have waste, fraud, and abuse in larger social programs.

The major problem with most subsidy programs is that people learn to expect a certain level of living from that program and eventually lose a lot of self motivation to provide for themselves.  As has been said here before, welfare should be uncomfortable enough for people to want to get off it.  This is a great example of that not being the case.
The same could be said of unfettered Capitalism though... people abuse the system and exploit it until it all comes tumbling down. Moderation is the key, social programs should bolster society, not act as the foundation itself. A healthy society needs the right mix of competition, ambition and social cohesion.
I agree on those basic principles.  I think we may differ in the level of the social cohesion though.  Also in the US I would like to see most welfare/social programs being implemented, or not, on the state level instead of national.
"The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation" - Barack Obama (a freshman senator from Illinios)
Braddock
Agitator
+916|6261|Éire

LividBovine wrote:

Braddock wrote:

LividBovine wrote:


While the frequency of this type of event is probably very low, the fact that it is possible is more the point innit.  At least the point I am taking from this is it is more common to have waste, fraud, and abuse in larger social programs.

The major problem with most subsidy programs is that people learn to expect a certain level of living from that program and eventually lose a lot of self motivation to provide for themselves.  As has been said here before, welfare should be uncomfortable enough for people to want to get off it.  This is a great example of that not being the case.
The same could be said of unfettered Capitalism though... people abuse the system and exploit it until it all comes tumbling down. Moderation is the key, social programs should bolster society, not act as the foundation itself. A healthy society needs the right mix of competition, ambition and social cohesion.
I agree on those basic principles.  I think we may differ in the level of the social cohesion though.  Also in the US I would like to see most welfare/social programs being implemented, or not, on the state level instead of national.
They would probably work better controlled at a State level within a more general national framework. One of the major problems with implementing social change on a huge scale is that you're effectively trying to apply a broad set of rules and principles to a variety of diverse socio-economic areas, each with their own foibles... like trying to paint a postage stamp with a paint roller. The devil is in the detail as they say.
PureFodder
Member
+225|6256

JohnG@lt wrote:

Exception rather than the rule, right?
Unless you can come up with several thousand similar examples, then yes, this would be the exception rather than the rule.

The fact that this is so wildly unusual that it made it into a terrible excuse for a newspaper is good evidence that this is a very unusual event. Generally speaking, in the UK, 'person lives in council house' doesn't make the paper.
LividBovine
The Year of the Cow!
+175|6350|MN

Braddock wrote:

LividBovine wrote:

I agree on those basic principles.  I think we may differ in the level of the social cohesion though.  Also in the US I would like to see most welfare/social programs being implemented, or not, on the state level instead of national.
They would probably work better controlled at a State level within a more general national framework. One of the major problems with implementing social change on a huge scale is that you're effectively trying to apply a broad set of rules and principles to a variety of diverse socio-economic areas, each with their own foibles... like trying to paint a postage stamp with a paint roller. The devil is in the detail as they say.
Now if I could convince about 150 million Americans of this...
"The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation" - Barack Obama (a freshman senator from Illinios)
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6077|eXtreme to the maX

ruisleipa wrote:

Dilbert - not unusual for the UK??? prove it.
Its not typical but not unusual, this is at the extreme end of the scale but does happen.

There are worse example of polygamous foreigners turning up and getting free housing for multiple wives and kids, although polygamy is illegal in the UK.

Not so long ago it was not uncommon for 16yr olds to get pregnant just to get a free flat.
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
13rin
Member
+977|6450
Miss Marjam said: 'I moved here at the beginning of the month as I'm entitled to a five-bedroom house.

'I was in a three-bedroom council house but I needed a bigger place once my new baby came along. So the council agreed to pay the £1,600 a week to a private landlord as they didn't have any houses big enough...
I'm entitled to a five-bedroom house

I'm entitled to.

entitled.

.
I stood in line for four hours. They better give me a Wal-Mart gift card, or something.  - Rodney Booker, Job Fair attendee.
ghettoperson
Member
+1,943|6620

LividBovine wrote:

jmsprovan wrote:

With Daily Mail stories you have to take it with a pinch of salt.

Often they will print/post a story riddled with inaccuracies to grab the attention of their Middle England readership, then when the story has been buried after about a week, will then go back and correct all the inaccuracies and essentially finish the article properly. But by then the damage has been done and their readership will have gotten the desired effect about the blacks/immigrants/gypsies/scots/irish/welsh/northern-english/muslims/americans ect ect that the editor has picked to ridicule that week.


There is probably a lot more than meets the eye to this story, which the mail has "chosen" to ignore for the reasons above.
So what are the innaccuracies?
How the hell should we know? The Daily Mail has been known to print outright lies on a regular basis, without someone else covering the story it's hard to know what's right and wrong.
Flecco
iPod is broken.
+1,048|6636|NT, like Mick Dundee

Welfare quarantine.


Lets do it.

Spoiler (highlight to read):
Within reason, some of the measures in the NT have totally fucked over abos in small communities outside of regional centres because they can't get taxis or buses... it's a bit much for a 65 year old to walk 5km in 38 deg C heat just to buy groceries/check mail. The community in question is Binjari if any Aussies are curious.

Last edited by Flecco (2010-02-16 04:47:44)

Whoa... Can't believe these forums are still kicking.

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