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Mickey_Finn
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Actually it’s pretty much neck and neck between the two. Texas has a Gini coefficient of 0.469 where California rates 0.471. Texas is nothing like a shining star in that respect.
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estesbob
Guest
The difference, of course, is that are way to many Californians in California!Actually it’s pretty much neck and neck between the two. Texas has a Gini coefficient of 0.469 where California rates 0.471. Texas is nothing like a shining star in that respect.
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Mickey_Finn
Guest
Too many in Texas is what I hear.The difference, of course, is that are way to many Californians in California!
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Portrait
Guest
Dear mikekle,
Cordial greetings and a very good day.
It admits of no doubt that there are those who have come to depend upon Social Security benefits, but they are actually an infinitesimally small in number in reality. Most of those who are long-term unemployed or who have never been able to down a job have severe mental or physical health problems, sometimes a combination of both, which preclude them from being a part of the workforce. In the interests of fairness and justice we must distinguish between those who will not work owing to indolence and those who cannot work owing to genuine ill-health - there is a huge difference which sadly some people are wont to ignore. The sick and vulnerable have no option but to depend upon Social Security entitlements for their daily survival; rents, food, utility bills and mobility needs must be paid for week in and week out. Certainly, friends and family, assuming there are any, will help if they are able, but it is naïve to think that the cost of all these essential needs for all of these people can be met on a regular basis by public charities or individual charitable giving. Thus unless there is continual state support many of our most sick and vulnerable citizens will certainly face homelessness and it is next to certain that their health will rapidly deteriorate, especially where there are severe mental health issues involved. In a civilised society can we allow our sick and vulnerable to suffer such inhumane indignities, depriving them of such very basic needs? By way of response some will no doubt plead that governments cannot afford this long-term care of the sick and vulnerable any longer, but can they afford not to afford it and still remain a civilised society? However, as I said in my OP, those on the extreme right-wing are jolly adept at peddling myths as regards Social Security expenditure, both here and in America. Thus, in Britain, the net cost of Social Security benefits *and *pensions together is only £25 billion of our national income - a rather tiny figure in the grand scheme of things. Social Security for our nations poor and very sick citizens is sustainable over the long term.
Unfortunately, dear friend, the existence of a very small number of bogus Social Security claimants has been allowed to infect the whole narrative around welfare. Much effort is expended, especially by the fanatical right wing press, to find Social Security claimants who fit the stereotype of feckless ‘benefit scroungers’ who are plainly swinging the lead. Thus, for example, the *Daily Mail *or some bias television documentary, will report on an unshaven man wearing a vest, beer can in hand and bragging about having fathered 30 odd children from multiple wives since the age of fifteen. Now the fact that they have to look jolly hard for these colourful and singular benefits claimants actually shows just how uncommon they really are. Thankfully, they do and always have represented a small minority of hardcore bogus benefit claimants, who have disgracefully chosen welfare as a life style choice. However, these rare occurrences are routinely used by the Right to encourage the demonization of all sick and jobless persons and to justify ever more harsh and immoral cuts to the Social Security budget. People have sadly bought into all of the ultra right-wing rhetoric emanating from the sensational tabloid press and biased television programmes, which is why we have witnessed such a hardening of attitudes in recent times. This all contrary to the traditional British sense of fair play, especially for the underdog. What has happened that we stooped to such a low level, targeting the poor and sick who did not even engender the financial crisis in which we now find ourselves?
The present British government under Mr.Cameron and his minister for Social Security, Mr. Iain Duncan Smith, has succeeded in stirring up much hostility towards the the sick and unemployed and being the occasion of much mental anguish, fear and hardship. Never in all my life have I been so terribly ashamed to be a British citizen and I forsee increasing social division and the prevalence of Darwinian survival of the fittest society. As Catholics do we really want this for our children and grandchildren? Without solidarity there can never be a happy and civil society. If, dear friend, we are all indeed our ‘brothers keeper’ then an injury to one is an injury to all - in the words of the old trade unionsist slogan: ‘United we stand, divided we fall’. Saving a few billion pounds to the Social Security budget can come at too high a price.
God bless.
Warmest good wishes,
Portrait
In Christos
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Portrait
Guest
Dear Mickey Finn,
Cordial greetings and a very good day. Thankyou for your reply and I concur with all of your remarks, especially the bolded one.
The British government under Mr. Cameron appears to be waging an ideological war upon the sick and jobless via their punitive and harsh ‘welfare reforms’. The vast majority of the sick and unemployed are proud and aspirational people who would gladly work if only they could. Conservative politicians and the extreme right-wing press continually fuel and manipulate the prejudices of the middle-earners by divisive talk of ‘skivers and strivers’ and an alleged burgeoning benefits culture. How very sad that people have seemingly lost the ability to think for themselves and to critically analyse the truth between rhetoric and lies. People prefer to run with the prevailing uninformed presumption of malingering or that the sick must be overstating the gravity and extent of their illnesses.
It is, dear friend, rather pointless in this debate to speak of hardworking people taking risks in order to justify the supposed unfairness of having a percentage of their taxes channelled towards the Social Security budget. They ask why they should have to subsidise those who have never worked and have been given a ‘free ride’. However, is it reasonable or fair to expect those who have been afflicted with a severe life long physical or mental health problem to earn their living, let alone take risks etc.? For example, what of a man who has suffered from acute Social Anxiety Disorder and who has not responded to cognitive behavioural therapy or medication? Does not the state owe a humane duty of care to such a person, at least in a civilised society? Should they not ensure that the poor chap has shelter, food, warmth, money to pay his essential outgoing expenses and access to on going health care? Of course his family and friends will hopefully help from time to time, assuming they can or even want to. Alas, many mentally ill people are not infrequently estranged from their families and never receive any financial help or moral support from them, usually because they are deemed an embarrassment and are cruelly written off as feckless layabouts who prefer to sponge off others. Thankfully, the severe physically and mentally unwell are provided for by the British Welfare State, well at least for the moment. However, an increasing number of sick people are being wrongly declared fit for work by unsound ‘work capability assessments’, which virtually set up people to fail.
The British government, dear friend, constantly brag about ending the ‘something for nothing’ culture, but harsh Social Security sanctions punish the jobless, sick and poor in ways that are utterly inhumane. For example, entitlements can be stopped for missing one meeting with an advisor at the labour exchange, even if it was genuinely unavoidable. More than a million people here had their vital benefits stopped over the past year. Alarmingly, disgraceful sanctions against the chronically ill and disabled people have risen 580% in a year. It is a system that is spiralling out of control and it the most vulnerable members of society who suffering as a consequence. Some of the reasons for these sanctions are jolly risible: going to a job interview rather than an interview at the labour exchange which it clashes with, not completing an assessment because you suffered a heart attack during it! A government that deems it a success to stop the money someone needs to eat is clearly a government of the grotesque.
God bless and thankyou again for your (name removed by moderator)ut.
Warmest good wishes,
Portrait
In Christos
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Portrait
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Dear Thechef3456,
Cordial greetings and a very warm welcome to the world of CAF. Hope that you will find your time here profitable and spiritually enriching. Thankyou for your (name removed by moderator)ut. Hear, hear, to all of the above.
It is high time that people awakened to the fact that market forces cannot create an economically just and fair society. Some need to stop believing that in order for the economy to be prosperous it is necessary that there should be impoverished families, homeless youngsters and a vast reserve of unemployed workers. We should not accept that ambulance workers, train drivers, cleaners, on whose skills and work we depend, are somehow worth ten times less that some young city trader in the stock exchange, or worth thirty times less than the managing director of a large company.
If a country can be measured by its treatment of its poorest and most vulnerable citizens, then the British government is found to be horrifically lacking in compassion and care. Incontrovertibly, the treatment of people most in need of support and assistance under this present government has been barbaric beyond belief and there appears to be no end in sight to their wicked oppression and persecution of the poor and sick. People trying to make ends meet and take care of their families have been shamefully stripped of their dignity and been forced to scrape and beg for the very basics whilst big businesses and the banks continue to defraud, cheat, lie and receive big fat bonus cheques for their actions. Talk about Tory cronyism! It seems that no political party, including Labour, want to loose the support of the rich and powerful by pandering too much to the poor and marginalized - shame on them. This sort of thing would have been unthinkable to the late Anthony Wedgewood Benn (RIP), who was a true working class hero and convictional politician if ever there was.
As a British citizen, dear friends, I am jolly proud of our Welfare State and National Health Service because it saves our most vulnerable people, including the sick, from want and provides for their healthcare needs. Over here we pay into the system (if we can) so that we do not need to go cap in hand to our relatives, should we ever fall on hard times. Who would ever wish to go back to a time when families had to drain their own often very limited funds or when people were at the mercy of the local parish for relief. Having an extra mouth to feed can be extremely difficult for the families of the working poor, sometimes it is simply impossible. Prior to the introduction of the Social Security safety net there were families that were forced to go through the heart breaking decision of having to turn away one of their own because they were just unable to provide for that person.
Speaking for myself as a Catholic, dear friend, I would not wish to live in a country where the state did not provide for its most needy citizens, be they the chronically sick who cannot work or the unemployed who have fallen on hard times through no deliberate fault of their own. Can you or someone else explain to me how Social Security works in America. What happens to a man suffering mental ill-health and who has never been able to hold down a job on account of this? What if he has no family or friends to help or support him? Where does he live and where does he obtain money for rent, food and medication? Does the government provide him with Social Security to cover these costs indefinitely because he can never work?
God bless and goodbye for now.
Warmest good wishes,
Portrait
In Christos
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styrgwillidar
Guest
Portrait,
You are going cap in hand to your relatives. It is simply money filtered through the government. You need to acknowledge that these things are provided by the labor of others-- your relatives, your neighbors. And not at on amount that is their choice- it as an amount directed by the government and enforced through the law and threat of force through arrest, incarceration or fine, whatever the impact is to their plans and goals for the use of their assets and labor.
Actually, it’s worse in my opinion in the US, because since the debt is far more than this generation will ever be able to repay-- it is actually charity and a burden imposed on those yet unborn who had no voice in determining that burden.
This is what I mean when tasking the government removes the element of gratitude to charity received and acknowledging it does come from one’s neighbors efforts.
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Portrait
Guest
Dear styrwillidar,
Cordial greetings and a very good day. Thankyou for your response.
Here in Britain all working people pay into the system via National Insurance contributions and Income Tax. Thus if the occasion arises when they do find it necessary to claim Social Security then they are only claiming back some of the money that they themselves have paid into the system, sometimes over many years. They are claiming benefits that they, along with others, have worked for and so that is hardly having to servilely go to the government to grovel for some charity. Even those on the very far right over here would not have any objection to people claiming Social Security if they fell upon hard times and had paid *their *dues into the system.
The ‘something for nothing culture’ so often spoken about these days is nothing more than misleading propaganda designed to stir up middle-class prejudice against the chronically sick and unemployed, who are routinely being scapegoated for our present financial crisis. Indeed, this is the motive behind allof the disgraceful rhetoric of ‘strivers and shirkers’, ‘alarm-clock Britain’ and the so called ‘squeezed middle’. Sadly, dear friend, owing to our fallen nature men always look to find someone else to blame for their problems as this helps give them a feeling of moral superiority. It was the bankers, CEO’s and the reckless credit card spending of avaricious *working *people that engendered the financial mess in which we now find ourselves. Moreover, our economic crisis was also created by a housing price bubble - far too much borrowing by greedy home owners and far too much lending by the banks. The fact is that God’s poor and the sick and unemployed are bearing the brunt of policy mistakes by the rich and powerful. This is a monumental social injustice and the people of Britain should be hanging their heads in shame for allowing to happen. Unfortunately, it has happened because of Tory cronyism and a very broken Capitalist system, which always by default oppresses and blames the poor and sick for a nations financial problems.
That a small minority who have never or hardly ever worked are claiming Social Security benefits is something that I would not stop to deny, dear friend. However, these are usually those suffering with acute mental or physical illnesses or some long-term unemployed who have been unable to secure a position, but not through want of trying necessarily. However, these are still people who are made in the image of God and if we have a modicum of humanity we will not deny these poor souls vital Social Security benefits and medical care. These people also have rights and freedoms and should surely be able to live their lives with some degree of dignity, at least in a civilised Western society that boasts of being the seventh richest world economy. We cannot simply abandon these people to the charities for, as I stated in a previous post, they could never meet all the costs of every individual’s on going basic living expenses, that is to say rent, food, utility bills and health care. Let us remember that we are talking here about chronically sick people in mind or body, possibly both, who cannot support themselves and who are therefore extremely vulnerable. Unless we leave them to sink or swim (they would most probably sink) then in a civilised society the state has no option but to provide for them through taxation so as to ensure that their basic needs are *continually *met and not just periodically when they happen to encounter some kind hearted soul. In between they could die of neglect or be subjected to wicked abuse, mental or physical, on the streets. Thanks be to God, this is not the sort of Darwinian world that most decent people wish to live in. Who knows when any of us will suffer some acute illness that precludes us from ever working again? At that time we might be very glad to receive Social Security benefits from the state, especially if our very survival depended upon it.
Con’t/
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Portrait
Guest
Continuation of post 47
We are, dear friend, repeatedly fed the lie here in Britain that spending on Social Security is no longer sustainable in the long term and thus some ‘difficult decisions have to be taken’ to curb an alleged burgeoning benefits culture. We are told that the ‘benefits bill is just too big’. However, to do this the far right propagandists conveniently add together Social Security benefits and Pensions and come up with a figure of £180 billion, which gives some credence to their claim. However, £155 billion of all of those benefits are paid back to the exchequer as taxes. In point of fact the net cost of Social Security benefits and pensions together is only £25 billion, that is 2.5 % of our national income - a very tiny figure in the grand scheme of things. The Social Security spend is not spiralling out of control and there is no bloated benefits culture here Britain, notwithstanding this governments claims to the contrary. However, when a lie is frequently stated there is a good chance that people will believe it. Yes, it is possible for so many people to be duped by manipulated figures and untruths, especially if their worst fears are constantly and seemingly confirmed by sensational and unique cases of benefit abuse in the extreme right-wing tabloid press. The problem is they are sensational and unique and are therefore not representative of the vast majority of bona fide Social Security clients, who are good decent people who have fallen on hard times or who are genuinely long-term chronically sick.
Finally, I am bound to say that I am utterly astounded, dear friend, to read on these boards that tax is regarded as a form of theft, but I assume that bizarre viewpoint must be unique to America since I have never heard it expressed here in Britain. What I cannot fathom is that the people that hold this view seem to accept paying some tax for goods and services, but not taxes for Social Security benefits for the jobless and chronically sick, who are doing nothing and thus getting a ‘free ride from the system’. However, this means that that they put a greater value on goods and services than they do on people made in the image of God. How very disturbing and sad that those who profess the holy religion of Christ could ever embrace such a harsh and un-Christian opinion. Many of those suffering mental or physical ill-health are neither able nor capable and therefore could never hold down a job even they tried and so it is downright unreasonable and callous to expect them to work, take risks or pay their way. In a civilised society there is no option but to provide for these people via a proportion of state taxation. The alternative is to abandon them and hope that they will somehow survive - all very Darwinian sort of stuff. The fact is that we do have responsibilities to others in society and government exists to enforce those responsibilities so as to ensure that our civilised society remains civil. Certainly there is plenty of room for freewill charitable giving but this is really going the extra mile and it should never be a complete replacement of public service. Sorry, dear friend, but I and many others do not wish to live in a society where some rest and enjoy full stomachs and adequate housing, whilst the streets outside of our homes are full of the destitute and mentally ill. We should never begrudge a portion of our taxes being redistributed by central government to the poor and chronically sick in our midst. It is the business of the state in a civilised society to provide for the essential needs of our less fortunate brethren.
This will be my final contribution to this thread, but may I thank everyone for their replies and (name removed by moderator)ut.
God bless and may I wish you and all other contributors a jolly splendid and relaxing weekend. Goodbye.
Warmest good wishes,
Portrait:tiphat:
In Christos
We are, dear friend, repeatedly fed the lie here in Britain that spending on Social Security is no longer sustainable in the long term and thus some ‘difficult decisions have to be taken’ to curb an alleged burgeoning benefits culture. We are told that the ‘benefits bill is just too big’. However, to do this the far right propagandists conveniently add together Social Security benefits and Pensions and come up with a figure of £180 billion, which gives some credence to their claim. However, £155 billion of all of those benefits are paid back to the exchequer as taxes. In point of fact the net cost of Social Security benefits and pensions together is only £25 billion, that is 2.5 % of our national income - a very tiny figure in the grand scheme of things. The Social Security spend is not spiralling out of control and there is no bloated benefits culture here Britain, notwithstanding this governments claims to the contrary. However, when a lie is frequently stated there is a good chance that people will believe it. Yes, it is possible for so many people to be duped by manipulated figures and untruths, especially if their worst fears are constantly and seemingly confirmed by sensational and unique cases of benefit abuse in the extreme right-wing tabloid press. The problem is they are sensational and unique and are therefore not representative of the vast majority of bona fide Social Security clients, who are good decent people who have fallen on hard times or who are genuinely long-term chronically sick.
Finally, I am bound to say that I am utterly astounded, dear friend, to read on these boards that tax is regarded as a form of theft, but I assume that bizarre viewpoint must be unique to America since I have never heard it expressed here in Britain. What I cannot fathom is that the people that hold this view seem to accept paying some tax for goods and services, but not taxes for Social Security benefits for the jobless and chronically sick, who are doing nothing and thus getting a ‘free ride from the system’. However, this means that that they put a greater value on goods and services than they do on people made in the image of God. How very disturbing and sad that those who profess the holy religion of Christ could ever embrace such a harsh and un-Christian opinion. Many of those suffering mental or physical ill-health are neither able nor capable and therefore could never hold down a job even they tried and so it is downright unreasonable and callous to expect them to work, take risks or pay their way. In a civilised society there is no option but to provide for these people via a proportion of state taxation. The alternative is to abandon them and hope that they will somehow survive - all very Darwinian sort of stuff. The fact is that we do have responsibilities to others in society and government exists to enforce those responsibilities so as to ensure that our civilised society remains civil. Certainly there is plenty of room for freewill charitable giving but this is really going the extra mile and it should never be a complete replacement of public service. Sorry, dear friend, but I and many others do not wish to live in a society where some rest and enjoy full stomachs and adequate housing, whilst the streets outside of our homes are full of the destitute and mentally ill. We should never begrudge a portion of our taxes being redistributed by central government to the poor and chronically sick in our midst. It is the business of the state in a civilised society to provide for the essential needs of our less fortunate brethren.
This will be my final contribution to this thread, but may I thank everyone for their replies and (name removed by moderator)ut.
God bless and may I wish you and all other contributors a jolly splendid and relaxing weekend. Goodbye.
Warmest good wishes,
Portrait:tiphat:
In Christos
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