Is The Public Expecting Too Much Financially From The State In Benefits And Services?

[dave50]

Is the level of spending on everything from welfare and public services unsustainable? It seems everyone now expects the state to cough up whenever any kind of misfortune comes knocking their their door. 

[davebro3]

Oh dear - what a cop out! Everyone comes with some sort of personal agenda on a subject like this...

[ToraToraTora]

09:30 I think it is, I'm willing to bet that you are either getting a state pension or will do.

 

[Untitled]

and why does that matter to you? 

[Untitled]

i don't really see why i should be expected to divulge personal information about myself dave. i have not asked anybody else to do that. 

[ToraToraTora]

because I don't think you are being objective. You know my position, I will get a full state pension and according to you I should not claim it. I think it's only fair to ask you to declare your position.

[Untitled]

why? i didn't ask you to declare your situation. 

[ToraToraTora]

No you didn't but I know you to be a fair and reasonable person even though we have many areas of disagreement.

[naomi24]

I think untitled has a very long time to go and a lot to experience before he reaches state pension age.  He has very definite ideas about how everyone else should behave and think but what happens to him on a personal level between now and then remains to be seen.

[ToraToraTora]

untitled, here is how I read it.....correct me please....

You have worked all your life too and are probably not far off a millionaire yourself but you don't count that because although on paper the numbers exceed £1m you don't feel like a rich person (*1). You will be getting a a state pension or possibly already are. That augments your pension that you got from working in a worthwhile but not especially highly paid job.

*1 that's literally millions, you only need to own a house in London to be in that club.

[Untitled]

i have a private pension to which i contribute and i also make voluntary NI contributions. i don't think i yet have the ten minimum years for state pension but i will by the time i am 70, and probably more than that. if i am wealthy enough to not require a state pension by then (and if the state pension still exists) then i will defer it, just as i do not currently claim benefits for which i am eligible but do not need. 

[ToraToraTora]

.....have the Vatican started the process of canonization?

 

[vulcan42]

TTT, why are you like that? You complain about  somebody not giving you an answer and when they eventually acquiese you resort to sarcasm.

[Untitled]

i'm far too wonderful to accept it if they did toratoratora ;) 

[ToraToraTora]

10:09 it was meant to be TIC response, sometimes the written word comes across differently to how it would verbally. I meant no slight, I think untitled knows me well enough to know that I intended no offence.

[ToraToraTora]

10:19....see!

[Untitled]

don't worry i got it lol

[ToraToraTora]

10:24 was meant to be in response to 10:19

[New Judge]

“…but if somebody is a millionaire then they ought to consider it themselves.”

First of all, I imagine many millionaires do decide not to take it (or more probably, the sum is so insignificant to them, it doesn’t cross their mind). I can’t imagine, for example, Paul McCartney or Alan Sugar doing so.

But more importantly, I think you need to consider your use of the term “millionaire”. Somebody who has assets worth a million pounds is not necessarily wealthy. This is particularly so where property is concerned. Many pensioners live in valuable houses. When they bought them they may have struggled to do so. I am in that position; the house that Mrs NJ and I own has, probably, a value of around 50 times the sum we paid for it. When we bought it we were stretched and we both did two jobs at times to service the loan (when mortgage rates spent more than ten years without falling below 10% and hit 17% at times).

What you re suggesting is that people in our position (many of whom, like us, have spent many years and many £thousands modifying and improving our homes to meet our needs) should forfeit our State Pensions, sell our houses, buy a  shoebox and live off the profit.

That is one of the most fatuous suggestions I have seen for a long time. Who do you suggest will buy these £1m+ properties (3.5m of them, according to you) which you suggest pensioners should sell to enable the government to meet its disability and sickness payments?

You seem to be making the common mistake of conflating the State Pension with  benefits which are designed to help in the event of the claimant’s misfortune (illness, unemployment, disability, etc.). Those payments are made when bad luck strikes and not in any other eventuality. The only “misfortune” required to become eligible for a State Pension is to reach a certain age. It is a scheme designed to provide cash for people who are beyond what is considered to be “working age” and who can no longer earn money from their labours.

It is scarcely my fault that our property has increased in value so much and in any case that increase is of no use to me as I have no desire to sell. It is also not my fault that successive governments have overseen the expansion of “disability” benefits to balloon to encompass conditions which the people who you suggest should sell their homes would not have dreamt of claiming made them unable to work.

So it is unlikely that, when they hear of such  a suggestion, they will “shut their traps”.

[Untitled]

a person in a £1 million pound house should not have their desire to live in such a house subsidised by the taxpayer. sorry but it's just a stupid way to spend public money and unlike these fringe cases of benefit fraud you hear about in newspapers it is extremely common. such people do not require state support because they control assets which are extremely valuable. if they do not wish to move out of their expensive house then why should that be anyone else's problem?

i believe in the state pension. i don't want people who reach retirement age to end up in poverty. but i do not believe there is any justification for such a large number of people who are objectively well off enough to look after themselves to draw it in such gargantuan amounts. the cost of pensions are so high that they are crippling this country... yet there are millions of people who are quite happy for disability benefits to be cut or the education budget to be reduced in order that they can receive state funding for a luxury wine subscription or a third holiday abroad. it's not illegal but is an extremely selfish misuse of the system.

[ToraToraTora]

...well I was going to put mine towards fuel for my private jet.