Selfish Ungrateful People

[dakyras]

During sixth form and college I maintained 2 part time jobs over 3 years, during this is saw many more job opportunities for me. My parents haven't given me any form of money since the age of 16, im now 20 and living independently, studying animation production at Bournemouth.

[worm]

How is this making the rich richer? Please tell me? These people are unemployed anyway are they not? Having them do a few hours charity work and other helpful tasks around the community is no bad thing is it?

[bunique]

This paragraph:

Being brought up in a very neglected town, one of the poorest areas in the UK, Hastings, i'm more than aware of the majority that collect JSA. I can assure you, the majority of people that collect JSA are not underprivileged, they are simply slobs, drunks and drug addicts. They have no intention whatsoever of contributing to society, as they can sit around, have babies, and collect money for free out of the wages of people that do wish to contribute to society.

[saratink]

EMA is a joke, young people should use their legs to get to school, being entirely appreciative of how privileged they are to have access to the very successful education system the UK offers, as I said in third word countries children would walk miles to attend education, but cant afford pencils. If young people are so intent on not using their legs, get a job to cover the bus to college.

The ignorance of some people is actually sickening, you seriously have to inform yourselves of contemporary society. Im well aware that the rich manipulate and take advantage of the poor, but if the poor are going to sit around and allow themselves to be taken advantage of, its totally unacceptable.

Edited January 9, 2011 by saratink

[rachbon]

Of course if work is available they should be employed to do that, but there isn't is there?

[grumpyhack]

I am getting a bit concerned at the lack of liberalism (with a small L) on this thread. Knocking people for their choice of courses, dismissing whole groups of people as lay abouts and drug addicts. Unemployment is miserable and degrading. A job can help define a person and I don't think there are many in this country who choose to be unemployed.

The problem is that if you become unemployed it's very tempting to seek solace in drink/drugs and the company of others who are out of work. That can make it hard to break the cycle and positively seek employment - especially when you send off job applications and don't even get an acknowledgement let alone an interview.

[Pogues Mcgogues]

911 is a joke!

[llcoolphil]

Having them do a few hours charity work and other helpful tasks around the community is no bad thing is it?

[ampersand]

911 is a joke!

[Harsim]

Your ignorance is sickening. Not everyone lives in a town where there is even a college/school. EMA is a brilliant idea, especially to help young people who live in a town like i do, get to college.

It would take me around 3-4 hours of brisk walking on mountain roads without a footpath to get to college. Yeah, i can really see that happening.

Edited January 9, 2011 by Harsim

[saratink]

EMA is used for educational use by a minority of the population, the rest use it to fund their social activities at the weekend. This is something i can assure, as i went through the educational system during EMA, and knew countless that claimed it.

If you live far from collages, a system should be implimented to aid young people to be able to attend education, but a system such as EMA that is so easily exploitable, is really not good atall.

[llcoolphil]

EMA is used for educational use by a minority of the population, the rest use it to fund their social activities at the weekend. This is something i can assure, as i went through the educational system during EMA, and knew countless that claimed it.

[Pogues Mcgogues]

dick!

[dakyras]

Considering you're at university, I am appalled at the standard of your spelling. Now explain to me why I should subsidise you to learn how to make tv programmes. Why aren't the people who make tv programmes paying for this?

[eFestivals]

So you think long term unemployed should sit around doing nothing?

No, they should look for work - something they can't do if put in the modern equivalent of the workhouse.

Unemployment is not a punishment like prison. It's a situation that people find themselves in thru no fault of their own.

It's also a situation that a person cannot usually get themselves out of by just their own means - they can't magic a job out of nowhere. Society has to create a job for them if they're to work.

[dakyras]

No, they should look for work - something they can't do if put in the modern equivalent of the workhouse.

[eFestivals]

So no one currently employed full time is able to look for work?

that's not really anything to do with anything.

People pay NI so that they're supported if they find themselves unemployed - it's an entitlement on just that basis and nothing more. It's not an entitlement only if you're then 'employed' in some sort of (not!) 'voluntary' work.

It shouldn't be forgotten that more unemployed people DON'T claim the unemployment benefits they're entitled to than claim them. There's a near-constant turnover of people who are short-term unemployed that don't sign on - but that doesn't make those who need that money or choose to take up their entitlement some sort of worthless lazy scum.

[the real new messiah]

but that doesn't make those who need that money or choose to take up their entitlement some sort of worthless lazy scum.

[eFestivals]

Not all but definately some

well, if and when you have a fool-proof method of identifying which people they are, then I'm happy for them to be targeted.

In the meantime, the fact remains that the vast majority are not worthless scum only interested in taking benefits and not working.

Or do you really think that the number of young people wanting to rip off benefits has quadrupled in a couple of years, and it's just a huge co-incidence that this quadrupling has happened at the same time as the economy has gone to shit?

[sifi]

It never ceases to surprise me that so many people spend so much time banging on about the worthless, lazy unemployed. The amount these people cost the Government is peanuts compared to the amount of money that is being theieved by the rich in tax evasion, or by big organisation by corporate financing through dodgy deals through tax havens.

It's almost as if certain folk have swallowed the diet of bullshit that the populist media has been feeding them over the years, and are now just brainwashed into thinking like that.

It's the equivalent of seeing that your house is on fire, and instead of rescuing your spouse, children, family pets and all your valuables, you instead spend all your energy trying to get the combined washing machine / tumble drier out instead. And we all know how shit they are.

It's almost as if Oaf had come back.

Oh - look! Oaf has come back!

[Harsim]

Firstly, as you don't know the majority of the population, you aren't in a position to state as fact what the minority does and doesn't do so you can't assure anything. Secondly, you didn't know countless. You knew an easily countable number - and that number forms such a small proportion of the overall student population as to be statistically meaningless. Thirdly, if somebody meets the criteria for being able to claim EMA, what business is it of the government to tell them how to spend it?

Considering you're at university, I am appalled at the standard of your spelling. Now explain to me why I should subsidise you to learn how to make tv programmes. Why aren't the people who make tv programmes paying for this?

Firstly, the creative media did not single handedly pull Canada out of debt. Secondly - which experts? Do you have a link to these claims?

Why? My profession has nothing to do with the arguments Im putting to you.

Do you understand what 'majority' actually means? How many people like this have you actually met and what proportion of all people who claim JSA do you actually think they make? How many job vacancies are there currently in the UK? How many people are there out of work? And why do you apologise for stereotyping JSA claimants as leeches and then immediately carry on and stereotype JSA claimants as leeches? Could it be that you don't actually know what you are talking about?

[sifi]

Yeah, Phil - we need people like Harsim to do degrees in things like media animation just to ensure we've got enough middle managment in UK based call centres in ten years time. And you can't tell me that middle management in a call centre isn't a valuable contribution to society. Oh no.

Harsim - this was a little joke, btw. I hope that you have a successful career in animation, and if it's what you want to do, then hats off to you.

Although it does sound like the sort of thing that should be a more vocational qualification to me.

[eFestivals]

I'll continue doing my degree, you can continue to pay for it, and at the end of it ill get a job and start to fund young people to do their degrees.

except of course you won't be - at least not to anything like the extent that your own studies have been funded by others.

So you get a freebie but then (whether by your own choice or not) shit on those who come after. Something that my own generation (of a similar age to Phil) has done very well: but without the support of the likes of Phil & me, hence our comments here.

[dakyras]

Yeah, Phil - we need people like Harsim to do degrees in things like media animation just to ensure we've got enough middle managment in UK based call centres in ten years time. And you can't tell me that middle management in a call centre isn't a valuable contribution to society. Oh no.

Harsim - this was a little joke, btw. I hope that you have a successful career in animation, and if it's what you want to do, then hats off to you.

Although it does sound like the sort of thing that should be a more vocational qualification to me.

[llcoolphil]

Yeah, and maybe authors should subsidise English degrees!