Posts by Petra
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People not on the dole by choice, eh? Who'da thunk it!
http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/8394286/people-not-on-the-dole-by-choice-report/
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btw, I've managed to score a job for a month. It's only 20 hours a week till Xmas (I'm Mrs. Claus taking pics of kids on Santa's knee) but it's something. Hopefully, I'll be fully employed somewhere by the time school goes back in Feb next year. *fingers crossed*
:-D
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Hard News: What about that Welfare…, in reply to Andrew C,
Are you sure they're not conning the doctors, who must err on the side of caution regarding health/mental health issues?
But anyway, unless these guys are double dipping or dealing drugs or whathaveyou, they are actually setting themselves up for a very hard row to hoe later in life. They might not realise that now, but they will eventually. It's all fun and games when you're young...
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Hard News: What about that Welfare…, in reply to Andrew C,
The monetary cost of trying to identify and ‘cull’ that small percentage of people who have made welfare dependency a lifestyle choice for the very long term would probably be much greater than just not giving a fuck.
People who get upset at the drain on the national purse by these few bludger types, might like to think of it in terms of office stationery – paper clips, for example. Most businesses allow for the purchase of paper clips in their overall stationery budgets. Paper clips get lost, made into paper clip chains, bend beyond usefulness, and given out – with papers – to potential clients who they may never see again.
The cost of collecting paper clips from the office floor, chasing up rogue paper clips from clients who don’t get back to you with their wallets open, separating paper clip chains and putting the individual clips away again, skillfully rebending them back into shape, and going through vacuum cleaner bags picking out the ones that got sucked in, would be very much more expensive than just letting a few paper clips get away on you. Let the paper clips go.
With young bludger types who are starting to settle in to a way of being, then money would be well spend firing them up, giving them hope and education, and showing them that life can be so much better, and that they themselves are better – and then hope that the majority of them will start to change their course, before the rut rot really gets in.
And for those that get upset, not because of the money, but because of “the principle of the thing!"…well, to them, you just gotta say, “life is messy and complex, and fraught with injustices. Principles are great an’ all, but why let yourself get so chewed up about a small group who are largely insignificant? Better to go for the principle of those who defraud the country of millions of dollars just to maintain a decadently wealthy lifestyle, like we’ve seen in the late 80’s, and again this decade, than bother with those who scam a few bucks just to get by”.
I’ve always thought that welfare bashing is more of a bait and switch tactic. It keeps the attention and heat on those who are the most visible yet the most defenceless, and are therefore easy targets, while much bigger bucks and political/legislative carry on are being played to benefit those more invisible uberwealthy. And as soon as attention is on them and their dealings, it’s a “oooh, look at that shabby skanky ho and her snot-nosed kids, look at that dirty hippy on the dole, get a haircut! get a job! taxpayers money! we'll sort 'em out for you!” etc, and it always works. Every freakin’ time.
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Hard News: What about that Welfare…, in reply to vangam,
Do you think the govt would concede that the administration of welfare actually costs more than the benefits themselves?
Whether they will or won't concede this fact is almost moot, imo, because in the end it's almost completely circular. Do wish they'd be more honest, though. But what are the odds of that?
I tried to find some facts on the number of employees WINZ had, but no luck. Wish these things were more readily available to the Googley challenged, like me.
Transparency: it's a good thing.
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The other 31 billion, I guess, is in management and administration of the welfare system, plus staffing WINZ centres.. Which is still ridiculous.
They could scrap the welfare system altogether, and then there'll be thousands more newly unemployed right across the country as those who work for WINZ, and some directly from the Ministry of Social Development, would no longer be required. -
I hadn't thought of it that way, DeepRed. You may be right.
My thoughts are more that the WWG's motivations are more "taxpaying and childless", than "barefoot and pregnant". In fact, I'd say that they think only the very well heeled should ever be pregnant. Children are a rich man's privilege, not a reproductive right.
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Hard News: What about that Welfare…, in reply to Jake Pollock,
Obscene, isn’t it?
A friend of mine, who is a violent crimes detective in Mississippi, says "Whatever happened to house arrest and GPS monitoring via ankle bracelet?
Dying
as a direct result of neglect in custody places culpability squarely in the
hands of those officers monitoring her. I'm not familiar with PA
statutes, but it would fit manslaughter in my view.In Mississippi it would be two counts.
I hope that more attention is given to this crime and that the family attains justice."
Don Brash would probably say: "Look, I'm not being mean or anything, but think of the positive impact this has on the budget".
Paula Bennett would probably say: "This woman made her own bed, and she should die in it. Hunger was too good for her!"
The Welfare Working Group would probably say: "What an excellent idea, and it's so heart warming to see this positive result. Two generations of petty crime, welfare dependency and poverty, nipped in the bud through the use of an efficient and cost effective prison policy".
Yahoo! commenters would probably say: "Serves the slut right. I hope her mother has to repay the money that was lost from the shop's profit when she stole that loaf of bread. And I bet the selfish bitch had her eyes on the chocolate, not the bread! This is proof that open cast mining is what this country needs!"
*sigh*
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Hard News: Where nature may win, in reply to Kumara Republic,
nm
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Let's hope we're not heading in this direction!
http://womensrights.change.org/blog/view/woman_jailed_for_getting_pregnant_dies_from_medical_neglect
Thrown in jail for getting pregnant? That seems like a particularly absurd violation of women's reproductive rights. But it's actually an established policy in Allegheny County, PA. Cara reports at the Curvature that, for Amy Lynn Gillespie, becoming pregnant meant violating the terms of her work release under probation, and getting thrown in jail. Yet this story comes to an even more tragic ending, because Gillespie died while in custody from advanced pneumonia.
[...]
The crimes that got her in trouble with the law in the first place were minor shoplifting (when caught stealing food, she told the police officer she was hungry) and prostitution...
In the country whence Bennett gets her new founded inspiration...