Quote Originally Posted by banana
You're acting like that should matter. Government is not a business. It's not about the bottom line. Law and order are priceless.
You're very much wrong here. Of course government is a business. You still have to balance your books, you still have to pay for things like jail and policing.

That you value law and order so highly tells me you're not thinking this through. You don't seem to realise that law and order happen because people don't have to fend for themselves in the way you are suggesting.

You have a very very loose definition of 'unemployable'. If you're disabled somehow, then safety nets should be there to help you. If you're just lazy that's something entirely different. Laziness is not an affliction. Behaviors can be changed. Disabilities can not.
We have a different view on what "unemployable" means. I don't think my view is loose. I basically deem someone "unemployable" if I feel that their attitude means they won't be able to hold down a job.

Do you not see the dangerous precedent you're setting when you allow poor people to threaten crime to extort benefits they don't deserve?
What? I'm not "allowing poor people to threaten crime to extort benefits they don't deserve". That's your language, not mine. I'm just trying to avoid the morons from turning to begging and stealing to feed themselves. And it's also your opinion that they "don't deserve" benefits. I differ there, for reasons already stated. I'm talking about the morons here, those who I would not want to employ even if I were desperate for staff. That's what I mean by "unemployable". Someone who is basically more hassle than he's worth. These people exist, and if you think these people can just make the "choice" to be change their attitude and be more productive, well this is naivity.

You know what's less enjoyable than working? Being broke and starving.
Do you think that these two factors = getting a job? Or do you suppose that at least some of those who then try and fail to get a job will have no choice but to either beg on the streets, or steal?

As a matter of fact, I can. People change jobs all the flippin time.
Of course they do, and everytime it happens, it is an inconvenience for a business, and ultimately a cost. This happens a lot more where people are foced into a life of working.

That's $611 USD. Already significantly more than it costs to hire a new recruit. And then that gets paid out every single month.

There's no way it's cheaper to pay someone to stay home. Not even close.
Right, so you're saying that just over a hundred bucks is "significant", while you pull numbers out of your arse. You're forgetting to factor in the economic value of the employee (or lack of). The shit employee might earn $1500 a month for a 40-hour week, but only create £500 in value for the company, while a productive employee earns the company $3000.

You also point out that the benefits is a monthly payment. Well, if someone is getting through a job every two months because they are, in my opinion, unemployable, then this impact they have on employers is bimonthly. So based on the numbers I shat out, there's an economic argument in favour of benefits. Considering neither of us are in a position to know the economic cost of employing a moron, I'd call this point stalemate.

You really sound like you're making excuses for yourself here.
I'm not making excuses for myself. I'm not even counting myself as one of the "unemployable" people. I will provide a net value for anyone who employs me, assuming I'm not asked to do hard labour. And I'm not going to rob people to survive, because if they stopped giving me money today, I'll just borrow off friends and family until I get a job. So these points I make about, they don't even apply to me. They apply to people who I deem "unemployable", which is a term we can't agree a definition of. You think "employability" is purely a physical matter. That's why you're wrong.

You're being a little silly when you talk about burger flippers and gas pumpers being 'cutthroat'.
It's cut throat because if you're having a bad day and the boss doesn't like you, you're not paying the mortgage at the end of the month.

Not all bosses give relentless shit. This really just sounds like you have a problem with authority. That's a YOU problem. And I think it's shitty that working people are paying for that.
Well yes you certainly identify my problem here. And you seem to think it's a choice. I can assure you it's not, I can tell you that I've had a problem with auhority since I was a child at school. You might think that's a flaw in my personality, but I'll argue it's a consequence of a broken childhood, of being forced away from my parents into foster homes and children's homes. I rejected all authority that wasn't Mom and Dad. This is a glimpse into why I am the way I am. Every single person has their own life story, and every single one is different. Expecting people to just "change their attitude" is ignorant to why people have a particular nature in the first place. You can't change the way people's brains are wired, just so they can be more productive.

You think it's shitty that people pay for me to stay at home. Fair enough. I think there's lots more shitty things going on that are dwarfed by the laziness or attitude problems of those who can't hold down a job. It's shitty that I left school with 1 GCSE, despite being the smartest kid in my year at most schools I went to.

Fuck yeah they will. People generally turn to crime as a last resort. And even if that weren't the case. It's unbelievably wrong for a government to be extorted by its citizens like that. 'Pay me or I'll rob people'. Fuck that!
The job needs to be there for a start. I can tell you something about jobs here in the UK... when I apply for jobs (I have to otherwise they don't give me money), I'll sometimes get to see how many people have applied... it's usually 30-40 as a minimum, and that's the shit jobs that I might actually get. Take away benefits, and suddenly there will be hundreds of applicants for every job.

And that's the second time you've used the word "extort". By identifying a potential threat to civilisation, that doesn't mean anyone who claims benefits is extorting. You're just being silly using this word. If someone literally says to the government "give me money or I'll steal", then yeah, you can use that word. But where people are saying "if they don't give me money I'm fucked and I have no idea what I'll do", and then out of desperation steal some food from Tesco, then the word "extort" is obviously inappropriate.

you need a wall.
It's got nothing to do with a wall, or lack of. This is the EU, and the free movement of people. I can go and live in France and claim their benefits, if I want. There's a sea between us, and that isn't a barrier.

When a person reaches a point where they are legitimately unemployable, that's when we write them a check. Hating work doesn't qualify.
I think we'll just have to continue to disagree on what this word means. No, "hating work" might not qualify. Not being the kind of guy who is capable of being told what to do? I don't think it's possible for people to change their attitude on demand. If that were possible, then teachers would have had much more success with me at school.