I don't blame them. I wouldn't want to be: A1: ..........scrubbing off every piece of graffiti in Australia. A2: Cleaning all garbage out of our rivers & harbours........... A3: Pulling weeds from the whole of Australia. And my reply wouldn't be "stuff you buddy......". It'd be more like "f##k you mate......."
My answer makes these people productive members of society. Your answer justifies their existence as leeches on society, taking taking taking, but giving absolutely nothing back. I've never collected a single penny in unemploymenty benefits, and the one & only time in my life where I was lined up in the unemployment queue to register, a tradie came into the office and asked who wanted to make $$ for a few hours work. I was the only guy who said yes, and the queue was large with lots of able young men. They had no interest in working, why should they, when they can signup to get a check for doing sweet f all.
You know, I wouldn't want to do any of this either. However I would not want to be on the dole either. I guess if I was being paid by the people of the state I lived in I should be doing something for it. I SHOULD be looking for a job. When not looking for a job I SHOULD be doing something to earn the hand out I am getting. Why should anyone get anything for nothing. The people who are providing to you had to work, why shouldn't you?
To be fair not all unproductive members of society are unemployed and collect the dole. Some wear suits and ties, earn multi-million salaries and go to work every morning in a BLOODY BANK!
The issue is a lot bigger than getting money for nothing. All the research shows that one's sense of worth is related to one's achievements and daily occupation. You don't have to build skyscrapers, but activity which provides a return (ie: a job) increases the sense of well-being and self respect necessary to function properly within society. When you remove the ability to 'have a job' you not only remove the ability to feed yourself and house yourself, you remove a person's 'identity'. Just look at the miserable third and fourth generational unemployed in UK. Imagine the loss of self-worth multiplied across generations. Is it any wonder that these hopeless pawns burn down the only factory offering employment in their community, or just rampage on consumer greed. In the USA consider the decline of Watts and Chicago, where happy well adjusted factory workers became unemployed and their streets became drug soaked violent ghettos with all the associated problems for society. Here in Australia you don't have to go far to see the effects of generational unemployment - wasted lives and potentials, hopeless people unable to detach themselves from the government teat which provides just enough nourishment to last the week, but not enough to achieve anything beyond hanging around on the streets or sitting on the couch watching the dreams of other people. The government is happy to throw money at any problem, rather than grapple with the real causes and provide real alternatives (education, incentives for relocation, re-training). We live in a society without virtuous officials and leaders who should be providing solutions with care and compassion rather than nurturing the 'us and them' divide. I'm happy to pay taxes and keep the unemployed and unemployable from robbing me and invading my home. Yes it can happen here. The world is full of examples of affluent societies creating a rich poor divide and unfortunately the poor prey on each other first. As has accurately been said many times, civilisation is only 5 meals away from the start of anarchy. Everyone kicks up when 'work for the dole' schemes are touted. I'm with the post above about civic responsibility. For example, the same circumstances which create the lack of self confidence that results in graffiti and vandalism will be cured with the job of cleaning it up. A real job; Street cleaner. Not big pay but a paycheck you can hold in your hand and feel accomplished. Something that you can contribute to your families wellbeing. Something that makes you feel valued. Not a sneered at piece of society flotsam down at the dole office. Sure you could kill off social security. Just don't expect those on it to take too kindly to anyone who isn't on it. I don't want to be spending every cent I have to get into a security compound away from the 'badlands', because that is the consequence: violent drug infested ghettos filled with hunters and prey that spread evil throughout society. In the 1930's 'susso' ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Susso ) was the response to the criminal or revolutionary threat of the destitute, mixed with compassion for those who were impoverished. With 'worse that the 30's" on the horizon according to many commentators, we'll inevitably have some form of social services reform when the SHTF. I just hope that they keep in mind that a fair day's work for a fair day's pay makes a 'fair society' and they educate the poor families who are going to have to carry the can for these thieving banksters and our secure lifestyles. The list of labour intensive projects of national importance should be compiled now. There's sure to be lots of job applicants when the time comes.
Of course, I can not say anything specifically about the conditions in Australia, but was surprised about the similarity of the discussion that we have here in Germany. @JulieW You made some good points, e.g. concerning the value of work for self-esteem. However, for some people, "achievements" do not have to be real - for some people, reaching level 60 in 'World Of Warcraft' is enough of an "achievement". But for (what I hope to be) the majority, I think that it's also important to have a job that is - really productive (or, if not that, at least one you're happy with, but these are rare...) - bring enough income to pay your daily expenses There are long-term unemployed people who are now basically doing the things mentioned above (cleaning garbage etc, or doing some really useless things) - and they receive 1/hour. So ... they are no longer unemployed, and the news can report nice, low unemployment rates. That's not what it should be about. I think in many cases, welfare takes the role of subsidies. People are working in a full-time job, but still don't have enough money for their daily expenses, and thus need support. In fact, for many people, their income when living on welfare is higher than anything they could earn with a low-qualification full-time job - and guess what the results are . In my humble opinion, there's not necessarily something wrong with welfare in general, but maybe with the wages that are paid for some jobs... but I guess that's another topic. However, I understand that the motivation to spend 10hrs/day with working may be low when the state pays for everything. As long there's still some money to be spent. 15 Billion AUD? Nice, this could pay off 0.6% of our national debt
Problem is, if you like heavy manual labor like I do, You wont get paid enough for it. Face it. All those facebook queens/kings sitting in front of their monitor doing nothing productive getting paid $sh!t load more than hard working blue collar guys that are actually doing something PRODUCTIVE. JulieW mentioned an example of street cleaner. Try to imagine, how cities would look like without them .... yeah, exactly. Compare him, to any banker/broker/white-collar-non-productive-parasite type. - Compare street cleaner to krugmann ..... :lol: One is a simple worker, the other Nobel's laureate. No, its not communist/socialist/leftist manifesto, its simply THE TRUTH. Anyway, gotta stop writing as this p!$$es me off. BTW: What p!$$es me even more, that for somehow decent pay I have to work in "office" as well. Working class is nearly gone here in Ireland.
Hi JulieW Your post raises some excellent points however you re-iterate an idea thats not quite correct, make an assumption, and thus lead it to a "not quite correct" conclusion. Yes and no. I'm not sure what research you refer to but there are a few sound Psych studies that show a persons sence of self esteem (self worth) and their identity (ie who they see themselves as including values/beliefs) are integrally entwined with their occupation. The key point here, is that it is not "the amount of money" which is the key to this identity/employment relationship. This appears to be an unwritten assumption that some-one may make. When the individual loses a job, it is not a simple case of providing another job paying the same money which will fix the persons situation. As a simple example, put a stockman who is out of work, into the job of council worker, and the persons identity/beliefs/values/self esteem will likely remain potentially stuffed (stuffed by the way isn't a psych babble term ). Another example, an old experience warrent officer in the Army may have to retire from the army due to a medical reason. The old soldiers entire sence of self worth and identity has been based on the nature of his job. Even if you gave him a higher paying job in the non-military world, then he is still likely to have self esteem (self worth) issues during his period of adjustment. The point I'm making is that it is work role which is primarily associated with a persons sence of identity, and not the amount of money they earn. Which leads on to the next point.... ...... and this is where many people make a mistake. These statements have very little to do with the reseach on work role and identity (including self worth, values, beliefs). If anything, a person previously employed (like the stockman or senior soldier) if made to perform a "civic duty" job like street cleaner, may have his/her sence of self worth crushed even further. I guess if they then decide to take their own life, it would save the welfare system one more "worthless" person. You make some good points Julie, but your linking of the self worth and employment research to income and then to work for the dole schemes is overly simplistic and IMO actually incorrect. Only my opinion of course, and we all have our own opinions based on our past experiences.
Well, I think the question to ask at this point is why the money going where it is and not to where you would like to see it go. You mention the Liberal Party, I'm not going to get into politics because I think it is a waste of time and I avoid it as much as possible because they all annoy me. When you're taking and redistributing money, and taking a cut for yourself as you do it, most people you are taking money from are going to be net losers. That's just a mathematical certainty. But in society most don't make the connection between govt and taxpayer money. Government is an abstraction and most people, I think, don't want to think about how it actually works. So what happens over time is that more and more people demand their fair share from government. They feel, rightly, like they are overall losing from this arrangement and the solution in their minds is to complain they should get more from the govt. This leads to special interest groups forming to petition the govt because we all know you get nowhere by yourself. These special interest groups then make more and more demands of the govt which leads to more and more middle-class and corporate welfare. Welfare leads to dependence, why work as hard when you can get stuff from the govt. It seems to be like a vicious circle where the endgame results in the government just having to borrow tons of money to meet demands and eventually end up in a debt crisis. Australia seems to be behind much of the Western World in this regard although heading in the same general direction. Not sure I've articulated that well, trying to get my thoughts down in a coherent way and not sure I've succeeded so feel free to critique.
No, I think you nailed how things work very well. I think one of the things that causes that mindset of "wanting my fair share" is that a lot of people - in this country especially - don't realize how good we have it here and one of the reasons for that is that a lot of people don't take the time to observe the world around them. Taxes pay for stuff, yet there is just this assumption that roads will be there to drive on and the assumption that everybody needs a car because that's why the road is there to begin with. Mobile phones just work. If you fall over and hurt yourself, someone will use their mobile phone and an ambulance will just arrive to pick you up and you'll end up in a hospital where a doctor will do whatever it is that they do to make you well again (and while you're in the hospital there will be food that just arrives and you'll eat it and then you'll go to the toilet and somehow your shit will just disappear through the sewerage system that makes human excrement magically go away). People get used to having all these incredibly complex systems operate around them and they just fade away into people's subconscious as being so normal they're not worth thinking about. And then they see a story on Today Tonight about some deadbeat who's managed to scam Centrelink for a couple of grand and get as outraged at "the welfare state" as they would be if they had personally handed over the money that the loser spent on booze and smokes. And then they think "Well, if that screw up is getting money from the government to spend on useless crap then I should get some money from the government to spend on something worthwhile, like a house. Where's my First Home Buyer's Grant?!?" We could spend a lot more money filling in the gaps in basic services (like mental health) or on developing superior infrastructure for the future (public transport, green energy) if we ignored all that noise and just thought more. About everything.
So u reckon its okay for the government to steal from working people to 'placate' those who would otherwise steal from us directly? what an absolute croc of sh1t! :lol: I'm guessing you don't like Ron Paul very much ... :lol:
Thank yippeekiya, I was hoping someone would bring Ron Paul up. I've missed Centralpa's posts. This might woo him back Ron Paul is the pope's man and the pope loves communism, they invented it. That's why hollywood remkes Robin Hood every 5 years, so we realise communism is cool.
A far superior solution would be to ban all government. throughout the world various governments have been responsible for 90% of all atrocities against their (own) people.
Mate - much of what you say is true - however you put people off with your constant reference to the Pope. The Pope doesn't mean sh1t in the 21 century - just get that through your head :lol:
Thats the second time ive been told that in 3 days. Who do you think created the welfare state? If youwere interested I could show you where to look to prove this. Eventually you will realise everything I say is true as far as the way the world works. Odd yes but true. Listen to your forefathers- all roads lead to Rome. Its not my fault some guy in a frock, with a fishhead hat and a magic wand, rules the world. Or that its a ridiculous concept. Its just the way it is. He is the wicked witch of fairy tales, the puppettmaster. the spider at the centre of the web of world finance, law, education,science, medicine, media, philosophy and just about everything else. Well maybe not the pope himself but his organisation.
lol - yeh it's all a numbers game isn't it? Where those who think they can get a free meal by stealing it from others together with those simpletons who believe it's their right to steal from others against those who know its wrong to steal from others...
