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Benefits Cap?


observer

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Whilst I have some sympathy with the idea that work should pay more than dependency on benefits, the situation in some areas of the Country isn't quite that simple. In London for example, house prices and rents are so expensive that Housing Benefits are astronomical, so basically this money is going to private landlords, who can up their rents ad infanitum. So, why don't the Government use a little imagination: EG, use the money to fund local Councils to build or buy houses for social rent, thus the need (shelter) is catered for, no money goes directly to the claimant and the private landlord is taken out of the equation?

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Whilst I have some sympathy with the idea that work should pay more than dependency on benefits, the situation in some areas of the Country isn't quite that simple. In London for example, house prices and rents are so expensive that Housing Benefits are astronomical, so basically this money is going to private landlords, who can up their rents ad infanitum. So, why don't the Government use a little imagination: EG, use the money to fund local Councils to build or buy houses for social rent, thus the need (shelter) is catered for, no money goes directly to the claimant and the private landlord is taken out of the equation?

 

That would be just like the Britain of thirty years ago .I think the present government prefer the  earlier Peter Rachmann type of landlord.

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Asp, I have no problem with the nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy - the Banks. The problem occurs when the Tories begin to re-privatise them, privatising the good bits and leaving the rest of us with the toxic waste created by private sector incompetence and greed.

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So, having effectively bought the banks, good bits and bad bits, the government wants to recoup some of the money they spent by selling them off. But, (shock horror and who would have thunk it!!) nobody wants to buy the bad bits, only the good bits. If they had allowed the banks to fail the small investors money (up to £85000 per person per bank) would have been safe and only the large shareholders and the bankers (those evil evil bankers you are eternally blaming for all the ills you can't pin on Maggie) would have suffered. As it is the large shareholders and the (evil evil) bankers are laughing all the way to the bank (didya see what I did there?) leaving the taxpayer holding the bad bits nobody wants. But you still insist that the bailout was the only solution.

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Not complaining about the "outcome", I'm fine with a nationalised Banking system - I'm concerned as to how politicians will deal with the outcome. IE: selling it back to the private sector for a song and leaving us the toxic waste.  I'm concerned as to just how soft the politicians have been with the Bankers, like Diamond and Richy: imo they should have been subjected to retrospective criminal legislation for their actions and made to pay; the Gov were quick enough off the mark in dealing with the rioters - the banking crisis cost a bit more than a few shops and their goods.

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Well why do you think the government let the bankers and shareholders off the hook in the first place, using our money? If they weren't going to penalise them by letting their businesses go under in the first place they aren't going to penalise them now are they? This is the real world not a fantasy, even if it does seem like a bad dream.

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If my bank had gone to the wall I would have taken my Bank Deposit Insurance to a bank that hadn't failed and carried on as normal. As it is the bank I use is perfectly healthy without having taken any taxpayers money thank you.

 

What people don't seem to realise is that when they deposit money ina bank they aren't giving it to the bank to look after, they are in effect lending the bank the money. This is how banking works. They borrow money from depositors and use that money to, hopefully, make a profit by making it work. Banks wouldn't make a profit by just putting the money in a safe in the basement. If the bank goes bankrupt the depositors are actually creditors and if the had deposited more than the £85000 covered by the Deposit Insurance then they have to join the queue for payment, the moral being don't put all your eggs (or more than £8500) in one basket (bank). Anyway those of you who are cheering the government for "saving" the banks using someone else's money (taxpayers) need to stop whingeing when the (evil evil) bankers go their merry way laughing their heads off.

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