UKIP poster boy is a racist immigrant, film at 11

[Jacob]

Spend some years working in the private sector, then come back and let me know what you think.

Raz is right. What you're saying is not true.

[Tamas]

Spend some years working in the private sector, then come back and let me know what you think.

Raz is right. What you're saying is not true.

It was overdramatic, maybe, but not incorrect. The very concept of welfare/redistribution is that you take money by force from people who have earned it, and give it to people who didn't.

[frunk]

It was overdramatic, maybe, but not incorrect. The very concept of welfare/redistribution is that you take money by force from people who have earned it, and give it to people who didn't.

You are presuming both that individuals can earn what they earn without the support of a stable and functioning society around them, and that they are entirely in control of their own fate and therefore every penny they earn was not because of luck or any other outside influence.

[Martinus]

Well, both anti-welfare and anti-immigration people should thank Mrs. Thatcher. She is the one who destroyed British industry and started the process of transitioning to an economy model which is incapable of providing full employment to all those who wish to work. If you want to look out for a model which does not have these problems, look to Germany - but the question is to what extent this is irreversible for Britain.

[Admiral Yi]

Well, both anti-welfare and anti-immigration people should thank Mrs. Thatcher. She is the one who destroyed British industry and started the process of transitioning to an economy model which is incapable of providing full employment to all those who wish to work. If you want to look out for a model which does not have these problems, look to Germany - but the question is to what extent this is irreversible for Britain.

You know Marty, countries that have favored industry have experienced unemployment too.

[Martinus]

Well, both anti-welfare and anti-immigration people should thank Mrs. Thatcher. She is the one who destroyed British industry and started the process of transitioning to an economy model which is incapable of providing full employment to all those who wish to work. If you want to look out for a model which does not have these problems, look to Germany - but the question is to what extent this is irreversible for Britain.

You know Marty, countries that have favored industry have experienced unemployment too.

Yes, but not as chronic (with a comparable economy). Comparing the UK economy to something like Venezuela does not work - Germany is the only competitor of equal footing that chose a different model.

[Richard Hakluyt]

A quick check at the back of The Economist gives unemployment of 6.0% for the UK and 6.7% for Germany.

[Martinus]

A quick check at the back of The Economist gives unemployment of 6.0% for the UK and 6.7% for Germany.

But I was not talking about unemployment (in my original post), Yi did. I was talking about the fact that Germany does not seem to have such tensions surrounding welfare and immigration as the UK does now.

[garbon]

A quick check at the back of The Economist gives unemployment of 6.0% for the UK and 6.7% for Germany.

But I was not talking about unemployment (in my original post), Yi did. I was talking about the fact that Germany does not seem to have such tensions surrounding welfare and immigration as the UK does now.

Quick look found me this: http://www.dw.de/welfare-debate-stokes-germany-eu-tensions/a-17355442

"The German social welfare system is not a self-service convenience store for all the Europeans that come to our country," he said on Friday in Munich. He expressed his shock at how the "EU Commission is frivolously torpedoing the national social security system."

[Martinus]

Oh well, ok. That was an attempt.

[Admiral Yi]

But I was not talking about unemployment (in my original post), Yi did. I was talking about the fact that Germany does not seem to have such tensions surrounding welfare and immigration as the UK does now.

Well, both anti-welfare and anti-immigration people should thank Mrs. Thatcher. She is the one who destroyed British industry and started the process of transitioning to an economy model which is incapable of providing full employment to all those who wish to work. If you want to look out for a model which does not have these problems, look to Germany - but the question is to what extent this is irreversible for Britain.

[Richard Hakluyt]

A quick check at the back of The Economist gives unemployment of 6.0% for the UK and 6.7% for Germany.

But I was not talking about unemployment (in my original post), Yi did. I was talking about the fact that Germany does not seem to have such tensions surrounding welfare and immigration as the UK does now.

Germany has a competent leader, our current crop of political leaders are the most dispiriting bunch I've ever experienced, they are opening the field for the fringe....quite worrying really.

I'm also not sure about the tensions. They are there in the media but not apparent in my day-to-day life, conversations with friends and family does not reveal any great angst either; but then I don't know any unemployed people in, say, Clacton 

[Tamas]

Well, both anti-welfare and anti-immigration people should thank Mrs. Thatcher. She is the one who destroyed British industry and started the process of transitioning to an economy model which is incapable of providing full employment to all those who wish to work. If you want to look out for a model which does not have these problems, look to Germany - but the question is to what extent this is irreversible for Britain.

nice troll

[Zanza]

A quick check at the back of The Economist gives unemployment of 6.0% for the UK and 6.7% for Germany.

Germany and the UK have different ways to measure unemployment though and The Economist takes the figure from the local statistics office. If you want comparable figures, you need to look at Eurostat which has the same methodology across all countries of the EU: In their September report, Germany had 5.0% unemployment (lowest in the EU), Britain had 6.0% (fifth lowest in the EU).
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_PUBLIC/3-31102014-BP/EN/3-31102014-BP-EN.PDF

[Tamas]

It was overdramatic, maybe, but not incorrect. The very concept of welfare/redistribution is that you take money by force from people who have earned it, and give it to people who didn't.

You are presuming both that individuals can earn what they earn without the support of a stable and functioning society around them, and that they are entirely in control of their own fate and therefore every penny they earn was not because of luck or any other outside influence.

in your post is the problem: is it really the government, or in fact, society's role to start evaluating and judging who has his/her modest or not so modest success down to talent, hard work, luck, or outside influence? Can we really be proud of a "free" society, when it is the accepted norm to try and drag down those who try to climb out of the average?

And mixing in the topic of a functioning society with welfare discussion is a bit of a hyperbole. Nobody (well, not me for sure) advocates the disollution of government services necessary for a functional society. Quite the opposite. I advocate a model which would be able to sustain those functions in the long term while offering individual freedom as much as possible.