"I've never had a job"

[Mich the Tester]

Oh please, don't be retarded.

Supporting those who can't is the right way for society to function. Supporting those who won't is not. Just don't tell me someone is in poverty because some number crunching says they don't have something over 50% of the population have, such as a tumble dryer.

So how poor do you want stupid people to be ?

Of course a tumble dryer isn’t a measure of poverty. Neither is a colour TV. However, a roof over your head, food and clean water are essential for life. People with nothing to eat don’t suddenly mutate into great inventors or brilliant entrepreneurs. They steal food, steal other stuff to pay for the drugs and alcohol they use to comfort themselves, they lynch anyone who has a banana, they set fire to anything that will burn and if they get enough of them together under some loon posing as a leader they invade other people’s territory and slaughter them en masse. Controlling all that costs a lot more than just giving the fools a simple place to live and enough oven chips and special brew to maintain their obesity.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

I think the big concern is that the woman's family probably would have been quite hard working at one point and in a couple of generations they are now totally state dependant. Once you lose it its very hard to get back.

in the interview she says her parents worked until they couldn't through redundancy and ill health

[Mich the Tester]

in the interview she says her parents worked until they couldn't through redundancy and ill health

Redundancy is indeed a big killer of motivation and does a lot more economic damage than is ever accounted for. It kills people’s desire to work hard and achieve. It makes people feel that their fate is not in their own hands, but in the hands of some faceless technocrat who doesn’t give a tulip about them. It gives people's kids the impression that there's no point in trying hard as you'll be dumped on the sidelines anyway. It’s also far too quickly used as a short term remedy by senior executives faced with a changing business environment and lacking the skills to make use of their staff in an enterprising way.

[TimberWolf]

So how poor do you want stupid people to be ?

A great question. And one which different societies answer in different ways.

[Bob Dalek]

"I've never had a job"

Nor me. Jobs tend to be blighted, remain uncomplaining, but then eventually get the hump and lament their woes. Not too keen on their scraping of sores with pot sherds, either.

[Mich the Tester]

"I've never had a job"

Nor me. Jobs tend to be blighted, remain uncomplaining, but then eventually get the hump and lament their woes. Not too keen on their scraping of sores with pot sherds, either.

I stopped looking for work the moment I found a job.

[gingerjedi]

I'd call that real poverty, as opposed to the Blair style poverty where you don't have a tumble dryer...

Exactly

You can’t solve poverty in this country, as it’s just a measure between the rich and poor the only way the figures will stack up is if we have less rich people… ah I see now… well done Gordon, keep up the good work.

I can’t think of anywhere in the world where a country of a sizable population doesn’t have the exact same problem apart from Japan maybe? But that’s probably because we just don’t here about it.

As long as people are free to make more money than other people you will have differing standards of living, always have had and always will. It’s about time we learnt to accept it rather than trying to solve the issue.

[minestrone]

Relative poverty as it is known.

If Britain was filled with only millionaires there would still be people in poverty using the scale.