Reply to: Should we raise social benefits?

[DimPrawn]

We went from making things to providing services, which often means just verbal advice. The next logical step is that we will sit about just thinking of things and people will pay us for it.

I just thought of something quite brilliant, please send cheques.

Looks like there's no future in thinking (R&D) in the UK.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/l...re/8545716.stm

[HairyArsedBloke]

Heres an interesting one for you Mich.

The Romans, like a lot of the old civilisations were slave owners. The free Romans were the craftsmen, soldiers, traders and tradesmen. When there was unemployment, they could get upity at which point they became known as the mob.
Now the Romans state did not have welfare, but they did start to provide free bread, to placate the mob. This worked for a while, but then the mob became mobby out of boredom rather than hunger and they were just as dangerous.
So the PTB put on a show, a circus. That worked for a while but the shows had to become more and more elaborate and costly, after all, you cant go backwards.

Bread and circuses.

Eventually it got too expensive, and it was one of the main reasons for the collapse of their society.

We went from making things to providing services, which often means just verbal advice. The next logical step is that we will sit about just thinking of things and people will pay us for it.
I just thought of something quite brilliant, please send cheques.

Sminki

[xoggoth]

We went from making things to providing services, which often means just verbal advice. The next logical step is that we will sit about just thinking of things and people will pay us for it.

I just thought of something quite brilliant, please send cheques.

[Pondlife]

Bread and circuses.

Cheap cider and x-factor.

HTH

[EternalOptimist]

Heres an interesting one for you Mich.

The Romans, like a lot of the old civilisations were slave owners. The free Romans were the craftsmen, soldiers, traders and tradesmen. When there was unemployment, they could get upity at which point they became known as the mob.
Now the Romans state did not have welfare, but they did start to provide free bread, to placate the mob. This worked for a while, but then the mob became mobby out of boredom rather than hunger and they were just as dangerous.
So the PTB put on a show, a circus. That worked for a while but the shows had to become more and more elaborate and costly, after all, you cant go backwards.

Bread and circuses.

Eventually it got too expensive, and it was one of the main reasons for the collapse of their society.

[Mich the Tester]

The tulips not over till the paper runs out

ftfy

[EternalOptimist]

Please submit an Engineering Change Note.

The tulips not over till the paperwork is done

[EternalOptimist]

Easy stuff.

do not count your chickens before they are hatched

[EternalOptimist]

Not much to test then?

Test not, lest ye be tested

[Mich the Tester]

Not much to test then?

Easy stuff.

[DimPrawn]

I’ve been thinking, .....[very long post]

Not much to test then?

[EternalOptimist]

I know. I don’t have the solutions, I have only thoughts, and seeing as I’m not some teenager that thinks he knows everything, I like to test my ideas by sharing those thoughts with others who might offer useful insights.

neccessity is the mother of invention

[Mich the Tester]

I think you may have expanded beyond paying plebs to do fark all.

Someone cleverer than me said 'pay people to be poor and you will never run out of poor people'. Your original post takes this one step further and substitutes 'poor' for 'comfortable'.

I know. I don’t have the solutions, I have only thoughts, and seeing as I’m not some teenager that thinks he knows everything, I like to test my ideas by sharing those thoughts with others who might offer useful insights.

[ratewhore]

But in a way those events prove my point. I’m not going to suggest the average Haitian is dumber than the average Chilean because I don't think that's the case, but I would suggest that Chileans have a better education system and their government is a more intellectual elite, whereas in Haiti the government is an elite of force. In Chile, a relatively small number of people have been killed, because the clever people designed houses that can cope with earthquakes and employed the relatively skilled people to build them. In Haiti the clever people enriched themselves but left the rest of the people to rot, living in homes that were not able to withstand an earthquake. Consequence; 100 times as many deaths in Haiti as in Chile. Chile’s economy will recover fairly quickly, Haiti’s won’t, so ultimately the rich people in Haiti have destroyed the basis of their own wealth by neglecting the needs of the many.

I think you may have expanded beyond paying plebs to do fark all.

Someone cleverer than me said 'pay people to be poor and you will never run out of poor people'. Your original post takes this one step further and substitutes 'poor' for 'comfortable'.

[Mich the Tester]

Its like the guy who looks at the plebs and see them just lying around all day drinking and chatting while he works hard for his money. He thinks they are fools.
They look at him and think the same for the same reasons

I don’t mind people who lay around all day doing nothing. I mind about people who vandalize stuff, beat up people on the streets and piss on the Rabobank cash dispenser in Haarlem just before I go in to get some cash.