Bolster Posted December 19, 2012 Share Posted December 19, 2012 then whats the point ?. is the member of parliament in league with a potential provider of these new cards?. surly hes thought that helping people on benefits is the top priority? The point is that they wish to humiliate people who are on benefits by making them produce a "I am a scrounger" card when they go to the cash desk in supermarkets. One of Cameron's friends would be allowed to run the scheme and allowed to make millions for himself in the process. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plain Talker Posted December 19, 2012 Share Posted December 19, 2012 another thought... what about paying for things like your fuel? I can envisage the following scenario... Are we going to see the government (or whoever administers the scheme) telling claimants:- "Sorry, you've had your allocation of £9.35's worth of gas this week. I know it's only Thursday, and it's the depths of winter, but you'll just have to manage till Monday. You can't have any more. Tough." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WeX Posted December 19, 2012 Share Posted December 19, 2012 I agree, why should benefit claimants be able to spend the money they receive on things like alcohol and luxury goods, or worse still, gambling! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andygardener Posted December 19, 2012 Share Posted December 19, 2012 its more about survival, if they made the approved list of goods cheaper by using a card i would be all for it. its so hard now trying to juggle bills, food, heating, rent, transport costs, anything that helps has got to be good. make the little we get go that bit further. The problem would be small retailers may not be able to come on board with such a scheme so it may be regarded as anti-competitive. The basic idea of leveraging the huge buying power of the benefits bill to drive down prices is a sound one and if the scheme was available to workers on a voluntary basis then you would have a very big stick with which to beat down overcharging. I think it's certainly a good idea in the utilities sector and probably transport where you have a relatively small number of large suppliers, it's retail that could prove the stumbling block. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plain Talker Posted December 19, 2012 Share Posted December 19, 2012 I agree, why should benefit claimants be able to spend the money they receive on things like alcohol and luxury goods, or worse still, gambling! I don't drink alcohol. I don't smoke, and I don't gamble. I don't even do the lottery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
molly44 Posted December 19, 2012 Share Posted December 19, 2012 well they make money every which way anyhow, all i am saying is that if the approved goods could be bought cheaper with these cards, then for people on benefit who are already struggling then its got to be a good thing. at least people will eat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chem1st Posted December 19, 2012 Share Posted December 19, 2012 I don't drink alcohol. I don't smoke, and I don't gamble. I don't even do the lottery. And you get DLA to boot. Compared to the youth on £56.25 a week who have endless amounts of money to spend on alcohol, ciggies, prostitutes, cars, drugs and betting you're rolling in it. Or perhaps, just perhaps, those surviving on £56.25 a week aren't very wealthy at all. ---------- Post added 19-12-2012 at 19:49 ---------- I agree, why should benefit claimants be able to spend the money they receive on things like alcohol and luxury goods, or worse still, gambling! Because we claw it all back in taxes? Because we value freedom? Because we don't want to regulate the market for the sake of it? Because we don't want to allow the poor to win big and become free of benefits? (Some would argue this is in effect a subsidy to gamblers, and they would be right - but we can argue that about many things - our economy is highly planned, people aren't forced to gamble, whereas many are forced to spend money on housing and inflated rents - the subsidy to gambling is very small when compared to the subsidies to housing values and rents [not construction of suitable housing] and other things like fuel and travel ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ricgem2002 Posted December 19, 2012 Share Posted December 19, 2012 then whats the point ?. is the member of parliament in league with a potential provider of these new cards?. surly hes thought that helping people on benefits is the top priority? what like david camerons mate who owns wonga and pushed through for workers to lose their rights in the workplace ? and these people who are then on benefit guess what turn to wonga Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Funky_Gibbon Posted December 19, 2012 Share Posted December 19, 2012 well they make money every which way anyhow, all i am saying is that if the approved goods could be bought cheaper with these cards, then for people on benefit who are already struggling then its got to be a good thing. at least people will eat To do what you hope it would do, they'd either have to restrict the card to a special retailers who were able to purchase and resell approved items at cost from suppliers or free from VAT etc or they would need a complicated scheme where high street retailers, supermarkets and small corner shops would be able to apply to the government for compensation because they had to sell their products cheaper to a benefits claimant than they would to a non-benefits claimant. And the fact that anyone on 'welfare' would be getting cheaper food etc would then become yet another reason to bash the scroungers. Today in PMQs Cameron was asked about the 6-fold increase in the number of people going to food banks to get something to eat and instead of saying that it was terrible that people couldn't afford to eat Cameron replied that food banks were an excellent example of The Big Society and that they were increasing the income tax threshold, which doesn't make the slightest difference to anyone who is so poor they are already under that threshold or who doesn't have an income. They don't care if you can't make ends meet. If they did they wouldn't be capping benefits at less than the rate of inflation for the next 3 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I1L2T3 Posted December 19, 2012 Share Posted December 19, 2012 well they make money every which way anyhow, all i am saying is that if the approved goods could be bought cheaper with these cards, then for people on benefit who are already struggling then its got to be a good thing. at least people will eat You need to get it in your head that this would not be done to give you cheaper goods. That would be utterly against the Tory stance on benefits claimants - imagine the outcry from the 'strivers' when they discover that the 'scroungers' get cheaper food. The overheads of running the scheme would be passed onto the users of the system, plus a bit more to cover the profit margin. It's much more likely that you will find things more expensive. I think this could be one for the Tory manifesto for 2015. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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