Triple dip ,are we in a mess

[ECCOnoob]

I have my head in the sand do I?

 

Funny that. I spent 7 years of my career advising people on welfare benefits, disability rights and homelessness applications.

 

My clients would range from street homeless, unemployed citizens struggling with debt, benefit claimants wishing to appeal deductions and clawbacks, mental health patients and volnerable adults having problems with care in the community and drug addicts thrown out of private accommodation.

 

Dont tell me what you THINK I do and dont know about.

 

I have spent years dealing with Councils, Shelter, DWP, NHS, private landlords and community services. I am fully aware of the problems and I am fully aware of the bureucracy involved.

 

However, I am also fully aware of what this country offers said people. Those who use all the relevant services/charities/community support need never be on the streets or go hungry. Our society offers a solution. Our society will always provide.

 

I have not said that there is not a problem but to brand the country a "mess" is absolute exageration. I say again, until that basic need is no longer provided we are doing ok.

 

Take a look around the world - you dont need to go very far across the sea to find it. Look at REAL poverty. Look at the REAL corruption in government. Look at the REAL breakdown in society. Look at the REAL gap between rich and poor.

 

Our piddling little problems dont come anywhere near.

[caparo]

I thought we were doing OK whilst the Eurozone struggles with recession.

 

We have more people in work in the UK than at any time in our history, this despite the fact that EU membership means companies such as Ford can ditch our minimum wage and UK wage rates in general and shift entire production plants to Rumania, Croatia and Bulgaria to manufacture much more cheaply goods that were once made here.

[Anna B]

I have my head in the sand do I?

 

Funny that. I spent 7 years of my career advising people on welfare benefits, disability rights and homelessness applications.

 

My clients would range from street homeless, unemployed citizens struggling with debt, benefit claimants wishing to appeal deductions and clawbacks, mental health patients and volnerable adults having problems with care in the community and drug addicts thrown out of private accommodation.

 

Dont tell me what you THINK I do and dont know about.

 

I have spent years dealing with Councils, Shelter, DWP, NHS, private landlords and community services. I am fully aware of the problems and I am fully aware of the bureucracy involved.

 

However, I am also fully aware of what this country offers said people. Those who use all the relevant services/charities/community support need never be on the streets or go hungry. Our society offers a solution. Our society will always provide.

 

I have not said that there is not a problem but to brand the country a "mess" is absolute exageration. I say again, until that basic need is no longer provided we are doing ok.

 

Take a look around the world - you dont need to go very far across the sea to find it. Look at REAL poverty. Look at the REAL corruption in government. Look at the REAL breakdown in society. Look at the REAL gap between rich and poor.

 

Our piddling little problems dont come anywhere near.

 

I find your attitude towards people losing their homes or not having enough money to eat dismissed as 'piddling little problems' somewhat offensive.

 

Whilest I'm sure you think you do a good job, I wonder how many of your clients agree with you? Did you ever think that the sheer numbers of people needing your services is in itself an indication of a country with serious problems? Yes, the ever growing number of foodbanks mean that hopefully no one starves, but the need for foodbanks at all is surely part of a problem rather than a solution.

 

You speak from the viewpoint of the safely employed, not from on the receiving end of that troublesome bureurocracy which has the power of God (and not a very benign God) to some people. Computer says no....

 

Our care for the old and disabled in their own homes is by and large abysmal and shows no sign of improving. And speaking purely from personal experience, care for the old in hospital isn't much to write home about either. But then they aren't cost effective members of society are they? Just an expensive nuisance.

 

Society doesn't break down overnight, but in small bits and pieces, here, there and everywhere.

[ECCOnoob]

I find your attitude towards people losing their homes or not having enough money to eat dismissed as 'piddling little problems' somewhat offensive.

 

Whilest I'm sure you think you do a good job, I wonder how many of your clients agree with you? Did you ever think that the sheer numbers of people needing your services is in itself an indication of a country with serious problems? Yes, the ever growing number of foodbanks mean that hopefully no one starves, but the need for foodbanks at all is surely part of a problem rather than a solution.

 

You speak from the viewpoint of the safely employed, not from on the receiving end of that troublesome bureurocracy which has the power of God (and not a very benign God) to some people. Computer says no....

 

Our care for the old and disabled in their own homes is by and large abysmal and shows no sign of improving. And speaking purely from personal experience, care for the old in hospital isn't much to write home about either. But then they aren't cost effective members of society are they? Just an expensive nuisance.

 

Society doesn't break down overnight, but in small bits and pieces, here, there and everywhere.

 

I find your assumptions about me somewhat offensive.

 

How dare you presume that I have always been in secure employment.

I have been made redundant several times throughout my career. I have been in the queue at the jobcentre and also have to live with very little.

I too have been on the receiving end of "computer says no".

 

How dare you assume "I think I do a good job" I know I did a good job because my said client got to stay in their accommodation or they were sorted out with a roof over their head. That's a result. No "think" about it.

 

How dare you also assume that I do not know nothing from personal experience. I have an older brother with learning disabilities in care. I had two elderly relatives who both went through in and outpatient care from the hospitals that you say are "not much to write home about". I have had plenty of experience of dealing with hospitals, social workers and consultants.

 

I feel you are being extremely narrow minded and complely miss my point.

 

I never said we dont have problems. I have never said that things are perfect.

 

What you seem to be completely ignoring is the fact that we HAVE a free national health service. The fact that we have food banks. The fact that we have homeless services. The fact that we provide welfare to those unemployed or infirm. The fact that we have a state pension. The fact that our laws mean that the state provides a basic standard of living to every citizen. The fact that those who dont appear to get such rights can get state funded legal advice to sort it.

 

Some countries around the world could only dream of such things.

 

REAL poverty. People fighting over food parcels. People surving on grain and dirty water. People living on less than a pound a day.

REAL corruption. Governments ruling like a dictatorship. Controlling all society, laws, rights and media with military rule.

REAL breakdown in society - civil riots and looting just to survive or voice your opition.

 

That's a country that is a "mess". That is what real problems are.

 

None of which is happening here.

 

I feel it is you that has your head in the sand.

 

Someone getting unemployed. The system gives them benefit for that.

Someone is permenant disabled. The system provides welfare for life.

Someone going hungry. The system offers food parcels that.

Someone becomes ill. The system provides healthcare for that.

Some is homeless. The system provides a roof over their heads.

 

That's what happens in the UK. Can you really seriously compare that to countries that are really in a "mess"

 

You say society is breaking down slowly. Really? Is it really? really is it?

 

We have been here all before. We got over it then. We will get over it now. There is nothing new to this. We have been in worse recessions then this and somehow we survived.

 

Society changes. People need to change with it.

[stingray-man]

Now now children, have either of you thought that maybe you both just have an opinion on how this country is ? And that in one way or another both of your opinions are right .....

[*_ash_*]

Not quite a banana republic yet then, give 'em time. Thatcher laid the foundations, the ConDems will finish the job!

 

What ECCOnoob wrote made perfect sense to anyone with any intelligence. You just don't like reality - and like the rest of your mob on here, you want to see us in Greece or Spain situations so you can claim some kind of phoney victory. Keep quoting your divide and conquer crap, and maybe one day you'll have your rioting on the streets with the morons in society taking charge. You can masturbate over the tele if it pleases you.

 

*snipped some crap*

 

Our care for the old and disabled in their own homes is by and large abysmal and shows no sign of improving. And speaking purely from personal experience, care for the old in hospital isn't much to write home about either. But then they aren't cost effective members of society are they? Just an expensive nuisance.

 

Go back 50 years, or 100 years, or at any point in human history - and ask yourself, at what point would you say that the care of people switched from family/friends/community, to 'someone else's problem'. We in this time in a modern developed country could learn a lot from other cultures and nations who aren't so rich.

 

Society doesn't break down overnight, but in small bits and pieces, here, there and everywhere.

 

Western society has become so complacent with greed, it can't see it any longer. Society here is no where near breakdown though - it's just changing.

 

---------- Post added 29-01-2013 at 00:59 ----------

 

What happened to this 're-balancing' of the economy then. Even now when everybody is telling them to abandon Plan A, they will not change course.

It's like the 1980's all over again, but this time there is no North Sea Oil to bail us out.

 

As an aside... so?

 

Deal with it. That's what I was told in here when I complained about the last government. You can put up with another year or two, as I did, when I looked at the government throwing [my wages] money at things rather than deal with them.