Its not your fault but your opinion is very much the opinion of a typical ex-pat, those who gain their experience of the uk now from newspapers and soundbites.

What would you think if we told you that the vast majority of benefits are not paid to "scroungers" at all but to working people ?

Personally i have only been in dubai for 5 years. I worked part time in the uk whilst studying and i always remember a women who i worked with had a couple of children and she worked hard don't get me wrong but the husband was a lazy who learnt a trade but could never hold down a job anyway, after i my course i was working the same amount of hours as her and earning actually more in the end but somehow she could still afford a car (I couldn't) Go out every weekend (at the time i did admittedly) went on two holidays (I couldn't afford it). After two months of listening to her about whats she's bought i started to wonder how the hell can she have more money than me when she has kids, Cars, Husbands not working and also has a house (I had to rent privately), so after listening to her talk i soon realized she had so much benefits and top ups she was almost earning double what i was and on top of it her husband was claiming carers allowance for his sick dad even tho he was never with him. Also going to any pub in wigan mid days and you will see more than one claiming benefits and drinking/bookies all day.

This is a subject that does really annoy me because Im in a foreign country trying to earn a living and set my self up whilst others are just being paid for, on top of that i can't tell you how many taxi drivers or indian/pakistan people tell me here in dubai they are trying to go to the UK and get a passport.

Now i know there is genuine people out there but the benefit system when i was in the uk was completely wrong even for those deserving of it.

Let's make this simple - would you say the average standard of living has increased or decreased in the last 30 years? If the answer to that is yes - difficult to argue that not to be the case - how has that happened?

No I don't think it is morally acceptable that anyone expect the bankers should pay for the their excesses and that includes you and me. Unfortunately life is not fair and these things happen. I have no issue in supporting those that are in genuine need e.g. mentally/physically disabled. What I object to is the abuse of the system which is pretty widespread. Benefit St is a parody of this position but the behaviours you see there would be replicated in virtually every village/town/city in this country. My own in laws, there are 6 claiming with 7 children none work that p1sses me off big style and perhaps its proximity clouds my view.

Perhaps if the levels of abuse weren't happening our tax bill would go down giving us more cash to spend and maybe an upward Keynesian cycle might start?

An example - I have a company I own 100% - my wage bill is 200k a year, in the year I make 500k and I give my workforce a 10% salary increase. I this case the wealth gap has increased between me and my worforce but my workforce has has also increased. The workforce has also increased its wealth not just to the level I have.

How much of this is a symptom of the difficulties in the mortgage/property market?

The Daily Mail's comments is full of ex-pats mopaning about this and that. They live in Spain or wherever, probably sponging off our state and Spain's and when something hits the fan they expect to run back here and the government to ship them back at taxpayers expense. They don't pay tax here and yet they expect all this because they happened to be born here and then chose not to live here. Are they not scroungers of the very, very worst kind? I think we should start taking British passports off some people who don't want to pay tax here.

well they are the ones who are hypocrites and i never read news tabloids for anything other than sport. i think people should have there british passports removed if they decided the don't want to work because its easier to sit at home and let others. And majority of expats who i know anyway are usually the ones who have funded them selves and have a private pension and own there own home so they don't depend on the state when or if they go back.

What you don't go 50/50 with your employees tight mark. Yorkshireman by any chance

It isn't just rich people but companies who are making use of tax havens. That is where the figure comes from. It is a figure Oxfam estimate as to the amount of money held in tax havens.

It is held in a tax haven for a reason you know. Can you guess what it is?



What is that about?

Yes they are a tax havens but for example jersey (not sure if this is consider one anymore) but a lot of people bank in jersey because of the strong banking and accounting systems in place.

The 2nd part was a reply to another post somebody using a statistic that there is a higher rate of young adults living with there parents.

The data is for up to 30-year-olds.



So you consider that an average UK house price of £242,415 (to last October – and flats are slightly higher at £250,101) and an average UK income of £26,000 have nothing to do with it?

And do you consider £250K for a one-bed flat in a not-particularly-genteel area of a city to be 'a good thing'?

To remind people: it used to be considered sensible that nobody paid more than three times their household income on a mortgage. So for that £250K for a one-bed flat, a sensible mortgage would require a household income of £83,333.

That is a kind of Peter Mendleson view of being comfortable with some people being excessively wealthy despite not being so oneself.

There are two problems with this. First of all we aren't discussing the last 30 years but what has happened since 2008 and from them till now living standards have declined. The fact they may have declined from a high point doesn't mean it is right that your and my living standards take a hit while the 1% are unaffected and are in fact becoming even wealthier.

However, your and my position is I am guessing still pretty comfortable. The ones really taking the hit are the working poor of this country and no doubt others who in the UK are going to see more cuts to what benefits they are entitled to while at the same time there is enough cash hidden away in tax havens to make Osborne's £12bn seem like chicken feed.

The other problem with this situation is the concentration of wealth also concentrates the power. You might be comfortable with Bill Gates helping run the world but I certainly do not want a bunch of plutocrats subverting national governments and I do believe we are entering a phase of history (if we are not there already) where we face this possibility. Concentrating wealth and power leaves to self serving interests doing just that.



How on earth have you swallowed this propaganda? Most people who claim benefits work. Benefit fraud is a tiny fraction of what the majority perceive it to be. It is a huge amount [iless[/i than tax avoidance and evasion cost the country.

Why are you not even more indignant about that than you are benefit cheats? It costs us far more money and if we got a handle on it would mean the very real cuts that disabled people are facing (never mind the working poor or those on benefits street) would not have to face the cuts they do.

With all this wealth in the world why has it not trickled down to these people?

Are benefits scrounger annoying? Yes, but wipe them out tomorrow and that will not deliver the £12bn Osborne wants.

Are benefit cheat any more annoying than the Saudi Prince who wrote to Forbes magazine complaining that they wrongly listed him as having a personal wealth of $10bn when it was in fact $20bn?

The issue Oxfam highlight is not someone who works hard setting up an SME taking some reward from that. The directors of the company I originally worked for here in Runcorn sold it and received between £250K and £3m each. Do I begrudge them that? No, why would I?

People like them are not the target of the Oxfam report. It is people sat on half the worlds wealth doing naff all with it except hoarding it while (in the case of Walmart) their employees have to make use of food banks.

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And perhaps it would go down if we didn't subsidise the likes if Virgin Trains to run the West Coat main line when the publicly run East Coast is proving the most efficient of the lot and delivering more revenue to the government?

You really need to do some research into just how much benefit fraud costs and if you did I can't see how you would not conclude the government is spending far too much effort for far too little return when there are bigger fish to fry elsewhere.

Completely agree with this – including (for the sake of clarification) your comments on SMEs.

Just to add, really, if there are billions or trillions of dollars sitting in tax havens, those are doing nothing to boost any economy, be it local or national.

And I think that we're already in the realms of supra-national corporatocracies, which exist over and above any nation state and have no loyalty to any nation state, irrespective of where such companies first emerged.

And that is completely anti-democratic in any sense that most people here would consider the concept of democracy.

The problem is whilst we continue to consume their products this will always be the case. Apple is one of the worst for hoarding money, yet that has not stopped you buying their products - you have reasons that you can justify.

You cannot have it both ways, you cannot be so principled until it impacts you and then when it does your principles go out of the window.

As much as you want equality - that will never happen, we are not equal and we do not value all skills similarly. I find it slightly mad that soccer players can earn 200k a week for what is entertainment, that is what society value them at. There will always be outrageously wealthy people either through graft e.g. Gates/Ellison etc or through inherited wealth e.g. Duke of Westminster.

As I said the genuinely unemployable should be looked after by society as a whole. I am not sure my wife's niece with three children to three different fathers is quite the same.

The difference is one is legal one and if you live in a democracy then you have to go by the will of the majority. Tax avoidance will always happen - has always happened - until every country has exactly the same tax rules, we all know that will never happen. The tax laws in this country are set by a freely elected government in power by the rules set in place for that election - a democracy. The majority of these hoarders do employ millions of people world wide so are contributing in some way.

Benefits are much higher now than they were fifteen years ago so it has trickled down to them - there has to be a balance whereby those in work are significantly better off to create the incentive to work. I am not convinced the differential at the lower end is significant enough to create the incentive and that is wrong.

The fact the Saudi prince $10bn or $100bn who cares it doesn't impact me, benefit scroungers do so yes it frustrates me.

If you had a huge business generating huge amounts of operating capital what are you going do - you are going to store in the most efficient place until you need that money - the prudent amongst us do it with our savings so why would companies not do the same. There are very few companies that were trading 70 years ago that are still trading now - Boston Matrix idea - businesses have a life span having a treasury helps to prolong that life span.

I agree about Virgin - perhaps if the civil service had done their job correct Virgin would have been long gone?