Benefit Conundrum

Capping benefits to an annual £26,000 (£500 a week = 26,000/52)? This is perceived as being the average salary for the ‘average’ (by definition) working population (actually this is the equivalent of well in excess of £30,000 - 35,000 before tax). An average wage involves an 'average' (working) population. The minimum (hourly) wage was cynically introduced to keep wages down and not produce an effective minimum. Employers can use statute law to avoid paying a reasonable wage with the consequence of considerably raising profits. This is the same mind-set in commerce that strangles the (commercial) opposition with the clear aim of raising profits. Less costs out, more revenue kept in. Result: growth, growth, growth. An employment agency can pay a minimum wage to their ‘staff’, but collect a much higher return from their ‘clients’. Parasitic behaviour all around.

An example to illustrate the (delusion) illusion:

Take a population of 1000 employed people. Assume that 50 of these each 'earns' £200,000. This works out at a total of £10,000,000 for this small group that numbers just 50. An 'average' wage of £26,000 defines the (illusory) average figure of £26,000,000 over the whole 1000 people. Remove the £10,000,000 (from the 50 high earners) and the remainder is £16,000,000, but averaged out over 950 people. This equates to £16,000,000/950 or:

£16,842

It doesn't take much to massage a 'statistic'. This is politics (but nowhere near its crudest).

• The unreal figure (£26,000) into reality (£16,842). Not a great deal above only one-half the 'average'.

Why should anything like this amount be payable in the first instance? Such an 'average' is heavily skewed since those who don’t work, but receive the benefits that others must pay for (like Council Tax), generates the 'average' figure so producing a completely nonsense argument. Housing benefits are not payable to someone with a mortgage. This begs the question: why are benefits paid in the first place? The obvious answer to that is greater control over those who receive benefits. It's so much easier to inflict great damage on a population by withdrawing something that is 'given'. The oppression of the poor continues. When the part of host becomes a parasite, it competes with any other parasite that lives off the same host. The competition between parasites results in the demise of anything that is a threat. The 'rich and powerful' parasite destroys the weak and vulnerable. Wealth is power.

The working taxpayer receives no support in paying a mortgage or Council Tax ‘contributions’, yet does pay (in full) to the benefits slush fund through taxes. To torpedo any residual sense, the non-working population has no pension provision and so will be kept by the state for life (at eventual ‘retirement’ age from a life of not working). Those in work (the 'average' individual) must pay into a personal pension that continually grows in cost for probably less when it is ‘cashed’ (if still viable). That’s a serious problem with pension funds: the pension fund finance is used to 'make' money and is placed at serious risk by ‘poor investments’. Pension funds collapse and vanish and government can ‘use’ the money in raids (by allowing less tax allowances). In today’s so-called BIG society vision by a Coalition Government budget, the concept of self-responsibility is totally hidden behind a smoke screen. With a minimum wage set at under £6/hr, even after overtime and working 48 normal-time hours a week, the figure of +£26,000 is a long, long way off for the ‘average’ worker.

In the real world, £6 x 48hrs = £288/week. The claimed (pontificated) average is £500 a week and so overtime must yield £212/week. Assuming a generous rate (no statutory rate) of x1.5 (probably unrealistically high) this means £9/hr or an additional 212/9 = 23.5hr overtime or about an extra one-half a working week (48/2 = 24) every week.

Which is the most likely:

• (i) 48 hours @ £6.00 + 24 @ £9.00 = £502.00
• (ii) 72 hours @ £6.97 = £501.84

The same amount of weekly working hours (72 hours),

but with the illusion of 'higher' overtime pay rates.

The yield is the same.


And who would 'choose' to work 72 hours every week?

• How is such an 'average' verified? Or is government entrusted with delivering ‘truth’?

Apart from removing any incentive to work (some are possibly genuinely ‘trapped’ between working and getting benefit as a result of how the financial system has developed), how is this imagined to be financed? Governments have no money other that from the collection of taxes from the working population keeping the non-working population that still gets BIGGER and unabated. An exponentially growing population that has no purpose other than to become a consumer more dependent on benefits can only end in disaster. Maybe it’s that the removal of child benefit is perceived to slow procreation? That’s an absolutely absurd notion.

Peasants'Revolt

• It's one reason for a 'police service'. To control the unrest within society. Outlaw armed defence by the people and resisting being beaten up (even when totally unarmed) against a 'service' that is armed (legallywith truncheons, batons, tasers...)

• The idea of taxes came from the requirement to raise revenue (after those days of Kings rewarding ‘private’ benefactors with public land).