The incessant payment of benefits has a most debilitating effect on society. It creates the highly undesirable 'welfare dependency' which has become a blight on our nation.Statistics published this month show areas where families are workless in the long-term to such an extent that this is passing on from generation to generation.
In some cities, this can be as much as a third of the population. The cycle MUST be broken before we start to 'sag' as a nation in the manner which the moribund Soviet Union saw in its final decades.
The problem remains that there really aren't enough jobs - many thanks to Labour politicians who imported labour to perpetuate a situation where our workers were permitted to choose not to work.
One way that this can be tackled is to point out that self employment is an option. In my very ordinary part of Sheffield it is almost impossible to get anybody to do: odd jobs, hedge-cutting, gardening, cleaning etc.
In more skilled areas, it is almost impossible to get basic electrical jobs done, plastering, tiling, plumbing, painting, decorating et al.
People currently doing the jobs mentioned above expect call out fees and fifty pounds an hour is not uncommon.
After basic skill training, why can't the unemployed offer their services at a tenner an hour? Consumers would be delighted; householders would stimulate the employment market; competition would stop the silly charges which put plumbers into series five BMWs.
In Vietnam, this kind of enterprise is the ingrained thinking of virtually everybody; China is not far behind and as for Thailand .... !
Why should workers have to fund those who won't get off their rears? Why is it the duty of the state to find you a job? Where is your own responsibility?
Go door-knocking in my part of Sheffield for an eight hour day and you would end up with enough work to last for weeks. I know - because I would happily pay a reasonable rate for jobs on my own property and I know countless others who have said just the same.
Such thinking would not cure the whole mess - but ee, bah gum - it's a start.
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