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Soleron on 23 September 2008
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SamuelRSmith said:
Soleron said:
SamuelRSmith said:
Soleron said:
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Did you see the annoucment about every "poor" family getting a free £700 computer and free broadband? Even well-off families can't afford that in this recession! He just keeps making concessions to the "poor" (most of them are unemployed and not motivated to get a job because it actually pays more remain unemployed). We DON'T HAVE child poverty in this country, but he keeps on giving them huge amounts of cash, like EMA (£30 a week for turning up at school, per child whose parents earn less than ~£30,000)

The whole point of having a CAPITALIST economy is that the poorer people aren't meant to get all of the luxuries because they weren't good enough at school and got low-paid jobs. Trying to change through taxation and redistribution that is unfair on the people who've worked hard to get where they are.

 

 

1) We don't live in a capitalist economy
2) EMA is a brilliant idea. It gets the people who are only care about earning money now into further and higher education. Which is something this country needs.
3) We DO have child poverty. Just because you don't know it, or can't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
4) The people who earn the most, work the least.

 

1) Yes we do.We certainly don't live in a socialist one. The government is not meant to intefere in the market by redistributing income.

2) Further education is for the people who have the intelligence and skills to do it. The value of it is that those who can do it will go on and do it and so get better qualifications than those who can't do it. This allows them to get better jobs and employers to recognise who the most talented people are. If twice as many people do A-levels due to EMA rather than having the talent for it, the grade boundaries and test standards are lowered to accomodate them. You end up with lots of people getting top marks (AAA at A-level) . The way they 'solve' this is by introducing new grades like A*. These are then devalued until ''most' people achieve them. In the end, employers can't tell who the most talented people are, and so it's not worth trying hard if you're above average because you'll end up with the same marks. I am a Year 12 student and I've felt the effects of this every day since Year 7.

3) OK, we do, but not many (more like 0.1%). Certainly not 10% like Gordon Brown alleges. Poverty is defined as lack of money for basic needs like food, water, shelter, etc. Everyone on minumum wage or unemployment benefit (which everyone should be) is well above this.

4) But, except for a very few super-rich who inherited it, they go to their positions on merit i.e. they deserved to get there based on their aptitude as judged by the free market. The government intefereing with this (beyond actual poverty, obviosuly) disrupts that market, which is bad as the resources of the country are then being used in a suboptimal way which lowers everyone's standard of living on average.