This is the UK, and happening here in the US

[Blue Frost]

[Shen Li]

What's happening?

[Blue Frost]

The squeezing of the middle class to pay more, and more for subsidies, and people who don't work, or wants to work.
They make put working people should pay, and if not they are the bad people.
Same thing as many politicians pushing race as an issue building divides between people, that as a comparison.

[Sharlee]

That picture is something else. Are those brick walls surrounding people's yards? It all looks rather bleak.

[Blue Frost]

Reminds me of the graveyards in Louisiana

[Sharlee]

Wow ... that would be kind of spooky in a graveyard.

[Blue Frost]

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NLb-a5M21zk/S ... e_Dead.jpg

[Sharlee]

That is so bizarre! Are those family crypts where several family members would be buried in each little structure?

[Blue Frost]

They do that because the water level is high and would wash the bodies out.

[Sharlee]

Aaaahhhhh ... that makes sense. The city where I live in is right at sea level and is the only city in the lower mainland that doesn't have a cemetery, precisely for that reason.

[Blue Frost]

The coffins used to wash up when it rained there.

[Shen Li]

The squeezing of the middle class to pay more, and more for subsidies, and people who don't work, or wants to work.
They make put working people should pay, and if not they are the bad people.
Same thing as many politicians pushing race as an issue building divides between people, that as a comparison.

Sorry about that Frosty, I couldn't see it the first time.

[Blue Frost]

Oh, must have been lagging on the server.
Interesting stuff.

[Twilight turtle]

That photo looks like up north... north has lost a lot of its industry over the dacades, shipping in coal instead of mining it right here and stuff like that. Ship building gone, potteries gone, steelworks... gone.

But look at this...

More than 1,700 people apply for just EIGHT jobs at Costa Coffee shop

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho ... 01329.html

Some poverty comes from this... no surprise tho. Plus there's the carry on where you apply for a 10 or 12 hour a week bottom of the barrel jobs b/c that's all there is, it'll be work you can easily do...too many after the jobs, they turn you and everyone else down but then ask if you wanna work for them for 4 weeks anyway, 30 hours a week on a "work trial". No job is offered at the end of it either, you're just used. You don't get paid either by the company... they get all the hardcore manual work done for free while other tax payers pay your "wage" which is your usual unemployment benefit,

[Twilight turtle]

My neighbour downstairs, years ago when she moved in about 16 years ago, she's never worked and always been living on unemployment/sickness money all that time... I know she was "entertaining" diff men at one point as well, I could hear the sounds from the men, sometimes in the middle of the night, it used to wake me up... you could tell it was diff men by the grunts and groans. I never understood it, if you budget carefully and cut all the fat away, the money is usually enough to get by on without resorting to that.

Plus, b/c of ongoing propaganda, she's classed as "vulnerable and needing help etc" b/c she's on sickness benefits and I'm the workshy scrounger b/c I'm on unemployment money. Get this tho, I've worked a total of nearly 19 years full time, I'm pretty sure she's NEVER worked, she's pumped out 4 kids who are all jobless as well, she's in her late 50's. Now every summer, she lays out there on the common grass in her bikini bottoms, topless and there's a public footpath that passes right by and always men walking by here. She's prolly picking out her new bikini right now... been laying out there for the past 16 years like that every summer, on her sun lounger, cup of coffee and mobile phone by her side. Prolly thinks it's in Beverley hills or something.

[Twilight turtle]

I wanted to add this... sometimes the money doesn't go from richer folk to poor folk, it's the other way around. My sister & her hubby bring in around 50,000 a year I've estimated... now my sister was claiming top-ups from the gov't because she's working and has one son, 7 y.o. The top ups are called "child tax credits"... she never said she was getting anything or how much she was getting, but she's also claiming "family allowance" payments from gov't as well because of having a child. We only found out b/c she said the gov't has stopped it now and she had to pay some back. Now my sis, they go on at least 2 foreign holidays a year, nearly every 2nd year they go to Florida for 2 weeks. Top ups from gov't are supposed to go to poor people, not peope who go to Florida and Greece or places like Turkey, Spain, Las Vegas etc every year. TOTALLY WACKO.

Now someone else who's on their own, working full time, no children... might be earning around 11 or 12 thousand a year before taxes, will be paying tax on that. This is the insane bit, tax taken from someone bringing in pre taxed wages of 11000 p.a. and the tax collected from that then being transferred as top ups to couples with children who already earn up to

[Shen Li]

My neighbour downstairs, years ago when she moved in about 16 years ago, she's never worked and always been living on unemployment/sickness money all that time... I know she was "entertaining" diff men at one point as well, I could hear the sounds from the men, sometimes in the middle of the night, it used to wake me up... you could tell it was diff men by the grunts and groans. I never understood it, if you budget carefully and cut all the fat away, the money is usually enough to get by on without resorting to that.

Plus, b/c of ongoing propaganda, she's classed as "vulnerable and needing help etc" b/c she's on sickness benefits and I'm the workshy scrounger b/c I'm on unemployment money. Get this tho, I've worked a total of nearly 19 years full time, I'm pretty sure she's NEVER worked, she's pumped out 4 kids who are all jobless as well, she's in her late 50's. Now every summer, she lays out there on the common grass in her bikini bottoms, topless and there's a public footpath that passes right by and always men walking by here. She's prolly picking out her new bikini right now... been laying out there for the past 16 years like that every summer, on her sun lounger, cup of coffee and mobile phone by her side. Prolly thinks it's in Beverley hills or something.

Symptom of a failed Western system. You sure as hell won't see that kind of abuse in Korea, HK, Taiwan or Singapore. Westerners have no choice, but to become more self-reliant. We cannot sustain the kind of entitlements we have with growing numbers of retirees straining health care and pensions. Westerners will need to save more, but in order to save more taxes will need to come down. For taxes to come down spending needs to be cut.

[Blue Frost]

I knew this would hit a nerve for Twilight Sad isn't it .
I know the majority thinks it's wrong to keep freeloaders on bored, and people trying like you feel bad because they make you look bad.
You have to keep trying, and look past them, I know the feeling. Your doing what you can to find something in a void, that's not easy.
I tried for a few years before I got something good twice, I was about to go in the Army, but finally got a job unexpectedly.

[Twilight turtle]

Symptom of a failed Western system. You sure as hell won't see that kind of abuse in Korea, HK, Taiwan or Singapore. Westerners have no choice, but to become more self-reliant. We cannot sustain the kind of entitlements we have with growing numbers of retirees straining health care and pensions. Westerners will need to save more, but in order to save more taxes will need to come down. For taxes to come down spending needs to be cut.

I know, too docile and been going on too long. This town where I live is crawling with non working single girls with babies as well, boyfriend tagging along with the beer in in his hand and a ciggie on welfare... walking along, laughing, pushing their prams side by side, not a care in the world, never worked either probably and claiming eveything under the sun. Thing that gets me tho, is if it gets to the point where an out of work person has to work full time for their dole money, people like myself get rounded up. What about others who've worked solidly for 30 or 40 years as well, now all of a sudden classed a slacker b/c of being out of work for a year or more, that just isn't right when there's others sat on their butts for 20 or 30 years doing nothing. They target the wrong ones and reward the lot that sucked the money out for the last 30 years, that's what gets me.

Yeah, the saving thing... it's a bit hard to save much tho, with the amount of tax they take off you and wages so low. I don't know what the answer is... all I can think of is if you do work, don't get sick, don't get old, don't have children and save what you can.

A lot of odds are against you tho, as soon as you get on a local bus to go to work within a mile, it costs around

[Twilight turtle]

I knew this would hit a nerve for Twilight Sad isn't it .
I know the majority thinks it's wrong to keep freeloaders on bored, and people trying like you feel bad because they make you look bad.
You have to keep trying, and look past them, I know the feeling. Your doing what you can to find something in a void, that's not easy.
I tried for a few years before I got something good twice, I was about to go in the Army, but finally got a job unexpectedly.

Thing is, when they do round up the freeloaders like they've been doing last 2 years, the real freeloaders are still sitting at home while the out of work ex-tax payers get rounded up for a weekly kicking, although it's not as bad as the previous programs they had going from a few years back with the previous gov't. That was a circus that one.

I know, I do keep trying & look past them but you just feel victimized in the end. Seems like companies don't wanna pay you now for low end work, the gov't pimps you out to work for free but they can't find enough unpaid holes to shove us all into now. Yeah, but you know this work programme, it's run by PRIVATE companies who could make thousands if they "find" you a job, which they don't. We're the fools doing all the donkey work and looking, they give out the same jobs to everyone to apply for. It's insane.