Veritas, I'm not a lovely chap at all, I'm a nasty horrid fat monstrosity, and I understand what you are getting at, but thus far despite your figures, it hasn't worked, so I conclude they've got it horribly wrong. I refuse to believe that anyone leaves school with the intention of spending the rest of their days collecting benefit with nothing to look forward to and zero substance within their empty lives. No-one makes that choice, that choice is made for them...the combination of irresponsible parenting and incompetent government. And I don't just blame the Tories, as Labour were as equally hopeless.

No, I believe the system and the way we do things is magnificently bad, and a new approach is most certainly needed. In schools they fill their heads with 90% of junk that will be of no use to them whatsoever in the real world. That hasn't changed for decades.

I'm afraid Veritas, we need more investment if we wish the unemployed to be weaned off benefits, whatever the rights and wrongs of being welfare dependent, we have got to invest in people, training and completely overhaul the education system.

That is fundamental.

you are indeed correct Fats.

a massive re-think is needed to combat a growing phenomena..mass unemployment in the 'West' as jobs shift to Asia via the great scam 'globalisation'.

In 20 years a job will be a privilege.

Just take one industry..publishing...it will be replaced by the internet and Kindles/Ipads etc...not much imagination is necessary to see how many jobs will vanish there.

Governments and people need to accept the inevitable.. ..a social wage to start with..a payment whereby everyone can get the basics of life..food, rent and so on..that's if they want capitalism to survive. A social wage that comes with no stigmas attached, no Puritan guilt about not giving your time to an employer...no guilt about sleeping all day if that's your preference and no need for ITK to peer into bedroom windows.

a job will be something you do to get greater spending power.

of course that's what we have now so it won't change until a brave politician thinks beyond the next daily news cycle.

veritas wrote:
Governments and people need to accept the inevitable.. ..a social wage to start with..a payment whereby everyone can get the basics of life..food, rent and so on..that's if they want capitalism to survive. A social wage that comes with no stigmas attached, no Puritan guilt about not giving your time to an employer...no guilt about sleeping all day if that's your preference and no need for ITK to peer into bedroom windows..

The ultimate socialists dream - drag everything down to the lowest common denominator!

..... and WHO would pay for your loony utopia?