Comments by "Curious Crow" (@CuriousCrow-mp4cx) on "Can we afford the welfare state?" video.

  1. But your answer is not answering the question. And as for costs rising. I've lived long enough to see a 2p bus journey now cost £2.50. And benefits have not kept up with that rate of increase. But working people who are paid a true living wage can afford to pay that fare. And isn't that the real issue? Britain is a low paid economy relative to its peers, and that occurred over the last 5 decades of mostly Conservative "small state" policy and privatisation. Whereas real GDP has gone up like a ski slope, the Labour share of Real GDP has plateaued, and it has been left to the Welfare State to make up the difference. That is not the case with our peers. And that is on us. We have allowed a huge transfer of wealth to the mostly already asset wealthy, and have not invested in our workforce skills and health, to the extent that our productivity is far below that of our peers. The short-sighted "small statists" policies have left us with an over large financial service sector dominating the whole economy, and not providing well-paid jobs. We need to invest and return to a mixed economy, instead of one vampirised by wealth extractors. That means the asset wealthy should not be favoured more than those relying on a wage for a living, and that the welfare state should be geared to keeping people healthy enough to work to to the best of their ability, and to be able to afford their basic needs without the need for their wages to be subsidised. Yes we have the most vulnerable in society, and they should be looked after, because everyone potentially will suffer sickness or ill-health, or old age. How we treat them is the minimum level of civilisation we have. Cut that down any further in favour of the asset wealthy, and we will have more diseases of poverty and more people not working because of illness. Our problems reflect our priorities. If we don't like managing our problems, we neeto look at our priorities that put them in our lives. We better priorities than making a few people even richer.
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