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Walking Man


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I used to pick hops for 3-4 weeks, then apples and pears for a month every year for 5-6 years. They set me straight onto a tractor with zero experience and the advice to "take it steady". But that was 40 years ago. At that time there still were proper working gypsies and others that followed the seasons doing farm work and they worked jolly hard too. Nice people living a simple life. There was also a cider drinking tramp who turned up every year to pick hops - he lived in the hedge, ate about 10lbs or meat every Saturday and lived purely on cider the rest of the week. I learned the hierarchy of street living alcoholics - cider drinkers looked down on wino's who looked down on meths drinkers.  Interesting times for me as a young 'un, I loved it.

 

But times have unfortunately changed over the past 40 years, there are probably no apples that can't be picked with a machine, hops are all gone. The farm I worked at the Oast house is now converted to homes. It's a damn shame TBH, the farm and farmer were ace, the work was hard but it got me fit every year.

Edited by Slow and Steady
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One does not walk behind a pony or a horse for obvious reasons. 

 

I never had much to do with cows. Clumsy and not very intelligent animals liable to cause problems. Keep away. 

 

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As for the jobs situation wouldn't it be cool if everyone was just paid a basic income from the state coffers.

 

Nobody would have to endure a shit life and those who wanted to more than a basic life could get on with it in their own time.

 

One suspects that basic greed instinct will ensure this does not happen as a lot of people want others to toil but it's a nice dream to have anyway. 

 

Which reminds me I must check on our superyacht in St Tropèz. Not been down there for a while. There might be some mildew on it. 

 

 

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2 hours ago, magnetman said:

As for the jobs situation wouldn't it be cool if everyone was just paid a basic income from the state coffers.

 

Nobody would have to endure a shit life and those who wanted to more than a basic life could get on with it in their own time.

 

One suspects that basic greed instinct will ensure this does not happen as a lot of people want others to toil but it's a nice dream to have anyway. 

 

Which reminds me I must check on our superyacht in St Tropèz. Not been down there for a while. There might be some mildew on it. 

 

 

how much will it cost to taxpayers to implement basic income?

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Nice to have helped him 😊

 

When there’s more jobs than workers available it seems unorthodox to believe the guy can’t get some sort of work, unless he has health problems. 
 
Almost every hospitality place let alone other industries appear to have vacancies so it’s pretty sad that people like this can’t somehow be accommodated into the workforce. If he can’t it’s health his choice or state expectations mainly that’s responsible (need to check passport to employ plus enormous liabilities employers have nowadays etc etc etc) 

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8 hours ago, restlessnomad said:

how much will it cost to taxpayers to implement basic income?

Don't know but it would completely eradicate benefit fraud for a start and a hell of a lot of admin work would be unnecessary.

 

It could work.

 

 

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I have no wish to cast aspersions on this chap but a couple of years before Covid we met a chap with a bog blue rucksack, a dog and young women near Ellesmere. He told me a very similar story about walking back to Llandudno, except he said he was walking the canal to Llangollen and then cross-country. He did not ask for anything, but I also gave him some folding for dog food but I doubt it got spent on that. I sounds very similar to me and may be the same chap.

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1 hour ago, magnetman said:

Don't know but it would completely eradicate benefit fraud for a start and a hell of a lot of admin work would be unnecessary.

 

It could work.

 

 

Only if you are happy with thousands of Minnie Mouse's claiming . . . 

 

As the pandemic showed all too clearly, when one source of fraud disappears, new ones are more rapidly invented than new whatever.

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18 hours ago, magnetman said:

One does not walk behind a pony or a horse for obvious reasons. 

 

I never had much to do with cows. Clumsy and not very intelligent animals liable to cause problems. Keep away. 

 

That's already been said. 

 

You are just milking it. 

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I believe that a universal income was tried out in Finland.

The population is only a few million, but the scheme was dropped for whatever reason.

I got this from Thunderboat, where one of the members lives in Finland.

 

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According to Lord Google 

 

"Finland ran a two-year universal basic income study in 2017 and 2018, during which the government gave 2000 unemployed people aged between 25 and 58 monthly payments with no strings attached."

 

 

....

 

oh dear! That's not very convincing and they even have me writing in a smaller font !

The idea is that you give every single adult who can prove who they are and that they are allowed to be here a fixed monthly payment. 

 

Doing it with a few thousand is never going to be interesting. It needs to be Universal. That's the whole object !

 

I reckon if done right it would transform society but like I said I won't happen due to greed. 

 

Oops I need to call my stock broker as I see there are some bears out there. 

 

 

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7 minutes ago, magnetman said:

According to Lord Google 

 

"Finland ran a two-year universal basic income study in 2017 and 2018, during which the government gave 2000 unemployed people aged between 25 and 58 monthly payments with no strings attached."

 

 

....

 

oh dear! That's not very convincing and they even have me writing in a smaller font !

The idea is that you give every single adult who can prove who they are and that they are allowed to be here a fixed monthly payment. 

 

Doing it with a few thousand is never going to be interesting. It needs to be Universal. That's the whole object !

 

I reckon if done right it would transform society but like I said I won't happen due to greed. 

 

Oops I need to call my stock broker as I see there are some bears out there. 

 

 

The interesting thing is that those who would complain loudest over UBI (the likes of Rees-Mogg) have never done a day's 'proper' work in their lives.

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Yes but they are relying on others doing work ;)

 

That's the whole game isn't it. 

 

I've never done a days work but am 100% in favour of UBI as it could help in all sorts of ways some of which people have not even thought about yet. 

 

It's the obvious answer to a society rapidly being overrun by technology and automation. 

 

Everyone should be a master and nobody should be a slave. 

 

The system can handle it. 

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10 hours ago, magnetman said:

Yes but they are relying on others doing work ;)

 

That's the whole game isn't it. 

 

I've never done a days work but am 100% in favour of UBI as it could help in all sorts of ways some of which people have not even thought about yet. 

 

It's the obvious answer to a society rapidly being overrun by technology and automation. 

 

Everyone should be a master and nobody should be a slave. 

 

The system can handle it. 

thats probably only way you can have enough productivity to implement UBI.

 

That is before we re establishing the social contract that binds all of us. We all agree to pool resources to fund police, health, defence and poor/vulnerable group. The additional resource needed for funding people who dont want to engage in economic activity purely out of their own will because they dont like it(not because they cant) needs consensus as well as means to fund it.

 

Edited by restlessnomad
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