The community of pensioners living off-grid on Britain's canals 'forgotten' by authorities

[nicknorman]

8 minutes ago, dmr said:

 

I think you are on a bit of a wind-up

Yes, there are a lot of unskilled people but its not always self inflicted, sometimes its down to limitations in the education system, bad parents, teenage hormones or just not been born with such as high IQ as you. Many unskilled jobs have just gone away, like supermarket checkouts, and to some extent its clever engineers like you and me who have made machines/software to replace peoples jobs, though the search for profit at any cost (and low prices) is probably the real issue.

 

I have a relative with a young disabled child who really wants to work, and has managed to find a job, but its low pay, zero hours, no payment for school holidays and just not economically viable. They already struggle with fuel bills and over a year the job will pay less than the Universal credit.,

 

Obviously I realise that some may find my view distasteful, but that doesn't necessarily detract from its validity. It is all part of the decline and fall of western civilisation that we are living through.

I think you are conflating high IQ with skills. You don't need a high IQ to be a plasterer, bricklayer, plumber etc. What you do need is some training and experience in what is fairly formulaic job -  a job that nevertheless is in demand and pays good money. Yes you can't just breeze up to the job interview saying "today, I have decided to be a bricklayer", which is quite dissapointing to some people!

 

As to your relative, there can be no doubt that some peole find themselves in unexpected difficulty through no fault of their own. That should be what we have the benefits system for. It should not be for a lifestyle choice nor should it engender a feeling in the population that they have no need to make any effort to provide for themselves as the state will do that for them.

 

No country can continue to function with a philosophy that individuals have no need to make best efforts to look after themselves and any children they may decide to have. It is simply untenable in the long term.

 

All that said I will say that any system whereby one can be in full time employment but still need state benefits (other than in exceptional circumstances) is a bad one. In this country we have the state subsidising many businesses, especially the large chains, in that there wouldn't be the people to be employed on minimum wage were it not for government subsidy aka in-work benefits. IMO any full time job should pay enough for the employees to live adequately without the state having to subsidise them. Doesn't happen in other aligned countries such as Australia.

[sueb]

Only one of my jobs paid a pension, £60 per month. I worked for well known companies but I expect there are many like me.

[nicknorman]

9 minutes ago, sueb said:

Only one of my jobs paid a pension, £60 per month. I worked for well known companies but I expect there are many like me.

Although of course there was nothing stopping you having your own pension scheme if you had chosen to. It is no doubt easier to set one up  these days, but lots of self-employed people managed back in the day.

[Laurie Booth]

42 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

 

Obviously I realise that some may find my view distasteful, but that doesn't necessarily detract from its validity. It is all part of the decline and fall of western civilisation that we are living through.

I think you are conflating high IQ with skills. You don't need a high IQ to be a plasterer, bricklayer, plumber etc. What you do need is some training and experience in what is fairly formulaic job -  a job that nevertheless is in demand and pays good money. Yes you can't just breeze up to the job interview saying "today, I have decided to be a bricklayer", which is quite dissapointing to some people!

 

As to your relative, there can be no doubt that some peole find themselves in unexpected difficulty through no fault of their own. That should be what we have the benefits system for. It should not be for a lifestyle choice nor should it engender a feeling in the population that they have no need to make any effort to provide for themselves as the state will do that for them.

 

No country can continue to function with a philosophy that individuals have no need to make best efforts to look after themselves and any children they may decide to have. It is simply untenable in the long term.

 

All that said I will say that any system whereby one can be in full time employment but still need state benefits (other than in exceptional circumstances) is a bad one. In this country we have the state subsidising many businesses, especially the large chains, in that there wouldn't be the people to be employed on minimum wage were it not for government subsidy aka in-work benefits. IMO any full time job should pay enough for the employees to live adequately without the state having to subsidise them. Doesn't happen in other aligned countries such as Australia.

In Australia if you can't pay the hospital fees you have to work there to pay off the bills

[Machpoint005]

36 minutes ago, Laurie Booth said:

In Australia if you can't pay the hospital fees you have to work there to pay off the bills

 

I'm sure that works out really well for the chronically sick or terminally ill.

 

 

[dmr]

1 hour ago, nicknorman said:

 

Obviously I realise that some may find my view distasteful, but that doesn't necessarily detract from its validity. It is all part of the decline and fall of western civilisation that we are living through.

 

 

You are very correct, I do feel that all the boaters who complain about CRT and the decline of canal maintenance are just missing the bigger picture. 

lets just talk about boats 😀

[MtB]

3 minutes ago, dmr said:

 

You are very correct, I do feel that all the boaters who complain about CRT and the decline of canal maintenance are just missing the bigger picture. 

lets just talk about boats 😀

 

 

I agree. It's always struck me that democracy is the aberration; worldwide historical normality being brutal dictatorship. I can't believe how blessed we all are to live in freedom in the UK in the 20th/21st century yet all people do is moan about the trivia. Like how important it is to have all the right bits of paper when one comes to sell one's crappy ol' second hand canal boat, when nobody even enforces the reams of regulations written by swarms of jobsworths on £100k a year for people who love to put ticks in boxes.

 

Oops, went off on one there. I blame that Henry Weston geezer.

 

 

[dmr]

6 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

 

I agree. It's always struck me that democracy is the aberration; worldwide historical normality being brutal dictatorship. I can't believe how blessed we all are to live in freedom in the UK in the 20th/21st century yet all people do is moan about the trivia. Like how important it is to have all the right bits of paper when one comes to sell one's crappy ol' second hand canal boat, when nobody even enforces the reams of regulations written by swarms of jobsworths on £100k a year for people who love to put ticks in boxes.

 

Oops, went off on one there. I blame that Henry Weston geezer.

 

 

 

I have tried to move on to the Thatchers Vintage, it does not go down as easily as the Henry, I think it was possibly after a cider tasting evening with you that I got into the Thatchers.

I used to think "how can such a great civilisation of ours ever decline" but I now see that you can be just "too civilised". When a society puts all its efforts into not offending anyone (even if they are bad) and encoraging confused teenagers to be confused about their sex rather than helping them then it all goes wrong, the Chinese are not doing this, they are generating knowledge and building things, including a huge military capability, and stamping on anybody who gets in their way, yeah and all the silly bits of paper associated with boats, the Chinese don't do that either, they just make them and sell them to us.

[MtB]

6 minutes ago, dmr said:

 

I have tried to move on to the Thatchers Vintage, it does not go down as easily as the Henry, I think it was possibly after a cider tasting evening with you that I got into the Thatchers.

I used to think "how can such a great civilisation of ours ever decline" but I now see that you can be just "too civilised". When a society puts all its efforts into not offending anyone (even if they are bad) and encoraging confused teenagers to be confused about their sex rather than helping them then it all goes wrong, the Chinese are not doing this, they are generating knowledge and building things, including a huge military capability, and stamping on anybody who gets in their way, yeah and all the silly bits of paper associated with boats, the Chinese don't do that either, they just make them and sell them to us.

 

 

I agree with everything you say. Westons is best. 

 

I've tried all the variants (organic and what have you) and none of them quite hits the spot like the basic "Medium Dry Vintage Cider". I find this with lots of foodstuffs. The basic fave is always best, never mind when they mess about with it. Hummus is a good example. Sometimes its really hard to find normal hummus in Waitrose that hasn't bin messed about with, adding this and that. Same with Marmite, although the XO stuff one gets at Xmas is pretty brutal! 

 

Oh yeah and yes the Chinese ARE gonna take over the world as they have their eye on the ball. Deffly. Unlike Sunak who seems to have vanished off the edge of the disc. 

[Laurie Booth]

1 hour ago, Machpoint005 said:

 

I'm sure that works out really well for the chronically sick or terminally ill.

 

 

Not allowed in the hospitals

 

[roland elsdon]

5 hours ago, Laurie Booth said:

In Australia if you can't pay the hospital fees you have to work there to pay off the bills

Pardon?
Medicare . Open to all. Public hospital system, funded from taxation.

if you choose not to have private health insurance, you pay a levy on your taxes.

if you don’t earn enough you don’t pay the levy.

Working in public health my accountant did the maths and told us not to buy private healthcare.

Course with out insurance you can pay as you go.

Ive had various surgeries in Oz. I had to pay a gap fee difference between what surgeon charged and Medicare paid, but but but. It’s tax deductible.

 

None of my staff in Australia worked in the hospital paying of debts.

[Midnight]

8 hours ago, nicknorman said:

Although of course there was nothing stopping you having your own pension scheme if you had chosen to. It is no doubt easier to set one up  these days, but lots of self-employed people managed back in the day.

If i had known I was going to live this long I would have set up a private pension and looked after myself a lot better

[Midnight]

6 hours ago, MtB said:

 

 

I agree with everything you say. Westons is best. 

 

I've tried all the variants (organic and what have you) and none of them quite hits the spot like the basic "Medium Dry Vintage Cider". I find this with lots of foodstuffs. The basic fave is always best, never mind when they mess about with it. Hummus is a good example. Sometimes its really hard to find normal hummus in Waitrose that hasn't bin messed about with, adding this and that. Same with Marmite, although the XO stuff one gets at Xmas is pretty brutal! 

 

Oh yeah and yes the Chinese ARE gonna take over the world as they have their eye on the ball. Deffly. Unlike Sunak who seems to have vanished off the edge of the disc. 

Whatever you're on I'll have some 

Edited December 29, 2022 by Midnight

[Pluto]

12 hours ago, nicknorman said:

 

Obviously I realise that some may find my view distasteful, but that doesn't necessarily detract from its validity. It is all part of the decline and fall of western civilisation that we are living through.

I think you are conflating high IQ with skills. You don't need a high IQ to be a plasterer, bricklayer, plumber etc. What you do need is some training and experience in what is fairly formulaic job -  a job that nevertheless is in demand and pays good money. Yes you can't just breeze up to the job interview saying "today, I have decided to be a bricklayer", which is quite dissapointing to some people!

 

What job isn't formulaic these days. To be a helicopter pilot you just need to be able to regurgitate what has been written in books, and to have a little dexterity and little imagination. Having worked up through an engineering apprenticeship and undertaken technical education at all levels, it is the good skilled workers who I remember as having high intelligence, rather than some of the numpties now working in universities and management. The ability to perform high-level skills is not really related to IQ, and forms a different part of our intelligence. It was not academically-trained engineers who started the industrial revolution, but skilled tradesmen - millwrights and stone masons. Yes, academic education is needed today, but to do that at the expense of craft skills is nothing short of moronic. What is needed is a recognition of craft skills, not for them to be disparaged, and for academically trained and craft trained people to work together, and for their individual skills to be recognised in a much more uniform manner than at the moment.

[nicknorman]

40 minutes ago, Pluto said:

What job isn't formulaic these days. To be a helicopter pilot you just need to be able to regurgitate what has been written in books, and to have a little dexterity and little imagination. Having worked up through an engineering apprenticeship and undertaken technical education at all levels, it is the good skilled workers who I remember as having high intelligence, rather than some of the numpties now working in universities and management. The ability to perform high-level skills is not really related to IQ, and forms a different part of our intelligence. It was not academically-trained engineers who started the industrial revolution, but skilled tradesmen - millwrights and stone masons. Yes, academic education is needed today, but to do that at the expense of craft skills is nothing short of moronic. What is needed is a recognition of craft skills, not for them to be disparaged, and for academically trained and craft trained people to work together, and for their individual skills to be recognised in a much more uniform manner than at the moment.

I agree on nearly all counts. Being a helicopter pilot is definitely formulaic, and I had some pretty thick colleagues!

 

But to answer your first question, any technical design job isn’t formulaic, you have to invent new stuff. And we need research to progress science and technology. None of which takes away from the need for skilled tradesmen.

[Pluto]

3 hours ago, nicknorman said:

I agree on nearly all counts. Being a helicopter pilot is definitely formulaic, and I had some pretty thick colleagues!

 

But to answer your first question, any technical design job isn’t formulaic, you have to invent new stuff. And we need research to progress science and technology. None of which takes away from the need for skilled tradesmen.

I would suggest that it has become formulaic, being restricted by the usual cost implications, but also the availability of suitable computer programmes which can restrict what can be done. I was talking to a surgeon recently, and mentioned that lack of technical education, such as woodwork or metalwork, in schools was resulting it people with a lack of manual dexterity, something vital for a surgeon. He agreed, and suggested that people were working on AI to undertake surgery as too few surgeons were available with such skills. This will be fine for 'standard' operations, but I would feel happier if I had a real surgeon for something unusual. Bear in mind that AI tends to learn from its mistakes - hopefully not dead bodies in this case. This is just one area where our current society's lack of respect for, or understanding of, skilled workers is having an effect. We do have an arts/sciences divide, which I have never been able to understand, and feel that the divide is more between craft and academia, for want of a better word. I have begun to put together thought on this subject in my book, below, but over the year or so since it was published, have developed further ideas. It is something which needs addressing, but I can't see any politicians really understanding the problem as so few have done anything practical in their lives.

[LadyG]

On 28/12/2022 at 16:30, Machpoint005 said:

 

 

Seems clear enough to me. 

 

It's supply and demand, and there is not a big enough supply (of labour). One reason for a shortage of appropriate workers is that the pay on offer is too low. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is it? 

The supply pretty much equals demand, an unusual situation in the labour market. You are saying that there are many thousands of people sitting at home rather than earning £400 (40 x £10.00) every week. I don't think so.

Commodity markets work on supply and demand - see energy prices this year. Gas is gas, electricity is electricity, but labour is not like that, a shortage of train drivers can't be replaced by an influx of immigrants sitting in interment centres.

 

 

Edited December 29, 2022 by LadyG

[nicknorman]

3 hours ago, Pluto said:

I would suggest that it has become formulaic, being restricted by the usual cost implications, but also the availability of suitable computer programmes which can restrict what can be done. I was talking to a surgeon recently, and mentioned that lack of technical education, such as woodwork or metalwork, in schools was resulting it people with a lack of manual dexterity, something vital for a surgeon. He agreed, and suggested that people were working on AI to undertake surgery as too few surgeons were available with such skills. This will be fine for 'standard' operations, but I would feel happier if I had a real surgeon for something unusual. Bear in mind that AI tends to learn from its mistakes - hopefully not dead bodies in this case. This is just one area where our current society's lack of respect for, or understanding of, skilled workers is having an effect. We do have an arts/sciences divide, which I have never been able to understand, and feel that the divide is more between craft and academia, for want of a better word. I have begun to put together thought on this subject in my book, below, but over the year or so since it was published, have developed further ideas. It is something which needs addressing, but I can't see any politicians really understanding the problem as so few have done anything practical in their lives.

 

I think the debate is akin to "which is the more important, doctors or nurses?" And the answer of course is that both are equally important. Because one can't really function without the other. Ditto for academics and technicians

[Arthur Marshall]

38 minutes ago, LadyG said:

Is it? 

The supply pretty much equals demand, an unusual situation in the labour market. You are saying that there are many thousands of people sitting at home rather than earning £400 (40 x £10.00) every week. I don't think so.

Commodity markets work on supply and demand - see energy prices this year. Gas is gas, electricity is electricity, but labour is not like that, a shortage of train drivers can't be replaced by an influx of immigrants sitting in interment centres.

 

 

Energy, oil, elec and gas, prices have little to do with supply and demand. The price of gas has little to do with the price of electricity but they are linked by a political decision, which is why massive profits have been made. The price of oil is decided politically, mostly by the Arab world deciding how much to extract. Train drivers are a good example of supply and demand failure - big demand but no supply because employers would rather pay dividends etc than invest in training. It's a perfect example of the failure of market economics - old Karl will be chuckling away down at Highgate.

[Ex Brummie]

The shortage of train drivers is hampered by the continuing spanish practices of the unions. If the current employees worked as productively as they do in other countries then rail fares would be lower and services more reliable. 

A lot of the conditions jealously guarded by the unions date back to British Rail times when the job was very very different to today.

I think you would also find that if the employers did train more staff, with the current conditions only running weekend services only with overtime it would make no difference. In a previous existence I was a bus driver for a while in the 70's, and my shift included a certain amount of weekend working, Bank Holiday work and split shifts. This was all paid at enhanced rates from the basic 8 hour day. This is what needs addressing to alleviate the inconvenience currently caused. I don't know whether there is still a closed shop in the industry, but employing non union labour under different conditions would be confrontational. Maybe this is what is needed.

[Ex Brummie]

13 hours ago, Midnight said:

If i had known I was going to live this long I would have set up a private pension and looked after myself a lot better

Setting up a private pension may have given you a little more, but I suspect that if you had, you would have been disappointed after Gordon Brown's raid, the banking collapse and George Osborne's austerity meant that the Government and banks decimated the returns. I would like to see the man driving the Bentley my shortfall paid for.

 

22 hours ago, nicknorman said:

 

 

 

 

All that said I will say that any system whereby one can be in full time employment but still need state benefits (other than in exceptional circumstances) is a bad one. In this country we have the state subsidising many businesses, especially the large chains, in that there wouldn't be the people to be employed on minimum wage were it not for government subsidy aka in-work benefits. IMO any full time job should pay enough for the employees to live adequately without the state having to subsidise them. Doesn't happen in other aligned countries such as Australia.

This policy was fostered by the Labour Government of the 90's and early 00's and of course it generated an electoral bank of voters. It also, as pointed out elsewhere, helped industry to pay lower rates so that the government was also supporting them and there poor productivity. What is neede is a plan to increase minimum wage significantly alongside a similar reduction in benefits. 

[Guest]

My personal experience of unions is that they are an utter waste of time.

 

Many years ago I was a steward for the RCN. During the 'training' a tip was given to me by a full time RCN officer.

 

It was when representing a nurse in a disciplinary hearing have a 'quiet word' with the hearing manager and HR in advance to determine if proven what they anticipated the sanction should be.

 

If they said 'final written warning' you were told to tell the nurse 'this is very very likely to end in dismissal but if I do my job correctly I might get this down to a final written warning'.

 

Final written warning issued, happy RCN member.

 

As a manager I have witnessed union reps turn up at hearings totally unprepared and with no idea of what the issue facing the staff member actually is.

 

Unions stink IMHO.

[TheBiscuits]

2 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:

The price of gas has little to do with the price of electricity

 

Quite right.

 

The price of electricity has a great deal to do with the price of gas however as around half the UK electric is produced by burning the stuff in rather expensive gas turbines.

 

It's not a coincidence that historically UK electricity has been around 3 times the price per kWh of UK gas ...

[sueb]

22 hours ago, nicknorman said:

Although of course there was nothing stopping you having your own pension scheme if you had chosen to. It is no doubt easier to set one up  these days, but lots of self-employed people managed back in the day.

I wasn't self employed. I worked for the Health service; local government and city publishing houses amongst others. I assume it was the joy of being a woman. I was expected to marry and have a husband to look after me.

[Barneyp]

20 minutes ago, sueb said:

I wasn't self employed. I worked for the Health service; local government and city publishing houses amongst others. I assume it was the joy of being a woman. I was expected to marry and have a husband to look after me.

It is and was possible to have your own pension scheme if you're employed, or to increase your contributions to an employers scheme ( depending on the rules of the scheme).