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Its for the best that there is no social security system in Thailand.... Uk comparison


advancebooking

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I agree with OP, I often cite practically 0% official unemployment here as people must work to support their own homes and families.

For balance, the counter arguments are normally:

- social security provides emergency help for society's most vulnerable - disabled, loss of job - social insurance therefore tides families over during times of need and avoids unnecessary homelessness/child poverty

- it supports the economy in times of downturn as payments are counter-cyclical (payments go up during recessions), also the poorer have a greater propensity to spend than the rich (who may otherwise hoard taxes saved)

- it also supports consumption (& thereby the economy) to the extent that households do not save excessively for uncertain future costs (education, health care) - this is why China is racing to set up national social security to re-balance their economy from excessive savings/investment (diminishing returns on capital, slower growth).

However, I'm proud to stay at a country with such evident self-reliance (and whose wife must lie about her husband's enforced Work-Pernit-less economic activity!) - even if some of the rice wine swilling gentle folk at the villages could pull their socks up a bit and stop relying on their wives so much (I at least match my wife's Bangkok (graduate) salary and provide as much non-employment support as I can :) ).

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Great work guys. Two posts in and someone managed to bring up an immigrant bash.

Anti immigrant immigrants. As always, you blokes are a special breed.

Now, back to the cricket.

Maybe they thought it was relevant, because sometimes it is,not always just sometimes.

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I tend to agree but without the contemptuous attitude shared by so many TV armchair economists when discussing the welfare state.

It's so bloody easy to sit there having grown up as part of a generation that benefited enormously from a period of unprecedented economic growth in the West.

It's easy when you only had to buy a house in the 70s, live in it for 30 years and then sell it for any number of times more than what you paid.

It's easy when you've worked, paid into and are now living on the proceeds of a final salary pension scheme. They're nowhere near as common these days, are they?

It's easy when you could bounce out of school with a degree and straight into a job with a British company at a time when our ingenuity still led the world.

It's so easy when all you had to do was "buy-and-hold" stocks to see them soar in value many times over.

Frankly, I think a lot of you should really consider yourselves mighty fortunate that you were born and worked at the right time rather than sitting there passing judgment on the overwhelming majority of deserving welfare recipients.

I sincerely doubt that many of you would stand a snowball-in-hell's chance of cutting it as a young graduate in today's environment.

I think the government has done a good job cutting the bill for the welfare state but there will always be those who abuse it.

What you wrote reminds me alot of something I read earlier this year:

Luck has a lot to do with success. That is both my experience and the conclusion of a lot of research, including by Daniel Kahneman, winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize, who famously said:

Success = Talent + Luck.

Great Success = A little more Talent plus a lot more Luck.

Many successful people find this assertion annoying, since they feel that they have worked very hard to succeed. As noted in my previous post, these people suffer from survivorship bias: they fail to notice all the other people in the world who worked equally hard but failed to succeed. (Warren Buffet is a noted exception; he has repeatedly noted that he was in the right place at the right time.)

source: http://www.denniswhittle.com/2013/10/how-to-get-lucky.html

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This thread of course has all the socialo-commies coming out.

I believe the state, in addition to good free education and "80-20" healthcare, has to guarantee equality of opportunity and has to provide a minimum "safety net" for people who don't have anything.

But this safety net should not include more than pocket money and it should be uncomfortable enough (such as sharing a room with 3 other people in state-sponsored accommodation) to motivate people to earn their money by working.

EXACTLY.

And unfortunately it's getting no better, according to a parliamentary question this week, out of 8,700 benefit claimants who were convicted of fraud, only 5% finished up in prison,some for only a short period of time,even though the amount they falsely claimed was in some cases very high.

Do you really think it's sensible or cost effective to imprison benefit fraudsters when it costs £40,000 a year to keep them in prison?

It's cost effective to stop paying their benefits.

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I think I'll unsubscribe from this parade of ignorance and bigotry.....

What did you expect from a forum populated mainly by Boomers who are terrified their pensions will be sacrificed to pay for economic growth, and that the kids who are now facing having to work until they die to pay for a 30-year boomer retirement will suddenly realise how much they're getting screwed and do something about it?

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I think I'll unsubscribe from this parade of ignorance and bigotry.....

What did you expect from a forum populated mainly by Boomers who are terrified their pensions will be sacrificed to pay for economic growth, and that the kids who are now facing having to work until they die to pay for a 30-year boomer retirement will suddenly realise how much they're getting screwed and do something about it?

Perhaps those very same baby boomers Paid into the system throughout their working life, paying of course for the previous generation, just as the present workforce has to pay for the state pensions of those now retired. Who are the present kids who will have to work until they die?. Yes, The age of retirement will be put back by a couple of years, why, because due to better health care people are simple living longer, couple this with the fact that size of the workforce is becoming a smaller percentage of the population, or simple put, fewer workers supporting more pensioners, and guess what when YOU do receive your state pension, your children will have an even bigger burden.

To go back to the original topic, yes it would be a good thing if the Thai's where to receive a better safety ( if they have one ) net. Just as one had to be put on place in the UK many years ago, but if this does come about, I hope they do not follow the UK system and allow it to be abused.

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I think I'll unsubscribe from this parade of ignorance and bigotry.....

What did you expect from a forum populated mainly by Boomers who are terrified their pensions will be sacrificed to pay for economic growth, and that the kids who are now facing having to work until they die to pay for a 30-year boomer retirement will suddenly realise how much they're getting screwed and do something about it?

Perhaps those very same baby boomers Paid into the system throughout their working life, paying of course for the previous generation, just as the present workforce has to pay for the state pensions of those now retired. Who are the present kids who will have to work until they die?. Yes, The age of retirement will be put back by a couple of years, why, because due to better health care people are simple living longer, couple this with the fact that size of the workforce is becoming a smaller percentage of the population, or simple put, fewer workers supporting more pensioners, and guess what when YOU do receive your state pension, your children will have an even bigger burden.

To go back to the original topic, yes it would be a good thing if the Thai's where to receive a better safety ( if they have one ) net. Just as one had to be put on place in the UK many years ago, but if this does come about, I hope they do not follow the UK system and allow it to be abused.

Personally, I don't see why you allow it to be abused.

Abuse is not really the biggest problem. As you say, the problem is that there are more people claiming pensions for longer, and incurring more expensive medical treatments, for longer, and the actuaries did not predict this. Governments of yore squandered their income on industrial subsidies as well as the welfare state, when they should have been investing the contributions of a prosperous workforce for the future. Now those grasshoppers expect the ants of today and tomorrow to support them in accordance with an agreement that they made with themselves.

SC

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I think I'll unsubscribe from this parade of ignorance and bigotry.....

What did you expect from a forum populated mainly by Boomers who are terrified their pensions will be sacrificed to pay for economic growth, and that the kids who are now facing having to work until they die to pay for a 30-year boomer retirement will suddenly realise how much they're getting screwed and do something about it?

Perhaps those very same baby boomers Paid into the system throughout their working life, paying of course for the previous generation, just as the present workforce has to pay for the state pensions of those now retired. Who are the present kids who will have to work until they die?. Yes, The age of retirement will be put back by a couple of years, why, because due to better health care people are simple living longer, couple this with the fact that size of the workforce is becoming a smaller percentage of the population, or simple put, fewer workers supporting more pensioners, and guess what when YOU do receive your state pension, your children will have an even bigger burden.

To go back to the original topic, yes it would be a good thing if the Thai's where to receive a better safety ( if they have one ) net. Just as one had to be put on place in the UK many years ago, but if this does come about, I hope they do not follow the UK system and allow it to be abused.

You know, don't you, that the generation you write off so casually to sacrifice for your own comfort will soon have their hands on the reins of power and will be deciding where to make the cuts, don't you?

The arrogance, selfishness and entitlement that characterises the boomer generation is astounding.

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This thread of course has all the socialo-commies coming out.

I believe the state, in addition to good free education and "80-20" healthcare, has to guarantee equality of opportunity and has to provide a minimum "safety net" for people who don't have anything.

But this safety net should not include more than pocket money and it should be uncomfortable enough (such as sharing a room with 3 other people in state-sponsored accommodation) to motivate people to earn their money by working.

EXACTLY.

And unfortunately it's getting no better, according to a parliamentary question this week, out of 8,700 benefit claimants who were convicted of fraud, only 5% finished up in prison,some for only a short period of time,even though the amount they falsely claimed was in some cases very high.

Do you really think it's sensible or cost effective to imprison benefit fraudsters when it costs £40,000 a year to keep them in prison?

It's cost effective to stop paying their benefits.

If someone is found guilty of benefit fraud they do stop paying their benefits rolleyes.gif

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And unfortunately it's getting no better, according to a parliamentary question this week, out of 8,700 benefit claimants who were convicted of fraud, only 5% finished up in prison,some for only a short period of time,even though the amount they falsely claimed was in some cases very high.

Do you really think it's sensible or cost effective to imprison benefit fraudsters when it costs £40,000 a year to keep them in prison?

It's cost effective to stop paying their benefits.

If someone is found guilty of benefit fraud they do stop paying their benefits rolleyes.gif

I'm not up to speed but good news as I still have to pay some UK taxes and would rather they are not squandered.

Edited by Bpuumike
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