It's ALL about the money - ker-ching, ker-ching

While everybody is banging on about the living wage it’s convenient to forget that money is an abstract, constructed by man in order to trade. It’s also probably the closest thing we've got to an accurate measure of exactly what somebody is worth – morally fair or not - to the society in which they live.

We each accrue what we are able, by whatever means we have at our disposal. So, if increasing numbers of people who go out to work are unable to live within their means it can only mean that our society does not value their labours. Let’s look at a few numbers… (Where’s Carol Vorderman when you need her?) 

The proposed living wage, outside London, is calculated at £7.45 per hour, presumably based on a 37.5 hour EU working time directive week. That’s a little over £14,500 per year. Take off Income Tax and National Insurance and you’re left with around £11,500 or £220 a week. You’re not worth a whole lot, are you? And after a rise in wages pushes up the price of goods – because it’s the economy, stupid – you’ll be worth even less. 

Contrast that with a family of non-workers having their benefits ‘ruthlessly’ capped by the Nasty, Nasty Tories at a mere £26,500 or £500 a week. So, let me get this straight… in effect the Labour party are opposing any reduction in benefits received while pushing for workers to survive on less than half the proposed reduced benefit ceiling? 

And then of course, a disproportionate amount of government spending goes to stopping some welfare-dependent families from eating their own kids, succumbing to various addictions, spreading disease and making the whole country look untidy. No wonder they think working is a mug’s game. It doesn't seem to make sense, does it? But then, nothing does in Socialism. 

And when all the social spending doesn't work – and it rarely seems to – we take them off benefits and bang them up in jail. Well, if it costs £47,000 a year to keep a man in prison that means they accrue some £900 a week of national wealth merely to keep them off the streets. Crime don't pay? 

Following, so far? A quick summary then, of your net worth to the country as it stands: 

• Honest worker = £220 p.w.
• Unemployable layabout = £500 p.w.
• Nasty thieving bastard = £900 p.w.

It seems pretty clear to me that this is arse-about-face and it has to change. LESS should be spent on the non-productive and the unwanted. Prison should be hard and cheap – lock ‘em up & make ‘em work to survive. Benefits should be bloody difficult to come by unless you’re genuinely needy. And work should pay enough to live a reasonable life. Who can possibly argue that this isn't how it should be?

I've got my eye on you... one false move...

But there’s no way we’re going to be able to get to that position with a population fast approaching 70 million. So, unless anybody has a better answer than my oft-proposed cull, I’ll be away to ready the snipers.