Poor Brit Pensioners .

[souness]

its a big problem for many people in the uk.im 46 with no private pension.i just work in a job all hours for a few months to save enough to come to thailand for a holiday twice a year.
the way things are going i could be 70 before i claim my old age pension so would have to keep working till then.
but i was reading that there are countries in south america where you only need an income of about 500 dollars a month to live there.could be an option for a lot of people as thailand seems to be getting strictor.

sean

[Welshboy]

Hi Sean
If you do deceide to go to South America. Best you pack a gun or buy one out there, because there is a good chance you will need it !

[Texpat]

Here's an idea, souness.
Forego trips to Thailand for the next four years.

Save that money. When you turn 50, come to Thailand. Deposit the saved money into a Thai bank and get your annual visa. You can live here for 20 years eating grubs and foraging for berries and leaves. (Don't be tempted to touch your insurance stash. ) Then, when you're 70, your pension will kick in -- setting you on the road to freedom in Amazing Thailand -- Land of Smiles.

[izzix]

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/ ... -online.do



Mother of six living at your expense in £2m house she found online
Rashid Razaq Rashid Razaq
15.02.10


A single mother of six is living in a £2 million house in Sir Paul McCartney's neighbourhood at the expense of the taxpayer, it emerged today.

Jobless Essma Marjam, 34, is set to receive £6,400 a month in housing benefits to rent the five-bedroom property yards from Lord's Cricket Ground in St John's Wood.

Ms Marjam, who is separated from her husband, also receives an estimated £15,000 a year in child benefits and other allowances for her children aged between five months and 14 years.

She is believed to have found the property through a private letting agency on the internet rather than wait for Westminster council to house her. She then applied to the council for the maximum allowed benefits of £1,600 a week. The house has two bathrooms, a double living room, large kitchen and landscaped garden.

Ms Marjam said today she had only recently moved into the property. “I did find the property myself and have applied for housing benefit but I haven't received anything yet from the council.”

According to a report in the Daily Mail Ms Marjam has two large flat-screen televisions and several leather sofas. She's also believed to have received large purchases from Argos and other home stores over the past week. Ms Marjam said: “I'm entitled to a five bedroom house. I was in a three bedroom council house but I needed a bigger place once my new baby came along so the council agreed to pay the £1,600 a week to a private landlord as they didn't have any houses big enough.

“I'm separated from my husband. He's a solicitor in Derby but I don't know if he's working at the moment. He doesn't pay anything towards the kids. Things are quite difficult between us. The house is lovely and very big but I don't have enough furniture to fill it.”

Ms Marjam says she does not work as she has to look after children Zekia, 14, Abdulhakim, 13, Jihad, 11, Hamza, 10, Ayman, two, and five-month-old Nasir. The four eldest children have the surname Benjamin, while the youngest two have the surname Khan.

Under Local Housing Allowance guidelines the maximum amount that can be claimed in housing benefit is set by central government and not local councils. Westminster councillor Phillipa Roe said: “We would like to see the entire system changed as the current rules are wrong and do not offer the taxpayer value for money.”

It comes after a similar case in Westminster in which Nasra Warsame, her seven children and elderly mother were also being paid £6,400 a month in benefits.

A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman said: “It is not right that in London high rents have been able to distort the system resulting in a small number of people getting excessively high payments. Only a very small minority receive such high rates of housing benefits.”

[LoongLee]

[MALC]

no body listened to mr powell they all stabed him in the back mp i mean what go;s round comes round. its pay back time at our expence

[Zidane]

This is the big problem.Us Brits who paid our taxes and National Insurance all our lives are now having our lifestyle compromised because the Government puts the needs of asylum seekers,illegal immigrants and scroungers,like this slapper with 6 kids,before us.
If you are British,born and bred and white,you are becoming a stranger in your own country.This is not meant as a racist comment,by the way.

[Texpat]

IMO

The entitlement mindset has turned a large slice of Briton into beggars, schemers and whiners.
Robin Hood has his fingers into so many aspects of life there, senior citizens now get fuel heating payments from Nanny.
Those aspects of life citizens should have most control over (education, health care, housing) have been largely surrendered to local councils and government bureaucrats to ration and fritter away to others. The idea of self determination, blazing one's own trail, has given way to a generation of bitter, spiteful people who either want to run away and have nothing to do with it, or scam their government for as much as they possibly can. Success and wealth have come to be viewed as evil and immoral. The rapidly vanishing notion of "taking care of those in need" is losing what little merit it might have once held. Britain's entitlement culture is a runaway train.

Gaming the system has become national sport. Getting one over and outsmarting the layered, inefficient government is a favorite hobby of millions of enthusiastic players -- all in a race for benefits that are freely handed out to the unwilling and undeserving.

Definitely a nation in an unrecoverable death spiral.

[Welshboy]

has given way to a generation of bitter, spiteful people who either want to run away and have nothing to do with it,

Are you talking about. British Expats ?

[izzix]

[quote]

The British, according to that study published this week, have become more tolerant, but, plainly, there are limits. The Tesco store in St Mellons, Cardiff, for example, has imposed a dress code banning customers from shopping barefoot or in pyjamas and nightgowns following complaints from other patrons.

This seems a pity. Supermarkets can be rather dull, I find. How refreshing to come across someone in nice stripy jimjams mulling over the bewildering choice of cereals or someone else in a lot of chiffon and ribbon weighing up an avocado or feeling some plums. I'm not quite so convinced by the bare feet, though: so many of them are unattractive, and I'm dangerous enough already with a trolley without having to dread a slight bump of the wheels and a scream near the biscuits.

I suppose, too, given the discernment shown by most Cardiffians – this is, after all, the city which gave us Dame Shirley Bassey – that the complaints from other shoppers do not centre upon flannel, silk and the odd cravat, but on somewhat less flattering, more synthetic, and, how shall we put this, clingy materials.

I myself, being the son and grandson of Lancashire grocers, always make an effort for my visits to the aisles, although I no longer wear a tie on Fridays. The principle, as in all matters of manners, is to put others at ease. Mind you, some people can be very sensitive: you will recall Michael Foot's problems with his short coat and the Remembrance ceremony, and Bertie Wooster's with Jeeves over several items of fetching, if lively, design, including, if I remember correctly, a pair of socks and some spats in Old Etonian colours.

That also reminds me, for some reason, of David Cameron and another finding in the report, the swing to the Conservatives. Could the Cardiff revolt against excessive informality in the supermarket be a reflection of this, portending a return to past conventions, like buttons? Could it signal the end of "leisure wear", items requiring elastic suspension, and the delightfully subversive practice of obviously unsporting people wearing sports kit they're too old and round for?

If so, allow me to pass on a few crucial pointers. A friend of mine once came across an aristocratic acquaintance in pouring rain and sodden tweeds on his return to London from the country. Why, he asked, no umbrella? "What?", came the aghast reply, "With country clothes?!". Also, do be aware that you should never wear a Panama hat in town until after Goodwood.

I wonder, as well, how Jack Cohen, the founder of Tesco and a man with highly attuned populist instincts, might have reacted to the Cardiff ruling. Positively, probably, as there's nowhere on a pair of pyjamas to place the tiepins he used to hand out, inscribed "YCDBSOYA". He used to say it was Yiddish: in fact, they are the initials of "You can't do business sitting on your arse". Pip, pip!
[/quote]

[BobHelm]

Are you talking about. British Expats ?

Ah, don't worry Welshboy, that is just Texpat showing his natural prejudices.
It is actually quite a step forward for him as in this case he has taken the example of 1 person and extrapolated it to be a nation of 60 million. Normally he would not even bother with the one example as he never lets facts or the truth interfere with his beliefs ...

[old-timer]

Hi,
My government pensions does me O.K. out in LOS and is well over 800,000B at today's conversion rate,.

If what you are saying is you get 800,000 baht a day that's not too bad, anything else than that is not enough IMO.

OT...

[izzix]

[code]
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/ ... -ruling.do

Unemployed migrants could win right to claim benefits after landmark ruling
Sri Carmichael

Thousands of unemployed migrants could have the right to stay in the UK and claim state benefits after a landmark European ruling involving two London families.

Migrant parents with children in British schools are entitled to remain in the country [color=#FF0040]and claim support whatever the financial burden they place on the Government, the European Court of Justice said.[/color]

The court declared it was important not to disrupt a child's education. In a ruling yesterday, it said it did not matter if only one of their parents had worked in Britain, or if it was for a brief period before claiming benefits.

If that parent with a job history and right to live in the UK then left the family, that did not change the circumstances provided the children were in school, the court said.

The ruling comes after a protracted legal battle by a Somali woman with four children living in Harrow and a Portuguese woman with two children living in Lambeth over their right to public services in the UK.

Both women no longer live with their husbands, who had held residence rights. Somali Nimco Hassan Ibrahim, 34, came to London with her children to join her Danish husband in 2003.
He worked for eight months as a bus driver, but then claimed benefits.

The couple separated in 2004 and the husband left Britain, but Ms Ibrahim and their children, who also have Danish citizenship, stayed.

The court heard Ms Ibrahim had never been self-sufficient, and relied on benefits and housing support. Harrow council provided her with temporary accommodation during the legal proceedings, [color=#FF00FF]but must now give her a three-bedroom home.[/color]



[/code]

[KHONDAHM]

This is likely to happen in the U.S. along with taking out more payments for healthcare.

Dennis Kucinich recently introduced a Bill in the House temporarily reducing the retirement age to 60. I doubt it will pass, though. Here's his rationale:

http://kucinich.us/index.php?option=com ... 1&Itemid=1