When we talk of the poor let's be clear that we are talking about those on benefits. All forms of benefits from council tax benefit to tax credits. Today we are going to explore the effect of not "giving money to scroungers".

Let us imagine that Gordon Brown wakes up tomorrow and forgetting that he is a member of the Labour party starts to listen to those people in Thanet that keep saying that those people on out of work benefits should "get a job".

Let's imagine that he listens so so well that he passes a new law. From now on there will be no tax credits, no JSA, no council tax benefit, no housing benefits, no income support, no incapacity benefit and no disability living allowance. In short all hand outs are outlawed. To stop himself loosing the next election the "No Handouts Act 2008" also says that only those people who have paid all their taxes may vote.

There will be complaints, of course but let us imagine that Gordon Brown uses his new found "genius" to silence complaints and suppress the riots and attempted revolution that is the most likely as around 33% to 50% loose the right to vote and the income they have been living on.

But you tax bill falls so fast it makes your head spin. You the working guy are now richer than you have ever been. Gordon Brown is now a genius right?

What would happen next? Keep reading to find out.

The first effect would be the drop in immigration. The very thing that attracts migrants to the UK would now have been turned upside down and drive them away. Indeed we would see British people expatriating to the EU and the US. So surely this is good - right?

We'll see about that in a moment. However the people on the most benefits prior to this "No Handouts Act 2008" would probably be unable to leave the country and so the social divide would widen considerably. If that does not bother you then you might actually be happy about it.

The "No Handouts Act 2008" might close the NHS in which case you will need medical insurance and in a depressed economic situation this might mean that you will have to pay for it. Watch out for those clauses that allow the insurance company to get out of paying as the cost of most medical treatments is high.

We will definitely be scrapping free prescriptions so expect to pay out in large sums every time you get ill. Or do what most people on a lower income in the USA do - don't bother to get the medicine in the first place.

Apparently the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates that there were around 1.9 million lone-parent families with dependent children in the UK in 2004 and one would imagine that they were all getting some form of tax credit.

So we now live in a country where most single parents don't vote nor do students, the disabled, those out of work, those who are sick, the elderly and those who have lost their job.

What do you care about those guys right?

In fact there would be around 30% or more families ineligible to vote nationally and in places like Newington and Dane Valley this would be at least 60%.

Assuming that one third of the population is too scared and hungry to take to the streets and riot in any great numbers what would happen next.

A few things would change. First there would be greater demand for jobs but also job security would become an issue. Your pointy haired boss will know you can not afford to just quit so he would be able to make cut backs to things like your pension plan. Your improved wages would be spent on private index linked pension schemes, income insurance and insurance on every borrowing you have.

You may actually be worse off than before. However, let's assume the best case and say that you are richer than before. Just because it is the dream of so many working people to see this happen.

Spending from 30% to 50% (or more) of the population will have nose dived. As we are already experiencing this causes shops to close and spending to drop further. Rest assured Margate would be a ghost town with just a few drunken people and gang members hanging about causing hassle.

At a stroke Gordon will have disenfranchised 50% of the people in the UK which will lead to only half the children at schools attending well and far less good grades.

Within a year "Schools in Crisis" will be the headline. Thanet will be filled with failing schools but don't worry because there will be too many to close them all. Also don't worry because the people that have kids in failing schools probably don't have the vote anyway.

What other effects might we see?

We can be sure that some people will become desperate and gangs will find that they are able to get away with a lot more. Newington would very quickly become a ghetto where the police fear to go.

Crack and other drugs will be freely available there and the gangs will be imploying a lot of people at just below basic minimum wage.



(If you want the very short version you might want to skip to 9:10 on the video (also 12:00)). Take note that the death rate selling drugs is such that it is far more dangerous to sell drugs than to be on death row!

There will be a lot of people that die from the combined effects of little or no food, the violence that goes with the crack industry, drug addiction and other causes.

It will not be just drugs that these gangs will sell but the gangs will become the main dealers of the stolen goods. After all stolen things and drugs are going to be the two biggest sources of money in an estate with no jobs. So people with jobs will move out and leave those unable to escape.

But that does not matter to you right - you have you job.

Yet it will be your TV and your car that these guys are going to go after. Why? Simple - you don't shit on your own turf, man - in other words you don't steal from the area you live but go somewhere else to live.

So your home insurance is going to go up and you will want to invest in the very best security devices but that's not too bad because the tax rates are lower... they are still low right?

Well, as it turns out - no.

There is something called the "compensating differential" which in real terms means when the job sucks people demand more money for doing it. Well those police that have to patrol the estates and arrest the guys that stole your TV, car, computer and so forth are going to want more cash that cash comes from more tax.

Let's imagine that you are still better off though. It could happen. There is another issue going on here. Assuming that you can catch the criminals then you have to lock them up and our prisons are already over full.

So in his next term Gordon Brown is going to have to raise taxes to pay for new prisons or relax laws so he can make space to lock up petty thugs. Now we have up to 50% of the UK population worse off and at least 33% competing for jobs and going hungry.

We will see two other ideas. Cash in hand for whatever money you can get and get arrested and do time because ...at least they feed you in the nick.

This cash in hand work will take two forms. Labour on building sites and farms for less than basic minimum and self directed work such as fixing cars and trading cars in impromptu "garages" and in personal driveways. You can bet that this work does not pay taxes.

The country would face the economic impact of cheap labour from illegal migrant workers but on a massive scale. Whereas before it would be limited now there would be an unending supply of cheap cash workers with better skills than the migrants.



The time honoured Thanet hardship meal is food stolen from the local farms. With around 65,000 people in Thanet doing this most days the wise farmer will sell up or start paying the local gangs to protect his property - paying in food that is.

Not all that food is going to be eaten. There will be underground "markets" all over where you can buy freshly stolen food. Not a good time to have an allotment.

This will add to the pressure on the police and we can expect crime to be a big issue. Those little gangs will soon become part of bigger organisations and we are talking words like Mafia and terrorists...

This will mean these guys have more money so the police will need more money too.

Your lower taxes are not going to be able to stay super low for too long. Plus the economic crunch has another problem up to 55% of the population have less money to spend. So what is currently a light recession will quickly deepen into a big one.

As that happens expect to see beggars and a lot of homeless people nagging you for change as you go to work. The more you earn the greater the demand for you "spare" coins each day. This is just a small side effect of the new law ("No Handouts Act 2008").

That's where an amoral version of me will make a lot of money.

As has happened before the poor can be used to make money for the rich and this is how someone like me might do it. First you buy a large property. Some of the by now very cheap and empty hotels in cliftonville would work very well. Then you offer a home to the homeless poor.

This home comes with shared shower, clothing, basic food and a bed. It also comes with "voluntary" work as "work experience". This includes cleaning the house and doing the other tasks.

So far so nice.

Now one can sell "cheap labour" at £3 or £4 a man hour which is cheaper than the £7 or £8 basic minimum costs a legitimate employer. One can go as low as 50p an hour because one does not pay one's poor people.

Also it would be easy to "find fault" with one of my poor that did not put themselves down for enough hours as the list of people waiting to get in would be high.

Very soon one could have a chain of working sites where one houses the poor homeless souls of Thanet and sell their labour at a cut back price.

This does almost nothing to help the economic situation as very little is being spent for or buy these guys and gals. Indeed I have just undercut every factory in the country and can now be the out source location of choice.

So your call centres will now be located in the UK. Things are looking up. Indeed that gives the poor farmers another idea and a few months later they have big call centres selling double glazing and expensive loans by phone. The workers are all on commission only at 60% and your phone is going to ring night and day.

All the while the poor in these houses had better be grateful or they will be replaced with poor that are grateful. These are people trapped in the working houses for life. They are also about to devalue your job...

By now you are putting in a lot of unpaid overtime to keep your boss happy. Jobs are becoming harder to find as spending is right down and the credit crunch is turning into a great depression to rival the start of the twentieth century. Worse yet a lot of work is being done by working houses and those desperate for work at a fraction of the price it used to be carried out.

That means that your pointy haired boss is wondering if you are worth the drain to the budget.

Expect to see shanty towns on your drive home each day. These will be places even more scary than the estates and slum areas.

Expect to be mugged once a year and expect to live three years less than you would have otherwise have done.

Additionally you will need to be alert for the rise on confidence tricksters and other forms of fraud. Everyone is probably out to get you and there is no one to watch your back. Expect to find fake money in your change on a regular basis.

Not to worry all that is about to change for you but not for the better.

The first sign of change is that terrorists are able to more freely recruit and if they don't spark an outright revolution then they might manage a few riots and definitely some explosions.

Expect bomb scares to be far more common than during the most active time of the IRA. It's the price you pay for marginalising 25% to 35% of the population.

With the new British work houses and the cash-in-hand economy the temping agency is likely to have a hard time and that means that there are less jobs. So casual labourers join the underground economy or the slave economy.

You are now a liability for your boss - you earn a lot of money but there are people willing to do your job for less. You might think that I am making this up but not only are [...] most poor people able and willing to work hard, they do so when given the chance. The real trouble has to do with such problems as minimum wages and lack of access to the education necessary for obtaining a better-paying job. (Causes and Effects of Poverty).

One day you find that you may need to go for a new job at 80% of your current wages. You do it but now you are having a harder time making ends meet. So you do what any person does in such times - you start to buy from the street vendors in the dodgy side of town.

Worse yet your performance is less than it used to be at work. This is a direct side effect of the conditions under which you work. You also pay more tax than ever and conditions are as bad as they were in the 1980s possibly worse.

You (and everyone else like you) are now supplying the crime syndicates with money. You can not help it some things (like getting the car fixed) are too expensive.

Clothes and other consumer goods are cheap enough, though, thanks to the new British work houses. However, food is expensive due to the overheads of theft. House prices are not recovering and credit is expensive.

One day your company goes bust and for a year the insurance policies you were able to keep the payments up on cover your debts.

Meanwhile the new British work houses are making inroads into every industry offering the savings that the companies need to stay afloat. The down turn is mostly over but things are not looking so good.

This is because spending is right down. The materials economy must have things purchased at ever higher rates to be maintained. The worst is yet to be seen because the effects of this period of poverty is not yet being felt. That will take 18 to 20 years to start to be noticed (about the gap from the 80s to now).

Are children affected by their experience of poverty? opens Research carried out by the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) showed a relationship between poverty in childhood and well-being as adults, demonstrating that child poverty can leave a damaging long-term legacy.

So what are these long term effects?

Well over the following 10 to 20 years we will see a tenfold increase in the number of single teenage mothers. Child deaths and fires will be more common (10 to 15 times more common than in richer areas).

Parents going without food to feed their children will be common. As we have covered this is an area where crime will be a part of life - stealing food to survive.

Children will drop out of school or be withdraw from school to work to earn money for the family. This will be dangerous and dirty cash in hand work. The sort of labour that displaced people into other jobs which displaced people until they displaced you.

Smoking will be common and the NHS will have to deal with that - unless it has been closed to save your tax cost under the "No Handouts Act 2008" in which case expect a lot of people to die young and this is where your taxes rise again - extra deaths means that the state must pay for the funeral because no state wants dead bodies all over the show.

The increase of smoking means that more people will be making the ooze run and getting their full allowance of tobacco even if they don't smoke. This will be sold in the police no go areas and be the cause of more arrests. Remember those prisons that taxes were raised to cover guess what - they need to raise it again.

Expect to catch the brunt of increased ill health in your insurance premium after all Overcrowding increases the risk of infectious or respiratory disease. Damp, mould and condensation can cause a range of illnesses such as asthma and allergies. Poor housing conditions have been shown to cause excessive stress for children and adults leading to long term depression and anxiety - depression can lead to violent crime don't forget and you with your nice car (that you will have to sell if you don't find work soon) are a target.

During poverty the effects on children are well documented but it is the effect of those effects on the world that you want to worry about.

The result is that those poor people are now a wider selection of society than ever before and are likely to remain so. A lot less skilled people will have made it to university and so there will be less innovation in the high technology industries - this is where money is most often made and so the depressed economy is likely to be a long term issue.

You are now on the cusp between the richer class and the slave class (poor) of society. Your only other option is organised crime with a 25% chance of death within 4 years.

If only there were some state funded benefits to keep you going between jobs... The chances are that you will find yourself in a low paid job or, just as likely, in a working house.

Expect to have both yourself and your children and your grandchildren live with the effects of this. Contemporary patterns of some diseases have their roots in the past. The fundamental relation between spatial patterns of social deprivation and spatial patterns of mortality is so robust that a century of change in inner London has failed to disrupt it. (The Ghost of Christmas Past: health effects of poverty in London in 1896 and 1991, Abstract, Conclusions).

The truth is that benefits in all their forms actually do a number of things to make your life better even if you don't claim them.

They ensure that there is more money being spent - this means the economy is more boyent and that there are more jobs for you to choose from. This also means that you can earn a larger income.

It stops desperation from undermining a basic standard for employment standards and wages.

It cuts crime and keeps your tax burden under control. This is by far the hardest benefit of benefits to see but without the butterfly effects of benefits you would end up paying out more as they act as a prevention for a large number of poverty induced problems that would cost you money in the long term.

Currently modern, expansive welfare states that ensure economic opportunity, independence and security in a near universal manner are still the exclusive domain of the developed nations,[28] commonly constituting at least 20% of GDP, with the largest Scandinavian welfare states constituting over 40% of GDP.[29] These modern welfare states, which largely arose in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, seeing their greatest expansion in the mid 20th century, and have proven themselves highly effective in reducing relative as well as absolute poverty in all analyzed high-income OECD countries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty

Thankfully this is not going to happen. We will probably always have poor people but the effects of pverty will take more than a hundred years to ease - not illiminate just ease.

Ironically a great tool in reducing poverty are museums (TDC recently closed all of Thanet's). Poverty is not much talked about because it is not pleasant to consider and it is all too easy to blame the poor for poverty. It is not the problem of a select few but a problem that directly effects us all.