Our Richard:
As if to follow up the publication of Oliver James’ new book ‘Selfish Capitalism’ (about which I wrote here), the FT has reported that:
More than half a million young Britons are officially too sick to work and claiming incapacity benefits, a higher tally than the number claiming unemployment benefit. The figure, which includes more than 300,000 young people claiming for “mental and behavioural disorders”, shows continuing high levels of worklessness among the young, in spite of 10 years of steady economic growth and a concerted attempt to move people off welfare and into work. It suggests that, far from the problem receding as former industrial workers reach pensionable age, the nation may be incubating a whole new generation of claimants.
That’s the price we pay for a sick society where we choose to leave some behind, and tell them that this is their fault by continually reinforcing their sense of failure by forcing advertising upon them that says that material consumption is the cure for all ills.
It isn’t.
But making the VAT charged on advertising irrecoverable would be a first step to redressing this issue.
You what? Advertising causes people to go on incapacity benefits?
It\’s not, perhaps, a function of the fact that incapacity benefits are higher than unemployment pay?
The latter.