Too many pies - have some cash sir

[Paulh]

WTF is going on with politicians these days.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 238697.ece


Surely this nonesense is just rewarding the behaviour thet they are trying to stop - probably thought up by the same tossers who send offenders on holidays at the taxpayers expense.

If you give these people money it will just go straight down the local pie shop ffs.


If you want to make people do something then penalise them - how about you pay more tax or have their benefits cut until you are healthy - that might get a few of the fat b****'s of their lazy arses.



Then again the government could just allow people to get on with their lives without sticking their noses into everything.

[BikerGran]

I need a bit of extra cash - think I'll make a pig of myself for a while!

[Firestarter]

Agree with you Paulh, it doesn't seem right to give people money for just losing weight, but if the scheme did work, there may be a net saving to the taxpayer, if the NHS doesn't have to fund all the obesity-related illnesses that they currently do.

I would suggest the payment is linked to regular attendance at a fitness programme or something similar, not just as a cash bonus, like you say, make them do something to get the money - but make it an incentive, not a penalty for not doing it.

[Paulh]

- but make it an incentive, not a penalty for not doing it.

Why - you are rewarding them for being fat and lazy.

Getting off their arse and going for a walk / run costs them nothing - they dont need to shell out for a gym.

I would have thought being fitter / healthier was incentive enough.

[Samray]

Put em on a special diet?









of arsenic.Take em out of the gene pool.
Cash savings all round.

[ligloo]

but if the scheme did work, there may be a net saving to the taxpayer, if the NHS doesn't have to fund all the obesity-related illnesses that they currently do.

So where are the cash incentives to stop people smoking? Oh well I suppose they could take the tax that they pile on us and give it to the fat folk.... though somewhere along the line, I thought the argument for having so much tax on cigarettes was to help fund ourselves when we do come to needing NHS treatment for all our lung diseases...

Sounds to me like they should be putting a tax on deep fat fryers and all unhealthy food if thats their argument

[Gio]

Sounds to me like they should be putting a tax on deep fat fryers and all unhealthy food if thats their argument

But they do its called VAT.

Unhealthy snacks like salted peanuts, crisps etc have vat on 'em.

[Firestarter]

- but make it an incentive, not a penalty for not doing it.

Why - you are rewarding them for being fat and lazy.

Getting off their arse and going for a walk / run costs them nothing - they dont need to shell out for a gym.

Like I said, I agree with you - but given a spiralling number of obese kids, something needs to be done - starting with parents, who maybe will pass on good habits to their kids. Is this the right/best solution? I don't know, but at least it's something rather than nothing.

I would have thought being fitter / healthier was incentive enough.

But apparently being fitter/healthier isn't an incentive (if it was, we'd all be in skinny t-shirts with Adonis-like bodies), which is why there's large amounts of money spent on NHS funding for overweight people. Not saying whether the scheme is right or wrong, only that it does have potential.

Lig, no comment on the smoking thing, it's been done to death.

[D-Rider]

So where are the cash incentives to stop people smoking?

I thought there were huge cash incentives to stop smoking - a lot of it the kind government would be forgoing in tax that they would not collect (but have to find another way of extracting from us to pay for the various things they spend it on)

Am I wrong?