Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Living the dream. Dutch style.

From the Curious Capitalist:

"Meet permanently unemployed Dutch guy Gertjan van Beijnum (from today's Volkskrant, translation mine):

The ex art school student stands in the middle of his room in a former squatters' dwelling, an old hospital in the center of Den Bosch. Since he broke off his studies in 1979, he's been unemployed. For 28 years now he's been receiving a government check of 800 euros a month. "It's not that I can't work, it's that I don't want to. I'm against paid work," he says."


According to the article, there are still 300 thousand people on welfare in the Netherlands. And that's their lowest level in 25 years!

Just to give an idea of how high that still is, it would be the equivalent of having approximately 5.5 million people in Welfare in the US. That is more than double of the actual current number (around 2 million).

3 comments:

Cláudio said...

"I'm against paid work."

That's funny!

He surely enjoys paid vacations. Mostly the permanent ones.

patricia m. said...

Esse pessoalzinho eh vagabundo heim. Quero ver quando esse sisteminha socialista Estado-Papai deles quebrar...

Cláudio said...

Na França praticamente já quebrou (ver "A fábrica de desempregados" : http://www.submarino.com.br/books_productdetails.asp?Query=ProductPage&ProdTypeId=1&ProdId=84696&ST=SR). O defunto já está fedendo, mas, como é nobre, estão se recusando a enterrá-lo.