ChaoticMusings

Syl · FIRM BUT FAIR.

45% of children in the N/W are living in poverty/

Digger · Admin

Syl wrote:
" New research from the End Child Poverty Coalition shows that Manchester is the third worst place for child poverty in the country. Astonishingly, 45% of the city's children live in poverty. Three other GM boroughs are also in the poorest 20: Oldham (6th), Bolton (14th), and Rochdale (20th)."

How come? and what is considered 'living in poverty' now....not having enough to eat...or not having the latest smart phone?
In various studies other areas in the country don't fare much better.
How can almost half the children be classed as living in poverty when we are supposed to be one of the richest countries in the world?

Depends on the stats and as you say, what constitutes poverty.

I remember visiting the home of my ex boyfriends daughter who was a single mum with four kids. She had no bedding, no furniture, was always pleading poverty. Yet she had a 50 inch tv and top Sky package and her fridge was crammed with booze. She also smoked. Her and the kids lived on takeaways. Those were her priorities.

jackthelad · Musing at the Chaos

Sir Michael Marmot on 'grim reality' of poverty in Britain | LBC.

Jan 23, 2024

Professor Sir Michael Marmot joins Andrew Marr to discuss alarming data from the NHS, which suggests a significant increase in Victorian-era diseases, such as scurvy and rickets, during Rishi Sunak's premiership. Marmot attributes the return of these diseases to poverty and malnutrition and emphasises the 'grim' reality of Britain in 2024.

It's shameful.

Of course there are stories like Diggers but this is getting ridiculous.

How to mismanage a nation? Hand it over to a load of Eton toffs who don't need the job but want as usual to loot the nation.

To those of us in comfortable warm well fed homes it's difficult for us to grasp the enormity and even reality of this I think.

Why my words are suddenly shaded I know not.

-- Edited by jackthelad on Tuesday 23rd of January 2024 06:23:43 PM

-- Edited by jackthelad on Tuesday 23rd of January 2024 06:24:43 PM

Syl · FIRM BUT FAIR.

I watched the video above, and as was said, it's a really depressing state of affairs when rickets, scurvy and malnutrition is once more being found amongst our population. It's hard to understand why people arein this state now?

When some of us here were young, there were no benefits like today, the nanny state hadn't arrived, yet people still managed to feed and clothe their kids...and pre pill, families were larger than they are today. Fast food wasn't the norm, mothers actually cooked, and families were not split and segregated like today.

There was no internet to show everyone who had not, what others did have, so there was less inclination to spend out of reach, people lived within their means.

If food banks and handouts did exist, most people were too proud to visit or claim, and yet I don't know of any kids in the 50's or 60's who were starving or suffering from Victorian type diseases.

Are kids today suffering because of lack of proper parenting, or are parents simply unable to cope nowadays, because, in real terms, they are actually poorer than adults were over half a century ago?

jackthelad · Musing at the Chaos

Syl wrote:
I watched the video above, and as was said, it's a really depressing state of affairs when rickets, scurvy and malnutrition is once more being found amongst our population. It's hard to understand why people arein this state now?

When some of us here were young, there were no benefits like today, the nanny state hadn't arrived, yet people still managed to feed and clothe their kids...and pre pill, families were larger than they are today. Fast food wasn't the norm, mothers actually cooked, and families were not split and segregated like today.

There was no internet to show everyone who had not, what others did have, so there was less inclination to spend out of reach, people lived within their means.

If food banks and handouts did exist, most people were too proud to visit or claim, and yet I don't know of any kids in the 50's or 60's who were starving or suffering from Victorian type diseases.

Are kids today suffering because of lack of proper parenting, or are parents simply unable to cope nowadays, because, in real terms, they are actually poorer than adults were over half a century ago?

There was no need for benefits as there were jobs jobs and more jobs.

If you lost your job or just fancied a change there were another ten jobs almost no questions asked just around the corner.

There was also a massive amount of cash circulating especially in the building trades and building sites all over the place as new estates were going up to replace the bomb damage and the slum clearance across the land.

It was a very different world back then.

No fridges no supermarkets buy what you needed daily at the hundreds of small shops.

No BnQ but a hundred hardware shops.

All this supersize stores mlarky was all very good but they destroyed ambition on a huge scale.

By the middle of the seventies dreaming of having your own shoe shop was becoming an ever more distant dream.

Shops were starting to disappear and now they are all but gone.

We now live in a corporate world where the corporate comes before the people.

Unions? Gone because the corporate is king.

The worth of the masses and individuals is way down from when I was a youngster and I think that has a very negative affect on the population.

I remember the hippies wanting no more wars that didn't happen then the Punks appeared and the punks were saying there's no point in anything the system stinks and the system isn't there to work for me.

I remember when only fairly well off people got divorced and had broken families then the rules of the game were changed again and again till it got to the point where kids with both parents were the odd ones out in some areas.

Now people don't have or want kids they want comfort and wages for themselves.

Every aspect of life is completely tits up from when I was a kid.

When I was a kid the streets belonged to us now each street is lined with a million quids worth of shiny metal boxes and the streets are for them.

We went from the dig in and look after each other lifestyle to look at me look at me look at me I have a new kitchen every five years and new carpets and new everything often.

We've gone from being more spiritual to almost totally materialistic and it might be comfortable but it's yet something else that has torn society apart.

Remember Maggie saying... there's no such thing as society? Meaning it's everyman for himself that will take us all to the top.

Turned out to not be so.

I sit outside supermarkets waiting for wife daughters etc to come out with their shopping and I people watch.

Not something I ever planned but noticed myself more and more doing.

I see fat tattooed men and women with their lips nailed on and their ears weighted down swearing at small children and pulling them about often screaming at them threatening them even and I think what are those children going to be like in a few years? These overweight over inked people are allowed to vote!

They mostly haven't a clue what they are doing or why and our leaders know this.

A once great nation has become a washed up corporate dystopia in many ways and many people haven't a clue how to feed and clothe themselves and their children properly... without the corporations and their chemical food like offerings.

I have a 20 year old grandson who tries his damdest to live the champagne lifestyle on a beer crate income.

Hundred quid tshirts two hundred quid pumps!

Girlfriend has said if she gets pregnant her mother will have to look after the baby because she doesn't have a clue how to... in other words she can't be arsed.

I've pleaded with my grandson to ditch the bitch but he still hasn't/wont.

My rant is basically to say we are poorer in every way imaginable in this modern high tech 21st century corporate world it's not just food and money.

It's not just the UK either.

The western world is crumbling.

The greatest systems ever built and they are crumbling so it doesn't surprise me that diseases are making a comeback children are going hungry old people are freezing... that last bit you'll not hear about till summer when we can look back at the figures but for now keep shtum. This winter I'm betting Frozen old people will be around 80,000. Welcome to the 21st century... it wasn't meant to be like this and didn't have to be.

The next devaluing of people comes with AI.

How we are going to deal with that I don't know!

Rant over.

-- Edited by jackthelad on Tuesday 23rd of January 2024 08:57:50 PM

jackthelad · Musing at the Chaos

Millions in UK need to double income to escape poverty

When the cost of everything is spiralling, from housing to fuel and food, millions of ordinary people are facing an ever greater struggle to get by. Now a new report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation says millions of people in the UK would need to double their income to escape poverty. Their damning report reveals the extent of hardship and desperation across the country - describing it as "social failure, at scale".

This happens every time the tories are in power.

Everytime but this time Eton has excelled itself in showing how they teach upper class kids to loot the masses loot a nation and feel good about it.

jackthelad · Musing at the Chaos

I've ranted a bit about corporate power and greed without using those words.
We were told because of Russia and Ukraine there was going to be an energy crises.
What they didn't say was it was only a crisis for the customers.
All energy sectors are raking it in from me and you whilst it's crippling many families.
British Gas and BP for example are raking in record profits while the people shiver and struggle while the corporates add to the growing poverty and misery.
Why do we allow this?
Just click the link and scroll down if you haven't heard of this dreadful criminal state of affairs.
Just read the titles or read the articles ... https://www.google.com/search?q=How+are+energy+companies+making+record+profits%3F&rlz=1C1CHBF_enGB1028GB1028&oq=How+are+energy+companies+making+record+profits%3F&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIICAEQABgWGB4yCAgCEAAYFhgeMg0IAxAAGIYDGIAEGIoFMg0IBBAAGIYDGIAEGIoFMg0IBRAAGIYDGIAEGIoFMg0IBhAAGIYDGIAEGIoFMg0IBxAAGIYDGIAEGIoF0gEKMTkwNzVqMGoxNagCALACAA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#ip=1

You are being had! We're all being robbed and wondering why our world is getting poorer!

jackthelad · Musing at the Chaos

Take your pick.... www.youtube.com/results

jackthelad · Musing at the Chaos

Sorry just trying to get links to work.

Digger · Admin

Syl wrote:
I watched the video above, and as was said, it's a really depressing state of affairs when rickets, scurvy and malnutrition is once more being found amongst our population. It's hard to understand why people arein this state now?

When some of us here were young, there were no benefits like today, the nanny state hadn't arrived, yet people still managed to feed and clothe their kids...and pre pill, families were larger than they are today. Fast food wasn't the norm, mothers actually cooked, and families were not split and segregated like today.

There was no internet to show everyone who had not, what others did have, so there was less inclination to spend out of reach, people lived within their means.

If food banks and handouts did exist, most people were too proud to visit or claim, and yet I don't know of any kids in the 50's or 60's who were starving or suffering from Victorian type diseases.

Are kids today suffering because of lack of proper parenting, or are parents simply unable to cope nowadays, because, in real terms, they are actually poorer than adults were over half a century ago?

It's mainly bad parenting. We have kids going to school in nappies FFS!

Maddog · Go Outside

Poverty is generally described as a number below some median number.

It's often meaningless because poverty in many western countries looks like prosperity in others.

Also, even within a country poverty is relative based on the cost of living.

Usually in the US, New Mexico and Alabama have the highest poverty rates, until you factor in the cost of living.

Then California becomes the highest.

jackthelad · Musing at the Chaos

Maddog wrote:
Poverty is generally described as a number below some median number.

It's often meaningless because poverty in many western countries looks like prosperity in others.

Also, even within a country poverty is relative based on the cost of living.

Usually in the US, New Mexico and Alabama have the highest poverty rates, until you factor in the cost of living.

Then California becomes the highest.

The number of people having gas electric internet etc cut off is growing rapidly and apparently most of them are people with jobs.

More and more people have incomes below what is considered livable.

Energy prices are through the roof and they really don't have to be anywhere near that high for companies to make a healthy profit.

All this is leading to more and more homelessness and sky high rents don't help in this housing crisis we have.

This crisis of survival. The nation is in crisis.

Syl · FIRM BUT FAIR.

In the UK, we have always had a class system.
When I was young we had the poor, lower working class, working class, middle class, upper middle class, upper class...and rich.
People did try to better themselves, but generally you accepted the class you were born into.

Now, there is an under class who don't work, live off benifits or fiddles, and they can often be better off than the people who hold down honest jobs.
Our culture has changed so much, people want what they perceive others have, but it's often aĺl smoke and mirrors, they are fed a lie, either from what they see online, what they read, or what they are told.

It sometimes seems that people can't think for themselves anymore.

Maybe not the majority, but enough to change society, certainly for the next generation or three.

Maddog · Go Outside

jackthelad wrote:
Maddog wrote:
Poverty is generally described as a number below some median number.

It's often meaningless because poverty in many western countries looks like prosperity in others.

Also, even within a country poverty is relative based on the cost of living.

Usually in the US, New Mexico and Alabama have the highest poverty rates, until you factor in the cost of living.

Then California becomes the highest.
The number of people having gas electric internet etc cut off is growing rapidly and apparently most of them are people with jobs.
More and more people have incomes below what is considered livable.
Energy prices are through the roof and they really don't have to be anywhere near that high for companies to make a healthy profit.
All this is leading to more and more homelessness and sky high rents don't help in this housing crisis we have.
This crisis of survival. The nation is in crisis.

That could be true, but I imagine a great deal of it, is the same problems we have here. People not managing their money and spending it on the fun stuff and not keeping enough for bills when they are due.

Syl · FIRM BUT FAIR.

Energy prices are huge here, no one should be cold in their own homes, and it's true that people die of the cold, especially the old.
People are also living in mouldy homes caused by damp. This was highlighted recently when one 2 year old child died of an illness caused by the mold in the rented home he lived in.

Maybe one way of ensuring benifits were spent wisely rather than spent on unnecessary luxuries, would be to issue food/energy vouchers instead of actual money.

Maddog · Go Outside

Syl wrote:
Energy prices are huge here, no one should be cold in their own homes, and it's true that people die of the cold, especially the old.
People are also living in mouldy homes caused by damp. This was highlighted recently when one 2 year old child died of an illness caused by the mold in the rented home he lived in.

Maybe one way of ensuring benifits were spent wisely rather than spent on unnecessary luxuries, would be to issue food/energy vouchers instead of actual money.

Yup. If you're going to be giving people money for necessities, vouchers are a good idea.

But people often say that it's degrading to not trust people.

Tough shit. Pay your own way and then it's not a problem..

Syl · FIRM BUT FAIR.

Maddog wrote:
Syl wrote:
Energy prices are huge here, no one should be cold in their own homes, and it's true that people die of the cold, especially the old.
People are also living in mouldy homes caused by damp. This was highlighted recently when one 2 year old child died of an illness caused by the mold in the rented home he lived in.

Maybe one way of ensuring benifits were spent wisely rather than spent on unnecessary luxuries, would be to issue food/energy vouchers instead of actual money.

Yup. If you're going to be giving people money for necessities, vouchers are a good idea.

But people often say that it's degrading to not trust people.

Tough shit. Pay your own way and then it's not a problem..

I can see it may be degrading, but if the taxpayer is providing people with money for food, rent and heating, that's where the money should go....and I'm sure in the majority of cases it does.

Syl · FIRM BUT FAIR.

There was a debate about poverty on the radio recently. Someone pointed out that it was cheaper to fill your kids up with fast food, sweets, crisps and biscuits, than it was to buy fresh fruit, fish and meat daily.

It's a lot cheaper to actually cook for a family. Plan, cook and freeze... a family can eat healthily and cheaply without resorting to take aways, which in my day, were a treat rather than the norm.

Having said that, fish and chips were not out of reach of most families...now they cost a bloody fortune.

jackthelad · Musing at the Chaos

Maddog wrote:
jackthelad wrote:
Maddog wrote:
Poverty is generally described as a number below some median number.

It's often meaningless because poverty in many western countries looks like prosperity in others.

Also, even within a country poverty is relative based on the cost of living.

Usually in the US, New Mexico and Alabama have the highest poverty rates, until you factor in the cost of living.

Then California becomes the highest.
The number of people having gas electric internet etc cut off is growing rapidly and apparently most of them are people with jobs.
More and more people have incomes below what is considered livable.
Energy prices are through the roof and they really don't have to be anywhere near that high for companies to make a healthy profit.
All this is leading to more and more homelessness and sky high rents don't help in this housing crisis we have.
This crisis of survival. The nation is in crisis.

That could be true, but I imagine a great deal of it, is the same problems we have here. People not managing their money and spending it on the fun stuff and not keeping enough for bills when they are due.

Of course that happens but if you watch the videos you'll see that people who have previously been fine with their money are now not because we are in a cost of living crisis! A so called energy crisis that has energy companies raking it in like never before. So easy and quite common to blame the poor for being poor. That tactic has been used throughout history.

The reality is that the word crisis which even politicians and governments are using daily is very real.

I'm warm and comfortable so don't see it as most on forums seem to be but it's creeping around the edges waiting to devour more and more of you.

Maddog · Go Outside

jackthelad wrote:
Maddog wrote:
jackthelad wrote:
Maddog wrote:
Poverty is generally described as a number below some median number.

It's often meaningless because poverty in many western countries looks like prosperity in others.

Also, even within a country poverty is relative based on the cost of living.

Usually in the US, New Mexico and Alabama have the highest poverty rates, until you factor in the cost of living.

Then California becomes the highest.
The number of people having gas electric internet etc cut off is growing rapidly and apparently most of them are people with jobs.
More and more people have incomes below what is considered livable.
Energy prices are through the roof and they really don't have to be anywhere near that high for companies to make a healthy profit.
All this is leading to more and more homelessness and sky high rents don't help in this housing crisis we have.
This crisis of survival. The nation is in crisis.

That could be true, but I imagine a great deal of it, is the same problems we have here. People not managing their money and spending it on the fun stuff and not keeping enough for bills when they are due.
Of course that happens but if you watch the videos you'll see that people who have previously been fine with their money are now not because we are in a cost of living crisis! A so called energy crisis that has energy companies raking it in like never before. So easy and quite common to blame the poor for being poor. That tactic has been used throughout history.
The reality is that the word crisis which even politicians and governments are using daily is very real.
I'm warm and comfortable so don't see it as most on forums seem to be but it's creeping around the edges waiting to devour more and more of you.

Well, if it's actually an increase in costs, without an increase in income to offset those higher costs, that's a different problem.

Your country has always had stupid high energy costs, and those costs impact the poor the most.

I mentioned California a few posts back. They are known for being more "compassionate" than the state of Texas. More likely to have programs to help the poor.

Yet they fund some of that by taxing the fuck out of things making their cost of living higher than the rest of the country.

And lo and behold, all of that help creates the highest rates of poverty in the country. 🤷