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Demand for UK Food Bank Up 15% Year on Year

theguardian.com

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Re: Demand for UK Food Bank Up 15% Year on Year

#31

Post by beeflet »

zwnow wrote: post #5
wtcactus wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, yeah. Regulating the food prices is the trick here. That went really well in the Soviet Union and Mao’s China... just to name a couple of examples. It's funny that for some people, the answer of the enormous failings of Marxism is always "We need even more Marxism!"

At what point will it get worse, a planned economy or a free economy based on greed? Life is getting more unaffordable with each passing day. Corporations need to be put in their place given that politicians dont even have backbones anymore as soon as they smell corpo money.

So much money flows through the government that I would say it is already a planned economy

Re: Demand for UK Food Bank Up 15% Year on Year

#32

Post by solumunus »

Loughla wrote: post #25
mytailorisrich wrote: post #12

The title was edited for some reason, the actual one is: " Budget 2025: how inflation and the two-child benefit cap has increased poverty " And indeed this is an article against the 2-child benefit cap. This is obviously full of warm feelings but ignores the tough question of the individual responsibility not to have more children than one can afford. The article interviews a family with 4 young children and apparent…

That's a very morality based argument. In general, those types of arguments aren't great and don't really serve a purpose outside of letting the individual take the moral high ground for whatever reason. I had to rely on food banks when my parents kicked me out at 16. I had to again my second year of marriage while I was still in graduate school and our car got hit, forcing us to use our food budget (and we did have…

I can’t understand what you think their argument is. This response doesn’t seem relevant to theirs.

Re: Demand for UK Food Bank Up 15% Year on Year

#33

Post by mytailorisrich »

Nursie wrote: post #26
mytailorisrich wrote: post #12

The title was edited for some reason, the actual one is: " Budget 2025: how inflation and the two-child benefit cap has increased poverty " And indeed this is an article against the 2-child benefit cap. This is obviously full of warm feelings but ignores the tough question of the individual responsibility not to have more children than one can afford. The article interviews a family with 4 young children and apparent…

The problem with that view is that it’s not the children’s fault, and the cap punishes them and messes with their life chances because of decisions made by someone else. If there are kids going hungry, that’s somewhere you usually want the government to step in and take the strain. It’s a very difficult area to navigate, politically. While it’s entirely understandable that there’s public discomfort with the idea that…

Are those against the 2-child cap in favour of campaigns and incentives to make poorer families stop at 2 children? Indeed, that'd be the best way to help children...

Re: Demand for UK Food Bank Up 15% Year on Year

#34

Post by solumunus »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #22
wood_spirit wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People made the decision to have each child at least 9 months before the child was born. And in the subsequent years and 9 months anything could have happened, eg illness or losing a job. So even careful planners might be unlucky enough to need food banks?

This can of course happen but it is obviously disingenuous to imply that this is what usually happens in response to my comment.

I think the point is that you can’t easily isolate these issues. Are you suggesting that someone should wade through the cases and determine who should get benefits for every child, or are you saying that you find the collateral damage to the “truly deserving” worth it?

Re: Demand for UK Food Bank Up 15% Year on Year

#35

Post by 6510 »

This reads like either the author believes all the propaganda they read or they are willing participants in it.

> political willpower is not enough

That the economy is in terrible shape shouldn't get in the way of the rich getting richer. No one knows where all that money is coming from but people are also miraculously to poor to buy, build or rent a home. With all that nice scarcity in the market, whatever units are left make a lovely investment opportunity to put all that extra money into which again feeds into the scarcity. So much winning it's tiring!

Re: Demand for UK Food Bank Up 15% Year on Year

#36

Post by haizhung »

ukrefugee wrote: post #18
jmyeet wrote: post #9

For the last 50+ years, Western governments have largely acted to funnel wealth from the poor to to the wealthy. Each economic crisis seerms to have ushered in a big jump in inequality. The OPEC oil crisis, 1987, recessions in the 1980s and 1990s, the dot-com bubble, the GFC and Covid. Ultimately this is going to correct. My preference is that it corrects by governments enforcing a fairer distribution because otherwi…

tax revenues are higher than ever, government spending is higher than ever, social programs and social spending is higher than ever also self entitlement, reliance on the government is at the highest, individual autonomy is at the lowest ever

Obviously every nominal value is going to be higher YoY. That just immediately follows from inflation.

Almost every year in almost every country will have:

- record GDP

- record government spending

- record total wages

- record stock market prices

- record asset prices

- record government debt

You need to put these values in relation to something, otherwise they don’t mean anything.

For the UK, take for instance the public sector net wealth (Ie. Everything the UK public collectively owns). It collapsed drastically, from 220bn in 2006 to -900 bn in 2025.

Absolutely off the charts. As a result of this, the government can’t provide health care and basic support for its citizens anymore.

Question: who has all this wealth now, who is the UK indebted to?

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxe...

Re: Demand for UK Food Bank Up 15% Year on Year

#37

Post by AlecSchueler »

ukrefugee wrote: post #24
barbazoo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source?

24 million people receiving benefits (aka cash) in uk https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/dwp-benefits-statis... in addition to the usual free everything free health care free roads free housing (often) free education free riding and on top of it you get to complain about the rich!

That source doesn't cover the claims you made.

Re: Demand for UK Food Bank Up 15% Year on Year

#38

Post by blfr »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #12

The title was edited for some reason, the actual one is: " Budget 2025: how inflation and the two-child benefit cap has increased poverty " And indeed this is an article against the 2-child benefit cap. This is obviously full of warm feelings but ignores the tough question of the individual responsibility not to have more children than one can afford. The article interviews a family with 4 young children and apparent…

What is the point of having a civilization if we can't afford kids? Sure, if it was this or that couple, maybe it could be mere irresponsibility, but now the entire west (and plenty of non-western countries) is below replacement.

Re: Demand for UK Food Bank Up 15% Year on Year

#39

Post by Joeboy »

ukrefugee wrote: post #24
barbazoo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source?

24 million people receiving benefits (aka cash) in uk https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/dwp-benefits-statis... in addition to the usual free everything free health care free roads free housing (often) free education free riding and on top of it you get to complain about the rich!

> 24 million people receiving benefits (aka cash) in uk

It looks like most of those people are claiming State Pension / Pension Credit. Which doesn't make it not true, but it's maybe not what most people will think of first when you talk about benefit claimants.

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