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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

#51

Post by api »

blfr wrote: post #49
bluescrn wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is the point of having a civilization if we can't afford kids? It's not 'can't afford kids', it's 'don't prioritise having kids'. And IMHO, they've been taught to think this way. To put career and materialism above family. There's also the constant messaging about an impending climate apocalypse or the rise of new fascism/nazism - which helps justify 'I don't want to bring new life into this world' logic. Othe…

Which cultures still have kids? India is now below replacement as well. SE Asia is doing worse than the west. There's Africa, sure, and maybe Mongolia. But it's not clear that it will hold or that they have any secret sauce beyond just not having been yet hit with the full blown modernity.

African birth rates are falling faster than projected.

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

#52

Post by duncanfwalker »

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!

Spending is paid for out of tax and all those people will have paid tax. Paying less tax than someone else doesn't make a free rider. Deliberately opting out of an obligation while taking from the group makes a free rider.

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

#53

Post by louthy »

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…

When I was 8 years old my father got ill. He lost his ability to work, lost his business, and eventually we lost our house and ended up in social housing. Then three years later, when I was 11 years old, my father died leaving my mother with 3 kids to raise and no income.

If the two child benefit cap was in place then, we would have been in food poverty in one of the richest nations on earth.

Not every situation is as mind numbingly simple as you paint it. Most people don’t have additional children in an attempt to game the system. That’s a moronic point of view.

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

#54

Post by [deleted] »

ktallett wrote: post #2

It will only get worse whilst costs are not regulated of essentials such as housing, food, utilities, and public transport. The rich need to be taxed on all UK based assets and income no matter where you live and we need to restrict profit and pricing accordingly. We can't keep being held hostage by those who wish to increase their bank balance year on year. Now we have no incentive right now as those who are in gove…

[deleted]

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

#55

Post by mytailorisrich »

Nursie wrote: post #45
mytailorisrich wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I honestly don’t know, perhaps find some to ask. To me that looks far too much like government overreach and interference. Not that government overreach or interference is anything but fashionable these days. As others have said as well - people’s lives take all sorts of unexpected twists and turns. Jobs are lost, economies change and make whole sectors irrelevant. You can’t just assume everyone with more than two ki…

If suggesting that perhaps people should live within their means is government overeach and interference then surely the government should then stay out of it and not provide any children benefits at all...

I think you've shown exactly how this debate and complaints against the 2-child cap is one-sided and refuses to consider the issue of family planning and living within one's means.

As I replied before, the argument that "life takes all sorts of unexpected turns" is completely disingenuous because we all know that this is not what happens in the vast majority of cases... so again an odd refusal to face reality and the key, tough questions.

Edit: why such bad faith in the replies? Most larger families that are poor and on benefits started that way, they are not victims of a sudden life accident. It is totally neutral to state this, I am not passing judgement. But apparently it is wrong to state it and wrong to suggest that people should start by living within their means. This is madness!

Edit 2: I'll leave this here (census 2021):

"In 2021, 1.2 million households contained three or more dependent children; when compared with households with one or two dependent children they were more likely to contain no employed adults" [1]

[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde...

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

#56

Post by orwin »

varispeed wrote: post #13
ktallett wrote: post #2

It will only get worse whilst costs are not regulated of essentials such as housing, food, utilities, and public transport. The rich need to be taxed on all UK based assets and income no matter where you live and we need to restrict profit and pricing accordingly. We can't keep being held hostage by those who wish to increase their bank balance year on year. Now we have no incentive right now as those who are in gove…

It's not capitalism, but corruption. Subsequent governments have been shovelling billions to tax avoiding multi national corporations without checks and balances. "Taxing the rich" is a distraction. Correct action is investigate corruption and cut spending. For instance NHS reliance on agencies - they pay agency for a nurse £2,500 a day, nurse gets £500 from agency if lucky, £2k goes offshore. That's how our money is…

Capital is power in a 'free market'/liberalist world. I like the idea of free markets, but capital accumulation makes the capital owners able to decide more and more on policies that allow them to accumulate even more capital/power. in any case, most of it isn't corruption, it's only people seeking more capital for themselves and their families.

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

#57

Post by newsclues »

ktallett wrote: post #2

It will only get worse whilst costs are not regulated of essentials such as housing, food, utilities, and public transport. The rich need to be taxed on all UK based assets and income no matter where you live and we need to restrict profit and pricing accordingly. We can't keep being held hostage by those who wish to increase their bank balance year on year. Now we have no incentive right now as those who are in gove…

Blaming capitalism for government failures while stating the solution is more and bigger government seems to be a misunderstanding of what the root cause is.

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

#58

Post by api »

bluescrn wrote: post #42
blfr wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> What is the point of having a civilization if we can't afford kids? It's not 'can't afford kids', it's 'don't prioritise having kids'. And IMHO, they've been taught to think this way. To put career and materialism above family. There's also the constant messaging about an impending climate apocalypse or the rise of new fascism/nazism - which helps justify 'I don't want to bring new life into this world' logic. Othe…

I’m just going to throw this out there.

What if reducing birth rates at this point in time is rational?

On the employment side, we have rapidly advancing automation and AI that are dramatically reducing the work force required to maintain society.

On the ecological side we have a combination of climate change, soil depletion, and many other factors that at least threaten to impose a bottleneck on us. We are smart and adaptive but adapting takes time and energy. During the transition it may be harder for us to support vastly huge populations.

Put those things together and… are we, in fact, doing the rational thing here?

Keep in mind that no trend is forever.

In the 1970s people predicted global Malthusian collapse in part by extrapolating past birth rates infinitely far into the future.

Seems to me that population collapse alarmists are doing the same thing. “If this trend continues forever there will be nobody left!”

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

#59

Post by bluescrn »

api wrote: post #58
bluescrn wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is the point of having a civilization if we can't afford kids? It's not 'can't afford kids', it's 'don't prioritise having kids'. And IMHO, they've been taught to think this way. To put career and materialism above family. There's also the constant messaging about an impending climate apocalypse or the rise of new fascism/nazism - which helps justify 'I don't want to bring new life into this world' logic. Othe…

I’m just going to throw this out there. What if reducing birth rates at this point in time is rational? On the employment side, we have rapidly advancing automation and AI that are dramatically reducing the work force required to maintain society. On the ecological side we have a combination of climate change, soil depletion, and many other factors that at least threaten to impose a bottleneck on us. We are smart and…

> What if reducing birth rates at this point in time is rational?

If rational people stop reproducing, all we'll have left is irrational people.

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

#60

Post by docdeek »

api wrote: post #58
bluescrn wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is the point of having a civilization if we can't afford kids? It's not 'can't afford kids', it's 'don't prioritise having kids'. And IMHO, they've been taught to think this way. To put career and materialism above family. There's also the constant messaging about an impending climate apocalypse or the rise of new fascism/nazism - which helps justify 'I don't want to bring new life into this world' logic. Othe…

I’m just going to throw this out there. What if reducing birth rates at this point in time is rational? On the employment side, we have rapidly advancing automation and AI that are dramatically reducing the work force required to maintain society. On the ecological side we have a combination of climate change, soil depletion, and many other factors that at least threaten to impose a bottleneck on us. We are smart and…

This runs into trouble when the older people rely on the younger ones to pay for their retirement and government services. Having fewer children means fewer people to pay taxes, so while a lower birth rate might address environmental and automation/AI challenges, it creates significant headaches elsewhere and requires a society-wide shift in expectations and responsibilities.
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