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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

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No idea what you're on about but good luck to you...

Appealing to common sense is insufficient for creating a sound policy or even a sound personal financial policy. Your quip implies decisions based on financial risk, which is just probabilities of a certain category. Given that the market doesn’t insure to hedge against your “tough question”, it suggests (though doesn’t prove) it can’t really answer that question. But if your suggestion and quip wasn’t meant to be th…

Well, again, good luck to you...

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

#92
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 argumen…

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

#93
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been a refrain of the political right for several decades now, particularly in the US, and appears to be ideological rather than factual.

I dont support right, just search for countries by gdp/debt %. It's been just incresing for decades, that is not sustanaible + welfare + any govern. service that relies on that debt. More simple , it's not sustainable because new workers dont earn much, people live longer and % from the state budget just keeps growing. Think of it as income growth getting slower and liabilities growing just bigger with more old peopl…

> just search for countries by gdp/debt %. It's been just incresing for decades, that is not sustanaible

This is an idealogical argument more than a factual one. It certainly appears to be sustainable.

Step back from the gdp/debt ratio figures though. The argument is really only about whether a decreasing workforce can support an increasing population of retirees.

If government pays retirees then retirees get a direct payout, and use it to buy goods and services that younger people provide.

If (like in Australia) we make everyone invest through their life then each has a well-funded retirement account largely tied up in the stock-market. This represents part ownership of assets in the productive economy, which can be converted to funds that retired people will use ... to buy goods and services that younger people provide.

Where the money comes from seems less important to me than the fact if there is an ever increasing population of retirees, then one way or another they are supported by working people.

The mechanism is just an abstraction. The demographic problem is probably more real.

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

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

i assume you left the uk - out of curiosity, where did you move to?

No OP but I left right before Brexit and live in an Eastern European country now. We still have a lot of the problems as the UK, but what I like is that individual autonomy is a lot higher.

That has two faces though, as it means if you are earning minimum wage or have some kind of disability and can't work it's probably a worse place to be, as the social support is a lot weaker.

On the other hand if you are earning a decent wage (think generic office worker) you can live a pretty good lifestyle. Safety, health care, education, housing, opportunties are all much better than the UK. Taxes are about the same, corruption I'd say is worse (on paper it's better), roads are worse (partially due to our climate being harsher).

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

#95
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.

Are we saying that worldwide the significant changes are exclusively government failures worldwide? A government works with a people led view, not the grifters that exist at the moment, hence why I do not agree a publicly employed person should be allowed to have another job.

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

#96
post #6
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A planned economy will always, always get worse. All historical examples show us that. But you are free to give us an example of a planned economy that worked properly and brought freedom and prosperity to their citizens. Just one single example will suffice. P.S. I see the downvotes, but I don't see a single example. Just one...

What are your stats measuring good and bad and therefore what do you count as worse? Would it be better all have a home, job, access to education, food?

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

#97
post #23
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…

I am pretty skeptical of rent-control like policies, but if is being proposed for somewhere else I completely support it. Also, removing the option to have multiple jobs?

What is your reason for being sceptical locally?

Yes, I am not of the view that a public official should have a private career too. It creates influence.

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

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no dog in this fight, but your intent matters less than what it signifies: The comment is patronizing in the abstract, because it’s out-of-touch. That’s the best interpretation, and the response still fits if less harshly worded.

My comment was neither patronizing nor out of touch. In fact it acknowledges that this is a "tough question". Social issues can't be tackled without facing the tough questions head on. My point is that I think that the best way to actually help families and children is to incentivise and teach not to have children you can't afford in the first place instead of infantilising people and to tell them that anything goes…

Plenty of social problems are fixed without tackling them head on. The entire concept of the economic advantage of capitalism lifting all boats is an attempt to ignore the details of social problems, accurate justice and all those other annoying details that make it hard to cash in on stealing shared resources. Why fox anything without seeing what the surplus might wash away is not so stupid, but that theory must be lazy?

Your thinking is entirely lazy. You don't want to do something so you need to find a "tough question" and a cheap policy.

Every country needs a next generation and if it isn't getting one it is because it is a miserly society that thinks it can poke and prod parents and still expect them to do all the work that is actually a shared responsibility.

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

#99

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?

Not to mention that children are a multi-decade commitment. My kids are nine and twelve. In that time I’ve been laid off twice and had a serious medical emergency. Things on that timescale are just not realistic to plan for as if there are guarantees. The less well of you are the more precarious everything is as well. This is also all on the back of people complaining about declining birth rates!

> Not to mention that children are a multi-decade commitment. My kids are nine and twelve. In that time I’ve been laid off twice and had a serious medical emergency. Things on that timescale are just not realistic to plan for as if there are guarantees. The less well of you are the more precarious everything is as well.

This sounds like a reason not to have them though. It's like saying the probability of X is high if I do Y. I do not want X to happen, but I will still do X even if I have no obligation to do so. Your decision might make sense to you but the way your comment reads it doesn't sound like a logical argument supporting your decision

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

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention that children are a multi-decade commitment. My kids are nine and twelve. In that time I’ve been laid off twice and had a serious medical emergency. Things on that timescale are just not realistic to plan for as if there are guarantees. The less well of you are the more precarious everything is as well. This is also all on the back of people complaining about declining birth rates!

> Not to mention that children are a multi-decade commitment. My kids are nine and twelve. In that time I’ve been laid off twice and had a serious medical emergency. Things on that timescale are just not realistic to plan for as if there are guarantees. The less well of you are the more precarious everything is as well. This sounds like a reason not to have them though. It's like saying the probability of X is high i…

It’s hardly illogical to not know what might happen in the future and my family is fine despite any setbacks!

In some senses having children at all isn’t that logical and is a choice lots of people aren’t making more often hence declining birth rates and worry over the impact of that in a global economy requiring growth.

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