Cost of living crisis.

[NasPb]

55 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

How did the U.K. do in the years 2012-2106 under austerity ?

 

I think the only way around this energy crisis is for govt to subsidise all of our bills (and hope that the energy companies are transparent and don’t just steal funds). I expect a way can be found to make it workable.  Once prices fall back to 2021 levels the subsidy can be removed. 
 

not sure what the answer is for commercial users though - that’s a massive problem re inflation and employment. 

Austerity for me is like the silent elephant in the room.. It's behind a lot of these issues that more and more people are struggling from. I think either labour or conservatives (as both buy into similar but not the same responses to the problem at hand) will ultimately get the public off of their back, but ultimately, i think gradual nationalizations could fix the issue. It's a shame no party is willing to talk about it. We're getting to the point where social democracy in its basic sense looks like something radical when it's really not. Soon we will see more privatization in the name of efficiency. That's why i reckon at least. (efficiency in "theory ofc). 

[Claridge]

31 minutes ago, Foxdiamond said:

You have fallen into the trap of blaming the Union and workers without any reference to the employers making vast profits or this idle government.

As have you, with not mentioning the negative effects of the unions

[yorkie1999]

59 minutes ago, deep blue said:

It's true that in the 70s the unions got a little over-powerful and needed reining in a bit, but some reasonable negotiation could have soon sorted that out.

 

Instead, Thatcher saw union-bashing as something that could be presented in such a way as to get the public on her side at a time when she was deeply unpopular, and she launched herself into direct confrontation and provocation with the unions in a cynical attempt to achieve that.  This caused dangerous polarisation of opinion in the country and unseemly confrontation between the police and the union protesters.

 

I have a friend orinally from Doncaster who goes back there occasionally and he says that the town and environs have never recovered from the devastation caused during that period, and goodness knows how many other ex-mining communities have suffered the same fate.

 

On a personal note, I am lucky enough to be on a good pension as a result of the unions negotiating strongly on our behalf back in the 70s.  Strong, responsible unions are even more necessary in today's business climate.

 

I had a few mates that worked in the local mines, dumb as fvck at school, but worked hard and earned good livings, bought houses and had families. And probably learnt a lot about community  and respect without actually realising it. That’s all gone, but my point is it gave young men an opportunity to get on in life without being brain surgeons . It’s a bit like football when you go from when you’re young, you learn to socialise and have the ability to interact with other people. Looking back, when they shut down the mines, even if most of them were making a loss, our society changed to greed and the i’m alright jack attitude.

[leicsmac]

29 minutes ago, Parafox said:

At least some the money would have come from profits on coal. Where is coming from now to fund the consequences you mention?

This is the damn truth, more's the pity.

 

To answer, the money has to come from the the profits on the current carbon emitters and producers. But that is a whole can of worms in of itself - particularly in terms of unity of response, which would be necessary for such a thing to work.

 

27 minutes ago, yorkie1999 said:

Thing is though, in the 40 odd years since the mines closed and we produced our own power from coal, we could have developed more efficient power stations that captured the carbon emissions and possibly used them for producing hydrogen, who knows, without the problem there’s nothing to develop. Our country’s  wealth came from our resources, ingenuity and our industry, it’s just been one big fvck up from interfering leaders and governments infighting that’s left us in the sorry state we’re in.

You're absolutely right here tbh.

 

Numerous governments in the past few decades, both in the UK and over the world, have chosen to kick the can down the road and hope it's not a problem when they happen to be in office.

 

And now, no thanks to the powers that be not listening to the climate scientist community who have been screaming this for decades, we're in the unenviable position of having to scramble for a solution in very little time before very bad things happen. (And yet, there is still denial among some of the existence of those very bad things!)

[yorkie1999]

2 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

This is the damn truth, more's the pity.

 

To answer, the money has to come from the the profits on the current carbon emitters and producers. But that is a whole can of worms in of itself - particularly in terms of unity of response, which would be necessary for such a thing to work.

 

You're absolutely right here tbh.

 

Numerous governments in the past few decades, both in the UK and over the world, have chosen to kick the can down the road and hope it's not a problem when they happen to be in office.

 

And now, no thanks to the powers that be not listening to the climate scientist community who have been screaming this for decades, we're in the unenviable position of having to scramble for a solution in very little time before very bad things happen. (And yet, there is still denial among some of the existence of those very bad things!)

It’s nationalised industry that solves the problems, it has to be that way because privatised industry is only concerned with one thing and that’s keeping shareholders happy. How many billions have the water companies made, yet we lose more water through our ancient pipe work than we use. Re investment  and development are the last thing on the minds of privatised utility businesses 

[leicsmac]

3 minutes ago, yorkie1999 said:

It’s nationalised industry that solves the problems, it has to be that way because privatised industry is only concerned with one thing and that’s keeping shareholders happy. How many billions have the water companies made, yet we lose more water through our ancient pipe work than we use. Re investment  and development are the last thing on the minds of privatised utility businesses 

Right.

 

I'm no economist, but I'm of the thought that market forces and the "invisible hand" don't work very well in an inelastic market. Services and consumers get screwed over because there is precious little flexibility in the market.

 

Healthcare and utilities like water, electricity and gas supply are two of those inelastic markets.

Edited 13 August 2022 by leicsmac

[Foxdiamond]

1 hour ago, Claridge said:

As have you, with not mentioning the negative effects of the unions

Thank goodness some workers can still organise themselves. 

[urban.spaceman]

4 hours ago, Claridge said:

It’s depressing how people are prepared to cause loads of hardship and disruption to others. The railway unions are stuck in the 70s and will ultimately cause more damage to their members interests. People will be less likely to use the train or rely on it. Bit like the idiot miners union officials in the 80s, lions led by donkeys

A couple of days of strikes with prior notice doesn't really strike me as "hardship" or very "disruptive" to me. It's like the people in Stratford complaining about the traffic changes for 2 weeks in 2012.

 

What is actual hardship and disruption is having your wages effectively cut and your working conditions made worse.

[Foxdiamond]

If only the country could have been more like my old employer. This was a cooperative with an excellent reputation. Profits made were invested in the company to keep the business thriving but looked after the staff pretty well and kept prices at a reasonable level. In really good years prices were actually cut. 

[ozleicester]

The corporates and Tories have been destroying the working class since the 70s, Thatcher and Regan changed the economy and where we are today is the result.. it requires a seismic shift back to the unions and workers.

Tax was 90% in the pre 70s... now its 45%

[DJ Barry Hammond]

13 hours ago, Claridge said:

It’s depressing how people are prepared to cause loads of hardship and disruption to others. The railway unions are stuck in the 70s and will ultimately cause more damage to their members interests. People will be less likely to use the train or rely on it. Bit like the idiot miners union officials in the 80s, lions led by donkeys

What exactly is the alternative then? 
 

How do a group of lower end workers fully indicate their collective worth to an employer? 
 

And who is baring the biggest hardship by going on strike? 
 

Is it not the workers, going without pay for those days?

[Daggers]

On 12/08/2022 at 11:37, Greg2607 said:

BUT... BUT.... "ThE ToRies ArE GReat WiTh The EcONOmy"...... 

And despite the evidence rammed into their faces, https://www.northantslive.news/news/northamptonshire-news/two-years-after-northamptonshire-county-4209584, Northamptonshire continues to vote for them.

[dsr-burnley]

On 13/08/2022 at 13:21, ozleicester said:

The corporates and Tories have been destroying the working class since the 70s, Thatcher and Regan changed the economy and where we are today is the result.. it requires a seismic shift back to the unions and workers.

Tax was 90% in the pre 70s... now its 45%

The working class are vastly better off now than they were then.  Look at the stats for the number of people who have foreign holidays, central heating, washing machines, cars, anything you like really.  More of everything apart from candles, really.  We did have candles aplenty back then.

[Foxdiamond]

4 minutes ago, dsr-burnley said:

The working class are vastly better off now than they were then.  Look at the stats for the number of people who have foreign holidays, central heating, washing machines, cars, anything you like really.  More of everything apart from candles, really.  We did have candles aplenty back then.

We do though have high levels of personal debt and a huge housing crisis and the gap between the richest and poorest widening 

[urban.spaceman]

28 minutes ago, dsr-burnley said:

The working class are vastly better off now than they were then.  Look at the stats for the number of people who have foreign holidays, central heating, washing machines, cars, anything you like really.  More of everything apart from candles, really.  We did have candles aplenty back then.

2.1 million food parcels were given out last year.

14.5 million people are now living in poverty - that's 22% of the UK population.

That's expected to rise by 1.3m next year, though even now those figures from the end of July are out of date with the rises increasing.

 

Central heating, washing machines and cars are all basic things that almost every household has these days.

 

I'd also count foreign holidays as absolutely essentials especially as it would give everyone perspective about how badly we're being screwed as a country.

[Footballwipe]

Remortgage meeting today. Rate we'll be paying just over doubling, payments going up a couple of hundred a month, which is not awful at all. Two year and five year fixed rates exactly the same, so suspect the lenders are expecting this to be a long haul thing.

 

Have the current rate till the end of the year and then ratchet up. The whole thing is starting to hit me now, tbh. Food, energy prices. Cutting cloth accordingly. Sacking off Brighton, Bournemouth and Stockport away games. More likely to follow. Whilst we won't be living beyond our means by any means, we have no idea when the endless price rises all round will stop. What else can we do but start to cut back now? Evenings out, trips to the pub, away games, window cleaner, impulse purchases all being scaled back from now.

 

We don't even have kids so how people with families will cope is anyone's friggin guess.

[urban.spaceman]

7 minutes ago, Footballwipe said:

Remortgage meeting today. Rate we'll be paying just over doubling, payments going up a couple of hundred a month, which is not awful at all. Two year and five year fixed rates exactly the same, so suspect the lenders are expecting this to be a long haul thing.

 

Have the current rate till the end of the year and then ratchet up. The whole thing is starting to hit me now, tbh. Food, energy prices. Cutting cloth accordingly. Sacking off Brighton, Bournemouth and Stockport away games. More likely to follow. Whilst we won't be living beyond our means by any means, we have no idea when the endless price rises all round will stop. What else can we do but start to cut back now? Evenings out, trips to the pub, away games, window cleaner, impulse purchases all being scaled back from now.

 

We don't even have kids so how people with families will cope is anyone's friggin guess.

I honestly wish wealth supremacists like Sunak would just come out and say that the working classes don't deserve any sort of quality of life. You're only alive to work, not to enjoy your life, peasant.

[dsr-burnley]

34 minutes ago, urban.spaceman said:

2.1 million food parcels were given out last year.

14.5 million people are now living in poverty - that's 22% of the UK population.

That's expected to rise by 1.3m next year, though even now those figures from the end of July are out of date with the rises increasing.

 

Central heating, washing machines and cars are all basic things that almost every household has these days.

 

I'd also count foreign holidays as absolutely essentials especially as it would give everyone perspective about how badly we're being screwed as a country.

That's where definitions of poverty become "interesting".

 

Yes, you could argue that someone who has central heating, foreign holidays, a washing machine and a car is poorer than someone 50 years ago who had none of those things. But you could equally argue (as I would) that actual poverty should be defined by what a person has, not by what his neighbour has.  If the government found some way to take a shedload of money off "middle Britain", the people with average sorts of income, they could reduce poverty by official stats,  But would it make the poor any better off to know that people who used to have more money than them, now do not?

 

Or going back even further, my great-grandfather, who was born in the 1850';s, had a pretty low wage in the 1860's, no schooling, a pretty poky house, and two days holiday a year. (Christmas Day, Boxing Day.) But his income was within 50% of the average (median).  Does that mean he was a richer man than people today who have central heating and foreign holidays and Saturdays off and the rest?

Edited 15 August 2022 by dsr-burnley

[foxes1988]

5 minutes ago, dsr-burnley said:

That's where definitions of poverty become "interesting".

 

Yes, you could argue that someone who has central heating, foreign holidays, a washing machine and a car is poorer than someone 50 years ago who had none of those things. But you could equally argue (as I would) that actual poverty should be defined by what a person has, not by what his neighbour has.  If the government found some way to take a shedload of money off "middle Britain", the people with average sorts of income, they could reduce poverty by official stats,  But would it make the poor any better off to know that people who used to have more money than them, now do not?

 

Or going back even further, my great-grandfather, who was born in the 1850';s, had a pretty low wage in the 1860's, no schooling, a pretty poky house, and two days holiday a year. (Christmas Day, Boxing Day.) But his income was within 50% of the average (median).  Does that mean he was a richer man than people today who have central heating and foreign holidays and Saturdays off and the rest?

I understand what you're saying and agree that there are many things that were considered luxurys back in the day but are no longer considered so.  For example Holidays and then later Foreign holidays as you say.  However things do  change, back in the 70s a trip abroad was a luxury but holidays in general i.e. Skeggy were not.  Nowadays foreign holidays are about as expensive as a UK holiday now so would you say that any form of holiday was a luxury when it certainly wasn't in the 70s?.  Poverty isn't defined by comparing what you have now in comparison to the 70s or 50s or 20s etc.  Its when someone lacks the usual or socially acceptable money or material possessions.  We can argue what that involves but comparing to different eras is folly.

[dsr-burnley]

6 minutes ago, foxes1988 said:

I understand what you're saying and agree that there are many things that were considered luxurys back in the day but are no longer considered so.  For example Holidays and then later Foreign holidays as you say.  However things do  change, back in the 70s a trip abroad was a luxury but holidays in general i.e. Skeggy were not.  Nowadays foreign holidays are about as expensive as a UK holiday now so would you say that any form of holiday was a luxury when it certainly wasn't in the 70s?.  Poverty isn't defined by comparing what you have now in comparison to the 70s or 50s or 20s etc.  Its when someone lacks the usual or socially acceptable money or material possessions.  We can argue what that involves but comparing to different eras is folly.

But if the accepted definitions of poverty are correct, both in comparison with other people and in terms of number of people using food banks, then Britain has more poor people than Somalia.  But is Britain really poorer than Somalia?  Or do we need to consider other measures of poverty?

 

If everyone's salary doubled, it wouldn't reduce official poverty.  If everyone's salary halved, it wouldn't increase official poverty.  That is absurd.

[kenny]

7 minutes ago, pmcla26 said:

We have a weird society though where we glorify wealth supremacists - look at the current infatuation with Andrew Tate. 

Im intrigued by the phrase wealth supremacist as its used occasionally on here.

 

Currently the only obvious website to offer an explanation is Urban Dictionary.

[urban.spaceman]

23 minutes ago, dsr-burnley said:

That's where definitions of poverty become "interesting".

 

Yes, you could argue that someone who has central heating, foreign holidays, a washing machine and a car is poorer than someone 50 years ago who had none of those things. But you could equally argue (as I would) that actual poverty should be defined by what a person has, not by what his neighbour has.  If the government found some way to take a shedload of money off "middle Britain", the people with average sorts of income, they could reduce poverty by official stats,  But would it make the poor any better off to know that people who used to have more money than them, now do not?

 

Or going back even further, my great-grandfather, who was born in the 1850';s, had a pretty low wage in the 1860's, no schooling, a pretty poky house, and two days holiday a year. (Christmas Day, Boxing Day.) But his income was within 50% of the average (median).  Does that mean he was a richer man than people today who have central heating and foreign holidays and Saturdays off and the rest?

The baseline for poverty rises all the time - actual slums were still prevalent in London even 100 years ago. We hear a lot about women's suffrage earning the vote for women in 1918 but we never acknowledge the fact that the same Act extended the vote to all men over 21 when before 40% of us couldn't vote. Millions of soldiers in the First World War were conscripted without the right to vote, my great grandad included. Social housing cleared the slums around the country and improved the very basic standard of living for millions of people over the 20th century. The poverty line moved downwards and improved the lives of millions.

 

We can sit here and compare our lives now to our great grandparents 100-150 years ago - so much progress was made - but that's not really relevant for me.

 

The question is what is happening now? You might have more than your great great grandfather but do you have less than you and your peers did 12 years ago? It's very clear that over the last 12 years the government has been moving that poverty line up and up and removing the rights and quality of life of at the bottom, allowing them to keep less and less of their own money one act at a time. That's what we should concentrate on - looking further beyond that is meaningless.

[urban.spaceman]

4 minutes ago, kenny said:

Im intrigued by the phrase wealth supremacist as its used occasionally on here.

 

Currently the only obvious website to offer an explanation is Urban Dictionary.

I will lay claim to coining it. I started using it a few weeks ago to describe creatures like Johnson, Rees-Mogg and Sunak. People who were born into extreme wealth, have no understanding of what it means to live without wealth and crucially, actively make things worse for people poorer than them. If we've got Tory commentators saying it's wrong to "wealth shame" then I believe we absolutely should start wealth shaming the people who don't like that term.

[kenny]

3 minutes ago, pmcla26 said:

Pretty self-explanatory term, tbf. 

Not for thickos like me.

[urban.spaceman]

That is my theory, what is mine, and I own also. Ahhhhhem.