First World country - Third World problems

henryscat

henryscat

Well-Known Forumite
The situation is certainly one where the government is largely to blame. State welfare is being cut back, because apparently benefits = scrounging, whilst tax evasion to a value well in excess of the welfare bill by multinational companies is allowed to continue unabated. Successive governments have overseen a situation where the gap between the richest and poorest in society has got ever wider. Although for those who have voted for free market economy policies then it is hardly a surprise.

Whilst food banks here deserve all the support they can get, I don't think that it is an "either / or" thing with international aid. We can and should do both.
 
Gramaisc

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Foreign aid is generally not in the form of sacks of cash, but rather more like vouchers for buying things from us - almost an indirect subsidy for British industries. Some cash does get syphoned off, of course, but rather less than our own ruling gangsters take for themselves through our corrupt tax system.

Part of the idea of foreign aid is to create markets for the future, and to get in before others do, so influencing (often somewhat dodgy) governments in our own favour.

Some time ago, I recall somebody stating that the amount paid to bankers as bonuses was greater than the intended cuts to the Social Security budget.
 
Franklin_Delano_Roosevelt

Franklin_Delano_Roosevelt

Well-Known Forumite
We have built up a perverse situation in this Country over many years (and many Governments of different colours) whereby you are often better off out of work and on benefits (especially if you are doing minimum wage work) than you are in work. You are also rewarded and paid by the Government if you have more and more children, whilst you also get priority access to things like social housing. We now literally have generations of families where no one in the household has ever had any sort of job and poverty breeds poverty, at a must faster rate than those of us who have to go out to work and earn a living and pay tax to support a family. Thus you have a shrinking tax base with less working people paying in and a growing benefits bill of those taking out, having often never paid in a penny.
This is nonsense and it can't and shouldn't continue.
You can live in a utopian, Henry's Cat World but back down on Planet Earth things have to be paid for. Things like tax evasion are often International issues and require International action to stamp out tax havens. The Government can and should do more but lets not kid ourselves that it can solve this single handed.

The problem with what the Government is doing is that whilst it is rightly trying to correct some of these imbalances for cases such as I mention above through things like the 1% freeze on benefits and the cap on overall welfare payments, unfortunately it is going about welfare changes in too much of a "one size fits all" approach which penalises some of the truly needy in society who deserve our help and support. It isn't an easy balance which is why no Government has ever really bothered to get on top of welfare and thus just watched the cost of it rocket.

I think it is a hugely complex issue and it has no easy answer, certainly not one as easy as lets stop paying International Aid
 
Franklin_Delano_Roosevelt

Franklin_Delano_Roosevelt

Well-Known Forumite
If something is in the newspapers then of course naturally it is all true. Stats can be twisted to pretty much say anything you want them to say. The problem with the benefits bill is that it is growing at a rate of knots year on year on all benefits be it out of work, housing, pensions whatever whilst the tax base stays static at best or by some measures is declining.

You have a choice to either bury your head in the sand and pretend it isn't happening or try and address the issue.
 
Spelunker

Spelunker

Well-Known Forumite
I get the importance of overseas aid both for the humanitarian benefits as much as the trade benefits.

But no way is it acceptable that children are going hungry in this country.
No matter if it is by social exclusion or by benefit disparity it cannot be acceptable.
 
Gramaisc

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Spelunker said:
I get the importance of overseas aid both for the humanitarian benefits as much as the trade benefits.

But no way is it acceptable that children are going hungry in this country.
No matter if it is by social exclusion or by benefit disparity it cannot be acceptable.
Click to expand...

There's plenty of money in this country, overseas aid is not the reason that we have poverty here. If we kept all the aid-money here then it wouldn't end up with the 'undeserving poor', it would be used to further incentivise the sort of people that buy ten grand personalised number plates.
 
henryscat

henryscat

Well-Known Forumite
Spelunker said:
I get the importance of overseas aid both for the humanitarian benefits as much as the trade benefits.

But no way is it acceptable that children are going hungry in this country.
No matter if it is by social exclusion or by benefit disparity it cannot be acceptable.
Click to expand...

Agree, it isn't acceptable at all - I've had to do food shopping for someone in my family because the cupboards were virtually bare and no money left in the household. The problem is huge as it will go far beyond the numbers attending food banks. The government could do something about it, but instead decides to paint a picture that people in poverty are somehow to blame for the position they find themselves in. The average MP hasn't got a clue about the difficulties that people face.
 
proactive

proactive

Enjoying a drop of red.
henryscat said:
Agree, it isn't acceptable at all - I've had to do food shopping for someone in my family because the cupboards were virtually bare and no money left in the household. The problem is huge as it will go far beyond the numbers attending food banks. The government could do something about it, but instead decides to paint a picture that people in poverty are somehow to blame for the position they find themselves in. The average MP hasn't got a clue about the difficulties that people face.
Click to expand...

Totally agree. The most depressing thing though, is that whoever get into power next time, won't change a bloody thing.
 
kyoto49

kyoto49

Well-Known Forumite
The article says that most of the children helped by the food bank are getting free school dinners. It's fair to assume therefore that their parents are either unemployed or on a very very low wage.

If the users of these food banks are unemployed (not sick or disabled) and on benefit then I can't see very many of the hard working tax paying public having much sympathy. 10's, probably 100's of thousands of immigrants have managed to come to this country over the last ten years, work bloody hard and make themselves a living. Isn't that what those on benefit here should be doing - getting a job, any job, strawberry picking, cleaning or whatever? ?

I don't think there is a correlation between welfare spending in the UK and international aid. If people overseas are in GENUINE need we, as a rich country, should be helping. I question where the aid goes, some certainly goes to the wrong places, but in principle we should be helping overseas poor people, after all the benefit system ensures that no-one in this country is literally starving whereas some children overseas most certainly are.

For those who are working and still need the food bank then I hope they get given lots of tasty goodies, they are the deserving ones in my opinion.
 
A

andy w

Well-Known Forumite
I don't know if any one seen the recent programmes with Nick Hewar and Margaret ? investigating welfare dependency. On one side we had people who hadn't worked for along while and their different reasons for not working, and people who work and their take on the situation.
One of the main concerns was the tax and benefit system, with peoples reluctance to take work being they would be either no better off or even worse off taking a job. This in in turn upset people in work as when they took the full amount of benefits, rent and council tax paid and associated payments for washing machines etc it left them scratching their heads why they were bothering to go out to work and pay tax.
What was striking was the effect on people who were given a taste of work, of course they struggled at first to get into the vigours and routine of work but it wasn't long before they felt the self worth and sense of achievement that work gives.
What this country suffers from is complacency and many of us are guilty of that. I've always done manufacturing jobs whilst knowing I could go on to do more challenging roles but do you what, I can't be arsed as I'm content with my lifestyle. I wonder if that's the same with many on welfare and we suffer from a poverty of ambition and opportunity.
 
Spelunker

Spelunker

Well-Known Forumite
I heard a phrase today that I was unfamiliar with
It was 'rags to rags in three generations'.
It may well be that this is the case.
Are we so acceptable of the state picking up the pieces that we just don't care?
It makes me fecking angry to think that kids are going hungry and we are paying Hugo feckwit and his mate a fortune to close our hospital down.
( sorry to cross thread the conversation)
And Dave and Gideon look on and haven't got a fecking clue.
 
A

andy w

Well-Known Forumite
Spelunker said:
I heard a phrase today that I was unfamiliar with
It was 'rags to rags in three generations'.
It may well be that this is the case.
Are we so acceptable of the state picking up the pieces that we just don't care?
It makes me fecking angry to think that kids are going hungry and we are paying Hugo feckwit and his mate a fortune to close our hospital down.
( sorry to cross thread the conversation)
And Dave and Gideon look on and haven't got a fecking clue.
Click to expand...
Don't be sorry to cross thread topics as there are so many interlinked problems.
The underlying problem is the politicians, chief executives of organisations, quangoes, charities etc are detached from ordinary people and live in a bubble.
 
H

Hetairoi

Well-Known Forumite
There is no such thing as real poverty in this country, not the sort of poverty you see in parts of Africa and Asia!
 
henryscat

henryscat

Well-Known Forumite
Hetairoi said:
There is no such thing as real poverty in this country, not the sort of poverty you see in parts of Africa and Asia!
Click to expand...
As a country we are far far richer than many others and living conditions here are comparatively better. However, poverty is relative in terms of buying power - so if you are on a very low income in the UK, it may well buy a lot in India, but that isn't any good here where it won't buy you a lot.
 
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