You stated some thoughts and reasoning, and I despute them.
Really? I wish I had your powers of insight.
Bedroom tax
- Thread starter Danthus
- Start date
You stated some thoughts and reasoning, and I despute them.
Really? I wish I had your powers of insight.
Because actual poverty is something to be concerned about. Simply not having an income that compares well to others isn't of huge concern comparatively - yes people are materialistic and wealth gaps can lead to crime etc... point is the basics are available - food, shelter, healthcare, education.
Hmm... we're actually in a pretty good place compared to the majority of other countries... what will the uber-lefties have to complain about now?
I know! Lets make relative poverty the new focus, make out like things will go the way of Elysium if it isn't sorted ASAP. Viva la lowest common denominator!
people generally aren't truly poor in this country - that's the point...
people are bad at managing their lives, people are capable of making their situation worse for themselves in spite of the help/assistance they receive from the state - point is we do still have that safety net despite the winging and sense of entitlement from some people... I mean not subsidising extra bedrooms any more - the whole subject of this thread is a typical 'first world problem'....
Associate
- Joined
- 24 Sep 2012
- Posts
- 1,670
- Location
- edinburgh
Not being able to get food /= 1st world problem. That's the point.
Well TVs are an ongoing expense, through the license or sky or electricity.
And treatment for alcoholism or nicotine addiction is available at every doctors surgery and every hospital in the country for free. Including free support groups, nicotine tablets, antibiotics and benzos.
Not really sure how much more easily available they could make it short of shooting it at addicts in the street from cannons
Compared to other developed nations we have poor social mobility, high mental health issues, poor public health, below average education, some of the highest re-offender rates & a large poverty gap/income inequity.
When comparing comparative performance usually you compare against other nations which are in a similar situation.
Having a liking for facts & data doesn't particular make somebody uber-left, just the same as being right wing doesn't automatically make somebody hold comically simplistic world views.
The fact we are doing well compared to many other nations in the world isn't a reason to stop progress.
Relative poverty is the UK will tend to be the focus, as that's the kind of poverty we are dealing with mostly.
Unless you suggest we focus on absolute poverty in a nation with little of it (that would be a bit of a waste of time to be honest)
Televisions are excellent value for money for entertainment per pound, unless you think that the poor should have no entertainment? (then have fun dealing with the negative social consequences of that).
Because beating drug & alcohol dependency is as simple as having access to treatment.
Many reasons exist as to why people make poor economic choices & are unable to lift themselves out of poverty.
Growing up disadvantaged is known to reduce self-esteem, nutritional deficits during early childhood or even at a prenatal level are known to reduce the cognitive ability of the child, the environmental factors which the children grow up around can lead them to lack the skills required for hyperbolic discounting/temporal discounting which assist in making long term life choices, a lack of stability at home is known to aid the development of short term hedonistic tendencies, the reduce self-esteem is linked to social violence & reduced empathic development (which is linked to criminality & the ability to form meaningful relationships).
Why people insist on viewing such obviously complex social problems in media sound-bite terms is beyond me.
Last edited:
Permabanned
- Joined
- 15 Sep 2010
- Posts
- 2,691
So people aren't going hungry? where is the shelter for the homeless? Healthcare??? what, you mean Like Atos healthcare who hound the sick and disabled along with the DWP who then strip them of vital benefits. Where are the basics for these people?
These things are available in sub-Saharan Africa as well.
Yes it's wrong that people can't afford to buy enough food while have ubiquitous 50" plasma, home cinema and Sky Sports HD subscription (which incidentally has never been the case with any poor person I've actually met), but isn't ignorance and making poor decisions another form of poverty? THIS is why relative poverty matters and why people who study societies know it's so important.
Soldato
- Joined
- 8 Nov 2006
- Posts
- 7,634
- Location
- Ireland/Northern Ireland Border
There are people who truly poor in this country. I know a man and woman who live together. She is in a wheelchair and he is her carer. They met while both homeless on the streets of Brighton. They are not and have never been in anything other than a platonic relationship. They have been housed in single rooms with a double bed!* One of them suffers from mental health issues to compound things.
They have been evicted from council paid accommodation in the past. The reason? The hostel involved got more money for "guests" who were housed as part of "crisis accommodation". They regularly turfed out people once they were no longer classed as a crisis case. These invariably were people waiting for any form of housing from the council.
Yes there are ****less (can believe that word is blocked - the word means unthinking and irresponsible) families living on more in benefits than other families to work. Yes, some have 40" flat screen TVs, SKY, iPhones and all sorts of other mod cons. To suggest that there are not people living in this country in very real poverty, without food and shelter, is just incorrect.
My parish runs a soup run every day in Brighton. Those who turn up to be fed are desperate. They turn up because they are hungry.
You can tell a lot about a society by how it treats those in most need.By how it VIEWS those in most need.
*Cost to the council in providing a single room with kitchen/bathroom shared between 15 people? £250 per week in housing benefits.
The mindset here is a classic case of the "Just-world hypothesis".
We like to pretend that people in bad situations end up in them due to poor life choices, as it gives us a sense of security that if we simply avoid those choices - we & our loves ones will be safe.
The reality is that anybody can have a breakdown, suffer from depression, lose a job after a strong of unfortunate events & end up on the receiving end of the pretty poor displays of human empathy we see here today.
A belief in a just world is also correlated with a right-wing ideology (little surprise here) as it's appeals to people with poorer reasoning skills who like to view the world in a series of false dichotomies (again, hardly surprising).
It's harder to appreciate the multitudes of shades of grey in human behaviour, but it's also required to get an accurate view of reality.
We like to pretend that people in bad situations end up in them due to poor life choices, as it gives us a sense of security that if we simply avoid those choices - we & our loves ones will be safe.
The reality is that anybody can have a breakdown, suffer from depression, lose a job after a strong of unfortunate events & end up on the receiving end of the pretty poor displays of human empathy we see here today.
A belief in a just world is also correlated with a right-wing ideology (little surprise here) as it's appeals to people with poorer reasoning skills who like to view the world in a series of false dichotomies (again, hardly surprising).
It's harder to appreciate the multitudes of shades of grey in human behaviour, but it's also required to get an accurate view of reality.
That all sounds like actual poverty to me, which I don't think anyone has any problems with being something to try and fix.
no making poor decisions isn't a form of poverty - the result of them can increase the chances of you ending up in poverty
relative poverty doesn't matter nearly as much as actual poverty
you could live on a fairly high income in say Monaco and you'd be in relative poverty.... relative poverty in the UK isn't great, its hardly the end of the world - we've got a safety net, it isn't perfect but the whole point of making reforms to it is to try and improve it - removing subsidies for people with extra bedrooms when there is a waiting list for housing in most boroughs is one (albeit crude) such reform.
Permabanned
- Joined
- 15 Sep 2010
- Posts
- 2,691
Good post
It isn't an either/or choice though. If you focus on relative poverty you end up with the rather perverse situation where a drop in average wages means you have less poor people (as happened in Scotland last year).
I would rather focus on a minimum standard of living and make sure everyone reaches that rather than focusing on an arbitrary % of the average wage.
Ignoring that we live in the UK and not Monaco, this attitude demonstrates a typical lack of understanding about poverty, its causes and the consequences. Of course poor decision making is a consequence of poverty, the pressure in society to appear to be successful applies to the people least equipped to be able to cope with that pressure. Levels of ill health, criminality, teenage pregnancy and many other undesirable attributes are much higher in areas with low incomes - even you can't dispute this surely?
No its just highlighting that 'relative' poverty is simply an economic measure of how well off you are compared with others living in your country. In a rich country such as the UK actual poverty is fairly rare so we will tend to talk about relative poverty - essentially people with lower incomes...
The chances of ending up in poverty can certainly be increased by poor decision making - its not a form of poverty as you previously stated. You'll also find people not in poverty who've made bad life choices and there are people who can also end up in poverty by chance alone. Its not exactly a deterministic process and as a society we do have a safety net in place to cater for it. As far as relative poverty is concerned - its just an economic measure of how well off you are relative to others.
The main point of this thread is seemingly to argue that encouraging people in subsidised accommodation to not stay there when they have more bedrooms than they require is somehow wrong. While the implementation might need some work I really don't see that argument in principle - if you're reliant on the state for housing and there are other people in temporary housing on the waiting list you shouldn't be taking up any more of that finite resource than you need...
no you're just making assumptions about the views of people you don't agree with and then arguing against them.... tis a bit cliched to say it on here but the term 'straw man' springs to mind....
Relative poverty has little to do with average income, it depends on what criteria you define poverty & against what metric - average is a poor metric to use at all with incomes due to the fact income doesn't fit into a standard bell-curve.
Why on earth papers & news sites use average income is beyond me - as the average doesn't give any indication as to how the distribution looks.
I'm giving examples based on observed behaviour & studies which will apply to a number of people on this forum.
I don't recall using the term "All".
The just world hypothesis has been tested to be more prevalent in people with right wing ideologies, separate studies have also shown that most right wing attitudes are associated with poorer reasoning skills - these are known facts.
Why do you think most of the top scientists & free-thinkers have been very "left"?, why do you think right wing attitudes are more common in prisons? - these are not coincidences.
Carl Sagan, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins - all of which are not remotely "right-wing".
A reason exists for this.
"I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate (the) grave evils (of capitalism), namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow-men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society."
Albert Einstein, Why Socialism?, 1949
Last edited: