14 million in poverty

[bostonmick]

10 minutes ago, Whatmuff said:

What possible difference??? Errrrr rent? £850 for a 1 bed flat in SE London or £400 in Lincolnshire.....

So don't live in se London. If your chosen career pays lower rates then move to where you can have a better life. Two of my daughters are nurses so I know first hand the pay. Please don't come back with they were born in London because trying to spot a londoner these days is like finding the gold at the rainbows end. And you would buy a flat in lincolnshire on 400 a month and have change for a few beers. If today's definition of poverty is we can't live where we want then best change that 14 million to around 70mmillion.

[hawkfanz]

as an oap i wish i was on 15k as yellow bear says,,,my pension plus pension credit is under 9k per year,i had a full working life despite have leg amputated in 1972 am now 69,,,i manage but i surely am living in poverty,,so where and how do we draw the line on poverty ?

[Whatmuff]

17 minutes ago, bostonmick said:

So don't live in se London. If your chosen career pays lower rates then move to where you can have a better life. Two of my daughters are nurses so I know first hand the pay. Please don't come back with they were born in London because trying to spot a londoner these days is like finding the gold at the rainbows end. And you would buy a flat in lincolnshire on 400 a month and have change for a few beers. If today's definition of poverty is we can't live where we want then best change that 14 million to around 70mmillion.

And this is my point Mick, where has it gone wrong to think that the average person working and living in a city/town should have to move elsewhere in a Country to live based on affordability. I'm not saying central London but just basic parts of the SE. We have almost priced out nearly all of the population in that area, if we were to start again near no one would have any funds to buy anywhere at those prices. There are leading economists that agree with my point of view and it's only the rich and investors that don't. Just saying to someone well if you can't afford it move to south Wales where it's cheaper just doesn't cut it. I get that people need to move maybe a few miles or the next town but not 100 miles away. The problem is so much worse than people are making out and it's going to destroy the economy when the property market blows up.

[Mungler]

Try getting a cheap gaff in New York, Paris, Berlin, anywhere in Hong Kong.

This is not unique. Move on.

[bostonmick]

25 minutes ago, Whatmuff said:

And this is my point Mick, where has it gone wrong to think that the average person working and living in a city/town should have to move elsewhere in a Country to live based on affordability. I'm not saying central London but just basic parts of the SE. We have almost priced out nearly all of the population in that area, if we were to start again near no one would have any funds to buy anywhere at those prices. There are leading economists that agree with my point of view and it's only the rich and investors that don't. Just saying to someone well if you can't afford it move to south Wales where it's cheaper just doesn't cut it. I get that people need to move maybe a few miles or the next town but not 100 miles away. The problem is so much worse than people are making out and it's going to destroy the economy when the property market blows up.

So just who is fuelling this outrageous housing prices in the areas surrounding London. If the money was not in the jobs there the houses would not be so  costly. Have a look around some parts of Essex there are more range rovers per square metre than anywhere in the country. That's real poverty. My brother lives in Essex drives a fuel tanker owns his own det house. A car for him wife and two children, three motorbikes. Two holidays abroad each year. Shoots. And has no debt other than a bit of mortgage left. He is not lucky just worked hard to get where he is. If people who live there choose a career that pays say 20k a year they know before they set out it will not get them on the housing ladder. But to do it then cry poverty is stupid. 

[Hamster]

If people refuse to do jobs that only pay £20k they'll rightly be accused of being lazy and in any case that's not how life works. London is expensive because for decades now there has been a tendency for buy to let schemes buying properties then letting them to workers who service and pay the mortgage, the landlord simply repeats this process with several properties every year, he/she does no "work" but year on year the property goes up in value and they get richer on paper and able to borrow even more. Portfolios running into the tens if not hundreds of millions are not uncommon but all this does is drive the prices out of the reach of the actual workers. The other predators are foreign investors both legitimate as well as those who are laundering dirty money. Nobody has been asking these people where the millions they pay in cash for central London flats comes from, in many cases these flats aren't even subsequently rented out but simply locked up which negates the whole reason they were built in the first place. 

Also the notion that wages there are higher to help is not true there is no way that any profession typically earns that much more. We have poverty because the costs of living have risen much faster than the wages at the bottom rungs of the workforce ladder, telling them to go and get better jobs is simply ignoring the fact we can't all be brain surgeons. 

I have also already asked : how does moving away from expensive areas help if you subsequently have to pay travel costs, why should the backbone workforce of the country be told to rent when prospectors do nothing but cause the prices to rise ? 

[Mungler]

10 minutes ago, Hamster said:

I have also already asked : how does moving away from expensive areas help if you subsequently have to pay travel costs, why should the backbone workforce of the country be told to rent when prospectors do nothing but cause the prices to rise ? 

 

Simple, the additional travel costs are slight and are dwarfed by the reduction in rent / property purchase price. If it didn’t it wouldn’t happen. 

 

 

[team tractor]

Just reading some comments and I think I’ve got the right end of it.

people are classed as lazy if they don’t push themselves into a high pay career  

We always need bin men and postman. We can’t all be doctors. My chosen career doesn’t pay £20k a year after expenses but  we all need a joiner. 

I’d love to join the police but my legs won’t allow it and I’m not clever enough to become a doctor etc. I’ve pushed myself as hard as I can to the point of falling asleep on the sofa at night shaking in pain. 

I want to move to north Devon but the wages vs house prices don’t make it possible. 

[Newbie to this]

30 minutes ago, Hamster said:

If people refuse to do jobs that only pay £20k they'll rightly be accused of being lazy and in any case that's not how life works. London is expensive because for decades now there has been a tendency for buy to let schemes buying properties then letting them to workers who service and pay the mortgage, the landlord simply repeats this process with several properties every year, he/she does no "work" but year on year the property goes up in value and they get richer on paper and able to borrow even more. Portfolios running into the tens if not hundreds of millions are not uncommon but all this does is drive the prices out of the reach of the actual workers. The other predators are foreign investors both legitimate as well as those who are laundering dirty money. Nobody has been asking these people where the millions they pay in cash for central London flats comes from, in many cases these flats aren't even subsequently rented out but simply locked up which negates the whole reason they were built in the first place. 

Also the notion that wages there are higher to help is not true there is no way that any profession typically earns that much more. We have poverty because the costs of living have risen much faster than the wages at the bottom rungs of the workforce ladder, telling them to go and get better jobs is simply ignoring the fact we can't all be brain surgeons. 

I have also already asked : how does moving away from expensive areas help if you subsequently have to pay travel costs, why should the backbone workforce of the country be told to rent when prospectors do nothing but cause the prices to rise ? 

Can't disagree with any of that. 

[Hamster]

1 hour ago, Mungler said:

 

Simple, the additional travel costs are slight and are dwarfed by the reduction in rent / property purchase price. If it didn’t it wouldn’t happen. 

 

 

Simplistically yes but if (as happens with most assumptions) you sit down and break it down into components it's not always that straightforward. Realistically speaking you'd have to move a minimum of an hours train travel away from where you work to be able to halve the cost of properties, I know people personally who pay £5000 per year for their tickets, remember in order to hand over £400+ per month just for a train ticket you'd have to have earned 20-30% more than that to start off with, oh yes the dreaded taxes.

If you add these costs together it amount to tens if not hundreds of thousands in a relatively short space of time, a person commuting in this way for 10 years would have paid a minimum of £50k (don't forget to add the real figures such as inflation and taxes) plus suffer the added unseen price of giving 4 hours of their life away per day for nothing to boot. 

These wasted thousands will not add a penny to their well being or property but are in effect the price he/she is paying for the "do nothing" capitalist who has caused this to start with, their properties values will shoot up relentlessly ensuring that the children of our actual workers will be in an even worse position and the circle of the unaffordable zone gets bigger and bigger every year too.

I understand what you're saying and accept it's an alternative but it is not a solution, I think we need solutions. 

Edited November 19, 2018 by Hamster

[Rewulf]

1 hour ago, Hamster said:

Simplistically yes but if (as happens with most assumptions) you sit down and break it down into components it's not always that straightforward. Realistically speaking you'd have to move a minimum of an hours train travel away from where you work to be able to halve the cost of properties, I know people personally who pay £5000 per year for their tickets, remember in order to hand over £400+ per month just for a train ticket you'd have to have earned 20-30% more than that to start off with, oh yes the dreaded taxes.

If you add these costs together it amount to tens if not hundreds of thousands in a relatively short space of time, a person commuting in this way for 10 years would have paid a minimum of £50k (don't forget to add the real figures such as inflation and taxes) plus suffer the added unseen price of giving 4 hours of their life away per day for nothing to boot. 

These wasted thousands will not add a penny to their well being or property but are in effect the price he/she is paying for the "do nothing" capitalist who has caused this to start with, their properties values will shoot up relentlessly ensuring that the children of our actual workers will be in an even worse position and the circle of the unaffordable zone gets bigger and bigger every year too.

I understand what you're saying and accept it's an alternative but it is not a solution, I think we need solutions. 

Its funny how a large percentage of these people who live in  the South East have come  from many countries that really do have low wages, a poor standard of living, and some with crushing poverty.
Yet they seem to live in properties with a price tag I can only dream of, who pays for it ?
Do these cleaners , tube workers and bar staff earn the wages necessary for the rents in London, or are they subsidised by the state ?
And thats the ones that do work .
If you get benefits, are you automatically in poverty ?

I completely agree with your assessment of travel costs, my ex wife used to commute from Nottingham to Birmingham 5 days a week, at a cost of £2600 per year, and that was 10 years ago !
But she still did it for some reason.

[Rewulf]

Lets go back to our theoretical nurse.
So shes on £20 k a year , we dont know what the mysterious husbands on, so cant comment on him.
She wants to buy a flat.
Heres some house prices in Bromley
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/Bromley.html

Heres some rentals
https://www.home.co.uk/for_rent/bromley/current_rents?location=bromley

For the sake of argument heres some examples of wages in Bromley
https://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Location=Bromley-England%3A-London/Salary

As you can see, she cant afford either on her wages, so is she to be included amongst the poor, even though shes above the 55 % of median income.
Also, this actually means that since no one can technically afford to live there if you are on the poverty line income, this must mean no poor people live in Bromley, beside those that live in shelters ,hostels ect ?
Or do we not count accommodation costs, or total household incomes, or benefit top ups ? Or people who live with their parents but on a low wage.
Have they analysed every one of these peoples circumstances ? 
I think not.
Can you see where this is going ?
The figures are skewed, and largely invented for the sound bite, and it IS politically motivated , because Mr UN rapporteur has said its all down to the tories, like labour used to have no poor people at all or something 🤣

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1046642/poverty-britain-united-nations-envoy-government-uk

A different angle from the guardian and indy, telling you exactly whos to blame

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/sep/16/new-study-finds-45-million-uk-children-living-in-poverty

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-poverty-levels-childcare-disability-ocial-metrics-commission-finances-a8540941.html

Oh yes tory austerity ! But whats this from 2011, when those nasty tories had only been in a year?
http://www.poverty.ac.uk/europe-poverty-forecast-social-exclusion-whats-new/14-million-risk-poverty-and-social-exclusion

So , the magic number of 14 million is nothing new it seems, strange that ?

[motty]

On ‎18‎/‎11‎/‎2018 at 12:31, 12gauge82 said:

I think we're all getting fixated on the word poverty, I would focus more on fairness and in the UK I can't see any sensible argument that would suggest we have a fair distribution of wealth, money makes money, roughly 50% of Scotlands land mass is owned by less than a hundred individuals for instance, Switzerland has one of the smallest gaps between the richest people and it's poorest, the average wage there equates to over ten and a half thousand US dollars a month and although everything cost more there than here, the average person there is alot more wealthy, in part because there is a better distribution of wealth. 

I feel particularly sorry for our young in this country, a combination of political correctness, sky high house prices, long hours in work, low payed jobs and job insecurity, very few have any real chance of a decent standard of living and to top it all off, very little fun or enjoyment in life.

You paint a bleak picture. I don't see the future for our youth to be so bad.

[Rewulf]

4 minutes ago, motty said:

You paint a bleak picture. I don't see the future for our youth to be so bad.

It isnt that bad, theres work out there, opportunity for education, and prospects for a decent lifestyle, IF you are willing to work for it !
Both my daughters are in further education, but live with me, eldest is 18 , she started work at McDonalds on her 16 th birthday ( she applied for the job 3 months before) 2 and a half years later shes on £9 an hour as a crew trainer. When she gets to uni next year ( shes deferred this year) she will continue to work there in whatever town she ends up in.
Youngest (16 and at 6th form)  has been working at Nandos at the weekends for a couple of months now, first job , £7.80 an hour, in holidays she does extra shifts, and can easily bring home a couple of hundred a week.
I dont charge them board, but I dont give them money either, they buy their own stuff, and have pretty much whatever they like entertainment wise. Eldest runs a car.
What Im saying is if you are prepared to put the slog in, it can work for you.
They both know, if you want to get ahead, you need a good job, and that needs education, preferably at degree level or above.

No one walks out the door into their first employment and bags a £500 pw pay packet without breaking the law , or having rich relatives.
Yet we still have kids turning their nose up at gainful employment, because they believe they are 'worth more'

[12gauge82]

43 minutes ago, motty said:

You paint a bleak picture. I don't see the future for our youth to be so bad.

I think it is that bad for them to be honest, I was privileged enough to be given a good start in life and grew up in a time where house prices weren't as crazy as they are now, I was also lucky enough to make decent money before the financial crash of 2007 and before this PC culture of today killed off any fun for the young.

[motty]

55 minutes ago, 12gauge82 said:

I think it is that bad for them to be honest, I was privileged enough to be given a good start in life and grew up in a time where house prices weren't as crazy as they are now, I was also lucky enough to make decent money before the financial crash of 2007 and before this PC culture of today killed off any fun for the young.

In what way has PC culture killed off fun for the young?

[Hamster]

Beat me to it. 

[12gauge82]

1 hour ago, motty said:

In what way has PC culture killed off fun for the young?

Probably more than just PC culture to be honest, social media, health and safety, freedom of speech, surveillance, just look at what they've done to our sport for a start, I think of all the trouble I'd have been in if I'd grown up under today's rules.

[Mungler]

3 hours ago, motty said:

You paint a bleak picture. I don't see the future for our youth to be so bad.

Like so many things, life is what you (and no one else) makes of it.

If anyone is sitting around for the government or a social revolution to come along and solve their problems then they will have a very long wait indeed.

 

[12gauge82]

Just now, Mungler said:

Like so many things, life is what you (and no one else) makes of it.

If anyone is sitting around for the government or a social revolution to come along and solve their problems then they will have a very long wait indeed.

 

I'm not disagreeing with that, also I don't believe socialism would work either, it just wouldn't work with humans nature, that said, capitalism is letting many many hard working people down currently, what's the answer? I don't know, I'm just some guy on the internet, the answer is for someone far cleverer than me to work out.

[Mice!]

7 hours ago, Rewulf said:

Its funny how a large percentage of these people who live in  the South East have come  from many countries that really do have low wages, a poor standard of living, and some with crushing poverty.
Yet they seem to live in properties with a price tag I can only dream of, who pays for it ?
Do these cleaners , tube workers and bar staff earn the wages necessary for the rents in London, or are they subsidised by the state ?
And thats the ones that do work .
If you get benefits, are you automatically in poverty ?

I completely agree with your assessment of travel costs, my ex wife used to commute from Nottingham to Birmingham 5 days a week, at a cost of £2600 per year, and that was 10 years ago !
But she still did it for some reason.

Im guessing a lot of the workers you have pointed out will be renting rooms and living / working in London because they want to be there in the hussle and bussle of the big smoke and probably don't expect to ever buy a property in London.

As for people paying big money to commute to work, you negotiate your salary at the interview and factor in travel costs, i can't imagine people travelling for less money or a dead end job.

[Mice!]

3 hours ago, 12gauge82 said:

I think it is that bad for them to be honest, I was privileged enough to be given a good start in life and grew up in a time where house prices weren't as crazy as they are now, I was also lucky enough to make decent money before the financial crash of 2007 and before this PC culture of today killed off any fun for the young.

Think of it like this, WE all did crazy ish stuff in our youth and none of it is on camera!! Everything these days is filmed and put on line by people, so any mistakes can haunt you, you can't whistle at someone these days as your being offensive, i get what you mean.

[hambone]

On ‎17‎/‎11‎/‎2018 at 13:22, Hamster said:

Thanks, so it's based on your immediate experience with one low wage hard working man, the job centre and the local tip, in other words about as representative of the overall picture of reality as a drop of water in a lake. 

I never forget a cartoon mocking Arthur Scargill fighting mine closures back in the day when a tiny caption in the corner showed a sign at the entrance to a mine which read : It's the pits. Them papers were corrupt even then and truth be known probably a hundred years before that, subliminal brainwashing and demonising anyone who dares speak for the common man. 

Would that be the same Arthur Scargill who stopped the NUM joining the steelworkers on strike and ultimately broke the unions 😂😂😂..**** ******* Trots still the same and lets all blame Thatcher.

[amateur]

Rewulf  has it right, there are few, if any, poor people actually living in Bromley, but travel a few bus-stops north to Bellingham (mainly consisting of a massive 1930's council estate) and you find it full of workers catching those buses to work.