The last quarter of 2008 looks really promising. GDP fell by 1.5 %, and manufacturing output fell by 4.6%, the largest annual fall in 28 years. Unemployment rose by 6% to 1.92 million ,the highest since 97 and is now over 2,000,000 .Now if you can find a better way to cure poverty prithee tell old sausage ! You see in a developed country like the UK the poorest are the unemployed .They receive free housing, free medical care, free education for their children and small cash sums to pay for food, clothing and transport. Most own televisions, refrigerators, ovens, and stereos. Many even own cars. That isn’t poverty you might complain, and that just where you would be wrong .It is ,and its huge problem
In a third world country like America people earning 40% or less of the median income are 14 % ;here it is 5% .Now I appreciate that 5% sounds like not much which is why ,silly , we forget 40% and go for 60% .
By New Labour’s ,“ Below 60% of the median” ,measure 12 ,700,000 live in ‘poverty’ . Of course many of these will actually be receiving aforesaid education, healthcare and housing free, so their consumption will actually be vastly closer to the median , but still ,what sort of a heartless fiend would say this is just income inequality ? Not me guv ,not when 30% are children and you can call it “Child poverty”. (gasp ..faint …smelling salts quickly man ! …)
Anyway you may have missed it but lots of people on high incomes are getting wiped out .The median thereby comes down , but the effect on low incomes is negligible. This is exactly what we need The caravan bunches up and fewer every hour are able to limbo dance under the 60% cut off point . New Labour are indeed ,curing poverty.
In “Bankrupt Britain” by Malcolm Offord I noticed this apocalyptic observation amongst many more
“It is easy to forget that no country with a fully mature welfare state has ever been tested by a full blown economic depression". …..All of which is yet more good news when it comes to curing poverty ! Soon we will all be hunter gatherers and as we will all be dirt poor we will have ‘cured poverty ’ forever . Yippee !
(Hat Tip to the fantastic Raedwald for the Bankrupt Britain Report )
2 comments:
You're right. Subjective perception is an important part of the experience of poverty, according to Marx, you'll be happy as Larry in a tiny house, he said, until a palace is built next door.
One of my aquaintances who tells me she lives in poverty as a result of divorce has to be kidding though.
This woman, who earns a good salary and receives two good pensions, lives in a council house that's just been refurbished by the council free of charge. The refurbishment has given the house new and modern: central heating system, double glazed windows, kitchen and bathroom, and all at the expense of council tax payers.
Her rent: less than half of my mortgage and she thinks she's being robbed. She will have two foreign holidays this year, one a long haul.
I do not dismiss the caravan idea completely Flo my point was the absurdity of calling 'low relative income' poverty when incomes are going down.
Poverty magically diappears
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