Current Affairs The General Election

[abelard]

You see, that's the kind of [Poor language removed] up thinking I talk about. You create some fantastical scenario that covers a tiny proportion of the population and presume that's the debate finished. You're typical of the intellectual elite who lionise the poor but think them too stupid to ever do anything except accept your pity.

Bruce, 4 million children live in poverty in the UK. I know you don't like taking responsibility for your political decisions, but the fact remains. The scenario I outline is far more prevalent than you are brave enough to admit. Open your eyes.

The continued liberal insistence on seeing poverty primarily in moral terms has been a disaster, and one which completely undermines their fetish for technocratic competency, because on this the science is overwhelming and unambiguous: Social inequality has profound and far-reaching ill-effects on individual behaviour, and broader public health (the driving factor in the crisis you've generated for the NHS).





(or I can link to their research papers, if you prefer)

You are completely ignoring the research on this, in support of your own ideological prejudices.

And you don't know anything about my background, either.

I suspect I also have a much more visceral understanding of growing up while having to do without than you do.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

2 things can be true at the same time though Bruce.

Education, local initiatives and encouraging self sufficiency can obviously be beneficial to those in desperate need, but similarly, taking steps to redress a decades worth of cuts by raising the safety net a bit higher also helps.

I dispute this notion of 'decades of savage cuts' though. Welfare spending in the halcyon days of the Atlee government was around 2% of GDP. Now it's 6%, which, incidentally, is about what it was in the first 5 years of the Blair government.

 

[Disgruntledgoat]

I dispute this notion of 'decades of savage cuts' though. Welfare spending in the halcyon days of the Atlee government was around 2% of GDP. Now it's 6%, which, incidentally, is about what it was in the first 5 years of the Blair government.

2 points here, from opposing ends of the spectrum

1. Are those numbers adjusted for inflation and is the definition of welfare consistent throughout? I would argue as well that the loss of large numbers of skilled and semi-skilled jobs have resulted in a greater need for welfare amongst those who grew up in a country of great inequality but near full employment in the decade following Atlee (who had a crappy hand to play taking over a shattered country in 1945). We now have creative ways of giving welfare and not calling it welfare too (such as tax credits, an expensive way to allow companies to pay people badly).


2. Poverty is a trap. If you are struggling to make ends meet each month, it is a fair bet that is your lot in life forever. There are millions more people that are suffering from this than from welfare issues, but for me it is the same. Vast swathes of the country are one unexpected bill from serious financial hardship and it isn't because they're spendthrifts or stupid. It's because corporations have screwed down wages for decades and, in demanding unrealistic terms from their supply chain, done the same to those companies serving them.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Bruce, 4 million children live in poverty in the UK. I know you don't like taking responsibility for your political decisions, but the fact remains. The scenario I outline is far more prevalent than you are brave enough to admit. Open your eyes.

The continued liberal insistence on seeing poverty primarily in moral terms has been a disaster, and one which completely undermines their fetish for technocratic competency, because on this the science is overwhelming and unambiguous: Social inequality has profound and far-reaching ill-effects on individual behaviour, and broader public health (the driving factor in the crisis you've generated for the NHS).





(or I can link to their research papers, if you prefer)

You are completely ignoring the research on this, in support of your own ideological prejudices.

And you don't know anything about my background, either.

I suspect I also have a much more visceral understanding of growing up while having to do without than you do.

I'm well aware of Mullainathan's work, and don't dispute that money plays a part, but I'll reiterate, if the choices people make were solely down to money, then those in receipt of free school meals would perform identically at school, but they don't. Far from it. You're also blithely ignoring the huge amount of research into the importance of parenting in the upbringing of a child, and an equally large body of research highlighting the importance of your wider social network, yet in your world all it takes is throwing some cash at people and all will be well. It won't.

The fact that you continue to trot out figures around relative poverty underlines this. It's weaponised nonsense. Tesco don't charge more for food if you're rich, so what on earth does the wealth of your neighbour have to do with whether you have enough or not? The SMC themselves admit that the benchmark they used for defining poverty is largely arbitrary, but it allows people to virtue signal about how dreadful everything is.

My wife grew up under socialism and had to feed herself on what she foraged from the forest, so yes, I do have a concept of growing up without, and my brother with his sports car, nice house and various other trappings of luxury isn't it, despite him qualifying as poor under the SMC's guidelines.

 

[Disgruntledgoat]

I think I need to do some reading around inequality, as I've never been convinced of it's role as the root of all evil either, but then I've never really dived into the arguments or data.

 

[bol-uk]

Another example if you like. Across much of the developed world there are considerable health inequalities in operation, due in large part to the fact that towns and rural communities don't have the staff or resources that larger cities have. A load of studies have highlighted how things like telehealth can be beneficial in such circumstances, so you might think it logical to introduce that kind of offering, except the leading telehealth provider in the UK are a private company and Corbyn has said we must never allow private companies to do anything whatsoever in the NHS as they're devil spawn. So you get the 'made in the NHS' alternatives, which are frankly a bit [Poor language removed].

I actually agree with a lot of what you are saying here but.... the problem still exists and just by acknowledging it doesn't make it go away. We have a society where many people are struggling and the Tory model of cuts will not change it. At least the Labour model will look to reestablish systems for getting these people back on their feet. Our society has created this situation, turning our backs on it will not help.

 

[Amw79]

I dispute this notion of 'decades of savage cuts' though. Welfare spending in the halcyon days of the Atlee government was around 2% of GDP. Now it's 6%, which, incidentally, is about what it was in the first 5 years of the Blair government.

Well we’re at an impasse then. If you’re going to argue that the government 2010 austerity measures have had no negative effects then there’s nowhere else to go.

 

[abelard]

I think I need to do some reading around inequality, as I've never been convinced of it's role as the root of all evil either, but then I've never really dived into the arguments or data.

Please give one of the podcasts I posted a try

 

[Bruce Wayne]

2 points here, from opposing ends of the spectrum

1. Are those numbers adjusted for inflation and is the definition of welfare consistent throughout? I would argue as well that the loss of large numbers of skilled and semi-skilled jobs have resulted in a greater need for welfare amongst those who grew up in a country of great inequality but near full employment in the decade following Atlee (who had a crappy hand to play taking over a shattered country in 1945). We now have creative ways of giving welfare and not calling it welfare too (such as tax credits, an expensive way to allow companies to pay people badly).


2. Poverty is a trap. If you are struggling to make ends meet each month, it is a fair bet that is your lot in life forever. There are millions more people that are suffering from this than from welfare issues, but for me it is the same. Vast swathes of the country are one unexpected bill from serious financial hardship and it isn't because they're spendthrifts or stupid. It's because corporations have screwed down wages for decades and, in demanding unrealistic terms from their supply chain, done the same to those companies serving them.

Of course, there are lies, lies and statistics, so it's seldom a straightforward matter, and it's often ignored just how much of the government's budget is taken up by pensions. The stats are adjusted for inflation though as they're a % of GDP. I don't dispute for one minute that there are people in dire straits, and many of the 'jobs' that have been created since 2009 have been inherently precarious ones. That's kinda the point though, as while for some, those jobs are not helping their lives at all, for others, the flexibility is something they enjoy.

If a government-centric solution was all it took, then France wouldn't have enormous youth unemployment. I'm just sick of politicians talking in simplistic, absolute terms as though the issues they talk about are solely the responsibility of their opponents, and easy peasy to fix as soon as they're in office. Give over.

 

[abelard]

I'm well aware of Mullainathan's work, and don't dispute that money plays a part, but I'll reiterate, if the choices people make were solely down to money, then those in receipt of free school meals would perform identically at school, but they don't. Far from it. You're also blithely ignoring the huge amount of research into the importance of parenting in the upbringing of a child, and an equally large body of research highlighting the importance of your wider social network, yet in your world all it takes is throwing some cash at people and all will be well. It won't.

The fact that you continue to trot out figures around relative poverty underlines this. It's weaponised nonsense. Tesco don't charge more for food if you're rich, so what on earth does the wealth of your neighbour have to do with whether you have enough or not? The SMC themselves admit that the benchmark they used for defining poverty is largely arbitrary, but it allows people to virtue signal about how dreadful everything is.

My wife grew up under socialism and had to feed herself on what she foraged from the forest, so yes, I do have a concept of growing up without, and my brother with his sports car, nice house and various other trappings of luxury isn't it, despite him qualifying as poor under the SMC's guidelines.

Bruce, when the 4 million children living in poverty statistic is invoked, it is not referring to children who have stable homes, heat, transportation and weekly trips to fill up the cart at Tesco, but who happen to be poorer than Bill Gates. It refers to children for whom none of what I listed is assured month to month if not day to day. Again, open your eyes.

And yes, long-term poverty is an incredibly vexing problem to solve - which is why your rabid ideological obsession with austerity, even now, is such a catastrophe, one that will probably harm this country for decades after it is repealed in fiscal terms.

There is more to it than spending money - obviously - but there are also exhaustive plans on how money could productively be spent right away in order to make a substantial and immediate impact.

You are hiding behind the overall complexity of the issue as an excuse to effectively do nothing at all.

 

[Disgruntledgoat]

If a government-centric solution was all it took, then France wouldn't have enormous youth unemployment. I'm just sick of politicians talking in simplistic, absolute terms as though the issues they talk about are solely the responsibility of their opponents, and easy peasy to fix as soon as they're in office. Give over.

On this we can agree.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

I actually agree with a lot of what you are saying here but.... the problem still exists and just by acknowledging it doesn't make it go away. We have a society where many people are struggling and the Tory model of cuts will not change it. At least the Labour model will look to reestablish systems for getting these people back on their feet. Our society has created this situation, turning our backs on it will not help.

I don't think people are pretending issues don't exist (well maybe some Tories are but I've given up trying to understand them), but more disputing the best way around it. In healthcare, for instance, there's a growing body of evidence to suggest investing in preventative care is waay better than waiting until people turn up at A&E. This has been proven in areas such as substance abuse and mental health, where providing dedicated help to almost coach those people is not only more effective, but it saves money. That could easily be applied across many of the chronic conditions that are largely self-imposed, but I doubt it will because any suggestion that the NHS could actually do a better job with less money is simply bonkers.

There's a strong argument for a similar approach being used to help get people into work again, especially if they've been unemployed a long time. It's not about pretending problems don't exist or putting a sticking plaster on them, but tackling the root cause of them.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Bruce, when the 4 million children living in poverty statistic is invoked, it is not referring to children who have stable homes, heat, transportation and weekly trips to fill up the cart at Tesco, but who happen to be poorer than Bill Gates. It refers to children for whom none of what I listed is assured month to month if not day to day. Again, open your eyes.

And yes, long-term poverty is an incredibly vexing problem to solve - which is why your rapid ideological obsession with austerity, even now, is such a catastrophe, one that will probably harm this country for decades after it is repealed in fiscal terms.

There is more to it than spending money - obviously - but there are also exhaustive plans on how money could productively be spent right away in order to make a substantial and immediate impact.

You are hiding behind the overall complexity of the issue as an excuse to effectively do nothing at all.

That's precisely what it refers to, as both the SMC and Joseph Rowntree Foundation use relative poverty, not absolute poverty when creating their statistics.

 

[larrygobfiend]

Next time I'm doing a shift at the Samaritans and someone's crying down the phone telling me they can't afford to pay their rent and feed their kids, I'll just tell them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and buy a cookbook.

 

[evilwebby]

I tend to trust the people who work there rather than the people whose job it is to sell it off bit by bit

Maybe it's better if it is sold off bit by bit?

Then it would be shaped and improved by market forces rather than by clumsy Government dictate.

We let the free market provide other basic societal needs: food, shelter, power & energy, and on the whole it does an excellent job of it to every level of society. Perhaps its time we look at giving the free market a proper go at providing our basic healthcare.

Feel free to call me all sorts of unprintable names under the sun, but this is the sort of mature discussion the country needs to have if they really want to improve the quality of healthcare in the country.