Current Affairs The General Election

[orchard]

So we should just ignore that people are lacking a life skill? Why are fast food shops more likely to open in areas with levels of high deprivation? What knock on effects does that have for the rest of society?

It’s not saying that it’s an idea that would immediately end poverty, but it is something that starts to address issues that exist - we can reduce the cost of eating for people if they learn how to cook at school, likelihood of diabetes is reduced.

It’s better than saying there’s an extra zero on every benefit statement.

The same is arguably happening in physical education - there’s a lack of it meaning that people now think to get fit they need to go to a gym. There’s so much that could be done by addressing the root causes of these issues much earlier on, or in many cases bringing back ‘life’ subjects that were phased out for willy waving elements of the curriculum.

Hi mate, long-time fan here. Why is fresh organic produce more easily accessed in wealthy areas ?

 

[orchard]

A predictably trite response.

You just eat noodles and you want to profit from the poor by showing them where their kettle is.

 

[tsubaki]

I would say that's likely to be the case in many areas of government, but we have a political culture whereby any reduction in spending is instantly jumped on by the other side and decried as a dereliction in their duty. Hence we have the attitudes we've seen on here whereby it's impossible to achieve anything without spending more money (and in Labour's case, doubling government expenditure).

I think that is because how voters have been conditioned to think for years though, that more money is always good even though it may just be going on keeping an unnecessarily expensive policy going (ie: PFI). The question of whether what the state is doing making financial or even moral sense never comes into it, just “we are pumping more money into....”.

If Labour win and can do a bit of what they want, it at least raises the possibility that people might look at (for example) their railway, note that the ticket price is less, the trains are more punctual, quicker and they require less in state funding and realise that there actually is a better way of running things than we have been doing.

 

[zzr45]

Hi mate, long-time fan here. Why is fresh organic produce more easily accessed in wealthy areas ?

Mainly because organic produce is stupidly expensive. There’s also a massive problem that associates ‘fresh, organic’ food as being nutritional better. There’s as much nutrition in a bag of frozen peas as there is fresh off the stem.

But also fast food places are opening up because there’s a gap opening up - people are unable to cook, think it’s more expensive than it actually is and it becomes a cycle.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

And we wouldn't be better off as a society if children were raised by people whose jobs paid them better and were more stable instead? Raising tax by 5% on income over £80k is the greater of those two evils?

It is always telling how you go after people for resorting to anecdotes (or in a particularly tortured instance, insisting that only the opinions of specific experts in a given field are admissible), but when you're pressed on the realities of austerity Britain, you can't actually produce evidence of your own beyond stories about your own immediate family, as though that somehow the negates the overwhelming volume of data on what a catastrophe the coalition and its legacy have been.

I mean, sure, hundreds of thousands of families would be going hungry were it not for charity, but so long as your niece is enjoying herself in Berlin and your brother has a sports car, everything is basically fine.

Of course, it would almost certainly be better if people considered the ramifications of creating a human life than if they ploughed on regardless, but such is life. Regarding evidence, I've fully accepted your use of mental scarcity, and as the book is proudly in my library rest assured that it has been read. I've offered up numerous examples from my wife's extensive research into the importance of families to add to the debate, but that has largely been dismissed (womans stuff perhaps), so perhaps this from Princeton will be more to your liking - https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691183763/a-republic-of-equals. I was fortunate enough to be sent an advanced copy and it's an interesting read.

I would hope that you would appreciate that I'm not relying purely on anecdotes to inform my thinking, but used my anecdotes to illustrate the poor methodology used to create the statistics you rely so heavily upon. When even those who create the stats suggest the benchmark is largely arbitrary, that should cause you to stop and think.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Hi mate, long-time fan here. Why is fresh organic produce more easily accessed in wealthy areas ?

Even Lidl has edible fresh produce. Just saying like, and it's nearly always cheaper than a ready meal. One illustrative response when I've spoken about this previously was along the lines of "try getting your kid to eat that...", which is perhaps indicative of where the fault lies, rather than healthy food being expensive.

 

[orchard]

Mainly because organic produce is stupidly expensive. There’s also a massive problem that associates ‘fresh, organic’ food as being nutritional better. There’s as much nutrition in a bag of frozen peas as there is fresh off the stem.

But also fast food places are opening up because there’s a gap opening up - people are unable to cook, think it’s more expensive than it actually is and it becomes a cycle.

It's not stupidly expensive, wages are low and intensive ag. stuff's dirt cheap.But that's for another day.

Ever thought demand on personal time is quite high ? If not, i'm joining Bruce and teaching pleb's to make fromage de tete, pickled wild fungi, and sourdough.

 

[bluebark]

Why aren’t people making their kids gnaw on bones? Marrow is very nutritious.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

I think that is because how voters have been conditioned to think for years though, that more money is always good even though it may just be going on keeping an unnecessarily expensive policy going (ie: PFI). The question of whether what the state is doing making financial or even moral sense never comes into it, just “we are pumping more money into....”.

If Labour win and can do a bit of what they want, it at least raises the possibility that people might look at (for example) their railway, note that the ticket price is less, the trains are more punctual, quicker and they require less in state funding and realise that there actually is a better way of running things than we have been doing.

Do you think Labour are likely to do less? You've mentioned the railways for instance. If you stripped out the profit providers make at the moment and just ran things at cost, would Labour happily reduce the total spent on railways by x%? I'm struggling to see that happening to be honest, and suspect it's far more likely that the profit made today will go on higher salaries for employees instead.

 

[abelard]

Will reply in more detail when I have more time, but

(womans stuff perhaps)

that's pretty cheap.

You might recall that Mme Abelard is a social worker for the council (whose budget the coalition cut by more than half), in one of the most deprived constituencies in the country

 

[bluebark]

Bins provide locally sourced, readily available produce and if poor people could just got over their pride they’d have a free buffet every day.

 

[AndyC]

Bins provide locally sourced, readily available produce and if poor people could just got over their pride they’d have a free buffet every day.

What ???

 

[evilwebby]

I cook most things from scratch because I can afford to do it, but it's expensive. It's far cheaper for a skint family to buy cheaper, more convenient foods that are not so good for their health. Just take a look around a supermarket and see what they put on offer.

It just feels like some people have a very black and white opinion on what poverty is and it's root causes without having experienced it first hand.

I have a hard time believing that the cost of making your own salad forces people to buy Burger King instead.

 

[bluebark]

What ???

I’m saying there are cheap resources that the poor are just too damn dignified to want to stoop to. Dry dog food for instance can be bought in bulk and can form part of a balanced diet. Plus it can give people a shiny coat and a lovely wet nose.

 

[zzr45]

It's not stupidly expensive, wages are low and intensive ag. stuff's dirt cheap.But that's for another day.

Ever thought demand on personal time is quite high ? If not, i'm joining Bruce and teaching pleb's to make fromage de tete, pickled wild fungi, and sourdough.

I’ll let you buy me some organic meat for Christmas in that case.

I don’t particularly get the time argument, it’s often just as quick to cook something as get it delivered or go out for it. I enjoy cooking though so don’t mind spending that time so that’s probably just personal preference on my part.