Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Falling living standards are contributing to a shocking surge in malnutrition, and diseases which were prevalent in the 1800s. My question – how much of this hardship is due to the skyrocketing cost of Britain’s green energy disaster?
According to the Independent;
Malnutrition and ‘Victorian’ diseases soaring in England ‘due to food poverty and cuts’
Cases of Victorian-era diseases including scurvy, scarlet fever, cholera and whooping cough have increased since 2010
Cases of malnutrition and other “Victorian” diseases are soaring in England, in what campaigners said was a result of cuts to social services and rising food poverty.
NHS statistics show that 7,366 people were admitted to hospital with a primary or secondary diagnosis of malnutrition between August 2014 and July this year, compared with 4,883 cases in the same period from 2010 to 2011 – a rise of more than 50 per cent in just four years.
Cases of other diseases rife in the Victorian era including scurvy, scarlet fever, cholera and whooping cough have also increased since 2010, although cases of TB, measles, typhoid and rickets have fallen.
Chris Mould, chairman of the Trussell Trust, which runs a nationwide network of foodbanks, said they saw “tens of thousands of people who have been going hungry, missing meals and cutting back on the quality of the food they buy”.
The article in the Independent carefully avoids mentioning the cost of energy, but you don’t have to look far for evidence that electricity prices are placing a lot of stress on British household budgets. Quite apart from devastating job losses which occur when energy intensive industries are forced to close, because they can’t compete with lower energy costs in other countries, Eurostat reports that electricity costs have surged from £0.121 / kWh in 2010, to £0.155 / kWh in 2015 (USD $0.23 / kWh), a rise of 28%.
A lot of British homes rely on gas for heating, this isn’t always the case, especially in isolated rural regions. In any case, the price of gas has also surged, from £0.035 / kWh, to £0.046 / kWh. Thanks to British hostility to fracking, British gas supplies and prices are vulnerable, to political instability in Russia, and to sudden cold snaps – Britain is on the end of a long supply chain of countries which quite reasonably place the needs of their citizens first.
What evidence is there that green policies are exacerbating this price spike? Willis did a compelling analysis in 2014, which shows a strong relationship between installed renewable capacity, and domestic energy prices.
Figure 1. Electricity costs as a function of per capita installed renewable capacity. Wind and solar only, excludes hydropower.
British people are slowly waking up to the cost of green energy. For the British middle class energy costs are a serious annoyance. For the poor, rising energy prices are an unmitigated disaster. Adding to this burden, in the name of saving the environment, must be contributing to the ongoing surge in poverty related illnesses. One can only imagine the quiet suffering of British parents and grandparents, growing numbers of whom are going without, destroying their own health, to ensure their children get the warmth and nutrition they need.
Austerity.
Cuts to housing benefit and the growth on population increasing pressure on housing costs is far more important.
Although fuel costs are a problem. It’s housing that’s the biggest cost in the UK.
MCourtney; cheep energy leads to cheap food, cheap transport, and cheap accommodation. Energy costs are the key to almost everything.
Er, no. The lack af availability of land with planning permission (and the high cost of land *with* planning permission) is a major factor in the UK shortage of housing. Even if energy were free, that would not change.
Yes, energy is THE life blood of every economy.
I am however curious if taking in so many “refugees” does not lead into an increase in some diseases.
Guess I should have read further…
The US has 6 times the incidence of DEATH due to malnutrition than the UK — and energy is much cheaper in the US
Per the WHO
US Deaths by Malnutrition 0.58 per 100,000
UK Deaths by Malnutrition 0.10 per 100,000
http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/malnutrition/by-country/
Don’t forget massive immigration from countries with substantially inferior health care.
This is true, but government spending (that’s not related to energy costs) – at all levels – also affects the cost of housing. Property taxes really drive the cost of housing up. Businesses have to raise the cost of their goods and services to deal with them.
Growth on population in the UK is now, mostly, due to migration and those migrant propagating with gay abandon. This migration is coming from, mostly, former eastern block countries like Romania etc (Which if memory serves migrant quotas were increased recently) and, of course, Africa. London Transport imported workers from Jamaica and Trinidad in the 50’s and 60’s which eventually lead to the sorts of riots we saw in Brixton. I don’t see this migration policy in the UK as being good for the UK.
Patrick, the birthrate in the United Kingdom is about 1.9. Replacement rate by definition is 2.1, so like all the rest of the OECD nations, Britain is in a state of natural population decline. As you indicate quite rightly, the only population increase is from immigration.
http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?t=0&v=31&l=en
Scroll to the bottom of the table. Essentially all of the world’s advanced industrial nations are below 2.1. Some of them catastrophically so such as Japan at 1.4. With no immigration, this means that Japan’s population drops by nearly one-third with every generation. if you use the same table to look at past trends, you will find that the birth rate drop has been established for many decades and is continuing to decline year over year.
cgh – immigration needed.
Absolute nonsense. The government has full control over native birth rates, and needs no immigration whatsoever.
If the government paid £5,000 per third and fourth child, how many extra native children do you think the nation would get? Why do you think the unemployed have ten kids per family? – because children are an asset to the unemployed instead of a liability. People are making rational decisions based upon what they can afford.
Unfortunately, the liberal-gay lobby has underminsed the family by demanding equality. And this meant that all the tax benefits that married couples used to get have been scrapped. And many of the child benefits too, like free education. And then these hard-pressed families are charged double for their holidays, and slung into jail if they dare take cheaper holidays. So families are deprived of finances, persecuted by the law, and then the government wonders why families are having less children.
Frankly, with leaders like we have in the West, the West hardly deserves to succeed.
Ralph
Immigration from the 3rd world is a likely reason for much of the rise in odd diseases. Here in the States we’re seeing many formerly rare diseases being imported with all the illegals.
Cuts to housing benfit like most ‘cuts’ are hard to find.
Average weekly HB award (Department for Work & Pensions / ONS, Table 5)
August 2009 £81.41
August 2010 £84.36
August 2011 £87.11
August 2012 £89.42
August 2013 £90.04
August 2014 £93.05
August 2015 £95.03
No hockey stick but still a constant rise, don’t believe everything in Guardian or on BBC
Cuts ‘hard to find’?
Not looking very hard, are you?
What you fail to mention is the soaring cost of rents and that the housing benefit is always less than the rent. Add to that the evil bedroom tax and council tax which is now charged to the poor and unemployed which increased by 130% in one London borough last year (Barnet) and you have a situation in which the poor are getting destitute, evicted at record levels and becoming a lot sicker since 2010.
So if I’m understanding:
(1) the government increases benefits for the poor;
(2) then the government increases taxes/expenses for the poor so they can pay the benefits (uh, less government administrative & handling costs) promised in (1).
Yup. Sounds like government. Also sounds like a pretty good argument for not building a society where you get tricked into thinking you can depend on the government.
The UK has averaged 2.5% inflation from 2009 -2014 not much since then
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/inflation-cpi
The £95.03 for 2015 is actually worth approximately £82 in 2009 dollars
Not for those on benefits who get free or greatly subsidised housing. The state provides generous help with hosing costs, and taxes such as council tax charged on housing.
For those on benefits it is the household bills that impact most upon their living standards, free disposal income so there is a big trade off between the cost of heating and food.
Further, and this is generally speaking, the lower down the income scale one is, the more junk food that is consumed. This is odd given that junk food is much more expensive compared to buying fresh food and cooking it yourself, and these people generally have much more time on their hands to do the shopping and the cooking. It is possible to buy cheap fresh food at the market (not super market, but outside markets), especially at the end of the day when the market trader would sooner dump stock than pack it up for the next day.
I don’t go to markets very often, but when I have, on occasions, I have bought nearly 15 kg of oranges for a couple of pounds, and a carrier bag of apples (probably about 5 to 7kg) for a pound. Some great deals to be had, just a pity that the stuff is so heavy to carry! .
God forbid that you should ask people on government subsidies to actually cook their own food. That would be unthinkable. Why isn’t the government providing precooked food items so they won’t have to spend their hard given money on fast food. Lack of government programs are the cause of unhealthy eating habits of the poor.
Don’t know much about prices in the UK but in the US some staples such as rice, beans, potatoes and some fruits are very inexpensive. Chicken and especially pork are inexpensive.
I’d like to see the details of those cases. The devil is in them no doubt.
That said, any price increases for any necessity puts enormous pressure on the poor!
For most of history human beings have lived on diets like rice and beans. If one buys in bulk (people used to store food for a whole year), a rice and bean diet costs about 50 cents a day.
‘…The state provides generous help with hosing costs, and taxes such as council tax…’
No it does not.
Council tax is charged for the unemployed and increased 130% in Barnet 2014-2015.
As for housing benefit: it never covers the cost of rents – which themselves are always increasing. People are having to subsidise the government from their food and heating budget.
‘…those on benefits who get free or greatly subsidised housing…’
Ha!
NOBODY gets free housing, and subsidies have been cut to nearly nothing – hence the massive increase in evictions since 2010.
Sasha good soul,
“People are having to subsidise the government from their food and heating budget. ”
I think you mean that some individuals are having to pay a part of their housing costs.
A part – not the entirety.
Which many people do pay – do have to pay – out of their taxed income.
Those taxes – in some part – are subsidising the poor.
Many have been unfortunate, illness, relationship breakdown, etc.; but more than one has, as an adult, made poor lifestyle choices . . . . .
See this – follow the link:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/boortz.asp
May your Season be Suitable – and your New Year Happy and Healthy!
Auto
Eric
I do wonder sometimes if you have ever been to Britain. That screed des not fit wth the reality that most people are better off than they have ever been. A more typical story is this one of motorists queuing for six hours to get out of a shopping centre car park.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3370039/Christmas-shoppers-endure-SIX-HOUR-wait-Bluewater-Shopping-Centre-minute-rush-sparked-chaos-car-park.html
Which is not to say that lower fuel prices would not greatly help people. Energy for heating is still far too expensive and a cold winter will severely test our energy supplies. but widespread hunger and disease? I think not.
Tonyb
You also need to look at the specific people affected. Is there a drug, drink connection? Ethnic? New immigrants?
The article is meaningless alarmism as quoted.
this started when the manufacturing heart was ripped out of the country by the tories in the 80’s and was exacerbated by successive governments , both labour and tory .
one of the reasons some of the right and left wing nonsense posted on here gets on my nerves. we need to move past the politics of left and right and focus on right and wrong.
as an aside, i just let the cat in and it is snowing outside. long time since we had snow on christmas eve here in fife.
RE mfg heart being “…ripped out of the country…” – I guess destructive unions and famous British “quality” had nothing to do with it.
Refugees from the 3rd world – duh
Why then are the Underground trains stations in London plastered with posters pleading :”No Cold Homes” and “The Cold really Bothers me Every Day”; posters begging the users of the Underground to make a donation to keep people warm? In is incongruous when these pleas are scattered amongst advertising for West End shows, Samsung S6 mobiles and insurance companies.
Something is seriously wrong here. And it’s the Green totalitarians.
God only knows what will happen when this mild Winter to date gets really serious.
You are talking about the poor. So when did the watermelons care about the poor. Cheep food, Cheep energy – how can the rich watermelons make money out of them.
The Greens in parliment are in the ascendancy. Things will get worse before they get better.
It’s not fair.
Adherents of the green cult are so thick headed that they believe they alone are the chosen, and bugger anyone else. Totally oblivious to history.
Ken, here in Australia, this global warming idiocy is again reaching for new heights.
We just recieved our quarterly gas bill, being the first of two relitively mild quarters.
The service charges were actually higher than the gas charges for gas actually used.Not really new news, it’s been like that for a few years now.
Our household uses gas for heating, hotwater and cooking.Last winter our quarterly bill was of the scale.
We actually sell our gas to Japan at far cheaper rate than is charged domestically.
So what do you do when faced with another serious hike in our gas prices as of January 2016?
You do what I did. You buy a wood heater.Others simply aren’t going to be as lucky.
You can blame that on these green thick heads as well for forcing governments to subsidize unreliables.
Madness.
China buys LNG from Aus at about AU4$ a tonne, if memory serves. Makes ya think eh? Who’s on the make?
You buy a wood heater
============
buy a couple of tons of coal. less bulky than wood, burns cleaner and 1/4 the price. price of Oz coal is dropping like a stone. pretty soon it will be the fuel of choice across Oz.
https://ycharts.com/indicators/australia_coal_price
$4 per GJ perhaps. $4 per tonne is laughable.
FYI there are 53.6 GJ per tonne of LNG
You may laugh AP, buy thems the numbers!
That is crazy. Wonder how that works for other exports.
Patrick MJD, the Chinese buy on a global market, the locals buy whatever they can get.
It still does not dispute the fact that LNG is shipped from Aus to China at AU$4 per tonne. And we can’t get it at that price in Aus.
The massive influx of third world people bring their poor health is probably significant
It’s green politicians and activists that create the ‘open door ‘ policies that invite the third world people into their countries. Japan has an excellent policy regarding ‘refugees’. Not interested- we prefer to look after our own needy.
But they don’t look after their needy. There are many Japanese who live on the streets as we speak.
Patrick MJD
Maybe they don’t look after their needy, as much as they should, but they are smart enough to not import trouble. Australia is the 2nd worst country for aged pensions in the world. Every time my wife (non pension age) earns 1 dollar , my pension gets reduced. I’m hoping she never makes enough money that I have to pay the government as a pensioner. Fuck Australia
No dispute there Alex.
Also Alex, you may or may not know the Australian Govn’t made changed to tax breaks for married couples such as the dependent spouse tax offset. You can thank the Australian Labor Party for that.
Here’s a study re imported health issues in Germany:
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6838/germany-migration-health-crisis
Stephen,
There is no such thing as a “third” world: there is only one and you are on it.
If you actually mean “poor” countries, then just say so.
Regards,
WL
Warren Latham December 24, 2015 at 2:04 pm
Thanks, Warren. You may or may not be old enough to remember, but at one time the term “third world” was the politically correct way to refer to the poor countries. And the term is still quite common today. A search on ” ‘third world’ poverty” brings up 17 million hits, with the first one being a 2013 headline in The Telegraph that said:
Third World poverty is on the run
So while you may not recognize the term, it is a perfectly acceptable description of what is now more commonly called the “developing world”.
Gotta love political correctness, where todays favored term rapidly becomes tomorrows “can’t say it in polite society”.
My best to you,
w.
A packet of 20 cigarettes in Britain cost about £8. You can buy a lot of healthy food for that. The issue is not about electriciy prices but more about people’s priorities.
£8!!!!? Strewth! I am not sure about “healthy” but certainly food better than a pack of ciggies!
“certainly food better than a pack of ciggies”
And they taste like shit. They must, because I’ve stood downwind of a smoker and they certainly smell like shit.
@Hivemind
I take it you have never stood downwind from a good cigar!
There’s a reason why they cost £8 each…
son of mulder writes:
Most of that cost consists of “sin taxes,” applied by political expedience as much for revenue as to punish nicotine addicts for their addiction.
Pure “nanny-state” cruelty and contempt for the very humanity of the victims.
And the Health Nazis wonder why even those of us who don’t smoke hate their guts.
Pure “nanny-state” cruelty
================
with the rising cost of dying it is surprising more people haven’t given it up.
+1 Tucci 78. It is pure ‘control freakery’. These people would control the very air you breath down to the last gasp given the opportunity.
Son of mulder, my off-the-cuff WAG is that over 70% of the cost of cigarettes in Britain is tax.
I strongly agree with your observation regarding priorities of the poor in regards to food purchases. However, if you haven’t noticed, most governments’ priorities are to tax the devil out of anything and everything, and the spending power of the poor is affected most by all of the hidden taxes.
When I lived in the UK, every year at budget time my mother and father and family members who smoked and drank always used to focus on the “ciggie and booze” (Oh and petrol) bit of the budget. And, without fail, always used to moan about tax hikes on “ciggies and booze” (And petrol). Without fail every year there was a tax hike. Easy money for Govn’t.
I remember the Thatcher years where every year, to about 1983 I think, she’d be on the news being proud of what a £1 could buy. And every year that basket got lighter and lighter! Eventually that “program” was dropped as inflation was doing what it does best: Make stuff more expensive and at the same time deplete any wealth created in the economy.
And yet the economists want inflation.
I guess they think that it is the only way to eradicate government debt. They dare not try spending less of other people’s money.
“richard verney
December 24, 2015 at 5:16 am”
If anyone wants an example of how inflation can, and usually does, destroy an economy AND a whole nation and lives, look no further than Zimbabwe. Remember, inflation does not create wealth. And this is where the financial system of the world fail, but fails not for those in control of that system as they are usually bailed out at our expense if it fails (GFC 2008).
Tax booze, ciggies and fuel, hits the poor rapidly and rock hard. Despite tis, Hive insults and sneers, clearly he is not poor. So obvious. Food or fuel, forget life.
surprisingly, smokers cost the economy less than non-smoker, because they die younger. less pensions, less total use of the health care system.
It is true that getting your priorities correct helps everyone and it is true that the poor need to get their priorities right even more than the middle or upper class. But it is also true that the more money you have the easier that becomes. When the kids need clothes, everyone needs food, the rent is due and someone in the family needs medications … well, a priority list is not always easy now is it.
By the way, the welfare state by destroying the family, personal drive, and job opportunities (to name only part of the problem) of the poor has sure helped to cause many of the pathological choices we see today.
+1
You must be referring to the corporate welfare state where corporations get bailed out rather than die. When they are sick, we should let them die quickly.
Well put. You can tell when a population has been brainwashed when their first reply to a problem is “the government should do something about it”.
davidgmills,
Welfare is coercive and evil no matter if it is the family breaking kind for keeping the population under control, or for the government’s cronies in corporations. Or if it is welfare for the “scientists” in Universities that we make fun of here daily. There can be no good that comes from the state stealing money from one citizen to give to another (or a group).
It does not take a Rothbardian anarchist to know that both kinds of welfare is wrong. The state is mankind’s main enemy.
“Taxation is theft, purely and simply even though it is theft on a grand and colossal scale which no acknowledged criminals could hope to match. It is a compulsory seizure of the property of the State’s inhabitants, or subjects.” ― Murray N. Rothbard
Markstoval, does that include the money they “steal” from me…
*****
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BusterBrown@hotmail.com,
(Note: “Buster Brown” is the latest fake screen name for ‘David Socrates’, ‘Brian G Valentine’, ‘Joel D. Jackson’, ‘beckleybud’, ‘Edward Richardson’, ‘H Grouse’, and about twenty others. The same person is also an identity thief who has stolen legitimate commenters’ names. Therefore, all the time and effort he spent on his comments is wasted, because I am deleting them wholesale. ~mod.)
Short answer, yes.
Longer answer is that the enlisted men don’t protect your freedom in the first place. Please note: I come from a large family of military men and women. One uncle was on the planning staff for the Vietnam War and told a young me that we had lost 3 years before we finally declared “victory” and left. His brother was shot down and lost a leg two years after we knew we had already lost.
When was the last time an army invaded the USA? How does killing innocent men, women, and children in the middle east make you safer? Is it moral to murder innocent men, women, and children even if it does make your sorry self safer? (and even drone operators are suffering from killing women and children daily)
I will spend Christmas with Vets as well as currently serving men in my family. Until you listen to what a large bunch of men who have seen what we do have to say, I suggest you contemplate why we have bases all over the world and if the world hates us “for our freedoms” or if many hate us for killing their kinfolk and destroying their country.
Oh, and did we ever find all those “weapons of mass destruction” that Saddam was supposed to have?
davidgmills,
I think markstoval is referring to the “welfare state”. That includes almost all transfer payments from those who earned the money, to those who didn’t.
I understand that there are exceptions. But they are a small minority compared with the immense numbers of immigrants now flooding in, and who are instantly put on all possible govenrment assistance, and the multitudes of non-working, healthy American adults who are also hurt by minimum wage laws and rent control, by too-easy EBT cards that are topped up every month, and free Obamaphones, etc., etc.
Yes, there are poor people in America. In the 1980’s they were about 12% of the population. But now more than half the population is on the dole.
Next, Menicholas says:
It may be more true that these people are on the situation they are in because they do not know how, or care to, budget and spend wisely.
I would have to add: because the government’s .edu factories have dumbed-down the population over the past several decades, to the point that their end product can’t think like that: they no longer teach home economics or anything related (or even Civics). Now they teach lots of ‘America, bad…’ and related nonsense. The guys who took wood shop and metal shop in my old high school did pretty damn well. I still email with a few of them. They had prosperous lives because they had a skill.
Also, ‘spending wisely’ and budgeting can be learned darn fast. All it takes is no money. There is no greater incentive. Part of the problem is government ‘do gooderism’; the minimum wage, for example, causes mass unemployment. Most of those jobs are entry positions, and employees at that level quickly find better paying jobs. I’ve seen this so often myself that I’m convinced it’s human nature. But the gov’t gets in the way, and an unskilled kid who might be worth only $8 an hour to an employer doesn’t get a job at all when the gov’t decrees a $10 minimum wage. A lot of those kids get angry without really understanding why, and that anger serves the purpose of entities who hate America. Angry kids are easy pickins’.
So, what changed since the 1980’s? Now government entitlement programs in effect pay people to not work. They don’t get paid much, that’s for sure. But it’s enough to take away the incentive to find an entry job, then work up to something that pays a decent wage. Those welfare payments are not connected to any requirements to get a skill, which would pay a living wage and take the person off the public’s support system. And the military was another option that is now very restricted: Obama recently reduced the Army’s manpower (soldiers) by 40,000! That is in addition to numerous other cuts in the military budget. I got a year’s electronic training out of a 4-year enlistment. That provided college funds, a job, and many other benefits, not the least being maturity. I really wonder if I would have that option today.
The relatively small percentage of people truly in need should be helped. But half the populaton? And wave after wave of new immigrants who compete for the limited number of jobs available? And every pregnant illegal who enters without any permission (a very large percentage of the total coming across the southern border) will ask for asylum. By the time it’s either granted or refused, the baby has been born and thus the child’s entire extended family is entitled to U.S. residency — all at taxpayer expense (think I’m exaggerating? I’m not).
Next, if you delete the ten largest Democrat-controlled cities from the numbers, unemployment drops to about 4% (considered full employment); the U.S. murder rate becomes one of the lowest per-capita in the entire world, and the number on public assistance (ie: taxpayer supported) drops to well below the 1980’s numbers.
So what’s the answer? I think there are several possible solutions, but the problem is there are also many self-serving special interests that benefit from the current situation: politicians and bureaucrats, of course, who directly benefit with job security, and pay far above comparable private sector jobs. But other groups benefit too, like the Chamber of Commerce, which strongly opposes any restrictions on immigration — legal or illegal. They represent employers who love the cheap labor, and the high prices they’re paid as government cronies who supply goods and services to those on the dole.
The biggest danger is the accelerating, out of control flood of illegal immigrants. This country has never had anywhere near this many illegals flooding in, and in the past the relatively few who snuck in did not get taxpayer paid benefits. This flood is destroying our tax base, our culture, and our living standard by ballooning the government bureaucracies that service it. And the government’s official numbers are massively understated.
Another danger is starving our military of necessary funding. Like many previously non-political government departments like NASA, the military is being highly politicized. History shows that always leads to disaster. NASA’s priority is now ‘Muslim Outreach’, and we’re no longer sending men to the moon. Russia is being subcontracted to launch satellites because NASA has other priorities, and has given that up. China is planning a permanent moon base. Can you say “Military High Ground”?
Oops, wife calls… family obligations.
Merry Christmas, everyone. Even you pagans out there! ☺
(Deleted. Comments becoming tedious and have no redeeming content. -mod)
dbstealey,
Very nice comment, Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. Merry Christmas to you and yours. 🙂
I can see you’ve likely never even been halfway to poor son of mulder. It also sounds like mulder took care of your future, too. Why do you think people in such straits tend to have drinking problems, smoke and do other unhealthy, expensive things instead of eating vegan and doing push ups? Do I have to say because it’s a dead end life. A fellow I knew living on the dole used to say, when he got his cheque, ”A millionaire for a day!”
And I am not far off it with my contract being terminated yesterday. I helped a woman who was sleeping rough in a bus stop recently. I offered her food, didn’t want. I came back with some water, which she took. I hope she’s ok, and I hope I never get that far down and out.
Over on talkingpointsmemo.com, Josh posted a link to a story about the declining health of middle aged white folks in the USofA. They’ve had their country yanked out from under them. They are drinking, smoking, and commiting suicide. They will vote for The Donald because they’ve given up and would just as soon see the whole system collapse.
Meanwhile the folks like me, who always had good jobs and now have a nice retirement, may have trouble understanding what’s going on.
Writes commieBob:
And if The Donald – or someone equally free of allegiance to either of the Boot On Your Neck Party factions’ “establishment” machinator groups – doesn’t manage to get into the federal government and effect the changes suited to address the fact that the republic’s productive class have “…had their country yanked out from under them,” what makes you think that YOU are all that secure in your “good jobs” insulation?
Do you sincerely believe that if you like your “nice retirement,” you’re going to be allowed to keep your “nice retirement”?
It may be more true that these people are on the situation they are in because they do not know how, or care to, budget and spend wisely.
That’s true as far as it goes. They are largely clueless. The problem arises when others turn that cluelessness into a value judgment. It’s far too easy to say ‘it’s their own fault’ because they are clueless.
If you follow the above (cluelessness is a moral defect) reasoning to its logical conclusion, you have to say that the richest and most powerful are obviously the most virtuous. Obama has obviously earned a halo and direct entry into Heaven. 🙂
So, just how does the wee bit of “enjoyment” that the poor gets from buying a pack of cigarettes ….. compare to …… the “enjoyment” that the rich dudes get from buying new cars, expensive clothes, electronic gismos and a 2-week vacation at the beach?
It appears that “priorities” are determined by …….. “whose ox is getting gored”.
Sam, well said, the beamer driver sneers at the poor guy and his ciggies
Rents are sky high in the UK as well, with a far smaller percentage of the population able to afford to buy their first home compared to 30 years ago, fuelled by easy credit for multi-home owners (landlords) with high demand and low availability. There is also something like a million properties sitting empty in the UK with 11 million empty in Europe. So if you pay rent, smoke or drink at the low or no income level you won’t eat properly.
http://visual.ons.gov.uk/uk-perspectives-housing-and-home-ownership-in-the-uk/
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/more-than-a-million-homes-currently-lie-empty-in-britain-9456263.html
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/23/europe-11m-empty-properties-enough-house-homeless-continent-twice
Back in 1880’s there was poverty because there wasn’t enough stuff for the basics. Now the reason is more based on political decisions. Anyone who thinks this has anything to do with free market economics or too much liberal economics is right on both counts. Both systems disenfranchise the poor but willing to work, one by exploitation and one by a race to the bottom.
Rents are sky high in the UK as well, …There is also something like a million properties sitting empty in the UK
===============
that doesn’t sound like a free market. in a free market the rent would drop until the properties were no longer empty.
Yes it is very free for people with wealth to buy many properties and force up the price and rental value of properties. It is very free for rich folk to buy a property say in Cornwall and use it only at weekends or 4 weeks in the summer thus depriving local folk of the chance to buy or even rent. At least the Conservative government has finally woken up to how this “distorts the market” by increasing stamp duty (a purchase tax) on purchases of a 2nd and further accumulation of property. The opportunity to own a home is far more socially cohesive than being forced to rent. The free market clearly has its limits.
On the other side of the coin the previous Labour government introduced “in work benefits” which essentially subsidised employers.
Kafkaesque in the extreme.
son of mulder–“Yes it is very free for people with wealth to buy many properties and force up the price and rental value of properties”
ME — Under a free market, such actions cause builders to build MORE housing. What you said is an indication that there are government restrictions on building more housing. Of course we know that is the case so the solution to high housing prices it for the government to stop restricting building.
see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cFeNwsHZoY
and: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BAMyo_KfaE
and: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UksypvTqa4A
Jim, No chance of such a free market in the UK. Consider this, if you like watching soccer we have TV services that bid for the rights to show it. The highest bid wins. That means that the cost for the punter to watch soccer increases. Top soccer players then get paid millions per year based on the money paid by the TV companies. Top soccer players often than invest for the future in rental housing.
https://easyproperty.com/the-curious-case-of-robbie-fowler-property-expert/
Fowler is one of many. I don’t criticise the individuals because they look after themselves and their families.
Now consider charities, money donated for good causes yet many charity heads get paid more than our Prime Minister.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/11435754/32-charity-bosses-paid-over-200000-last-year.html
I wonder what they do with their excess earnings and their consciences.
Two examples of the low hanging fruit that means that the UK internal economy is totally out of balance because of “freedom” in the market.
I could go on to bankers paid way above their “real worth” because of the self interest of a self perpetuating plutocracy.
Ah you say but they are the “go getters” who take the risks. Like being bailed out in the financial crisis by our then Labour government.
A House of Lords (1,000 of them) paid £300 per day just for signing in with no democratic accountability. They can lie, go to jail and still return to the trough.
Seasons greetings.
When I was a smoker and ever felt hungry, a quick fag would assuage the pangs. I was also very lean. Since I gave up smoking, I have put on weight because I now eat instead of drag the poison into my lungs.Smoking does have some benifits though in that it will cure obesity (but also further increase the population decline as smokers die quicker plus are too busy puffing when they should be procreating).
Me thinks you have been drinking too much of the “Anti-smoking” flavored Kool Aid.
The calculated statistics on Average Surface Temperatures and their monthly/yearly increases …. are 1,000% more credible than are the calculated statistics associated with sickness and deaths that are attributed to the inhaling of cigarette smoke.
New research findings July 22, 2015 @ http://phys.org/news/2015-07-cancer-biologists-key-tumors.html
But those with solar panels or ineffective wind driven alternators are still in pocket because of the inflated buy in tariff, which is falsely high.
Oh come on.
The difference between this website and the output of the ‘boilers’ is that it used to be based on data and rational thought. This suggestion is as close to bovine faeces as anything the BBC could produce. You present no data for the possible impacts of:
i: new compulsory monitoring regimes on hospital intake for nutritional status;
ii: consequences of immigration from countries where these diseases are sadly more prevalent;
iii: potential changes in distribution of expenditure amongst the ‘poor’ ;
inter alia, inter alia, inter alia.
If I want to read such wild carp I can visit the beeb and guardian websites.
Please keep this site rational and reasoned.
I agree here. The story is not properly researched at all. Some diseases going up, some going down. Malnutrition is said to be most prevalent in men in their 60’s ands the over 80’s. The increase could simply be due to demographic changes. It is not clear there is any real effect, even less that it is due to green energy.
As some people age their sense of smell and taste declines so they don’t enjoy food as they did when they were younger. Strokes can also cause the same problems.
The Temperance Movement in Great Britain reduced the consumption of beer and ale which in turn reduced the vitamin intake of poorer people.
In the U.S even the ordinary residents of the Tidewater area of Virginia in colonial times and later on dined as well as as the King or even better at times depending on the season. This is why food in Canada and the U.S. is served on the table in large bowls and platters and passed around for dinners to take what they want.
seaice – the Only seaice – so no number.
I think the story has value, about the ‘stuff’ – propaganda, mostly – being pushed by – likely – all sides.
Even me!
Auto
Beer is food, and not just carbs, ie liquid bread, plus sugar (alcohol), like pancakes with syrup, but vitamins and minerals:
http://www.livestrong.com/article/263290-list-of-vitamins-in-beer/
Green gentlemen. Yes, yes and inter alia, too. But what is your actual thinking about the place of energy in the mix, though? Do you think paying 3 times the cost of energy in Europe than what it costs in US has only a marginal effect on the cost of living and the ability of a shrinking private sector (outsourcing because of energy, regulations and green costs) to employ people? The government block in UK has not served its own constuencies, but rather the neo-marksbrothers comintern. Why would you think a government that doesn’t give a damn would come around, as it did recently, to concern itself about the cost of energy and its effects on the poor and industry? Because, my friend, it sticks out like a dog’s b*lls.
Well said!
@ Gary Pearse, indeed well said, We pay (BC Canada) a very low rate an average of $0.11/Kwh. There are 2 rates one that is very low $0.075Kwh but then when you hit around 630 kwh the rate goes up to $ 0.13 Kwh ( incentive to reduce usage as we have with very low wattage appliances etc hey hang the laundry out to dry or even in the house once partially dry!)
Compared to the rates in England it is a third of England’s or even way better. Being on a pension I can guarantee that our quality of life would suffer badly if those rates would ever reach the levels of England or the EU and I have to add, Hallelujah the BC Gov is going to built another Hydro Dam!!!
Adrian December 24, 2015 at 2:38 am
Actually, the data was presented but it appears that you were too eager to comment to give you time to read the original document, which said:
So your claim that it is illness imported from overseas doesn’t cut it.
In addition, according to the UK Department of Health:
So your claim that the results are due to changes in monitoring regimes doesn’t pass muster either.
In general, I agree with you that the study doesn’t go as deep as it might, you are correct about that. And it may not be identifying the real causes of TB and malnutrition.
But if you are going to complain, at least get your facts straight. The TB in the UK is NOT from the source you claim, “immigration from countries where these diseases are sadly more prevalent”. And the effects of improved diagnosis and detection HAVE been considered despite your claim to the contrary.
All the best,
w.
Beware building your own propaganda on the propaganda of others !
You are trying to claim that poverty, malnutrition and diseases are increasing because “green stuff”.
The folks you quote are trying to claim poverty, malnutrition and diseases are increasing because “nasty cruel government” and “the cuts”. Although they are well meaning, their business is running food banks – so they are unlikely not to find reasons for same…
I think you’ll find that Brits are much better off than they ever have been (certainly than when I was a kid). Just look at the rate of obesity as one indicator. Very few now wake up in the winter with ice on the inside of the bedroom windows. And we now have “eating disorders” which might explain some of those cases of malnutrition.
The diet of the average Brit in the UK is significantly different now than it was even when I grew up there. When I grew up there (60’s/70’s), my family ate real food. I did have relatives who did eat nothing but junk food, and they were massive. Me, none of this fast food, TV dinner, takeout, microwave, highly processed type stuff, my parents could not afford that “luxury”. That changed to “fast food”. We want it, and we want it now, even in my car! And all that food is laced with salt and sugar, manufactured chemicals and the like. Sugar (Low fat heh – high sugar. The brain can “accept” fat in intake as being fed, but not sugar, so we crave more and more, because we feel hungry, and the body does what it does best, stores it as fat) being the main culprit.
Patrick MJD, this is more bullshit food religion,
“The brain can “accept” fat in intake as being fed, but not sugar,”
You really said that?
You’ve put a new spin on the term ‘fat head’, though- and it will ever remind me of you.
” For instance, the brain uses glucose as its primary source of energy…”
http://www.ebme.co.uk/articles/clinical-engineering/73-positron-emission-tomography-scanning
Thanks for the insult, fortunately I will forget that. Maybe I should have said *REFINED* sugars. Would that be better for you? You can google that and actually find out the brain *DOES* handle that differently to glucose. It’s one reason why we have health problems such as cholesterol, diabetes and overweight issues.
Ya’ll need to get the sources of your “oses” straight, … namely: sucrose, fructose, dextrose and glucose …… and which of them is primarily used as “sweetners” in purchased food and drink items.
Well many possible causes are orthogonal, and so cause can be multifaceted. I have read of such disease increases being common throughout Europe, pro.arily due to imigration, and certainly there are reports of e,argu poverty, especially in winter.
“gareth
December 24, 2015 at 2:42 am
Very few now wake up in the winter with ice on the inside of the bedroom windows.”
I remember that in the 70’s in my parents council house that had 50p gas and electricity meters. Steel framed windows and single panes of glass, a gas fired fridge and a cold concrete slab in the pantry. Double glazing, central heating and modern appliances cured most of that issue in winters, but at least the UK is ready for another 70’s style cold spell, if they can keep the gas and power flowing.
… and wot Adrian just said.
To add fuel to the fire, if you’ll forgive the pun, UK Green energy policy would also close down domestic gas supply, which in energy terms is greater than whole electrical supply.
Well, there’s always gas from Qatar. Not as politically safe as hacking, chipping, nitrogenating, shipping and incinerating American forests, but the stuff burns okay.
Buying into pipeline wars and juggling EU, Qatari and Russian influence can be quite a strain on one’s independence…but when did Britons ever declare they never, never, never will be slaves?
Is this supposed to be a wind-up about false correlations??
Poverty in the UK is nothing to do with our Green policies, more to do with enormous corporate tax avoidance making the Government bankrupt and therefore cutting all safety nets.
Correlations with corporate tax avoidance would be far more cogent me thinks…….
You can correlate poverty to corporate tax avoidance? (note tax avoidance is the legal duty of a director of a company to maxmize its profits)
People are in poverty when their income is low often because they are unemployed or underemployed, so their income is low and their outgoings are high and rising often because the cost of necessities such as heating are rising. Chasing corporations out of the country by threats of punitive taxation and energy costs ‘that have necessarily sky rocketed’ will not increase gainful employment or assist those in poverty. Cheap and reliable baseload power is a fundamental of a successful economy. In the UK this is supplied by coal, oil, gas and nuclear power, every one of which the greens want shut down. And yet you worry about Starbucks completely legal tax payments?
One reason Holden and Ford cited for their decision to stop making cars in Australia was energy costs. The other, major, factor was labour costs. Now that affects not only the direct floor workers, it affects the supply workers too. A lot of workers, and their families, are going to feel a lot of pain in 2016.
given the high degree of automation in the manufacture of automobiles, one would think that labor is but a small part of the cost. Someone will have the actual numbers; it was something like 100 man hours of labor to build a model T Ford, and only a few minutes of labor to build today’s Ford.
“ferdberple
December 24, 2015 at 8:51 am”
And we have unions to thank for high labour costs in Aus in the car making industry. Holden (GM) and Ford claimed that labour costs in Aus are 4 times that in Asia and 2 times that in the EU zone (Assuming for the same units of work given car making is so automated. I used to work for Honda in Swindon, UK, in the 90’s).
Ian, well replied. Many economic studies, as well as common sense, indicate that corporations have no choice but to pass their costs on to consumers. If you wish to create less of something, tax it more.
Yeah, particularly the tax avoided by businesses that have either been forced to close or outsource because of ”green” policy costs, regulations and, lest we forget, energy costs. Listen the immigration policy that caused all the other problems not dealt with in this article is made by the same green and red boobs.
Corporate tax avoidance is political hype to cover up that most governments have over spent other people’s money and want to keep an unrealistic welfare state, and appeals to those people who do not know the reality of corporation tax.
A company pays no expense, whether this is wages, infrastructure or tax. Every expense of a company is passed on to the customer. If one wishes the likes of Amazon, eBay, Starbucks, Costa, Apple, Nike, Addidas etc to pay more tax, they will simply put up the cost of their products or services and pass this onto the customer.
The customer always foots the tax bill of a company. so if Costa or Starbucks have to pay full corporation tax instead of a coffee costing say $3.75 it will cost $4. Every customer will have to pay an extra 25 cents so that Costa or Starbucks pay their full whack of corporation tax. Likewise, those that use eBay will have to pay higher listing charges, or Paypal fees leading to higher prices since the seller will pass these onto the customer, or the buyer will start having to pay a small fee for using Paypal.
This might be OK for the customer if there was only one large company that does not pay its full share of corporation tax, where a customer can chose to go to another company, but when it is almost every large company there is a problem since every company will be upping their prices.
Quite simply if large corporations are to pay their full whack of tax, the cost of everything will go up for the consumer. This will lead to price inflation, and given the present economic downturn wage inflation will not keep up. It means that everyone will be worse off.
What is wanted from companies is not that they pay the full whack of corporation tax, but rather that they create jobs and employ people, and preferably employ people at a living wage thereby reducing the welfare bill for the government.
.
“The customer always foots the tax bill of a company. so if Costa or Starbucks have to pay full corporation tax instead of a coffee costing say $3.75 it will cost $4. Every customer will have to pay an extra 25 cents so that Costa or Starbucks pay their full whack of corporation tax.”
Sure, but if they can figure out a way to charge that $4 (since the market will bear it) without the additional cost, they’ll do so.
I’m personally of the opinion that the only solution to the corporate tax problem is to tax revenue, not profits (or a national sales tax, which ultimately amounts to the same thing in the end.) That way there can be no cost shifting. Tax rate can be lower than current values since 100% of revenue is subject with no deductions, etc.
Addendum to the 8:26 am post:
And, to encourage local production, you can offer lower tax rates based on employment within the US, maybe some ratio of US wages vs US revenues.
the only solution to the corporate tax problem is to tax revenue
==========================================
there is a much simpler and much more sensible solution. which is why it will never be tried. here it is:
something like 90% of all business activity is done by the top 2000 or so corporations in the US. Charge them a sales tax and eliminate income and capital gains taxes for everyone, people and corporations included.
in this way 90% of the revenue would be subject to tax, while under the current system with all the loopholes the figure is probably closer to 50% at best, which would make it possible to increase revenues while reducing rates.
Also this would vastly simplify the tax system, virtually eliminate cheating as it is simple to audit only 2000 companies, and it would provide advantages to small start up companies. There would be a huge number of new jobs created as new businesses would be starting up like mad, making use of their sales tax advantage to undercut the big business. This would force big businesses to keep their prices honest.
This will test your hypothesis.
Instead of chartering corporations in perpetuity, charter them for twenty years and only then by a vote of state legislature of the state where incorporation takes place, and only after an application has been made to the legislature and only after political debate on the value of the proposed corporation to the public. And every twenty years have their charters come up for renewal and it takes legislative approval for renewal. This is the way it used in the good old USA before companies and banks started buying up legislatures who gradually succumbed to the idea of corporate perpetuity.
Of course it would now take a Constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United to have any chance of corporations not buying up the legislatures.
If we did this, then we would find out about who really gets the welfare handouts.
@ davidgmills
Shur nuff, David, …… that would shur nuff work just great, …. because, to wit:
Why is it that the people who have never ever owned or managed a business …… think that they know exactly how a proitable business should be operated?
“British people are slowly waking up to the cost of green energy.” Not true. British people have been aware of this for a long time. It is the politicians and the greens who try and hide the facts from the people and who don’t care about the effects of rising energy costs on industry, on employment and on the poor.
Have the Brits forgotten these memorable words:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
Perhaps it is time for the British people to take real action.
As long as EastEnders (I call it Deadenders) and the like and sport is on TV, that WON’T happen. Watch the movie “V” for Vendetta, and watch all the little British minions glued to their propaganda machine, oops, TV.
When Miliband went after the energy companies, I welcomed his intervention suince I thought thatb this would lead to real scrutiny as to why energy process are so high. Unfortunately, MSM never did the investigative journalism required, and the BBC would never wish to say anything about renewables.
The government claims that electricity pries are about £50 to £70 higher because of green policies but this is offset by energy savings. This is rubbish.
Electricity prices are more than double what they should be and this is entirely down to green policies. The chairman, or financial director of SSE explained a couple of years back that 25% of the bill is infrastructure costs which is coupling windfarms in distant locations to the grid. 25% of the bill is for green levies such as help with hosue insulation, double glazing, boiler replacement and those in fuel poverty. Only 50% of the bill pertains to the cost and supply of electricity and this cost is hiked by the carbon floor price, and the fact that energy companies have to pay for renewables when available at the high agreed strike price ,and have had to get rid of the cheapest form of electricity, ie., coal.
But for all of this, the annual electricity bill would be about 40% of what most customers are paying. If the annual electricity bill is circa £600, one can see that the green energy polcy is costing the average UK user about £360 per year, and this will increase over time.
It is not so bad for gas since they do not have the infrastructure costs of coupling windfarms to the grid or having to pay the high strike rate of renewables. It may be that only about 10 to 20% of the gas bill pertains to green renewable policy.
Total population UK ~ 64.6 million
Birth Rate ~0.7 million
Net Migration ~0.34 million
Death Rate ~0.5 million
http://ons.gov.uk/ons/taxonomy/index.html?nscl=Population
A steady increase in population. Migrants have the larger birth rate.
Much of the infrastructure is extremely overloaded – from today’s news: “Maternity wards that can’t cope: “Migrant births and rise in older mums blamed as HALF of maternity units have had to turn away women in labour ”
At the same time heavy industry is leaving UK due to the cost of power. Those industries that remain are being required to close down or severely limit their power use and/or make their standby generators available to the grid to prevent brown outs and power failures. Costs of power have risen and in cold winter months there are thousands of extra deaths from cold with people in energy poverty. These thousands of extra deaths in a month vastly more than die on the roads in a year, do not elicit any interest from UK politicians or the media apart from one or two inside page articles. The greens are very effectively crippling the UK in a way an enemy campaign would.
Perhaps, but scientifically it is necessary to try and falsify the connection between ‘Green jobs’ and malnutrition.
In the UK we have been following aggressively monetarist policies so that in many cases profit seems to be defined as the absence of cost. This equates to either less people doing more or working for less or both. The UK still has nearly 2 million people without work and it has been over 1 million since the early 80s. This period began when the UK was refashioned as a ‘post industrial society’ and where the jobs of the future would all be in the service sector. I have seen engineering firms organise themselves around the terminology of the service sector. Since when is an engine a ‘service’ and how should we re-write the laws of Physics to be aligned with this philosophy?
There is an additional dimension as defined by the apparent lack of skills thus making large numbers of people unemployable. For my fathers generation it was possible to leave school, get an apprenticeship and work ones way up through jobs accumulating experience and knowledge. It now seems that we have moved to a kind of hyper-qualification requirement which has the ability to trump experience. It is now harder or perhaps not possible for people like my father to work their way up and learn on the job. I have seen experienced people let go and replaced by ‘highly qualified’ but importantly much cheaper people and even more importantly off-shore.
But the important dimension is the growing elderly population along with the erosion of public (civic) services. All of which is affected indirectly or directly by the conditions outlined above.
This subject is a lot more complex than simply drawing a straight line between ‘green’ investment and malnutrition.
And it’s happening all over the EU, Australia and New Zealand. I live in Australia now, originally from the UK at the time when making stuff was out of fashion and the “service sector” was where all Britain’s eggs were being placed. Now and I have to compete with “off-shored” jobs/employees who will take pay at ~AU10,000 to do the same job. In Aus, if you want to rent, let alone buy a property, and support a family you are going to need at least a, single or combined, income of ~AU100,000. Not many jobs pay that these days.
A country needs to be good at producing something, and doing so with pride. Watching old movies you would hear about ‘American Know How,’ or you would hear that ‘the British are Best at Everything.’ No in America under the current administration there is a lot of anti Americanism. The country though is prospering to some degree due to low cost energy as a result of fracking .More so in business friendly states. A change in administration should help the business climate, and the economy will prosper a lot more I think.
In Australia Energy costs and employment costs are high. Cost of living is high as well. The mining boom has ended, so government revenue is way down. People become addicted to vote buying handouts from the government when the mining boom was happening. Now they expect the handouts, and to some extent need them due to the high cost of living, What is there for Australia to prosper from right now? Perhaps with reduction of the Australian dollar, primary production will do better, but finding workers who want to do that is hard.
I am not sure what Britain has going for it right not in terms of wealth creation. I am going to stay here in the United States. I am from Australia originally.
seen experienced people let go and replaced by ‘highly qualified’ but importantly much cheaper people and even more importantly off-shore.
===========
companies in Canada have been using government money to bring in off-shore labor. employees are then required to train these people, then the employees are laid off. the companies then deduct the reduced wages paid from the costs of bringing in the off-shore labor, in a form of legalized indentured servitude. If the new employees complain, their work permits are cancelled and they are sent home. The debt however is not forgiven.
And is happening in Australia, 457 business category visas. The rorting is, even with (Apparently) strict Govn’t regulation (Heh!), is disgusting. And all about extrapolating maximum profit, stuff the jobs in Aus! Send ’em to India!
If the greeny’s had two brains both would be lonely
Cholera on the increase? The last indigenous case was in 1893.
I think there are several factors involved with one being the cost of rising energy. Another factor could be (in the case of) Scarlet Fever is how some bacteria is becoming resistant to antibiotics. Another factor could well be the tendency for people not to vaccinate their kids (Whooping Cough). This is all speculation of course but well worth someone investigating.
“Another factor could well be the tendency for people not to vaccinate their kids ”
Or ineffective vaccines, or even the inducement of symptoms by the vaccines, being administered for profit, in a vast flood of vaccinations, which are simply assumed to be safe and effective . . (sort of like a religious chant in my eyes ; )
I was a true believe all my life too, but It’s huge business, guys. And it’s not wise to give blanket passes in the skepticism department, it seems to me, when you’ve got big bucks and big science and big Government teaming up to save us.
Just as I looked into the “settled science” claims of Catastrophic global warming, I looked into the “settled science” claims regarding vaccines. A fine concept has been transformed into a vast boondoggle, I concluded after significant inquiry. And possibly worse.
Investigate skeptically, I suggest, simply because I did and was appalled.
Most of Jo Nova’s debunking of climate “science” (The Skeptics Handbook) works for vaccine “science” too.
Communicable diseases were already in decline when mass vaccination started, like temperature were rising before mass anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
The “evidence” for vaccine effectiveness are mostly just talking points, PR.
Vaccines are not tested like normal drugs. Fake skeptics attack untested homeopathy but not vaccines. Guess why. They are shills.
Vaccine science is like anti-glyphosate “science” (showing glyphosate causes everything).
But the inept biomedical world is as uneducated and ignorant as the climate sciences world, with zero understanding of statistics.
Everything here should be obvious to any 10 years old with an Internet connexion and time.
[Others may disagree with your conclusions. .mod]
Most of Jo Nova’s debunking of climate “science” (The Skeptics Handbook) works for vaccine “science” too.
Communicable diseases were already in decline when mass vaccination started, like temperature were rising before mass anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
The “evidence” for vaccine effectiveness are mostly just talking points, PR.
Vaccines are not tested like normal medical treatments. Fake skeptics attack untested homeopathy but not vaccines. Guess why.
Vaccine “science” (actually, PR promoted by cranks disguised as scientists) is similar anti-glyphosate “science” (showing glyphosate causes everything).
But the inept bio-medical world is as uneducated and ignorant as the climate sciences world, with zero understanding of statistics.
And this should be obvious to any 10 years old with an Internet connexion and time.
There is no comparison between the science of climate scientists and vaccination. Your right, they are not tested like other drugs, they are in fact subject to international monitoring by different groups across the world. No attempt is made to deny risks and problems with vaccines are in the public domain. The trouble is that vaccines like diseases are all different, the risks vary, the effectiveness varies, there are several vaccines that are not used generally and only kept to deal with outbreaks of disease because of the potential problems. We have eliminated the need for smallpox vaccination and are on the verge of eliminating measles and polio because of vaccination, the only reason we haven’t is because of social upheaval interfering with immunisation programs. I don’t know what harmless childhood diseases your talking about, polio perhaps? The challenges in climate change are about the science, a few ill informed, white middle class mums making guesses because they are largely protected from these diseases, wouldn’t really work. For god sake they are still going on about Thimerosal which was taken out of vaccines (except for multidose flu -only used in epidemics in the west) 20 years ago.
“I don’t know what harmless childhood diseases your talking about, polio perhaps?”
You are pathetic, dude.
[Others may disagree with your conclusions. .mod]
Others may want to provide evidence, then.
Simple,
IMO, it’s beyond pathetic to pathological to d@ny that vaccines are responsible for saving the lives of the billions who have not died of infectious diseases since the 18th century. Improved public health has obviously been important, along with sterile surgical procedure, antibiotics and other advances.
But the instances of obvious life-saving are so numerous that whole books have been written on them. Vaccines have in the past sometimes been badly made and have killed, but orders of magnitude more lives have been saved by them. I remember being shown by my mom the abandoned site of a homestead, shown to her by her mom, where in 1878 eight children died in one day from diphtheria. Would there have been a dogsled race to Nome in 1925 if the serum didn’t work?
And obviously diphtheria is only controlled by vaccines.
/s
UK politicians have been warned again and again about their destructive and dangerous energy policies, based on false global warming alarmism.
Cheap, abundant reliable energy is the lifeblood of society – it IS that simple. However, green fanatics have destroyed this vital principle with their egregious “green energy” falsehoods.
We wrote with confidence in 2002 during our debate with the Pembina Institute, when we opposed the Kyoto Accord.:
“The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
We also wrote in the same debate:
“Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
All of our 2002 statements have now proved correct except one. Our sole remaining prediction from 2002 is for global cooling to commence by 2020-2030. We now think global cooling will be apparent by 2020 or sooner, possibly as early as 2017 after the current El Nino runs its course.
I wrote the UK Stern Commission in 2005 that the UK’s approach to alleged manmade global warming and green energy was ill-founded and would greatly increase energy costs, with no benefit to the environment. I suggest we are now proven correct.
In 2013 I wrote the following open letter to Baroness Verma, then Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/31/blind-faith-in-climate-models/#comment-1462890
An Open Letter to Baroness Verma
“All of the climate models and policy-relevant pathways of future greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions considered in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) recent Fifth Assessment Report show a long-term global increase in temperature during the 21st century is expected. In all cases, the warming from increasing greenhouse gases significantly exceeds any cooling from atmospheric aerosols. Other effects such as solar changes and volcanic activity are likely to have only a minor impact over this timescale”.
– Baroness Verma
[excerpted]
So here is my real concern:
IF the Sun does indeed drive temperature, as I suspect, Baroness Verma, then you and your colleagues on both sides of the House may have brewed the perfect storm.
You are claiming that global cooling will NOT happen, AND you have crippled your energy systems with excessive reliance on ineffective grid-connected “green energy” schemes.
I suggest that global cooling probably WILL happen within the next decade or sooner, and Britain will get colder.
I also suggest that the IPCC and the Met Office have NO track record of successful prediction (or “projection”) of global temperature and thus have no scientific credibility.
I suggest that Winter deaths will increase in the UK as cooling progresses.
I suggest that Excess Winter Mortality, the British rate of which is about double the rate in the Scandinavian countries, should provide an estimate of this unfolding tragedy.
As always in these matters, I hope to be wrong. These are not numbers, they are real people, who “loved and were loved”.
Best regards to all, Allan MacRae
Turning and tuning in the widening gyre,
the falcon cannot hear the falconer…
– Yeats
While the green bilge isn’t helping our situation in the UK, most of these problems have main causes elsewhere. Immigration, poor diet (by choice more than necessity) and a tendency to be lazy are far more significant.
However, our government’s attitude towards complex issues share similar features. Their obsession with international affairs is sign that they want to draw attention to internal matters where they are failing and can’t blame anyone but themselves. ‘Put your own house’ in order should be a sign on entering the Houses of Parliament.
The UK is the only country in the world that has a Fuel Poverty Advisory Group (FPAG); a quasi-autonomous non-governmental organization (QUANGO). Back in in the year 2006-07, taxpayers funded 1,162 of these parasites at a cost of nearly £64bn; equivalent to £2,550 per household. Despite the much-vaunted promise of the ‘Bonfire of the QUANGOs’ only about £2.6bn annually has been saved to date.
The FPAG publish an annual report, this year will the 13th, which advises upon the effectiveness of Government Policies on reducing fuel poverty. Readers can form their own opinions as to the effectiveness of the FPAG and Government policies after 13 years.
Their last report cites that there are 2.3 million fuel poor households in the UK, this despite the Government moving the goalposts which determines the meaning of Fuel Poverty.
Previously a fuel poor household was defined as one, which needed to spend more than 10% of its income on all fuel use and to heat a home to an adequate standard of warmth. In England, this is defined as 21°C in the living room and 18°C in other occupied rooms. Additionally the definition of fuel poverty is driven by three key factors: energy efficiency of the home; energy costs and household income.
The new definition, Low Income, High Cost (LIHC) states that a household is considered fuel poor, when it must spend more than the UK median on its energy bill, and that expenditure must push it below the poverty line. The Government also defines what constitutes the UK Median and the Poverty Line. Call me a cynic if you wish!
The root cause for this parlous state of affairs is the wretched Climate Change Act of 2008, which commits the UK by Law to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 34% by 2020 and at least 80% by 2050. Both these targets are set against a 1990 baseline. It is the consumer that pays for this knuckle-headed Law, which has set the UK on the path of economic and industrial ruination.
It is small wonder Malnutrition and Victorian diseases are soaring in the UK when families have to balance the choice of feeding their families or heating their homes.
commits the UK by Law to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 34% by 2020
=================
what happens if they don’t make it? who gets the money from the fines? who goes to jail?
Taxpayer funded FINES!
If it’s like the US, the increase in infectious disease is among immigrants. Or visitors to foreign countries.
Scurvy of course is dietary, humans, other apes, monkeys and tarsiers all share the same defective gene for making vitamin C. Guinea pigs and the Indian fruit bat also lack the ability to synthesize vitamin C, but their genes are broken in different places from these primates’.
You bring up a point often overlooked. Humans need vitamin C. Why is that? Is it because humans evolved in areas where foods containing vitamin C were plentiful? If they had plenty of these foods in their diet evolution would find a way to make use of it for the benefit of the body. Now, where do most of the vitamin C rich foods grow? Could it be in warm climates? If so, why do we want to cool the planet?
I had fresh tangerines from my tree this morning, anyone else?
Good point, Tom. And not only vitamin C, but also vitamin D might be lacking in the refugees’ diets. I have been wondering what effect it is having on the refugees’ health for them to be moving from areas of plentiful sunshine (and thus creation of plentiful vitamin D) north to areas of much less sunshine, and during the fall and winter, to boot.
A lack of fresh food is fingered as the cause of scurvy among sailors, back in the day. And when they started stocking limes, the Limeys stopped getting scurvy. Old story, I know.
Another source of vitamin C is sauerkraut. I have read that when it was taken on ocean voyages of 2-3 years duration, that when the excess was returned to port in its sealed barrels, it was still edible! Its lacto-bacteria not only increased its vitamin C content, but also preserved it.
I fear the refugees have been sold a bill of goods. I find it hard to believe that they will be able to be healthy and thrive with the current strategy. I do remember seeing a video this fall of some refugees complaining loudly about the monotonous diet they were being subjected to. Their expectations obviously were not being met. I wonder who made them think things would be better for them in Europe?
“Power Grab
December 25, 2015 at 12:05 am
Their expectations obviously were not being met. I wonder who made them think things would be better for them in Europe?”
That is the main issue, expectations. Many, say from Africa, focus on work and money opportunities. Fair enough. They also have a “romantic idea” of what life is like in Europe. Many become disillusioned because those “expectations” don’t match reality.
Wealth is the intelligent use of energy. If you reduce the available energy or misuse it you do not have wealth to spread around. You cannot have wealth without energy use.
But try and explain that to the green left ideologues.
Greens are against wealth because they see the others are wealthier than they are. So, the objective is to reduce the wealth of developed countries and redistribute it to the not so developed ones. Within a country wealth is allowed to their own folks and not to the others.
Well said Lew Skannen
One very big problem is those living in flats that are not gas fed in UK, many of them That will be those less well off having to pay electricity prices via pay meters usually. Add OAPs in various accommodation. Elect is about 13p/kwh at the moment but heading off to 17p/kwh shortly.
Of course the political t*ssers have to tax that as well (VAT).
El Nino is keeping things fairly mild at the moment, but think of drying clothes without a tumble drier…or with one for that matter! Some idiot a fews days was concerned that I used a drier…not saving the planet or some sh*t. Thats ok, I’ll walk around molding off and adding to the International NHS for all sorts of ailments.
@Ian W – I know it, just walk around any of the cities…err, no thanks! A TV program runs here called “Can’t Pay? We’ll Take It Away” (Channel 5) – High Court Bailiffs. Just watch that and see whats going on.
They can’t take what you don’t have. I keep telling these types (Bailiffs) that I have no money. I have no assets. I live off of the mercy of others (Contract terminated. Oh what a great Xmas this will be). All I have are the clothes on my back, and the shoes on my feet. The lappy I am using now is worth AU$20, if that. Come take them, I’ll see you in court for infringement of my human rights (Gotta use the system against ’em too).
Patric, you have my best wishes. All I can say is please strive to keep the dignity and virtue you clearly have. As long as you have a roof over your head, a simple meal to eat, a bed to sleep in, then one is not truly poor., and there is no reason you cannot be rich in virtue during times of strife. I speak from past experience, and wish you a merry Christmas.
Thank you David A for your kind words. Yes, I have seen real poverty (In Africa), and I am lucky to have good friends (I do odd jobs around the house, helping with extra maths for their girl, I am good at that sort of thing). Their daughter, when she could recognise me and speak, called me Aunty Patsy. To this day none of us know why!!! She was 10 recently!
So I don’t moan too much, but like to break the b@lls of those who think, due some default court ruling which I was not present to defend (Didn’t receive a summons), can take from me.
In 2014, 72% of UK tuberculosis cases were found among people born outside the country. Of these, 86% were among people that have been in the country for longer than two years – suggesting reactivation of latent TB.
Of course every UK school child is now offered immunisation but some parents refuse it. My father caught TB during the war and became pigeon-chested. Basically, if you cough long and hard enough your rib cage bunches up in to a knot under your chin.
“I wear the chain I forged in life,” replied the Ghost. “I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?”
Scrooge trembled more and more.
“Or would you know,” pursued the Ghost, “the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!“
Or maybe they are culturally wards of the state, unable to fend for or defend themselves.
OK I must respond to this but it is a bit OT.
Perhaps the recent “immigration” of illiterate and uneducated “immigrants” might be a contributing factor.
The main reason for such problems in the UK is the infantilisation of a significant proportion of the population by 70 years of welfare and socialism. A good 10% of people are incapable of managing their lives, and those of their multiple offspring (one thing they are good at is copulating), and lives lives of total disorder, almost entirely on welfare. A friend of mine is a secondary school teacher, in a poor area of an otherwise average town, and he tells me of the children who are sent to school not having been fed, with inappropriate clothing, with no school supplies, without even basic training in social behaviour. This at age 11 plus. Not down to lack of funds, the parent(s) will have all the latest electronic gadgets, satellite TV, and smoke and drink, but couldn’t care less about their children’s needs. They are seen purely as a source of income – historically the welfare system in the UK paid out more money the more children you had – this is about to change. Socialism ruins countries, some quickly, some slowly. But it ruins every one.
I lived in a poor part of the UK for a decade on a very, very low income. The priority was always heat over food.
Food is a variable but the cost of heat was pretty much fixed. If the cost of fuel goes up, the nutrition will go down. That’s my experience.
One of the most insidious lies told by credulous Warmists is that we have nothing to lose by trying to fix Global Warming, even if it turns out to be false.
The truth is that the opportunity cost of wasting money on this fraud are counted in millions of lives.
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
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These statistics aren’t particularly scary when considered in perspective, but the obvious fact is that increasing energy costs are hurting people today. The environmentalist religious dogma harms people today. Regardless of what people pretend in the future, green-policies cause pain, suffering, and death today, especially to the poorest among us.
Remember, first, do no harm.
Even when it is not within our power to do good, we can always refrain from harm.
The Greenie ideology is a cruel, heartless, anti-human one. Although an increase in diseases of the past could have other causes, common sense tells us that raising the cost of energy for no reason is both stupid and hurtful to people, especially those least able to afford that increased cost.
When the full costs, in the $trillions wasted, and resultant needless economic hardship of many, including the deaths of millions are finally realized, there should be a sort of Climate Nuremberg for these bastards.
Massive immigration is putting pressure on low income families. Scarce housing, competition for health care, schooling and a number of imported health deficits added on top.
Eric, you have been taken to task by the scientifically analytical for not suggesting other causes of nutrition and health decline among the poor (immigration seems the bigee) and rightly so. So, shame on you. As you can see, WUWT posters filled in the blanks admirably. What your critics missed, however, is that at the margin, even little things make a huge difference. At the margin, a small increase in energy costs must be compensated for by the poor in that position by reducing energy consumption, stinting on food, clothing, transportation….When the change in energy costs is a few hundred percent (certainly relative to North American energy costs and we are doing our best to catch up with EU’s idiocy), the poor are thrust below the margin where lies illness and death. Not only can they not afford heat and light, but everything else we use is made more expensive by rising energy costs. For some reason, people who have taken cheap energy for granted for so long, under-appreciate its critical place in the wellbeing of the economy and its people.
Yes, immigration brought unwell people with them, some carrying Victorian era illnesses, but it seems that their wellbeing has been much better underwritten by government than is the case for the indigenous unemployed poor, with elderly on small pensions, etc. It’s apparently not the immigrant who is buying 1930s encylopedia brittanica sets and large dictionaries at garage sales to use for burning to heat with. No. Government scrambles around (certainly Germany is right now) building anew and refurbishing old warehouses and filling up hospitals. It wouldn’t do for a UN policy to have the unsavory optics of recent immigrants foraging for books to burn, for sticks, bits of coal and an ugly piece of thrown out furniture. It wouldn’t do to turn away a new immigrant from a maternity ward. They not only would be ’embarrassed’ internationally but the immigrant community shows they know how to protest and exploit political correctness. They were even demanding train tickets when they reached southern Europe to help speed them along north and there were accounts of them simply taking over first class – who in EU would complain to them? No. The government knows that the proud old Brit is not going to make a fuss. I think (hope) the biggest fuss is in the offing, though.
In my experience of the immigration process in several countries (Belgium, Australia and New Zealand) health checks are quite rigorous, although focus on conditions such as HIV.
A truly risible article and not worthy of inclusion on a generally well informed web site.
To link malnutrition to green energy policy has but a small fraction of the scientific validity associated with climate/CO2 – and the consensus on this site of the latter is sceptical.
Completely ignored in the article is growth in elderly numbers, immigration, birth rates in different communities, financial crisis, static and reducing real wages, and even the possibility that reported cases may have increased simply due to reporting – data collection methodology and definition.
The post simply asked the question: “how much of this hardship (falling living standards) is due to the skyrocketing cost of Britain’s green energy disaster?” Nothing “risible” about that. And the connection of falling standards of living to increased levels of malnutrition and disease is easily made, despite the fact that other factors may be involved as well.
you are also missing the fact that the government is sponsoring the green revolution. Hence if the leadership is so stupid as to promote such stupid notions then they are probably stupid all round. AND I would add that I think the leadership of most of europe and north america is increasingly STUPID.
it is those same stupid leaders who are allowing the mass immigration of uneducated migrants into the west and they bring their diseases superstitions with them.
The infectious diseases can be explained by immigration and (for cholera) visits to the Third World, plus reduced vaccination, but scurvy and rickets are of course dietary diseases. Scurvy results from humans’ inability to make vitamin C (a genetic affliction shared with our closest primate kin, ie other apes, monkeys and tarsiers), while rickets is caused by lack of vitamin D and some minerals, like calcium. Why scurvy is up and rickets down warrants study. Would be instructive to see which ages, sexes and ethnicities suffer from these dietary deficiencies.
GM: If the immigrants are eating lots of sugar-laden and/or starchy, cheap junk food since their arrival, that could exacerbate the lack of vitamin C. IIRC, the sugar molecule is shaped similarly to the vitamin C molecule. If the body requires vitamin C, but only finds sugar in abundance, that could lead to scurvy because the sugar molecule gets plugged in where the vitamin C molecule would otherwise go.
As for rickets, it will probably show an increase after a winter of no sunshine, since it may take that long for the body’s stores of fat-soluble vitamin D to be depleted.
Just a couple WAGs.
Reply to GM ==> Older folks don’t tend to eat fruit — expensive, particularly out of season, and somehow frivolous. Orange juice is expensive. Older folks easily develop Vit C deficiencies.
Impoverished [immigrant and local] children as well, for whom fruit is a luxury seldom tasted.
Marks and Spencer (mega-food store chain in the UK) started fortifying dairy products with Vit D in 2011 and is just beginning to fortify bread flour. That’s the rickets story.
Maybe they should start fortifying with Vit C as well. Kids juice boxes and the like.
The lack of any body surface exposed to the sun severely curtails Vitamin D among those who cover every inch before leaving the house ‘for religious reasons’.. That sort of dress may be fine in sunny countries but it certainly isn’t at our UK latitude and with our weather.
One of my sons suffered from a lack of Vitamin D because of his indoor job and lack of time in the open air even though he eats a good balanced diet..
Spitting in public died out in the fifties due to social pressure, it is back again, imported from regions where it is socially acceptable.
‘Cases of malnutrition and other “Victorian” diseases are soaring in England, in what campaigners said was a result of cuts to social services and rising food poverty.’
So, the campaigners have taken their wallets out and are helping these people. Wait . . . what? So they are just complainers. It is cheap to complain.
It amazes me that liberals/greens are behind quarantining everything…..
…are the first to disavow religion…trace evolution from animals
…and would never consider quarantining people
it is all those thing but MAINLY it is that Britain has imported so many people who have no education that the numbers are being changed by the demographic changes.
wearing a burka does add to the prevalence of rickets.
marrying first cousins adds to mental deficiencies.
believing in a 7th century barbarian as the example of how to live leads to drinking camel urine. that can’t be good.
“General P. Malaise
December 24, 2015 at 7:27 am
wearing a burka does add to the prevalence of rickets.”
Say what? I was called a “fat head” for posting fact about sugar. This is pure uninformed rubbish.
this is an easy one: the deluge of immigrants into the UK from third and forth world countries
amen
The process of migration involves health checks.
Close reading of the original Independent article reveals that the report is very similar to the US one I dissected in my recent essay “What Are They Really Counting?”.
There may not been a major change in anything really, except in what they are counting. and probably how they are counting it. The dates coincide with the implementation of IDC10 diagnostic codes in the US (and these are international codes, so they may have begun in the UK at the same time).
“Cases of other diseases rife in the Victorian era including scurvy, scarlet fever, cholera and whooping cough have also increased since 2010″…..only scurvy is caused by diet. The others are communicable diseases, common in areas of overcrowding with less than perfect sanitation. Whooping cough is prevented by vaccine in the US — most children are vaccinated against in starting at 2 months.
Scurvy is lack of Vitamin C — preventable by $8 of vitamin C per adult per year — about 2 cents per day — less if purchased as USP Ascorbic Acid powder and added to one’s diet (we did this with our kids, especially during the winter). One can buy 1 kg of Vit C for $20 — that’s 10,000 doses of the required 10 mg per day — 2/10th of 1 US cent per dose. Of course, most people get plenty of vitamin C in their regular diet from fruits and vegetables.
The Independent report indicates that it is MOSTLY old people ““Much malnutrition is preventable, so it is totally unacceptable that estimates suggest there are at least one million older people malnourished or at risk of malnourishment.”
UK’s “Food Poverty” is the US’s “Food Insecurity”.
In the US, older people become malnourished because they are old — they are cooking for one (or sometimes two) — they aren’t that interested in food anymore — they eat what they have or what is easy. In the US, they go to McDonalds for the special of the day — often their only “real meal” in the day (I know, the McD’s $2 special is not a real meal, but they don’t).
How do I know? Well, there are studies upon studies — but better than that, I am one myself, and it is my personal experience as well. I am not malnourished only because my wife looks after me and sees that I eat enough and the right things — but if she is gone for the day, she comes home to find I haven’t eaten. when she is gone for a week, visiting kids, I can get into real trouble. “Just not interested….” “I wasn’t hungry…..” “Nothing looked good…..” “I forgot…” And I am not yet a doddering old fool, just an “older gentleman”. My mother had to force my grandfather to eat in his later years, or he would have just skipped it altogether.
All that said, it is usually a failure of families — a failure to look after their old folks, Mom and Dad, and Gran’ma and Gran’pa. Don’t let them die of heat exhaustion in a heat wave. Don’t let them freeze to death in the winter. Don’t let them suffer from malnutrition. A telephone call once a month is not looking after them.
[Obviously, someone should have said “Don’t get him started…” ]
“Kip Hansen
December 24, 2015 at 8:03 am
“I wasn’t hungry…..””
I am suffering that through depression and I am not 50 yet.
Reply to Patrick MJD ==> For me, it’s not depression (I had that in my uni years), I just get busy with intellectual stuff — reading, researching and writing and can’t be bothered to stop and eat….
Or if “on-call” and work 24rhs a day for 6 days non-stop. I slept a whole 48hrs after that…eating was not a priority then. And my family suffered.
The article isn’t properly clear. In the UK NHS levels of ‘Malnutrition’ include both undernutrition and overnutrition.
The majority of poverty in the UK is down to choices – there are some genuine cases too. A choice between booze, fags, Sky TV and other lifestyle choices or buying food and energy – saying that its not easy living on benefits – I was, until very recently on carers allowance £62 ($90) a week…..
I find a lot of comment on WUWT is based on politics and the majority is right of centre which is a shame as the scientific argument becomes blurred – this on both sides of the Atlantic….
Me I’m a left wing, eco, vegetarian skeptic who is yet to see even one piece of evidence for CAGW but a lot that earth is just going through its natural cycles and there is little we can do to influence that – but I personally prefer living green but that doesn’t include large scale renewables as they don’t make economic (or eco) sense…..
Eric give the writing a rest for the holidays the anti this and anti that rants are getting a bit stale……
Stale? The people of Ontario, Canada have a situation where electricity is being wasted and/or sold outside of Ontario at below cost.
They are being charged high rates for electricity which is creating energy poverty. Many have to choose between eating and heating. Also causes food prices to increase.
This is the same thing as limiting the food supply for people and then giving the food away or letting food spoil.
This is due to Ontario’s “green” energy policies with renewable energy with no end in sight for this situation.
The “Soaring Cost” argument is a fallacy since the govt subsidizes the cost for poor families. The rich pay for the poor’s energy, no matter the real cost, since the rich can afford the real cost too. I’m not being flip…this is how it is supposed to work (from the Marxist POV). Now, the REAL story would be something like “There are no more rich people left, since they’re all broke too.” Then Marxist nirvana will have been achieved.
Property is theft don’t you know. Likewise to live you kill something and digest it.
You have to decide, do you want rugged individualism with no laws ( my choice ) otherwise stop complaining.
Bruckner8 December 24, 2015 at 8:11 am
Not where I live they don’t. The Gov’t provides some food stamps, and there are WIC programs, but not everyone is either eligible, knowledgeable, or interested.
And the sad truth is, the soaring cost of energy affects everyone. Electricity cost is going ballistic in California, and I don’t see any government programs for that. My electricity bill just went through the roof in the last year … where is the government program to protect me?
Please send me the details of where I can apply for your magical benefits, because you know what? I don’t believe it exists.
Finally, the idea that it is enough for the government to partially prop up some of the people who have been screwed by the policies of that same government, well, that idea doesn’t pass the laugh test. I’m not interested in putting a bandage on the government-caused wounds … instead, I want the government to stop wounding (and killing in some cases) the poor by artificially hiking the price of energy. I’m interested in fixing the problem, not the symptoms.
w.
This article seems dubious given that one of the most obvious problems amongst the population here is the number of folk who are overweight, in some cases grossly so. Energy costs are certainly an issue created by deliberate government policy, but it has not reached the point of catastrophe yet! Speaking of food cost I spend three times as much now as I did 16 years ago. My heat and lighting costs have also trebled despite using led lighting and a modern gas boiler.
selling off utilities to foreign governments is obviously going to be a success.
“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for the, at least, 150 years, since the industrial revolution,”
– Christiana Figueres, who heads up the U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change
No Christiana! Your are not representing mankind – you are not representing the poor- you are representing yourself, you allies, and what seems to work fine inside your heads.
If United Nations had respect for human rights – there would have been alternatives to you – I would have been given the opportunity to vote. There would also have been an opposition to the way United Nations is governed. However, you were appointed by Ban Ki-Moon – not voted for.
I would not have voted for Christiana Figueres.
Bravo!
Writes Science or Fiction:
Which is why “Hobbits” (thank you so much, Senator McCain!) such as thou and I are never, ever going to be asked to vote on government empowerment for apparatchiki like la Figueres.
She brings this to mind:
“It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a ‘dismal science.’ But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.” ― Murray N. Rothbard
when I used to live on the Isle of Wight (spit) we used to access the old TB sanatorium. Interestingly underneath it there was a railway tunnel cut into the cliff about 100 m long obviously for tipping clinical waste into the sea.
One cause of poverty is lack of jobs. But govt. does everything in its power to prevent, inhibit or otherwise make it difficult or uneconomical to hire workers.
Aside from an infinite list of employment taxes, rules, regulations, prohibitions, etc., one must add all the taxes and fees placed upon necessary items to get on in life.
And of course, many “advanced” economies are now doing everything in their power to raise the cost of energy in all its forms, preventing the construction of needed energy infrastructure to bring cheap energy to the citizenry and by shutting down energy facilities in lieu of finding ways to modernize them and KEEP THE JOBS OF ITS WORKERS.
Once again the ordinary person is getting totally screwed over by the ruling elites. Ah, yes, the elites whose wealth and influence exempt them or otherwise make them immune to the hardships they foist upon the working (or non-working) stiffs.
While folks like John Kerry (5 homes, a private airplane, a 70 ft. yacht) and others tell us WE must pay more or do less, they continue on as did Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette. If you recall, things did not end well for the latter two individuals.
Eric
“According to the Independent…” (with an even stronger Leftist editorial line than the Guardian) . I’d take this with a pinch of salt. Both papers have been guilty of complaining about food banks and the brave poor one week and then the next week complaining about food being too cheap and the disgusting obesity epidemic amongst the poor – the solution tax food. The Guardian even managed to do this within a single edition.
Both papers despise the poor (unless they’re a minority which gives them the perfect storm to virtue signal) as ignorant and unenlightened (unlike them). They only roll the poor out when it gives them an opportunity to bash the Tories or virtue signal.
The government of Indonesia has announced an agreement with Thorcon power to develop thorium molten salt reactors. Announcement is here:
http://neutronbytes.com/2015/12/06/indonesia-and-thorcon-to-develop-thorium-msr/
Details of the thorium power plants can be found here.
http://thorconpower.com/
Goal is to get first one built by 2021.
If these molten salt thorium reactors turn out to be as advertized, we will no longer be having these kinds of discussions. Energy cheaper than coal. Abundant fuel at a tiny cost and reactors made on an assembly line like airplanes. Hundreds of reactors built yearly. And extremely tiny amounts of nuclear waste. And nuclear from thorium is nearly impossible to breed into weapon grade U235 or Pu239. No chance of a melt down since the reactor works with molten salt. Drain tank system shuts down criticality when power is lost to the reactor.
Here’s to entering the thorium age.
Energy costs are a problem, but not the main issue with UK poverty. The main issues are:
a. Destruction of UK industry and replacement with Chinese slave production. This lowers the salary of the high earners, and prevents the trickle-down from the large multinationals (which no longer exist) to smaller businesses. It also deprives the government of much needed taxes.
The UK no longer has native car industries, computers, telephone manufacture, white goods, light aircraft, electronics, engines, and severely reduced, iron, aluminium, petrochemicals, plastics and many other basic industries. Which is why the balance of trade is so dire, and has been for decades.
b. Immigration. This depresses wages, with over competition at any wage cost. It also puts large numbers on the dole or into part time work. It also increases cost for government finances, with hugely increased housing costs for non-productive immigrants, and deprives the government of taxes (low wage jobs pay little or no direct taxes).
c. Gordon Brown’s tax credit system. This guaranteed as much money for part-time single mothers as those in full time employment. Not surprisingly, half ouf our company suddenly went part time, and claimed the subsidy, as did millions across the nation. This increases business costs and greatly increases government costs, for no extra production.
d. Ageing population. The cost of pensions has increase dranmatically, and these costs come from taxation, rather than from prior invenstments.
e. High housing costs. The increased demand for housing by 5 million new immigrants and 5 million divorced couples has substantially increased demand and costs of housing. Many single people in London now share not just houses, but share rooms too. £400 a month, to share a bedroom with three others. Meanwhile, many immigrants are living in garden sheds, or using the 50p hotel rooms (public toilets – you pay 50p to get in, and refuse to come out).
Such are the many benefits that Tony Bliar and David Camoron have brought to the nation.
Ralph
Sad but true that Britons have become slaves of the State. Far from never shall be slaves. Britannia doesn’t rule. She has handed over her guns and surrendered.
Thanks for that concise explanation, ralfellis. Well done. The chimera of “free trade” has done immense damage to rich and poor countries alike, with the only winners being the corporations. Call me crazy, but I don’t think my neighbor should have to compete for his job with a Chinaman making five dollars a day.
w.
“ralfellis
December 24, 2015 at 9:51 am
…and prevents the trickle-down…”
Trickle-down never existed in the UK. Never!
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/protein/
Low protein diets = metabolic problems
Aha! Is everyone avoiding pork products, or just the immigrants?
Blame it on the Rothchilds. Oh but then again, what do I know……
The claims of increased poverty diseases in the UK may or may not be correct and the primary cause(s) may or may not be as claimed.
A much clearer problem is the very high Excess Winter Mortality Rate in the UK, more than DOUBLE that of the USA, Canada and the Scandinavian countries.
Excess Winter Mortality in the UK totals up to 50,000 souls per year, mostly among thee elderly and the poor.
Regards, Allan
References:
1. Cold Weather Kills 20 Times as Many People as Hot Weather September 4, 2015
by Joseph D’Aleo and Allan MacRae
https://friendsofsciencecalgary.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/cold-weather-kills-macrae-daleo-4sept2015-final.pdf
[excerpt]
Canada has lower Excess Winter Mortality Rates than the USA and much lower than the UK. This is attributed to our better adaptation to cold weather, including better home insulation and home heating systems, and much lower energy costs than the UK, as a result of low-cost natural gas due to shale fracking and our lower implementation of inefficient and costly green energy schemes.
The problem with green energy schemes is they are not green and they produce little useful energy, primarily because they are too intermittent and require almost 100% fossil-fueled (or other) backup.
The Alberta Climate Change initiative seeks to reduce the use of fossil fuels and increase the use of green energy. In Europe, where green energy schemes have been widely implemented, the result is higher energy costs that are unaffordable for the elderly and the poor, and increased winter deaths. European politicians are retreating from highly-subsidized green energy schemes and returning to fossil fuels. When misinformed politicians fool with energy systems, innocent people suffer and die.
2. The UN’s IPCC Has No Credibility On Global Warming September 6, 2015
by Allan MacRae
https://friendsofsciencecalgary.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/the-uns-ipcc-has-no-credibility-on-global-warming-6sept2015-final.pdf
And don’t expect the green elite to give a rat’s ass any time soon.
Happy Christmas to everyone, and, of course, Best Wishes for the New Year.
Childhood obesity amongst the poor is still a much greater problem than malnutrition. I entirely agree with your view on energy prices, but you are stretching the point here. I would say the main causes of childhood malnutrition are poor parenting skills, wilful neglect and unexpected changes in circumstances, not a prolonged inability to afford sufficient food.
@davidgmills it looks like Thorium will be a long time coming if at all (for high power – long term economic electricity production)
The links you gave about Indonesia moving towards Thorium contained a note saying the project had been cancelled.
More importantly for readers here, from your links I came across this set of presentations from:
Oak Ridge labs – MSR – 2015 WORKSHOP ON MOLTEN SALT REACTOR TECHNOLOGIES COMMEMORATING THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE STARTUP OF THE MSRE
https://public.ornl.gov/conferences/MSR2015/Presentations.cfm
These presentations detail many of the problems to be overcome before successful commercial scale Thorium operations can begin.
I read that note. It actually didn’t say that thorium was cancelled. The prime minister announced the cancellation of four pending nuclear plants and said they were not going forward with nuclear. However all three entities that signed the agreement are state run and the agreement was signed just days before the announcement of cancelling the four plants.
So it remains to be seen. I am still hopeful. And the thorcon people are pretty sure they can meet the deadline just copycatting what went on at Oak Ridge fifty years ago. The Oak Ridge plant ran for 15,000 hours.
The fact that Australia lies well outside the linear-relationship shown on the Willis Eschenbach graph is a testament to the thick-headed and moronic politicians that have, for years, been elected to the Australian parliaments. These same politicians from both sides, in their muddle-headed way, have sought to impoverish the Australian public while building up relentlessly their own remuneration, benefits and perks even into their retirement, well beyond those of any other country.
Ntes,
How do Australian politician perks compare with US?
http://money.cnn.com/2014/11/05/retirement/congressional-pensions
Pensions were reduced in 1980s, but are still ridiculous, IMO.
Perks were changed sometime ago so that MP’s had to “serve” (And I use that word loosely) 3 terms before receiving a pension for life, curtesy of the tax payer.
It appears famine and death are neither unforeseen nor unwanted consequences of the green movement. As greens believe an earth bereft of humanity is vastly superior, such things would fit perfectly within their plans.
No, I am pretty sure poverty starts with having no means of exchanging goods (money).
I have seen people sleeping on the side of a road in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I am sure their hearts and minds were focused on finding something to eat that and the next day.
Mr. Worrall, You appear to be assuming the the Independent article, despite its failure to mention energy, is accurate. Forgive me if this is not the case.
These are other assumptions you make. First let me address the article you have quoted.
When it comes to food banks how do you separate those in genuine need (yes there are some) from the army of cynical. undeserving freeloaders with outrageous senses of entitlement who breed indiscriminately on the taxpayers dollar? The answer is you don’t. Large queues at food banks, no matter the numbers of undeserving, shore up lefty, anti-capitalist propaganda. Just like the junk you get in the Independent.
The media is only too willing to propagate the “guilt” trip, making hardworking people feel uncomfortable about having nice things they’ve worked hard for. I have no qualms about helping the truly unfortunate. Shirkers are a different matter. My taxes help support these people. I don’t owe them anything. I restricted myself to one child because I couldn’t afford two. I am not responsible for people breeding themselves into relativistic poverty. They made a lifestyle choice so why should people like me pick up the tab? Why should the likes of the Independent hacks feel that I should?
What proportion of people attending food banks is down to people being unable to afford rising energy prices is debatable. The greenies may very well be a contributing factor, I’d be surprised if they weren’t, but they are not the root cause.
As for the disease ridden English (we aren’t) – we were doing okay until we imported diseases, such as TB, which we had eradicated before mass immigration from Eastern Europe and the Third World, particularly the Indian Sub-Continent. Since immigration has been the policy of successive governments for at least sixty years the rise in such diseases is not something we can lay at the door of the greens.
It is safe to say, however, that, God fore-fend, the Greens ever come to power they would delight in removing our borders. The have said so often enough in TV interviews and in newspapers. Which is probably why they never will come to power. Immigration isn’t necessarily a bad thing but we English have had more than enough of multiculturalism and the problems it creates thank you very much.
The multicultural experiment of the late nineties and onwards is an abject failure allowing incomers to not integrate, encouraging them, through the lens of political correctness, not to integrate. Even the Blairite lefties who foisted multiculturalism upon Britain (not just England) have acknowledged the failure while at the same time
fiddlingmanipulating the immigration numbers. Let’s not mention the rise in diseases, such as TB, that weren’t screened for. You know, those Victorian diseases that the Independent assures us are rising due to Victorianesque poverty and cuts rather than the influx of large numbers of unskilled migrants from disease ridden communities. But then, ignoring large lounge pachyderms is something Leftists are very good at.Politically correct. Leftist rags like the Independent and Guardian are forever complicit in bashing the shrinking demographic propping up the shambolic system. You cannot trust them to be unbiased. A return to Victorian England? Don’t make me laugh! And why only England? Do Wales, Ireland and Scotland not have these problems too?
True poverty does exist in Britain, not just England. There are genuinely some people who do not have a pot to pee in or do not have a roof over their heads or are hard pressed to feed their children because of circumstances beyond their control. However, people who can find the money to drink, smoke and subscribe to SKY Sports while collecting money from the bottomless social fund they have never made a contribution to are not poverty stricken. Free food is not going to change their ways and their situation cannot be described as “Victorian”. But the likes of the Independent feel it is not the freeloaders who should change but those footing the bill. We are the guilty ones, you see. Flouting our hard won cash by paying our own bills and taking responsibility for our own actions.
The Greenies are guilty of a lot of things but I don’t think they’ll be satisfied with reducing us all to Victorian standards. They are not pre-industrial standards you see. As for the above quoted article; it is lazy journalism of the worst type and should be taken with a large pinch of salt.
You are quite correct when you say rising energy cost is destroying our industrial and manufacturing bases. I wouldn’t take Eurostat as a 100% reliable source though. There are lies, damned lies and EU statistics.
The British are not hostile to fracking, only some of us. Vocal Greenie activists, a tiny but very loud minority, are hostile but they do not represent the rest of us. There are people whose ignorance allows them to genuinely believe that fracking is the work of deranged, multinational, planet killing corporations but they can learn. There are the more down to earth NIMBYs (not in my back yard) who simply don’t want fracking on their doorstep, who are not necessarily opposed to fracking itself but are willing to use Greenie rhetoric to achieve their aims (I’ve met quite a few of those). Please do not confuse “some” with “all”. You do ordinary Brits an injustice.
The real danger comes from government stupidity/venality and the likes of Tim Yeo and Lord Deben who have their thumbs deep into the sustainable energy pie that sucks up billions in subsidies. These are people are at the heart of policy making. They do not represent the interests of the British people. They only represent themselves. Hence the unpopularity of mainstream political parties.
As for political instability in Russia – it seems to me that the West itself is determined to undermine Russia, particularly the EU. Turkey? Voting? Christmas? Anyone?
Fortunately fracking is back on the political table and licenses have been granted to explore the Bowland Shale and other shale deposits. Even the British government can’t be completely stupid all of the time although it does have its moments. It’s still buying into the AGW scam and building windmills.
Naturally the Greenies are up in arms. The sound of wailing and the gnashing of teeth is like a breath of fresh air.
Sorry for the length of this comment but I feel the quoted article needed balance. The Independent is a lefty rag with a falling circulation and isn’t read by most Brits. It doesn’t reflect the British zeitgeist, only the lefty one.
22 August 2014
Food poverty: Experts issue malnutrition health warning
More people are suffering from malnutrition as a result of worsening food poverty, experts have warned. The Faculty of Public Health said conditions like rickets were becoming more apparent because people could not afford quality food in their diet. It comes after health figures recently revealed a 19% increase in the number of people admitted to hospital with malnutrition over the past year.
Britain has 3.8 million children in extreme poverty. Charities such as the Trussell Trust report growing need for food banks but say that some of the items donated can be of poor quality. Dr Middleton said: ‘If the nutritional diseases are markers of a poor diet, the food banks are markers of extreme poverty – the evidence from Trussell Trust suggests the biggest group of users are hard working poor families who have lost benefits, live on low and declining wages and or they have fallen foul of draconian benefits sanctions which propel them into acute poverty and hunger. This is a disastrous and damning indictment on current welfare policy and a shame on the nation. The food banks are providing a real and valued service staving off actual hunger – they are actually keeping people alive.’
Ministers say that ‘billions of pounds are available’ to tackle health issues. The government said the money would help councils cope with public health problems such as malnutrition. But data from the Health and Social Care Information Centre showed the number of those admitted to hospital in England and Wales had risen from 5,469 to 6,520 over the past year.
Vice president of the Faculty of Public Health, John Middleton, said food-related ill health was getting worse through extreme poverty and the use of food banks. ‘It’s getting worse because people can’t afford good quality food. It’s getting worse where malnutrition, rickets and other manifestations of extreme poor diet are becoming apparent,’ he said. The faculty recently claimed that UK food prices had risen by 12% since 2007. It also noted that in the same period, UK workers had suffered a 7.6% fall in wages.
Ben Reynolds, deputy coordinator of the food charity Sustain, said the warning came as little surprise, as it underlined what others were telling them. ‘Hopefully the government will take note now,’ he added.
Prof Kevin Fenton of Public Health England said he was very concerned about the issue. And shadow public health minister Luciana Berger said the warning ‘must be a wake-up call for David Cameron. They are right to warn that a rise in the cost of living is having a detrimental impact on our nation’s health.’
So this problem began in 2010 with the Tories, did it?
How do you define “extreme poverty”?
I find it hard to accept, at face value, claims from certain quarters who earn a living as activists for this or that organisation. Ever heard of rent-seeking? It’s always worse than they thought. Sound familiar? Dig deeper and discover the real story. I’m afraid arguing from authority won’t convince me. I will, however grant that there is a problem and it needs fixing. Being politically partisan isn’t the solution.
I’m not rich nor am I a Tory voter. I don’t vote for any party because they all micturate in the same china receptacle. Voting changes nothing so I don’t bother any more. They are all equally incompetent.
I struggle to keep on top of my bills, mostly thanks to the massive hike in energy costs and the resulting fallout that raises prices across the board; a Labour policy, ably supported across the political spectrum, if memory serves. This a large contributor to the recent hikes in the cost of living, including Scotland, since the SNP claim to want windmills as far as the eye can see. People are apparently starving yet both Scotland and England can, have or intend to spend billions on wind turbines rather than welfare which in turn (sic) causes even more suffering. So not just the Tories, then. But then leftists are perfect, they don’t make mistakes and they are the only caring people (just don’t mention the blood soaked horrors of the last century) with the solution to poverty even thought they never seem to deliver. It’s always the evil Tories to blame. Which again makes it difficult for me to take your points seriously. The Tories do bear some of the blame but then so do all politicians.
I’ve noticed that the cost of living has dropped recently, a large contributing factor is the plummeting price in oil and gas. A welcome relief.
The biggest impact on the nation’s health, if you believe what the media and “experts” at Public Health England say (that’s your Professor Kevin Fenton BTW), is obesity. smoking and excessive drinking. What you have shown me about poverty is a “warning”, just the latest in many that never seem to quite turn out to be real. Another word for it is “alarmism”. Act now or the consequences will be dire. Throw money our way, at our cause, and we will make a difference. Experience tells us that isn’t the case. It’s the same with “lessons will be learned” which never are.
I live near Blackpool, apparently one of the most deprived, poverty-stricken areas in England outside of London. Take it from me there are no armies of half-clothed, starving beggars living on the street displaying what I consider to be true extreme poverty. Apparently Blackpool is also pretty close to the top of the nation’s heavy smoking list too. If those poverty-stricken Blackpoolians prefer to buy cigarettes (and booze) rather than food then that is stupidity, not poverty. That their dependents suffer for the poor decisions made by the parents is something else. It is they who are the real victims. You can’t blame the Tories for that. Selfishness and personal gratification are age old social problems that successive governments have failed to tackle. The government hasn’t neglected the dependents of these people. So let’s lay some of them blame where it truly lies. With the individual who puts the habits of himself or herself before the welfare of their family.
There is a genuine need for food banks for some families. It’s a shocking indictment but you cannot lay the blame squarely with the Tories. This is not just a political omni-failure. In many cases it is a failure of the individual to behave responsibly.
I believe in personal responsibility. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I restricted the size of my family. I have been up against it when my husband was made redundant at 24 hours notice back in the late 80s when his employer’s company folded. We stood to lose everything because my salary wouldn’t cover the bills and I was forced to give up work because I could no longer afford childminding costs. On top of that we had our rates effectively doubled by the poll tax. We made cuts and sacrifices, anything to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads even though we had a safety net in our parents if things went even more pear shaped. It was our problem and we worked our way through it. My other half took on any job to bring money in and I took on evening work which was low-paid but it was a job. By today’s standards we were living in hand-to-mouth poverty for nearly 18 months until my husband eventually found decent employment. There was a period where free food would have been welcome.
So now I hope you understand why I have sympathy for some and not others.
“UK Sceptic
December 26, 2015 at 3:42 am
Voting changes nothing so I don’t bother any more. They are all equally incompetent.”
Well said! Bothering to or not is another topic to discuss IMO.
‘…Don’t make me laugh! And why only England? Do Wales, Ireland and Scotland not have these problems too?…’
23 October 2015
Tory ideological madness created Scottish dependency on food banks
The latest statistics from the Trussell Trust show that a total of 117,689 people picked up a three-day supply of basic groceries from its Scottish food banks in 2014-15. Of those, 36,114 were children. That is more than eight times the number helped just two years ago. In those two years, Tory cuts to welfare support and benefit sanctions and their failure to act on low pay have pushed more and more people into food poverty.
More than 900,000 people in Scotland live in low-income homes. The Resolution Foundation estimates that by 2020 a single parent with one child, working 20 hours at week for £9.35 an hour, will be £1,000 worse off. The Institute of Fiscal Studies estimates Tory alterations to universal credit will see three million more families suffering and reduced to desperate measures as they try to make ends meet.
Here is the Tory version of why this is happening: As a country, we have a lot of debt. Debt created by bankers’ gambling made possible by successive governments easing the rules so the City chaps could get busy, making money with naught a thought for who would pay the price. That debt, we were told, must be paid off. Cuts had to be made to public spending, we all had to tighten our belts. And in any case we were told, the benefit system simply encouraged folk to depend on support and not get out and work for their living. We need a system that ‘rewards work.’ How ironic, then, that the alterations in universal credit actually penalize people for working–because the more you work the less support you get. Earn over £3,850 a year (the champagne bill for a night out in a City of London pub) and your support will be cut.
But Osborne and Cameron have gone further; now we are not only to suffer to pay off a debt we did not create, we are to suffer more to produce a budget surplus of £40 billion a year.
There is more: people needing support are sanctioned and penalized for petty ‘misdemeanors.’ People denied support pushed to the extreme that sees them end their own life. Men and women denied the support there are due only to have that support reinstated on appeal but having to endure the long road of worry and anxiety while they wait for a small measure of justice to be done. Children growing up in poverty that not only leaves them permanently hungry, but robs them of hope that life can be better.
We are locked into this economic madness that is Tory ideology. Ideology that callously determines not only to make poor and low-income families suffer, but is also driven to fundamentally alter the shape of our public services through financial starvation, so they become a pale and inadequate semblance of what we need.
For heaven’s sake, how many times does it have to be pointed out to the lefties that if you increase the number of food banks and swamp the country with immigrants, the number of people going to the food banks will also increase (including hordes of freeloaders)..?!
Oh, that’s right – ignore any facts which detract from the desired anti-capitalist narrative, rinse and repeat.
Tory ideological madness created Scottish dependency on food banks
cough nonsense cough
The rest of your post is pure leftist rhetoric. It’s always someone else’s fault. That someone else being toffs, Tories, the English etc. etc. etc. Anyone but you.
I have Scottish blood running through my veins from both parents although I was born south of the border. Living in the north of England I also have a lot of Scottish friends, some pro and some anti-devolution. I’ve shown your post to a couple of them and even the nationalist in them believes you are talking bollocks.
Scots are fighters. They’ve had to be because the English haven’t always been good neighbors. The way you portray them is as a kitty-whipped remnant of a once proud race. I don’t believe that for a nanosecond. And neither does any true Scot.
I would suggest that full insulation should be a regulation for all new houses built in the UK and insulating existing houses should be given priority over building wind turbines. Energy companies should not be allowed to charge more to customers with pay as you go card meters many of whom do not have a credit rating to pay any other way. The housing crises is not a housing crises but a demographic crises and inward migration is responsible for this more than external migration, it used to be that people left inner city and rural areas which declined but now the opposite is occurring and the cost of living is being driven up for poorer people while external migration is lowering their wages.
Both my sisters are nurses and while they have seen a sharp spike in dietary diseases its got little to do with lack of money for food. There are three main groups.
1) Those Green leaning parents who insist of raising their kids on strict vegan diets. This may be OK for adults but in children unless they are given protein and vitamin supplements it can produce serious growth and health problems.
2) Those who simply neglect their children leaving them to fend for themselves. Many are addicted to drugs or alcohol and their habits take priority.
3) Those who have simply never learned to cook for themselves. The number of times medical staff are told that they can only afford fried chicken or burgers and fries is amazing . They look askance when told that for the price a single big Mac or Take Away Pizza they could buy enough cheap cuts of meat and vegetables to feed the whole family and provide all the vitamins and protein they need.
As for communicable diseases their is no excuse for children not being vaccinated, there is no cost burden as their is no cost associated with it. Usually this comes down again to either simple neglect or those who decide that such vaccination is too dangerous.
The cost of vaccination are abominable debilitating diseases like MS and narcolepsy.
(And maybe also SLA, allergies and diabetes.)
And epidemics of former mostly harmless childhood diseases at a later age when they can be nasty. (This risk caused by the vaccination of large part of the population being used as in argument for massive vaccination, in a typical warmunist way.)
But doctors will hide the nasty truths about vaccines risk for the Cause (and they say that on record), just like warmunists.
While there may be more people struggling financially the associations in the article are daft. Scarlet fever has never gone away from the UK or US its a streptococcal infection and usually avoidable with prompt antibiotic treatment and treatable if it does occur. The changes in incidence over time is probably due to changes in the prevalent strains and population immunity. Whooping cough has increased everywhere again probably because of changes in circulating strains and variations in vaccination levels. However its normal to see major changes in incidence from year to year. A vitamin C deficiency prevalence in low income groups seems comparable between US and UK and there hasn’t been a case of cholera in the UK for 100 years. The great majority of cases of malnutrition in children are associated with other medical problems.
No, Whooping Cough has increased because of Luddite anti-vaccinators and 3rd world non-vaccinators
“Luddite anti-vaccinators ”
Wrong spelling, dude.
It’s called “skeptic” or simply people with common sense.
If you want to inflict yourself an experimental treatment, that’s your problem, but leave children alone.
If you want to inflict yourself an experimental treatment, that’s your problem, but leave children alone.
Have you ever seen a child suffering from whooping cough? I have which is why I opted for the tried and tested vaccination for my own child and guess what, it didn’t harm him at all. It’s been around for decades and is therefore hardly experimental. You might be happy seeing children suffer for the sake of your tin foil hat agenda. I don’t share your belief.
Can you provide statistics about side effects of vaccines AND about their benefits?
You certainly can’t, so they are experimental.
But yes, most vaccinated people are OK. But if even a small minority get a debilitating disease, then vaccines are not OK. Any 10 years old understands that. Do you?
Can you provide statistics about side effects of vaccines AND about their benefits?
You certainly can’t, so they are experimental.
You ask me a question and then answer for me. So you are a mind reader as well as a conspiracy theorist. Amazing.
Generations of kids, including my parents and siblings, have grown up without any side effects and have escaped the ravages of diseases that once killed. Granted a very tiny minority exhibit side affects but you can’t blame the ills of the world on vaccination and you can’t deny the majority the umbrella of good health. Hard evidence trumps your opinion. Those diseases are again on the rise and children are suffering thanks to the alarmist claptrap peddled by people like you.
Well done. That’s sarcasm by the way.
“So you are a mind reader as well as a conspiracy theorist. Amazing.”
Impressive. You have all the signs of an anti-skeptic. “conspiracy theorist” means “I don’t like what you say”.
“have escaped the ravages of diseases that once killed.”
Which diseases?
“Hard evidence trumps your opinion.”
And yet you have zero evidence.
“You ask me a question and then answer for me. So you are a mind reader as well as a conspiracy theorist.”
Actually, you are a mind reader.
I just have a crystal ball. You failed to provided the numbers.
My crystal ball works.
My crystal ball works.
Which makes my point. Astrology has nothing to do with either science or statistics.
You accuse; you deliver ad hominems; you demand evidence yet provide none to support your claims.
This is trollish behaviour therefore I will no longer feed you.
“This is trollish behaviour therefore I will no longer feed you.”
My cristal ball works great.
You had zero evidence has I predicted.
Thank you for confirming my intuition. You have been debunked.
They are NOT renewable. Why support the GE/Siemens marketing machine by incorrectly naming this inefficient and expensive source of energy?
We’ve got the ‘perfect storm’ raging over here in the UK: A surging population of ~80m (according to food and utility companies) due to 18 years of unbridled immigration; not enough housing to accommodate the immigrants, which is forcing prices and rent through the roof; and, to top it all, a lunatic tilt at ruinable energy which has plunged six million households into fuel poverty due to the ‘necessarily skyrocketing’ prices.
Our so-called ‘leaders’ should be tarred and feathered and thrown in the stocks.
Very succinct. Sums up the problem up beautifully.
Thank you!
Your “leaders” (And mine until 1995), over 50 or so years, have put in place systems that separate “US” (Plebs, taxpayers, serfs etc) from “THEM” (The elite and ruling classes), they won’t be caught out like the French.
Case in point. When I was at school, a trip to London including a trip to the Tower of London and Downing St. No-one can get anywhere near Downing street now.
No-one can get anywhere near Downing street now.
Only
liarsercrookserm politicians.:0)
With regards to the vaccination topic, I, not given a choice as I was a child, was vaccinated against all the usual ill’s in the 60’s and 70’s, polio, rubella, BCG (Huh?) etc etc etc etc…the lot that were “recommended” back in the day. No ill effects at all. Come 2005 and I am going to Africa, I too get some “jabs”, vaccines, top-ups (Tetanus etc) etc etc. No ill effects what so ever. That was my choice.
For the remote chance that some may react badly (Like my step-father to penicillin), the results/benefits by far outweigh the negatives. In any case, there is always risk in life.
PMJD, still looking for a reference for Australia to China coal going for $4/ton. At that price it could be used for road base. It would cost more to haul it to China than to produce it. Where did you come up with that figure? –AGF
The North West Shelf Australia Liquid Natrural Gas (LNG) – Guangdong LNG Supply Agreement.
https://www.aph.gov.au/binaries/library/pubs/bn/eco/lng_exports.pdf
Dated 2010. On page 3 it states “Estimates of prices range from US$2.50 per million British thermal units (mBtu) to a flat ceiling of US$3.16 per mBtu.”
About AU$4 at the time. But I made an error in my unit measures. Not tonne, but million British Thermal Units (mBTU). I do not know how much a million BTU’s worth of LNG would weigh though but a BTU is the energy needed to raise 1Lb (Half a kilogram) of water by 1 degree F.
I don’t think I said coal, I am sure I said LNG.
A list of interesting conversion facts about LNG.
http://www.lngplants.com/conversiontables.html
The AU$4 tonne was from memory of a news item a few years about. Maybe the reporter got it wrong too or I just don’t recall correctly.
Robert S December 29, 2015 at 5:13 am
Im Winter das Wetter ist kalt; es regnet oft und es schneit manchmal.
In England due to left wing socialist legally binding legislation (no other country has this not even Deutschland) there is a statutary requirement to reduce CO2 emissions to 1990 levels by 2030. To do this Labour has ensured that the coal and steel industries are both shut down to the great applause of the Green Party
residing in Brighton (as far away from the coalfields and steel plants as you can get) .The socialists used shamefacedly to court the miners and steelworkers but have worked harder than anyone including Mrs Thatcher (who is innocent in all of this) to close their industries down and in the process export their jobs abroad. The socialists also cunningly contrive to ensure that the industry closures take place after they have been voted out of office by the electorate and the Conservatives are in power to conveniently take the blame. The socialists also left the country bankrupt with massive debts and huge borrowings forcing the next Conservative government to reduce spending (except in overseas aid) and make economies. However the heavy winter rainfall mentioned in line 1, unprecedented this year, has caused massive flooding in the Lake District which normally gets >60 inches of rain a year anyway. The socialists then blame the Conservatives by reducing expenditure on flood defences for the flooding conveniently forgetting that it was their bankruptcy policies of profligate government spending on a massive scale that caused the funding problem in the first place.
I have had a discussion about the engery plan the UK is implementing with my step-father (Conservative). He is convinced that industry will be smarter with energy use and install energy saving systems and policies. To which I replied “So, exporting industry overseas (Already happening), a 3 day week or less and rolling blackouts, just like the 1970’s? If you think the 70’s were bad it will pale in comparrison in the 2030’s”. We changed the subject after that lol…
You will soon be running out of stepfathers.
TYoke:
A question is whether or not people are educated and/or have thinking capability to know/learn how to cook food economically (recipers, mixing, heating, all that – heating of course takes energy).
Patrick MJD you miss distribution costs (wires to your abode, billing and payment administration, servicing, etc.).
I’d want to check mental confusion (besides anorexia there’s mental illness, in BC a big problem is that residents of mental care facilities were put out on the street in the name of freeing them, eco-ideas such as vegetarianism without the knowledge needed for that diet, and just confused people. (For example, a young person was diagnosed with scurvy, a picky eater. Cases of rickets have been found, including in the UK, because parents believed exaggeration about sunlight so kept their child indoors without knowledge of nutrition that provides vitamin D.)
“Keith Sketchley
December 29, 2015 at 2:26 pm
Patrick MJD you miss distribution costs (wires to your abode, billing and payment administration, servicing, etc.).”
That cost is borne by the consumer And in Australia now, suppliers of energy bill you if you want a hard-copy bill). I am talking about the price of the raw material before it is used. The markup would be significant.
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
The Green dream – to send us all back into caves, becoming reality.