Preparedness for when

Popperwell

Ginny you put it much better than me...many are "Making do" but then many are below what would be seen as acceptable. Bring people up to a better standard of living rather than taking others down to meet the others already down there.

We're not talking of those who are complaining about those who are missing the latest gadget or designer gear...just the basics to feel secure, warm and fed.

In some ways I posted the information not to make comment just to say "Look what is happening" likely as not it won't even make the media. And you'll notice the programme is being carried on public tv not on commercial channels...

Dippypud

The living wage is a pay level calculated as the minimum hourly rate for a basic but acceptable standard of living and currently set at £7.45 outside London and £8.55 in the capital.

The new analysis suggests that its introduction nationally would add around £6.5 billion to the gross annual earnings of the country’s employees.

However, the report shows that the Treasury would collect more than half of the initial financial gains from a living wage – around £3.6 billion – in the form of higher income tax payments and national insurance contributions, as well as lower spending on benefits and tax credits.

But the study also examines the extra costs to the public purse of paying a living wage to all public sector workers. It suggests that wage costs would increase by more than £1.3 billion – leaving an overall public saving of more than £2 billion.

As a start, the report will recommend, all Whitehall departments and London boroughs should pay their staff at least the living wage by April 2015 and explore the costs of paying sub-contracted staff the same rate.

Five million people are paid less than the living wage, three million of whom are women. Yet more than 85 per cent have permanent contracts. More than 3 million households (13 per cent) contain at least one adult earning less than the living wage.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/jan/20/living-wage-zones-labour

curtaingirl

Dippypud wrote: »

The living wage is a pay level calculated as the minimum hourly rate for a basic but acceptable standard of living and currently set at £7.45 outside London and £8.55 in the capital.

£7.45! I make £6 an hour. I get by

Popperwell

There is a US policeman saying that his wage once paid for a month of groceries, now it will only cover two weeks...so its not all single Moms with lots of children...

Trailer for the documentary here

westcoastscot

Ginny just a wee note to say if your daughter claims hb then she may be able to apply for discretionary housing benefit to cover the month of paying two rents while she transfers from one tenancy to the other. It's given fairly routinely here in Scotland.

FairyPrincessk

Hi--I normally lurk on this thread. I'm fascinated by prepping, but for various reasons it cannot be a priority for me right now. We do keep a well stocked pantry, candles, matches etc. But that is the extent of it for now.

Anyway--I do enjoy the conversations about the politics of situations which may make prepping turn out to be very important. Pops, your comments made me think of these two videos, which fascinate me after multiple viewings:
This video about poverty:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrW8ier__4Q
this video about the wealth gap in the US:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QPKKQnijnsM


I teach on this in the Autumn term, and I am always so shocked to realize how little my students understand about global poverty--and how little they understand about the relative poverty on their doorsteps. Many 18 year olds have no idea that there are people in Britain who cannot feed their families, they have no comprehension of why someone might need benefits, and most of them don't seem to realize that their University degree is becoming less and less effective as an insurance policy against unemployment and the dole line they are so scornful of. A few of them do understand, and for them I think the reality is frightening and overwhelming.

The thing is--we discuss all of this. I show them videos and we talk about what absolute poverty is like--but I don't have any answers for them. We often try to generate solutions, but inevitably another student will point out that one solution harms others. I think most of them probably leave a little frustrated when they realize that what they thought were solutions really aren't.


I think this is why prepping fascinates me so much. I think that skills and materials, in the long run, are the only way to make oneself "secure". Your money can easily lose all value, but a tin of beans can always be eaten and no one can take the knowledge of how to build a fire to heat the beans up away from you.

And Dippydud--I really enjoyed your post about the living wage!

vanoonoo

hi everyone- I havent had a chance to read thru to catch up so good wishes to all who may need them and apologies for not being around.

We've moved house and have no internet at the new place so I can really only get online at work or on my phone (phone not that easy to read lots of posts!).

Back to work today so will likely continue to be quiet for a while!

keep warm and dry and hydrated

Vx

Popperwell

Thank you for your post and the links to those videos FairyPrincessk.

FairyPrincessk

Oh, my pleasure, Pops! I'm such a nerd, I love discussing these things, I just have to be careful and not let it take over from my writing.

GreyQueen

JayneC wrote: »

GQ had a look in my Herb book and there are lots of uses for horsetail - Taken internally good for cystitis, prostate problems, bedwetting in children, diarrhea, rheumatoid arthritis, strengthens bones, nails and hair.
Externally to treat fungal conditions of skin and nails and compress for slow healing wounds.
Can also be used as a spray or mulch on plants with fungal infections and you can eat the shoots a la asparagus apparently.

So make sure you keep a patch;)

My patch is pushing 300 square meters, so no chance of running out of the blessed stuff. Most off the problems listed above don't affect me, luckily. If times get really tough I'll consider eating the wretched stuff, but only after I've exhausted the supply of "fat hen" and mallow.

curtaingirl wrote: »

£7.45! I make £6 an hour. I get by

In that case I sincerely hope that you are under 21 years old or your employer is breaking the law as the national minimum wage for 21 and above is £6.19 per hour.

Was listening to my darling little solar/ wind up radio this morning, went to turn the mains-powered radio on and suddenly thought that was daft. And when the sports report came on, I turned it off as I detest sports and why waste the charge?

I think if energy was harder to achieve, or only on for a few hours a day, we would make lots of minor decisions about how we used it which would add up to cumulative savings.

I talk to a lot of people every year, several thousands, in the course of my job. Mainly but far from exclusively council tenants and mainly, but not exclusively, from the poorest sections of society. You do get a few g i t s but they're outnumbered 100 to 1 by regular decent folk who have many burdens to bear and who are doing the best they can with the situation they find themselves in.

It's no joke, even in a modern western country, to be disabled or otherwise vulnerable, when there is a constant threat of what little you do have being taken away by government fiat. As a result of the decisions of a bunch of (mostly) very rich men from the toppermost top drawer of society. And the feelthy rich businessfolk who bankroll them. It stinks, to put it mildly. Add to this the economic forces across the planet driving our costs of living ever higher and you have a perfect storm brewing.

We live in a country where the housing shortage has been allowed to develop for several generations. We have a government which is prepared to draw a (very) low floor under the labour market whilst allowing housing costs to free-float in the private sector. They are also driving social rents up to meet them.

In a purely capitalist society, people who could neither afford to rent nor buy would build themselves a shack on the edge of town and scrape by there. We aren't allowed to go live in a tent or a caravan, even on land we own. We have to engage with the built housing environment at prices determined by forces beyond our control.

During my lifetime (not even 50 yet) I have seen opportunities for working class people like myself taken away. In some cases I got thru the door so latterly that I could feel it slamming on my heels, such as the state grammar which became a private grammar during my period there. And have been disgusted to see that those from humble backgrounds (step forward and bow, most of New Labour) rob younger people just like them of the opportunities that they enjoyed to advance to professional work, power and influence.

So, it may amuse some to pop into the thread and point out that we aren't at third world levels of poverty so what the hell is the problem?

The problem is that this is one of the richest and most powerful nations on earth NOT the third world and that things have gone so rotten that far too many people are hungry and scared spitless about what will become of them, their children, their elderly parents and dear friends and neighbours.