Brexit, the economy and house prices part 5

economic

ukcarper wrote: »

That’s the way I read it, unlike you and GreatApe I think there is poverty in UK but I think relative poverty and JRF definition are not good measures and a more meaningful definition would be helpful.

https://www.jrf.org.uk/file/50350/download?token=bAv9AAdC&filetype=findings

Depends on how you define poverty. To me poverty is not the same as poor. Poverty is when you have no home and no access to food and are living on the streets. Poor is just the lower x%tile of income and/or wealth. Where x is whatever the hell you want it to be. Poor doesnt mean anything to me.

economic

GreatApe wrote: »

The state of social sciences today

This report was a collaborative project between researchers at the University of Oxford, King’s College London, and The Trussell Trust Foodbank Network. It was jointly funded by the ESRC Impact Acceleration Account at the University of Oxford and the Trussell Trust. The research was designed and facilitated by Rachel Loopstra and Doireann Lalor, with support from Trussell Trust staff. A random sample of foodbanks from England, Scotland and Wales was selected to be invited to participate in the study. This report is based on data from the first 18 participating foodbanks, which were trained to implement and facilitate data collection in their own distribution sites. Over 4-week data collection periods, food banks recruited a significant total sample of 413 households. This reflected a response rate of 71% of eligible households asked to participate.


So no control for participant lies
No control for staff biases
Such a low sample rate (less than 1 person surveyed per day per site!)
And no proper statistical analysis of the data at all

What a farce and to top it off CUTTING EDGE RESERCH!! PIONEERING RESEARCH!!

Fire her and rehire her as a dinner lady at a soup kitchen for the poor

Its also a bit scary to think Oxford uni were involved as well. As i said before, all social science research/courses need immediate stop to any sort of funding. Its a drain to this economy and a waste of time and money.

GreatApe

Herzlos wrote: »

I now understand why the Tories are still in power.

I really hope you never have any money problems since I assume you just disappear when you become poor.

I can't fathom that people don't believe poverty is a thing. Must be some seriously sheltered life if your only experience of poverty is benefits street and am overweight woman who doesn't have enough money.

There is a disgusting number of working poor and people who barely live paycheck to paycheck. Must be thousands of them on this forum alone.

However, I can't see us ever agreeing, so I'll just shake my head and move on.

You have no idea of real poverty my grandparents grew up in real poverty. Real poverty is having to heat water with wood or dung and it is difficult dangerous and costly so you only do it a couple of times a month maybe once a week if you are lucky. You stink but so does everyone else around you so you know no better. Real poverty is having low quality foods so your development and height are !!!!!!. That describes most the world a generation ago and even the west 2-3 generations ago. We do not have any poverty in the UK.

We do have dysfunctional people and families that cause havoc for themselves and you mistake their dysfunctional ways as poverty. Millions like this exist and some are in poverty eg their spend their weekly paycheck on the slots or the betting shop. Millions are in relationships that are physically terribly abusive. Millions are addicted to alcohol and drugs. Thousands might even be slaves to pimps or captors. No doubt a lot of hardship exists.

But it is not the fault of the UK economic system. We have full employment high wages lots of opportunity and freedom life is very good for functional people and families in the UK. It also has little to nothing to do with the tax rate or benefit amounts.

If anything the fault is with the UK charities.
More needs to be done to stop people/families becoming dysfunctional in the first place and fixing them where possible. However it is a very very difficult thing to do and the best hope is family help and support. Of the dysfunctional families I know I really dont know what can be done to fix them and their situations. In all their cases even if they won a £1 million jackpot on the lotto their situation would not improve. For instance I know a man who is a proper alcoholic. He lives a terrible life and he is held onto this side of the sanity line by his angle of a wife who puts up with addiction as best as she can. Despite her best efforts and years of trying he is still an alcoholic that causes pain and suffering for all his family.

GreatApe

economic wrote: »

Its also a bit scary to think Oxford uni were involved as well. As i said before, all social science research/courses need immediate stop to any sort of funding. Its a drain to this economy and a waste of time and money.

That was my initial thought but then I figured a university is just the people that make it up and one person going and doing one tiny non scientific survey is all her work and she is just tagging a university name to try and up her CUTTING EDGE RESEARCH value

economic

GreatApe wrote: »

That was my initial thought but then I figured a university is just the people that make it up and one person going and doing one tiny non scientific survey is all her work and she is just tagging a university name to try and up her CUTTING EDGE RESEARCH value

Lol. If i were Oxford i would not endorse that piece of garbage that is the "cutting edge research". It has tarnished Oxford's name. But even Oxford's social science research and courses are all a waste of time/money.

GreatApe

Herzlos wrote: »

By functional and disfunctional it sounds like you're trying to blame the poor for being poor?

I am blaming their dysfunctional ways if the dysfunction is their own fault or their upbringing or their genetics is another question. I know a number of people in hardship and many people would call then 'poor' but its down to their dysfunctional ways

Gamblers. Alcoholics. Drug users. Wife Beaters. Those who constantly fight with their families. Those who do not give a !!!! about their kids. etc

Some people have difficulty with accounting (it's hard to be good with money when you never have enough), some find themselves in debt due to desperation or situation changes and so on. Some are genuinely chancers but most are just people who've been health a bad hand and need a bit of help. That you don't understand /accept that is not their fault.

Well some people are born mentally deficient that is not 'their fault' but their situation is hardship because they are not functional people. It is a very difficult situation and they should be helped. What I object to is the left blaming these peoples problems on the government and the economic system which is !!!!!!!! propaganda.

Is someone not worthy of help because they have a mental illness, disability or lost their job?

Where have I said anything like that? I say the opposite we should be helping dysfunctional people and families where possible but its a very difficult job. What I object to is tax credits obese woman going on TV and crying not just poverty but abject poverty so much so she is starving. She is a liar and a fraud just the type of person to lead a momentum regional group!

How long would you be good for if your main income we just went away?

Years because I have a functional family who would support me most importantly in non monetary ways. I understand that that is not always possible. But is it the governments fault if say a man suffers a bereavement and falls into depression and his wife kicks him out at that point rather than supporting him through it? Is that due to capitalism? Is that due to free trade? Is that the Tories fault? Is that because he is poor?

economic

If more time and money was invested in proper unbiased researched into mental illnesses and dysfunction, then we would be closer to solving all these problems. At the moment a lot of time energy and money is being wasted on the wrong things.

GreatApe

mumf wrote: »

Its an observation of mine that folks with loads of dosh,top incomes etc. ( and more often than not were born into that world too),think that is how everyone lives. These sort of folks would have been advocates of the Parish Workhouse no doubt in Victorian times.

Poverty is about money,and what it enables.The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which monitors child poverty in particular defines poverty as," a person being unable to participate in mainstream life."

That can be something as simple as a child not having a pound to join in 'no uniform day' when the school is raising money,or not being able to pay for a school trip,or having clothes too small because there are just not sufficient resources because the rent comers first.Kids with dirty clothes because the washing machine has packed up and there's nothing spare to get it fixed

My wife is a teaching assistant and sees this and far more on a daily basis.

Any family in this situation is not !!!!less,undeserving,dysfunctional, addicted or lazy.The descriptions and dismissal of the poor by some of the above posters are sickening.One child at our village school had shoes hanging off his feet.Wife had a word with mum.Turns out they were waiting for Social Security payment and it was delayed.She could not work as she was looking after her husband who had terminal brain cancer.

There but for the grace of god go I!

How many kids who are 'poor' do you think fall into the cases of benefits paid late to their parents compared to poor because they have dysfunctional parents?

Abusive parents exist
Alcoholic parents exist
Gambling addict parents exit
Drug addict parents exist
Parents who really dislike their kids exist
Parents who shout and swear at each other all the time exist

So I would suggest your observation of a case of late benefits is probably the very minority while the majority are dysfunctional people and their families.

And once more this does not mean sit back and laugh it means stop pretending their 'poverty' is down to free markets or capitalism or the Tories. It is down to dysfunctional lives and if the government or the schools or charities can help fix that then great lets try hard to fix it.

GreatApe

ukcarper wrote: »

That’s the way I read it, unlike you and GreatApe I think there is poverty in UK but I think relative poverty and JRF definition are not good measures and a more meaningful definition would be helpful.

There are people in very difficult situations and terrible hardship they get to that point because they are dysfunctional people.

Someone who takes their weekly paycheck to the bookies is what? Poor or dysfunctional?
Someone who drinks so heavily that they can barely walk and then goes and picks a fight with the biggest guy in the pub and limps home bloodied is what poor or dysfunctional?

Dysfunctional lives and families lead to poverty. You need to fix the addictions and dysfunction to fix the poverty it creates.

I will not accept it is because of free markets or capitalism or CEOs getting big bonuses.
No that is lefty BS propaganda. Our economic system and governance is very good we have high wages full employment lots of freedom and opportunity. The poverty that does exist and it impacts perhaps millions of people are down to dysfunctional lives not the economic system we follow.

economic

economic wrote: »

If more time and money was invested in proper unbiased researched into mental illnesses and dysfunction, then we would be closer to solving all these problems. At the moment a lot of time energy and money is being wasted on the wrong things.

And im not just saying this without any experience. I have quite a serious mental illness and from the treatment i have received, i found it mediocre at best, but realistically it has been a waste of time.

The treatments i was offered had no effect and i got the feeling the NHS have just given up. Theres really no options out there for a lot of mental illnesses. CBT is a therapy automatically used for pretty much anyone with some form of mental dysfunction, and i have found it to be completely pointless. It may have a small effect short term (although that could very well be placebo), but long term it does not work. Why spend so much money on a treatment like this (on wages and propaganda) and instead spend it on quality unbiased research that can actually lead somewhere? Its better to offer no useless "treatment" now to save the money and get better treatment that actually works in the future. Opportunity cost in mental health service.

EDIT: its probably to d with the NHS feeling pressurized to spend more on mental health so they spend on anything willy nilly even though it does not work.