What extra taxes would you volunteer to pay?

SingleSue

GreatApe wrote: »

Please give me just one example of someone you know who is not dysfunctional and actually have food poverty to worry about. Don't lie don't make !!!! up one real example is enough

I doubt you will be able to give me an example of one person you know its mostly stories in the media or friends of friends of friends. Basically lies

On the other hand I can give you close to 100 people I know or have known who live very !!!! lives and they are almost universally to do with addictions or dysfunctional lives.

The reality the truth is the UK is a high wage full employment country. We have it so good in this country that you can choose not to work a day in your life and you will not have food poverty. If you are functional you can live a decent life in the UK. Eg one of my old neighbors was a migrant came here in the 1990s and hasn't worked a day speaks almost no English and also has had cancer. Yet she managed to bring up her two kids just fine clean home well behaved kids. If a migrant with no English no work history and cancer doesn't suffer food poverty in the UK then what's your complaint?

Food bank users are a combination of liars and dysfunctional people and the very very rare case of people on hard times. But even someone in hard times often has a dysfunctional element too. Eg someone I know of got kicked out of his home and divorced and had a mental breakdown and ended up losing his job and sleeping in his car. That's a terrible case and if he knew what and where food banks wrrre he would probably have made use of them. My sympathyfor him. But the root cause wasnt capitalism or free markets or Tories the root cause was his breakdown and his dysfunctional relationship (used to abuse his wife who took it for years and years until she couldn't take it anymore). So even many cases of 'bad luck' have dysfunction as the cause.

My idea isn't to punish these people its to help them. Maybe give them social services help so they don't become or stop being wife beaters. Maybe to give them medication to help their mentional problems. Maybe to give counciling. Maybe make gambling harder or illegal. Maybe give them free class A drugs rather than have them steel from their families to feed their habits. I don't know its all a complicated issue. What won't help them is to pretend they don't exist or that somehow free market capitalism's and Tories are to blame and if only a kind caring lefty would get in they would stop abusing their wives and children and becoming problem free citizens. That is dream land that is fantasy.

I can give an example...me.

I am currently living off PIP enhanced care and approx £50-60 a week earnings. No tax credits, no ESA (mental health wouldn't survive the process intact- my PIP claim is for physical disabilities), no income support. I cannot work any more hours due to my disabilities, in fact I struggle to work the ones I do already.

I'm not dysfunctional (unless you class disability as being so), just trying to get by whilst holding my head up by trying to work rather than claim out of work benefits.

Not been to a food bank as such as I am quite savvy with food/money but it can be a struggle at times to balance the books and things (electric, gas, food, fuel etc) are strictly rationed or sometimes gone without. We also have a brilliant charity scheme here where food is collected from supermarkets and donated by local shops and once a week at a local church, anyone is able to purchase a bag for a pound (maximum 2 bags allowed) and then fill it with goods, no questions asked. As a bonus, they also do tea/coffee, very yummy cake and lend an ear or give advice if you need it.

For the record, I don't gamble, I very rarely drink (a glass of wine once or twice a year), I don't smoke and I don't have any addictions.

GreatApe

michaels wrote: »

Whilst I think you take it to an extreme, I do notice that the emergency way to make sure people get to eat is via a foodbank rather than by handing out money, presumably foobanks could sell the food they have or use donations to give money to those who are desperate but instead give them food to ensure they get to eat. It would not be impossible for some element of benefits to be given as coupons that could only be used for food just as they do in the US - demeaning perhaps but it makes sure that if welfare is given to prevent starvation then it actually does achieve that.

That won't work

I recall in secondary school the free meal kids would get this aluminium token while waiting in line and the kids that paid for the meals would pay if I recall correctly £1.50 at the till. So at the till it was £1.50 or the aluminum token

What happened was a secondary market existed where you could buy the aluminum tokens for about half of 'face value'. It didn't really occure to me then but clearly a lot of the kids on food tokens were somehow willing to sell their food tokens for half the value and were able to buy more expensive food at the local chippy or chicken shop etc

This suggests to me that many of their parents were lying eg getting benefits and working.
How else can the kids forgo the subsidised £1.50 meals sell their tokens for 75p and go outside and buy a meal outside the school for £3-5

I can't see how they would have other income than their parents these are 11-16 year old kids. Yes some might have been selling drugs for additional pocket money and some might have been doing theft etc but it can't possibly have been the majority.

I suspect food stamps would be similar. They would just trade at below face value or the users would buy food and resell at below face value. Either way there is no food poverty in the UK food is so cheap even the highly dysfunctional can afford food. Even beggars are picky in the UK I had one approach me just yesterday asking for a fiver so he could buy a burger at burger king. I doubt very much he actually needed it he was just a chancer why pay for your meal when you can ask half a dozen people and scare one into buying you a free meal.

Herzlos

GreatApe wrote: »

What happened was a secondary market existed where you could buy the aluminum tokens for about half of 'face value'. It didn't really occure to me then but clearly a lot of the kids on food tokens were somehow willing to sell their food tokens for half the value and were able to buy more expensive food at the local chippy or chicken shop etc

This suggests to me that many of their parents were lying eg getting benefits and working.
How else can the kids forgo the subsidised £1.50 meals sell their tokens for 75p and go outside and buy a meal outside the school for £3-5

I saw plenty of people selling food vouchers, and I'm sure I bought a few myself, and I think your inference is wrong.
I'm not aware of a single one of them doing it because they had other cash to spend on stuff. Most of the time the kids doing it were getting it and spending the 75p* 'profit' on a couple of fags and a pot noodle.

In most cases the kids were largely doing without rather selling something they wouldn't use. It made no sense to sell a voucher at school and go to the chippy when the school already sold chips.

So the system is open to abuse, but not for the reasons you think (and I wonder why you've got this preconceived notion that everyone on benefits are liars who deals drugs).

I'd be all for giving benefits in the form of a pre-paid debit card, where the records can be pulled up if anything unusual happens (spending it all in one go, spending it in places that don't sell necessities, running out of money and asking for a crisis loan).
You could then offer advise to people who are having problems with spending, you cut out the black market, and you give them access to most normal outlets.

Though it'd probably make sense to provide some cash for things like fruit/clothes markets, gumtree and so on.

It's still open to the abuse of using your card to buy a TV from Tesco to sell to your mate. But the TV sale would be obvious.

GreatApe

SingleSue wrote: »

I can give an example...me.

I am currently living off PIP enhanced care and approx £50-60 a week earnings. No tax credits, no ESA (mental health wouldn't survive the process intact- my PIP claim is for physical disabilities), no income support. I cannot work any more hours due to my disabilities, in fact I struggle to work the ones I do already.

I'm not dysfunctional (unless you class disability as being so), just trying to get by whilst holding my head up by trying to work rather than claim out of work benefits.

Not been to a food bank as such as I am quite savvy with food/money but it can be a struggle at times to balance the books and things (electric, gas, food, fuel etc) are strictly rationed or sometimes gone without. We also have a brilliant charity scheme here where food is collected from supermarkets and donated by local shops and once a week at a local church, anyone is able to purchase a bag for a pound (maximum 2 bags allowed) and then fill it with goods, no questions asked. As a bonus, they also do tea/coffee, very yummy cake and lend an ear or give advice if you need it.

For the record, I don't gamble, I very rarely drink (a glass of wine once or twice a year), I don't smoke and I don't have any addictions.

Just about balancing the books is not the same thing as food poverty.
Food poverty doesn't exist in the UK its absurd to claim it and its farcicle when clearly obese people claim they have no food.

I suspect my posts might look quite negative on the people who use food banks and the likes but that is wrong. I really don't care if people get benefits or if they haven't worked a day in their life. I am quite happy for people to do that if they deem it necessary or even desirable. Like I said I had a lovely neighbor who hasn't worked a day in her life but she managed to keep a nice tidy house and keep her kids in good order.

I only objecting to the notion that we have true poverty in this country. To the notion that it is the fault of free markets and capatilism or the fault of the Tories. I am objecting to the lefty propaganda

Dysfunctional people should be helped but you can only help them if you accept their problems and try to fix them.


As for you personally obviously I don't know you or your case but I would say don't feel bad about state support and maximise it. If your physical disability is giving you problems and you think mentally and or or physically you would be better off not working then see no shame in not working and going on benefits. If you have a family member who can help you investigate and apply for the various benefits then get them to do that with you or ask here and I'm sire people will help.

westernpromise

Herzlos wrote: »

I already said I don't personally know of anyone using food banks, but that's only part of my point.

Are all these people dysfunctional?
https://www.trusselltrust.org/what-we-do/real-stories/
Even if they are, why shouldn't we help them?

I do agree we should also be looking to treat the root causes as well as the symptoms.

Those stories don't ring true.

https://www.trusselltrust.org/what-we-do/real-stories/josh-story/
"Struggling to afford food, Josh eventually found the courage to ask for help he needed and was referred to his local foodbank" - why was he "struggling to afford food"? He was entitled to benefits. What was he spending them on?

https://www.trusselltrust.org/what-we-do/real-stories/sarah/
"When Sarah!!!8217;s partner recently moved in with her it should have been a happy time for them, but informing the council of this change to their circumstances resulted in a delay to their benefits"

Why didn't they investigate this beforehand? I call bull5h!t.

Another thing worth noting is that this is yet another charity that doesn't do what it says on the tin. The website is full of heartstring-tugging stories about its work with foodbanks, but then you look at the "what we do" page and you find that the food is donated by other people. They do not buy food with monies donated.
https://www.trusselltrust.org/what-we-do/

So where do they get their money from and how is it used? Oh, what a surprise - "research and advocacy", i.e. politics. Which figures. But dig a little deeper into their accounts and an interesting picture emerges.
https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/trusselltrust-documents/Annual-Report-and-Accounts-2017.pdf

75% of their income is donations and less than 5% is food donated. Meanwhile, over 50% of their expenditure is claimed to go on food bank operation - which is odd considering they've said elsewhere the food distributed is donated and not bought.

You may be wondering how they manage to spend nearly £4 million on food banks, none of which spend is on buying food and which distributes only £300k worth of food anyway? Well, to my scant surprise, it goes on "staffing costs, buildings and facilities costs, costs of IT platforms including the data collection system". Yes, for every £1 of food they hand out, they spend £12 on themselves and stuff for themselves.

We need a charities sector, just not the one we have. Just by branding yourself a charity you escape all criticism and scrutiny and the response here when I tactlessly bring up how crap charitues are is outrage that I dare criticise them. Yet we have housing charities that house nobody, food bank charities that spen £12 to give away £1 of food, we have Oxfam acting like sex tourists in Haiti which has been going on for years, and we have "green" charities whose bright ideas gave us diesel cars.

Trussell would do better just handing the entire £4 million over to individuals. Meanwhile we need a Charities Commission with teeth because frankly a lot are no such thing and need to be shut down.

Ballard

boliston wrote: »

It does seem a bit silly when you consider the amount of rubbish that the bbc push out and the amount their "personalities" get paid - i have never had the remotest interest in watching tv but i have to put up with regular junk mail from tv licencing which goes straight in the bin

You've never watched tv but know that the BBC output is rubbish.

GreatApe

Herzlos wrote: »

I saw plenty of people selling food vouchers, and I'm sure I bought a few myself, and I think your inference is wrong.
I'm not aware of a single one of them doing it because they had other cash to spend on stuff. Most of the time the kids doing it were getting it and spending the 75p* 'profit' on a couple of fags and a pot noodle.

In most cases the kids were largely doing without rather selling something they wouldn't use. It made no sense to sell a voucher at school and go to the chippy when the school already sold chips.

So the system is open to abuse, but not for the reasons you think (and I wonder why you've got this preconceived notion that everyone on benefits are liars who deals drugs).

I'd be all for giving benefits in the form of a pre-paid debit card, where the records can be pulled up if anything unusual happens (spending it all in one go, spending it in places that don't sell necessities, running out of money and asking for a crisis loan).
You could then offer advise to people who are having problems with spending, you cut out the black market, and you give them access to most normal outlets.

Though it'd probably make sense to provide some cash for things like fruit/clothes markets, gumtree and so on.

It's still open to the abuse of using your card to buy a TV from Tesco to sell to your mate. But the TV sale would be obvious.

Plenty of the kids at my crappy secondary school would go to the local chicken shop rather than eat at the school canteen. It wasn't £1.50 vs maybe 2-3x that at the local chicken shop and yes plenty of the kids were the ones that sold their tokens for half price.

And yes plenty smoked tabaco and plenty did cannabis and these are only 11-16 year olds.

And yes plenty were very poor because they had !!!! parents.
Often they fell into the gangs and did thefts to survive.
But once more this was fully about dysfunctional families vs functional families.
I grew up on a council estate almost everyone was 'poor'
But some had nice neat homes and reasonable kid
Others had homes I can barely describe with holes on the walls and doors though fighting and ferrel kids. Both sides got more or less the same benefits. Why was one group doing OK and the other group were in the gutter?

GreatApe

Herzlos wrote: »

I already said I don't personally know of anyone using food banks, but that's only part of my point.

Are all these people dysfunctional?
https://www.trusselltrust.org/what-we-do/real-stories/
Even if they are, why shouldn't we help them?

I do agree we should also be looking to treat the root causes as well as the symptoms.

It is extremely difficult to help a dysfunctional person
In my experience only direct family is able to help and at a great cost and then only sometimes.

One dysfunctional person I know is well the biggest idiot in the world
He got married when he shouldn't have
He had two kids when he shouldn't have
He spent the best part of 10 years making his wife life and the kids hell
Finally the woman kicked him out and got the police involved.


Homeless he went to his nieces door. She took pity on him and took him in and gave him a roof over his head. Instead of getting his life together he managed to get himself kicked out of there too some 6 months later but not before trashing the place.

He slept in his car for a few days before going to his cousins flat at 4 in the morning. Again his cousin took pity on him and took him in. Again rather than trying to get his life back in order he coasted and caused trouble to his cousin who took him in. Again he got kicked out almost 6 months later when the person who took him it couldn't take the fact that he was brining random strangers to the flat to play cards and waste the time away.

Once more he is last I heard sleeping in his car again and this time seems to have had a mental breakdown.

What can you do in that situation to help him? If he knew where food banks were I'm sure he would use one. If a reporter asked him for his life story I'm sure he would give a sob story of bad luck a mean wife kicking him out and having to sleep in his care and no one not his friends or government trying to help him. It wouldn't be the truth but you'd probably believe it

He needs help for sure. Food banks probably won't do it. He needs a council flat and some therapy and perhaps some medication or maybe in the extreme case he needs to be locked up in a prison or mental institution for a few weeks to be evaluated. He has problems he is now in povert and rapidly spiraling down. I don't know what the solution is but I know the cause was his dysfunctional self.

Herzlos

GreatApe wrote: »

Plenty of the kids at my crappy secondary school would go to the local chicken shop rather than eat at the school canteen. It wasn't £1.50 vs maybe 2-3x that at the local chicken shop and yes plenty of the kids were the ones that sold their tokens for half price.

I was one of the kids that was at the chip shop daily. None of the other kids on the queue were the food stamp kids.

Maybe our poor kids were poorer than yours, who knows.

westernpromise wrote: »

So where do they get their money from and how is it used? Oh, what a surprise - "research and advocacy", i.e. politics. Which figures. But dig a little deeper into their accounts and an interesting picture emerges.
https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/trusselltrust-documents/Annual-Report-and-Accounts-2017.pdf

Why do you hate charities so much?

Research and advocacy are very useful things. Helping people stand up to dodgy landlords and so on.
What they do sounds a lot like what they claim to do, so again I think you're being obtuse in finding objection to it.

You may be wondering how they manage to spend nearly £4 million on food banks, none of which spend is on buying food and which distributes only £300k worth of food anyway?

Not at all.

Well, to my scant surprise, it goes on "staffing costs, buildings and facilities costs, costs of IT platforms including the data collection system". Yes, for every £1 of food they hand out, they spend £12 on themselves and stuff for themselves.

It's hardly surprising they need to pay for all the things involved in distributing food, no?
Or do you think they should get free rent, free utilities, free vehicles, free fuel, free staff?

I know some do rely on donations and volunteer staff, but they tend to be pretty small scale with minimal reach in terms of support and zero reach in terms of influence.

I know you don't value advocacy and research, but I'm glad people are trying to fix the underlying problems and make things better for everyone rather than just trying to patch up the symptoms.

Or do you think you can do better whilst incurring no operational overheads?

SingleSue

GreatApe wrote: »

Just about balancing the books is not the same thing as food poverty.
Food poverty doesn't exist in the UK its absurd to claim it and its farcicle when clearly obese people claim they have no food.

I suspect my posts might look quite negative on the people who use food banks and the likes but that is wrong. I really don't care if people get benefits or if they haven't worked a day in their life. I am quite happy for people to do that if they deem it necessary or even desirable. Like I said I had a lovely neighbor who hasn't worked a day in her life but she managed to keep a nice tidy house and keep her kids in good order.

I only objecting to the notion that we have true poverty in this country. To the notion that it is the fault of free markets and capatilism or the fault of the Tories. I am objecting to the lefty propaganda

Dysfunctional people should be helped but you can only help them if you accept their problems and try to fix them.


As for you personally obviously I don't know you or your case but I would say don't feel bad about state support and maximise it. If your physical disability is giving you problems and you think mentally and or or physically you would be better off not working then see no shame in not working and going on benefits. If you have a family member who can help you investigate and apply for the various benefits then get them to do that with you or ask here and I'm sire people will help.

Although I understand you were being sensitive to my predicament, I actually am fully conversant with what benefits could be claimed if I was to stop working or remain working and trying to do more hours or indeed, just doing what I am doing now.

I disagree on the shame part though, I spent many years as a carer on benefits (one of the reasons my body is now shot) and had to endure various not very nice comments from some. Plus, I like working, I worked blooming hard before I had to become a carer and it gives me a purpose...I would die of boredom if I didn't (it took all of 3 days after my main caring duties finished before I went stir crazy).

My balancing the books comment was a nice way of saying that at times my cupboard is bare or I go without heat, or sit in a room with the light off to save money to try to get as close to balancing them as possible, luckily the food bank of mum and dad is open often.