Guest 745- Registered: 27 Mar 2012
- Posts: 3,370
cost me £4 to park in Ashford hospital yesterday, so I think the squeeze is probably still on ??
Captain Haddock
- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 8,075
And exactly how much of the NHS budget should be allocated on providing parking for patients and hospital visitors rather than actually providing 'heathcare'? See Shoup - The High Cost of Free Parking
https://www.amazon.co.uk/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1502287270&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=cost+of+free+parking+schoupe
(Though no doubt someone will helpfully point out that we are the Nth wealthiest country in the world where N is quite a small number, and most people 'obviously' would not mind a penny on 'their' income tax if it can provide free parking at hospitals for all who need it)
"We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
Guest 1881- Registered: 16 Oct 2016
- Posts: 1,071
http://www.kentlive.news/blue-badge-holders-will-have-to-pay-to-park-at-hospitals-in-east-kent/story-30186079-detail/story.html Yep, Britain 2017.
Quite lengthy. Focus on the impact on the innocent children within the video. If you only have a little while, follow the journey of Katie-Louise: 5-7 mins; 14-15:30 mins; 34-37mins; 49-end. The downward spiral - yep, Britain 2017.
Just because you don't take an interest in politics doesn't mean that politics won't take an interest in you. PERICLES.
Captain Haddock- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 8,075
Grateful to know of any place or time in the whole of the history of planet earth where all poverty has been eradicated and no children suffer. Just saying.
"We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
Guest 1881- Registered: 16 Oct 2016
- Posts: 1,071
Captain Haddock wrote:Grateful to know of any place or time in the whole of the history of planet earth where all poverty has been eradicated and no children suffer. Just saying.
I take your point. My point is that we do have the ability to deal with this, just not the political will from many in Westminster.
Just because you don't take an interest in politics doesn't mean that politics won't take an interest in you. PERICLES.
Captain Haddock- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 8,075
You Grace, Personally I do not expect an ever burgeoning state to deal with everything, everywhere and all the time.
As I wrote elsewhere this week on another topic:- There is a serious debate to be had about what level of service we should expect from our health service and how it should be funded. Let us indeed get real and be honest. Even if we spent 100% of GDP on the NHS we could not afford to give everybody all the treatment they could possibly have and at the end of the day we all die anyway.
The position of the state should be to allow, enable and indeed encourage each of us to do our bit to try to make the world a better place.
I know what I do. Unlike some I try not to shout about it (See Matthew 6:2). It means I sleep soundly and can live with myself.
"We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
Guest 1881- Registered: 16 Oct 2016
- Posts: 1,071
Just for clarity, I am not attacking you per se, Captain. I am attacking a system which has the ability to make a difference yet chooses not to. The fact that many of us donate to charity, give freely of our time in a voluntary capacity and also take time to publicly challenge inequalities, is because it's necessary when the policies are not beneficial to the nation. Many charities, whilst very important, are being used as a safety net when the state fails in its duty. If we allow tax dodgers like Sir Bob Geldof, Bono etc. to skip tax (remember tax is on profit) yet become heroes for their Live Aid charity work, we as a state are not doing our job properly.
Back on more jovial terms, do buy a copy of The Big Issue and hold a conversation with your Romanian friend - your 1:30am responses to my posts suggest that you are not sleeping as well at night as you suggest.
Just because you don't take an interest in politics doesn't mean that politics won't take an interest in you. PERICLES.
Guest 1881- Registered: 16 Oct 2016
- Posts: 1,071
A revealing report, summarised on BBC website, states: "
Higher inflation and a freeze on state benefits mean low-income parents cannot meet the basic costs of raising a child, according to the Child Poverty Action Group.
In its Cost of a Child in 2017 report, the charity says the cost of raising a child to the age of 18 for a two-parent family, excluding housing, childcare and council tax has risen to £75,436.
A couple earning the National Living Wage falls 13% short of that, it said."
Source:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40994448Just because you don't take an interest in politics doesn't mean that politics won't take an interest in you. PERICLES.
Captain Haddock- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 8,075
So excluding housing, childcare and council tax the cost is £75,436?
Unless there's something wrong with my spreadsheet that means the lower orders are expecting the cost of the spawn of their loins to be over £80 a week!
What the Hell are they doing? Weaning them on Moet and giving them Beluga caviare as their first solid meal?
No wonder my four suffered such a deprived childhood.
"We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
Button
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 22 Jul 2016
- Posts: 3,055
I've never understood this business of 'giving' the bride away, and as for a subsidy/dowry, well it's a big NO to that as Mr Vic might say. Flog 'em instead.
(For the avoidance of doubt, I mean flog as in 'sell'. Flog as in flog being reserved for using mobile telephones at the dinner table.)
Brian Dixon and howard mcsweeney1 like this
(Not my real name.)
Guest 1881- Registered: 16 Oct 2016
- Posts: 1,071
Captain Haddock wrote:So excluding housing, childcare and council tax the cost is £75,436?
Unless there's something wrong with my spreadsheet that means the lower orders are expecting the cost of the spawn of their loins to be over £80 a week!
What the Hell are they doing? Weaning them on Moet and giving them Beluga caviare as their first solid meal?
No wonder my four suffered such a deprived childhood.
Better still, consult your local working poor constituents, charities and your working poor locals. Failing that, ask the working poor in your neighbourhood.
Just because you don't take an interest in politics doesn't mean that politics won't take an interest in you. PERICLES.
Captain Haddock- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 8,075
"We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
Guest 1881- Registered: 16 Oct 2016
- Posts: 1,071
Re #52 map. How come the Republic of Ireland, the country formerly(?) of huge deprivation, the country of Angela's Ashes poverty not that long ago, doesn't register in those poverty ratings? Is it because it falls into that dubiously phrased "selected EU member states"? Or could it be that poverty isn't measured in the way that the UK and those participating selected EU member states choose to measure it?
Another question that one might ask is, given that the UK, Germany, France and Italy have economies largest enough to be in the top 10 world economies, why is poverty a factor in these countries? Poverty, I might suggest, is a willful choice and not an accident - just like praising the emergency services for their professionalism at Grenfell then, within a fortnight, refusing to remove their 1% per annum pay cap.
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/022415/worlds-top-10-economies.aspJust because you don't take an interest in politics doesn't mean that politics won't take an interest in you. PERICLES.
Captain Haddock- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 8,075
Precisely Your Grace. It all depends what one means by poverty. To be in the top 1% of the worlds earners you need to earn $32,400 a year (just over £25,000) - in passing, mean full time salary of a fireman is £33,087 in 2017.
With that income one could live more than comfortably in most parts of the world yet in the UK would be saying 'why oh why can't I afford a mortgage on an average house'.
I truly do not believe that there is 'real' poverty in the UK apart from those with either addictions and/or mental health problems.
In most developed countries [U]relative poverty[/U] is based on those living on less than 60% of median income. I suspect some Saudi princes feel poor as they only have a couple of Rolls Royces and others have more.
UK stats are here for 'Household disposable income and inequality in the UK: financial year ending 2016'
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/householddisposableincomeandinequality/financialyearending2016
For most people, year on year, life has been getting even better AND I note there has been a gradual decline in income inequality in the last 10 years, with levels similar to those seen in the mid to late 1980s.
(BTW. I really don't understand all this banging on about firemen. It looks quite good fun. There's no great academic qualifications needed and as long as you are reasonably fit and have decent communication skills would seem to fulfil all the criteria for entry. The chances of being made redundant are close to zero (whatever happens to the economy things will still catch fire and people need cutting out of motor vehicles). Even the pension scheme post 2015 looks pretty bloody good being based on 1/60 th's earning though the Career Average calculation is less generous than the unaffordable Final Salary one it replaced.) "We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
Guest 1881- Registered: 16 Oct 2016
- Posts: 1,071
Firefighter redundancies?! UK population in 2010: 62.77 million; 2016: 65.64 million.
Approximately 42,300 full time equivalent (FTE) Fire and Rescue Service (FRS) staff were employed in England in 2016. As at 31 March 2010, the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) fire and rescue service staff in England was 51,653. Source:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/fire-and-rescue-authorities-operational-statistics
How often have you gone to work knowing that you are expected to handle life and death situations, dangers and horrors that many of us thankfully never have to lose sleep over?
http://metro.co.uk/2017/06/19/firefighter-gives-harrowing-account-of-grenfell-tower-rescue-mission-6718449/
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2005/oct/09/attackonlondon.terrorism
Like I've consistently said, austerity is a choice. Tory KCC councillors voting themselves 15% more, when their Westminster counterparts consider firefighters unworthy of more than 1% proves that.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/watch-moment-tories-cheered-blocking-10707293
Any luck with that Republic of Ireland omission?
Just because you don't take an interest in politics doesn't mean that politics won't take an interest in you. PERICLES.
Guest 1881- Registered: 16 Oct 2016
- Posts: 1,071
Just because you don't take an interest in politics doesn't mean that politics won't take an interest in you. PERICLES.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Captain Haddock- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 8,075
What 'austerity'?
Austerity is a political-economic term referring to policies that aim to reduce government budget deficits through spending cuts, tax increases, or a combination of both.
NHS spending
UP https://fullfact.org/health/spending-english-nhs/ for starters.
"We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
Captain Haddock- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 8,075
The NHS is not being "squeezed" by Tory austerity. It is being "squashed" by uncontrolled migration. Money will not fix it.
Meanwhile I note there's been an increase in Malaria in Switzerland of all places!
https://www.economist.com/news/europe/21730654-migrants-are-reminding-europes-doctors-how-treat-old-disease-switzerland-seeing-more Refugees from Eritrea apparently.
A bit like the fact that some London boroughs have higher TB rates than Iraq or Rwanda! Figures slightly down over recent years but we can still boast proudly that London is the TB capital of Europe!
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-matters-reducing-the-burden-of-tuberculosis/health-matters-reducing-the-burden-of-tuberculosis"We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
Guest 1881- Registered: 16 Oct 2016
- Posts: 1,071
Nick Hanauer: "Rich people don't create jobs." Even a capitalist gets why austerity is fundamentally flawed!
Just because you don't take an interest in politics doesn't mean that politics won't take an interest in you. PERICLES.
"We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"
"We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"
