Off Topic Off-Topic Thread (Anything Non-Football Related)

http://leftfootforward.org/2015/03/...-londoners-are-earning-below-the-living-wage/

Another reason why we should hate Boris Johnson. Utterly useless.

 

Boris is a Bellend

 

You ****ing Southerners deserve Boris

 

I'm still ashamed that my fellow Londoners voted for that ****ing buffoon

 

As much as I'm not a Boris fan that article is a piece of crap by a Green Party member who wants Boris' job.

It talks about a rise of 348k people not earning the living wage but fails to mention the rise in the population of London by over a million people in the same time period. Meaning up to over 650k extra people earning over the living wage. I also think the article goes a little OTT by suggesting you need to earn 25k a year to scrape by. You can scrape by on less than that, even if it isn't a particularly affluent life your then able to live.

While I agree with the idea behind the article, that the living wage should be attained for all workers, it's a bias piece designed to discredit rather than impartially analyse the figures.

 

Glad to know where you sit on the political spectrum. With all due respect, I'm not sure how much attention I should pay to someone who, by their own admission, said they voted for UKIP.

I'm sorry but so what? I don't see the point of this post. Should we just disregard all the other people who aren't earning enough to live on just because others can? Politicians have been too slow to respond to the growing numbers in London. If you're trying to suggest that the rise in population means that it is unsustainable for the large proportion of people to be earning the living wage, then I am afraid you are wrong.

The point is still valid though, irrespective of what you think about the author's intentions. Valid points are made. Average pay is 8% lower compared to 2008. Minimum wage has fallen below the London Living Wage. And Boris spent £12m on a scheme for young people to do pointless and unfulfilling jobs when they could have spent time looking for a real job earning real money. And this scheme he set up halved their chances of finding real work. He then took away the benefits of those who did not complete his scheme because they felt it wasn't useful.

I definitely think this Green Party member would do a better job than the fraud that is Boris Johnson.

 

I don't see how me saying I'd vote for UKIP based on strong views in regard to our membership of the EU would somehow make my political views invalid. And I fail to see the relevance to the topic being discussed.

As for where I sit on the political spectrum I'd say no party manages to get a good enough combination of my views to really pinpoint where I sit. In general I suppose I'm slightly to the right but have some strong liberal views also.

I highlighted the increase in population to show there are other statistics that would be needed to make an accurate assessment on what the increase in those living on less than the living wage actually means in the bigger picture. If there are 300k more people not in living wage work, but 500k more who are then it paints a different picture to the one the article attempts to show. It is biased and lacks the facts needed to make a proper assessment. That was my point with the increase in population, it changes the overall size of the labour pool and therefor individually the statistic of one increase is meaningless without other stats, sorry if that didn't come across properly.

As for the other bits, as I said I'm not a Boris fan and agree he's done plenty of stupid ****.

 

I'm not a racist but I blame the Bulgarians,Romanians,Africans,Irish,Pakistanis,Indians,Polish and any other foreigner who lives in this country

 

Very relevant...

 

I also decided to join UKIP today

 

No, it doesn't. 340,000 more people not earning a London Living Wage is still a significant amount of people, regardless of which way you try and spin it and regardless of the population increase. A lot of people might be earning a Living Wage, yes, but there are still a large chunk of people who are not. In any case, it isn't exactly good to hear, especially as the cost of living has gone up and there have been a record number of people using food banks within the last year.

 

Because of poverty wages people have to rely on in-work benefits e.g working tax credits,child tax credits and housing benefit.This government's response is to demonise these people as benefit scroungers.

 

Classic divide and rule tactics. Get the low paid to blame the unemployed and the unemployed to blame the immigrants, for lack of jobs, low pay and welfare spending, whilst the divide between rich and poor gets bigger.

Cameron's 'austerity' measures wouldn't look like such an obvious sham if there wasn't a £170bn hole in our economy caused by the greedy bankers and the tax dodging corporations.

 

We shall have to agree to disagree as I simply think you're wrong. A statistic like the increase in numbers of people not earning living wage can't be taken as a sole statistic and for proper evaluation as to what the numbers actually mean you need more information, such as changes in population (the labour pool), increases in work that does pay over the living wage and ideally a more detailed breakdown by industry and demographic to analyse if particular sections of the economy are failing to attain the targets set as opposed to a general failing or legislative failing.

Again though, I agree with your general sentiment that too many people are not earning a suitable wage to live off and more needs to be done to allow people to earn a proper living for themselves.

 

Personally I think we need to cut back public spending and inefficiency as well as clamp down on tax avoidance. Each issue should be dealt with regardless of what other issues are on going. (This is not an endorsement of the Tory approach to Austerity by the way!)

 

What public spending do you think we should cut back on,the NHS,education,old age pensions ?

 

I wonder why there are sooooo many TV programs centered on benefits and immigration issues nowadays.....

 

Well, the big one, and the one least popular to talk about is our aging population. Personally I think we will need to take an approach similar to several other countries round the world who take on a responsibility for the elderly within the family. I know as an old man you probably don't want to see the oldies effected but it is an area that will have to be addressed at some point. I don't however have any practical suggestions on how to implement savings in this area as it's a difficult subjct to encroach.

The NHS is massively inefficient and money can most definitely be saved or at the very least inefficiencies rebalanced. The management and admin layers within the NHS are a joke.

Education should be the single most important thing and remain untouched.

Laws that waste police time should be assessed and scraped where necessary. Possession of drugs springs to mind as an obvious way to save huge amounts of time and money.

Within the welfare system I also believe there is space to make cuts, not necessarily the huge cuts we see happening now, but there are again areas of inefficiency and a small number of people cheating the system.

There are plenty of ways to make cuts, some more palatable than others but the hard facts are that we can't afford to continue to borrow at such high levels to maintain our public spending so unless your alternate suggestion is massively raising taxes I fail to see how you think we will stop the country heading further and further into debt at an unsustainable level?

 

Poverty Porn is cheap and nasty television.You pick on the least educated in society and offer them 5 minutes of stardom.Did you watch Benefits Street on Channel 4.In a street of approx 100 houses they focused on about 6 families and tried to give the impression that everyone who lived on that street was a benefit scrounger.The real truth being that the overwhelming number of people who lived there were hardworking taxpayers but lets not let the truth get in the way of good entertainment

 

"You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here, you're beginning to believe that the tube is reality and your own lives are unreal. You do. Why, whatever the tube tells you: you dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even think like the tube. This is mass madness, you maniacs. In God's name, you people are the real thing, WE are the illusion."

"So, you listen to me. Listen to me: Television is not the truth! Television is a God-damned amusement park! Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, side-show freaks, lion tamers, and football players. We're in the boredom-killing business!"