Author Topic: food banks  (Read 20945 times)

squeezyjohn

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Re: food banks
« Reply #60 on: February 06, 2013, 01:23:25 »
Of course you are all right - and my political rant was not truly on the subject of food banks which is a last ditch attempt to help people really given that things must have gone wrong for them to be necessary.

I just think it's an under-reported thing that the generation now in the age-group 50-70 have taken a huge amount of the wealth from our country in property and savings and it seems odd to me that any of them are baffled by the fact that kids these days cannot support themselves.  Every political action in the last 50 years has been influenced by the voting power of the large section of society born between the end of the war and 1965 and has put money in their pockets one way or another.

It's not a popular thing to say ... especially not to people in that category who believe they worked for all that wealth and deserved it for themselves (even though they must know in their heart of hearts that they have borrowed all the money from the future) - but a small reminder now and then might mean that some of the money not frittered away on luxury holidays and Chinese consumables could make it's way back down the generations and allow the current crop of adults coming through a chance in life half as good as the one they enjoyed.

Cheers

Squeezy

manicscousers

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Re: food banks
« Reply #61 on: February 06, 2013, 07:17:03 »
I also don't think generalising helps here. Being 60 and not well off, and not having huge savings, we have brought up 3 children through very hard times who now have brilliant jobs and pay lots of taxes back into the pot. As for luxury holidays, a tent in Cornwall can hardly come into that category.  :toothy10:
Anyway, this was'nt started as a political topic, just trying to help people with some surplus 'veg
« Last Edit: February 06, 2013, 07:23:47 by manicscousers »

Digeroo

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Re: food banks
« Reply #62 on: February 06, 2013, 07:47:37 »
I am sorry squeezyjohn but I am not sure that my life was as cosy as you think yet I am between 50 and 70 .  I was born early 50s into a one parent family.  The fridge was a bucket or water outside the backdoor, I can still remember the electric one arriving - I was eight: a gift from my uncle.  Most food was prepared in the pressure cooker to stop it being tough.  I was very well into my teens before we got an electric twin tub washing machine.  I remember standing by the back door cranking the handle on the washer backwards and forwards and then using the mangle or  sitting doing my homework at the launderette.

 I shared a bedroom with my mother till I moved out at 18.   Most of my clothes were remakes of things my mother bought at jumble sales.  My school skirts came from the uniform of a nurse friend when they changed the colour of her uniform. My mother was a teacher but in those days females earned considerably less than their male collegues even if they were running a family it was about 2/3rds.

We hardly ever went out once I had children and not much before though I did play a lot of badminton.  We do not drink alcohol or smoke in fact live very frugally.   My OH was made redundant at 54 and the pension he had worked so hard for turned out to be a pittance because he had not worked with them for 30 years, yes you guessed he worked for 28.5.    Yet because he was contracted out his state pension is small.  The next generation have ensured they have better working protection and people are now not being thrown out en masse when they reach 55.

No job I had paid towards a pension.

Yes my property is worth quite a lot, but we paid the asking prices which seemed a lot at the time and paid for 40 years and our interest rates were up to 14% and rarely less than 9%.  We did get a reduction in tax for the interest at one time and for children but there were no tax credits for low incomes.   In hind sight the increase in values due to inflation is good but you cannot eat it and have to pay the council tax.   

We can only manage now because I inherited some money unexpectedly.

I feel blessed that I have always been able to grow fruit and veg to supplement our income.

I am sorry Squeezyjohn but I think you are looking at the past with rose tinted specs on.  It seems to be now that their is a huge gap between those doing well and have good jobs and those who are not.






Ellen K

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Re: food banks
« Reply #63 on: February 06, 2013, 08:23:34 »
I grew up pretty poor but I got into a Grammar school and had a free University education.  Today, it's different - it costs a fortune to get any education at all and there are so few jobs for school leavers.  We have this massive group of people who live in extended family groups where nobody has a job and everybody gets up at lunchtime and walks round the shops all afternoon.  Unemployed and unemployable.  Meanwhile, the staff in the Poundshops talk among themselves in Polish and work with the energy lacking in people born in this country.

So while I'm happy to give away surplus to the FB, I dont think it will change much.  As it used to say on Oxfam posters: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.  Teach a man to fish and ...." Well you all know the rest.

manicscousers

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Re: food banks
« Reply #64 on: February 06, 2013, 08:28:17 »
That's why they want to start cookery lessons

BarriedaleNick

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Re: food banks
« Reply #65 on: February 06, 2013, 08:37:35 »
I really do not get this "it's all the baby boomer fault" mentality.  The economics of the our current situation is complex and to try to blame it all on one generation or any one cause is an easy way to avoid thinking about difficult issues.

To lump everyone born between two dates into one group and bame them for everything that is happening now is too easy an explantion for the supposed ills of our society today. 

50 years ago it was 1963 - the voting age was 21 then so you had to be born in 1942 to be able to vote in 1963.  Not sure how people born after the war were affecting policy in 1963!

Anyway as Manics says this was a thread about donating surplus lottie food - All I have to do is to work out how to grow a surplus!
Moved to Portugal - ain't going back!

Borlotti

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Re: food banks
« Reply #66 on: February 06, 2013, 11:54:44 »
Wonder if the food banks want courgettes, if so I may plant 12 plants this year.  Much better to give surplus away to anyone who needs it, than compost it.  At the moment the allotment looks very sad, with nothing growing, but roll on summer.

caroline7758

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Re: food banks
« Reply #67 on: February 06, 2013, 18:46:18 »
e have this massive group of people who live in extended family groups where nobody has a job and everybody gets up at lunchtime and walks round the shops all afternoon.  Unemployed and unemployable. 


You might be interested to read these myth busters about the benefits system, based on actual statistics![url]http://www.turn2us.org.uk/pdf/Mythbusting.pdf/[url]

Robert_Brenchley

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Re: food banks
« Reply #68 on: February 06, 2013, 19:32:00 »
If the government tightened up on tax evasion, and increased taxes on the rich, that would go a fair way to solving the problem. Tax needs to be progressive not regressive; those who can pay, should pay the most. It's not all down to the past; a lot of it is the sheer laxity of the regime towards anyone who has more than they need. Meanwhile, the cuts we suffer ensure that we don't have money to spend, so goods don't get sold, so the economy tanks a bit further. Austerity has a long history, and it's never worked once.

Blaming the poor will get us nowhere.

Azada_Monkey

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Re: food banks
« Reply #69 on: May 18, 2014, 16:11:18 »
Some observations not to forget while the foodbanks rely on your charity.......

Most (majority of)  people are effectively being kept alive by supermarket chains who in the past have lied to the customers, and will lie again, exploit the poor (growers right through to the unemployed on the workfare scheme).

Supermarkets while offering a percentage of whats already been donated, stand to actually make a profit on the cause, because they are donating their goods at wholesale prices, while people who want to donate (buy first donate afterwards) have covered that percentage themselves by paying retail on non-perishable goods you cannot produce yourself.

Secondly, there seems to be little in the way of fresh produce available on the list of accepted donations, which I'm sorry but is simply not good enough, is hardly reaching out to allotments or local food producers as it helps the supermarkets profits first and foremost.

Thirdly, the foodbanks (who do a good thing imho) need to be educating the people about how to take back control over their food supply.
At present making profits for company shareholders is coming before putting the needs of families (second) , also when the people currently donating become the next wave of folk needing the donations what then.....lets hope there is enough seeds and land still available.

Excercise, food, community spirit & free seeds has been replaced since the last few decades by poverty, need and worry, all of which was already forecasted by previous governments that started wars with your money (labour exchange) which could of kept the country growing.

Britain being one of the most fertile countries as opposed to the deserts of Africa should tell you there is simply no excuses.

Yeah lets all pave over our front and back gardens, afterall mummy supermarket still offers the teet for us to all suck on.....

:BangHead:
« Last Edit: May 18, 2014, 16:16:18 by Azada_Monkey »

kt.

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Re: food banks
« Reply #70 on: May 18, 2014, 22:47:12 »
Our town council have mornings where they put on the occasional soup & a roll, sandwiches and a cuppa for only a few pence. It is to assist the elderly and those who do not have much to socialise and have something decent to eat.  They do not turn people away but it is highly abused by extremely well off pensioners and workers who once have eaten, depart in their luxury cars from the carpark.  It is because of abuse like this that I no longer give to foodbanks or charities anymore.  I know several people who no longer give to different causes for the same reasons.
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