General Election 8th June

[stlucifer]

8 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

60% of £1200 is £720.

Why is anyone single person on minimum wage trying to rent out properties at that price FFS?

How far are they travelling? Why are they not moving closer to work? How is this the fault of the Tories?

Deposits? What are they spending £1200 on that they can't save a little each month?

Why are they not taking personal responsibilty and taking on another part-time weekend pub job like millions of us have had to do in our time something so they don't have to rely on others?

You guys are taking the piss here aren't you?

Is there a hidden camera prank going on?

Single person. What feckin' single person? You really are out of your tree Oakie.

Your delusions are simplistic at best.

I think it's you taking the piss as I cannot believe anyone is so stupid as not to grasp the realistic economics of the situation.

[oaksoft]

Let's just cut to the chase here guys.

The UK and/or an independent Scotland can NEVER absolutely prevent the need for foodbanks.

There will be a government who will be able to eradicate what you guys are calling poverty.

There will never be a government who will be able to eradicate chaotic lives.

My advice would be to stop bleating, stop whining and do what you need to do to improve your life or accept that life will pass you by.

There is no alternative to this.

None.

That is the hard reality of life.

Countless millions of us have had to endure financial hardships.

What makes this particular generation of snowflakes so precious that they need special protection when they are earning as much as £1200 per month and can't fathom out how to live on that?

[oaksoft]

2 minutes ago, stlucifer said:

Single person. What feckin' single person? You really are out of your tree Oakie.

Your delusions are simplistic at best.

I think it's you taking the piss as I cannot believe anyone is so stupid as not to grasp the realistic economics of the situation.

Single person. £7.50 per hour minimum wage.

37.5 hours permanent full time work.

That is around £1200 per month with almost no tax and little national insurance.

THAT single person.

Either produce alternative figures or concede.

[Tommy]

So somebody on £1200 a month.

Rent £600

Rates  £100

Elec/Gas    £100

Travel to work £100

Season ticket for saints £25 

Insurance/ TV licenced  £25

Lavvy Paper/ soap/ cleaning stuff £20

Clothes/household goods  £50

Anything else before food ?

 

[Tommy]

1 hour ago, oaksoft said:

Minimum wage, full time hours is about £1200 per month. If you cannot understand that accomodation and food can be easily dealt with on that wage then you can't really be blaming the Tories.

If you have a family you can chuck in a heap of tax credits and child benefit on top of that - sometimes hundreds of pounds per month depeding on your cirucmstances.

Under those circumstances the state cannot be blamed if you spend all that money without remembering that food is your top priority.

Come on, be honest, out of £1200 what is the top priority if it isn't food?

Priority must be paying rent and bills surely since otherwise you will get kick out to live in the street, and nobody will employ you if you have a address like top cat.

[stlucifer]

58 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

Single person. £7.50 per hour minimum wage.

37.5 hours permanent full time work.

That is around £1200 per month with almost no tax and little national insurance.

THAT single person.

Either produce alternative figures or concede.

When were we discussing single people, though I'm sure some have a need. I spoke about families. You started the replies by accepting that by not referring to single people until you realised you were being a prat and thought you could wiggle free.

In this instance you are simply being a complete idiot.

ETA. That doesn't even consider the millions having to endure zero hour contracts BECAUSE this Government allows the practice. No set hours. No real protection.

Edited June 4, 2017 by stlucifer

[oaksoft]

14 minutes ago, stlucifer said:

When were we discussing single people, though I'm sure some have a need. I spoke about families. You started the replies by accepting that by not referring to single people until you realised you were being a prat and thought you could wiggle free.

In this instance you are simply being a complete idiot.

ETA. That doesn't even consider the millions having to endure zero hour contracts BECAUSE this Government allows the practice. No set hours. No real protection.

Ah I understand now. You were not reading my posts because I mentioned zero hours contracts already and I mentioned both single people and families several times.

Clearly I am wasting my time. I'll leave you to it.

[stlucifer]

Just now, oaksoft said:

Ah I understand now. You were not reading my posts because I mentioned zero hours contracts already and I mentioned both single people and families several times.

Clearly I am wasting my time. I'll leave you to it.

You mentioned single people AFTER the fact.. As for zero hour contracts. I was reiterating. Because you cannot figure out that the government have consistently cut benefits and punished people because they happen to have and extra room or, more likely, ignore those facts, you seem to blame the people that have so little on those people. You just couldn't make it up. Except for the fact, YOU have.

[oaksoft]

1 hour ago, renfrew said:

Priority must be paying rent and bills surely since otherwise you will get kick out to live in the street, and nobody will employ you if you have a address like top cat.

That's a fair point.

Take the single person on £1200 because this is the worst case for a person on minimum wage full time permanent job.

The average cost of a flat is about £400 to £500 across much of the country.

If you want to live in the city that might cost a bit more but then you balance that by having no travel costs.

On the whole though, this is your baseline cost.

I pay £88 in total for gas and electricity per month for a pretty large house so a flat probably only needs £40 to £60 per month in total.

Happy to go with £60 for the sake of example.

Right now we are at about £560 plus perhaps £50 per month for bus travel so we are now at about £610.

Rent and bills have taken up about half your income leaving £600 for food and everything else for the month.

Under these circumstances I cannot see any case for blaming the Tories if you can't feed yourself for that amount.

I reckon your food bill should be no more than £100 per month. I feed my entire family on about £200 per month.

More than willing to be shown to be wrong about any of this but someone really needs to explain why we are worrying about this category of person when tye should clearly be capable of feeding and housing themselves without further help. There is no excuse for this type of person bleating about the Tories.

For families the rent will be a bit higher but the amount of tax credits can be around an additional £800 per month depending on circumstances.

Edited June 4, 2017 by oaksoft

[oaksoft]

2 minutes ago, stlucifer said:

You mentioned single people AFTER the fact.. As for zero hour contracts. I was reiterating. Because you cannot figure out that the government have consistently cut benefits and punished people because they happen to have and extra room or, more likely, ignore those facts, you seem to blame the people that have so little on those people. You just couldn't make it up. Except for the fact, YOU have.

You are too late. I'm not engaging with you further.

I provided you with detailed numbers and was very clear what kind of person I was talking about.

We are done here.

[stlucifer]

2 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

You are too late. I'm not engaging with you further.

I provided you with detailed numbers and was very clear what kind of person I was talking about.

We are done here.

You provided me with nothing concrete. Merely supposition and guesses and a whole lot of cr@p which you seem to think is plausible. As I said from the outset. Cloud cuckoo land.

[oaksoft]

11 minutes ago, stlucifer said:

You provided me with nothing concrete. Merely supposition and guesses and a whole lot of cr@p which you seem to think is plausible. As I said from the outset. Cloud cuckoo land.

 

If you don't take personal responsibility for your own life you will never change your circumstances.

If you ask people for help, they will gladly give it to you and I am going to give you free help now.

There is a web out there full of free online tutorials, lectures from top universities, videos and books on almost every conceivable subject including how to build an entire functioning aircraft with almost no money apparently.

We have free university and college education on almost every subject both vocational and technical with free online forums full of advice and help when you need it. We have fully available student loans to allow you to survive whilst you learn and you may not even have to pay back a penny of it.

We have thousands, if not millions of websites choc full of free advice on how to run your own business, support grants to get started and Business Gatewy providing free courses in stuff like finance, marketing, advertising etc and an almost free internet to advertise on.

There has literally never been a better time to achieve your potential in this country and the Tories have almost no influence on any of this.

However, if this is all simply too much hassle for you then we have a very healthy benefits system which will protect you for your entire life.

Either grabs the controls of your life and enjoy yourself or hand that control onto others and suffer.

Good luck with this whichever you choose.

This is my last comment to you on this subject.

Edited June 4, 2017 by oaksoft

[insaintee]

2 hours ago, oaksoft said:

I have no doubt that those who need  foodbanks genuinely need those foodbanks at that time (excluding those abusing it).

The question is not about that really. The question is about WHY they are needing to use them if they are in full time permanent work.

Why are they not prioritising buying food from their income?

What else are they considering to be more important?

That is the essential help they need beyond the food given to them by the foodbank.

Perhaps they are alcoholics, perhaps they have mental health problems, perhaps they have run up credit card debt, perhaps a relative has died and they needed to pay for the funeral, perhaps they have made a mistake in their tax returns and have a big tax bill, perhaps they only had third party insurance on their car and wrote of their car, perhaps they have got divorced and now have to pay a mortgage on their own. 

I used to think you were brainy 

[Longtimecoming]

5 hours ago, oaksoft said:

Full time permanent work?

Yes

[stlucifer]

1 hour ago, insaintee said:

Perhaps they are alcoholics, perhaps they have mental health problems, perhaps they have run up credit card debt, perhaps a relative has died and they needed to pay for the funeral, perhaps they have made a mistake in their tax returns and have a big tax bill, perhaps they only had third party insurance on their car and wrote of their car, perhaps they have got divorced and now have to pay a mortgage on their own. 

I used to think you were brainy 

Oh how easily some are duped!

[oaksoft]

1 hour ago, insaintee said:

Perhaps they are alcoholics, perhaps they have mental health problems, perhaps they have run up credit card debt, perhaps a relative has died and they needed to pay for the funeral, perhaps they have made a mistake in their tax returns and have a big tax bill, perhaps they only had third party insurance on their car and wrote of their car, perhaps they have got divorced and now have to pay a mortgage on their own.

What you are describing here is life. Welcome to it. Nobody said it was either pretty or fair.

How exactly is any of that the fault of the Tories - which is the entire point of this discussion?

Why is anyone Tory bashing over those sorts of situations?

Let me address them.

Alcoholics, mental health problems? Yes I agree that they need specialised help. At no stage have I ever said anything different.

Incorrect tax returns and subsequent tax bill? Seriously? There is no way you would be left without enough money for food. Anyone in this situation should be contacting HMRC. Genuine mistakes are rarely penalised and certainly not to the extent you are talking about. Easily sorted.

Run up a credit card bill? Again phone the card company and arrange debt relief. Easily sorted.

Written off your own car? You are taking the piss now. Get a bus and stop whining.

Got divorced and had to pay the mortgage on your own? Why on earth did you use TWO salaries to get the mortgage in the first place. This is where the Tories really could do something. Ban mortgages which rely on more than one income. For the person in this situation, TALK TO THE LENDER and temporarily extend your loan so that your payments can drop. Lenders are full of all sorts of help for situations like this.

The unexpected death thing is a more difficult one but again people really need to be saving money for rainy day events like this instead of spunking every last penny. It's called personal responsibility. Even so, in this circumstance I am pretty sure you could get hold of money to sort things out. Maybe funeral companies have finance plans to spread payments or perhaps a bank can lend the money. Worst case would be a credit card or adding it to your mortgage if you have one.

That was hardly a difficult set of circumstances to suggest immediate help for.

Anything else?

Edited June 4, 2017 by oaksoft

[oaksoft]

1 hour ago, Longtimecoming said:

Yes

The conversation has moved on a bit since I asked you that.

 

[mcdowell76]

My mother in law lived on benefits for the majority of her working life. She was on disability despite not having anything wrong with her.

She said there was no point in getting a job because she got free housing and was given loads of cash.

She was able to save up and go on a foreign holiday every year. She was never short of cash.

Food banks? She looked as if she'd eaten a food bank, the fat cow.

She voted against independence cos she was scared that an independent Scotland wouldn't be able to afford her benefits.

She voted UKIP cos she said all these immigrants were stealing her benefits.

That is the reality of the welfare state in the UK.

Edited June 4, 2017 by mcdowell76

[insaintee]

18 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

What you are describing here is life. Welcome to it. Nobody said it was either pretty or fair.

How exactly is any of that the fault of the Tories - which is the entire point of this discussion?

Why is anyone Tory bashing over those sorts of situations?

Let me address them.

Alcoholics, mental health problems? Yes I agree that they need specialised help. At no stage have I ever said anything different.

Incorrect tax returns and subsequent tax bill? Seriously? There is no way you would be left without enough money for food. Anyone in this situation should be contacting HMRC. Genuine mistakes are rarely penalised and certainly not to the extent you are talking about. Easily sorted.

Run up a credit card bill? Again phone the card company and arrange debt relief. Easily sorted.

Written off your own car? You are taking the piss now. Get a bus and stop whining.

Got divorced and had to pay the mortgage on your own? Why on earth did you use TWO salaries to get the mortgage in the first place. This is where the Tories really could do something. Ban mortgages which rely on more than one income. For the person in this situation, TALK TO THE LENDER and temporarily extend your loan so that your payments can drop. Lenders are full of all sorts of help for situations like this.

The unexpected death thing is a more difficult one but again people really need to be saving money for rainy day events like this instead of spunking every last penny. It's called personal responsibility. Even so, in this circumstance I am pretty sure you could get hold of money to sort things out. Maybe funeral companies have finance plans to spread payments or perhaps a bank can lend the money. Worst case would be a credit card or adding it to your mortgage if you have one.

That was hardly a difficult set of circumstances to suggest immediate help for.

Anything else?

wow talk about missing the point! 

That's life is correct, the reason people on minimum wage need to use food banks is life. Mishaps of this and a hundred other examples happen to us all. For example I might be having to shell out 1500 to take a case to industrial tribunal. I'm fine that won't be a problem, but I'm not on minimum wage. The tories are responsible for making a system where large numbers of people have no financial reserves and only a very minor knock pushes them over the edge. 

 

[insaintee]

27 minutes ago, stlucifer said:

Oh how easily some are duped!

I used to think I was brainy

[salmonbuddie]

My mother in law lived on benefits for the majority of her working life. She was on disability despite not having anything wrong with her.
She said there was no point in getting a job because she got free housing and was given loads of cash.
She was able to save up and go on a foreign holiday every year. She was never short of cash.
Food banks? She looked as if she'd eaten a food bank, the fat cow.
She voted against independence cos she was scared that an independent Scotland wouldn't be able to afford her benefits.
She voted UKIP cos she said all these immigrants were stealing her benefits.
That is the reality of the welfare state in the UK.

The spirit of StuD is alive and well.

#thichasfcuk

[salmonbuddie]

The question is about WHY they are needing to use them if they are in full time permanent work.

It's not, you know. The question is about why foodbank numbers have multiplied the way they have in recent years. For clarity, the recent Conservative austerity policy years. Coincidence? Don't think so, it's not that hard to join the dots.

[stlucifer]

5 minutes ago, salmonbuddie said:

 

It's not, you know. The question is about why foodbank numbers have multiplied the way they have in recent years. For clarity, the recent Conservative austerity policy years. Coincidence? Don't think so, it's not that hard to join the dots.

 

It seems it is if you're blinkered.

[salmonbuddie]

It seems it is if you're blinkered.

Having said that, the real question we need to ask is "What kind of society are we living in where we need foodbanks at all?"

[stlucifer]

12 minutes ago, salmonbuddie said:

 

Having said that, the real question we need to ask is "What kind of society are we living in where we need foodbanks at all?"

 

One born of the eighties. Thatcher's Britain. Greed is good. For a labour party to get into power they had to become the tories. I am hoping the worm is turning but I can't see it happening. That's why we NEED self determination for, as a nation, we are different from those south of Hadrian's wall. We tend to have a social conscience. There are a few "Oakies" out there but, to my mind, they are the minority in our great nation.