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18-02-2016, 07:49 PM
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Remembering Kerry
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This is a bad move from ASDA,it looks petty and uncaring. |
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18-02-2016, 08:14 PM
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#2 | |||
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Likes cars that go boom
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Poverty as defined by our 21 century AAA rated world power status naturally.
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18-02-2016, 09:09 PM
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And there are "starving kids in Africa" who would kill for a deep fried battered potato or a bit of bread soaked in gravy.
Comparing ye-olde-timey poverty to modern poverty in an attempt to make it seem like poor people today "have it easy" is both arrogant, and completely pointless. The social and economic contexts are completely different. You're right in that it "doesn't compare" but only because it flat out can't be compared. It wasn't "as bad as" or "easier" OR "harder" - it was an entirely different situation. |
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18-02-2016, 11:15 PM
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Senior Member
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 We have all bad them, or at least fear that we will at some point in life. The gist of the thread has been the difference in poverty in the 40s and modern day, so hearing people's actual experiences in the years in between is more real to me than reading some statistics written down by somebody I don't know a thing about. |
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18-02-2016, 11:21 PM
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Incase you're going to suggest that's not what was being implied: Quote:
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19-02-2016, 08:31 AM
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Senior Member
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[QUOTE=Toy Soldier;8523727]And there are "starving kids in Africa" who would kill for a deep fried battered potato or a bit of bread soaked in gravy.
Yes - and there were "starving kids in Africa" who would kill for a deep fried battered potato or a bit of bread soaked in gravy" back in the 40's and '50's, only far, far more of them, and because we did not have widespread television and the internet, 'Public Perception' and 'Awareness' was extremely LOW, and because Beveridge's 'Welfare State'' was in it's infancy and the poor here had their very own 'fight to survive', the 'Working Classes' ability to 'contribute' aid to "starving kids in Africa" was virtually non-existant. Over the past 40 years Africa has received $400billion of aid from the developed world and that figure does not include the hundreds of millions of pounds of 'non official' donations given by the public and raised by events such as Band Aid etc. The "past 40 years" means from the late 1970's onwards, not the 40's, 50's 60's and early 70's - and this is solely due to the reasons outlined above - because 'Public Perceptions' to poverty HAS increasingly greatly improved over the past 40 years. "Comparing ye-olde-timey poverty to modern poverty in an attempt to make it seem like poor people today "have it easy" is both arrogant, and completely pointless. The social and economic contexts are completely different. You're right in that it "doesn't compare" but only because it flat out can't be compared. It wasn't "as bad as" or "easier" OR "harder" - it was an entirely different situation." I'll tell you what is 'arrogant' T.S. - 'Arrogant' is when one person denies, or denigrates the GENUINE DIRECT PERSONAL EXPERIENCES of another person without having shared those experiences. I LIVED through the end of the 50's and through the early 60's and I was not some unintelligent or unread or unaware little kid trapped in a unique 'bubble' of poverty - I was POLITICALLY AWARE from a very early age, and aware of the great SOCIAL INEQUALITY which was prevalent at the time. MY EXPERIENCE of poverty was not 'peculiar' to my family, because there were countless rows of squalid Victorian crumbling red brick, 'two down three up' terrace houses where families existed in poverty - DESPITE one or BOTH parents working hard for a pittance. The windows were draughty Victorian sliding sashes where ice clung to the INSIDES during Winter. The interiors were lit by gas mantles, and hot water - such as it was - was provided by a tiny steel box back boiler heated by a coal fire in an open range fire. And a 'Bathroom'? LOL. A galvanised tin bath half-filled with tepid water (the best that the small coal-fired back boiler could do) placed in the only living room in front of the coal fire, and a piece of old flannel and bar of carbolic soap was the 'Bathroom'. Oh, and we kids HAD to get in the previous kid's bath water. Coarse old khaki army blankets and even a couple of army greatcoats were used to keep warm in bed - because shared body heat from 2 to a single bed wasn't enough to do the trick. A coal fired 'Set Pot' - a huge cast iron inverted bell - was used to boil clothes one day and for cooking potato 'stew' in the next. Wet clothes were put through a hand 'mangle' wringer prior to being put out to 'dry' on a washing line strung across the rear access 'road' because we had no back gardens - just a 'coal house' and OUTSIDE toilets, where the 'toilet roll' was cut up squares of old newspapers hung by a nail on the ill-fitting planked door of the loo. All cooking was done on two cast iron paddles fixed to the fire grate on which one stood pans or the kettle and which then were pushed over the fire. Baking was done in an oven which was incorporated into the fireplace. No fuel - no cooking. There were NO fitted carpets, just 'damp, uneven, Yorkshire slab floors over which 'Peggy Rugs' - home made rugs fashioned from cut up strips of old clothing punched through a piece of old gunny sackloth - were laid. There was no central heating - just the coal fire which filled the dingy rabbit hutch of a room with toxic smoke every time the wind blew down the chimney. Mice, cockroaches and 'bed bugs' were prevalent - in the cleanliest of households. I will never forget the chorus of severely violent coughing at 4.30 am every morning as numerous miners awoke to get ready for their shift at the local 'pit', or how I clutched a mug of tea with no milk and no sugar as I watched from my window at them them cycling down the street under the street gas lamps on their way to work with their metal 'snap tins' of pork dripping sandwiches, or 'potted beef' if they were really 'well off', in their saddle bags. Mortality rates among the poor 'working class' were much higher then than now - I lost two sisters, one at birth and one in early infancy - and it was never due to heroin overdoses and rarely due to chronic alcoholism. Diseases which killed the poor in their thousands do not do so now. TV's, Playstations and Designer Fashion clothes and accessories were unknown, as were take-away meals and holidays. Do not make me laugh by accusing me of arrogance or by maintaining that the poverty we know in the UK today is worse, as bad as, or is 'different' to that which I KNEW in the late '50's and early '60's, because THERE IS NO COMPARISON. What is deemed poverty today would have been sheer 'middle class' bliss back then.
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"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts". Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927-2003) .................................................. .. Press The Spoiler Button to See All My Songs Spoiler: Last edited by kirklancaster; 19-02-2016 at 08:59 AM. |
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18-02-2016, 11:31 PM
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Likes cars that go boom
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The thread isn't a comparison to the 40's in terms of how relative poverty is to then, but the attitudes to poverty and how the public respond to those in need.
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18-02-2016, 11:59 PM
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Senior Member
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The food banks show that the public are charitable and try and help people who are struggling. Soup kitchens and charity cafes try to help as well. So some people are making an effort. Back in the forties the work house was still going strong, it changed name at some point but didn't shut fully until forties. Family and friends were in similar situations back in the workhouse days and couldn't help out in a lot of cases. The benefit system, while not being fantastic, has to be better than the options back in the day so attitudes will naturally be different nowadays. |
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19-02-2016, 06:48 AM
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Quand il pleut, il pleut
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...obviously none of us can compare through actual experience of the 1940s because t'was before our time but whatever our own 'back in the day' is, it's still hard to do because we tend to look back more with nostalgia and of being younger/rose tainted glasses, type thing..so of times/decades when we were children, our view of less or more poverty would be through a child's eye or a young person's eye, whereas now we're looking through the eyes of adults, so more 'reality/more responsibilities', I guess...as a child for instance, I never really had much 'new'..t'was the world of second hand Rose for many people, which still is as well, siblings inheriting from older siblings/clothes/toys etc...but obviously getting new stuff more..I guess an equivalent to 'second hand' now, would be Ebay..not everyone Ebays, some people give to someone they know for no return financially but many people do Ebay, so selling rather than giving...nothing was wasted in terms of food and many other things etc...but many people owned though in terms of their own house/flat etc...at a much younger age than they do now...now it's much more difficult to own at young ages and even for those that are fortunate enough to, it'll most likely mean a huge mortgage/debt...and on top of student loans debt as well...and because people did own back in the day at much younger ages, that's meant for many a generation of 'inheritance'...which I doubt will be the case with the younger generation now and a possible inheritance for their children ...
...anyways, these are just some musings and have no relevance at all to the article but one part of it is quite interesting... Children were reported as dirty, inadequately clothed and badly behaved, and their parents were blamed as lazy and incompetent. Politicians and media reports supported this analysis. ..this was about evacuees, so still even in a 'pulling together' of wartimes, such judgements of parents/parenting and those judgements of 'laziness' being supported by the media..sound familiar..  ...so not a lot really changed then from that view...and when we look at minimum paid jobs and things like that/exploitation type things of today...that could also be compared (maybe)...with those evacuees of the 40s, in that they weren't all homed through a sense of caring, some children were treated extremely badly/very bad living and care conditions for the only purpose of being 'free help'...and had some very wrong/cruel and unhappy experiences...and they had them old 'yanks' back in the 40s as well, coming over here, charming our ladies with their nylons and chocolate...'taking what is ours'.../and completely different again but still the 'old foreigners' coming over and taking 'our benefits' etc.....anyways, there are just musings and thoughts more than anything else because comparisons are quite difficult..one of the big things though is the power of the internet and judgements being enabled to be made more en masse, rather than more, just within a community..but as the article says, there was still media influence to add then as well...I personally don't think media influences most people unless it's their leaning to be influenced anyway/their own personal thought process...but yeah, just musings really...
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19-02-2016, 09:24 AM
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Likes cars that go boom
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As you say we view those in poverty through the magic of television and trust what we see is a true representation instead of seeing the issues faced like these women did in 43 for themselves. It's not a case of are you influenced, but to what degree.
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18-02-2016, 11:54 PM
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self-oscillating
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My take on it is that no matter if the country is in boom times or recession, there will always be those that are homeless or not know where the next meal is coming from.
On top of that we have aspirations and expectations today that just weren't a consideration in previous generations, but as poverty bites, it all boils down to basic survival in the end. Governments were considered uncaring and aloof in previous generations and the same applies today - conservative or labour, we really haven't progressed, we just wrap it up better in sound bites and give an illusion of care, but the same contempt exists. So my conclusion is that poverty is just as bad as it was in the 40's and it really hasn't changed in generations since, nor is it likely to change any time soon in the future |
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19-02-2016, 09:01 AM
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Senior Member
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I've never seen a person here in the US that was on food stamps (welfare) that looked like they were starving. in fact usually they are more obese than rich people.
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Don't be afraid to be weak. Last edited by lostalex; 19-02-2016 at 09:01 AM. |
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19-02-2016, 09:13 AM
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I specifically said that it was different. That's my entire point. And that's why using it as an example to make it seem like modern poverty is "nothing", or even "luxury", is arrogant and completely ignorant to the differences between the two situations.
Its just one big "lol what are people moaning about they are lucky" when they are anything but lucky, and often live miserable existences. |
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19-02-2016, 10:04 AM
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Likes cars that go boom
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It is interesting that the unlike the 40s there is all this new media with which to help shape attitudes. Yet unlike the 40s when confronted with the truth and the reality of situations many aren't compelled as they were then to advocate change.
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19-02-2016, 03:10 PM
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Senior Member
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Our aspirations changed. Most of us believe the worlds our oyster and we all have the opportunity to achieve great things if only we try, therefore, those at the bottom of the pile are the undeserving; the none tryers. If however, we find ourselves in that 'undeserving' category its because policy has put us there and if we find ourselves unsympathetic towards the poor, its the way modern society has been designed. People don't choose to be poor so how do they end up there?
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No longer on this site. Last edited by DemolitionRed; 19-02-2016 at 03:10 PM. |
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19-02-2016, 04:49 PM
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Likes cars that go boom
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Illness/injury, divorce, redundancy, 'restructuring' many are much closer to the breadline than they care to admit.
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19-02-2016, 03:18 PM
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Senior Member
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Whilst our parents and grandparents may of struggled to pay the accumulating tab at their local butchers or greengrocers, in today's Britain, borrowing is far easier. Back in our grandparents or even parents day, credit was small and bank loans were difficult to obtain, so although they were poor, their debts were small.
In modern times even a poor earner can have credit debts amounting to many thousands of pounds and modern day aspirations have ensured a fairly high percentage of people have what could quickly become crippling debt if they had to take a pay cut or god forbid, become unemployed even for a short time. Easy borrowing has allowed most of us to buy the goodies we want. Credit cards, finance agreements, pay day loans and large mortgages are what affords us the big house, the new car, the fancy clothes and a home furnished with every conceivable gadget. We can build our castle on borrowed money, unlike back in the 30s, 40s and 50s when what you had is what you usually owned outright. Now we can appear to have everything whilst having nothing; we can be poor with an outward appearance of being comfortably off. Most of us are okay so long as we can keep borrowing but once our line of credit is cut off, we would quickly fall into the poverty trap. Here’s a question: If our banks were to stop lending money from tomorrow onwards; if all credit, finance and pay day loans and mortgages were to cease which meant people could only buy something if they could pay for it outright, do you think people would adapt? would we all have considerably less in the way of material wealth?
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No longer on this site. |
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19-02-2016, 03:32 PM
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Exactly DR, like I said the situations are entirely different and neither is "better" or "worse", they can't be compared.
As Kirk says, yes, people might have had to bundle up in bed because it was so cold, but how often did they find themselves terrified to leave that bed because of what might be waiting for them next to the letterbox? Fearful of small debt demands that quickly become large amounts, of constant payments to dozens of people, missing just one of which could cause a debt spiral ending in bankruptcy? There's also the element of hope. Kirk describes the "real poverty" of yesteryear, my dad talks about his childhood the same way. He now does pretty well for himself, as does Kirk based on what he's posted. How many children living in modern poverty really have any hope at all of pulling themselves out of that and into a better life? Some will but it's a tiny minority and no, it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with how "hard they work". Generations of families are STUCK in these situations, with little opportunity to work out of it. But they can buy new trainers on their "Very" account and they have central heating so I guess they live lives of plenty. Whoopeedoo. Last edited by user104658; 19-02-2016 at 03:33 PM. |
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19-02-2016, 06:23 PM
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Quand il pleut, il pleut
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..yeah, this for me is the best comparison of 'modern day poverty' to 'back in the day' and something I see all of the time sadly, with many children having their lives almost 'mapped out'...in terms of materialistic things/possessions etc, people had less back in the day because there was less available to have back in the day/things that just didn't even exist...it was a much 'smaller world' before things like overseas travel/holidays became an availability to everyone for instance...now a family holiday to Europe for instance, can be reasonably priced/affordable for all and that's cool and fine for those who aren't on low incomes or are on benefits...which would be 'an equivalent poor to back in the day..'...but the problem is for those who are on low incomes, if that family holiday were to be something that they could consider, then there is a high likelihood that they could only consider it, if they were to go during school times when it's much cheaper....and why shouldn't they go/have that holiday..?..family time together (I think is essential to everyone/regardless of income..)...and a very valuable and important time spent for any family...but if they do go and during the school time, which is the only way it would be affordable, they then have to face fines for doing so, so basically being fined for not being able to afford in the first place/those very people who struggled to be able to afford a holiday, are given another 'debt' to pay/crazy.. if people who aren't on low incomes/parents make the choice of taking their children out of school because 'it's cheaper anyway even with the fine', then they're making a choice to do so..( I still don't think fines should apply though..).. but lower incomes don't have that choice because their choice would be that holidays would be unaffordable to them so they just couldn't have that leisure time with their family... ..it's not about, for most who have low incomes/are on benefits etc, having debt to have nicer 'luxury' things, I don't think either..(and it's all relevant to the present day, because many people also had debt back in the day to buy the larger things or things that were needed but wouldn't have been able to have been afforded outright/children's Christmas gifts etc.. debt in the form of things like Hire Purchase, pay weekly catalogues etc..also those who loaned money for interest...)...it's more about having debt for what's considered basic essentials now...how can for instance, someone look for employment without access to home internet in some form, so that would mean a computer/laptop/tablet etc...they're not 'luxury items'...would we expect someone on a low income to have no TV in their home/have no form of 'entertainment' if it wasn't an option to be affordable to go out... and as the availability of today, is of all flat screen TVs, then that's what a low income/on benefits person will probably have...would we expect them to hand wash nappies if they have children...?../no, of course not so a washing machine becomes an essential/a dryer becomes an essential/for parents working long hours, a microwave becomes an essential etc etc and all things that wouldn't have been available in the 40s but considered essentials of today because yes, a different world and a different world's needs....and of course, some form of central heating/all 'basics' because if these things weren't basic then we really would be sending 'the poor back to the 1940s' really... ..the single biggest expense for most people is the purchase of a house/for those who are fortunate enough to be able to make that purchase... and many more homeowners back in the day, owned their homes outright, with either no mortgage at all or a very small one, so whatever their shortage in other things may have been, they had that 'biggie'/much more affordable...young people today/many young people won't ever have that or they'll have to burden themselves with a huge mortgage to be able to have it/a mortgage that they then are going to be looking at trying to achieve in income to match the debt...we know that there are many older people now who have worked hard all of their lives and come from a childhood of what would have been considered 'poverty' back in the day, but now are in a position of being able to 'downsize' and think about lifestyle changes because they have worked hard all of their lives and have 'built something'...but for those on low incomes/on benefits.. the struggle is to be able to even upsize in the first place/to be able to build anything to even think about the downsizing...it's not even the low incomes either, is it...it's that it's much more difficult today in 2016..(imo..)...than it was back in the day and considering all things of the differences...but as you say, the two are hard to directly compare...I just know that I would rather be me and being me back in my day, than being either of my sons in the here and now and this day...
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19-02-2016, 07:31 PM
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Likes cars that go boom
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Is the discrepancy becoming more apparent, is it evident that most can't afford to buy a home? I'd like to think everyone who has will join those that don't in questioning why it's getting so hard to achieve security in both jobs and living arrangements.
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20-02-2016, 07:39 AM
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Quand il pleut, il pleut
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..for me in my experiences no, it isn't about what would be luxuries in modern society, family holidays/quality of time together which is just as necessary to a child, as school education, children of minimum wage and benefit families having Christmas/Birthday gifts/having a family computer/internet etc...the things that many people go into debt for...rather than to be some kind of aspiring Hyacinth Bucket show lifestyle as was mentioned...maybe we just have different personal experiences of a 'modern day poverty' .../struggling family...and what defines as luxury in the modern day v luxury back in the day...obviously there are always going to be exceptions to everything as well but I don't see a struggling family as aspiring to having a 'show' lifestyle as being a 'norm'.../in my personal experience..
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20-02-2016, 07:47 AM
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Quand il pleut, il pleut
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..oh btw, just a slight off-topic thing...there was a government grant/large subsidy for benefit families/parents to all own a home computer, a while ago..a great idea, we had many parents at our school owning one for the first time... but sadly, only seemed to be a short lived thing, rather than a permanent thing..
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19-02-2016, 04:29 PM
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Senior Member
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We've lived both TS
We had the nice house in the outer suburbs of W London and all the niceties that went with the sort of lifestyle we lived. All those things come with a cost though. We both had to work long hours which meant we never got time to go climbing or sailing. We constantly worried about enough money being in our accounts to pay the right bills at the right time and we constantly fretted about the vulnerability of my husbands job. After two years of him being on anti-depressants he made a joke, he suggested we should just sell up, pay off everything, do up the boat and go off sailing and climbing for a few years. I knew he was being serious, he just never thought I'd be prepared to do that. We had two fantastic years being totally irresponsible. We spent hardly anything because our boats got wind generators, solar panels and a log burning stove. There's a great barter system here in sea gypsy world!, you climb and fix someone's mast and they keep you in baked bread for six months; but I know what its like to be so cold you have to get dressed before you get out of bed in the morning because the fires gone out. I appreciate its tough when you have to be frugal with water and electricity (so lots of candle lit dinners have been had in our humble abode) and I know what its like to run out of fuel half way through cooking and having to hand pump water because the electric ones failed. My parents keep telling us how irresponsible we were to sell up and its time we started bettering ourselves again, but I always tell them, we may have little but we feel like the richest people in the world and now we can afford the time to do all the things we love doing.
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No longer on this site. |
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20-02-2016, 11:26 AM
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Likes cars that go boom
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Poverty is defined regardless of what you or I may define it as, it's a given amount/standard. The query is are attitudes towards the poor similar to in the 40's?
Is the media helping or hindering in their portrayal of those living in poverty? Bet that computer thing was a looong time ago haha.
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20-02-2016, 09:41 PM
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Senior Member
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Its hindering. The media treats those on benefits like the scum they think they are and every time they make an example of them, we get a large amount of collective thinkers, who go online, share the story further and find hundreds, sometimes thousands of people all giving their own condemning opinions. Looking down ones nose at the poor was bound to escalate with the power of the media and social networking groups. I'm sure we've always had Hyacinth Buquet types. I mean, Britain is inherently snobby regardless of class. Inverse snobbery seems to be a thing of the working class but I think its always gone on. In the past though, you just found pockets of snobbery...the foreman who looked down his nose at his labourers, the shop keeper who didn't want those dirty bagabonds in his shop and the mother who told her children not to play with that poor family down the street; but that's as far as it went. The poor were aware of the snobs and because they couldn't then hide their poverty, they avoided those people. Today, people hide their poverty because they know they can't avoid snobbery.
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No longer on this site. Last edited by DemolitionRed; 20-02-2016 at 09:42 PM. |
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