The mantra of shared sacrifice ignores the reality that most workers already have sacrificed -- in reduced wages, lost savings, fallen home values. The question now should be: Who pays the tab for the mess created by Wall Street excesses? The “shared” sacrifice of austerity saddles the most vulnerable with the bill. The capitalist class gets bailed out while the vast majority get unemployment and cuts in education, government services, retirement benefits and healthcare. When the press and politicians refer to the markets, they are really talking about the greedy, faceless capitalist speculators who are right now, at this very moment, making a profit from the tragedy of other fellow human beings. The money that was previously used to pay for special care, salaries, pensions, and mortgages did not vanish into thin air. That money just changed hands, emptying some pockets while filling out others. Corporate-controlled media have succeeded in convincing many that the main culprit for the crisis lies with none other than those who were in receipt of government money, either as welfare benefits recipients or state-employees.
Almost 7 million working-age adults are living in extreme financial stress, one small push from penury, despite being in employment and largely independent of state support, according to the Guardian. The fact that 2.2 million children live in households on an economic cliff-edge challenges coalition claim people are better off in work. 3.6 million British households have little or no savings, nor equity in their homes, and struggle at the end of each month to feed themselves and their children adequately. They say they are unable to cope on their current incomes and have no assets to fall back on, leaving them vulnerable to something as simple as an unexpectedly large fuel bill. People in work were increasingly turning to charities for help, Oxfam said, with thousands more accessing food banks this year than last.
Alison Garnham, chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group commented "Politicians often talk about people being poor because they've made the wrong choices in life. The truth is that six in ten poor children have a working parent - a child growing up in poverty is much more likely to have a parent who's a cleaner or a care worker than one who's an alcoholic, a drug addict or too lazy to work."
Salaries have not kept pace with inflation. Since this recession hit, wages have sunk well below the cost of living. Some people work part-time because they want to, ie those who have familiy to care for. But the number of people working part-time because they have to and because they cannot get a full-time job is at the highest level ever - 1.4m people, or 18% of all people working part-time. Unsecured personal debt such has credit cards had been going down have started to rise again. Work longer than your dad, and retire on less - that was the Father's Day message
Even a Labour Party supporter of the likes of Ralph Miliband, father of the current Labour Party leader could write that "The history of reform under capitalism shows it to have been a very partial response to specific 'problems', and to have remained constrained by the logic of capital. Far from seeking to achieve radical cures, conservative governments have viewed reform as a means of preventing radical transformation from occurring by buying social peace with concessions." (Socialism for a Sceptical Age)
Almost 7 million working-age adults are living in extreme financial stress, one small push from penury, despite being in employment and largely independent of state support, according to the Guardian. The fact that 2.2 million children live in households on an economic cliff-edge challenges coalition claim people are better off in work. 3.6 million British households have little or no savings, nor equity in their homes, and struggle at the end of each month to feed themselves and their children adequately. They say they are unable to cope on their current incomes and have no assets to fall back on, leaving them vulnerable to something as simple as an unexpectedly large fuel bill. People in work were increasingly turning to charities for help, Oxfam said, with thousands more accessing food banks this year than last.
Alison Garnham, chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group commented "Politicians often talk about people being poor because they've made the wrong choices in life. The truth is that six in ten poor children have a working parent - a child growing up in poverty is much more likely to have a parent who's a cleaner or a care worker than one who's an alcoholic, a drug addict or too lazy to work."
Salaries have not kept pace with inflation. Since this recession hit, wages have sunk well below the cost of living. Some people work part-time because they want to, ie those who have familiy to care for. But the number of people working part-time because they have to and because they cannot get a full-time job is at the highest level ever - 1.4m people, or 18% of all people working part-time. Unsecured personal debt such has credit cards had been going down have started to rise again. Work longer than your dad, and retire on less - that was the Father's Day message
Even a Labour Party supporter of the likes of Ralph Miliband, father of the current Labour Party leader could write that "The history of reform under capitalism shows it to have been a very partial response to specific 'problems', and to have remained constrained by the logic of capital. Far from seeking to achieve radical cures, conservative governments have viewed reform as a means of preventing radical transformation from occurring by buying social peace with concessions." (Socialism for a Sceptical Age)
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