Food poverty-the way out

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Mick F
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Re: Food poverty-the way out

Post by Mick F »

Mick F wrote: 13 May 2022, 10:41am Hi guys, I expected it would be by letter. No doubt with a cheque counterfoil like we get from Western Power Distribution for the two poles on our land as rental. Also, when we had extended periods of the water supply being off, Southwest Water wrote enclosing a cheque by way of compensation.

As for direct debits, we have two.
One for Netflix and one for Toyota insurance (roadside/home-start/recovery/assistance)

Everything else, I pay online directly from our current account. The way I see it, if we're on the bones of our wotsits, we would be in control, and not at the mercy of a direct debit.

We're Band B. Small two bedroom bungalow.
Received a letter today.
Remember, I pay online every month. No DD and we pay ten months a year, getting Feb and March free.

There's a link to register, and to include your council tax number.
It then asks you to input your firsts name(s) and surname, and your address and postcode.

It was the name bit, and the postcode bit that kept getting knocked back.
I filled it in as requested, but they have my first name as two initials, and they have our old postcode.
Correcting that, they were happy, then they asked for the bank details.
Our bank has the correct names, and the correct postcode, so it took a little while to sort it out.

Nice to get £150 but our council tax is £1,615 a year, so it doesn't even pay for one month, welcome though it is.
Mick F. Cornwall
Carlton green
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Re: Food poverty-the way out

Post by Carlton green »

axel_knutt wrote: 21 May 2022, 2:35pm
Carlton green wrote: 21 May 2022, 7:38amAh, ghg, Green House Gas.

There’s immediacy and there’s immediacy, there’s what’s happening to me now and there’s what’s supposed to be happening to me in the future, there’s tangible (like receiving an electric shock) and there’s intangible (like knowing electricity is dangerous). Most of us are very fortunate in that we can envisage a time when our children and grandchildren will be badly effected by climate change, but for many other people their immediate struggle is getting by this week and the future is a place that they can only hope to reach.

As for most of us fortunate people the negative results of ghg await us down the road. However war, famine, collapsed economies and pestilence are all just over the horizon too … and should Putin press his red button then we’ll have immediacy well beyond today’s rightful climate concerns. The single most important metric is ghg? Well, believe that if you wish but I’d call that unhelpfully simplistic.
This is why I'm convinced climate change never will be fixed.

People will carry on consuming too much until civilisation collapses, and every step of the way down that slope it will always be tomorrow's problem. People who've just lost everything in a storm/wildfire/tsunami will be looking for food and shelter, not worrying about turning up for work at a solar panel factory or putting up windfarms.
I’m inclined to think the opposite in that whilst folk will deal with the immediate problems they also have in mind the longer term future. It’s a future than holds multiple problems all of which also have to be negotiated. Saying that climate change is the only issue of importance has, IMHO, no validity; saying that climate change is a massive issue that must be managed would, IMHO, be both true and subtly different from the first statement.

Anyway, this is all thread drift. For the longer term food poverty will only be avoided with population management - but not Chinese style. For the immediate term world peace is important - I’d support more active support of the Ukrainian people - and so is growing the food that your country consumes rather than relying on the changing whims and manipulations of world trade.
Don’t fret, it’s OK to: ride a simple old bike; ride slowly, walk, rest and admire the view; ride off-road; ride in your raincoat; ride by yourself; ride in the dark; and ride one hundred yards or one hundred miles. Your bike and your choices to suit you.
Ben@Forest
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Re: Food poverty-the way out

Post by Ben@Forest »

Carlton green wrote: 21 May 2022, 4:34pm Anyway, this is all thread drift. For the longer term food poverty will only be avoided with population management - but not Chinese style. For the immediate term world peace is important - I’d support more active support of the Ukrainian people - and so is growing the food that your country consumes rather than relying on the changing whims and manipulations of world trade.
That's just what people won't discuss though - it's the elephant in the room. We need a smaller global population and a smaller population in the UK, especially if anyone is seriously thinking not only about greater self-sufficiency but also retaining enough habitat for other species - not just the human race. There was a review of a new George Monbiot book about trying to solve the world's ecological crisis in the Sunday Times last week; it got a good review - but it was pointed out that in 350 pages the human population problem isn't addressed once.
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simonineaston
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Re: Food poverty-the way out

Post by simonineaston »

We need a smaller global population
We can think what we want. Plenty of us think a whole lot of things. Like I said earlier, nothing we think or say or do, matters one tiny jot. Folks find it hard to accept the simple truth - that we are nothing, just an irritant... We will soon be gone. Dry, dessicated bones, picked clean by 'roach and rat.
S
(on the look out for Armageddon, on board a Brompton nano & ever-changing Moultons)
Carlton green
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Re: Food poverty-the way out

Post by Carlton green »

Ben@Forest wrote: 21 May 2022, 5:11pm
Carlton green wrote: 21 May 2022, 4:34pm Anyway, this is all thread drift. For the longer term food poverty will only be avoided with population management - but not Chinese style. For the immediate term world peace is important - I’d support more active support of the Ukrainian people - and so is growing the food that your country consumes rather than relying on the changing whims and manipulations of world trade.
That's just what people won't discuss though - it's the elephant in the room. We need a smaller global population and a smaller population in the UK, especially if anyone is seriously thinking not only about greater self-sufficiency but also retaining enough habitat for other species - not just the human race. There was a review of a new George Monbiot book about trying to solve the world's ecological crisis in the Sunday Times last week; it got a good review - but it was pointed out that in 350 pages the human population problem isn't addressed once.
Yes, it’s very much the Elephant in the room and to my mind it’s blinkered and bonkers not to discuss it. I don’t favour the Chinese approach to population management, but at least they understood that they had an overpopulation problem. The good news is that given the means to manage good health, longevity and the size of their family people of all races mostly choose to do so. So one way of avoiding long term food poverty is to help other people to live better and to be secure with fewer people in their family.

Of course managing that Elephant doesn’t help today’s issues much but discussion and consensus might help tomorrow’s. I’ve said elsewhere that IMHO the UK is massively overpopulated, basically we should be able to feed ourselves with what we can grown ourselves but we’re not remotely able to do that.
Don’t fret, it’s OK to: ride a simple old bike; ride slowly, walk, rest and admire the view; ride off-road; ride in your raincoat; ride by yourself; ride in the dark; and ride one hundred yards or one hundred miles. Your bike and your choices to suit you.
pete75
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Re: Food poverty-the way out

Post by pete75 »

reohn2 wrote: 21 May 2022, 1:24pm
pete75 wrote: 21 May 2022, 12:06pm
reohn2 wrote: 20 May 2022, 11:09pm

Exactly!
The cost of living isn't just food(as I was pointing out up thread),are the poor only to drink water,use dockleaves for toilet paper.
And,heaven forbid,they want a pet too?
To quote Samuel Johnson again "Life is a pill which none of us can bear to swallow without gilding; yet for the poor we delight in stripping it still barer, and are not ashamed to shew even visible displeasure, if ever the bitter taste is taken from their mouths."
+1 I nearly replied with a +1 to the full quote in your previous post.

Fingers point to the poor so often as the rich laugh all the way to the bank in the full knowledge their plans to become even more rich are working!

The poor fools are those who continue to fall for the rhetoric and lies by voting for more of the same!

And there's a fair few of those on this forum or maybe their views is I'm alright and damn the rest - true Conservatives following the party ideology.
'Give me my bike, a bit of sunshine - and a stop-off for a lunchtime pint - and I'm a happy man.' - Reg Baker
Jdsk
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Re: Food poverty-the way out

Post by Jdsk »

Carlton green wrote: 21 May 2022, 5:43pmOf course managing that Elephant doesn’t help today’s issues much but discussion and consensus might help tomorrow’s.
Two suggestions that might help in not ignoring the elephant:

1 Separate those ideas about world population from the immediate problems of food poverty in the UK. A thread on "Population size" with or without the UK in the Subject would be a good place to discuss them. And I'd join in.

2 If you're proposing a radically different economic model then try and answer questions about it rather than dismissing them or criticising the metric.

These are meant constructively.

Jonathan
Jdsk
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Re: Food poverty-the way out

Post by Jdsk »

Jdsk wrote: 19 May 2022, 1:21pmPractical solutions:
Higher personal taxation, fiscal redistribution and higher state benefits delivered more quickly
Increased minimum wage
Lower trade barriers and lower barriers to employment of foreign workers, reducing the cost of food and wastage of crops and livestock, and increasing GDP
Lower trade barriers increasing GDP
Massive increase in eligibility for free school meals
Consistent long-term food polices including taxation on harmful foods in line with the evidence from other countries
Regional policies that support local employment and reduce the need for benefits

All achievable if that's what we want. Or we can increase social disparities and increase food and fuel poverty if that's what we want.
A Conservative party politician's think tank supports... one bit of one:

"While the decision to cut the UC taper in the Autumn Budget put £1,000 back into the pockets of 1.9 million households, much of its value will be wiped out by inflation. And it will do nothing to protect those who are not in work. With UC only uprated by 3.1 per cent in April, those who rely on welfare for their income will experience a 7 per cent cut. To prevent this, the Chancellor and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions should implement an emergency in-year uprating, bringing UC into line with inflation to ensure it covers the true cost of living."
https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org. ... the-crisis

Jonathan
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Cugel
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Re: Food poverty-the way out

Post by Cugel »

simonineaston wrote: 21 May 2022, 5:22pm
We need a smaller global population
We can think what we want. Plenty of us think a whole lot of things. Like I said earlier, nothing we think or say or do, matters one tiny jot. Folks find it hard to accept the simple truth - that we are nothing, just an irritant... We will soon be gone. Dry, dessicated bones, picked clean by 'roach and rat.
Can I book a rat to eat my leftovers? In truth I'd rather leave my leavings to a wandering dog but they might have been obliterated by the mammal pop-crash too.

I did read that all of us, when we die & rot, are firstly consumed by what used to be our helpful microbe population. They go from aiding your digestion to digesting you from the inside out, the rascals! Just because you're dead!! The cheek!!!

Alternatively, we could go the Soylent Green route. Who will volunteer first to leap into the hopper down which the chopping and mincing apparatus churns? It can't be me as leaping is too much, these days. Also, I am past my "best eaten by" date. On the other hand, I could gladly compose a list of possible hopper-fodder....... .

An even easier solution would be to allow the consumption of long pig. There could be an issue of licenses for the hunting of 'em, along with a draw of randomly selected long pig hunting areas. After bagging one (or even two) we could drape them over our crossbars, to take home and barbecue, smacking our lips in anticipation of the feast.

Cugel, not as delicious as I once was.
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
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Mick F
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Re: Food poverty-the way out

Post by Mick F »

al_yrpal wrote: 20 May 2022, 9:37am Lamb is now horrendously expensive. Yesterday I bought two pork chops from our family butcher for £4.04, and 4 small lamb chops of the same overall weight and they cost £8.36...double!
I bought two rather nice lamb steaks from Lidl yesterday.
£4.79 for 310g .................... in fact I paid £3.35 because they were short dated. I will be scoffing them later today.
Mick F. Cornwall
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al_yrpal
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Re: Food poverty-the way out

Post by al_yrpal »

Yes Mick, the lamb chops were a bit of a treat from the family butcher and weighed 525g. But, I would expect that Lidls pork chops would cost roughly half what you paid. We usually shop at Aldi but occasionally shop at the butcher because his stuff is so nice. I would be interested to know why there is such a price difference. Is it because of the number of hands lamb passes through or a more legitimate reason?

Al
Reuse, recycle, thus do your bit to save the planet.... Get stuff at auctions, Dump, Charity Shops, Facebook Marketplace, Ebay, Car Boots. Choose an Old House, and a Banger ..... And cycle as often as you can......
thirdcrank
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Re: Food poverty-the way out

Post by thirdcrank »

AIUI, all sorts of things affect retail prices. Re meat, a couple of years ago I had a chat with a traditional butcher in Armley, Leeds and he explained he'd recently bought half a carcase of beef, the other half going to a butcher in Ilkley. The Ilkley half was going to be sold retail at twice the price of the Armley half, just because the business costs in Ilkley were so much higher that in Leeds 12. He did say that they were both amazed at what high prices farm shops charged, especially with fewer costs.
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PedallingSquares
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Re: Food poverty-the way out

Post by PedallingSquares »

Mick F wrote: 22 May 2022, 8:27am
al_yrpal wrote: 20 May 2022, 9:37am Lamb is now horrendously expensive. Yesterday I bought two pork chops from our family butcher for £4.04, and 4 small lamb chops of the same overall weight and they cost £8.36...double!
I bought two rather nice lamb steaks from Lidl yesterday.
£4.79 for 310g .................... in fact I paid £3.35 because they were short dated. I will be scoffing them later today.
The Lamb Shanks I bought were £5.86-£5.98 each from Morrisons :| I would imagine they'd be more expensive at any of our local butchers.They were very nice though 8)
It would probably have worked out cheaper to buy a half leg of Lamb!
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simonineaston
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Re: Food poverty-the way out

Post by simonineaston »

Lamb is now horrendously expensive.
Just wait 'till everything is horribly expensive... it'll be just like living in a third world country.
Coming to a store near you, real soon.
S
(on the look out for Armageddon, on board a Brompton nano & ever-changing Moultons)
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al_yrpal
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Re: Food poverty-the way out

Post by al_yrpal »

Inflation and fuel and other increases will no doubt work through into higher food prices but 'horrendous' seems to be a bit of a stretch.

Al
Reuse, recycle, thus do your bit to save the planet.... Get stuff at auctions, Dump, Charity Shops, Facebook Marketplace, Ebay, Car Boots. Choose an Old House, and a Banger ..... And cycle as often as you can......
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