Not A Hope In Hell.

       Europe is a rich capitalist continent, it is a big slice of the developed world, and yet visit any country in that continent and poverty is rife and growing. If capitalism can't eradicate poverty in its richest and most developed areas, what chance is there of poverty being tackled in the poorer areas. No matter which country you pick, take Germany, Europe's biggest economy, held up as an example to the rest of Europe. In this paragon of capitalist efficiency, 15.5% live below the poverty line and would be nearer 25% if it was not for public assistance, (2010 figures but have increased since then), while child poverty has doubled since 2004.
 

        France, Europe's second biggest economy, sets another fine example of capitalist efficiency with youth unemployment at 26% and rising, and 23% of 18 to 24 year olds living in poverty, on top of that, there are approximately 11 million people in France living in poverty. In that second biggest economy there are 2 million people living on less than €640 a month.
 

       Here in the UK we have 3.6 million children living in poverty, that's 27% of all children. In some local council areas the figure is in Third World realms with 50% to 70%. My own local area of Springburn in Glasgow has 52% of children living in poverty. Poverty in the UK has seen the number of people seeking help at food banks soar by 170% from 2010 to 2013, the number is put at over 500,000 people needing a hand out with their food. 28% of adults state that they scrimp on food to feed others in the family.

 

      Italy, has millions too poor to heat their homes and almost 2 million children living in poverty, the highest child poverty % in the 25 European nations. In May, Italy's National Statistics Institute, (ISTAT) stated that 25% of Italians were heading towards deprivation, while the number already living in poverty has doubled in the last two years. The ISTAT report also found that 14.3% of the population was seriously deprived in 2012 up from 6.9% in 2010. It also stated that 14.9% were heading towards poverty.
 

        Spain, 27% unemployment, those under 25 and not studying the figure for unemployment is 57%. If you move south in Spain the unemployment reaches 40% in some areas. 1.9 million households have no breadwinner, 10% of the population have had no work for two years or more and 3 million live in extreme poverty with less than €3,650 a year, and a further 3 million get by on less than €7,300 a year.

 

        All of these figures are dwarfed when we visit Greece which has taken a full frontal attack from the financial Mafia that rule the European capitalist world.

       For the whole of Europe the unemployment rate is a little over 17%, that is approximately 84 million people can't find work in Europe. If the rich developed heart of capitalism carries so much poverty, and the misery that goes along with that poverty, only an idiot would believe capitalism can solve the problems of the ordinary people. There is not a hope in hell that capitalism can eradicate poverty in any country, it was not intended to, it was a system devised to make the business class rich and that is what it will do until we the people dismantle this exploitative and repressive system of injustice and greed.

ann arky's home.

GET OLDER, SUFFER POVERTY.

            One way to measure a civilised country is to look at how it cares for its most vulnerable citizens. First we should remember that in spite of all the crap poured out by our millionaire lords and masters, this country is a very rich country. As we get older we take our place among the vulnerable, so how does Britain, a modern rich country, care for its elderly? Well British pensioners are among the poorest in Europe, in this country more than two million older people are at risk of poverty. In 2010 21.4% of elderly British were classed as being at risk of poverty, dwarfing the European average of 15.9%. The only nations in Europe who treated their elderly worse were Cyprus with 45.2%, followed by Bulgaria at 32.3%, then Spain at 21.7%. We are shamed by such figures as Hungary 4.1%, the Netherlands, 5.9% and Luxembourg, 5.9%. Of course it is not just the elderly that are at risk of poverty in this country. In 2010, 10.7 million people, 17.1% of the population, were at the risk of poverty, where as the European average is 16.4%. So all the nonsense pumped out by the media and the establishment, that we in this country are better off than everybody else is bullshit. What these figures show is that almost a sixth of the entire population of Europe is living with the risk of poverty and that risk rises as we get older. This is the best that capitalism can do, from this dismal position, thanks to the “austerity”, “deficit reduction” plans, we are heading in a downward direction. The system can only deliver poverty for millions while the financial Mafia grow fatter on salaries that have shown a 51% increase in the last couple of years. I find it strange that we tolerate a system that hands astronomical bonuses to parasitical fat-cats and sinks the rest of the population into Victorian deprivation. It doesn't take much imagination to come up with a system that would see to the needs of all our people, but first we have to get the fat-cats and the parasitical financial Mafia off our backs. Shed that burden and we are almost there.

ann arky's home.