Here we are in the UK, one of the richest countries in the world, with our lords and masters spouting how we are not like Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain. We are told that we are managing our affairs much better than those so called "PIIGS". However, in spite of our "good management" recent figures from KPMG tell us that 1 in 5 people in work in the UK don't receive a living wage, that equates to 4.82 million working people not getting enough to meet a decent standard of living.
It varies from occupation to occupation, with bar staff having a staggering 90% not receiving a living wage and waitresses and waiters not far behind with 4 out 5 trying to get by, receiving less than the living wage. Outside London the living wage is set at £7:20 an hour and our parasitical employers can't even match that. The KPMG survey also found that 4 out 10 surveyed, stated that they were financially worse off than a month ago. The union Unite research shows that on average, people are being force to borrow £325 a month to pay for essentials such as food and housing.
That is the state of affairs at the moment and there are more "austerity" measures coming down the line to hit the poorest and most vulnerable. We are not a poor country, we can afford to fight 11 year wars costing billions of pounds, support and upgrade a nuclear fleet costing more billions of pounds. Our parasitical "chiefs" of industry can afford to pay themselves millions in bonuses and pensions, we can afford to throw billions of pounds at the corrupt banking system, whose bosses continue to pay themselves millions in bonuses, salaries and pensions.
We can afford a decent life for everybody in this country, it is just that system is set up to siphon the wealth up to that small army of leeches that sit with their sweaty little hands on the control levers. Until we sort that out we will continue to be screwed, we will continue to see ever increasing numbers of ordinary people slip into ever increasing deprivation. It is not the lack of wealth and resources that is the problem, it is the stinking exploitive unjust greed driven system that is the problem.
