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.
