As lots of folk in the UK look at Greece and say that it won't happen
here, perhaps a closer look at some of the figures for the UK might
make them think again. We as a country are just holding on with our
finger tips, it will not take much to push us over the edge and have
us in the same scenario as the Greek people are living through.
These figures may be a month or so behind the times but nothing that
has happened in the interim makes them less alarming. This from the
right-wing pro-business class newspaper The Telegraph, January 4:
Almost one million Britons have taken out an emergency 'payday' loan to help pay their rent or mortgage in the last year, according to Shelter, the housing charity. The high degree of borrowing highlights the 'spiral of debt' that people are falling into to keep a roof over their head, Shelter said. The charity also found that seven million Britons are relying on some form of credit to help pay their housing costs. Campbell Robb, Shelter’s chief executive, said: 'These shocking findings show the extent to which millions of households across the country are desperately struggling to keep their home.'
Taking
out a loan-shark Payday loan to pay your mortgage/rent, is pretty
desperate stuff. This conceals a major problem in our economy just
one blip and homelessness will rocket, and with unemployment rising
fast that blip can't be too far off.
Another
quote from The Telegraph on January 9:
Around six million households would be unable to survive for more than five days if they stopped being paid, such are the low levels of savings among Britons, new research shows. A new report from First Direct, the bank, warns that one in three UK households have less than £250 in accessible savings. A fifth of all households have no savings at all. The bank said that £250 is the equivalent of three days’average monthly household take-home pay. With average monthly outgoing currently at £1,536, these savings would last just five days.
The
system is bust, normally capitalism brings extreme wealth to a few,
some reasonable living for quite a few, and poverty and struggle for
the many. Now as we move deeper into corporate fascism with the
financial Mafia in complete control, the system produces unbelievable
stratospheric wealth for even fewer, a reasonable living for the
managers of the system and grinding deprivation for the vast
majority. The unelected corporate fascists rule the world. Those who produce all that wealth never get a smell of it,
the system is set up to syphon the wealth up the way. So forget
changing the government, the party, the President or what ever, it is
the system that we have to change.