What does “austerity” mean, or what should it mean? You would
imagine “austerity” would mean a doing without the luxuries, a
little tightening of the belt, but does this financial Mafia's
variety of “austerity” fit that description? This brand of
“austerity” means abject poverty for families the length and
breadth of the land. In England, since the 2008 “crisis”,
malnutrition treated in NHS hospitals has almost doubled. Diagnoses
of malnutrition in England rose from 3,161 in 2008/09 to an criminal
5,499 in 2012. This has been driven by wages being frozen/cut, while
the cost of food and heating have rocketed. Add to this the various
benefit cuts, bedroom tax, ATOS attack on the disabled, and it
becomes very clear that this “austerity” is a vicious attack the
living standards of the general population.
Oxfam, that organisation that we see as a charity for those poor
countries, stated that, in the UK, "increasing desperation to avoid starvation
in one of the world’s richest and unequal countries has seen the
number of visits to food banks rise to around half a million a year."
The Trussell Trust, the UK's
largest food bank operator, has seen the number of those receiving
food parcels rise from approximately 26,000 in 2008, to more than
350,000 in the past five years. UK director of Trussell Trust has
stated that, “It’s not surprising that rates of
malnutrition have also increased. We see people coming to food banks
who’ve gone without food for days.”
Poverty and debt go hand in
hand, as people get desperate in their struggle for survival, they
are more likely to run up more debt. The average UK household debt is
£54,000, that is close to twice the level of a decade ago. Personal
debt in the UK's is almost 94% of the total UK economic output for
2012, a mind boggling £1.43 trillion. Lots of people are failing to
manage that debt and are suffering in many ways, cutting down on food
and heating. Interest rates are set to rise, when that happens,
thousands more who are at the moment barely coping will start to sink
into the mire of poverty and deprivation. With poverty comes health
problems, both mental and physical, families and relationships start
to strain and break.
This is the true meaning of
“austerity”, it is not a slight drop in your luxuries, a little
bit of inconvenience, as you miss a night at the movies. It is mind
crushing stress, it is malnutrition, it is health problems, it is
watching your family disintegrate, it is seeing your kids future
being stunted and their potential obliterated. It is living with the
reality or the fear of homelessness, for what? To sort out a bunch of
financial parasites' gambling mess, while they continue to live in
the lap of unearned and undeserved luxury. That's capitalism. Do you
want it? If not, what are we going to do about it?
Cum'awn, dae sumthin'
Visit ann arky's home at
www.radicalglasgow.me.uk
