General Chat

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Begins at home...???

Begins at home

As cold as?

Does it ever sadden you that we in UK have so many charities asking for money,,,,,,from children hospitals to research,,,,,,,then come the overseas,

Is this countries NHS so short of cash that it cant even fully support Great Ormond St Hospital?yet can give £££££££££££££to oversea aid......yet GO beg public for cash,,,,or this gov leaves them to beg for cash,

Hi George - you and I obviously both on same wavelength???

Right on there Kay, think we need to start looking after this country.

I was going to say SNAP ....Julia May...lol

I don't think there is any comparison between our domestic needs, as important as they are, and the enormously overwhelming humanitarian disaster in Haiti.

I've seen others say we should be looking after our own first, but we haven't just had a whole city, economic infrastructure, welfare structure, social collapse following a major earthquake. There are millions of children orphaned, people starving, with no hospitals, no homes, nothing.

This planet is much smaller than it used to be...we are all one world, only oceans divide us. We need to look after those in most need, too bad if they don't live in this country.

Besides, governments have strategic funds set aside for overseas disasters, it's always there. You dont' have to give to Haiti, but how many give to local charities regularly?

I find it highly embarresing that a place like Gt Ormond children Hospital has to ask the public to fund them for some vital equipment to help keep babies and small children alive,,,

I was talking to a Gt O nurse today and they said but for *public funding* ie charity events or donations. they would really struggle for lots of things,and carried out research within the hospital..

Hmm, but we all complain when we're asked to pay more taxes. Where do you think the money comes from that the gov DO spent on the health service?

Teresa, I agree with you on Haiti and other disasters. Why are we not teaching poorer countries how to live better? That our govmnt wastes money, as do local councils, on unnecessary pomp, and does not spend on what is needed is a disgrace.
I give regularly , monthly, to three charities and donate via street collections. As a better off pensioner with no offspring alive it is the least I can do. Better off because my OH is a war pensioner.

If there is a need and if the materials and manpower are available there is no reason why the govt cant 'print' the money, the way the private banks do. I am referring to local needs, not overseas foreign aid.

The only reason they cant is that the private banks would kick up a fuss because they werent able to get interest out of the loans that they would have made to the govt.

Mustnt do the poor private banks out of their interest 'earnings' must we.

Huia.

Sad as it is that Gt Ormond St and Uk charities need cash ...no child dies in this country from a lack of safe water to drink, no child dies of hunger ( unless that is inflicted by the parents) , no child dies from earthquakes.....



" More than 70 per cent of almost 11 million child deaths every year are attributable to six causes: diarrhoea, malaria, neonatal infection, pneumonia, preterm delivery, or lack of oxygen at birth.

These deaths occur mainly in the developing world. An Ethiopian child is 30 times more likely to die by his or her fifth birthday than a child in Western Europe. Among deaths in children, South-central Asia has the highest number of neonatal deaths, while sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rates. Two-thirds of deaths occur in just 10 countries.

And the majority are preventable. Some of the deaths occur from illnesses like measles, malaria or tetanus. Others result indirectly from marginalization, conflict and HIV/AIDS. Malnutrition and the lack of safe water and sanitation contribute to half of all these children’s deaths."

a child is a child, wherever it is born...ours have a much better chance of surviving...

I suppose I think, there IS enough money in the UK , not spent wisely enough by government, and if I am honest nor by me...the internet connection I pay for each month could save I don't know how many lives..what is it? 10p to provide a sachet of sugar/ salt that will prevent a child with diarrhoea becoming fatally de-hydrated?

from Unicef....which answers one of jean's questions
"Why are we not teaching poorer countries how to live better?"

"In Vietnam, child mortality dropped by about 40% after 30,000 people were trained as health workers and paid to treat people in their own villages, Unicef said. "

The same is happening elsewhere...it just doesn't make the news

Teahcing poorer countries how to live better?

If only it were that simple, but what would help a great deal, is if we were to wipe out world debt. Poorer countries were given money by the World Bank (funded by the western world) as long ago in some cases as 1948, but at exhorbitantly high interest. None of them have yet been able to pay the interest, let alone the amount borrowed. Yet they pay back huge amounts year on year. What do we do about it? Nothing, we let them suffer poverty as a country, that's ok as long as we get our money back.

How do they pay? By using good farm land for cash crops such as cocoa and coffee, cotton, peanuts, all used by the west and absolutely no good whatsoever to the fmaily living on that land. they get to exist on a few grains of maize or rice they can grow in the less useful land. The price of the cash crops is dictated by the multinational corporations, and kept artificially low.

If we paid the true cost of a bar of chocolate, it would truly be a luxury item afforded only by the most well off. We wouldn't drink half the coffee we do, we'd think twice about buying cotton products, and we certainly wouldn't have the flood of McDonalds burgers made by cattle fed on peanuts for their high carbohydrate and calorie content.

Wipe out world debt, let those countries have those billions of dollars they pay back every year to put back into their own economy, and they will begin to live better, and they do have every right to live better.

And so I support Fair Trade products - sometimes they cost slightly more but I can afford that. But the producer (of coffee, cocoa, bananas and many other products) gets a fair rate of pay for the produce. Plus, a premium is paid to the village and the village must collectively decide what to spend it on - such as clean water supplies, roads, schools, healthcare etc. Democracy in action.
I'm reminded of something I read ages ago about giving people aid in terms of food to eat or giving them the tools to go out and catch/grow their own food. Which is preferable?
Our Government has plans afoot to "snatch" all of the charitable donations raised by members of the public and use them to prop up the failing NHS system. So for example, people who might raise funds in support of breast cancer care in memory of a loved on who has died, will find their donations sucked into the general funds of NHS. Similarly, National Lottery funding, originally set up to support "good causes" is increasingly being used to support such things as NHS and education. Do we believe that this is right?

I do think that poverty is relative - in this country if a child is living without a tv and pc they are considered to be in poverty. But what of those children growing up without access to clean drinking water, immunisation programmes and basic education?

I think many people miss the point about money. Thousands of years ago it did not exist, but people got on quite well without it. As society became more complex money was invented to simplify the exchange of goods and services. The person providing the goods and services created the money to an equal value of the g & s which they were providing. Then the private banks took over and started charging high interest rates to use 'their' money. They do NOT lend their depositors money. Any loans are in fact new money which the bank has created out of thin air.

Huia.

It should be the job of the government to create any new money to ensure that there is an equal balance between the value of goods and services and manpower available and the amount of money for using them.

Huia.