Are you wealthy?

Your disposable wealth means : your savings, your shareholdings and most of the money you have invested in your house (with mortgage and other debts deducted)

THE average disposable wealth available to households in Britain (2006):

London: £81,732

Scotland: £29,274.

Of course, you will find many people in London and in Scotland who have no savings, no shares and no house.

There were 23,351 individual insolvencies in England and Wales in the first quarter of 2006, up 12.9% on the previous quarter.

There were 33.442 possession orders in the first quarter of 2006, a 29% increase on a year earlier, and the highest since the third quarter of 1992. Possession orders are the first stage of mortgage repossessions.

Source of figures: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2095-2168256,00.html

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In the UK, the rich are getting richer. At the same time, there is malnutrition in some parts of the UK.

About two million people in the UK are malnourished, according to the study by the Malnutrition Advisory Group.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3257605.stm

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Between 1990 and 2000, the share of wealth held by the richest 10% of the population rose from 47% to 54%. The wealthiest 1% saw their share leap from 18% to 23%.

http://www.caledonia.org.uk/dorling.htm

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An Indian journalist wrote the following in The Guardian, 27 February 1999:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/saturday_review/story/0,3605,312399,00.html

"Then, suddenly, we were hit by the reality of the poverty surrounding us in Glasgow. Most of the men in Easterhouse hadn't had a job in 20 years. They were dispirited, depressed, and often alcoholic. Their self-esteem had gone. Emotionally and mentally they were far worse off than the poor where we worked in India, even though the physical trappings of poverty were less stark."

"The Easterhouse men ... felt far more hopeless than people in India who scrabbled in garbage heaps to sell scrap metal, paper and rags to feed their children. Both groups were at the bottom of society."

The Indian journalist, Marcel-Thekaekara, was told by a local social worker, Bob Holman, about Third World poverty in Glasgow, including:

malnutrition,

one generation being shorter and weaker than the last,

lack of protein.

Figures from Glasgow:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/mar1999/glas-m10.shtml

* In one school session 32,653 children, 43 percent of the total school population, received free meals at school.

44,102, 58 percent, received grants for clothing.

*Income Support is paid at a poverty level rate of £50.45 a week for a single person over 25.
A young couple receives £60.10. If they are over 25 they get £79.10.

"Social conditions in Glasgow are a direct result of two decades of continual attacks on the working class, supervised by the ruling Labour City Council."

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Scotland should be as rich as Ireland or Norway. Has malnutrition affected the brains of the Scottish voters?

Why do the Scots not kick out all the Labour and Conservative politicians?


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