http://news.sky.com/story/1133696/jamie ... t-eat-junk

Now context is very important there, but a large TV hasn't cost much for some years.

We're a country that heats things up - we generally don't give a crap what it does to us* and I doubt you can really make a distinction in that regard between the poor and... who, exactly?

* I know some do

But isn't this capitalism at work? Buy a huge ass TV and then buy your meals so you watch TV whilst you eat?

The poorest families are often on benefits. If they were food vouchers instead of money, things might turn out differently.

Jamie Oliver, you haven't tasted real poverty. Cut out the tutting

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... y-meals-tv

Children in Africa scrabbling for saleable junk in a filthy rubbish tip is poverty not the First World version we have in the West.

Not necessarily. The same happens in the US where they have food stamps.

He has a point.
Whenever you see people on the news whinging that their benefits are too low, there's usually a huge TV, sky box and a packet of fags in the background.

The same over here. The Hertz IV people sit there in front of a 50" TV, drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes, whilst the commentator days they can't afford food or clothing! Stop [LIFTED] smoking and boozing you [LIFTED] morons!

Yes it is a matter of screwed up priorities. Though a big TV is not that expensive now. Mine was 32" and less than £300. If you are unemployed and have little money then sitting in front of the Tv all day does sort of fill up the time. If you watch Sky TV all day it can work out reasonable value on a per hour basis. Though I would rather not spend £60 a month on TV. I still cannot be persuaded to spend £8 on a movie streaming service.

Also junk food is subsidised. Look at how cheap many processed foods are. Apparently the supermarkets now assess people social class by the amounts of fresh food and ingredients they have in the shopping basket. More home baking products puts you higher up the social class. The more ready meals the lower the social class.

When I worked at the DHSS, if there was a child under a certain age, you'd add milk tokens to the payment. We could also hand out food vouchers instead of cash if there was concern that, say, a child would otherwise not get fed properly.

My supervisor liked giving food vouchers to the alcoholic street wanderers, which, as you may guess, was not popular.

I think that these people could do with more help. Such as help preparing decent meals though the lack of cooking class facilities at schools might be a root cause of the problem with inadequate nutrition.

The problem is that while some will divert the money to booze and fags many do what is right and so by scapegoating everyone with food vouchers will only punish those who do as well as they can.

In Germany, you have to have a TV, well, if you have a TV, they can't take it away if you owe money. The courts will send a bailiff round and they will remove valuable items to cover debt, but the cooker, fridge and TV, among other things, count as essentials that cannot be seized to pay off debt.

What they can do though, is if you have a big-ass TV, say a 50" 3D LCD TV, they can replace it with a bog standard, second hand TV with a smaller screen E.g. they'll seize the 50" and leave you with a 20" CRT TV.

BrightPoint & the catalogues (that you can pay off weekly) only sell flatscreen TV's (& the difference between a 50" & 20" TV on weekly terms is penny's).

I did not get maintenance loan as a student and therefore, despite working part time nearly 20h a week, was piss poor during all of my degree (finishing the month with less than £5 for the week, having to chose between busfare and food).
Just managed because my boss let me take away the wasted sandwiches at the end of the day and eating whatever sainsbury's had marked down to 20p (scotch eggs, sandwich fillers etc).

It was a horrible time to be honest and it ruined my health, I put on 2st in just over a year and the stress levels were terrible.
The lack of social life was also terrible. When all my classmates were out drinking and clubbing I was working or sleeping off the added strain from doing 50 + h weeks.

Also lumbering you with higher electricity bills. My 32" LCD TV uses 60 watts where as the CRT TV it replaced used 150 watts.

Also I thought that Germans hated debts so such an occurrence would be rare?

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Jamie Oliver: Migrants are tougher workers

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23860811

Did it ever occur to him that the migrants maybe don't have much choice, where the natives have a bit more freedom in that sense? I dread going to work in an office, it's all relative ffs.