tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172766774137902766.post8651574616739141077..comments2023-12-23T09:28:20.869+00:00Comments on The View from Cullingworth: Sin and the price of fish - tax, inflation and the poorUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172766774137902766.post-45068175176764769382011-06-14T18:09:44.626+01:002011-06-14T18:09:44.626+01:00"...one of the main reasons gas, electricity ...<i>"...one of the main reasons gas, electricity and food are so expensive is that the price has been artificially inflated to serve an alleged environmental agenda."</i><br /><br />Prepay meter users often pay much higher charges than billed users of gas and leccy.<br />As for shopping, well if you are single, poor and a non driver then going to your local asda, lidl or aldi may be a bit of trek. Taking public transport and lugging 3/4 carrier bags of stuff around seems to be too much hassle as, for example, frozen food may start to melt on the way back, taking a taxi there and back will bring the pricing into alignment with the local, more expensive, shops.<br /><br />It's just the way it is. It doesn't mean there aren't poor people who are lazy (There are).<br />But aren't there lazy people in all sectors of the community?A Poor point of view....noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9172766774137902766.post-85568156262526277452011-06-14T17:41:12.563+01:002011-06-14T17:41:12.563+01:00First, thanks for quoting from my blog! I think th...First, thanks for quoting from my blog! I think the connection between the cost of nutritious food and inflation is obvious enough - if food price inflation can't be prevented it can be mitigated by buying cheaper food. My argument is simply that cheaper food doesn't <i>necessarily</i> have to mean worse food.<br /><br />I provided some evidence for my £40 "super-healthy" diet, but your assertion that "mum can fill up her kids on stodge – cheap bread and meat, pizzas and tinned puddings for half Billy’s budget" is sadly left hanging unsupported. My point is that I doubt if such a diets <i>is</i> any cheaper.<br /><br />The issue of "sin taxes" is, in your analysis, bleak indeed. The poor are locked into devastating their health, and efforts to re-direct their behaviour merely succeed in impoverishing them. So the choice is either even earlier death and poverty because we tax the vices less aggressively, or early death but even greater poverty because we continue to tax those vices stringently. Nice.<br /><br />Once you get onto the routine climate change denial nonsense, and the vast conspiracy theory that's required to sustain your position that the science has been fabricated to create this "grand environmental scam", I fear all logic has flown out of the window. There really are none so blind as those that will not see.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com