I've Got To Pay The Mortgage

[@contradevian]

Bargain. Each child could get two of these for breakfast:

99p a pop.

Gruel has never been so expensive.

On the other hand 95p would get you six medium free range eggs in Aldi.

[Tonkers]

Haven't got time to Google, but everyone got school meals at my primary school in the late seventies - liver and onions and semolina pudding being particularly fond memories. We were not allowed to leave the dining room until we hadn't eaten all of it - and if we still didn't eat it we got detention.

Why was this stopped?

[Henrik]

People who work and pay taxes pay for the meals of children whose parents are on benefits while their own kids have to pay for their meals.

If meals are to be given free then it's fairer if everyone gets them.

+1! I'm sick of paying a load of taxes and getting very little in return, when a lot of other people seem to be getting lots of things for free or heavily subsidized.

For example child care, why is it I have to pay full whack, when if you're on benefits you will get subsidized up to 80% of the cost. Same with housing benefit etc etc.

I don't want my kids to grow up in a society where - actually - the sensible career choice seems to be to have a couple of kids and start suckling off the tax payer's teet. What kind of example does that set?

I would feel less aggrieved, rightly or wrongly, if my kids also got free meals, as at least there was then *something* they got back.

Edited September 18, 2013 by Henrik

[PopGun]

I have no kids..

How much will this save me?!

[StainlessSteelCat]

I have no kids..

How much will this save me?!

The ravening hordes of zombie children will no longer eat your loved ones.

It's clearly a sop to big business. Probably there were too many parents were deciding that £2/day could be better spent on making sandwiches - and including a packet of crisps and an apple in the tupperware box. You could almost certainly feed a child that small for the entire day for £2, not just one meal.

Big business now gets a steady supply of £2/kid/day either directly or indirectly from the Government and kids get to eat, as well as learn, warmed over processed Govt. crap and everyone's happy.

Edited September 18, 2013 by StainlessSteelCat

[PopGun]

The ravening hordes of zombie children will no longer eat your loved ones.

It's clearly a sop to big business. Probably there were too many parents were deciding that £2/day could be better spent on making sandwiches - and including a packet of crisps and an apple in the tupperware box. You could almost certainly feed a child that small for the entire day for £2, not just one meal.

Big business now gets a steady supply of £2/kid/day either directly or indirectly from the Government and kids get to eat, as well as learn, warmed over processed Govt. crap and everyone's happy.

Sadly I fear you're spot on. So we are all now subsidising crappy school dinner businesses as well as BTL Landlords. Joy.

[iamnumerate]

Haven't got time to Google, but everyone got school meals at my primary school in the late seventies - liver and onions and semolina pudding being particularly fond memories. We were not allowed to leave the dining room until we hadn't eaten all of it - and if we still didn't eat it we got detention.

Why was this stopped?

In my primary school it was revolting rubbish, mince meat and mashed potato so poor, than when a friend gave me mashed potato when I was at uni I didn't recognize it.

Edited September 18, 2013 by iamnumerate

[Tonkers]

In my primary school it was revolting rubbish, mince meat and mashed potato so poor, than when a friend gave me mashed potato when I was at uni I didn't recognize it.

But it was nutritious. When paid canteen came in it was all spam fritters and heartburn.

[LiveinHope]

But it was nutritious. When paid canteen came in it was all spam fritters and heartburn.

The more people have state handouts to help them along the less they will realise the elephant in the room, and so we will delay reform and change.

So the can kicked further down the road.

I was at school in the 70's at a state grammar school.

Every morning we had to queue on arrival to buy a dinner ticket at 25p - this would be £1.52 today according to the BoE inflation calculator.

Some kids got a free school meal ticket. I do not remember "Free School Meals' causing any bullying.

Food such as liver and bacon, toad in the hole, spaghetti bolognese, sausages, cauliflower cheese, ravioli, salads, fish cakes, pretty much every desert was some form of sponge pudding with large metal jugs of coloured custards and sauces. 8 kids to a table.

No reason why people can't pay for their kids food, and it should be much cheaper than £2 a day

[pablopatito]

I have no kids..

How much will this save me?!

Loads. In theory. Kids will improve their academic performance, resulting in better productivity in the workforce as adults, thus increasing GDP and lowering taxes for yourself. Also, they will get into good eating habits at an impressionable age which will stay with them in adulthood, resulting in lower rates of obesity and other diet related conditions, lowering the cost of the NHS and lowering taxes even more for yourself.

They've done studies on pilot schemes which shows a large increase in academic performance resulting from free school meals. Personally, I'm very sceptical about how they achieved these conclusions. But I believe there's a link between diet and academic performance, although I would prefer to see free breakfasts rather than lunches, plus free fruit and carrot sticks etc etc throughout the day. My kids really don't need jam roly poly and custard every lunchtime and I fail to see how that will help them.

[SarahBell]

In my primary school it was revolting rubbish, mince meat and mashed potato so poor, than when a friend gave me mashed potato when I was at uni I didn't recognize it.

Did you not eat it at home?

I thought it was breakfast kids needed too?

[pablopatito]

My kids really don't need jam roly poly and custard every lunchtime and I fail to see how that will help them.

For example, I'm sure that we could get similar academic results if every school child was given a bowl of porridge when they arrived at school and a banana at break-time, and the costs would be trivial compared with full free lunches.

[LiveinHope]

Loads. In theory. Kids will improve their academic performance, resulting in better productivity in the workforce as adults, thus increasing GDP and lowering taxes for yourself. Also, they will get into good eating habits at an impressionable age which will stay with them in adulthood, resulting in lower rates of obesity and other diet related conditions, lowering the cost of the NHS and lowering taxes even more for yourself.

They've done studies on pilot schemes which shows a large increase in academic performance resulting from free school meals. Personally, I'm very sceptical about how they achieved these conclusions. But I believe there's a link between diet and academic performance, although I would prefer to see free breakfasts rather than lunches, plus free fruit and carrot sticks etc etc throughout the day. My kids really don't need jam roly poly and custard every lunchtime and I fail to see how that will help them.

Why does the state need to provide this ?

Shouldn't nutrition be provided by the parents if they can ?

Likewise education about what constitutes healthy eating.

I appreciate parents cannot be at school to cook the midday meal, but they could at least pay for it.

Maybe it would be better to focus on houseprices rather than free school meals.

Surely getting everything for free on the state sets a bad example to the kids.

Could be a bit of a shock when you leave school and find you have to pay for food.

Edited September 18, 2013 by LiveinHope

[SarahBell]

Why does the state need to provide this ?

Shouldn't nutrition be provided by the parents if they can ?

Likewise education about what constitutes healthy eating.

I appreciate parents cannot be at school to cook the midday meal, but they could at least pay for it.

Maybe it would be better to focus on houseprices rather than free school meals.

Surely getting everything for free on the state sets a bad example to the kids.

Could be a bit of a shock when you leave school and find you have to pay for food.

Lots of kids go to school hungry.

Do you think it should it be classed as child abuse?

[LiveinHope]

Did you not eat it at home?

I thought it was breakfast kids needed too?

Kid's need lots of stuff.

Parents need more free stuff

[LiveinHope]

Lots of kids go to school hungry.

Do you think it should it be classed as child abuse?

Deliberate starvation = child abuse

I wouldn't class malnutrition due to poverty 'child abuse', I would call that a failure of society, which free school meals for everyone, just like HTB for homes, won't fix IMO.

No need for any kids to go hungry, and no need for everyone to get a free school meal

Edited September 18, 2013 by LiveinHope

[Errol]

Anyone who has to worry about the cost of feeding their children shouldn't have had children in the first place!

Edit- as somone else said earlier in the thread, this is just a money printing exercise similar to the food-stamps in the USA. The money to pay for this doesn't exist. It will simply add to the growing debts and be passed electronically to big businesses (and banks).

Edited September 18, 2013 by Errol

[Sour Mash]

+1

Either house prices come down or current prices go up. Simple as.

That's pretty much it - the High Order Capital Goods vs Low Order Consumer Goods circle must be squared. Either one goes down or the other goes up and the government are determined that HOCG ain't going to come down in price.

Want to see a real inflationary shock? Keep running credit into the housing market...

I suspect we are about to enter a new phase of the ongoing slow-motion train crash that is the bursting of the greatest credit bubble in modern times.

After over five years of unprecedented and extraordinary financial laxness and the money valves being well and truly busted open, we are finally seeing something of what looks like the nascent stages of a recovery as all the money which has so far slopped about filling up balance sheets and floating commodity and asset prices starts to overflow and sluice around in other parts of the economy giving the impression of useful economic activity.

Either they stop the money pumping now (revealing the fact that the recovery was nothing but the early stages of rampant inflation) or there's going to be a massive, fast-rising flood followed by the dam bursting once the pressure gets too great.

Chances of stopping the party with an election due in a couple of years when it will be in full swing = zero.

[iamnumerate]

Did you not eat it at home?

I thought it was breakfast kids needed too?

No for some reason my mum didn't give us the same food as we had 4 days a week (we had fish and chips on Fridays) for lunch at home.

Also we thought that we didn't like mashed potato but it was really just mashed potato - without any flavouring we disliked.

[the gardener]

No for some reason my mum didn't give us the same food as we had 4 days a week (we had fish and chips on Fridays) for lunch at home.

Also we thought that we didn't like mashed potato but it was really just mashed potato - without any flavouring we disliked.

Mashed potato is not mashed potato unless you mash it with plenty of butter. Then when it's on your plate you add further knobs of butter. Sometimes I used to make a lake of melted butter and then eat my way around it, eventually breaching the walls of the dam and letting a butter flood gush out onto my plate.

Come to think of it, I used to eat potato flavoured butter really.

[pablopatito]

Why does the state need to provide this ?

Shouldn't nutrition be provided by the parents if they can ?

Yes, but it doesn't appear that this is happening in reality.

Surely getting everything for free on the state sets a bad example to the kids. Could be a bit of a shock when you leave school and find you have to pay for food.

The state provides free education and healthcare for kids, why not lunch as well? The key point is that if there is a link between free lunches and educational attainment (as studies in pilot schemes have apparently demonstrated) then the scheme could effectively be self-funded due to the subsequent increase in supply of healthy and productive workers to the economy. To put it another way, if pie and chips makes kids better educated than teaching assistants, why not get rid of the assistants and spend the money on pies instead? It's simple economics.

[zugzwang]

That's pretty much it - the High Order Capital Goods vs Low Order Consumer Goods circle must be squared. Either one goes down or the other goes up and the government are determined that HOCG ain't going to come down in price.

I suspect we are about to enter a new phase of the ongoing slow-motion train crash that is the bursting of the greatest credit bubble in modern times.

After over five years of unprecedented and extraordinary financial laxness and the money valves being well and truly busted open, we are finally seeing something of what looks like the nascent stages of a recovery as all the money which has so far slopped about filling up balance sheets and floating commodity and asset prices starts to overflow and sluice around in other parts of the economy giving the impression of useful economic activity.

Either they stop the money pumping now (revealing the fact that the recovery was nothing but the early stages of rampant inflation) or there's going to be a massive, fast-rising flood followed by the dam bursting once the pressure gets too great.

Chances of stopping the party with an election due in a couple of years when it will be in full swing = zero.

Absolutely. The real goal of financial repression isn't to restrict savings accounts to sub-inflationary rates of return and encourage savers to consume but to bring current prices back into balance with asset prices. No-one at the BoE will admit as much, of course. As far as I'm aware even the term 'financial repression' is taboo. I don't recall it ever being uttered by King or Carney or a senior politician of any stripe. The more Osborne subsidises the housing bubble, the greater the subsequent correction to correct the imbalance. If they won't let house prices fall then murderous financial repression will be the inevitable consequence.

[RichB]

The state provides free education and healthcare for kids, why not lunch as well? The key point is that if there is a link between free lunches and educational attainment (as studies in pilot schemes have apparently demonstrated) then the scheme could effectively be self-funded due to the subsequent increase in supply of healthy and productive workers to the economy. To put it another way, if pie and chips makes kids better educated than teaching assistants, why not get rid of the assistants and spend the money on pies instead? It's simple economics.

More to the point they are more likely to enter the university con trick and rack up a good strong pot of lifetime debt and servitude.