Interesting link

<ankh> · Post by **<ankh>** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 12:46 pm

OohhoO wrote:See it would be very hard for me to get hold of an AK-47 in Switzerland =/

I seriously doubt that, weapons are way too easy to get hold of even in european countries.

/Ankh

Gandelf · Post by **Gandelf** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 12:54 pm

It's largely irrelevant actually. If you enter £55 per annum, that is enough to get you off the bottom rung of the ladder, according to the scale. Most people spend at least that amount each week on food supplies alone in the UK. Whereas in some of the "poorer" countries, they could probably get a week's groceries for 50p. So the scale means nothing because local prices are a reflection of local salaries. There are thousands of pensioners in the UK who cannot afford all the council taxes, fuel bills etc. etc. It would be better if the scale was based on categories of wealth according to the country you lived in.

OohhoO · Post by **OohhoO** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 1:12 pm

Gandelf wrote:It would be better if the scale was based on categories of wealth according to the country you lived in.

/agree

Switzerland for example has a huge problem with there not being enough children born. The reason being that if a couple have two salaries they're well off here, but if they only have one salary & three mouths to feed it's often pretty much impossible to make ends meet, and the state doesn't want to subsidize families, so people just don't bother having even one child rather than having to live in a "rich" country in comparable poverty.

Post by **Lairiodd** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 1:51 pm

Gandelf wrote:It's largely irrelevant actually. If you enter £55 per annum, that is enough to get you off the bottom rung of the ladder, according to the scale. Most people spend at least that amount each week on food supplies alone in the UK. Whereas in some of the "poorer" countries, they could probably get a week's groceries for 50p. So the scale means nothing because local prices are a reflection of local salaries. There are thousands of pensioners in the UK who cannot afford all the council taxes, fuel bills etc. etc. It would be better if the scale was based on categories of wealth according to the country you lived in.

OTOH, most of those pensioners would be dead if they lived in a 3rd world country.

There reason why the local costs don't match is partially due to trade barriers, but also due to not comparing like with like. When you buy food in the EU, you are buying reasonably high quality food. If you bought in the 3rd world, there would be a hell of alot higher chance that it would have some kind of contamination and even if not, it would be very basic.

Likewise, you cannot hire a servant in the EU for low wages as immigration is restricted and before you think that would be exploitation, remember that they would be a hell of alot worse off in their original country. This pushes up the costs of things that are labour intensive.

Post by **Xest** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 1:59 pm

Gandelf wrote:It's largely irrelevant actually. If you enter £55 per annum, that is enough to get you off the bottom rung of the ladder, according to the scale. Most people spend at least that amount each week on food supplies alone in the UK. Whereas in some of the "poorer" countries, they could probably get a week's groceries for 50p. So the scale means nothing because local prices are a reflection of local salaries. There are thousands of pensioners in the UK who cannot afford all the council taxes, fuel bills etc. etc. It would be better if the scale was based on categories of wealth according to the country you lived in.

Isn't the point that many of these countries don't even have fuel even if they could pay the bills? I'd have said it's better to have fuel for heating and struggle to pay for it than not have any heating at all.