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It was not long ago that I was watching the news, and a specific article lept out and grabbed my attention. I don't normally watch the news, because everytime I do, something such as this pops up, and I just get really exasperated with gutterpress.

The case of 'Extreme' poverty.

Now, apparently a -disturbing- amount of the United Kingdom suffers from this problem, more so in Scotland. Or so the TV says. Extreme povery is in almost 10% of our country, where families are so poor, they can't afford to buy their child a football.

Note: In most cases, this refers to parents who do not work, so what would be stopping them getting a job in the local co-op? Surely that would suffice a little. But no- for if they worked, they would not be able to bend the system as they do, and drain every penny from funds to help them raise their child, but that is what extreme poverty now refers to.
For instance; the EMA; Educational Maintenance Allowance. £30 a week for a child who stays at school after they're 16. You see, if only one or no parents work, the pupil gets money. Then, once they have left school and make their way to college or university (assuming that's where they go), they are expected to pay for themselves. However. There comes those familys who have two working parents. Their child gets no EMA, and once they go to university, their parents are expected to pay for them. Fair? It might seem it from that perspective. But count the amount of Taxes the working family has to pay; house, car, electricity, etc. and pay for everything themselves, they end up, in the long run, having less money than the non worers, who need not pay any taxes, and get money given to them.

Now, tell me, which is described as poverty? The wrong one, I believe.
Then there was the 'example' of extreme povery shown on the telly, a woman sitting in her living room with her daughter, speaking to the television. She says she cannot afford to buy anything, but if you examine the scene more closely, you see before you an ensuite sofa, and a gold plated frame on some expensive looking painting. And this is only a small fraction of their house, which is apparently full of poverty.

Moving onto a different perspective, this family has not once been said to be living in any old poverty, it's extreme poverty. Who cares about the hundreds living in undeveloped places like in the areas of africa, where water is struggled to be found, let alone food. The water may be poisonous, but they can not be picky enough to take that risk. They would trade all the footballs in the world, just to see to it that they had enough food to feed their families. Their clothes are torn and ragged in some cases, and rape is not far off the scene from the young women who must go and fetch the water. They have to choose between letting their children die of thirst, or being raped every time she leaves the safety of her home to fetch the water.

Now, excuse me if I have got a couple of facts wrong, but I feel that this talk of extreme poverty is well off the mark. How do you all feel about this; is there actually any logic in the press's talk, or is it all just an insane load of shite (excuse the language), like I believe it to be?

Discuss.

"If you don't read the newspapers, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspapers, you are misinformed."
-Mark Twain.

Never trust what the media says.