Philosophy Now Forum

reasonvemotion wrote:well........ organic honey?

Yes the perfect trio; milk porridge and honey.

whew.....

Retirement age in UK was set at 65, following a German survey ~1900s, which identified the majority of working men died at 66 - so this would give the men a year to set their affairs in order.

Retirement ages are rising because people are living longer and there is insufficient provision for long term payment of retirement pension to provide a comfortable living for retirees.

The revised Pension Credit has improved on the previous pension scheme, topping up whatever, if any, other applicable state and/or private provision to guarantee £137.35 a week for a single person or £209.70 for a couple, increasing to £188 a week for a single person or £277 for a couple if they have savings above £10,000.

Uptake is still an issue so I would urge you to advise any pensioners you know to try the online pension credit toolkit or contact the DWP for advice.

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/pension-credit-toolkit/ wrote:Around one in five pensioners gets Pension Credit. But up to 1.6 million people are still missing out…

Seems like Norway is the most generous.

reasonvemotion wrote:Seems like Norway is the most generous.

Prices in Norway are pretty high though.

Food prices?

Milk: standard fixed price is now 15 NOK or 2.03 €
Bread: typical price (this varies a lot; but standard quality is) 20 NOK or 2.7 €
Petrol: typical price (varies a lot but present level is) 15 NOK pr. litre, or 2.03 €

because of cultural differences it's difficult to rate other kinds of food as what we eat differ both in kinds, types, and how we pack it, but still

Cheese 1x Kilo: typical price (standard quality) 50+ NOK or 6,75+ €
Chocolate spread 500 ml: typical price (standard quality, we have only one main brand but we have one additional Australian cheap brand available at less than half the standard price) 30+ NOK or 4.05 €+
The big 200gr bar of chocolate costs typically between 20-30+ NOK or between 2.7 € and 4.05+ €
Red Bull 0.5 litre: 30+ NOK or 4.05+ €
Coca Cola 1.5 litre: ~20 NOK or ~2.7 €

Apartment rent varies a lot of course, as it does everywhere in the world, from country-side to city. But according to this website: http://hybel.no/ The average prices for bedsits or rooms in collectives for the following cities are:

Oslo
5131 NOK pr month or 693 €
Bergen
4569 NOK pr month or 617 €
Trondheim
4695 NOK pr month or 634 €

If you are unemployed and have no right for the standard unemployment pay (like me, because I've not yet had any official job in my 20 years of life) the government covers your expenditures for one apartment incl. electricity and up to ~4000 NOK (depending on city/town/village) or ~540 € for food, drink, and all other necessities for life. If you like me have no great expenditures in life except basic necessities then you'll do fine, but any excesses like borrowings or cars or stuff like it, or in other words, all luxury assortments and expenditures, you'll get no help in paying (though the system is complicated at this point, but anyways, not important). My point being that the figure of ~4000 NOK is not random, it is calculated on the prices of all thinkable things an individual may need, and so you can in a way say that all non-luxury expenditures (modern necessities like internet is not counted as luxury) lay combined at about this level for one adult: ~4000 NOK or ~640 €, and with an apartment at say 640 € and electricity at, I dunno, let's say ~400 NOK or ~55 € (a simple not dependable figure) you get total expenditures at ~1300-1400 € for a luxuryless life.

note: I in fact usually find that I can easily reduce my basic necessity expenditures down to 1500 NOK a month or ~200 €, and then sit with quite a deal left over of cash to spend on "luxuries", and the food I buy is good quality, it's just less open to choice as you'll have to hunt the store for discounts and food whose standard quality is usually priced low, like spaghetti (500 gr = 10-15 NOK, or 3-5 dinners for a couple of euros, excluding price for saucing), and porridge, which is insanely cheap but low on many essentials (like vitamins) and very monotone and boring, or some Swedish genius thing called in direct translation "breaking bread" (or "crisp bread" as is standard translation, from company Wasa, you probably have it in the UK somewhere), where you get 20 pieces of crisp bread each equivalent to a slice of bread and at the cost of a single euro or even less. So point being: while prices are usually high, if you can live with simple but not drastic (as in eating porridge 7 times a week) measures, you get a lot of stuff for the money government gives you and a lot more still if you have a job as standard wages here would quickly get you up to 3000 € a month before taxes (which are high but not worse than that you could remove a quarter of the 3000 figure leaving you still 2250 € after taxes).

I may note that the prices for bedsits are generally lower than apartments but not drastically so when you enter the countryside or just leave the big cities (big in Norwegian terms I mean, we are a low-populated country here) then apartments are about the same price or often an apartment in a town is cheaper than a bedsit in a city, and most of the Norwegian population does not live in cities.

ForgedinHell wrote:Poor people don't always make the rational choice in their situation.

And yet we live in an age where the planet's economy is based on models that assume people act rationally.

And it's not just poor people that don't always act rationally.

Very detailed expenditure, VOT. Food is expensive here, but I can't give individual prices as I never take note.

I am fortunate in as much as I own my own home, car and have no debts.

I do prefer to live simply and have a most wonderful view from my verandah overlooking the mountains.

John wrote:

ForgedinHell wrote:Poor people don't always make the rational choice in their situation.

And yet we live in an age where the planet's economy is based on models that assume people act rationally.

And it's not just poor people that don't always act rationally.

Yes, socialist economists do make the mistake of thinking that their planning and socialist schemes are rational.

ForgedinHell wrote:

John wrote:

ForgedinHell wrote:Poor people don't always make the rational choice in their situation.

And yet we live in an age where the planet's economy is based on models that assume people act rationally.

And it's not just poor people that don't always act rationally.

Yes, socialist economists do make the mistake of thinking that their planning and socialist schemes are rational.

So classical liberal economics doesn't rely on models based on rational actors?

John wrote: So classical liberal economics doesn't rely on models based on rational actors?

No. The classical beliefs would be present even if people acted irrationally, because the classic choice is that people making mistakes as individuals is still preferable to people making mistakes through government coercion.

John wrote:

ForgedinHell wrote:

John wrote:
And yet we live in an age where the planet's economy is based on models that assume people act rationally.

And it's not just poor people that don't always act rationally.

Yes, socialist economists do make the mistake of thinking that their planning and socialist schemes are rational.

So classical liberal economics doesn't rely on models based on rational actors?

Indeed it does, That's why they are all wrong.
1) People are not always rational
2) When they are rational, it is still not easy to predict what they will do.
3) One person's rational choice is based on limited information - this counts for the economists as well as other actors. Another person will have a different set of limited information.
4) Not everyone is motivated by money.