In Britain, Austerity Is Changing Everything (NYT Article)

[VincentHanna]

Neither my Gran or mum worked.

My Dad however worked 2 jobs.

Back then the majority of women were raising the kids and caring for the home. Times change. Women either want their own careers (don't blame them) but also the price of everything is so expensive now anyway that its hard to even manage with one stay at home parent anymore.

 

[StriderX]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ust-for-millennials-across-advanced-economies

Some people are just malignant and dont want to see reality.

Britain and Spain stand out. In the U.K., Generation X were 54 percent better off than baby boomers born between 1946 and 1965. By contrast, millennials, born between 1980 and 2000, had incomes just 6 percent higher than those of Generation X at the same age.



The U.K. is also notable for the fall in rates of home ownership. For millennials in their late 20s, the figure is 33 percent compared with 60 percent for baby boomers at the same age. Smaller declines are found in Australia and the U.S.



“It’s no secret that the financial crisis hit the vast majority of advanced economies hard, holding back millennial income progress in countries around the world,” said Daniel Tomlinson, a policy analyst at the Resolution Foundation. “But only Spain echoes the U.K. experience -- a ‘boom and bust’ cycle where significant generation-on-generation gains for older generations have come to a stop for younger people.”

Adjusted for inflation, pay for British millennials has fallen by 13 percent, a decline surpassed only by Greece, the think tank estimated.

Don't use anecdotal outliers to prove it's wrong either, i ain't paying your pension, breh and neither will anyone else, so y'all can stupor into poverty with the rest of us once the states pilfered your assets.

Funnily enough the the youth have a future regardless of what happens, it's the oldies that have no choice but to stay and watch as their country burns because they forgot they actually have to care for it a bit.

 

[antijoke]

Oh please the opportunities you have now is immense, far greater than anything i ever had as kid in the 70s, you cant blame older generations for your being bone idle and wanting everything on a plate. YOU owe society not the other way around.

Wow, way to make assumptions about me.

 

[SPG]

So what you're saying is Labour delivers Utopia? None of the political parties delivers for the people today.

Then get off your arse and change it !!!

Plenty of people are doing well, more than well.

So yes suck it up is 100% valid, just because you do not like its too hard to change is just lazy and quite frankly the attitude that has got all of you in the stink. If your mid 20`s you have had to elections to vote, that time could have been spent starting a movement for change for the younger generations, planting the seed of change... but No you just moan and complain is tough and too hard to change and never even turn up to vote.

As for being a baby boomer... Do you think growing up in a cess pit of a coal mining town was a lovely experience... where the school had one thing for you.... a job in the mine, like my father and his father and probably his father. I worked my way out of it to a comfortable life, sharing a house, renting a flat... making sacrifices to pay for my own home (i.e no holidays, no partying, just miserable hard work and graft but i wanted my own home)

So yes, I understand your plight, but i have very little if any sympathy for it.

 

[Oxide™]

Instead of complaining on a forum why don't the opinionated people start a party for a revolution.

I'm a millennial and one of those people who cba with politics however my wife is and likes to tell me about stuff constantly and I get it! (she's a children's centre manager in Wandsworth and Labour but doesn't agree with all of Corbyn but is still a fan)
I'd follow a revolution, friendly protest in the streets, raise awareness to people like me

I'm just not the right person to lead it

 

[UTmaniac]

Austerity hasn't just hit the UK overnight, the prospects for individuals/families who earn less than the average wage have been dwindling for decades, starting around the time Maggie sold off a lot of the council houses. But then she and consequent Prime Ministers of both Conservative and labour did not do enough to ensure these council homes were replaced, or have enough affordable homes for first time buyers built for the growing population. And then just to top it off, they allowed Buy To Let mortgages for those in a better than average financial situation, trapping the lower earners to living in rented property with crazy high rent prices and preventing many from having a hope of getting on the housing mortgage ladder until their parents die.

It's taken the best part of three generations, but that austerity snowball has been rolling downhill and has become huge for individuals and couples earning less than ~£25k gross today.

 

[CREATIVE!11]

Then get off your arse and change it !!!

Plenty of people are doing well, more than well.

So yes suck it up is 100% valid, just because you do not like its too hard to change is just lazy and quite frankly the attitude that has got all of you in the stink. If your mid 20`s you have had to elections to vote, that time could have been spent starting a movement for change for the younger generations, planting the seed of change... but No you just moan and complain is tough and too hard to change and never even turn up to vote.

As for being a baby boomer... Do you think growing up in a cess pit of a coal mining town was a lovely experience... where the school had one thing for you.... a job in the mine, like my father and his father and probably his father. I worked my way out of it to a comfortable life, sharing a house, renting a flat... making sacrifices to pay for my own home (i.e no holidays, no partying, just miserable hard work and graft but i wanted my own home)

So yes, I understand your plight, but i have very little if any sympathy for it.

Just start a movement or something bro, change the world bro.

Want to make any more generalisations? Incorrect ones at that. People now are working longer hours than ever before, salaries in real terms have dropped. Retirement ages are constantly increasing. Could you explain how that is bone idle and wanting everything on a plate?
The facts are that the country has been left with a time bomb caused by previous generations economic mismanagement. The current and future generations are the ones that will have to deal with the fallout.

Ignorant, belligerent and irresponsible. That's what's caused this mess in the first place.

Don't forget every single job now wanting a degree and 5 years experience for a paltry wage. Also university fees for some reason going from 0 to 9.5 grand a year. You are pretty much forced into university now (To be somewhat competitive in the job market) with no choice even for a junior job that pays like crapp. Enjoy your mountain of student debt.

 

[balky12]

Yea I don't get the whole older generations had it so much easier...

My grandad use to work at fords factory in Dagenham.. which closed for a month every year for maintenance. He would have to reapply for his job when it opened. During this month he would leave his family and cycle to Portsmouth and work the docks to keep an income.

Other grandad worked 3 jobs to keep a roof over his head. When in tough times and having to claim the council worker would come round and tell them they had to sell xyz (spare chairs, tv, curtains, etc) beforehand being eligible for benefits.

Yes houses are expensive especially comparative to wages. I managed to buy a house with my partner in the south east at 26... 3 bed semi.

Me and my partner hardly came from a well off background but both our parents taught us the value of working hard and an education (not that I went to uni) and we are doing just fine. Recently doors have opened up for my father and he is benefiting from his hard efforts.

People just like to moan and blame others. Our quality of lives are so much better than previous generations. Are some aspects a little harder? Yes probably, but overall we have it easier than past generations... and the future generations will have it easier than us.

 

[VincentHanna]

We're not really talking about Grandads working post war.

We're talking specifically Baby boomers who started working in the late 60's/70's

 

[ahar]

I think Caracus2K nailed it partly in post #12:

"What is actually happening is that the increasing costs of an ageing, longer lived population are coming home to roost and so cuts are made elsewhere to somewhat keep the deficit in line."

Add to that a chronic lack of house building to keep prices in check and low productivity growth for too long a period has meant not enough cash to keep all the government programmes running as before and a hit to living standards for most, particularly those who don't own a home.

 

[balky12]

We're not really talking about Grandads working post war.

We're talking specifically Baby boomers who started working in the late 60's/70's

Not sure on specific dates, but my old man was born 1965 so my grandad started working early 60s? Late late 50s at a push?

 

[LeeUK]

My grandad worked down the pit for 40 years and retired at 55 on his mineworkers pension. Bought his colliery house on the cheap for £5k and sold it a few years later for £50k.

No opportunity like that now, not many jobs last 40 years either.

My mother would have been one of those so called WASPI women that Tory Guy Opperman says should get an apprentice should she still be alive.

 

[CorrectHorseBattery]

Who said anything about running out of money? I also think you are confusing deficit and debt which are two different things.

No I’m not. One leads to the other. But our deficit nor our debt are out of control.

 

[balky12]

My grandad worked down the pit for 40 years and retired at 55 on his mineworkers pension. Bought his colliery house on the cheap for £5k and sold it a few years later for £50k.

No opportunity like that now, not many jobs last 40 years either.

My mother would have been one of those so called WASPI women that Tory Guy Opperman says should get an apprentice should she still be alive.

That's the other thing that confuses me. Apparent 'opportunities' like the above. I don't doubt your grandparents made a lot of money on a house, but these property stories almost always start with 'my grandparents' and lack any other context.

I can make an £80k profit on my house if I sold now after 3 years. But largely irrelevant unless I want to downsize or move out to the sticks.

My dad can make a 300% profit on his house if he sold now after 19 years. But he doesn't want to downsize or move location.

I don't know your grandparents circumstances, but I'm guessing unless they downsized or moved area, or went into renting, the huge profit they made would have been largely irrelevant because they needed to spend that to buy another property of the same size I the same area?

I'm not having a dig at you personally, just these stories of massive gains from property often leave out circumstance. Yes retiring old people seem to benefit... but if I stay in a family home for 20/30 years in my later life I bet I would have made a tidy profit from it.

 

[Bear]

No I’m not. One leads to the other. But our deficit nor our debt are out of control.

In that case, could you link to an article which showed we had a deficit of 100% after WW2 please as I cant find anything that backs your comment up. From what I can see, after WW2 Atlee tried to cut the huge debt we had and quickly ran up a surplus, which is a long way from your claims.

I never claimed the deficit nor debt was out of control. The fact the deficit has been greatly reduced shows that it wasnt out if control but it was at a level that was very undesirable and had to be reduced

 

[Freakbro]

In that case, could you link to an article which showed we had a deficit of 100% during WW2 please as I cant anything that backs your comment up.

I don't think it was that high, but it was high as we borrowed massively in a short period of time to fund both WW1 and 2. In a conversation about people not knowing the difference between debt and deficit, he may have got the two mixed up with his anecdote

http://www.debtbombshell.com/history-of-national-debt.htm

You can see national debt goes from ~25% of GDP to 175% during WW1 and from 125% to 250% during WW2

 

[Caracus2k]

My grandad worked down the pit for 40 years and retired at 55 on his mineworkers pension. Bought his colliery house on the cheap for £5k and sold it a few years later for £50k.

No opportunity like that now, not many jobs last 40 years either.

My mother would have been one of those so called WASPI women that Tory Guy Opperman says should get an apprentice should she still be alive.

I'm assuming your grandas probably retired in or around the 1970's when inflation was averaging 13.7% per annum?

If so a lot of the increase in the house value was just inflation....

So selling a house for 50k after buying it 'a few years previously' for 5k maybe isn't quite the windfall it might seem at first as the price of everything else has also substantially risen (if maybe not as much as the house did) the purchase price probably also reflected that he had presumably been paying rent for quite some time on the address as well? ( not that I think this is generally a great idea)

I my adult years inflation has barely strayed above 4% and has been close to zero for quite a good portion of it.

You grandfather, and his peers working down the pits, could also look forward to a rather low life expectancy, at retirement, after decades worth of dirty work without today's knowldge of respitory illness and measures in place, in the workplace, to reduce them.

 

[SPG]

Thatcher is to blame for all of this, and the sale of council house stock.

It took a perfectly fine system and broke it. Get rid of all these stupid housing associations and bring it back under council control. Everyone needs a home and private landlords should not be profiting from the welfare state like they are now.

Affordable housing means more people have more money to buy useless crap

 

[V F]

Then get off your arse and change it !!!

Plenty of people are doing well, more than well.

So yes suck it up is 100% valid, just because you do not like its too hard to change is just lazy and quite frankly the attitude that has got all of you in the stink. If your mid 20`s you have had to elections to vote, that time could have been spent starting a movement for change for the younger generations, planting the seed of change... but No you just moan and complain is tough and too hard to change and never even turn up to vote.

As for being a baby boomer... Do you think growing up in a cess pit of a coal mining town was a lovely experience... where the school had one thing for you.... a job in the mine, like my father and his father and probably his father. I worked my way out of it to a comfortable life, sharing a house, renting a flat... making sacrifices to pay for my own home (i.e no holidays, no partying, just miserable hard work and graft but i wanted my own home)

So yes, I understand your plight, but i have very little if any sympathy for it.

...

I'm not the one that is moaning or having a rant which you seem to be doing. Besides, I've always voted. Nor I'm in stink as you seem to assume.

 

[Caracus2k]

Thatcher is to blame for all of this, and the sale of council house stock.

It took a perfectly fine system and broke it. Get rid of all these stupid housing associations and bring it back under council control. Everyone needs a home and private landlords should not be profiting from the welfare state like they are now.

Affordable housing means more people have more money to buy useless crap

I really think trying to place the blame the blame for austerity 'all of this' on Margaret Thatcher, 28 or so years after she was in power, is more than just a little ridiculous given what subsequent prime ministers from different parties have done since (and more relevantly what they have not substantially changed since the Thatcher era).

Thatchers goverment didn't start if with a successful, fully functional country..... They inherited one with massive structural issues which needed reform. There is plenty of argument to be had, in retrospect, about what could have been done differently but some change was needed and it was always going to involve shaking up the sclerotic economy that was the in place as a result of union activity and a bloated inefficient public sector.

Centralised state control of large organisations has often been far from an optimal solution for providing efficient and effective services for people.... Housing associations dont generally run for the benefit of anyone bar their residents (and arguably their staff) they don't generally have 'fat cats' skimming money from the public purse like you might accuse private landlords of doing with housing benefit....