In Britain, Austerity Is Changing Everything (NYT Article)
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Lol, the 1980-now generations cant have anything now because the previous one bought their future from them, what do you think Debt is? It was fine when generational wealth increased, but that stopped rather abruptly. (Also who exactly is giving them these things and spoiling them? Not themselves thats for sure)
Are you seriously implying that millions of people are all collectively under the same spell? Cause that's bigoted. It wasn't the people born in the past 30 odd years that created the most selfish disgusting society we've ever had. Freud wasn't born in 1980 and arguably his analysis of an era shows exactly when the West started to fumble into despair of its own making.
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Whilst why you said is true it's a pretty poor benchmark? Why compare average UK salary to the most expensive area of the UK? (Excluding London)
Because everywhere else is irrelevant, everything is in London, whether you like it or not.
I actually think that our parents generation have taken their eye off the ball and in your words "spoilt us rotten". They have not had to graft as hard as our grandparents generation for the same (or in the case of BTL landlords more) rewards, and we've all foolishly thought we could be the same as them, why? Because they told us we can, they sold us this dream! Go to uni they said, you'll get a well paid job and be able to have all these things if you just work hard. Now they just sit in their paid off house bought with a mortgage at 3-4 times their salary while we scramble around to fund a 1 bed flat for the same, or 6-8 times our salary for that tiny 2 bed house - all the while shouting "WORK HARDER LAZY BONES".
Sure there will be the anecdotal outliers (like myself even, i'm an alright jack) but the evidence says that the majority is generally screwed.
The opportunties atm are:
-Be an entrepreneur and make loads of money. (how many people can realistically aim for this and be successful? there must be multiple failures for every success)
-Get into a shed load of student debt and then work for years earning just enough to rent near where you work until the pay increases enough to save for an ever increasing deposit. (this wasn't the case in our parents generation, they didn't NEED degrees to get by in life, you just got on and learnt on the job - ****ing Tony Blair)
-Hope your parents will gift you a deposit.
-Be lucky that your parents live in an area where work can be found (I had to move from Southport, there are no jobs around there that offer good pay and progression - I was stuck in minimum wage jobs for years), and that they allow you stay there while you save.
-Be like me and get lucky and get in at base level and have the opportunities to work upwards within a company. This doesn't happen to everyone, and didn't happen to me throughout me first 10 years in work. (I still don't earn enough if were to choose to live alone around here). I got my chance through someone I knew, there was no way I would have got in blindly.
-Decide it isn't worth it and just struggle along on handouts that are getting more strained as the years go by.
Or, if you're lucky a couple of combinations of the above make things immeasurably easier as I've found out. Working hard just sometimes doesn't cut it in this world, it's no longer that simple.
The anger and despair all comes down to us growing up seeing how good everything was, and being told (and accepting) it could all be ours through hard work, and then having the goalposts moved on a yearly basis - no other generation in living memory has had to deal with that and being told that it's all our fault isn't really a fair representation of what's going on.
I like the phrase above that the previous generation bought the future from the current generation. That's exactly what debt is and when I talk about debt I always say you are buying it.
But what astonishes me is when the current generation complain about the previous one stealing their future... and in the next sentence shout about the mean Tories hurting them with austerity. Maybe both statements have some truth. But it's as if they ignore the fact that voting for a party that pretends it has a magic money tree and spends, spends, spends, is any different than the behaviour they complain about in the previous generation.
I know what affect national debt has on the following generations and for that reason I won't vote for parties with magic money trees.
By all means complain about the previous generations (who were just trying to survive like you or I). But don't then vote in governments that will do the same to your own children. Pick one or the other. Pick debt for your children or try to vote to fix it. But don't put your kids in debt and then complain that your parents and grand parents did the same to you.
...I'm sure I will get flamed for that view but I'm past caring what other people think nowadays.
But what astonishes me is when the current generation complain about the previous one stealing their future... and in the next sentence shout about the mean Tories hurting them with austerity. Maybe both statements have some truth. But it's as if they ignore the fact that voting for a party that pretends it has a magic money tree and spends, spends, spends, is any different than the behaviour they complain about in the previous generation.
I know what affect national debt has on the following generations and for that reason I won't vote for parties with magic money trees.
By all means complain about the previous generations (who were just trying to survive like you or I). But don't then vote in governments that will do the same to your own children. Pick one or the other. Pick debt for your children or try to vote to fix it. But don't put your kids in debt and then complain that your parents and grand parents did the same to you.
...I'm sure I will get flamed for that view but I'm past caring what other people think nowadays.
Yea but everyone can't own a house in London/ South East. So those on average salaries can't afford to buy there. Nothing wrong with that imo.
Much same way someone said earlier not everyone can have a high paying job?
Like moaning you're on an average salary and can't afford a ferrari.
Not really. The majority of the population should not be priced out of an entire region!
Public debt isnt an issue, it's private debt that lands us in the *********. What people like to ignore is if the public debt wasn't there to sort out the private debt, we'd all be worse off or dead.
The Tories ideology is a farce, because they wont invest with public debt, arguable it's one and only use. Labour haven't been in power for years now, i scarcely remember caring about anything in the last opposition government as it was focused on the aftermath of a ****** war and a pretty apocalyptic PRIVATE DEBT situation.
1 in 10 people think about killing themselves nowadays and 3 out of 4 are stressed, that includes everyone, so it can only be be more depressing if you removed the blinkered generations.
No I'm saying you are full of it. You all would have done the same, making the best of your lives had your lives been switched. The only difference was the unfortunate timing of the time you were born.
All this whining about the most selfish disgusting society nonsense is pathetic as you are part of the making of that society. Society isn't a stand alone element of life, it only exists from individuals, if it is crap, what do you do to make it better?
@StriderX How does someone else's private debt hurt my kids?
If private debt is a problem then how on earth can national debt be a solution?
National debt is passed on to private individuals. An increased national debt means the current and next generation have to pay that back out of their private pockets. The more a country owes then the more it's it's tax payers have to pay before there is any money from their wages left for them.
Private and national debt are very similar but with one significant difference; I can choose to buy my own private debt, or choose not to buy it. But I am forced to pay back the national debt on behalf of others. Similarly I am not forcing others to pay back my own private debt. But by voting for increased national spending I would be choosing to force others to pay back that debt which may not have been their choice.
I do agree with national borrowing for investment projects. But very few governments on either side would use it for that. It's simply used to buy short term votes (all parties do it regardless of leaning).
If private debt is a problem then how on earth can national debt be a solution?
National debt is passed on to private individuals. An increased national debt means the current and next generation have to pay that back out of their private pockets. The more a country owes then the more it's it's tax payers have to pay before there is any money from their wages left for them.
Private and national debt are very similar but with one significant difference; I can choose to buy my own private debt, or choose not to buy it. But I am forced to pay back the national debt on behalf of others. Similarly I am not forcing others to pay back my own private debt. But by voting for increased national spending I would be choosing to force others to pay back that debt which may not have been their choice.
I do agree with national borrowing for investment projects. But very few governments on either side would use it for that. It's simply used to buy short term votes (all parties do it regardless of leaning).
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Former employee in and property owner from London here who now resides elsewhere... myself and my partner, who is in a well paid job, can attest that places outside of London are not totally irrelevant and not everything of note in the UK is situated within London or the South East of England...
You can buy three bedroom semi detached houses round my way for 120 - 130k which is still very attainable for a couple or a single person with a good income
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Private and National debt are nothing like each other, national debt is cheaper, lasts for generations and effectively can be inflated away. Private debt is nothing like that. The country doesn't have a 'National Credit Card' (a meaningless Tory soundbite) and we're not going to go broke.
And your 'Magic Money Tree' comment earlier is quite amusing, since that's just another meaningless Tory soundbite they use against Labour, since every Govt runs a deficit (5 years of surplus in the last 35 - and 3 of those under Labour) dont be under any illusion that the Tories don't have their own MMT.
So I guess you don't vote at all?
One persons private debt is nothing to anyone else, many millions of peoples collective hurdle to indebt themselves however?
That is your problem, played out rather visually in 2007-8. We are already on the way to making that look like child's play with how insolvent people are becoming, again.
When you have a collective stupidity, the only thing stopping it is a state apparatus, otherwise it simply fails (which in some cases it probably should).
If national debt lasts for generations then the overall cost is higher than short term private debt. But regardless that doesn't mean it is different from private debt. However it does highlight, as I have said, that national debt is paid for by your children.
If national debt can be inflated away then it would be free. It isn't. It still has a cost and drags money out of your children's pockets that they would otherwise have available to spend.
And your question about me not voting is daft, especially as I already said I do.
At the very least National debt at the best of times gives us more useful and socially applicable returns, private debt does literally nothing other than cause friction and loss.
It's not so bad to saddle your children with something if they also got something out of it, private debt usually takes something away from them permanently.
It's not so bad to saddle your children with something if they also got something out of it, private debt usually takes something away from them permanently.
This country is in so much debt we are never going to pay it off anyway (ever!) and we are all still living far beyond our means, hence private and personal debt are still increasing by a pretty substantial amount every year.
And Osbourne talking about aiming for that paltry surplus in an effort to "pay off the debt" was just laughable - I think I worked out it would have taken over 300 years of continual surplus at that level to repay what currently owe
And Osbourne talking about aiming for that paltry surplus in an effort to "pay off the debt" was just laughable - I think I worked out it would have taken over 300 years of continual surplus at that level to repay what currently owe
Not at all, if national debt is incurred to invest and promote growth then it pays for itself. Then over time the capital amount gets inflated away so the interest payments on it become relatively cheaper.
eg: we borrowed £1.9 billion to fund WW1, which was an awful lot of money at the time, nowadays we borrow that every 2 weeks. We only finally paid off that debt in 2014, where the interest payments on the balance are now relatively miniscule compared to what they were in 1920 and repaying the remaining capital is inconsequential
No but if you get more growth, the money you make on that pays the debt interest and leaves you with more, so effectively it's more than free, it's an earner to the national coffers.
To try and make a simple analogy, say you borrow £100,000. If you just spend that on day to day living (holidays, cars etc) then the debt is a burden and the interest payments will be a future drag on your income. But if you invest that in a second house and then rent that out, it will earn more money than your debt repayment and now your income is greater than it was. So the debt is not a burden.
Soldato
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But when the next depression hits (and it will) we are going to be in a much better place than say the US. We may not pay it off but we can certainly lower it.This country is in so much debt we are never going to pay it off anyway (ever!) and we are all still living far beyond our means, hence private and personal debt are still increasing by a pretty substantial amount every year.
And Osbourne talking about aiming for that paltry surplus in an effort to "pay off the debt" was just laughable - I think I worked out it would have taken over 300 years of continual surplus at that level to repay what currently owe
Soldato
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The UK deficit reduction targets still promoted by this government are going to be their own undoing. Yes, it was sensible to get government spending in order previously, and the government has made measures to do that, but continually promoting this is now at the expense of economic growth and is now harming the economy long term. Growth is already revised down because of Brexit and will likely continue for the foreseeable future, so by keeping borrowing down and not investing further in key areas right now is frankly self-harm to our economy.
If the government doesn't change tactic soon then expect more councils and hospital trusts to be in special measures, more companies falling over, more rail networks collapsing, rising unemployment, more poverty, increasing demand on welfare, more homelessness, more crime. This will happen if the government doesn't begin to address the cracks which are appearing. Their unemployment record might be at record low levels right now, but I guarantee if people end up getting sicker and can't work because of soaring waiting lists, more companies like carilion going under, more companies like M&S and Tesco closing stores and making staffing cuts, especially post Brexit, then that record will begin to disappear.
If the government doesn't change tactic soon then expect more councils and hospital trusts to be in special measures, more companies falling over, more rail networks collapsing, rising unemployment, more poverty, increasing demand on welfare, more homelessness, more crime. This will happen if the government doesn't begin to address the cracks which are appearing. Their unemployment record might be at record low levels right now, but I guarantee if people end up getting sicker and can't work because of soaring waiting lists, more companies like carilion going under, more companies like M&S and Tesco closing stores and making staffing cuts, especially post Brexit, then that record will begin to disappear.