Do you think the western world is becoming harder to live in?
- Thread starter RomanNose
- Start date
Soldato
Maybe you can use the internet to save the starving Africans you seem to care so much about. You could use ebay to sell all your belongings and donate to them for a start.
Oh lets all worry about house prices, because house prices give a fair representation of how we live.
Why not buy a house, and then live in it?
I am glad that as a nation we are helping those who are less fortunate and I'm a massive supporter of the idea of a charity tax.
Soldato
Yes, we're so hard done by.
contraception.?
![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
People these days have more stuff, flasher cars and go on better holidays and own more technology than ever before.
How many people in 1980 owned an Audi? How many people in 1980 regularly went on long haul flights? How many people were able to waste 3-4 years drinking and socialising at Uni instead of going straight out to work? Entire cities in the UK have declined simply because these days almost everyone in the UK can afford to board a jet airliner and fly to Spain rather than get on the train to Blackpool et al.
Frankly I doubt we've ever had it so good.
How many people in 1980 owned an Audi? How many people in 1980 regularly went on long haul flights? How many people were able to waste 3-4 years drinking and socialising at Uni instead of going straight out to work? Entire cities in the UK have declined simply because these days almost everyone in the UK can afford to board a jet airliner and fly to Spain rather than get on the train to Blackpool et al.
Frankly I doubt we've ever had it so good.
That's just because some things have gone down in price dramatically and again different social factors. Not many people went to uni 30 years ago.[TW]Fox;21868017 said:
Even the Audi might have been a cultural reason ( i.e people just wanting flash cars), but if you look at the finances people were actually much better off than now.
Housing, cars, fuel, food all these prices are becoming out of reach for young people these days which is pretty damn important if you want to survive.
Man of Honour
Yeah times are hard, I could only just hilariously comfortably afford that 3D monitor I bought the other day.
.Absolutely agree - but isn't it the choices people make to finance that brand new white Audi A3 and borrow on a credit card for that 2 week trip to New York and pay monthly for that graphics card that eventually make the world they live in 'harder to live in' rather than the world itself?
Just look how many people happily pay almost a thousand quid over 2 years to have an iPhone and a call plan... people have 'less money' because they spend it on more stuff!
Housing Estates in the 1980's were not filled with brand new top of the range cars on monthly payment plans or houses with 6 television sets or people with £50 a month gym membership or people paying 100 quid for a pair of jeans or an airport shuttle taxi picking up an entire family for the annual trip to Florida or a guy on a scooter delivering a £40 order from Dominos Pizza for a single meal.. so the people had more money as a result..
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[TW]Fox;21868116 said:
I agree with your viewpoint, in the 80s when my parents were 'joining real life' and getting their first proper jobs, cars and renting their own house they would not have dreamed of spending 500 pounds each per year for a phone. Yet now I work in a store at weekends and there are people on minimum wage (+ a little bit) spending that amount on their phone and getting year old cars on credit.
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http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/boeapps/iadb/Repo.asp
Almost 15% base rate at times. The houses might have been cheap but the mortgage everyone required to buy them absolutely wasn't!
It really depends though which way you look at it, middle class families may feel better off as really entertainment is incredibly cheap but it's probably worse off for those on minimum wage working 40 hours a week who can't afford rent or a mortgage.
I think that it can only get worse though, unemployment figures are not going to look good though.
Could somebody working 37.5 hours a week in a minimum wage-style job in 1989 have afforded a mortgage at over 15% interest?
Perhaps much of it is about a change in society? I'd imagine in the 80's few people purchased a property alone. Most were joint mortgages with a partner. Now everyone seems to think that buying a house alone is something everyone should be able to afford?
Unemployment was 50% higher in 1982..?
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