Do you think the western world is becoming harder to live in?

How can you have infinite growth on a finite planet.
The longer you leave it the bigger the **** storm will be when it crumbles round your ears.
I am half inclined to believe that is what this 2012 conspiracy is all about, the system engineered to fail so that we can start again.
Not sure I want to be around when it does though

Exactly, that's why the system is so flawed.
 
blame globalisation.

care to elaborate, as that's a rather large balloon / nebulous statement. I;d put more of it down to supply and demand. Wages rise, certain groups have more wealth and can afford to pay higher prices or are willing to pay higher prices. Cheap house for example get mopped up by the buy to let nazis, knock on effect house proces go up as fewer become available.

Jo average ends up renting, house prices go up more because now jo average is out of the equation the buy to let satans are cleaning the average man out in rent thus making more money leading them to have more money to buy more houses.

Rinse and repeat until we get to the tipping point where there are thousands of empty privately held properties that no one can afford the rents on so the landlords go broke the properties get repossed and the next buy to let wannabe snaps up a bargin repo.

The selling of council stock to private owners was one of thatchers not so brilliant plans. Council housing existed to ensure that everyone from every walk of life could have somewhere they could call home. The rich had their mansions and the honest working class labourer had his council house. Now the honest working class man has an oppressive buy to let landlords jack boot on his nuts......................
 
I think one of the main problems now is the blatant profiteering. No one seems to be doing a jot about it. For example up here (where they make the stuff) whenever a school or public holiday comes about the price of petrol drives up 2-3p for that week or two. It then magically drops again to the same price, when you dont need to go driving on days out and visiting the folks etc.
Surely someone see's this and something should be done to stop the one person ultimately that made that call to make millions off a holiday for an essential item that had no reason to go up in the first place.
 
My mom (58) grew up with an outside toilet and remembers the first time she, had switch electricity installed, first tv, first inside toilet, first shower etc. These days all of that is taken for granted.

We are definitely in a poor era for housing as the housing outlook looks bleak. Houses are just unaffordable for more people than they were by the time my parents were my age, in the 80s. Well it appears that way. But I do think it is getting more difficult to live in the west, starting the last few years. Maybe since 2008 it has not improved.
 
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The biggest thing which makes "the west" harder to live in now is that people are just miserable and are pessimistic about the future. In the last few decades, people may have had less but they were more grateful for what they had. Nowadays people spend all their effort whinging about how everythings unfair because they don't have everything they want and they end up miserable because of it.
 
The housing situation is dire for anyone that isn't a working couple earning a decent wage, my grandparents bought their first house cash outright on a working class salary, you couldn't dream of doing that today, do we have more affordable 'luxuries' today, yes, no doubt, but the cost of real finical security is very high in today's world, in the old days you just had to work hard and save, didn't matter what job you had, these days many work to survive in a gilded cage, a cheap TV from Argos and an internet connection is hardly a substitute for owning your own home, many people value these cheap trinkets because it's all they will ever own, a distraction from the reality of having an unsecured future.
 
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Some do, some don't. The people who's parents invested wisely in 1984 are sitting pretty right now.

I can't personally compare the situation now to 30 years ago because I was only just born. However there wasn't nearly this much pessimism about "living in the west" 5 years ago when things were more prosperous. My personal situation was very good then and it's gone on to be significantly better now so I can't complain. I certainly wouldn't describe my life as financially difficult.

I guess what I trying to say is where you live is becoming less an less important generally speaking. What matters most is what social class you were born into, how much support, love and encouragement you got from your parents and how hard you've worked in life to get where you want to be.

How can you have infinite growth on a finite planet.
The longer you leave it the bigger the **** storm will be when it crumbles round your ears.
I am half inclined to believe that is what this 2012 conspiracy is all about, the system engineered to fail so that we can start again.
Not sure I want to be around when it does though

Most growth is generated by technological advancement. There are no theoretical limits to future technology.
 
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My mom (58) grew up with an outside toilet and remembers the first time she, had switch electricity installed, first tv, first inside toilet, first shower etc. These days all of that is taken for granted.

Me also.
Toilet was in the back yard, I had to stand in the sink to be washed but on a Sunday we had a tin bath in front of the fire.
I went in first and ordered not to wee in it, my Mum second and my Dad third.
We had our first phone around 1975 because me and my girlfriend (now wife) had to go to phone boxes at certain times.
I think we had our first fitted carpet around the same time because before that it was all Lino.

Black and white days were brilliant, 1959, outside toilet on the right with obligatory newspaper to wipe your bum -

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Last year I had an economics day at school and one of the teachers got really angry and passionate about how his generation has mucked up everything and how we teenagers are now going to suffer.:(
 
Yes, we're so hard done by.

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i think if we had an average of 8 kids per family things would be much harder for us all.

after going to africa (Kenya) the other year it was very hard to see small kids begging for food.

at least they are trying to not have as many kids now as the current generation seem to realise that more kids == harder to live and feed those kids. i still blame the church though, they still condemn condoms etc.
 
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.
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.

Actually cars and especially food have decreased in price (relative) over the last 30 years or so. The increase in house prices is in part due to an increase in proper disposable income (ie income not spent on food, which has increased substantially).
 
Actually cars and especially food have decreased in price (relative) over the last 30 years or so. The increase in house prices is in part due to an increase in proper disposable income (ie income not spent on food, which has increased substantially).

And the massive reduction in interest rates - see earlier in this thread for the calculation of the percentage of a persons salary a mortgage took up in the land of super cheap wonder houses that was the 1980's versus today...
 
I agree, do you know how hard it is to get a 3G signal? let alone we don't have 4G in UK yet..unbearable
 
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