Older generation want too much too late

macaque_2

Rinoa wrote: »

Just visit your local town centre on a friday/saturday night to see where their money goes.

Apparantly low paid Russians do the same thing. Don't you think those people would be doing something different on a Saturday night if they had a better life and a future?

kabayiri

The wealthy (ish) Boomer generation is just a byproduct of the credit revolution over the last few decades.

Call it fortunate timing if you wish, but most older people probably didn't have the vision to see where things have been heading.

This credit revolution was engineered by a financial elite and a compliant banking sector. How else do we explain the growth in the number of millionaires around the world?

Itismehonest

macaque wrote: »

Apparantly low paid Russians do the same thing. Don't you think those people would be doing something different on a Saturday night if they had a better life and a future?

What was the excuse for the millionaire yuppies of a couple of decades ago who binged away their Saturdays?
Maybe saving a bit of that Saturday night money would bring opportunities for better things in the future?

Rinoa

macaque wrote: »

Apparantly low paid Russians do the same thing. Don't you think those people would be doing something different on a Saturday night if they had a better life and a future?

You believe if house prices were lower, they'd stop in and watch tv instead of frittering away £100/200 in a week-end? Get real macaque.

The only defence they may have is that they're conditioned to act the way they do ~ but that's another story.

Oldernotwiser

homelessskilledworker wrote: »

Which is what makes life harder for many of those today that will work hell or high water, we have to pay for it.
And it is no joke having for many young adults having to watch some lazy(neverworked)tart knock out a handfull of kids with different fathers and live in better housing than the man/woman going to work at 7am. And this is not a unusual scenario these days, some areas have one in every three houses where people have never worked.

So your argument that it was tougher back then because you never had welfare like today is good that you never. And lets not forget that it is the young workers today working to pay for the Bankers !!!! ups as well as(and lets not let them off the hook) the specualtive types that live next door to us that gambled and borrowed too much.

In general I agree with you; it was the OP who made the point that older generations had a better life because we had "good state benefits"!

pelirocco

macaque wrote: »

The older generation had cheap houses, free university, well paid jobs, good pensions, free dental care, miras, low stamp duty, low council rates, low taxes and good state benefits. Now they want the young (many of whom have to take low paid jobs and/or are saddled with ever rising university debts) to:

• To buy their houses at fantasy prices.
• Work like slaves to provide them with health care and pensions in their old age

Whilst consumer goods have become cheap, many of the basic necessities for a civilised life are beyond the reach of younger people.

I am not sure , who you class as older generation ?

Maybe me ? ( 51 )

Cheap Houses?, well maybe , but salaries were much lower and mortgage interest rates were higher

Free Uni ? .........yes , but then only the brightest kids when , and then then got useful degrees

Good pensions? .......state pension ?

Low taxes ?

And we are working to pay benefits and pensions to others , just are the next generation will be paying for you ?

I would call the older generation my parents and grandparents

My parents could never afford a house , and their generation were lucky if they were allowed to grammar school , a lot had to leave school to go to work to help support their family ........no going down the pub at the weekend , spending a fortune , having the latest designer clothes etc

Maybe the younger generation expect too much ? , and to be handed everything on a plate

Oldernotwiser

macaque wrote: »

The reference to tax comes straight from the Gordon Brown book of spin
You have omitted to mention changes to VAT, NI, employer's NI, council parking charges, council parking fines, petrol duty, tax on alcohol and tobacco, loss of tax subsidy on train fares, miras, council tax, water charges, IR35, hospital parking charges, care charges, dental charges, passport charges, planning approval charges, taxi licence charges, manure heap charges etc.
.

What a very strange list! (What are "manure heap charges"?)

homelessskilledworker

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

In general I agree with you; it was the OP who made the point that older generations had a better life because we had "good state benefits"!

Well I would class good state benefits as a welfare system that actually helped normally hard working people until they were ready to work again, those very same days where working parents used to be able to get a council house.

Today far to many people use the welfare system as a way of life, and in many cases the biological urge for some women to have children is so strong that welfare state is the only answer.

Oldernotwiser

homelessskilledworker wrote: »

Well I would class good state benefits as a welfare system that actually helped normally hard working people until they were ready to work again, those very same days where working parents used to be able to get a council house.

I always wonder when those days were. My parents were on the council waiting list for over 40 years, starting from the end of WW2.

Graham_Devon

StevieJ wrote: »

33% and 98% for higher earners (includes 15% additional tax on investments)

Out of interest...for how long?

I know it wasn't you, but it's ok stating the absolute peak of interest rates, but that peak didn't last long in reality. This housing crisis however is going on for, what seems, forever.

I'm sure we can all pick points in time to back up our cause. But if that point was just a blip, compared to a housing and credit crisis, which has been going on for 4 solid years now, it's worth looking at that, before making random points about a point in time. IMO anyway.

Also worth point out that 10% interest rates were pretty much the norm back then. So although 14% sounds shocking now, and was hard back then, it sounds worse now than it actually may have been. Imagine going to 14% from 3%. It's a bit different to going to 14% from an average 10%.

It would be absolute carnage now moving to 14%. Would literally destroy the country. Yet it didn't have quite the same impact back then, due to high interest rates (compared to the norm today) being the norm. It's all about relativity.

The high base rates of yesteryear are always stated in isolation too. Yet we hear quite regularly of the 15% plus wage increases people were getting at the time. So again, context is out of the window when a simple high base rate is used to suggest it was bad back then. It was bad. But that kind of wage inflation softened the blow, surely. Now we have lower base rates, but high (in relation) inflation, and very low wage increases.