Decline in our standard of living, when will it stop?

Dan:_4

Percy1983 wrote: »

Luckily for me I get free public transport and use that for work.

With that I am heading for a third year of pay freezes.

Good news my business is doing well, not in a massive profit but already cleared my setup costs, so a bit more for me and and the government gets its cut too.

Do you work full time and run a business on the side?

PasturesNew

You can't have fuel protestors because it costs too much to drive to the location of the protest.

My income since 5 years ago's dropped by about 80%. Heck, I might even have to get one of those "proper job" things I've heard about.

ruggedtoast

Generali wrote: »

The trouble is, the money has already been spent both by the Government and by individuals: if you borrow to consume then you move consumption from tomorrow to today. We've had the period of raised consumption, now we have the period of reduced consumption.

Borrowing to invest so to increase productive capacity is different as, with luck, you will get a return greater than the cost of borrowing. Spending on salaries for nurses, doctors and target measurers is doubtless highly laudable. Investment it is not however.

One of the problems the BMA has at the moment is that they are finding it very difficult to recruit new members, as well as retain old ones.

Apparently few doctors can see how a trade union can possibly get them a better deal than they already have. A gp now gets £100k a year for working a for working a four day week. And it doesn't matter whether they cure a single patient or not.

Graham_Devon

The cost of fuel is the worry for me.

Get through 2-3 tanks a month and can't really get anymore economical with the car. 85% of that is work related.

Over the past 2 years I've personally seen a full tank go from £49 to £76 at my last fill up. Will need to fill up again this weekend. Will most likely be hitting £78-79.

pqrdef

We're still well up in the world league tables, so most people out there have a lower standard of living than us.

Actually, most people in this country have a lower standard of living than us, unless we're at the bottom of the heap.

And most of our parents had a lower standard of living than us.

But we think we're suffering when our expectations aren't met. We'll have to revise our expectations.

Certainly we are going to have to reduce our consumption of most natural resources as the rest of the world wants to join in. We'll need to change our ideas of what we want to buy to include more products that are not resource-intensive.

We should get used to the idea that the world has changed permanently. This isn't just a blip and we aren't just waiting for things to get back to "normal".

Dan:_4

Graham_Devon wrote: »

The cost of fuel is the worry for me.

Get through 2-3 tanks a month and can't really get anymore economical with the car. 85% of that is work related.

Over the past 2 years I've personally seen a full tank go from £49 to £76 at my last fill up. Will need to fill up again this weekend. Will most likely be hitting £78-79.

If you can't afford to run a car, how about geting a bike? Keep fit at the same time!

MrRee_2

chewmylegoff wrote: »

of course you can't spend it, the shops don't accept money that you have made up on the internet.

I like that, that's funny ...... I don't mind if it's untrue - you make me laugh!! :beer:

MrRee_2

pqrdef wrote: »

We're still well up in the world league tables, so most people out there have a lower standard of living than us.

Actually, most people in this country have a lower standard of living than us, unless we're at the bottom of the heap.

And most of our parents had a lower standard of living than us.

But we think we're suffering when our expectations aren't met. We'll have to revise our expectations.

Certainly we are going to have to reduce our consumption of most natural resources as the rest of the world wants to join in. We'll need to change our ideas of what we want to buy to include more products that are not resource-intensive.

We should get used to the idea that the world has changed permanently. This isn't just a blip and we aren't just waiting for things to get back to "normal".

Top Post!!

We are, indeed, a very rich nation ... even the poorest have more than most in the world - we have a LOT to be thankful for.

We can REJOICE that we are so rich in so many ways ...

Puddleglum

Theoretically, once the BoE gets inflation back down to a level equal to wage inflation our living standards should stay the same. However I have long been noticing inflation of items not in the official basket of goods rocketing up. The 500g pack of margarine I buy for example shot up by 33% last year and recently took a more moderate 9% hike. Thank heavens for small mercies. Tinned tomato inflation has recently gone stratospheric. Guess who does the shopping in this household! We may all be focusing on petrol but the things we are not looking at have rocket fuel underneath them.

Percy1983

Dan: wrote: »

Do you work full time and run a business on the side?

I certainly do, as it is my business started as a hobby and just grew to the point where I had enough demand and could charge for it.