So how much did it cost...

ukcarper

I read the Paxman link and to me it sounds like the rant of a privileged middle class person who never had to go without. It looks nothing like that from the perspective of working class person from a council estate .

GeorgeHowell

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Court of law eh? After referring to me as an idiot and a plank, isn't that a bit rich?

Just saying what I see. You haven't tried to argue against what Paxman and Willits have said, just attempted to instantly dismiss their views wer more insults and put downs.

More words in mouth, I have not called anyone personally an idiot, and as far as plank is concerned - if the cap fits, wear it.

I have effectively dismissed their views in numerous other posts, and so have not reiterated all that again here and now. If you want me to I will, but probably after the Olympic Games, as I largely expect to have more interesting things to do for a few weeks than chew the fat on the internet.

RenovationMan

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

That of course is putting words in my mouth, in a court of law no doubt someone would (rightly) object to such a tactic.

That's standard procedure for Graham. He constantly builds strawman arguments by putting words into other people's mouths or just creating downright lies. What is quite amusing is that if people pull him up on it or, even worse, people do it back to him, he bursts into tears and emplores the forum to come to his aid.

Its a shame because without Devon and his miriad of sockpuppets (and 'thanks pals') this could be a decent forum.

lessonlearned

ukcarper wrote: »

I read the Paxman link and to me it sounds like the rant of a privileged middle class person who never had to go without. It looks nothing like that from the perspective of working class person from a council estate .

As a working class lass from a council estate myself I think you are spot on with your assessment. A classic case of middle class angst - whilst still collecting a nice hefty fee for his article.

He also writes in similar vein amount colonialism. Bet the proceeds of that book didn't benefit any ex colonies either. And yes I have read both.

ruggedtoast

lessonlearned wrote: »

As a working class lass from a council estate myself I think you are spot on with your assessment. A classic case of middle class angst - whilst still collecting a nice hefty fee for his article.

He also writes in similar vein amount colonialism. Bet the proceeds of that book didn't benefit any ex colonies either. And yes I have read both.

OK, middle class boomers benefited more than working class boomers, and you're both better off than your Gen X and Y counterparts.

ukcarper

ruggedtoast wrote: »

OK, middle class boomers benefited more than working class boomers, and you're both better off than your Gen X and Y counterparts.

Don’t agree for majority of generation x as they have had the opportunity to benefit from last boom, people who are going to suffer most are later generation y but I don’t see how you can blame a whole generation.

ruggedtoast

ukcarper wrote: »

Don’t agree for majority of generation x as they have had the opportunity to benefit from last boom, people who are going to suffer most are later generation y but I don’t see how you can blame a whole generation.

Please see the previous dozen pages.

ukcarper

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Please see the previous dozen pages.

Yes and there is no concrete evidenced proving what you claim there.

ash28

ukcarper wrote: »

Don’t agree for majority of generation x as they have had the opportunity to benefit from last boom, people who are going to suffer most are later generation y but I don’t see how you can blame a whole generation.

You know, for the all the different views regarding the generations - one thing has struck me and that is for the baby boomers, an American invention and in reality not really applicable in the UK in the same way as it is in the US - the US saw a large and sustained growth in their population in the years after the war and the UK didn't - you just need to look at the birth rates in the UK to see that there wasn't the same sustained population growth - in fact we were about 10 years behind the US. The real growth in the population was from around 1956 for about 12 years or so - which includes some of Gen x too.

When most babyboomers joined the work for there was high competition for jobs - youngsters just think there wasn't - there was no working time directive and 5.5 or 6 day weeks were normal working weeks. When I left school there was a lot of competition for decent jobs.

Many Gen X joined the workforce in a time of economic turmoil and redundancies.

Gen Y started to join the workforce during the boom period and are the first generation for a while not to have experienced a recession. Until now.

I know plenty of Gen X (I've worked with enough of them over the years and some of them aren't that much younger than me) who have done very, very well indeed. And why wouldn't they have done - some are almost 50 years old. And at the peak of their game. Housing, jobs and pensions have been good to a lot of them. Especially housing - quite a few I knew bought at the bottom of the last crash - mind quite a few bought a the peak too. A bit like now.

Gen Y (all of my children are early-ish Gen Y), not so very long ago in our little corner of the south east - young people could literally pick and choose who they worked for - I remember our local authority area having more jobs than people to fill them. So young people could move from job to job with relative ease - and did. They have suffered more from company pension scheme closures or changes to pension schemes and suffered more from the housing boom than either boomers or Gen x.

In 2008 the split of the workforce was 30% boomer, 33% Gen x and 27% Gen y. And 10% of the workforce was made up of those over 60.

I have read that in reality you belong to the generation 7 years either side of your age - which seems about right.

The one's I think will have a really hard time are late Gen y and the generation my grandson belongs to - he was born in 2001 - he will be in education until he is at least 18 and unless things improve significantly his job prospects will be poor and his chances of becoming independent in his twenties will be much lower than my childrens' chances were.

ash28

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Classic. Minister for Universities, Oxbridge graduate, Associate professor at Cass Business School.

Yes a real non entity, unlike George Howell, decorated internet warrior, Victoria Cross for being beastly to Graham.

Don't get me wrong, I condemn and denounce Willetts for his gleeful role in tuition fees, but one cannot discount his opinions.

Have you read any of his book?

He says that the actions of the baby boomers have so distorted the housing market that young people have far more problems getting on to the housing ladder than boomers did.

He also has the generation of baby boomers spanning 20 years - it didn't - how can you have one generation that includes more years than any other? It distorts the figures - but perhaps that was the intention. And also that there was boom in the birth rate from the end of the WW2 onwards - not true - the was a spike immediately after the war and then it fell off - it picked up again later.

Here is a population pyramid - it's interactive - if you move the slider at the bottom to 2012 and then move your cursor up and down the pyramid it will give you the number of births for that year - you can also clearly see the spike in births after WW2 - it lasted 2 years - you can see the drop off and then the birth rate pick up again - it's quite interesting.

http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/HTMLDocs/dvc2/EWPyramid.html

In his book -Chapter 4 - Spending the kids inheritance.

Table 1 shows the net housing wealth of different age groups.

"The table shows that half of all this wealth ... belongs to the the baby-boomers and only about ... 15 per cent to everyone under 44".

Perhaps if he had used the correct years for the baby boomers his "his almost half" would have been a bit different.

To me his research suggests that huge numbers of the under 44s have not been able to buy a house because the baby boomers have them. Patently not true - lots of under 44s have bought houses. And when he published the book in 2010 people of 45 weren't baby boomers and neither were people who were 65 in 2010 - a small point I know - but it just shows how shoddy his research has been.

The way he has arrived at his conclusion is to use net housing values - the price of the house minus the mortgage. I'm a boomer and don't have a mortgage - but I certainly did in my 30s and 40s and well into my 50s. So older people have either no mortgage or a smaller mortgage than the under 44s and therefore have greater housing wealth - quelle surprise. One positive of getting older is that you pay off your mortgage.

But actual home ownership by age is surprising - because on here only the boomers can afford property.

The under 44's have 35% of owned property, the 45s to 64 have 40% and the over 65s have 26%. So younger people have pretty hefty share too.

You need to look at table S138 in the link below - from Dept for Communities and Local Government.

http://www.communities.gov.uk/housing/housingresearch/housingsurveys/surveyofenglishhousing/sehlivetables/owneroccupiersincluding/