Retired people could work for pensions..

PaulF81

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

You should be so lucky ...

Sorry, you are right, was merely a dream....

CLAPTON

ukcarper wrote: »

I think one thing that was better in the 60s and 70s was that good jobs with training and prospects were available to people who did not have a degree. I'm not sure current apprenticeships are as good as those on offer in the 60s and 70s.

Maybe reflect on the opportunities you would expect to be available for the top 5% (1960/70s) compared to the top 50% (now)

and compare and contrast with the opportunities you would expect for the top 50% ( 1960/70) then and the top 50% now.

ukcarper

CLAPTON wrote: »

Maybe reflect on the opportunities you would expect to be available for the top 5% (1960/70s) compared to the top 50% (now)

and compare and contrast with the opportunities you would expect for the top 50% ( 1960/70) then and the top 50% now.

I'm not sure what you are getting at. All I am saying it was possible to get a good job without a degree which was a good thing as your chances of getting a degree was very low. I would imagine that the number of people leaving school in the 60s with O levels was not that different to the number of people getting a degree now.

But I had a very good apprenticeship which not only involved good training within the company but time at a technical college in fact the company allowed me to attend college after my apprenticeship finished I'm not sure you would find a company willing to do that now.

GeorgeHowell

ukcarper wrote: »

I think one thing that was better in the 60s and 70s was that good jobs with training and prospects were available to people who did not have a degree. I'm not sure current apprenticeships are as good as those on offer in the 60s and 70s.

That's because Thatcher (through anti-union dogma) and Blair (through general ineptitude) decided that manufacturing should be written off in this country and replaced by financial services, retailing, leisure, and tourism.

ukcarper

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

That's because Thatcher (through anti-union dogma) and Blair (through general ineptitude) decided that manufacturing should be written off in this country and replaced by financial services, retailing, leisure, and tourism.

That is what happened but I'm not sure it was decided that manufacturing should be written off. I agree that a lot more could have been done to prevent the decline and to many eggs were put into the financial basket.

ruggedtoast

BobQ wrote: »

Everyone is better off and to say its just boomers is plain wrong. In material terms we nearly all have things that were by no means common for lower earners in 1970 (CH, telephones, tumble dryers, hifi systems etc).

What has changed most in my view is opportunity. In 1970 unless you had parents who could subsidise your education costs you had little opportunity. A university education was not available unless you were lucky enough to be among the top 5% or so of educational ability and even then it relied on your parent's willingness to maintain you. Fall just outside this bracket tough, even if you were deserving your place might still go to someone from a better school/family who were able to guide your preparations. Today anyone who is a little above average can go to university. (I think many who choose to do so are misguided but they do have the opportunity.)

What has changed for the worse is that a lot more people now want things instantly. Many younger people have become accustomed to getting a car as soon as they reach 18, many want their own home and regard staying with their parents as demeaning, when they do they do not want second hand things only pristine new things will do, and they want lots of new clothes, gadgets, etc. If they can buy a house they want to live in a nice area, they are not content to do up a run down house its all got to be new. Of course not all young people have such an attitude, some are far more pragmatic and shown more patience of the kind many boomers showed through their lives. But this is not true of all boomers, the 1980s and 1990s saw some of them impatient to get the very best which is why some run up unmanageable debts, accepting that others did this for more understandable reasons like unemployment.

Boomers are better off.

I'm pretty sure plenty of boomers went to polytechnics, and enjoyed large and generous grants.

These days you need an NVQ Level 4 to get a job hod carrying. I know a lad who has just finished training at college to be a plumber. He will never get to actually be a plumber because he cant finish the NVQ without a placement as an apprentice, which he can't get because there aren't any jobs or apprentice positions even if you offer to work for nothing.

Yet young people are f3ckless and lazy apparently because they are signing on.

ILW

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Boomers are better off.

I'm pretty sure plenty of boomers went to polytechnics, and enjoyed large and generous grants.

These days you need an NVQ Level 4 to get a job hod carrying. I know a lad who has just finished training at college to be a plumber. He will never get to actually be a plumber because he cant finish the NVQ without a placement as an apprentice, which he can't get because there aren't any jobs or apprentice positions even if you offer to work for nothing.

Yet young people are f3ckless and lazy apparently because they are signing on.

He can go out, knock on doors and get work though.

ruggedtoast

ILW wrote: »

He can go out, knock on doors and get work though.

Yes. People welcome teenage boys knocking on their doors don't they.

ukcarper

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Boomers are better off.

I'm pretty sure plenty of boomers went to polytechnics, and enjoyed large and generous grants.

These days you need an NVQ Level 4 to get a job hod carrying. I know a lad who has just finished training at college to be a plumber. He will never get to actually be a plumber because he cant finish the NVQ without a placement as an apprentice, which he can't get because there aren't any jobs or apprentice positions even if you offer to work for nothing.

Yet young people are f3ckless and lazy apparently because they are signing on.

I don't know why you keep implying that we boomers think all of the younger generation are lazy and fe3kless I certainly don't think that. Someone I knew did a 2 year carpentry course and couldn't get a placement I think the same happened to most of his class he now works in a supermarket. The difference is you blame all of the problems of today a one generation I don't.

Going back to the 60s no one I went to school with had a grant to go to a poly if they did get further education in was normally day release funded by the company they were working for.

ILW

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Yes. People welcome teenage boys knocking on their doors don't they.

Friend of mines son, is doing just that (but with leaflets) and is doing £3-400 pw week in business now.