Retired people could work for pensions..

coastline

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

I agree that all those factors played their part, and it was another example of politically motivated trade union leaders cutting the throats of their members. But I don't think Thatcher saw it as a problem and probably thought it was 'for the best'. The other associated major strategic error that she made was in allowing mass, largely localised unemployment to become endemic. This set the seeds for where we are now, with not working for a whole lifetime and living on benefits becoming an accepted lifestyle choice.

In a move to magically reduce the unemployment figures she transferred 3/4 of a million onto sickness benefit....thats how we've had 3m on the sick when we're supposed to be fitter and living longer.
The last decade has seen at least double the amount of young people going to Uni...again another figure which keeps the dole numbers around 2.5m..
That grand total is well over 7m people without work...again without including the early retired etc etc..

BobQ

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Boomers are better off.

AS I said everyone is better off (including boomers)

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

They did indeed go to polytechnics but they were not regarded as being of the same standard and those who went were about a further 5%. If you had good A levels and grades you went to university and at the time they were all of a fairly high academic standard. If you had lower grade A levels often just one or two you could get into a poly. These were mainly focussed on applied science/engineering subjects but they could not award degrees. Many gave 2 year Higher National Diploma/Certificates. Some poly courses had higher standards and were registered with a body called CNAA to give an externally regulated degree. But most people at polys did 2 year HND/HNC.

Grants were never generous. Local authorities had a capped number of awards, some were discretionary and all of these like university grants were means tested based on your parents income. Basically if your parents were very poor you got a full grant but most had an assumed parental contribution. My grant had an assumed contribution which I knew my parents could not afford so I had to get a weekend job.

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.

It seems that we live in an era where everyone is getting more qualified. Many of my age would say that qualifications have been devalued since 1970. But putting this aside if 40% of the poulation get a degree (or for that matter an NVQ4) and there are only 20% of jobs that need a degree (or an NVQ4), what happens? What happens is that people that have jobs that do not require a degree ask for a degree to do them and this cascades down the system. Now I am sure people who attain NVQ4 are a much better person for getting it they will only get a job using those skills if the numbers of people attaining a particular qualification bears some relationship to the demand for jobs.

I do sympathise with your friend and it says something for the state of the economy that we have no demand for training plumbers. But were we to build houses then there would be a demand for them but we are not doing so. We give money to banks who sit on it and refuse to lend it. We may as well give it to house builders on the understanding they build some houses people can afford to employ plumbers and other trades.

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

I never said this. This situation is not new it happened in the 1980s, we raised unemployment through dogmatically driven supply side monetarist policies, disguised it by changing the way we calculate unemployment, moved lots of people on to disability benefits so they did not count and they introduced mickey mouse employment schemes for youngsters who could not get jobs (YTS). Instead of giving money to banks who sit on it we should build infrastructure we need (that would employ plumbers)

See comments in line

Sapphire

BobQ wrote: »

Is it bothering you?:D

Nope – in fact some quite interesting points on various issues have been raised throughout the thread.

But it must be one of the the longest threads in history...

CLAPTON

look up the facts

in the 80s (i.e. Thatcher years) we had the 'benefit' of north sea gas/oil.

this had the effect of making sterling a very strong currency which made much of the UKs manufacturing industry uncompetitive (plus of course that much of their output was rubbish)

in tha same way thatcher didn't actually destroy the miners; British Gas destroyed the miners by delivering cheap north sea gas to produce cheaper, cleaner electricity and heating to homes.


That's how it was

PaulF81

Yep..Maggie saved this country a fortune in coal worker compensation, yet is repaid by some commies printing shirts celebrating her demise.

ukcarper

PaulF81 wrote: »

Yep..Maggie saved this country a fortune in coal worker compensation, yet is repaid by some commies printing shirts celebrating her demise.

I wonder how that compares to the amount of tax they lost and unemployment benefit paid. Then there's all the housing benefit selling most of council houses has cost us.

PaulF81

What tax? The uk coal board was subsidised by the government. That why it was shut down, the level of unionisation had left it completely unsalvlvageable. Might want to ask how long the private pits lasted after they were restarted.

coastline

PaulF81 wrote: »

Yep..Maggie saved this country a fortune in coal worker compensation, yet is repaid by some commies printing shirts celebrating her demise.

Thing is here you've got to see all sides of the story...mining areas were totally wiped out and very little was put in its place.
How would you feel if a minister publically shouted for people to get on their bikes and look for work...as if there were millions of vacancies.As I've already posted we had a prime minister who was manipulating dole figures and pushing them all on sickness benefit..theres been a gradual decline in vacancies for 50 years now....but magically we've only got 2.5m on the dole..;)

ukcarper

PaulF81 wrote: »

What tax? The uk coal board was subsidised by the government. That why it was shut down, the level of unionisation had left it completely unsalvlvageable. Might want to ask how long the private pits lasted after they were restarted.

With a nationalised industry the cost of closing down is more that the difference between the cost of running and the revenue collected. Was closing coal mines and using imported coal really better for the country.

CLAPTON

ukcarper wrote: »

With a nationalised industry the cost of closing down is more that the difference between the cost of running and the revenue collected. Was closing coal mines and using imported coal really better for the country.

check the facts

british coal wasn't replaced by foreign coal; it was replaced by cheap clean north sea gas.

forget all that nonsense about maggie smashing the miners; British Gas actually closed down the mines.