Help to Buy is nothing but an election ploy....

Jason74

leveller2911 wrote: »

Tax BTL so its not so attractive to invest in. It would never happen of coarse because The Tories and Nu Labour would rather paper over the cracks than solve the problem or at least real reforms.

Governments need to stop raiding pension funds etc so that small investors can have confidence in other investment vehicles, all we seem to get now is Joe Bloggs buying a BTL as though its an I-pod purchase.

This of course, is the correct answer. Do this effectively, and a lot of the intergenerational unfairness that I mentioned in my post above will start to unravel.

CLAPTON

Jason74 wrote: »

This of course, is the correct answer. Do this effectively, and a lot of the intergenerational unfairness that I mentioned in my post above will start to unravel.

wouldn't it be better to build more houses?

Jason74

CLAPTON wrote: »

wouldn't it be better to build more houses?

That too without a doubt. But I don't see it as an either or, and ideally I'd like to see both happen.

Loughton_Monkey

Jason74 wrote: »

The first and last paragraphs on this post are 100% accurate, but there is so much to disagree with in the middle that I almost don't know where to start. Probably the biggest one is the point about young people being somehow less responsible than generations that went previously. I'm sorry, but that just isn't the case. You can go back over the last 100 years or so at least, and find myriad examples of older people claiming that the "youth" coming through were somehow less hard working or less responsible than they were. Each generation making that claim has been wrong, and it's wrong to make it now.

If there is an issue around young people's attitudes at the moment, it's driven by the fact that they're smart enough to realise that the "game" is rigged against them in terms of big picture financial opportunities compared to previous generations. If you know that the dice are loaded against you, then that is going to affect your approach to the game.

It's important to add that I'm just coming up to 40, consider myself to have been born at reasonably "good" time opportunity wise (albeit perhaps not quite as good as 10 or 15 years before) and pretty happy with my lot materially speaking, so I have no personal axe to grind here. It's simply that there is a serious generational unfairness in place, and posts like yours perpetuate the myth that the lack of opportunity for young people is somehow their own fault.

Clearly you didn't read the thread here:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4848653=

Or better still the report itself. You will see two whole decades of generations who have absolutely thrown their embarassingly high wages [compared to the previous 2 decades] of between 52% and 77% in real terms down the toilet.

I have absolutely no reason to believe that those born in the 1980's/90's are not the same or worse.

Do you not realised that the "game" is "rigged" against everyone at the moment? We've had one of the biggest recessions in living memory. The unemployed have seen huge competition for jobs. Those in a job (with financial commitments at home) have seen precious little wage rises. How many hundreds of thousands of public sector jobs went down the pan? Pensioners relying on savings have seen interest rates tumble from 6% down to far less than 2%. Final Salary schemes ended long ago. Annuity rates are miserably low. Most people are seeing their state pension age go up - women in particular......

I'm afraid that the words "smart enough to realise" are totally misplaced and if they do anything, they serve to reinforce my point. If they were smart, they would realise (a) we are still realing from the recession, (b) everyone has been "hit", but in different ways, (c) there is no specific bias towards young in particular, and (d) young people have the whole (up to) 45 years in which to 'come good'. Older people don't have that chance.

Compare that to the typical public sector worker - possibly aged around 45 or 50 - on £35K who over the last 6 years has seen his pension cut by at least 33%, then lost his job and could only get a new one at £25K, has to wait far longer for his state pension, earns sweet FA on what savings he put together.....

Now get some precious 28 year old who believes the 'dice are loaded' against him, and go and speak to that chap. Or 750,000 older people in a similar situation. He'd deserve to be kicked down the road. I'm afraid it's that sort of thinking that becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.

grizzly1911

Jason74 wrote: »

If there is an issue around young people's attitudes at the moment, it's driven by the fact that they're smart enough to realise that the "game" is rigged against them in terms of big picture financial opportunities compared to previous generations. If you know that the dice are loaded against you, then that is going to affect your approach to the game.

It is rigged against all generations.

The younger generations are no smarter than previous generations. They may have access to much more information readily available at their finger tips.

Arguably having a better view of the pitch should enable them to play a better game.

Previous generations were more constrained and didn't have the degree of choice available today. Perhaps having too many choices in life complicates the issues.

I do think society is becoming more polarised, income wise, these days and there is less"fat" in the middle, through which many in older generations could percolate their way through.

CLAPTON

grizzly1911 wrote: »

It is rigged against all generations.

The younger generations are no smarter than previous generations. They may have access to much more information readily available at their finger tips.

Arguably having a better view of the pitch should enable them to play a better game.

Previous generations were more constrained and didn't have the degree of choice available today. Perhaps having too many choices in life complicates the issues.

I do think society is becoming more polarised, income wise, these days and there is less"fat" in the middle, through which many in older generations could percolate their way through.

Taking the view that we have been reasonably human for 10,000 years; lets say 500 generations

then any-one living in the UK today is one of the top 5 generations that have ever lived


so we are arguing whether some-one today is either

in the top 1% of everyone that has ever lived
or
in the top 0.2% of everyone that has ever lived

in addition anyone living in the UK is probably in the top 20% of all people living today


a sense of proportion about how terribly unfair life is might be in order.

enjoy life, you only live once

Loughton_Monkey

grizzly1911 wrote: »

......I do think society is becoming more polarised, income wise, these days and there is less"fat" in the middle, through which many in older generations could percolate their way through.

An inevitable consequence of modern methods of working....

In the 'old' days, computers didn't exist except in the 'feed the mainframe' context, so local knowledge was valuable. Someone in the office, or factory, with 20 years experience would always tend to have a wealth of experience/expertise in his/her head - or at least that was the perception.

These days, it's a formula. Backed up by desktops. "Computer says 'no'" and all that. Which is a double edged sword. Once you've been there 5 years, and shown yourself to be reliable, mature, knowledgeable, then you could easily be 'management'. [In my day, being a 'graduate' in a Blue Chip, we were expected to make management by age 30!].

However, since there is only one 'manager'/'team leader' job for every 10 or so, then that's a large hill to climb. And if you don't make it, you stay down there with the other 'indians' and suck it. Or leave. There are, however, some industries where there is adequate progression for those with initiative and drive, but they are declining.

I would simply love to see statistics on 2013 versus 1973 that counted people working as waitors/bar person in pubs, restaurants, coffee shops or fast food, call centres, supermarket workers, and courier services. This is fertile 'minimum wage territory' and must be infinitely greater than in 1973.

As recently proven, however, we seem to be down to about 24th in the civilised world for basic educational standards, which I find rather perverse given the ever increasing exam passes/grades over the years, and the shift from 5% to 50% going to 'university' [which now includes what used to be tech colleges with 15%[??] going?]. Something has well and truly broken!

Jason74

grizzly1911 wrote: »

It is rigged against all generations.

The younger generations are no smarter than previous generations. They may have access to much more information readily available at their finger tips.

Arguably having a better view of the pitch should enable them to play a better game.

Previous generations were more constrained and didn't have the degree of choice available today. Perhaps having too many choices in life complicates the issues.

I do think society is becoming more polarised, income wise, these days and there is less"fat" in the middle, through which many in older generations could percolate their way through.

A lot of truth in this. I haven't suggested that the current younger generation is in any way "smarter" than previous ones. I'm suggesting that they're smart enough to understand that the dice are loaded against them compared to previous generations (a comment I utterly stand by, and as I say, is not motivated by a personal agenda as I'm fortunate enough to be a little older and have accumulated some assets as a direct result).

My point is that where the kind of behaviour that Loughton talks about exists at all, it is motivated by the largely correct understanding from young people that they are unable to advance in the way that previous generations have been able to, and so a "sod it, live for today" mentality quite rationally takes hold. Loghton incorrectly states that the mentality is the cause of young people being unable to build up assets, when it is in fact a perfectly rational Reaction to the circumstances people find themselves in.

I think the key thing that makes your post worth repeating is the last paragraph.The opportunities for "working your way up" aren't there on anything like the scale that existed 20 or 30 years ago (a point even Loughton acknowledges), and when combined with the crazy generational inequality that's now baked into the system around assets (esp. housing), the idea that the youngest adults don't have it much harder than my generation or the one before that just doesn't stack up.

Jason74

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Clearly you didn't read the thread here:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4848653=

Or better still the report itself. You will see two whole decades of generations who have absolutely thrown their embarassingly high wages [compared to the previous 2 decades] of between 52% and 77% in real terms down the toilet.

I have absolutely no reason to believe that those born in the 1980's/90's are not the same or worse.

Do you not realised that the "game" is "rigged" against everyone at the moment? We've had one of the biggest recessions in living memory. The unemployed have seen huge competition for jobs. Those in a job (with financial commitments at home) have seen precious little wage rises. How many hundreds of thousands of public sector jobs went down the pan? Pensioners relying on savings have seen interest rates tumble from 6% down to far less than 2%. Final Salary schemes ended long ago. Annuity rates are miserably low. Most people are seeing their state pension age go up - women in particular......

I'm afraid that the words "smart enough to realise" are totally misplaced and if they do anything, they serve to reinforce my point. If they were smart, they would realise (a) we are still realing from the recession, (b) everyone has been "hit", but in different ways, (c) there is no specific bias towards young in particular, and (d) young people have the whole (up to) 45 years in which to 'come good'. Older people don't have that chance.

Compare that to the typical public sector worker - possibly aged around 45 or 50 - on £35K who over the last 6 years has seen his pension cut by at least 33%, then lost his job and could only get a new one at £25K, has to wait far longer for his state pension, earns sweet FA on what savings he put together.....

Now get some precious 28 year old who believes the 'dice are loaded' against him, and go and speak to that chap. Or 750,000 older people in a similar situation. He'd deserve to be kicked down the road. I'm afraid it's that sort of thinking that becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.

I read some of the thread you mentioned, and (more importantly) both the article it was based on and the report itself. Even allowing for the "lavish spending" comment (which bares no resemblance to my experience of someone born in the 70s, no of anyone I know of a similar age), it rather backs up the point that the boomer generation had the most favourable set of economic circumstances, and that those of the following generation was less favourable. That trend is continuing for people born in the 80s and 90s, except that far fewer have the higher incomes to fund any kind of "lavish spending" in the first place as confirmed by the comment in the artcile's audio that "the slow down in wage growth is really hitting younger people".

And yes, the recession has hit everyone, that is a given. But imho it's hit the youngest hardest. One in four economically active young Londoners are unemployed. A quarter. In one of the richest cities in the world. That was unthinkable 50 years ago. The young are being hit hardest by this. You say that younger people have more time to "recover" from the effects of the recession, but the far more pertinent issue is that older people have been far better able to prepare for it by building up assets and income.

The 45-50 year old person you describe should have built up savings and broken the back of their mortgage to the point where their housing costs would be a relatively small portion of even their reduced income. This is especially true given the relatively lower cost of housing at the time they are likely to have bought property. If in the public sector as you describe, they will also have half a working life or more of final salary pension to look forward too.

Their circumstances might be reduced compared to what they had enjoyed previously, but they're certainly still a heck of a lot better off than the 28 year old you mention who's early career has likely been impacted (and there is a wealth of evidence out there about how unemployment or low wages early in a career scar someones lifetime earnings far more than a similar experience later on), and who will never see a final salary pension, and will have to pay a much higher cost to get on the housing ladder, assuming that they can do so at all.

If both of the people you describe came to me with their "hard luck" stories, I would have sympathy for both, as I would anyone in a difficult situation. But my sympathy for the older person would vanish pretty quickly if they suggested that the younger one should be "kicked down the road" for complaining given that of the two, the older person had been dealt the better hand by far even allowing for their recent misfortune.

Loughton_Monkey

Jason74 wrote: »

.......My point is that where the kind of behaviour that Loughton talks about exists at all, it is motivated by the largely correct understanding from young people that they are unable to advance in the way that previous generations have been able to, and so a "sod it, live for today" mentality quite rationally takes hold. Loghton incorrectly states that the mentality is the cause of young people being unable to build up assets, when it is in fact a perfectly rational Reaction to the circumstances people find themselves in......

I'm really not sure on this one. If we are talking about 18 to 28 year olds, say, then maybe the jury is still out. There is little data. But as for 35 to 45 year olds, this flies in the face of the hard facts, where - as recorded - real incomes of between 52% and 77% higher have been truly squandered. Now everyone is taking a cold bath.

Every generation contains a complete spectrum of 'rich' or 'poor'. Even us boomers. Those boomers who squandered, or didn't get much anyway, are just having to 'take it'. Those of us who thought about the rainy day just have to put up our umbrellas for a while and try not to get too wet.

If there's any difference, I guess us boomers, when young, saw even poorer parents. Starting work in the 70's was [in my view] more 'tough' than even now. Mega inflation. Strikes. Recession. Try to save £10 and it was worth £9 a year later! But most of us just kept our heads down and waited for the 80's when we saw a bit more light at the end of the tunnel.

In contrast, today's school leavers are probably seeing parents as being 'mega rich' - not understanding that they were spending every penny they earned, and a bit more - and seem to get depressed that they can't appear to live the same lifestyle.

If you are saying that throwing toys out of the pram under these circumstances is a "reaction", then so be it. But, as I said, attitudes like this will become a self-fulfilling prophesy which then means they will become a cause why a lot of them will squander their whole lives.

Those youngsters who learn (perhaps like boomers did) how to live in a genuinely depressed financial climate, should reap very large benefits from the following 30 years of true prosperity [which will come]. But I think chips on shoulders might prevent a lot of them reaping any harvest when it comes, and for that, I give them no sympathy.