The Economics of Pessimistic Time Travelling Kippers

mayonnaise

Bantex wrote: »

Some of the figures are a bit unbelieveable, how could 63% of the population own their own home?

Bantex wrote: »

There are around 25 million dwellings in the UK and a population of around 70 million. Does not add up.

I heard the average kipper is ill-educated, but I didn't realise it was this bad.... :rotfl:

jjlandlord

It is quite obvious that UKIP supporters are pessimistic.

Most, if not all, of UKIP's most publicised policies are defensive reactions against a perceived threat.
It is a negative, inward state of mind, not a positive, outward one.

Note, also, that 30 years again was 1984. What happened in 1984?
- FTSE 100 index starts
- Miners' strike
- Employment reaches an all time high
- Riots in Wolverhampton
- Troubles in Northern Ireland + Bristol Hotel bombing
- Restructuring in the car industry (Morris disappears)
- 22 dies of food poisoning at a Yorkshire hospital
- Agreement to return Hongkong to China
- UK gets its EU budget rebate (ah ah! here is the good news )

2014 does not seem all that bad.

MARTYM8`

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Too intelligent?

Or believing Labour - who saw house prices triple under their stewardship - will make their lots better.

Gullibility perhaps? They will have a lifetime to be let down by that party - hence the voting age profiles.

Thrugelmir

Generali wrote: »

Which country are you talking about? Surely you don't seriously imagine that there will be 1-200,000,000 Muslim immigrants to the UK? That would mean 10% or more of all the Muslims in the world moving there. It doesn't seem very likely.

No need for immigrants. Plenty of home grown. Perceived inequality creates many scenarios.

James_B.

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Definitely a more positive atmosphere. People were more entrepreneurial. Hard work was rewarded.

It still is. I've worked bloody hard for twenty years in banking, and have been very well rewarded for it.

Apparently this is seen as a bad thing by some, which is weird. I could swear that at the same time people are complaining of low pay.it's hard to work out if people think workers should be paid lots, or little.

Thrugelmir

James_B. wrote: »

Apparently this is seen as a bad thing by some, which is weird. I could swear that at the same time people are complaining of low pay.it's hard to work out if people think workers should be paid lots, or little.

Far more difficult to move up the ladder these days. Technology has having an impact on the middle tiers of the pyramid. Removing the number of available opportunities. Natural ability alone is simply not enough.

Snakey

The thing I notice is that a third of all the people surveyed would like to go back thirty years. It's not "all of the UKIP voters and nobody who votes for anybody else", meaning that it's quite difficult to attack - or explain - the dream based on party lines.

Giving the split by age range, sex, income, education level etc might have been more illuminating than doing it by party (as would the statistics from having asked the same question 30 years ago - I wonder whether anybody did?). Presumably the author had some political point-scoring to be getting on with.

Music was certainly better in 1984, although I wouldn't want to go back to a time when everyone smoked all over the place. I was only twelve so I wouldn't presume to comment on the political situation.

SkyeKnight

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

These figures appear to be from the ons.gov.uk website so I'm assuming they are accurate, but I don't get how indirect taxation can be lower nowadays than in 1977. Just looking at the two taxes quoted, VAT was 8% then and is 20% now. Fuel duty is vastly more. Plus other stuff like tax on alcohol, cigarettes, etc is increased above inflation every year. Just what taxes were people paying in 1977 which made them pay so much indirect taxation??

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

SkyeKnight wrote: »

These figures appear to be from the ons.gov.uk website

They are.

so I'm assuming they are accurate, but I don't get how indirect taxation can be lower nowadays than in 1977. Just looking at the two taxes quoted, VAT was 8% then and is 20% now. Fuel duty is vastly more. Plus other stuff like tax on alcohol, cigarettes, etc is increased above inflation every year. Just what taxes were people paying in 1977 which made them pay so much indirect taxation??

I suspect a lot of it is to do with how much people's wages have risen in real terms since then.

So it's not that the indirect taxes are less, it's just that we spend a lower percentage of our income on those things that attract indirect tax.

What many seem to forget is how much more expensive so many things were as a percentage of income in those days.

Graham_Devon

SkyeKnight wrote: »

These figures appear to be from the ons.gov.uk website so I'm assuming they are accurate, but I don't get how indirect taxation can be lower nowadays than in 1977. Just looking at the two taxes quoted, VAT was 8% then and is 20% now. Fuel duty is vastly more. Plus other stuff like tax on alcohol, cigarettes, etc is increased above inflation every year. Just what taxes were people paying in 1977 which made them pay so much indirect taxation??

The big difference between then and now is households are now far more likely to have two incomes.

So basically it's comparing a point in history which had far less household income (in general) and therefore more of that income was taken by fixed taxes... against a time where 2 incomes are almost the norm, and therefore fixed taxes take less of a comined household income.

For example, if tax is £100, and I bring in £1,000, the tax take is 10%.

If I send my partner off to work and my income is now £1,800 but the tax is still £100, the tax take is now 5.5%.

It doesn't mean things cost less. It just means you have 2 jobs to pay for those things.

The fact therefore that the figures are not that much lower for a dual income should have some weighting..... weighting which is completely ignored in the picture.

If the data were based on single income the figures would be very much different.