Welcome to the UK

Getting_greyer · 25 February 2020 at 2:28PM

Cakeguts said:

What I will say is this. I am seeing an awful lot of entitlement from the younger members in the case of entitlement. They seem to have this idea that they can live exactly where they want to and that housing that they can afford should be provided for them there. Not only that but they also seem to think that they are entitled to all the other things in life in their 20s and 30s that they see older people who have worked for 40 years have. They don't seem to want to start at the bottom and they all seem to want "careers" rather than a job.

I am a "boomer" and i will tell you what boomer children had. They had black and white television with a maximum of 3 channels. There were no computers, cars at 18, no mobile phones, no central heating in houses and you walked or got the bus to school. There were no expensive birthday and Christmas presents or 3 holidays abroad a year. You were lucky if you got one holiday a year anywhere never mind abroad. I had never flown until I was in my middle 20s because air travel was too expensive. Fridges, washing machines, cars and televisions were much more expensive compared to earnings than they are now. Many people did not have a washing machine they used the local launderette. I can still remember the local swimming baths having public baths for people who didn't have a bathroom indoors and who still had outside toilets.

Even in the 60s London was too expensive for ordinary people to work in because they couldn't afford the housing so they just didn't take jobs there. Without the aid of the internet people back then could work out that even with a London salary that was higher than the one they had they would actually be worse off. I just cannot understand how so many young graduates finish up in London these days on salaries that make them worse off than they would have been staying in their local area when they can much more easily get the information that they need to work this out before they arrive in London. The only conclusion that I have come to over this is that "real" graduates not the ones from the large number of technical colleges that now call themselves universities can still work out these salary differences and don't go to London if it doesn't add up but the "pretend" graduates those who should never have gone to one of these scam universities are not intelligent enough to work out the different costs and just see their entitlement as a "graduate" to a higher wage and so they move to the most expensive part of the country. The solution is to stop giving people this sense of entitlement. It doesn't do them any favours. Personally I would close all the dud universities and turn them back into technical colleges so that people can see better what their earning level is likely to be and then be more realistic about it. We have 11 universities in London that serve no useful purpose at all other than to pay the wages of the staff and to churn out "graduates" who are of no use to the employment market because they aren't well enough educated in anything that is of any use. This is repeated all over the country. Unfortunately telling people that they are a "graduate" when their level of education is what used to be an old O level doesn't give them a realistic view of what they can expect to earn or what kind of job they will be working in but it does create a sense of entitlement.

I dont think it's a sense of entitlement, more an appreciation of inequality. Every generation can say the rain was better in my day. Uni can teach you critical thinking.

seradane · 25 February 2020 at 3:56PM

Cakeguts said:

I just cannot understand how so many young graduates finish up in London these days on salaries that make them worse off than they would have been staying in their local area when they can much more easily get the information that they need to work this out before they arrive in London. The only conclusion that I have come to over this is that "real" graduates not the ones from the large number of technical colleges that now call themselves universities can still work out these salary differences and don't go to London if it doesn't add up but the "pretend" graduates those who should never have gone to one of these scam universities are not intelligent enough to work out the different costs and just see their entitlement as a "graduate" to a higher wage and so they move to the most expensive part of the country. The solution is to stop giving people this sense of entitlement. It doesn't do them any favours. Personally I would close all the dud universities and turn them back into technical colleges so that people can see better what their earning level is likely to be and then be more realistic about it. We have 11 universities in London that serve no useful purpose at all other than to pay the wages of the staff and to churn out "graduates" who are of no use to the employment market because they aren't well enough educated in anything that is of any use. This is repeated all over the country. Unfortunately telling people that they are a "graduate" when their level of education is what used to be an old O level doesn't give them a realistic view of what they can expect to earn or what kind of job they will be working in but it does create a sense of entitlement.

So the only reason a graduate would ever move to London is because they're stupid?

I mean, if finances was all that mattered, we could all relocate to Thailand, where a pretty stingy pension here would let you live like a king there... but of course I'm sure you've got plenty of reasons why you wouldn't do that.

pickledonionspaceraider · 25 February 2020 at 4:31PM

pickledonionspaceraider · 25 February 2020 at 4:43PM

Cakeguts said:

What I will say is this. I am seeing an awful lot of entitlement from the younger members in the case of entitlement.

................. seem to think that they are entitled............... solution is to stop giving people this sense of entitlement. It doesn't do them any favours. ................. but it does create a sense of entitlement.

Literally laughed myself off my chair at the first sentence that makes no sense whatsoever...and then I wondered how often you had used your favourite word in the rest of your ramble. You do like the word 'entitled' an awful lot, eh?

Despite claiming to know what the entire generation 'seem to think*'
(which is always a precursor for *I have no clue what I am talking about)
- You do not know what other people think. What you assume they think is a reflection of yourself.

I am afraid to say, that you are really out of touch - and that type of thinking, is completely irrelevant in today's society.

The older generation seem to have genuine disdain for their own adult-children's generation

It is just ignorance and hate that is being spread, and if we have adult kids - that where the ignorance and hate is being spread too

It's kinda sad. The young adults of today are not well connected to their parents at all

And no, I am not in my twenties. I am much older. But I think some people of my own generation are completely out of touch with the struggles of today. There are a lot of older people, sitting pretty, but still loudly and bitterly moan about something they have no clue about, because the last time they talked to someone in their twenties was in 1993

Getting_greyer · 25 February 2020 at 8:40PM

I absolutely cannot wait to tell my future grandchildren about how I used to struggle on by with 4G connection and American style fridge freezer.

ZeroSum · 26 February 2020 at 12:38AM

newsgroupmonkey_ said:

Wow! There are some generalisations and entitled boomers in this thread.
This is exactly why we are at the stage we are at.
Fact is, the average wage in 1980 was £6,000. That's around £26,000 in today's money
A house cost around £19,000 or just over £82,000 today. So just over 3x salary.
Average wage today is £29,000. Average house is £234,000. So around 8x salary.

I wonder how many people are like me? Very few, hence the entitlement.

I bought my first house in 1997 for around £60k. ex-social 3 bed semi.

Unfortunately for me, a messy divorce lost me the house (traded it in to keep my pension) and some huge life changes meant that until recently, I've not been able to get back on the ladder.
I've just bought the identical house 30 miles further away from London for £300k. Zoopla estimate for my original house is £347k.
Please don't try and tell me that there's anything particularly outstanding that's happened in the last 23 years that means I would in any way be in a better place today than in 1997. Even if my wage has increased by 3x since (which btw is a decent wage), the house is now up nearly 6x. It's been unbelievably hard to get back on the ladder.

Over investment in the south at the expense of the north. As from graph below affordability ratios in the north are the same now as they were 30 years ago
https://www.economicshelp.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/FTB-earnings.png

Thrugelmir · 26 February 2020 at 1:31AM

spadoosh said:

Cakeguts said:

What I will say is this. I am seeing an awful lot of entitlement from the younger members in the case of entitlement. They seem to have this idea that they can live exactly where they want to and that housing that they can afford should be provided for them there. Not only that but they also seem to think that they are entitled to all the other things in life in their 20s and 30s that they see older people who have worked for 40 years have. They don't seem to want to start at the bottom and they all seem to want "careers" rather than a job.

I am a "boomer" and i will tell you what boomer children had. They had black and white television with a maximum of 3 channels. There were no computers, cars at 18, no mobile phones, no central heating in houses and you walked or got the bus to school. There were no expensive birthday and Christmas presents or 3 holidays abroad a year. You were lucky if you got one holiday a year anywhere never mind abroad. I had never flown until I was in my middle 20s because air travel was too expensive. Fridges, washing machines, cars and televisions were much more expensive compared to earnings than they are now. Many people did not have a washing machine they used the local launderette. I can still remember the local swimming baths having public baths for people who didn't have a bathroom indoors and who still had outside toilets.

Even in the 60s London was too expensive for ordinary people to work in because they couldn't afford the housing so they just didn't take jobs there. Without the aid of the internet people back then could work out that even with a London salary that was higher than the one they had they would actually be worse off. I just cannot understand how so many young graduates finish up in London these days on salaries that make them worse off than they would have been staying in their local area when they can much more easily get the information that they need to work this out before they arrive in London. The only conclusion that I have come to over this is that "real" graduates not the ones from the large number of technical colleges that now call themselves universities can still work out these salary differences and don't go to London if it doesn't add up but the "pretend" graduates those who should never have gone to one of these scam universities are not intelligent enough to work out the different costs and just see their entitlement as a "graduate" to a higher wage and so they move to the most expensive part of the country. The solution is to stop giving people this sense of entitlement. It doesn't do them any favours. Personally I would close all the dud universities and turn them back into technical colleges so that people can see better what their earning level is likely to be and then be more realistic about it. We have 11 universities in London that serve no useful purpose at all other than to pay the wages of the staff and to churn out "graduates" who are of no use to the employment market because they aren't well enough educated in anything that is of any use. This is repeated all over the country. Unfortunately telling people that they are a "graduate" when their level of education is what used to be an old O level doesn't give them a realistic view of what they can expect to earn or what kind of job they will be working in but it does create a sense of entitlement.

I dont understand this argument. Its like you expect the world to stay still over a 40-60 year period? Im kind of thinking my kid will have loads of things that i never had, its kind of how progress works.

The world hasn't progressed equally though. Be a different matter if it had.

movilogo · 26 February 2020 at 12:31PM

This graph highlights just how royally F'ed the younger generation are.

And even more worryingly, they are unaware of how much screwed up they really are.

pickledonionspaceraider · 28 February 2020 at 11:56AM

movilogo said:

This graph highlights just how royally F'ed the younger generation are.
And even more worryingly, they are unaware of how much screwed up they really are.

I am of the opinion that many of them do know. I think the whole rubbish situation they are in, as an entire generation, reflects on the huge rise in mental health illness.

They have a lot to deal with. They deal with problems that didn't even exist when their parents and grandparents were young adults...................... all the while the older generations are throwing negative comments at them - like literally making it harder, making them feel like failures, constantly pick pick picking at their own childrens self esteem.

I have never known such a huge generational divide, in my lifetime. I remember when I was a young adult, you would hear comments like 'you young uns think you know it all'... (which we probably did at the time)......but there was never the mass snidey-ness from the above generations, the mass bitter dislike that many older people show now.

I don't know why these types of people had children, just to bear contempt to them when they become adults. No wonder you hear the phrase 'gone no contact' a lot these days.

SelmestonFTB · 28 February 2020 at 12:47PM

Cakeguts said:

What I will say is this. I am seeing an awful lot of entitlement from the younger members in the case of entitlement. They seem to have this idea that they can live exactly where they want to and that housing that they can afford should be provided for them there. Not only that but they also seem to think that they are entitled to all the other things in life in their 20s and 30s that they see older people who have worked for 40 years have. They don't seem to want to start at the bottom and they all seem to want "careers" rather than a job.

I am a "boomer" and i will tell you what boomer children had. They had black and white television with a maximum of 3 channels. There were no computers, cars at 18, no mobile phones, no central heating in houses and you walked or got the bus to school. There were no expensive birthday and Christmas presents or 3 holidays abroad a year. You were lucky if you got one holiday a year anywhere never mind abroad. I had never flown until I was in my middle 20s because air travel was too expensive. Fridges, washing machines, cars and televisions were much more expensive compared to earnings than they are now. Many people did not have a washing machine they used the local launderette. I can still remember the local swimming baths having public baths for people who didn't have a bathroom indoors and who still had outside toilets.

Even in the 60s London was too expensive for ordinary people to work in because they couldn't afford the housing so they just didn't take jobs there. Without the aid of the internet people back then could work out that even with a London salary that was higher than the one they had they would actually be worse off. I just cannot understand how so many young graduates finish up in London these days on salaries that make them worse off than they would have been staying in their local area when they can much more easily get the information that they need to work this out before they arrive in London. The only conclusion that I have come to over this is that "real" graduates not the ones from the large number of technical colleges that now call themselves universities can still work out these salary differences and don't go to London if it doesn't add up but the "pretend" graduates those who should never have gone to one of these scam universities are not intelligent enough to work out the different costs and just see their entitlement as a "graduate" to a higher wage and so they move to the most expensive part of the country. The solution is to stop giving people this sense of entitlement. It doesn't do them any favours. Personally I would close all the dud universities and turn them back into technical colleges so that people can see better what their earning level is likely to be and then be more realistic about it. We have 11 universities in London that serve no useful purpose at all other than to pay the wages of the staff and to churn out "graduates" who are of no use to the employment market because they aren't well enough educated in anything that is of any use. This is repeated all over the country. Unfortunately telling people that they are a "graduate" when their level of education is what used to be an old O level doesn't give them a realistic view of what they can expect to earn or what kind of job they will be working in but it does create a sense of entitlement.

Is it not a lot easier to not spend on those things when they don't exist though?
I would find it a lot easier to not spend on things which hadn't been invented...
The way society has been built up, means that certain things which didn't use to be are now a necessity (and therefore a new expense).

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