The whole idea about generations is quite amusing. If you think about it, there aren't any generations, as life is a continuum. It's just an arbitrary line drawn in the sand to separate people so that you can think about them as "other". This isn't very helpful. I am 52, so am I the same generation as Lightning, or not? Who cares? The generations are what you want them to be. On the other hand, there is little point slagging off the young. They may be a pain in the arse, but who brought them up? Who were the politicians making the crappy society, who were the chiefs of industry? Who were the teachers and the policy makers? That's right. All people from "our" generation. Being down on baby-boomers is a farce. But equally, the people who have had the responsibility over the past couple of decades or so can hardly say it was all someone else's fault. If we all had such strong convictions, why didn't we all do something about it? I suspect that everyone finds challenges in the time they were living in. The 40s was the war. The 50s mostly rationing and austerity. Things looked up in the 60s, but the idea that it was all leggy girls in mini skirts and open-top cars and dope-smoke are largely an illusion. It was still boring office jobs in a suit and tie or heavy industry for most people, with rigid management. The 70s were mainly about power cuts, bolshiness, dire fashion and a feeling that Britain was headed down the pan. The 80s were in many places all about unemployment and scrimping by in Thatcher's Britain (unless you were in the City boom). Don't ask me about the 90s - I wasn't in the country. Maybe it was a good time fuelled by massive debt and credit cards. Everyone has challenges in their lives. Far more important is personal experience, the people you meet, the relationships you form. For the record, I bought my first house aged 40, as here in Switzerland they aren't cheap and you need a 20% down payment in cash to get started. Who has £80 large just sloshing around looking for a home (to invest in)? if my wife's uncle hadn't been a miser who unexpectedly left a little something to his nephews and nieces, I'd still be in a flat, despite working in management for decades. I don't think bitterness becomes anyone. As for all the debt handed down to future generations, they'll just have to get over it, or invent another paradigm, or get creative. It can be done. How do you think the East is pulling itself out of the slime?
I have never attached the word blame to the baby boomer generation. To paraphrase what you said, they are who they are. I share your views on quite a few of those points.
I see two fundamental flaws in the path our country has taken. Utilities should never be privatised, and there should be a cap on the number of dwellings an individual owns - as soon as you apply financial greed (which always favours the rich) to a basic human need such as housing, heat or water you are in deep trouble. Utilities should be publicly owned (private sector can of course offer a higher priced higher standard alternative) and run fro break even plus a percentage margin for reinvestment in infrastructure.
I tend to agree with you on the utilites but people shpould be free to do what they like with their money, within reason.
I totally agree on the utilities. It is obvious that if a private company owns them to make a profit, then the consumer is paying COGS + profit. In theory, if they are nationalised, either that profit goes to offset tax, or the deficit or whatever, or there is no profit and the consumer pays less. The privatisation of utilities is iniquitous. As if someone should have the right to own your water. What about the air you breathe whilst they are about it? Of course the mantra is always that for some obscure reason, only the private sector can run things efficiently. Bollox. Just get a private sector ethos in your nationalised industries (by reorgs, firing, downsizing, whatever). But when you come to multiple home ownership, it all gets muddier. Should the people who live in a semi-detached on a lorry-infested A road be deprived of a holiday cottage in Wales? What about all the people who will claim the right to invest for their children's future? Dunno. Tricky.
I doubt very much that the current youth will be the first generation to live shorter lives than the previous generation. There is no evidence that this is true. If the youngsters live longer what is the problem with them retiring later and therefore working until they are 70 or 75. I expect that the retirement age will be 68 to 70 by the time i get there but i will not moan about it. I'm not that far off by the way. By the same token,if your life expectancy is 10 years longer then what really is the problem with working for half of the extra period and paying a mortgage for a while longer as well. Don't misunderstand me , i know its not all rosy and wonderful but modern life's not an unmitigated disaster either. Its also not correct to say that if some take more from the system then some get to take less. That assumes that the total amount of money is constant and unchanging and that simply is not true. There are great inequalities, scams and corrupt officials in the world that mean some people dont get there fair needs addressed but thats not the same thing at all.
Human need should always come before human wealth, but there has to be a little flexibility. Owning ten houses on the back of daisey chained mortgages (finally gone, along with buy to let mortgage thank god) is morally wrong, as it creates artificial demand and keeps other people out of the market. Young first time buyers are of course the hardest hit, so the multiple home owning landlords greed is keeping the young family in poverty, often fighting to pay a massive mortgage, or living in rented accommodation, lining the pockets of the already rich landlord while they struggle to make ends meet.
Well, the kids are going to have to change their eating habits or they will indeed all snuff it with diabetes long before the normal allotted span. As for late retirement, it's a joke! You're considered over-the-hill at 48 and no one will give you a fucking job. Look at all the newly self-employed: they're all 50 year olds having to invent their own jobs because suddenly they are "unemployable". I ought to know. I'm one of them. This is surely the most ageist age there has ever been.
Why not just take a holiday in Wales? As well as putting another dwelling back into the system, it creates employment and puts money back in the economy. A cottage that stands empty for 330 days a year is not really sustainable.
So imagine you realised one day that your pensionable age was not going to be well served by either the state or your own contributions. But you figured out that if you scrimped and saved to get a buy to let, and over your working life you managed to aquire enough property to support you in your old age you would consider that an immoral act? There are many working people that do exactly this and struggle 50 hours a week to get along at the same time.
A mate of mine said to a chubby doris who was moaning about being fat: "It's yer own fault...no-one ever accidentally ate a Mars bar..."
Absolutely, your mistake in not investing in your future has screwed over many other people. If there were a surpluss of property in the UK it wouldn't be a problem, but there isn't, so every person using property to bolster their personal wealth is rendering the next person on the chain permanently poorer. Doing so has a knock on effect, as people pile more and more money into mortgage or rent they have less to spend on the high street, or put asside for their future - its a self perpetuating downward spiral.
Good question about the East. How does a dirt-poor country with low wages, primitive infrastructure, low investment, and no industries capable of making anything exportable set about getting rich? It can be done - look at Japan from 1950, Korea and Taiwan in the 1960s, then Singapore/Malaysia and now China itself - and it is a well-trodden path. The World Bank provides lots of advice about the kind of political decisions, banking structures, investment strategies, and taxation policies which are needed. If the will exists to do the necessary, growth and prosperity is achieveable. An old friend of mine spent many years as a World Bank economic adviser, his time divided between Africa and China. He told me the difference was that it only had to be explained to the Chinese what needed to be done, and they got on and did it; rapid growth duly followed. The African regimes were likewise told what was needed, but most government ministers were only interested in stealing whatever aid there was; they refused to do what was necessary and didn't care about economic growth or the future of their nations. There's a moral in this somewhere.
I've given you a like on that Pete, although it's the only positive thing I've ever heard about the World Bank.
World Bank advice is often tough and unpalatable, causing hardship in the short term but designed to lead to a prosperous long term future. That is why the WB is not popular - politicians always blame the WB for the short term measures they have to take, but rarely thank the WB for long term success.
Now if we could force the state to release enough land to build a huge amount of new property we might begin to tip the supply demand balance in our favour. Unless we make them listen via organisation's like 38 degrees then we wont get anywhere.
"... build a huge amount of new property..."? I seem to recall the government of Ireland had a programme on exactly those lines, up to five years ago. Do you recall how it ended up?
Pet there are ways of building cheap-ish, affordable good quality housing if there is a will. I think BBC did a program about how Chinese cope with huge influx of people in to cities. They can build a apartment block, with ac units per house, fully equipped in about a month or so. BBC also did cost conversion taking in to account how much it would cost using workers on UK salaries. Studio was about 45k, one bed 60k and then I think it was 20k per room onwards.
