Mr. Borough, in defence of sensible Labour people, they did try (albeit with a dire candidate) to remove Corbyn.
On the other hand, they have taken to singing his name and pretending he isn't in favour of Venezuelan economics, CND military policy, and has the numeracy skills of a drunken baboon.
Those that wish to keep their heads down and dreamily hope of managing him in office are self-interested cowards of the highest order. The only moral thing for sensible Labour politicians to do is to warn low information voters that this man does not deserve to be in government.
I think he will be fine.
I would much rather a Corbyn Brexit than a Boris Brexit.
I think your politics are irrational, now, because you have a bone to pick with Andrew Lansley/Jeremy Hunt and the NHS, so are happy to cut off your nose to spite your face.
You started off as a Cameroon and supporter of the coalition.
Not really a Cameroon, but a Cleggite supporter of the coalition, which will be looked back upon as a goldon period of government. I have no particular dislike of Lansley, indded thought there was some good in his reforms, Hunt less so. I find that I rarely like ministers of health.
Corbyn's Brexit will be one that is far more a ccepting of the EU citizens here*, and better for workers rights and environmental protections, I also think the more positive attitude to the EU would pay off with better terms of trade.
*no one expects or desires mass deportations, and it would be the simplist way of breaking the deadlock to make a unilateral announcement that all EU citizens can stay on. It would be good for the UK as well as tbe negotiations.
Must get ready for the footy! Liverpool twice in one week.
What do we do when the EU says pay us Eur20bn or your 1m+ Brits get deported? It's not blackmail - just an upfront contribution to healthcare costs.
They wouldn't.
We need to break the deadlock. We cannot over Ireland, and do not want to over money.
Our EU settlers are economically productive by and large, and it is nether feasible nor desirable to chuck them out. Unilaterally legitimising them would win over both our EU27 partners, and a lot of Remainers who do not like to see peoples lives used as poker chips. A win all round.
I was trying to show there is more than one way to look at a situation. The idea that the "Seventies were Hell" is patent nonsense yet oft repeated. Most people got better off. The quality of life grew. And the fact is that the Tories were in power 5 years of the 70's.
It was an abysmal decade, especially for anyone working in industry. Easily the worst of my lifetime, and I'm into my seventh. (Don't remember much about the first, though!)
For you maybe. Not for me or my neighbours.
I'm not talking about any individual's experience (mine was rather good!), but the country as a whole. Massive inflation, high unemployment, strikes and widespread industrial violence every week, rubbish piling up in the streets, power cuts, the transport system in chaos, a hideous them-vs-us divide even in those industries which were not strike-wrecked, our economy falling way behind our European neighbours, nationalised industries run entirely for the convenience of union members, abysmally wasteful government, IRA bombings, and so on and so on. Some of those problems lasted into the 80s, of course, but at least they were then finally being addressed and we stopped managing the decline and giving in to the thugs.
That's all true but ...
Why was economic growth, and even more so economic growth per capita, so much higher in the 1970s than it has been in recent years ?
And not unrelated productivity and wages increased much more rapidly in the 1970s than they have since 2000.
And this isn't a British problem either - every first world country has it to varying extent.
Either they were doing something right in the 1970s (and 1980s and 1990s for that matter) which we're not anyone, or we're now doing something wrong, or perhaps the first world has reached some economic plateau from which we don't have the means to escape.
If he quits he doesn't get to do a speech to conference.
If he gives a barnstorming zone that hits the erogenous zone of Tory members he could win the Tory leadership contest by acclimation.
Boris or his henchmen have bungled with this resignation lark. Until then it was all going swimmingly. Boris had established himself as Mr Ultra-Hard Brexit and May was cornered: agree with him and she'd be dancing to his tune; disagree and she'd frame him as being more in touch with the base than she was herself. Now Boris has made himself look cowardly and weak, and if he doesn't make a leadership move he'll go down as another Portillo.
Has he started installing phone lines yet?
This isn't the 1970's!
No, it would take 3 months then...
A phone in the house was another thing which became ubiquitous in the 70's. Although you did have to book well in advance!
It has been pointed out several times that the Conservatives were in power for half of the 1970's. They gave us the 3-day week and rolling power cuts.
A bit of a rewrite of history there. It was the unions - which had been allowed to grow vicious and all-powerful under Wilson - which gave us the 3-day week and rolling power cuts. It's true that Heath failed to slay the monster, but the next Tory PM did, thank God.
They live in cloud cuckoo land. They genuinely think more economic damage will come from being an independent country than in trying to replace capitalism.
What's cloud cuckoo land is believing that Britain isn't currently an independent country. People with such a tenuous grasp of reality as to believe that are going to steer the country onto the rocks.
If you believe Remain's own forecasts, already proven overly pessimistic, the "rocks" mean a slightly reduced rate of growth that will gradually cause a differential over a couple decades. Corbyn style socialism has ended in full blown economic depression everywhere it has been tried. Even if you take the negative establishment view on Brexit, it is lunacy to put Corbyn in No 10 to stop it. Even more so when he has said he will go through with it.
But then the anti-Brexiteers are driven by religious anger and zealotry, not logic.
I was trying to show there is more than one way to look at a situation. The idea that the "Seventies were Hell" is patent nonsense yet oft repeated. Most people got better off. The quality of life grew. And the fact is that the Tories were in power 5 years of the 70's.
It was an abysmal decade, especially for anyone working in industry. Easily the worst of my lifetime, and I'm into my seventh. (Don't remember much about the first, though!)
For you maybe. Not for me or my neighbours.
I'm not talking about any individual's experience (mine was rather good!), but the country as a whole. Massive inflation, high unemployment, strikes and widespread industrial violence every week, rubbish piling up in the streets, power cuts, the transport system in chaos, a hideous them-vs-us divide even in those industries which were not strike-wrecked, our economy falling way behind our European neighbours, nationalised industries run entirely for the convenience of union members, abysmally wasteful government, IRA bombings, and so on and so on. Some of those problems lasted into the 80s, of course, but at least they were then finally being addressed and we stopped managing the decline and giving in to the thugs.
That's all true but ...
Why was economic growth, and even more so economic growth per capita, so much higher in the 1970s than it has been in recent years ?
And not unrelated productivity and wages increased much more rapidly in the 1970s than they have since 2000.
And this isn't a British problem either - every first world country has it to varying extent.
Either they were doing something right in the 1970s (and 1980s and 1990s for that matter) which we're not anyone, or we're now doing something wrong, or perhaps the first world has reached some economic plateau from which we don't have the means to escape.
Globalisation and the lifting out of abject and total poverty of some of the poorest in the world?
No one on the left can have any credibility at all about the long term interest of the country while they campaign or vote for Jeremy Corbyn to have a majority in parliament. On economics alone, his far left economics has wrecked this country's economy in the past and has led to complete societal breakdown in places like Venezuela. It would be far worse than even the most pessimistic economic forecasts of reduced growth post-Brexit. And that is before you get into the national security implications of a man who reflexively sympathises with groups from the IRA to Hezbollah, has been in the pay of Russian and Iranian governments and wants to unilaterally disarm our defence capabilities.
Those that wish to keep their heads down and dreamily hope of managing him in office are self-interested cowards of the highest order. The only moral thing for sensible Labour politicians to do is to warn low information voters that this man does not deserve to be in government.
I think he will be fine.
I would much rather a Corbyn Brexit than a Boris Brexit.
I think your politics are irrational, now, because you have a bone to pick with Andrew Lansley/Jeremy Hunt and the NHS, so are happy to cut off your nose to spite your face.
You started off as a Cameroon and supporter of the coalition.
Not really a Cameroon, but a Cleggite supporter of the coalition, which will be looked back upon as a goldon period of government. I have no particular dislike of Lansley, indded thought there was some good in his reforms, Hunt less so. I find that I rarely like ministers of health.
Corbyn's Brexit will be one that is far more a ccepting of the EU citizens here*, and better for workers rights and environmental protections, I also think the more positive attitude to the EU would pay off with better terms of trade.
*no one expects or desires mass deportations, and it would be the simplist way of breaking the deadlock to make a unilateral announcement that all EU citizens can stay on. It would be good for the UK as well as tbe negotiations.
Must get ready for the footy! Liverpool twice in one week.
What do we do when the EU says pay us Eur20bn or your 1m+ Brits get deported? It's not blackmail - just an upfront contribution to healthcare costs.
How do you think that would make the EU look to the rest of the world? Deporting British citzens while letting in pretty much anyone, refugee or not from the Middle East?
The EU may not suffer as much as Britain if there is a chaotic departure but it is not in its political interests to look and behave like a vengeful harpy to the rest of the world.
If he quits he doesn't get to do a speech to conference.
If he gives a barnstorming zone that hits the erogenous zone of Tory members he could win the Tory leadership contest by acclimation.
Boris or his henchmen have bungled with this resignation lark. Until then it was all going swimmingly. Boris had established himself as Mr Ultra-Hard Brexit and May was cornered: agree with him and she'd be dancing to his tune; disagree and she'd frame him as being more in touch with the base than she was herself. Now Boris has made himself look cowardly and weak, and if he doesn't make a leadership move he'll go down as another Portillo.
Has he started installing phone lines yet?
This isn't the 1970's!
No, it would take 3 months then...
A phone in the house was another thing which became ubiquitous in the 70's. Although you did have to book well in advance!
My mum finally agreed to have a phone put in when I was 14 in 1974... and then she went and put a bloody lock* on it!
(*For those under 40, that was a physical lock, not a password)
It has been pointed out several times that the Conservatives were in power for half of the 1970's. They gave us the 3-day week and rolling power cuts.
A bit of a rewrite of history there. It was the unions - which had been allowed to grow vicious and all-powerful under Wilson - which gave us the 3-day week and rolling power cuts. It's true that Heath failed to slay the monster, but the next Tory PM did, thank God.
They live in cloud cuckoo land. They genuinely think more economic damage will come from being an independent country than in trying to replace capitalism.
What's cloud cuckoo land is believing that Britain isn't currently an independent country. People with such a tenuous grasp of reality as to believe that are going to steer the country onto the rocks.
If you believe Remain's own forecasts, already proven overly pessimistic, the "rocks" mean a slightly reduced rate of growth that will gradually cause a differential over a couple decades. Corbyn style socialism has ended in full blown economic depression everywhere it has been tried. Even if you take the negative establishment view on Brexit, it is lunacy to put Corbyn in No 10 to stop it. Even more so when he has said he will go through with it.
But then the anti-Brexiteers are driven by religious anger and zealotry, not logic.
Corbynites and Brexiters are united in their messianic fervour. Both are catastrophic for the country.
Mr. Borough, in defence of sensible Labour people, they did try (albeit with a dire candidate) to remove Corbyn.
On the other hand, they have taken to singing his name and pretending he isn't in favour of Venezuelan economics, CND military policy, and has the numeracy skills of a drunken baboon.
Those that wish to keep their heads down and dreamily hope of managing him in office are self-interested cowards of the highest order. The only moral thing for sensible Labour politicians to do is to warn low information voters that this man does not deserve to be in government.
I think he will be fine.
I would much rather a Corbyn Brexit than a Boris Brexit.
I think your politics are irrational, now, because you have a bone to pick with Andrew Lansley/Jeremy Hunt and the NHS, so are happy to cut off your nose to spite your face.
You started off as a Cameroon and supporter of the coalition.
Not really a Cameroon, but a Cleggite supporter of the coalition, which will be looked back upon as a goldon period of government. I have no particular dislike of Lansley, indded thought there was some good in his reforms, Hunt less so. I find that I rarely like ministers of health.
Corbyn's Brexit will be one that is far more a ccepting of the EU citizens here*, and better for workers rights and environmental protections, I also think the more positive attitude to the EU would pay off with better terms of trade.
*no one expects or desires mass deportations, and it would be the simplist way of breaking the deadlock to make a unilateral announcement that all EU citizens can stay on. It would be good for the UK as well as tbe negotiations.
Must get ready for the footy! Liverpool twice in one week.
What do we do when the EU says pay us Eur20bn or your 1m+ Brits get deported? It's not blackmail - just an upfront contribution to healthcare costs.
They wouldn't.
We need to break the deadlock. We cannot over Ireland, and do not want to over money.
Our EU settlers are economically productive by and large, and it is nether feasible nor desirable to chuck them out. Unilaterally legitimising them would win over both our EU27 partners, and a lot of Remainers who do not like to see peoples lives used as poker chips. A win all round.
How do you know they wouldn't?
We've offered them settled status which is everything they could reasonably ask
It has been pointed out several times that the Conservatives were in power for half of the 1970's. They gave us the 3-day week and rolling power cuts.
A bit of a rewrite of history there. It was the unions - which had been allowed to grow vicious and all-powerful under Wilson - which gave us the 3-day week and rolling power cuts. It's true that Heath failed to slay the monster, but the next Tory PM did, thank God.
They live in cloud cuckoo land. They genuinely think more economic damage will come from being an independent country than in trying to replace capitalism.
What's cloud cuckoo land is believing that Britain isn't currently an independent country. People with such a tenuous grasp of reality as to believe that are going to steer the country onto the rocks.
If you believe Remain's own forecasts, already proven overly pessimistic, the "rocks" mean a slightly reduced rate of growth that will gradually cause a differential over a couple decades. Corbyn style socialism has ended in full blown economic depression everywhere it has been tried. Even if you take the negative establishment view on Brexit, it is lunacy to put Corbyn in No 10 to stop it. Even more so when he has said he will go through with it.
But then the anti-Brexiteers are driven by religious anger and zealotry, not logic.
Corbynites and Brexiters are united in their messianic fervour. Both are catastrophic for the country.
The Remainers own forecasts gave a marginal rounding error difference per annum for Brexit over decades to make it add up to a seemingly big number.
It has been pointed out several times that the Conservatives were in power for half of the 1970's. They gave us the 3-day week and rolling power cuts.
A bit of a rewrite of history there. It was the unions - which had been allowed to grow vicious and all-powerful under Wilson - which gave us the 3-day week and rolling power cuts. It's true that Heath failed to slay the monster, but the next Tory PM did, thank God.
They live in cloud cuckoo land. They genuinely think more economic damage will come from being an independent country than in trying to replace capitalism.
What's cloud cuckoo land is believing that Britain isn't currently an independent country. People with such a tenuous grasp of reality as to believe that are going to steer the country onto the rocks.
If you believe Remain's own forecasts, already proven overly pessimistic, the "rocks" mean a slightly reduced rate of growth that will gradually cause a differential over a couple decades. Corbyn style socialism has ended in full blown economic depression everywhere it has been tried. Even if you take the negative establishment view on Brexit, it is lunacy to put Corbyn in No 10 to stop it. Even more so when he has said he will go through with it.
But then the anti-Brexiteers are driven by religious anger and zealotry, not logic.
Corbynites and Brexiters are united in their messianic fervour. Both are catastrophic for the country.
The Remainers own forecasts gave a marginal rounding error difference per annum for Brexit over decades to make it add up to a seemingly big number.
How is that catastrophic?
It should by now be clear that all else would not be equal. We'd face a decade of political chaos, or more if we become like Argentina or Russia.
I was trying to show there is more than one way to look at a situation. The idea that the "Seventies were Hell" is patent nonsense yet oft repeated. Most people got better off. The quality of life grew. And the fact is that the Tories were in power 5 years of the 70's.
It was an abysmal decade, especially for anyone working in industry. Easily the worst of my lifetime, and I'm into my seventh. (Don't remember much about the first, though!)
For you maybe. Not for me or my neighbours.
I'm not talking about any individual's experience (mine was rather good!), but the country as a whole. Massive inflation, high unemployment, strikes and widespread industrial violence every week, rubbish piling up in the streets, power cuts, the transport system in chaos, a hideous them-vs-us divide even in those industries which were not strike-wrecked, our economy falling way behind our European neighbours, nationalised industries run entirely for the convenience of union members, abysmally wasteful government, IRA bombings, and so on and so on. Some of those problems lasted into the 80s, of course, but at least they were then finally being addressed and we stopped managing the decline and giving in to the thugs.
That's all true but ...
Why was economic growth, and even more so economic growth per capita, so much higher in the 1970s than it has been in recent years ?
And not unrelated productivity and wages increased much more rapidly in the 1970s than they have since 2000.
And this isn't a British problem either - every first world country has it to varying extent.
Either they were doing something right in the 1970s (and 1980s and 1990s for that matter) which we're not anyone, or we're now doing something wrong, or perhaps the first world has reached some economic plateau from which we don't have the means to escape.
Demographics is a big part of it. Simply, in the old days (of the 1970s) only a small portion of your paycheck was spent on pensions and healthcare for the elderly. As the dependency ratio continues to worsen, the "old age" drag on growth will get greater and greater.
I'd note that the two fastest growing large developed countries over the last 15 years both have low dependency ratios (Australia and Canada), while the two slowest (Italy and Japan) have the highest.
It has been pointed out several times that the Conservatives were in power for half of the 1970's. They gave us the 3-day week and rolling power cuts.
A bit of a rewrite of history there. It was the unions - which had been allowed to grow vicious and all-powerful under Wilson - which gave us the 3-day week and rolling power cuts. It's true that Heath failed to slay the monster, but the next Tory PM did, thank God.
They live in cloud cuckoo land. They genuinely think more economic damage will come from being an independent country than in trying to replace capitalism.
What's cloud cuckoo land is believing that Britain isn't currently an independent country. People with such a tenuous grasp of reality as to believe that are going to steer the country onto the rocks.
If you believe Remain's own forecasts, already proven overly pessimistic, the "rocks" mean a slightly reduced rate of growth that will gradually cause a differential over a couple decades. Corbyn style socialism has ended in full blown economic depression everywhere it has been tried. Even if you take the negative establishment view on Brexit, it is lunacy to put Corbyn in No 10 to stop it. Even more so when he has said he will go through with it.
But then the anti-Brexiteers are driven by religious anger and zealotry, not logic.
Corbynites and Brexiters are united in their messianic fervour. Both are catastrophic for the country.
The Remainers own forecasts gave a marginal rounding error difference per annum for Brexit over decades to make it add up to a seemingly big number.
How is that catastrophic?
Using facts against Remaniacs is pointless. They are lost in their own little world far divorced from reality.
No one on the left can have any credibility at all about the long term interest of the country while they campaign or vote for Jeremy Corbyn to have a majority in parliament. On economics alone, his far left economics has wrecked this country's economy in the past and has led to complete societal breakdown in places like Venezuela. It would be far worse than even the most pessimistic economic forecasts of reduced growth post-Brexit. And that is before you get into the national security implications of a man who reflexively sympathises with groups from the IRA to Hezbollah, has been in the pay of Russian and Iranian governments and wants to unilaterally disarm our defence capabilities.
I think he will be fine.
I would much rather a Corbyn Brexit than a Boris Brexit.
I think your politics are irrational, now, because you have a bone to pick with Andrew Lansley/Jeremy Hunt and the NHS, so are happy to cut off your nose to spite your face.
You started off as a Cameroon and supporter of the coalition.
Not really a Cameroon, but a Cleggite supporter of the coalition, which will be looked back upon as a goldon period of government. I have no particular dislike of Lansley, indded thought there was some good in his reforms, Hunt less so. I find that I rarely like ministers of health.
Corbyn's Brexit will be one that is far more a ccepting of the EU citizens here*, and better for workers rights and environmental protections, I also think the more positive attitude to the EU would pay off with better terms of trade.
*no one expects or desires mass deportations, and it would be the simplist way of breaking the deadlock to make a unilateral announcement that all EU citizens can stay on. It would be good for the UK as well as tbe negotiations.
Must get ready for the footy! Liverpool twice in one week.
What do we do when the EU says pay us Eur20bn or your 1m+ Brits get deported? It's not blackmail - just an upfront contribution to healthcare costs.
How do you think that would make the EU look to the rest of the world? Deporting British citzens while letting in pretty much anyone, refugee or not from the Middle East?
The EU may not suffer as much as Britain if there is a chaotic departure but it is not in its political interests to look and behave like a vengeful harpy to the rest of the world.
They probably wouldn't. But a government can't take that risk.
The EU doesn't yet want to negotiate. Unilateral concessions aren't a good idea (a proposed "grand bargain" might although I have my doubts)
If he quits he doesn't get to do a speech to conference.
If he gives a barnstorming zone that hits the erogenous zone of Tory members he could win the Tory leadership contest by acclimation.
Boris or his henchmen have bungled with this resignation lark. Until then it was all going swimmingly. Boris had established himself as Mr Ultra-Hard Brexit and May was cornered: agree with him and she'd be dancing to his tune; disagree and she'd frame him as being more in touch with the base than she was herself. Now Boris has made himself look cowardly and weak, and if he doesn't make a leadership move he'll go down as another Portillo.
Has he started installing phone lines yet?
This isn't the 1970's!
No, it would take 3 months then...
A phone in the house was another thing which became ubiquitous in the 70's. Although you did have to book well in advance!
My mum finally agreed to have a phone put in when I was 14 in 1974... and then she went and put a bloody lock* on it!
(*For those under 40, that was a physical lock, not a password)
I remember those. Designed so the only number you could use was the 9 so you could ring the emergency services.
It has been pointed out several times that the Conservatives were in power for half of the 1970's. They gave us the 3-day week and rolling power cuts.
A bit of a rewrite of history there. It was the unions - which had been allowed to grow vicious and all-powerful under Wilson - which gave us the 3-day week and rolling power cuts. It's true that Heath failed to slay the monster, but the next Tory PM did, thank God.
They live in cloud cuckoo land. They genuinely think more economic damage will come from being an independent country than in trying to replace capitalism.
What's cloud cuckoo land is believing that Britain isn't currently an independent country. People with such a tenuous grasp of reality as to believe that are going to steer the country onto the rocks.
If you believe Remain's own forecasts, already proven overly pessimistic, the "rocks" mean a slightly reduced rate of growth that will gradually cause a differential over a couple decades. Corbyn style socialism has ended in full blown economic depression everywhere it has been tried. Even if you take the negative establishment view on Brexit, it is lunacy to put Corbyn in No 10 to stop it. Even more so when he has said he will go through with it.
But then the anti-Brexiteers are driven by religious anger and zealotry, not logic.
Corbynites and Brexiters are united in their messianic fervour. Both are catastrophic for the country.
The Remainers own forecasts gave a marginal rounding error difference per annum for Brexit over decades to make it add up to a seemingly big number.
How is that catastrophic?
There was an article only yesterday about the effect of compound interest. It's a shame that Leavers evidently didn't understand it.
That forecast in any case was not a worst case scenario, which we are heading for at a rate of knots, thanks to the insular and xenophobic way in which Brexit is being pursued.
@rottenborough What do you expect Labour moderates to do? The reality is, they messed up massively by not providing an alternative vision to Corbyn in 2015.
If he quits he doesn't get to do a speech to conference.
If he gives a barnstorming zone that hits the erogenous zone of Tory members he could win the Tory leadership contest by acclimation.
Boris or his henchmen have bungled with this resignation lark. Until then it was all going swimmingly. Boris had established himself as Mr Ultra-Hard Brexit and May was cornered: agree with him and she'd be dancing to his tune; disagree and she'd frame him as being more in touch with the base than she was herself. Now Boris has made himself look cowardly and weak, and if he doesn't make a leadership move he'll go down as another Portillo.
Has he started installing phone lines yet?
This isn't the 1970's!
No, it would take 3 months then...
A phone in the house was another thing which became ubiquitous in the 70's. Although you did have to book well in advance!
In the nineties, I was involved in some epidemiological work of a population aged over 55, and wanting to get a representative sample. Around 20% of our population, weighted to UK norms didn't have a phone. The connected world of silver surfers is a recent phenomenon.
I would much rather a Corbyn Brexit than a Boris Brexit.
I think your politics are irrational, now, because you have a bone to pick with Andrew Lansley/Jeremy Hunt and the NHS, so are happy to cut off your nose to spite your face.
You started off as a Cameroon and supporter of the coalition.
Not really a Cameroon, but a Cleggite supporter of the coalition, which will be looked back upon as a goldon period of government. I have no particular dislike of Lansley, indded thought there was some good in his reforms, Hunt less so. I find that I rarely like ministers of health.
Corbyn's Brexit will be one that is far more a ccepting of the EU citizens here*, and better for workers rights and environmental protections, I also think the more positive attitude to the EU would pay off with better terms of trade.
*no one expects or desires mass deportations, and it would be the simplist way of breaking the deadlock to make a unilateral announcement that all EU citizens can stay on. It would be good for the UK as well as tbe negotiations.
Must get ready for the footy! Liverpool twice in one week.
What do we do when the EU says pay us Eur20bn or your 1m+ Brits get deported? It's not blackmail - just an upfront contribution to healthcare costs.
How do you think that would make the EU look to the rest of the world? Deporting British citzens while letting in pretty much anyone, refugee or not from the Middle East?
The EU may not suffer as much as Britain if there is a chaotic departure but it is not in its political interests to look and behave like a vengeful harpy to the rest of the world.
They probably wouldn't. But a government can't take that risk.
The EU doesn't yet want to negotiate. Unilateral concessions aren't a good idea (a proposed "grand bargain" might although I have my doubts)
Two points Charles:
1) The government can safely take the risk because if the EU was stupid enough to expel Brits there'd be nothing to stop a retrospective retaliation. That way lies madness of course, which is why the EU wouldn't even consider expelling 1m Brits.
2) The EU doesn't really need to negotiate; it holds all the cards. Therein lies our problem, entirely predictably. Unfortunately there are still too many Brexiteers (including in the cabinet) who deludedly think the EU needs us more than we need it.
Why was economic growth, and even more so economic growth per capita, so much higher in the 1970s than it has been in recent years ?
And not unrelated productivity and wages increased much more rapidly in the 1970s than they have since 2000.
And this isn't a British problem either - every first world country has it to varying extent.
Either they were doing something right in the 1970s (and 1980s and 1990s for that matter) which we're not anyone, or we're now doing something wrong, or perhaps the first world has reached some economic plateau from which we don't have the means to escape.
That's a complex question, and I don't have anything a complete answer. But I believe some of the explanation might include:
- Europe and to a lesser extent the US were still rebuilding from WWII right into the 1970s. - Technological change, and its economic effects, are not consistent. You get periods of increasing wealth, followed by periods of relative stagnation. That has been the case for 200 years. - Big demographic changes, most notably the massive increase in the working population as women moved out of being housewives (thanks to supermarkets, vacuum cleaners and washing machines, largely) into the workforce. In particular, because of taxation changing from being joint to being individually-based, professional couples with two large incomes have received a huge tax advantage, increasing inequality. Plus the age profile change @rcs1000 has already mentioned.
I'm also rather sceptical of the base data. Measuring inflation over long periods is an extremely imprecise art, and I do wonder if it really captures improved the quality of goods. For example, in the 1950s until the 1970s, you could see the quantity of car ownership increasing. Eventually most reasonably prosperous families have the one or two cars they want, and they are not going to buy any more, However, the average family car today is massively better than the average family car of 1970. Have the inflation statistics captured this properly? Indeed, is it even logically possible to compare a modern car - complete with stereo, ABS, air conditioning, power steering, electric windows, remote locking, etc etc) with my first car (a second-hand Austin Allegro, since you ask. The handbrake fell off soon after I'd bought it).
What I do know is that the average family, and especially the poorest, have a standard of living today which is hugely better than that of their equivalents of thirty or forty years ago. We shouldn't forget that.
It has been pointed out several times that the Conservatives were in power for half of the 1970's. They gave us the 3-day week and rolling power cuts.
A bit of a rewrite of history there. It was the unions - which had been allowed to grow vicious and all-powerful under Wilson - which gave us the 3-day week and rolling power cuts. It's true that Heath failed to slay the monster, but the next Tory PM did, thank God.
They live in cloud cuckoo land. They genuinely think more economic damage will come from being an independent country than in trying to replace capitalism.
What's cloud cuckoo land is believing that Britain isn't currently an independent country. People with such a tenuous grasp of reality as to believe that are going to steer the country onto the rocks.
If you believe Remain's own forecasts, already proven overly pessimistic, the "rocks" mean a slightly reduced rate of growth that will gradually cause a differential over a couple decades. Corbyn style socialism has ended in full blown economic depression everywhere it has been tried. Even if you take the negative establishment view on Brexit, it is lunacy to put Corbyn in No 10 to stop it. Even more so when he has said he will go through with it.
But then the anti-Brexiteers are driven by religious anger and zealotry, not logic.
Corbynites and Brexiters are united in their messianic fervour. Both are catastrophic for the country.
The Remainers own forecasts gave a marginal rounding error difference per annum for Brexit over decades to make it add up to a seemingly big number.
How is that catastrophic?
There was an article only yesterday about the effect of compound interest. It's a shame that Leavers evidently didn't understand it.
That forecast in any case was not a worst case scenario, which we are heading for at a rate of knots, thanks to the insular and xenophobic way in which Brexit is being pursued.
Alastair, do you think favouring British citizens over non British citizens for things like benefits, provision of the welfare state etc is xenophobic?
I was trying to show there is more than one way to look at a situation. The idea that the "Seventies were Hell" is patent nonsense yet oft repeated. Most people got better off. The quality of life grew. And the fact is that the Tories were in power 5 years of the 70's.
It was an abysmal decade, especially for anyone working in industry. Easily the worst of my lifetime, and I'm into my seventh. (Don't remember much about the first, though!)
For you maybe. Not for me or my neighbours.
I'm not talking about any individual's experience (mine was rather good!), but the country as a whole. Massive inflation, high unemployment, strikes and widespread industrial violence every week, rubbish piling up in the streets, power cuts, the transport system in chaos, a hideous them-vs-us divide even in those industries which were not strike-wrecked, our economy falling way behind our European neighbours, nationalised industries run entirely for the convenience of union members, abysmally wasteful government, IRA bombings, and so on and so on. Some of those problems lasted into the 80s, of course, but at least they were then finally being addressed and we stopped managing the decline and giving in to the thugs.
That's all true but ...
Why was economic growth, and even more so economic growth per capita, so much higher in the 1970s than it has been in recent years ?
And not unrelated productivity and wages increased much more rapidly in the 1970s than they have since 2000.
And this isn't a British problem either - every first world country has it to varying extent.
Either they were doing something right in the 1970s (and 1980s and 1990s for that matter) which we're not anyone, or we're now doing something wrong, or perhaps the first world has reached some economic plateau from which we don't have the means to escape.
Demographics is a big part of it. Simply, in the old days (of the 1970s) only a small portion of your paycheck was spent on pensions and healthcare for the elderly. As the dependency ratio continues to worsen, the "old age" drag on growth will get greater and greater.
I'd note that the two fastest growing large developed countries over the last 15 years both have low dependency ratios (Australia and Canada), while the two slowest (Italy and Japan) have the highest.
Did any of the others do anything as mad as introducing triple lock pensions ?
Although back in the 1970s there would have been other areas of spending much higher in proportion than today - defence for example.
@rottenborough What do you expect Labour moderates to do? The reality is, they messed up massively by not providing an alternative vision to Corbyn in 2015.
I seem to recall quite a few Tory PBers voted for Corbyn too! Be careful what you wish for.
Did any of the others do anything as mad as introducing triple lock pensions ?
Although back in the 1970s there would have been other areas of spending much higher in proportion than today - defence for example.
The triple lock wasn't mad, it was a very sensible policy for the time. State pensions had fallen very sharply against average earnings. Gradually making up a bit of the difference helped the poorest pensioners (who are very poor indeed, let us not forget).
Of course, it is mathematically impossible to continue with the triple lock forever, which is why Theresa May very sensibly tried to ditch it. Unfortunately the naive youngsters who voted for Corbyn have kiboshed that, and we are stuck with it for years - it will be a long time before any political party dares fix it.
Why should we be content with relative decline on a per capita basis?
We shouldn't.
Thanks for posting. I hadn't read that before.
There are human elements that favour us compared with others: our political stability and the absence of that tendency to explosion that could always afflict France.
Did any of the others do anything as mad as introducing triple lock pensions ?
Although back in the 1970s there would have been other areas of spending much higher in proportion than today - defence for example.
The triple lock wasn't mad, it was a very sensible policy for the time. State pensions had fallen very sharply against average earnings. Gradually making up a bit of the difference helped the poorest pensioners (who are very poor indeed, let us not forget).
Of course, it is mathematically impossible to continue with the triple lock forever, which is why Theresa May very sensibly tried to ditch it. Unfortunately the naive youngsters who voted for Corbyn have kiboshed that, and we are stuck with it for years - it will be a long time before any political party dares fix it.
The irony of the 2017 election is that the young voted for Labour's 'yoof policy' and have guaranteed the opposite, and Remainers voted for Labour and have guaranteed the Govt have little leeway to appease Remainers.
If Corbyn gets in on the back of this we'll have had 3 of the 4 worst Prime Ministers in British history in succession. Given that with the odd exception we get the politicians we deserve that's a telling statement about where we are as a country. I think it's late decadence myself raging at the end of an historical era but who knows. It might just be very bad luck.
@rottenborough What do you expect Labour moderates to do? The reality is, they messed up massively by not providing an alternative vision to Corbyn in 2015.
I seem to recall quite a few Tory PBers voted for Corbyn too! Be careful what you wish for.
Yep.
Tories4Corbyn. It was a laugh....until it wasn't. I wonder how some of them are feeling now....
Why was economic growth, and even more so economic growth per capita, so much higher in the 1970s than it has been in recent years ?
And not unrelated productivity and wages increased much more rapidly in the 1970s than they have since 2000.
And this isn't a British problem either - every first world country has it to varying extent.
Either they were doing something right in the 1970s (and 1980s and 1990s for that matter) which we're not anyone, or we're now doing something wrong, or perhaps the first world has reached some economic plateau from which we don't have the means to escape.
That's a complex question, and I don't have anything a complete answer. But I believe some of the explanation might include:
- Europe and to a lesser extent the US were still rebuilding from WWII right into the 1970s. - Technological change, and its economic effects, are not consistent. You get periods of increasing wealth, followed by periods of relative stagnation. That has been the case for 200 years. - Big demographic changes, most notably the massive increase in the working population as women moved out of being housewives (thanks to supermarkets, vacuum cleaners and washing machines, largely) into the workforce. In particular, because of taxation changing from being joint to being individually-based, professional couples with two large incomes have received a huge tax advantage, increasing inequality. Plus the age profile change @rcs1000 has already mentioned.
I'm also rather sceptical of the base data. Measuring inflation over long periods is an extremely imprecise art, and I do wonder if it really captures improved the quality of goods. For example, in the 1950s until the 1970s, you could see the quantity of car ownership increasing. Eventually most reasonably prosperous families have the one or two cars they want, and they are not going to buy any more, However, the average family car today is massively better than the average family car of 1970. Have the inflation statistics captured this properly? Indeed, is it even logically possible to compare a modern car - complete with stereo, ABS, air conditioning, power steering, electric windows, remote locking, etc etc) with my first car (a second-hand Austin Allegro, since you ask. The handbrake fell off soon after I'd bought it).
What I do know is that the average family, and especially the poorest, have a standard of living today which is hugely better than that of their equivalents of thirty or forty years ago. We shouldn't forget that.
Just watch call the midwife and then realise this was 50's Britain
The irony of the 2017 election is that the young voted for Labour's 'yoof policy' and have guaranteed the opposite, and Remainers voted for Labour and have guaranteed the Govt have little leeway to appease Remainers.
That's a complex question, and I don't have anything a complete answer. But I believe some of the explanation might include:
- Europe and to a lesser extent the US were still rebuilding from WWII right into the 1970s. - Technological change, and its economic effects, are not consistent. You get periods of increasing wealth, followed by periods of relative stagnation. That has been the case for 200 years. - Big demographic changes, most notably the massive increase in the working population as women moved out of being housewives (thanks to supermarkets, vacuum cleaners and washing machines, largely) into the workforce. In particular, because of taxation changing from being joint to being individually-based, professional couples with two large incomes have received a huge tax advantage, increasing inequality. Plus the age profile change @rcs1000 has already mentioned.
I'm also rather sceptical of the base data. Measuring inflation over long periods is an extremely imprecise art, and I do wonder if it really captures improved the quality of goods. For example, in the 1950s until the 1970s, you could see the quantity of car ownership increasing. Eventually most reasonably prosperous families have the one or two cars they want, and they are not going to buy any more, However, the average family car today is massively better than the average family car of 1970. Have the inflation statistics captured this properly? Indeed, is it even logically possible to compare a modern car - complete with stereo, ABS, air conditioning, power steering, electric windows, remote locking, etc etc) with my first car (a second-hand Austin Allegro, since you ask. The handbrake fell off soon after I'd bought it).
What I do know is that the average family, and especially the poorest, have a standard of living today which is hugely better than that of their equivalents of thirty or forty years ago. We shouldn't forget that.
Thanks.
I was just thinking that while not only would a TV probably cost less in absolute, let alone real, terms now than in 1976 but there was also only three channels to watch back then and even those only broadcast half of the day.
Whereas now I get for free YouTube with an unlimited range of entertainment and education - which even in the 1990s would have cost £100s per year in videos and CDs.
Evening all. May should let Boris resign. The economic future of the country is too important and the effect on generations too great for Brexit to be conducted on a way to keep Boris on side and the government together. I accept that Brexit is happening but we have to bring the country together through it and hard Brexit isn't the answer. If it brings down the government so be it. 5 years of Corbyn would be bad but recoverable. We need to settle the divorce bill and get a wide ranging free trade agreement with the EU.
I was just thinking that while not only would a TV probably cost less in absolute, let alone real, terms now than in 1976 but there was also only three channels to watch back then and even those only broadcast half of the day.
Whereas now I get for free YouTube with an unlimited range of entertainment and education - which even in the 1990s would have cost £100s per year in videos and CDs.
Yes, and it's not just gizmos, either - look at the quality of housing. I think youngsters would be very shocked at the housing of thirty or forty years ago, which for many people had no central heating, really crude kitchens, no freezer, and maybe not even a proper bathroom for the poorer families.
Did any of the others do anything as mad as introducing triple lock pensions ?
Although back in the 1970s there would have been other areas of spending much higher in proportion than today - defence for example.
The triple lock wasn't mad, it was a very sensible policy for the time. State pensions had fallen very sharply against average earnings. Gradually making up a bit of the difference helped the poorest pensioners (who are very poor indeed, let us not forget).
Of course, it is mathematically impossible to continue with the triple lock forever, which is why Theresa May very sensibly tried to ditch it. Unfortunately the naive youngsters who voted for Corbyn have kiboshed that, and we are stuck with it for years - it will be a long time before any political party dares fix it.
The irony of the 2017 election is that the young voted for Labour's 'yoof policy' and have guaranteed the opposite, and Remainers voted for Labour and have guaranteed the Govt have little leeway to appease Remainers.
At least labour tried to appeal to the younger voter, the contnuing derision of young people will only make it more likley they will vote labour.
Did any of the others do anything as mad as introducing triple lock pensions ?
Although back in the 1970s there would have been other areas of spending much higher in proportion than today - defence for example.
The triple lock wasn't mad, it was a very sensible policy for the time. State pensions had fallen very sharply against average earnings. Gradually making up a bit of the difference helped the poorest pensioners (who are very poor indeed, let us not forget).
Of course, it is mathematically impossible to continue with the triple lock forever, which is why Theresa May very sensibly tried to ditch it. Unfortunately the naive youngsters who voted for Corbyn have kiboshed that, and we are stuck with it for years - it will be a long time before any political party dares fix it.
That's the problem when you start giving out the goodies - people get addicted and there will always be a politician who promises to up the handout.
Evening all. May should let Boris resign. The economic future of the country is too important and the effect on generations too great for Brexit to be conducted on a way to keep Boris on side and the government together. I accept that Brexit is happening but we have to bring the country together through it and hard Brexit isn't the answer. If it brings down the government so be it. 5 years of Corbyn would be bad but recoverable. We need to settle the divorce bill and get a wide ranging free trade agreement with the EU.
Brexit means Borexit? Borexit is getting far more attention than Brexit, which is utterly ridiculous.
I was just thinking that while not only would a TV probably cost less in absolute, let alone real, terms now than in 1976 but there was also only three channels to watch back then and even those only broadcast half of the day.
Whereas now I get for free YouTube with an unlimited range of entertainment and education - which even in the 1990s would have cost £100s per year in videos and CDs.
Yes, and it's not just gizmos, either - look at the quality of housing. I think youngsters would be very shocked at the housing of thirty or forty years ago, which for many people had no central heating, really crude kitchens, no freezer, and maybe not even a proper bathroom for the poorer families.
The flip side is that the internet has become an other essential utility to pay for. Also, while options for televised entertainment have increased dramatically, if you take my interest - sport - it has become very expensive.
I tend to agree that we probably have never had it so good. What concerns me is sustainability. I don't think we've ever really confronted what happened in 2008. I fear it will happen again and next time it will be a lot worse.
The flip side is that the internet has become an other essential utility to pay for. Also, while options for televised entertainment have increased dramatically, if you take my interest - sport - it has become very expensive.
I tend to agree that we probably have never had it so good. What concerns me is sustainability. I don't think we've ever really confronted what happened in 2008. I fear it will happen again and next time it will be a lot worse.
The rising consumer debt is certainly getting very worrying. We are not well placed for riding through any Brexit turbulence, let alone some of the worse scenarios.
Did any of the others do anything as mad as introducing triple lock pensions ?
Although back in the 1970s there would have been other areas of spending much higher in proportion than today - defence for example.
The triple lock wasn't mad, it was a very sensible policy for the time. State pensions had fallen very sharply against average earnings. Gradually making up a bit of the difference helped the poorest pensioners (who are very poor indeed, let us not forget).
Of course, it is mathematically impossible to continue with the triple lock forever, which is why Theresa May very sensibly tried to ditch it. Unfortunately the naive youngsters who voted for Corbyn have kiboshed that, and we are stuck with it for years - it will be a long time before any political party dares fix it.
That's the problem when you start giving out the goodies - people get addicted and there will always be a politician who promises to up the handout.
Evening all. May should let Boris resign. The economic future of the country is too important and the effect on generations too great for Brexit to be conducted on a way to keep Boris on side and the government together. I accept that Brexit is happening but we have to bring the country together through it and hard Brexit isn't the answer. If it brings down the government so be it. 5 years of Corbyn would be bad but recoverable. We need to settle the divorce bill and get a wide ranging free trade agreement with the EU.
Brexit means Borexit? Borexit is getting far more attention than Brexit, which is utterly ridiculous.
I was from a poor Mining family and the 1977 to 1980 period saw us get our first landline*. ( I just remember my mother taking us to a photo be box to ring our grandparents ). Our first record player with speakers and a tape recorder, our first Fridge Fridge as a single unit, our first clothes dryer and our first front loading washing machine. Our council house was ' modernised ' which meant we got our first central heating ( though still powered by the coal fire ) and double glazing. Our local council won a national award as it let tennants chose between 3 colours for the fitted kitchen which was a wonder in it's self.
This all sounds rather twee compared to the invention the of the internet and then the smart phone generation bit in terms of raw human comfort.....
We were on a waiting list for 13 weeks to get a line installed. My mother has the same phone number nearly 40 years later and routinely has it rejected by companies and officialdom as it doesn't have 11 digits and therefore may be " wrong ".
If Corbyn gets in on the back of this we'll have had 3 of the 4 worst Prime Ministers in British history in succession. Given that with the odd exception we get the politicians we deserve that's a telling statement about where we are as a country. I think it's late decadence myself raging at the end of an historical era but who knows. It might just be very bad luck.
If Corbyn gets in on the back of this we'll have had 3 of the 4 worst Prime Ministers in British history in succession. Given that with the odd exception we get the politicians we deserve that's a telling statement about where we are as a country. I think it's late decadence myself raging at the end of an historical era but who knows. It might just be very bad luck.
Did any of the others do anything as mad as introducing triple lock pensions ?
Although back in the 1970s there would have been other areas of spending much higher in proportion than today - defence for example.
The triple lock wasn't mad, it was a very sensible policy for the time. State pensions had fallen very sharply against average earnings. Gradually making up a bit of the difference helped the poorest pensioners (who are very poor indeed, let us not forget).
Of course, it is mathematically impossible to continue with the triple lock forever, which is why Theresa May very sensibly tried to ditch it. Unfortunately the naive youngsters who voted for Corbyn have kiboshed that, and we are stuck with it for years - it will be a long time before any political party dares fix it.
That's the problem when you start giving out the goodies - people get addicted and there will always be a politician who promises to up the handout.
From a personal POV, my decade old business has really started to pay dividends (metaphorically and literally) in the past year or two. It coincided almost exactly with the increase in dividend tax. I'm nevertheless very happy with the anti-goodies a Tory govt has delivered me
The flip side is that the internet has become an other essential utility to pay for. Also, while options for televised entertainment have increased dramatically, if you take my interest - sport - it has become very expensive.
I tend to agree that we probably have never had it so good. What concerns me is sustainability. I don't think we've ever really confronted what happened in 2008. I fear it will happen again and next time it will be a lot worse.
The rising consumer debt is certainly getting very worrying. We are not well placed for riding through any Brexit turbulence, let alone some of the worse scenarios.
From 2008 we've only kicked the can down the road we haven't actually fixed any of the problems that caused that crisis. When the next one comes (and I suspect it won't be that long away) we will be utterly unprepared for it.
Thankfully we can blame Brexit for the entire disaster....
If Corbyn gets in on the back of this we'll have had 3 of the 4 worst Prime Ministers in British history in succession. Given that with the odd exception we get the politicians we deserve that's a telling statement about where we are as a country. I think it's late decadence myself raging at the end of an historical era but who knows. It might just be very bad luck.
Who are you casting as the fourth there?
Lord North.
I would put the 3rd Earl of Bute, Thomas Townshend and most of all Viscount Goderich beneath all those.
Although North lost the American War of Independence, he was still 12 years as PM which is remarkable in itself even in the eighteenth century.
Edit - I meant Charles Townshend. Too many Townshends!
(And before somebody tells me he was CotE, yes, I know. Just as Lord Salisbury was Foreign Secretary and Chatham Lord Privy Seal.)
The flip side is that the internet has become an other essential utility to pay for. Also, while options for televised entertainment have increased dramatically, if you take my interest - sport - it has become very expensive.
I tend to agree that we probably have never had it so good. What concerns me is sustainability. I don't think we've ever really confronted what happened in 2008. I fear it will happen again and next time it will be a lot worse.
The rising consumer debt is certainly getting very worrying. We are not well placed for riding through any Brexit turbulence, let alone some of the worse scenarios.
From 2008 we've only kicked the can down the road we haven't actually fixed any of the problems that caused that crisis. When the next one comes (and I suspect it won't be that long away) we will be utterly unprepared for it.
Thankfully we can blame Brexit for the entire disaster....
That's the great irony, isn't it?
We have chosen Brexit with the most unbalanced economy in the developed world. Just 20 years ago when Kenneth Clarke handed over the Chancellor role to Gordon Brown, Britain had way more foreign assets than liabilities. Now it's the other way around.
We've funded our spending spree by selling our assets and borrowing from the rest of the world. Consumer spending as a percentage of GDP is the highest in the developed world, we run a triple deficit, and the savings rate is the lowest in recorded history.
There will be a rebalancing of the British economy, and it will be painful.
Just 20 years ago when Kenneth Clarke handed over the Chancellor role to Gordon Brown, Britain had way more foreign assets than liabilities. Now it's the other way around.
We've funded our spending spree by selling our assets and borrowing from the rest of the world. Consumer spending as a percentage of GDP is the highest in the developed world, we run a triple deficit, and the savings rate is the lowest in recorded history.
Do you have a source for that? Would be very useful for a project I'm working on.
The flip side is that the internet has become an other essential utility to pay for. Also, while options for televised entertainment have increased dramatically, if you take my interest - sport - it has become very expensive.
I tend to agree that we probably have never had it so good. What concerns me is sustainability. I don't think we've ever really confronted what happened in 2008. I fear it will happen again and next time it will be a lot worse.
The rising consumer debt is certainly getting very worrying. We are not well placed for riding through any Brexit turbulence, let alone some of the worse scenarios.
From 2008 we've only kicked the can down the road we haven't actually fixed any of the problems that caused that crisis. When the next one comes (and I suspect it won't be that long away) we will be utterly unprepared for it.
Thankfully we can blame Brexit for the entire disaster....
That's the great irony, isn't it?
We have chosen Brexit with the most unbalanced economy in the developed world. Just 20 years ago when Kenneth Clarke handed over the Chancellor role to Gordon Brown, Britain had way more foreign assets than liabilities. Now it's the other way around.
We've funded our spending spree by selling our assets and borrowing from the rest of the world. Consumer spending as a percentage of GDP is the highest in the developed world, we run a triple deficit, and the savings rate is the lowest in recorded history.
There will be a rebalancing of the British economy, and it will be painful.
And it will be nothing to do with Brexit.
But I think we all know what will get the blame.
As a hypothetical, what would you want to hedge on that basis?
I was trying to show there is more than one way to look at a situation. The idea that the "Seventies were Hell" is patent nonsense yet oft repeated. Most people got better off. The quality of life grew. And the fact is that the Tories were in power 5 years of the 70's.
It was an abysmal decade, especially for anyone working in industry. Easily the worst of my lifetime, and I'm into my seventh. (Don't remember much about the first, though!)
For you maybe. Not for me or my neighbours.
I'm not talking about any individual's experience (mine was rather good!), but the country as a whole. Massive inflation, high unemployment, strikes and widespread industrial violence every week, rubbish piling up in the streets, power cuts, the transport system in chaos, a hideous them-vs-us divide even in those industries which were not strike-wrecked, our economy falling way behind our European neighbours, nationalised industries run entirely for the convenience of union members, abysmally wasteful government, IRA bombings, and so on and so on. Some of those problems lasted into the 80s, of course, but at least they were then finally being addressed and we stopped managing the decline and giving in to the thugs.
That's all true but ...
Why was economic growth, and even more so economic growth per capita, so much higher in the 1970s than it has been in recent years ?
And not unrelated productivity and wages increased much more rapidly in the 1970s than they have since 2000.
And this isn't a British problem either - every first world country has it to varying extent.
Either they were doing something right in the 1970s (and 1980s and 1990s for that matter) which we're not anyone, or we're now doing something wrong, or perhaps the first world has reached some economic plateau from which we don't have the means to escape.
Globalisation and the lifting out of abject and total poverty of some of the poorest in the world?
Globalisation has been great for most inhabitants of poor countries, but not for the working classes in rich countries. In terms of boosting overall human happiness, that's great, but that's cold comfort if you're the one whose job disappears.
The flip side is that the internet has become an other essential utility to pay for. Also, while options for televised entertainment have increased dramatically, if you take my interest - sport - it has become very expensive.
I tend to agree that we probably have never had it so good. What concerns me is sustainability. I don't think we've ever really confronted what happened in 2008. I fear it will happen again and next time it will be a lot worse.
The rising consumer debt is certainly getting very worrying. We are not well placed for riding through any Brexit turbulence, let alone some of the worse scenarios.
From 2008 we've only kicked the can down the road we haven't actually fixed any of the problems that caused that crisis. When the next one comes (and I suspect it won't be that long away) we will be utterly unprepared for it.
Thankfully we can blame Brexit for the entire disaster....
That's the great irony, isn't it?
We have chosen Brexit with the most unbalanced economy in the developed world. Just 20 years ago when Kenneth Clarke handed over the Chancellor role to Gordon Brown, Britain had way more foreign assets than liabilities. Now it's the other way around.
We've funded our spending spree by selling our assets and borrowing from the rest of the world. Consumer spending as a percentage of GDP is the highest in the developed world, we run a triple deficit, and the savings rate is the lowest in recorded history.
There will be a rebalancing of the British economy, and it will be painful.
And it will be nothing to do with Brexit.
But I think we all know what will get the blame.
It will have a fair bit to do with Brexit as Brexit will aggravate this and many related problems, but it won't be ONLY to do with Brexit.
I was just thinking that while not only would a TV probably cost less in absolute, let alone real, terms now than in 1976 but there was also only three channels to watch back then and even those only broadcast half of the day.
Whereas now I get for free YouTube with an unlimited range of entertainment and education - which even in the 1990s would have cost £100s per year in videos and CDs.
Yes, and it's not just gizmos, either - look at the quality of housing. I think youngsters would be very shocked at the housing of thirty or forty years ago, which for many people had no central heating, really crude kitchens, no freezer, and maybe not even a proper bathroom for the poorer families.
When young people castigate baby boomers for enjoying a level of prosperity that is denied them, they implicitly mean upper middle class baby boomers. Lower middle, and working class baby boomers grew up in harsher conditions than prevail today.
Just 20 years ago when Kenneth Clarke handed over the Chancellor role to Gordon Brown, Britain had way more foreign assets than liabilities. Now it's the other way around.
We've funded our spending spree by selling our assets and borrowing from the rest of the world. Consumer spending as a percentage of GDP is the highest in the developed world, we run a triple deficit, and the savings rate is the lowest in recorded history.
Do you have a source for that? Would be very useful for a project I'm working on.
The flip side is that the internet has become an other essential utility to pay for. Also, while options for televised entertainment have increased dramatically, if you take my interest - sport - it has become very expensive.
I tend to agree that we probably have never had it so good. What concerns me is sustainability. I don't think we've ever really confronted what happened in 2008. I fear it will happen again and next time it will be a lot worse.
The rising consumer debt is certainly getting very worrying. We are not well placed for riding through any Brexit turbulence, let alone some of the worse scenarios.
From 2008 we've only kicked the can down the road we haven't actually fixed any of the problems that caused that crisis. When the next one comes (and I suspect it won't be that long away) we will be utterly unprepared for it.
Thankfully we can blame Brexit for the entire disaster....
That's the great irony, isn't it?
We have chosen Brexit with the most unbalanced economy in the developed world. Just 20 years ago when Kenneth Clarke handed over the Chancellor role to Gordon Brown, Britain had way more foreign assets than liabilities. Now it's the other way around.
We've funded our spending spree by selling our assets and borrowing from the rest of the world. Consumer spending as a percentage of GDP is the highest in the developed world, we run a triple deficit, and the savings rate is the lowest in recorded history.
There will be a rebalancing of the British economy, and it will be painful.
And it will be nothing to do with Brexit.
But I think we all know what will get the blame.
As a hypothetical, what would you want to hedge on that basis?
The flip side is that the internet has become an other essential utility to pay for. Also, while options for televised entertainment have increased dramatically, if you take my interest - sport - it has become very expensive.
I tend to agree that we probably have never had it so good. What concerns me is sustainability. I don't think we've ever really confronted what happened in 2008. I fear it will happen again and next time it will be a lot worse.
The rising consumer debt is certainly getting very worrying. We are not well placed for riding through any Brexit turbulence, let alone some of the worse scenarios.
From 2008 we've only kicked the can down the road we haven't actually fixed any of the problems that caused that crisis. When the next one comes (and I suspect it won't be that long away) we will be utterly unprepared for it.
Thankfully we can blame Brexit for the entire disaster....
That's the great irony, isn't it?
We have chosen Brexit with the most unbalanced economy in the developed world. Just 20 years ago when Kenneth Clarke handed over the Chancellor role to Gordon Brown, Britain had way more foreign assets than liabilities. Now it's the other way around.
We've funded our spending spree by selling our assets and borrowing from the rest of the world. Consumer spending as a percentage of GDP is the highest in the developed world, we run a triple deficit, and the savings rate is the lowest in recorded history.
There will be a rebalancing of the British economy, and it will be painful.
And it will be nothing to do with Brexit.
But I think we all know what will get the blame.
It will have a fair bit to do with Brexit as Brexit will aggravate this and many related problems, but it won't be ONLY to do with Brexit.
I would say that Brexit will *reveal* those problems.
I was trying to show there is more than one way to look at a situation. The idea that the "Seventies were Hell" is patent nonsense yet oft repeated. Most people got better off. The quality of life grew. And the fact is that the Tories were in power 5 years of the 70's.
It was an abysmal decade, especially for anyone working in industry. Easily the worst of my lifetime, and I'm into my seventh. (Don't remember much about the first, though!)
For you maybe. Not for me or my neighbours.
I'm not talking about any individual's experience (mine was rather good!), but the country as a whole. Massive inflation, high unemployment, strikes and widespread industrial violence every week, rubbish piling up in the streets, power cuts, the transport system in chaos, a hideous them-vs-us divide even in those industries which were not strike-wrecked, our economy falling way behind our European neighbours, nationalised industries run entirely for the convenience of union members, abysmally wasteful government, IRA bombings, and so on and so on. Some of those problems lasted into the 80s, of course, but at least they were then finally being addressed and we stopped managing the decline and giving in to the thugs.
That's all true but ...
Why was economic growth, and even more so economic growth per capita, so much higher in the 1970s than it has been in recent years ?
And not unrelated productivity and wages increased much more rapidly in the 1970s than they have since 2000.
And this isn't a British problem either - every first world country has it to varying extent.
Either they were doing something right in the 1970s (and 1980s and 1990s for that matter) which we're not anyone, or we're now doing something wrong, or perhaps the first world has reached some economic plateau from which we don't have the means to escape.
Globalisation and the lifting out of abject and total poverty of some of the poorest in the world?
Globalisation has been great for most inhabitants of poor countries, but not for the working classes in rich countries. In terms of boosting overall human happiness, that's great, but that's cold comfort if you're the one whose job disappears.
Globalisation is not something you can successfully opt out of, as Brexit will show. The key is to do globalisation smarter.
Just 20 years ago when Kenneth Clarke handed over the Chancellor role to Gordon Brown, Britain had way more foreign assets than liabilities. Now it's the other way around.
We've funded our spending spree by selling our assets and borrowing from the rest of the world. Consumer spending as a percentage of GDP is the highest in the developed world, we run a triple deficit, and the savings rate is the lowest in recorded history.
Do you have a source for that? Would be very useful for a project I'm working on.
Why should we be content with relative decline on a per capita basis?
We shouldn't.
Thanks for posting. I hadn't read that before.
There are human elements that favour us compared with others: our political stability and the absence of that tendency to explosion that could always afflict France.
I fear we've blown this advantage now.
France almost had a military coup and full blown civil war over Algeria. It had massive student protests in 1968. It currently has a fascist as the runner up to the presidency. Since 1789 it has had three monarchies and five republics. To say we are similar because we left an international organisation is ridiculous.
By 1987 to 1989 when I was doing my Economics GCSE our famously lefty teacher devoted a whole 4 lesson streak to the concept that a unemployed person on state benefits who was housed in a basic standard council property had a higher standard of living than Henry VIII had.
He kept on and on until we eventually worked through on our own what his point was. That that was objectively true but psychologically irrelevant. We're naked apes who judge our situation by our peers and recent events.
Which is frankly what's gone wrong since The Crash. Even half a generation departure from the previous trend in living standards has sent us crazy even though in the big picture it's minor and in the historic sweep the surge in living standards was exceptional not the current blip.
I don't often quote the journalist Paul Mason but his definition of Austerity is intriguing. " Decades and decades of falling western living standards until they meet rising Asian living standards in the middle. "
But no western politican can run on a " Your golden centuries are over, your objectively better off than Cleopatra was so stop moaning now it's the Chinese turn. "
The flip side is that the internet has become an other essential utility to pay for. Also, while options for televised entertainment have increased dramatically, if you take my interest - sport - it has become very expensive.
I tend to agree that we probably have never had it so good. What concerns me is sustainability. I don't think we've ever really confronted what happened in 2008. I fear it will happen again and next time it will be a lot worse.
The rising consumer debt is certainly getting very worrying. We are not well placed for riding through any Brexit turbulence, let alone some of the worse scenarios.
From 2008 we've only kicked the can down the road we haven't actually fixed any of the problems that caused that crisis. When the next one comes (and I suspect it won't be that long away) we will be utterly unprepared for it.
Thankfully we can blame Brexit for the entire disaster....
That's the great irony, isn't it?
We have chosen Brexit with the most unbalanced economy in the developed world. Just 20 years ago when Kenneth Clarke handed over the Chancellor role to Gordon Brown, Britain had way more foreign assets than liabilities. Now it's the other way around.
We've funded our spending spree by selling our assets and borrowing from the rest of the world. Consumer spending as a percentage of GDP is the highest in the developed world, we run a triple deficit, and the savings rate is the lowest in recorded history.
There will be a rebalancing of the British economy, and it will be painful.
And it will be nothing to do with Brexit.
But I think we all know what will get the blame.
As a hypothetical, what would you want to hedge on that basis?
I'd want to be short prime London real estate.
Oh shit...
I used to live in Bury Place. The old 2 bed basement flat just sold for around 16 times my annual salary when I left my London consulting job in 2013.
It's the sort of place I could just about afford to buy now....at 2007 prices.
The flip side is that the internet has become an other essential utility to pay for. Also, while options for televised entertainment have increased dramatically, if you take my interest - sport - it has become very expensive.
I tend to agree that we probably have never had it so good. What concerns me is sustainability. I don't think we've ever really confronted what happened in 2008. I fear it will happen again and next time it will be a lot worse.
The rising consumer debt is certainly getting very worrying. We are not well placed for riding through any Brexit turbulence, let alone some of the worse scenarios.
The problem is most people of my generation are simply incapable of living frugally. Most of the people I go to university with blow money they don't have on eating out, drinking, taxis home and regular foreign holidays. When I was paying off my student loan and then saving for a house deposit, I was keeping my food budget to £8 a day despite having a professional job. I was treated as some sort of odd pariah by the people who are complaining now about still having debts and not being able to afford a house.
Why should we be content with relative decline on a per capita basis?
We shouldn't.
Thanks for posting. I hadn't read that before.
There are human elements that favour us compared with others: our political stability and the absence of that tendency to explosion that could always afflict France.
I fear we've blown this advantage now.
France almost had a military coup and full blown civil war over Algeria. It had massive student protests in 1968. It currently has a fascist as the runner up to the presidency. Since 1789 it has had three monarchies and five republics. To say we are similar because we left an international organisation is ridiculous.
Actually I make that five monarchies - the constitutional monarchy, the First Empire, the Restoration, the July Monarchy and the Second Empire.
That's not including the Ancien Regime which was still technically in being in 1789, or the Consulship of Napoleon which was a de facto monarchy, or the Vichy regime.
The flip side is that the internet has become an other essential utility to pay for. Also, while options for televised entertainment have increased dramatically, if you take my interest - sport - it has become very expensive.
I tend to agree that we probably have never had it so good. What concerns me is sustainability. I don't think we've ever really confronted what happened in 2008. I fear it will happen again and next time it will be a lot worse.
The rising consumer debt is certainly getting very worrying. We are not well placed for riding through any Brexit turbulence, let alone some of the worse scenarios.
From 2008 we've only kicked the can down the road we haven't actually fixed any of the problems that caused that crisis. When the next one comes (and I suspect it won't be that long away) we will be utterly unprepared for it.
Thankfully we can blame Brexit for the entire disaster....
That's the great irony, isn't it?
We have chosen Brexit with the most unbalanced economy in the developed world. Just 20 years ago when Kenneth Clarke handed over the Chancellor role to Gordon Brown, Britain had way more foreign assets than liabilities. Now it's the other way around.
We've funded our spending spree by selling our assets and borrowing from the rest of the world. Consumer spending as a percentage of GDP is the highest in the developed world, we run a triple deficit, and the savings rate is the lowest in recorded history.
There will be a rebalancing of the British economy, and it will be painful.
And it will be nothing to do with Brexit.
But I think we all know what will get the blame.
It will have a fair bit to do with Brexit as Brexit will aggravate this and many related problems, but it won't be ONLY to do with Brexit.
I would say that Brexit will *reveal* those problems.
To an extent, yes. But Brexit will make the problems more painful and pain is what we care about in this case, no?
By 1987 to 1989 when I was doing my Economics GCSE our famously lefty teacher devoted a whole 4 lesson streak to the concept that a unemployed person on state benefits who was housed in a basic standard council property had a higher standard of living than Henry VIII had.
He kept on and on until we eventually worked through on our own what his point was. That that was objectively true but psychologically irrelevant. We're naked apes who judge our situation by our peers and recent events.
Which is frankly what's gone wrong since The Crash. Even half a generation departure from the previous trend in living standards has sent us crazy even though in the big picture it's minor and in the historic sweep the surge in living standards was exceptional not the current blip.
I don't often quote the journalist Paul Mason but his definition of Austerity is intriguing. " Decades and decades of falling western living standards until they meet rising Asian living standards in the middle. "
But no western politican can run on a " Your golden centuries are over, your objectively better off than Cleopatra was so stop moaning now it's the Chinese turn. "
That's basically right.
We'll continue to get richer, but not at the rates we are used to, and the rest of the world will share in it with us, rather than be there to service our pleasure and convenience, as was the case up until the 1990s.
Why should we be content with relative decline on a per capita basis?
We shouldn't.
Thanks for posting. I hadn't read that before.
There are human elements that favour us compared with others: our political stability and the absence of that tendency to explosion that could always afflict France.
I fear we've blown this advantage now.
France almost had a military coup and full blown civil war over Algeria. It had massive student protests in 1968. It currently has a fascist as the runner up to the presidency. Since 1789 it has had three monarchies and five republics. To say we are similar because we left an international organisation is ridiculous.
Actually I make that five monarchies - the constitutional monarchy, the First Empire, the Restoration, the July Monarchy and the Second Empire.
That's not including the Ancien Regime which was still technically in being in 1789, or the Consulship of Napoleon which was a de facto monarchy, or the Vichy regime.
The flip side is that the internet has become an other essential utility to pay for. Also, while options for televised entertainment have increased dramatically, if you take my interest - sport - it has become very expensive.
I tend to agree that we probably have never had it so good. What concerns me is sustainability. I don't think we've ever really confronted what happened in 2008. I fear it will happen again and next time it will be a lot worse.
The rising consumer debt is certainly getting very worrying. We are not well placed for riding through any Brexit turbulence, let alone some of the worse scenarios.
The problem is most people of my generation are simply incapable of living frugally. Most of the people I go to university with blow money they don't have on eating out, drinking, taxis home and regular foreign holidays. When I was paying off my student loan and then saving for a house deposit, I was keeping my food budget to £8 a day despite having a professional job. I was treated as some sort of odd pariah by the people who are complaining now about still having debts and not being able to afford a house.
I was musing on this the other day.
Most of my (largely upper middle class) Oxbridge peers only have houses with help from bank of Mum and Dad, whilst many more of my grammar school mates have houses that they funded for themselves....
Why should we be content with relative decline on a per capita basis?
We shouldn't.
Thanks for posting. I hadn't read that before.
There are human elements that favour us compared with others: our political stability and the absence of that tendency to explosion that could always afflict France.
I fear we've blown this advantage now.
France almost had a military coup and full blown civil war over Algeria. It had massive student protests in 1968. It currently has a fascist as the runner up to the presidency. Since 1789 it has had three monarchies and five republics. To say we are similar because we left an international organisation is ridiculous.
Actually I make that five monarchies - the constitutional monarchy, the First Empire, the Restoration, the July Monarchy and the Second Empire.
That's not including the Ancien Regime which was still technically in being in 1789, or the Consulship of Napoleon which was a de facto monarchy, or the Vichy regime.
By 1987 to 1989 when I was doing my Economics GCSE our famously lefty teacher devoted a whole 4 lesson streak to the concept that a unemployed person on state benefits who was housed in a basic standard council property had a higher standard of living than Henry VIII had.
He kept on and on until we eventually worked through on our own what his point was. That that was objectively true but psychologically irrelevant. We're naked apes who judge our situation by our peers and recent events.
Which is frankly what's gone wrong since The Crash. Even half a generation departure from the previous trend in living standards has sent us crazy even though in the big picture it's minor and in the historic sweep the surge in living standards was exceptional not the current blip.
I don't often quote the journalist Paul Mason but his definition of Austerity is intriguing. " Decades and decades of falling western living standards until they meet rising Asian living standards in the middle. "
But no western politican can run on a " Your golden centuries are over, your objectively better off than Cleopatra was so stop moaning now it's the Chinese turn. "
In truth, the council tenant probably didn't. The plutocrats of the 16th century or the Roman Empire had a standard of living that was outstanding in any era. But, they did run a far higher risk of dying violently than their modern counterparts.
The flip side is that the internet has become an other essential utility to pay for. Also, while options for televised entertainment have increased dramatically, if you take my interest - sport - it has become very expensive.
I tend to agree that we probably have never had it so good. What concerns me is sustainability. I don't think we've ever really confronted what happened in 2008. I fear it will happen again and next time it will be a lot worse.
The rising consumer debt is certainly getting very worrying. We are not well placed for riding through any Brexit turbulence, let alone some of the worse scenarios.
From 2008 we've only kicked the can down the road we haven't actually fixed any of the problems that caused that crisis. When the next one comes (and I suspect it won't be that long away) we will be utterly unprepared for it.
Thankfully we can blame Brexit for the entire disaster....
That's the great irony, isn't it?
We have chosen Brexit with the most unbalanced economy in the developed world. Just 20 years ago when Kenneth Clarke handed over the Chancellor role to Gordon Brown, Britain had way more foreign assets than liabilities. Now it's the other way around.
We've funded our spending spree by selling our assets and borrowing from the rest of the world. Consumer spending as a percentage of GDP is the highest in the developed world, we run a triple deficit, and the savings rate is the lowest in recorded history.
There will be a rebalancing of the British economy, and it will be painful.
And it will be nothing to do with Brexit.
But I think we all know what will get the blame.
Yet we're constantly told that we're living under austerity.
The flip side is that the internet has become an other essential utility to pay for. Also, while options for televised entertainment have increased dramatically, if you take my interest - sport - it has become very expensive.
I tend to agree that we probably have never had it so good. What concerns me is sustainability. I don't think we've ever really confronted what happened in 2008. I fear it will happen again and next time it will be a lot worse.
The rising consumer debt is certainly getting very worrying. We are not well placed for riding through any Brexit turbulence, let alone some of the worse scenarios.
From 2008 we've only kicked the can down the road we haven't actually fixed any of the problems that caused that crisis. When the next one comes (and I suspect it won't be that long away) we will be utterly unprepared for it.
Thankfully we can blame Brexit for the entire disaster....
That's the great irony, isn't it?
We have chosen Brexit with the most unbalanced economy in the developed world. Just 20 years ago when Kenneth Clarke handed over the Chancellor role to Gordon Brown, Britain had way more foreign assets than liabilities. Now it's the other way around.
We've funded our spending spree by selling our assets and borrowing from the rest of the world. Consumer spending as a percentage of GDP is the highest in the developed world, we run a triple deficit, and the savings rate is the lowest in recorded history.
There will be a rebalancing of the British economy, and it will be painful.
And it will be nothing to do with Brexit.
But I think we all know what will get the blame.
Yet we're constantly told that we're living under austerity.
The flip side is that the internet has become an other essential utility to pay for. Also, while options for televised entertainment have increased dramatically, if you take my interest - sport - it has become very expensive.
I tend to agree that we probably have never had it so good. What concerns me is sustainability. I don't think we've ever really confronted what happened in 2008. I fear it will happen again and next time it will be a lot worse.
The rising consumer debt is certainly getting very worrying. We are not well placed for riding through any Brexit turbulence, let alone some of the worse scenarios.
The problem is most people of my generation are simply incapable of living frugally. Most of the people I go to university with blow money they don't have on eating out, drinking, taxis home and regular foreign holidays. When I was paying off my student loan and then saving for a house deposit, I was keeping my food budget to £8 a day despite having a professional job. I was treated as some sort of odd pariah by the people who are complaining now about still having debts and not being able to afford a house.
I was musing on this the other day.
Most of my (largely upper middle class) Oxbridge peers only have houses with help from bank of Mum and Dad, whilst many more of my grammar school mates have houses that they funded for themselves....
The expectations and determination of the young to fulfil hedonistic desires for concerts, gadgets, holidays, cars, meals, drinks, meals, hen or stag weekends or weeks taxi fares and much else sets them apart from older generations.
Just come back from the shopping with my beloved and wondered if anything important has happened other than Donald Trump threatening to lay waste to the Country of North Korea as you would, and Vince Cable posing in a funny hat.
Noticed Boris gave a sweaty rambling interview to the media in the hotel lobby after a jog - does he do his thinking like that rather then Theresa who at least has the grace to take the air of our wonderful Welsh countryside
The flip side is that the internet has become an other essential utility to pay for. Also, while options for televised entertainment have increased dramatically, if you take my interest - sport - it has become very expensive.
I tend to agree that we probably have never had it so good. What concerns me is sustainability. I don't think we've ever really confronted what happened in 2008. I fear it will happen again and next time it will be a lot worse.
The rising consumer debt is certainly getting very worrying. We are not well placed for riding through any Brexit turbulence, let alone some of the worse scenarios.
From 2008 we've only kicked the can down the road we haven't actually fixed any of the problems that caused that crisis. When the next one comes (and I suspect it won't be that long away) we will be utterly unprepared for it.
Thankfully we can blame Brexit for the entire disaster....
That's the great irony, isn't it?
We have chosen Brexit with the most unbalanced economy in the developed world. Just 20 years ago when Kenneth Clarke handed over the Chancellor role to Gordon Brown, Britain had way more foreign assets than liabilities. Now it's the other way around.
We've funded our spending spree by selling our assets and borrowing from the rest of the world. Consumer spending as a percentage of GDP is the highest in the developed world, we run a triple deficit, and the savings rate is the lowest in recorded history.
There will be a rebalancing of the British economy, and it will be painful.
And it will be nothing to do with Brexit.
But I think we all know what will get the blame.
Yet we're constantly told that we're living under austerity.
I demand bread and circuses
Organic artisan bread and lots of it.
And I'll blame the government if you don't get it.
The flip side is that the internet has become an other essential utility to pay for. Also, while options for televised entertainment have increased dramatically, if you take my interest - sport - it has become very expensive.
I tend to agree that we probably have never had it so good. What concerns me is sustainability. I don't think we've ever really confronted what happened in 2008. I fear it will happen again and next time it will be a lot worse.
The rising consumer debt is certainly getting very worrying. We are not well placed for riding through any Brexit turbulence, let alone some of the worse scenarios.
The problem is most people of my generation are simply incapable of living frugally. Most of the people I go to university with blow money they don't have on eating out, drinking, taxis home and regular foreign holidays. When I was paying off my student loan and then saving for a house deposit, I was keeping my food budget to £8 a day despite having a professional job. I was treated as some sort of odd pariah by the people who are complaining now about still having debts and not being able to afford a house.
I was musing on this the other day.
Most of my (largely upper middle class) Oxbridge peers only have houses with help from bank of Mum and Dad, whilst many more of my grammar school mates have houses that they funded for themselves....
The expectations and determination of the young to fulfil hedonistic desires for concerts, gadgets, holidays, cars, meals, drinks, meals, hen or stag weekends or weeks taxi fares and much else sets them apart from older generations.
youre young you have sod all chance of getting a house Osborne is taxing your ass off on fees why wouldnt you enjoy a bit of life ? you cant really aspire to the life style of previous generations
The flip side is that the internet has become an other essential utility to pay for. Also, while options for televised entertainment have increased dramatically, if you take my interest - sport - it has become very expensive.
I tend to agree that we probably have never had it so good. What concerns me is sustainability. I don't think we've ever really confronted what happened in 2008. I fear it will happen again and next time it will be a lot worse.
The rising consumer debt is certainly getting very worrying. We are not well placed for riding through any Brexit turbulence, let alone some of the worse scenarios.
From 2008 we've only kicked the can down the road we haven't actually fixed any of the problems that caused that crisis. When the next one comes (and I suspect it won't be that long away) we will be utterly unprepared for it.
Thankfully we can blame Brexit for the entire disaster....
That's the great irony, isn't it?
We have chosen Brexit with the most unbalanced economy in the developed world. Just 20 years ago when Kenneth Clarke handed over the Chancellor role to Gordon Brown, Britain had way more foreign assets than liabilities. Now it's the other way around.
We've funded our spending spree by selling our assets and borrowing from the rest of the world. Consumer spending as a percentage of GDP is the highest in the developed world, we run a triple deficit, and the savings rate is the lowest in recorded history.
There will be a rebalancing of the British economy, and it will be painful.
And it will be nothing to do with Brexit.
But I think we all know what will get the blame.
Yet we're constantly told that we're living under austerity.
I demand bread and circuses
Organic artisan bread and lots of it.
And I'll blame the government if you don't get it.
and I want Game of Thrones dragons in the colisseum
The flip side is that the internet has become an other essential utility to pay for. Also, while options for televised entertainment have increased dramatically, if you take my interest - sport - it has become very expensive.
I tend to agree that we probably have never had it so good. What concerns me is sustainability. I don't think we've ever really confronted what happened in 2008. I fear it will happen again and next time it will be a lot worse.
The rising consumer debt is certainly getting very worrying. We are not well placed for riding through any Brexit turbulence, let alone some of the worse scenarios.
The problem is most people of my generation are simply incapable of living frugally. Most of the people I go to university with blow money they don't have on eating out, drinking, taxis home and regular foreign holidays. When I was paying off my student loan and then saving for a house deposit, I was keeping my food budget to £8 a day despite having a professional job. I was treated as some sort of odd pariah by the people who are complaining now about still having debts and not being able to afford a house.
I was musing on this the other day.
Most of my (largely upper middle class) Oxbridge peers only have houses with help from bank of Mum and Dad, whilst many more of my grammar school mates have houses that they funded for themselves....
The expectations and determination of the young to fulfil hedonistic desires for concerts, gadgets, holidays, cars, meals, drinks, meals, hen or stag weekends or weeks taxi fares and much else sets them apart from older generations.
youre young you have sod all chance of getting a house Osborne is taxing your ass off on fees why wouldnt you enjoy a bit of life ? you cant really aspire to the life style of previous generations
+1. Given that you have zero chance of ever buying a house and are probably living in a shared house why not spend money on cheering yourself up...
The flip side is that the internet has become an other essential utility to pay for. Also, while options for televised entertainment have increased dramatically, if you take my interest - sport - it has become very expensive.
I tend to agree that we probably have never had it so good. What concerns me is sustainability. I don't think we've ever really confronted what happened in 2008. I fear it will happen again and next time it will be a lot worse.
The rising consumer debt is certainly getting very worrying. We are not well placed for riding through any Brexit turbulence, let alone some of the worse scenarios.
The problem is most people of my generation are simply incapable of living frugally. Most of the people I go to university with blow money they don't have on eating out, drinking, taxis home and regular foreign holidays. When I was paying off my student loan and then saving for a house deposit, I was keeping my food budget to £8 a day despite having a professional job. I was treated as some sort of odd pariah by the people who are complaining now about still having debts and not being able to afford a house.
I was musing on this the other day.
Most of my (largely upper middle class) Oxbridge peers only have houses with help from bank of Mum and Dad, whilst many more of my grammar school mates have houses that they funded for themselves....
The expectations and determination of the young to fulfil hedonistic desires for concerts, gadgets, holidays, cars, meals, drinks, meals, hen or stag weekends or weeks taxi fares and much else sets them apart from older generations.
youre young you have sod all chance of getting a house Osborne is taxing your ass off on fees why wouldnt you enjoy a bit of life ? you cant really aspire to the life style of previous generations
Exactly.
Also I think the idea of the young being spendthrifts is bollocks anyway, they drink far less than the previous generation for example. It's the baby boomers that have all the new cars and holidays in my experience.
I was trying to show there is more than one way to look at a situation. The idea that the "Seventies were Hell" is patent nonsense yet oft repeated. Most people got better off. The quality of life grew. And the fact is that the Tories were in power 5 years of the 70's.
It was an abysmal decade, especially for anyone working in industry. Easily the worst of my lifetime, and I'm into my seventh. (Don't remember much about the first, though!)
For you maybe. Not for me or my neighbours.
I'm not talking about any individual's experience (mine was rather good!), but the country as a whole. Massive inflation, high unemployment, strikes and widespread industrial violence every week, rubbish piling up in the streets, power cuts, the transport system in chaos, a hideous them-vs-us divide even in those industries which were not strike-wrecked, our economy falling way behind our European neighbours, nationalised industries run entirely for the convenience of union members, abysmally wasteful government, IRA bombings, and so on and so on. Some of those problems lasted into the 80s, of course, but at least they were then finally being addressed and we stopped managing the decline and giving in to the thugs.
That's all true but ...
Why was economic growth, and even more so economic growth per capita, so much higher in the 1970s than it has been in recent years ?
And not unrelated productivity and wages increased much more rapidly in the 1970s than they have since 2000.
And this isn't a British problem either - every first world country has it to varying extent.
Either they were doing something right in the 1970s (and 1980s and 1990s for that matter) which we're not anyone, or we're now doing something wrong, or perhaps the first world has reached some economic plateau from which we don't have the means to escape.
Globalisation and the lifting out of abject and total poverty of some of the poorest in the world?
Globalisation has been great for most inhabitants of poor countries, but not for the working classes in rich countries. In terms of boosting overall human happiness, that's great, but that's cold comfort if you're the one whose job disappears.
Globalisation is not something you can successfully opt out of, as Brexit will show. The key is to do globalisation smarter.
The flip side is that the internet has become an other essential utility to pay for. Also, while options for televised entertainment have increased dramatically, if you take my interest - sport - it has become very expensive.
I tend to agree that we probably have never had it so good. What concerns me is sustainability. I don't think we've ever really confronted what happened in 2008. I fear it will happen again and next time it will be a lot worse.
The rising consumer debt is certainly getting very worrying. We are not well placed for riding through any Brexit turbulence, let alone some of the worse scenarios.
The problem is most people of my generation are simply incapable of living frugally. Most of the people I go to university with blow money they don't have on eating out, drinking, taxis home and regular foreign holidays. When I was paying off my student loan and then saving for a house deposit, I was keeping my food budget to £8 a day despite having a professional job. I was treated as some sort of odd pariah by the people who are complaining now about still having debts and not being able to afford a house.
I was musing on this the other day.
Most of my (largely upper middle class) Oxbridge peers only have houses with help from bank of Mum and Dad, whilst many more of my grammar school mates have houses that they funded for themselves....
The expectations and determination of the young to fulfil hedonistic desires for concerts, gadgets, holidays, cars, meals, drinks, meals, hen or stag weekends or weeks taxi fares and much else sets them apart from older generations.
youre young you have sod all chance of getting a house Osborne is taxing your ass off on fees why wouldnt you enjoy a bit of life ? you cant really aspire to the life style of previous generations
+1. Given that you have zero chance of ever buying a house and are probably living in a shared house why not spend money on cheering yourself up...
yup
make asset accumulation possible again and the young will want pretty much what their parents and grand parents did
but until it is you cant have a house, you wont have much of a pension, nobody trusts banks so spend it while you have it
I was trying to show there is more than one way to look at a situation. The idea that the "Seventies were Hell" is patent nonsense yet oft repeated. Most people got better off. The quality of life grew. And the fact is that the Tories were in power 5 years of the 70's.
It was an abysmal decade, especially for anyone working in industry. Easily the worst of my lifetime, and I'm into my seventh. (Don't remember much about the first, though!)
For you maybe. Not for me or my neighbours.
I'm not talking about any individual's experience (mine was rather good!), but the country as a whole. Massive inflation, high unemployment, strikes and widespread industrial violence every week, rubbish piling up in the streets, power cuts, the transport system in chaos, a hideous them-vs-us divide even in those industries which were not strike-wrecked, our economy falling way behind our European neighbours, nationalised industries run entirely for the convenience of union members, abysmally wasteful government, IRA bombings, and so on and so on. Some of those problems lasted into the 80s, of course, but at least they were then finally being addressed and we stopped managing the decline and giving in to the thugs.
That's all true but ...
Why was economic growth, and even more so economic growth per capita, so much higher in the 1970s than it has been in recent years ?
And not unrelated productivity and wages increased much more rapidly in the 1970s than they have since 2000.
And this isn't a British problem either - every first world country has it to varying extent.
Either they were doing something right in the 1970s (and 1980s and 1990s for that matter) which we're not anyone, or we're now doing something wrong, or perhaps the first world has reached some economic plateau from which we don't have the means to escape.
Globalisation and the lifting out of abject and total poverty of some of the poorest in the world?
Globalisation has been great for most inhabitants of poor countries, but not for the working classes in rich countries. In terms of boosting overall human happiness, that's great, but that's cold comfort if you're the one whose job disappears.
Globalisation is not something you can successfully opt out of, as Brexit will show. The key is to do globalisation smarter.
We were opting out of the EU, not globalisation.
yes but FF43 is currently opting out of reality so youre not going to win that one
The flip side is that the internet has become an other essential utility to pay for. Also, while options for televised entertainment have increased dramatically, if you take my interest - sport - it has become very expensive.
I tend to agree that we probably have never had it so good. What concerns me is sustainability. I don't think we've ever really confronted what happened in 2008. I fear it will happen again and next time it will be a lot worse.
The rising consumer debt is certainly getting very worrying. We are not well placed for riding through any Brexit turbulence, let alone some of the worse scenarios.
The problem is most people of my generation are simply incapable of living frugally. Most of the people I go to university with blow money they don't have on eating out, drinking, taxis home and regular foreign holidays. When I was paying off my student loan and then saving for a house deposit, I was keeping my food budget to £8 a day despite having a professional job. I was treated as some sort of odd pariah by the people who are complaining now about still having debts and not being able to afford a house.
I was musing on this the other day.
Most of my (largely upper middle class) Oxbridge peers only have houses with help from bank of Mum and Dad, whilst many more of my grammar school mates have houses that they funded for themselves....
The expectations and determination of the young to fulfil hedonistic desires for concerts, gadgets, holidays, cars, meals, drinks, meals, hen or stag weekends or weeks taxi fares and much else sets them apart from older generations.
youre young you have sod all chance of getting a house Osborne is taxing your ass off on fees why wouldnt you enjoy a bit of life ? you cant really aspire to the life style of previous generations
I agree and understand entirely why they want to enjoy life.
The flip side is that the internet has become an other essential utility to pay for. Also, while options for televised entertainment have increased dramatically, if you take my interest - sport - it has become very expensive.
I tend to agree that we probably have never had it so good. What concerns me is sustainability. I don't think we've ever really confronted what happened in 2008. I fear it will happen again and next time it will be a lot worse.
The rising consumer debt is certainly getting very worrying. We are not well placed for riding through any Brexit turbulence, let alone some of the worse scenarios.
The problem is most people of my generation are simply incapable of living frugally. Most of the people I go to university with blow money they don't have on eating out, drinking, taxis home and regular foreign holidays. When I was paying off my student loan and then saving for a house deposit, I was keeping my food budget to £8 a day despite having a professional job. I was treated as some sort of odd pariah by the people who are complaining now about still having debts and not being able to afford a house.
I was musing on this the other day.
Most of my (largely upper middle class) Oxbridge peers only have houses with help from bank of Mum and Dad, whilst many more of my grammar school mates have houses that they funded for themselves....
The expectations and determination of the young to fulfil hedonistic desires for concerts, gadgets, holidays, cars, meals, drinks, meals, hen or stag weekends or weeks taxi fares and much else sets them apart from older generations.
youre young you have sod all chance of getting a house Osborne is taxing your ass off on fees why wouldnt you enjoy a bit of life ? you cant really aspire to the life style of previous generations
Exactly.
Also I think the idea of the young being spendthrifts is bollocks anyway, they drink far less than the previous generation for example. It's the baby boomers that have all the new cars and holidays in my experience.
Well let the tories continue this belief and continue to ignore the problems of now and the future and they will get what they deserve
I was just thinking that while not only would a TV probably cost less in absolute, let alone real, terms now than in 1976 but there was also only three channels to watch back then and even those only broadcast half of the day.
Whereas now I get for free YouTube with an unlimited range of entertainment and education - which even in the 1990s would have cost £100s per year in videos and CDs.
Yes, and it's not just gizmos, either - look at the quality of housing. I think youngsters would be very shocked at the housing of thirty or forty years ago, which for many people had no central heating, really crude kitchens, no freezer, and maybe not even a proper bathroom for the poorer families.
When young people castigate baby boomers for enjoying a level of prosperity that is denied them, they implicitly mean upper middle class baby boomers. Lower middle, and working class baby boomers grew up in harsher conditions than prevail today.
When I think of rationing of basic foodstuffs, no central heating, interviews with a bank manager to get a mortgage (as much about class as affordability), holidays being practically restricted to Blackpool, working Saturday mornings and stuffy social conventions both inside and outside the workplace, I'm rather glad I wasn't a baby boomer.
I was just thinking that while not only would a TV probably cost less in absolute, let alone real, terms now than in 1976 but there was also only three channels to watch back then and even those only broadcast half of the day.
Whereas now I get for free YouTube with an unlimited range of entertainment and education - which even in the 1990s would have cost £100s per year in videos and CDs.
Yes, and it's not just gizmos, either - look at the quality of housing. I think youngsters would be very shocked at the housing of thirty or forty years ago, which for many people had no central heating, really crude kitchens, no freezer, and maybe not even a proper bathroom for the poorer families.
Essentially I'm hard pressed to think of much that costs less than about £30k that compared to 40 odd years ago isn't cheaper in real terms (short haul flights) better (cars), both (TVs) or unimaginable ( smart phones). The buggeration is the two biggies in terms of personal costs (well kids aside!), housing and pensions, cost a lot more.
You can afford a weekend in Malaga in a way that would've astonished 1977, but maybe because you can only "afford" to retire at 77 at the rate you're saving.
I was trying to show there is more than one way to look at a situation. The idea that the "Seventies were Hell" is patent nonsense yet oft repeated. Most people got better off. The quality of life grew. And the fact is that the Tories were in power 5 years of the 70's.
It was an abysmal decade..)
For you maybe. Not for me or my neighbours.
I'm not talking about any individual's experience (mine was rather good!), but the country as a whole. Massive inflation, high unemployment, strikes and widespread industrial violence every week, rubbish piling up in the streets, power cuts, the transport system in chaos, a hideous them-vs-us divide even in those industries which were not strike-wrecked, our economy falling way behind our European neighbours, nationalised industries run entirely for the convenience of union members, abysmally wasteful government, IRA bombings, and so on and so on. Some of those problems lasted into the 80s, of course, but at least they were then finally being addressed and we stopped managing the decline and giving in to the thugs.
That's all true but ...
Why was economic growth, and even more so economic growth per capita, so much higher in the 1970s than it has been in recent years ?
And not unrelated productivity and wages increased much more rapidly in the 1970s than they have since 2000.
And this isn't a British problem either - every first world country has it to varying extent.
Either they were doing something right in the 1970s (and 1980s and 1990s for that matter) which we're not anyone, or we're now doing something wrong, or perhaps the first world has reached some economic plateau from which we don't have the means to escape.
Globalisation and the lifting out of abject and total poverty of some of the poorest in the world?
Globalisation has been great for most inhabitants of poor countries, but not for the working classes in rich countries. In terms of boosting overall human happiness, that's great, but that's cold comfort if you're the one whose job disappears.
Globalisation is not something you can successfully opt out of, as Brexit will show. The key is to do globalisation smarter.
We were opting out of the EU, not globalisation.
yes but FF43 is currently opting out of reality so youre not going to win that one
Comments
We need to break the deadlock. We cannot over Ireland, and do not want to over money.
Our EU settlers are economically productive by and large, and it is nether feasible nor desirable to chuck them out. Unilaterally legitimising them would win over both our EU27 partners, and a lot of Remainers who do not like to see peoples lives used as poker chips. A win all round.
Why was economic growth, and even more so economic growth per capita, so much higher in the 1970s than it has been in recent years ?
And not unrelated productivity and wages increased much more rapidly in the 1970s than they have since 2000.
And this isn't a British problem either - every first world country has it to varying extent.
Either they were doing something right in the 1970s (and 1980s and 1990s for that matter) which we're not anyone, or we're now doing something wrong, or perhaps the first world has reached some economic plateau from which we don't have the means to escape.
Chris Patten has weighed into the debate to ask why a non-people person became a politician:
http://www.itv.com/news/2017-06-25/chris-patten-says-mistakes-of-two-tory-prime-ministers-have-left-country-in-a-hell-of-a-mess/
But then the anti-Brexiteers are driven by religious anger and zealotry, not logic.
Which reminds me, do we know when Dave's memoirs are due to be published?
The EU may not suffer as much as Britain if there is a chaotic departure but it is not in its political interests to look and behave like a vengeful harpy to the rest of the world.
That was the problem.
(*For those under 40, that was a physical lock, not a password)
We've offered them settled status which is everything they could reasonably ask
How is that catastrophic?
I'd note that the two fastest growing large developed countries over the last 15 years both have low dependency ratios (Australia and Canada), while the two slowest (Italy and Japan) have the highest.
The EU doesn't yet want to negotiate. Unilateral concessions aren't a good idea (a proposed "grand bargain" might although I have my doubts)
That forecast in any case was not a worst case scenario, which we are heading for at a rate of knots, thanks to the insular and xenophobic way in which Brexit is being pursued.
http://www.economist.com/node/13315108
Why should we be content with relative decline on a per capita basis?
We shouldn't.
1) The government can safely take the risk because if the EU was stupid enough to expel Brits there'd be nothing to stop a retrospective retaliation. That way lies madness of course, which is why the EU wouldn't even consider expelling 1m Brits.
2) The EU doesn't really need to negotiate; it holds all the cards. Therein lies our problem, entirely predictably. Unfortunately there are still too many Brexiteers (including in the cabinet) who deludedly think the EU needs us more than we need it.
- Europe and to a lesser extent the US were still rebuilding from WWII right into the 1970s.
- Technological change, and its economic effects, are not consistent. You get periods of increasing wealth, followed by periods of relative stagnation. That has been the case for 200 years.
- Big demographic changes, most notably the massive increase in the working population as women moved out of being housewives (thanks to supermarkets, vacuum cleaners and washing machines, largely) into the workforce. In particular, because of taxation changing from being joint to being individually-based, professional couples with two large incomes have received a huge tax advantage, increasing inequality. Plus the age profile change @rcs1000 has already mentioned.
I'm also rather sceptical of the base data. Measuring inflation over long periods is an extremely imprecise art, and I do wonder if it really captures improved the quality of goods. For example, in the 1950s until the 1970s, you could see the quantity of car ownership increasing. Eventually most reasonably prosperous families have the one or two cars they want, and they are not going to buy any more, However, the average family car today is massively better than the average family car of 1970. Have the inflation statistics captured this properly? Indeed, is it even logically possible to compare a modern car - complete with stereo, ABS, air conditioning, power steering, electric windows, remote locking, etc etc) with my first car (a second-hand Austin Allegro, since you ask. The handbrake fell off soon after I'd bought it).
What I do know is that the average family, and especially the poorest, have a standard of living today which is hugely better than that of their equivalents of thirty or forty years ago. We shouldn't forget that.
Although back in the 1970s there would have been other areas of spending much higher in proportion than today - defence for example.
Or what do we do when Ireland suddenly decides to rejoin the UK?
Or what do we do when Theresa May kicks her husband out and invites Nicola Sturgeon to move in with her at No. 10?
Or what do we do when England win the FIFA World Cup next year?
Of course, it is mathematically impossible to continue with the triple lock forever, which is why Theresa May very sensibly tried to ditch it. Unfortunately the naive youngsters who voted for Corbyn have kiboshed that, and we are stuck with it for years - it will be a long time before any political party dares fix it.
There are human elements that favour us compared with others: our political stability and the absence of that tendency to explosion that could always afflict France.
I fear we've blown this advantage now.
Tories4Corbyn. It was a laugh....until it wasn't. I wonder how some of them are feeling now....
I was just thinking that while not only would a TV probably cost less in absolute, let alone real, terms now than in 1976 but there was also only three channels to watch back then and even those only broadcast half of the day.
Whereas now I get for free YouTube with an unlimited range of entertainment and education - which even in the 1990s would have cost £100s per year in videos and CDs.
I tend to agree that we probably have never had it so good. What concerns me is sustainability. I don't think we've ever really confronted what happened in 2008. I fear it will happen again and next time it will be a lot worse.
This all sounds rather twee compared to the invention the of the internet and then the smart phone generation bit in terms of raw human comfort.....
We were on a waiting list for 13 weeks to get a line installed. My mother has the same phone number nearly 40 years later and routinely has it rejected by companies and officialdom as it doesn't have 11 digits and therefore may be " wrong ".
Thankfully we can blame Brexit for the entire disaster....
Although North lost the American War of Independence, he was still 12 years as PM which is remarkable in itself even in the eighteenth century.
Edit - I meant Charles Townshend. Too many Townshends!
(And before somebody tells me he was CotE, yes, I know. Just as Lord Salisbury was Foreign Secretary and Chatham Lord Privy Seal.)
We have chosen Brexit with the most unbalanced economy in the developed world. Just 20 years ago when Kenneth Clarke handed over the Chancellor role to Gordon Brown, Britain had way more foreign assets than liabilities. Now it's the other way around.
We've funded our spending spree by selling our assets and borrowing from the rest of the world. Consumer spending as a percentage of GDP is the highest in the developed world, we run a triple deficit, and the savings rate is the lowest in recorded history.
There will be a rebalancing of the British economy, and it will be painful.
And it will be nothing to do with Brexit.
But I think we all know what will get the blame.
Consumer spending is tracked by the World Bank (Household Final Consumption Expenditure to give it its official, catchy, title) available here: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.CON.PRVT.CD
The savings ratio is here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/timeseries/nrjs/ukea
Our triple deficit is our current account, government deficit and private sector deficit.
Oh shit...
He kept on and on until we eventually worked through on our own what his point was. That that was objectively true but psychologically irrelevant. We're naked apes who judge our situation by our peers and recent events.
Which is frankly what's gone wrong since The Crash. Even half a generation departure from the previous trend in living standards has sent us crazy even though in the big picture it's minor and in the historic sweep the surge in living standards was exceptional not the current blip.
I don't often quote the journalist Paul Mason but his definition of Austerity is intriguing. " Decades and decades of falling western living standards until they meet rising Asian living standards in the middle. "
But no western politican can run on a " Your golden centuries are over, your objectively better off than Cleopatra was so stop moaning now it's the Chinese turn. "
I used to live in Bury Place. The old 2 bed basement flat just sold for around 16 times my annual salary when I left my London consulting job in 2013.
It's the sort of place I could just about afford to buy now....at 2007 prices.
Maybe, one day...
That's not including the Ancien Regime which was still technically in being in 1789, or the Consulship of Napoleon which was a de facto monarchy, or the Vichy regime.
We'll continue to get richer, but not at the rates we are used to, and the rest of the world will share in it with us, rather than be there to service our pleasure and convenience, as was the case up until the 1990s.
Most of my (largely upper middle class) Oxbridge peers only have houses with help from bank of Mum and Dad, whilst many more of my grammar school mates have houses that they funded for themselves....
Noticed Boris gave a sweaty rambling interview to the media in the hotel lobby after a jog - does he do his thinking like that rather then Theresa who at least has the grace to take the air of our wonderful Welsh countryside
And I'll blame the government if you don't get it.
you have sod all chance of getting a house
Osborne is taxing your ass off on fees
why wouldnt you enjoy a bit of life ?
you cant really aspire to the life style of previous generations
Also I think the idea of the young being spendthrifts is bollocks anyway, they drink far less than the previous generation for example. It's the baby boomers that have all the new cars and holidays in my experience.
make asset accumulation possible again and the young will want pretty much what their parents and grand parents did
but until it is you cant have a house, you wont have much of a pension, nobody trusts banks so spend it while you have it
You can afford a weekend in Malaga in a way that would've astonished 1977, but maybe because you can only "afford" to retire at 77 at the rate you're saving.