fatscoobfella1

iTrader: (1)

I think that we as a country are in stasis...

The BOE is falsely keeping the base rate down to try and encourage house sales,it isnt working.So many BTL landlords have snapped up the smaller homes that 1st time buyers should be owning.
My neighbours are renting,Both in their 20's,he a BT manager and she a teacher and they cant get buy a house in the local area,just not enough income..

Wages are static,but services and cost of living are rising...My own personal wage has raised little over the last 7 years,less than 5%.But i would estimate the cost of living has risen at least 15%...

Luckily we have paid off our mortgage,drive an M car and live a happy enough life albeit a frugal one,dont smoke,no holidays and only enjoy the odd beer.
My parents where skint all their lives,and still are,not through squandering money,but miners werent paid a lot and having 4 kids meant money was tight.They still have no car,wash there dishes by hand and only afford chicken on a Sunday..
The man who goes to work and does his bit is taxed until death,every last penny is squeezed out of him in one way or another.Then when he is done at 65/68 he suddenly becomes a burden on society when he tries to claim a state pension,the government just hope that you will die quickly.

There is a lot of things wrong in the UK,i wish i had emigrated when i had the chance.

I simply dont like where the country is heading,downhill and quickly..Its a shame but we have gone to far to come back.

john banks

Permabears will continue to find bear food, harking back to the past to prove how we are a failing country. They won't consider some real positives of our present economy, they won't correct debt levels for inflation or consider them against lifetime household earnings. They will forget just how good a place Britain is to live in and work in, and grumble about more skilled immigrants with better work ethics stealing their jobs instead of upping their game. It is going to get much harder for those who haven't bothered to do something that other people really value, there are many immigrants willing to do their job. Britain does well on innovation, higher education, design, high tech etc. It doesn't worry me that a lot of our industry is foreign owned or that things we design are made overseas, this flexible approach is where opportunities lie. If others start innovating like the best of what Brits do when we don't moan then I think we will struggle. For the less skilled who see immigration as a threat and don't offer anything lots of immigrants do for lower cost, I see trouble ahead, if not already.

Dingdongler

Zip, sorry to hear about the last bit. These things do put everything in perspective. Pm me if there is anything I might be of assistance with.

Good luck

zip106

Cheers Ding.

I'll PM you before I ring the Samaritans!

jonc

Don't confuse debt with deficit, no one is trying to sustain a deficit nor can you pay it back! The deficit has been reduce by a third since 2010. Most of this was, rightly or wrongly, through massive cuts in public spending.

If you look back to the start of the 20th century, debt levels were much higher relative to GDP especially after WW2. In hindsight we could say that massive growth was inevitable after the war, but at that time people didn't know this given the state of the economy before WW2. Point is, just because this country, as of late, has done badly doesn't mean it won't get better.

We are by no means in a worse state that our European counterparts you mention either. Unlike those countries, they have no flexibility in setting their monetary and economic policies other than by the European Central Bank, France for example has seen a slide in it's private sector and cripled growth and massive increase in unemployment. We have an autonomous central bank that can govern UK's policies for growth.

The UK is now fortunate enough to see a recovery slowly getting underway, with increase in manufacturing output and increase in the number of people getting back into employment. With regards to your complaint about we import everything, you perpetuate this!! Why don't you then support British industry and workers and buy a British built car instead of having one imported from Germany for your next car?

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Thus is one of my pet annoyances. Osborne and various other Tory minsters deliberately confuse this issue so the average thicko voter thinks they are reducing the debt. They are actually only reducing the defecit and even if it is by a third it means they are still net borrowing every month and therefore the debt is still increasing... rapidly!

I think if most voters were told that the debt has still increased under this government they would be in virtual disbelief. Which of course suits Cameron, Osborne and co.

You can also quote all these ratios to GDP all you like, but the fact remains the gross amount of debt is massive and is increasing with no plans to stop that increase. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that eventually it becomes unsustainable... a bit like those people who used to use one credit card to pay off another... eventually the house of cards they create collapses.

Turbohot

Very well said there. IMO still nothing wrong in looking at the glass as half empty either; now and again. It keeps it real, and as long as it is not a personal attack on anyone, it shouldn't be a problem to anyone. Well, I haven't seen the so-called moaners Alcazar, f1 or TDW trolling anyone specific for his/her glass half full; with ever-repeated personal, nasty remarks.

Some people hide behind their anonymity, and talk down to others to mute them. These attackers must have been bullied in school, and must have faced hardships in their childhood. No wonder in their adulthood they have such a need to laugh dirty at others. I'm only giving out above psychoanalysis as it has been done over and over by others here; of others. Other than that, I'm not interested.

Yes, times like this^ prompt the ultimate reality check.

That's why some over-inflated over-achievers should not pick at the less fortunate ones' weaknesses and hardships to get at them. Not sure about the inflated ones' achievements, credentials and riches tbh. Just their virtual boastful claims indicate so. All their villainous laugh can turn into a cry- just like that.


Too much moaning gets to people's t!ts, so does too much ridiculing of the moaners that involves personal and vicious attacks. One can state the matter successfully without involving those extra-added insults. That's if one is articulate enough.


My thoughts are with you for Thursday, zip.

Martin2005

Hodgy

I agree with most of the sentiment on here about the recovery passing lots of people by. It's also true that the recession passed millions of people by due to our historically low interest rates.

The recession of the early 90s had a much bigger impact on people in general than the one just gone by.

A lot of ill-informed comments on here too about debts. Clearly our current levels of personal debt are too high. My question is how much personal debt should we have? Cleary zero would create an utter implosion of our economy, we do need debt to make the economy work.

Does anyone know if the £1.4tn includes mortgage lending too?

john banks

Yes it does, 55,6 and 2k roughly per household for mortgage, consumer and credit cards just roughly eyeballing the numbers.

None of the figures are remotely scary. Why go all Daily Mail about it?

Fat Boy

+1 for Dr Banks's views.

Chip

Zip, as others have said, I hope whatever news you are getting on Thursday is not bad news and wish you all the best.

Chip

Mouser

Perhaps your neighbours should lower their sights, most people have to.


Hope it's good news on Thursday,Zip.

fatscoobfella1

iTrader: (1)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

2 up,2 down... Does it get much lower ?....lol.....

SJ_Skyline

Fingers crossed for good news zip!

Matteeboy

Good post there Ding and I mostly agree ( ) however I do think people have come to expect a pretty high standard of living largely based on easy credit and lots of debt - those will get a shock. I just feel our economy is a massive house of cards and doomed to really fail quite spectacularly but like you, I've lived through tricky times (my early years were in near poverty, I've had some tough times in adulthood with work) and good times; what we are trying to do is protect ourselves from disaster without being total dullards.

Zip - sounds ominous. Really hope it's okay.

tony de wonderful

Hmmm, that kind of plea for self-authorship is predicated on a fairly crude philosophy of human nature which is as much a fantasy or hope that anything else.

There is also the bullying side of it, you - with a position of power - telling other people how they should live...or else. It's always people from positions of power advocating this. Who are you to lay the law down? Besides, you preach this idealist free market stuff from within the priesthood of medicine. It's not quite hypocrisy, but you certainly don't (have to) practise what you preach.

tony de wonderful

You're only able to say that because you are well enough insulated by your wealth and profession. Some people live precariously hand to mouth, could be kicked out on the street within weeks in they miss rent payments; destitute and hungry. That was how things were for the working classes prior to the welfare state. To live that reality is not to be taken lightly. How many people in the UK know real hunger? Do you? Not me. It's pretty easy to sound like some Nietzschean superman until you are put in the colosseum.

paulr

Well said. People have a great ability to adapt, and we would. Just get on with life.

cster

Well I would say that there are some people on here who quite clearly don't!
They either seem to be fixated on dogma or having a glass permanently half empty (well both)- if that is the way they wish to live their lives, who am I to say they are wrong?
I first visited this country in 1978 and it was quite clear to me then that this country was going to the dogs.
Well here is a surprise, plenty of others have come to this country and are doing quite well for themselves, and so am I.
Perhaps some people can't see the wood for the trees?

GlesgaKiss

Are the people living hand to mouth any more right in their way of viewing the world or in 'laying down the law'?

You need to understand that some people think and act in ways which don't fit your way of viewing the world. Therefore it's possible for people to be poor but not live like the oppressed slaves you constantly bang on about. They don't necessarily need or want a nanny (the state) to come along and just give them everything a general consensus wants them to have. To turn things upside down, perhaps some of these people end up with wealth and a profession because they are like that.

Dingdongler

Well one things for sure, I'm going to have a massive hangover in the morning. Just got back from a rather large night in Camden with some old friends

tony de wonderful

I'm not sure what point you are making. Like what? I was criticising John Banks in a previous post for the ideology he was espousing, telling how people how they should think and act (which I am assuming you are refering too) under the guise of a crude liberal philosophy. This is different than a point of view or personal creed or whatever since it's normative.

If you are trying to say that a profession is some manifestation of heroic self-reliance that just isn't true. A profession is a social GROUP which you join, it's a group which closes out competition to protect its members and secure them privileges. It's like a club.

cster

Dogma.
And a rather dated one at that.

tony de wonderful

Whose dogma?

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

Where did he do any such thing? He made some predictions as to what's likely to happen to people in a certain social or economic situation, under certain conditions, but I don't see anything that in the slightest suggests he had any desire or intention to see those people forced to behave or think in any particular way, or even that he cared whether they did so willingly.

GlesgaKiss

In your worldview.

GlesgaKiss

The other members of your twisted medicinal cabal? Or were you plotting to enslave more of the populace by doing up a house that could otherwise be knocked down and the land converted into communal grazing ground?

SJ_Skyline

It's a plot by the illuminati to take over and oppress the working classes, I tell you!

hodgy0_2

I think their seems to be a gerneral consensus that increasingly people are going to have to "raise their game"

My children are under no illusions that to have as adults, and be able to afford for their children, what they have enjoyed (a large warm 5 bed house, skiing holidays in the winter, beach holidays in the summer, a permanently full fruit bowel and fridge - with as much maple syrup and Parmesan cheese as they can scoff, and most importantly a mother who has never worked)

They are going to have to work Fvcking hard (my daughter is already doing this, she got into the top sixth form Colledge in the country - study's for 12 hours a day and has a Saturday job)

And in this regard I have changed my view on education, 25 years ago I would have said it is always worth it, whatever you do or wherever you go

Now - never, unless you are going to the top russel group uni's to do a top degree mt advice would Be for you to become a plumber

Otherwise you will never pay back the debt,

neil-h

You missed the (better) third option, get a employer to fund your degree. All the qualifications and none of the debt.