Making the news today....

[Mick Dempsey]

There’s a mindset where getting richer and more comfortable every year is seen as a human right.

 

We will have to get used to a bit more more snakes and ladders in our living standards as the global population booms and resources diminish.

[trigger_andy]

21 minutes ago, Mick Dempsey said:

There’s a mindset where getting richer and more comfortable every year is seen as a human right.

 

We will have to get used to a bit more more snakes and ladders in our living standards as the global population booms and resources diminish.

 I tend to agree with you here but the reality is the transfer of wealth from the average Joe to the super wealthy within the last few years is in the trillions. We’re being robbed right before our eyes and it’s nothing to do with demonising resources. Our standard of living is being continually eroded, we’re now hearing of three day school weeks. The U.K. pension barely covers the most meagre of living standards. 
 

 

[Mick Dempsey]

The poor today are infinitely better off than the poor in the 70s

[trigger_andy]

42 minutes ago, Mick Dempsey said:

The poor today are infinitely better off than the poor in the 70s

I agree. That’s why they have to use word salad like relative poverty instead of actual poverty. But the youth of today will struggle to ever own a house. There is plenty other key indicators to show where we are worse off than the 70’s. 
 

Still, we would be far better off if we where not being robbed on a global scale. 

[Mick Dempsey]

1 minute ago, trigger_andy said:

I agree. That’s why they have to use word salad like relative poverty instead of actual poverty. But the youth of today will struggle to ever own a house. There is plenty other key indicators to show where we are worse off than the 70s

How old are you?

[trigger_andy]

Just now, Mick Dempsey said:

How old are you?

I don’t see why that is relevant at all. I know why you’re asking it, but it’s irrelevant. Do you think I don’t have parents, grand parents, older friends and workmates who grew up lived through the 70’s? 
 

[Mick Dempsey]

What do they say about it?

 

 

[trigger_andy]

1 minute ago, Mick Dempsey said:

What do they say about it?

 

 

Mixed bag really. Generally poor although my Grandmother and Grandfather where relatively well off. My Grandfather moved to Trinadad to manage the new Power Station there in the 60’s. My father was born there. 
 

My other Grandfather grew up dirt poor in the Slums of Plymouth, got an apprenticeship as a shipwright that eventually took him to Dunfermline. He worked all his life, my grandmother did not.
 

My wife’s parents again poor up bringing. He worked all his life, she did not enter the work force til all four of their children where fully grown and left home. 
 

In most cases the father worked and the mother raised the children and was a proud housewife. The fathers wage alone was enough to bring in a wage that allowed them to get a mortgage. 
 

General consensus seems to be a tougher time but far more care free. You wanted to eat then you worked. You wanted to get on then there was not much holding you back. But that also meant moving the length and breadth of the country to find the work and not whinging about it. Even working up in Scotland as a Farm Hand my Father-in-law (English) paid his 15% mortgage and raised four children. He’s now living the time of his life on his State and private pension. 

[eggsarascal]

4 hours ago, Steve Bullman said:

 

 

I know my own income generally goes up year on year, but I’m never particularly any better off, I just own more crap 

Why though? I watch people (I'm thinking of a mate and our kid) who work hard to buy crap that they don't need, or use, because they can?

 

It's beyond me.

[sime42]

4 hours ago, coppice cutter said:

A niece of Mrs CC and her husband have a combined income of about £140k, it's mostly him as he has a very high up job in a local council.

 

They tell anyone dumb enough to listen that they're going to struggle to buy heating oil this winter.

 

Inflation doesn't lie, the country is awash with money and that's the main problem.

 

 

 

Ain't that the truth; there's more than enough money sloshing around in this country. That's not the whole story though, it's also about the distribution of that money. There's always people on good incomes with plenty who claim hardship, or other people with two new cars on the drive of the detached house with children in private school etc etc, who whine about having to pay tax. By contrast there are people at the bottom who genuinely do not have enough money to live properly on. (I'm deliberately not including the feckless and career benefit bums in this category.) At the top of the pyramid sit the big greedy companies, like the utilities, who wantonly rob us all. Meanwhile government just stands aside and lets them do it.

 

We live in one of the wealthiest nations in the world, yet it is also one of the most unequal in terms of weath distribution. We're seeing the fallout from that now. Scandinavian countries are similarly well off, on a national level, but are far more balanced and equal. Just my opinion, but their significantly higher quality of life, for all citizens, must be a consequence of that.