Boomer life according to the economist
Discussion
Portia5 said:
For a bit of perspective, would you be prepared to say what you actually do as an individual- other than blow out hot air - to assist these issues you complain the 'boomers' have neglected?
Sure, I don't own more than one house, don't claim a pension, don't use social care, and the last time I used any healthcare was over 5 years ago. 
It was more a general comment; each individual can only do what is right for themselves but the political choices made have (and still further) create this situation. Pensioners still get a bigger pay rise each year than the working population, despite being funded by taxation - clearly it is an unsustainable situation to keep taking ever more off working people to give to those who never put enough money away when they were working, any idiot can see that. At some point choices need to be made to redistribute the wealth and level the playing field - not by forcibly taking money away from people, but creating an environment which supports those who have less money or less opportunity. This will inevitably have to come from those who have money. Things like increasing CGT in line with income tax, so that amassing assets isn't considered more economically valuable than working, increasing IHT take, and yes, building more houses etc. I suspect some of that will happen when Labour get in, especially as the youth will have a much louder voice than they do under the current government who are propped up entirely by those over 60!
It is interesting that the generation leaving high school/university now is much more socialist and positive about equality than the generations before them, they see the inequality and the uneven distribution of wealth and opportunities and don't agree that is what they want in their future.
Condi said:
It is interesting that the generation leaving high school/university now is much more socialist and positive about equality than the generations before them, they see the inequality and the uneven distribution of wealth and opportunities and don't agree that is what they want in their future.
Is that a principled stand, do you think, or is it because they have the s
tty end of the stick on that "uneven distribution"?otolith said:
Is that a principled stand, do you think, or is it because they have the stty end of the stick on that "uneven distribution"?
Genuinely not sure. Obviously everyone is shaped by the environment they are in, but from what I understand it is true of people at high school/not yet in the job market, which would suggest it is more of a principled stance as you would assume a fairly normal distribution of wealth across their families. tty end of the stick on that "uneven distribution"?No doubt once they get to the world of work they'll realise quite how s
tty the stick is, but not many 15/16 year olds would know that? otolith said:
Condi said:
It is interesting that the generation leaving high school/university now is much more socialist and positive about equality than the generations before them, they see the inequality and the uneven distribution of wealth and opportunities and don't agree that is what they want in their future.
Is that a principled stand, do you think, or is it because they have the stty end of the stick on that "uneven distribution"?Then they work to build up their own value and decide it makes less sense to give it away to a bunch of kids that haven’t put the time in yet.
Zj2002 said:
Olivera said:
98elise said:
Being a landlord is a business, providing a service.
It's a highly regulated and legislated business because government rightly sees housing as first and foremost a social concern. Hence levers have been pulled to curtail BTLs, and will likely be pulled further when a Labour government takes office.The rental market is an established and fundamental part of the housing market. There is huge institutional demand for BTR that is now parked due to the current government policies. The institutional demand to build BTR is driven by tenant demand, as not everyone wishes to buy.
Steve H said:
A high proportion of 20 yr olds have always been fully committed to socialism.
Then they work to build up their own value and decide it makes less sense to give it away to a bunch of kids that haven’t put the time in yet.
According to a survey the other day, at the last election people switch to voting Tory at 39 years old, if the survey sample is accurate this time the age people switch to voting Tory could be 70!! Then they work to build up their own value and decide it makes less sense to give it away to a bunch of kids that haven’t put the time in yet.
Quite simply the current government in it's various guises has done absolutely nothing for anyone under 40, instead pandering to the older, wealthier Party members. People under 40 didn't vote for Brexit, they're paying far too much for housing, taxes on working age people are the highest since the second world war, they're paying increasingly more for university tuition while the only way the government can actually report GDP growth is through immigration rather than wages growth.
In that situation, why would anyone under 40 vote Tory?
NRS said:
Zj2002 said:
Olivera said:
98elise said:
Being a landlord is a business, providing a service.
It's a highly regulated and legislated business because government rightly sees housing as first and foremost a social concern. Hence levers have been pulled to curtail BTLs, and will likely be pulled further when a Labour government takes office.The rental market is an established and fundamental part of the housing market. There is huge institutional demand for BTR that is now parked due to the current government policies. The institutional demand to build BTR is driven by tenant demand, as not everyone wishes to buy.
How can housing associations and institutional investors build blocks of flats if they can only increase rents on new lettings? The numbers don’t stack up so all planned schemes (1000s of units) have been shelved.
That’s 1000s of units that won’t be available to rent. That, along with BTL investors selling is removing homes for renters.
Actually Z you're not quite right about some of the detail. For example, rent CAN be uplifted during a tenancy. Once a year. By a max of 12%. There is even a crackpot formula available to calculate allowed rent rise on the SG website. But the entire matter of rent control is becoming more and more complicated.
One over arching problem is that it's an attempt to use 'one size fits all' legislation on a matter which is so highly individual that it could honestly be said that
there are literally no two tenancies to which the same rent decisions can be applied.
Rent is probably the area of letting LEAST suited to control and regulation. And of course every time it's been attempted anywhere in the world it's eventually caused havoc and required to be repealed and abandoned.
Of course the SG were counselled on this prior to their destructive course. But they didn't listen and as the well-predicted problems began instead of reversing damaging policy they doubled down on it by 'amending' it with complications which has only succeeded in exacerbating problems.
But the big thing you are 100% about is the reduction in numbers of properties in the sector and the impact of this. It's glaringly and obviously at the root of the problems in the sector, and the question is how to get things back to "normal". So if you have too few available private sector properties, how do you attract more?
I don't really expect people who've never had a job in their lives, never mind a career concentration in the property industry to be able to understand property matters. And as everyone knows the SG is largely staffed - including at the highest level - by people inexperienced in life, work, and business.
But I do expect them to take counsel and advice from people who do know the business and who have nothing to prove as regards successfully operating to everyone's satisfaction.
If you don't know what you're doing you can at least ask people who do. But this is what the SG steadfastly refuse to do.
Similarly on here. People who are professionally competent like geologists or accountants or what have you decide that their naive and sometimes plain silly opinions on property matters are some substitute for actual knowledge and experience of the subject. And rather than ask the people who DO have the experience and perhaps find out WHY they have the opinions they do, they want to quarrel and argue and insist black is white when all it really is is moonhowling and cloud scolding and in the end pointless timewasting.
What UK politicians want to START by doing is examining how landlords are operating successfully including managing tenant expectations and satisfaction, controlling rent, operating leases, progressing a repair standard, and doing this at scale. Learn how its done and then create or indeed sometimes dismantle legislation with an aim to achieving the same across the entire industry and the geographical area of their operation.
One over arching problem is that it's an attempt to use 'one size fits all' legislation on a matter which is so highly individual that it could honestly be said that
there are literally no two tenancies to which the same rent decisions can be applied.
Rent is probably the area of letting LEAST suited to control and regulation. And of course every time it's been attempted anywhere in the world it's eventually caused havoc and required to be repealed and abandoned.
Of course the SG were counselled on this prior to their destructive course. But they didn't listen and as the well-predicted problems began instead of reversing damaging policy they doubled down on it by 'amending' it with complications which has only succeeded in exacerbating problems.
But the big thing you are 100% about is the reduction in numbers of properties in the sector and the impact of this. It's glaringly and obviously at the root of the problems in the sector, and the question is how to get things back to "normal". So if you have too few available private sector properties, how do you attract more?
I don't really expect people who've never had a job in their lives, never mind a career concentration in the property industry to be able to understand property matters. And as everyone knows the SG is largely staffed - including at the highest level - by people inexperienced in life, work, and business.
But I do expect them to take counsel and advice from people who do know the business and who have nothing to prove as regards successfully operating to everyone's satisfaction.
If you don't know what you're doing you can at least ask people who do. But this is what the SG steadfastly refuse to do.
Similarly on here. People who are professionally competent like geologists or accountants or what have you decide that their naive and sometimes plain silly opinions on property matters are some substitute for actual knowledge and experience of the subject. And rather than ask the people who DO have the experience and perhaps find out WHY they have the opinions they do, they want to quarrel and argue and insist black is white when all it really is is moonhowling and cloud scolding and in the end pointless timewasting.
What UK politicians want to START by doing is examining how landlords are operating successfully including managing tenant expectations and satisfaction, controlling rent, operating leases, progressing a repair standard, and doing this at scale. Learn how its done and then create or indeed sometimes dismantle legislation with an aim to achieving the same across the entire industry and the geographical area of their operation.
Condi said:
Steve H said:
A high proportion of 20 yr olds have always been fully committed to socialism.
Then they work to build up their own value and decide it makes less sense to give it away to a bunch of kids that haven’t put the time in yet.
According to a survey the other day, at the last election people switch to voting Tory at 39 years old, if the survey sample is accurate this time the age people switch to voting Tory could be 70!! Then they work to build up their own value and decide it makes less sense to give it away to a bunch of kids that haven’t put the time in yet.
Quite simply the current government in it's various guises has done absolutely nothing for anyone under 40, instead pandering to the older, wealthier Party members. People under 40 didn't vote for Brexit, they're paying far too much for housing, taxes on working age people are the highest since the second world war, they're paying increasingly more for university tuition while the only way the government can actually report GDP growth is through immigration rather than wages growth.
In that situation, why would anyone under 40 vote Tory?
Condi said:
According to a survey the other day, at the last election people switch to voting Tory at 39 years old, if the survey sample is accurate this time the age people switch to voting Tory could be 70!!
Quite simply the current government in it's various guises has done absolutely nothing for anyone under 40, instead pandering to the older, wealthier Party members. People under 40 didn't vote for Brexit, they're paying far too much for housing, taxes on working age people are the highest since the second world war, they're paying increasingly more for university tuition while the only way the government can actually report GDP growth is through immigration rather than wages growth.
In that situation, why would anyone under 40 vote Tory?
What’s the Government done for people over 40? OK, for pensioners there’s the triple lock, but many lose a chunk of it as tax allowances have been frozen for so long, and the recent NI reductions, and talk of more, do nothing for retired people. It was suggested the Tories would drop IHT, but now it’s being trailed that they’re going to drop the pension IHT exclusion. 70yr olds may as well vote Labour.Quite simply the current government in it's various guises has done absolutely nothing for anyone under 40, instead pandering to the older, wealthier Party members. People under 40 didn't vote for Brexit, they're paying far too much for housing, taxes on working age people are the highest since the second world war, they're paying increasingly more for university tuition while the only way the government can actually report GDP growth is through immigration rather than wages growth.
In that situation, why would anyone under 40 vote Tory?
Portia5 said:
Actually Z you're not quite right about some of the detail. For example, rent CAN be uplifted during a tenancy. Once a year. By a max of 12%. There is even a crackpot formula available to calculate allowed rent rise on the SG website. But the entire matter of rent control is becoming more and more complicated.
One over arching problem is that it's an attempt to use 'one size fits all' legislation on a matter which is so highly individual that it could honestly be said that
there are literally no two tenancies to which the same rent decisions can be applied.
Rent is probably the area of letting LEAST suited to control and regulation. And of course every time it's been attempted anywhere in the world it's eventually caused havoc and required to be repealed and abandoned.
Of course the SG were counselled on this prior to their destructive course. But they didn't listen and as the well-predicted problems began instead of reversing damaging policy they doubled down on it by 'amending' it with complications which has only succeeded in exacerbating problems.
But the big thing you are 100% about is the reduction in numbers of properties in the sector and the impact of this. It's glaringly and obviously at the root of the problems in the sector, and the question is how to get things back to "normal". So if you have too few available private sector properties, how do you attract more?
I don't really expect people who've never had a job in their lives, never mind a career concentration in the property industry to be able to understand property matters. And as everyone knows the SG is largely staffed - including at the highest level - by people inexperienced in life, work, and business.
But I do expect them to take counsel and advice from people who do know the business and who have nothing to prove as regards successfully operating to everyone's satisfaction.
If you don't know what you're doing you can at least ask people who do. But this is what the SG steadfastly refuse to do.
Similarly on here. People who are professionally competent like geologists or accountants or what have you decide that their naive and sometimes plain silly opinions on property matters are some substitute for actual knowledge and experience of the subject. And rather than ask the people who DO have the experience and perhaps find out WHY they have the opinions they do, they want to quarrel and argue and insist black is white when all it really is is moonhowling and cloud scolding and in the end pointless timewasting.
What UK politicians want to START by doing is examining how landlords are operating successfully including managing tenant expectations and satisfaction, controlling rent, operating leases, progressing a repair standard, and doing this at scale. Learn how its done and then create or indeed sometimes dismantle legislation with an aim to achieving the same across the entire industry and the geographical area of their operation.
For me the main issue is that we are in a supply (ergo affordability) housing crisis - therefore those who run the county should perhaps engage with the property industry and perhaps work together to solve.One over arching problem is that it's an attempt to use 'one size fits all' legislation on a matter which is so highly individual that it could honestly be said that
there are literally no two tenancies to which the same rent decisions can be applied.
Rent is probably the area of letting LEAST suited to control and regulation. And of course every time it's been attempted anywhere in the world it's eventually caused havoc and required to be repealed and abandoned.
Of course the SG were counselled on this prior to their destructive course. But they didn't listen and as the well-predicted problems began instead of reversing damaging policy they doubled down on it by 'amending' it with complications which has only succeeded in exacerbating problems.
But the big thing you are 100% about is the reduction in numbers of properties in the sector and the impact of this. It's glaringly and obviously at the root of the problems in the sector, and the question is how to get things back to "normal". So if you have too few available private sector properties, how do you attract more?
I don't really expect people who've never had a job in their lives, never mind a career concentration in the property industry to be able to understand property matters. And as everyone knows the SG is largely staffed - including at the highest level - by people inexperienced in life, work, and business.
But I do expect them to take counsel and advice from people who do know the business and who have nothing to prove as regards successfully operating to everyone's satisfaction.
If you don't know what you're doing you can at least ask people who do. But this is what the SG steadfastly refuse to do.
Similarly on here. People who are professionally competent like geologists or accountants or what have you decide that their naive and sometimes plain silly opinions on property matters are some substitute for actual knowledge and experience of the subject. And rather than ask the people who DO have the experience and perhaps find out WHY they have the opinions they do, they want to quarrel and argue and insist black is white when all it really is is moonhowling and cloud scolding and in the end pointless timewasting.
What UK politicians want to START by doing is examining how landlords are operating successfully including managing tenant expectations and satisfaction, controlling rent, operating leases, progressing a repair standard, and doing this at scale. Learn how its done and then create or indeed sometimes dismantle legislation with an aim to achieving the same across the entire industry and the geographical area of their operation.
However Patrick Harvie, with no real world experience, has sided with renters with no understanding of what he is doing.
There are mutiple industry bodies willing to discuss how to best solve the crisis however nobody is willing to listen and the renters that wee Patrick is trying to help are subject to unintended consequences.
SunsetZed said:
Condi said:
Steve H said:
A high proportion of 20 yr olds have always been fully committed to socialism.
Then they work to build up their own value and decide it makes less sense to give it away to a bunch of kids that haven’t put the time in yet.
According to a survey the other day, at the last election people switch to voting Tory at 39 years old, if the survey sample is accurate this time the age people switch to voting Tory could be 70!! Then they work to build up their own value and decide it makes less sense to give it away to a bunch of kids that haven’t put the time in yet.
Quite simply the current government in it's various guises has done absolutely nothing for anyone under 40, instead pandering to the older, wealthier Party members. People under 40 didn't vote for Brexit, they're paying far too much for housing, taxes on working age people are the highest since the second world war, they're paying increasingly more for university tuition while the only way the government can actually report GDP growth is through immigration rather than wages growth.
In that situation, why would anyone under 40 vote Tory?
I can see that voters are more likely to switch to Tory as they get older but that was kind of my point in the first place. If/when they do it though is much more likely to be affected by factors such as background, region and accumulated wealth than just by age.
ETA. Hit 40, vote Tory. Worst midlife crisis ever
.Steve H said:
I can see that voters are more likely to switch to Tory as they get older but that was kind of my point in the first place. If/when they do it though is much more likely to be affected by factors such as background, region and accumulated wealth than just by age.
.
Wealth inequality is IMHO the biggest factor, and will increase over time. In fact its opportunity inequality that's a bigger issue. Look at these two images and see if there is any correlation......
Wealth / opportunity inequality looks to play a massive part in how the country behaves at the ballot box. You could argue that those maps show the wealthiest parts of the UK decided to maintain the status quo in 2016, the least wealthy - entered a vote of dissatisfaction. That dissatisfaction is so great, they will trade costs / attrition etc with the EU - given economic disparity. Its the No 1 challenge the UK needs to grapple with. And those GDP swings are going to be expensive to resolve. Everything links back to this. If you distribute your economy (and investment in it), you alleviate all sorts of issues (like housing shortage etc).
OoopsVoss said:
Wealth inequality is IMHO the biggest factor, and will increase over time. In fact its opportunity inequality that's a bigger issue. Look at these two images and see if there is any correlation.....
Wealth / opportunity inequality looks to play a massive part in how the country behaves at the ballot box. You could argue that those maps show the wealthiest parts of the UK decided to maintain the status quo in 2016, the least wealthy - entered a vote of dissatisfaction. That dissatisfaction is so great, they will trade costs / attrition etc with the EU - given economic disparity. Its the No 1 challenge the UK needs to grapple with. And those GDP swings are going to be expensive to resolve. Everything links back to this. If you distribute your economy (and investment in it), you alleviate all sorts of issues (like housing shortage etc).
I'm not sure those maps show what you think they do: Scotland is barely any more productive than East Anglia, but they voted on opposite sides and western Wales must be one of the poorest areas in the country, yet voted to remain.Wealth / opportunity inequality looks to play a massive part in how the country behaves at the ballot box. You could argue that those maps show the wealthiest parts of the UK decided to maintain the status quo in 2016, the least wealthy - entered a vote of dissatisfaction. That dissatisfaction is so great, they will trade costs / attrition etc with the EU - given economic disparity. Its the No 1 challenge the UK needs to grapple with. And those GDP swings are going to be expensive to resolve. Everything links back to this. If you distribute your economy (and investment in it), you alleviate all sorts of issues (like housing shortage etc).
I suspect the reason for that is the level of EU subsidies received, but that would be a much bigger determinant than GDP.
It's also not a very good measure of the support for either side - the vote was extremely close, so you would expect a lot of the constiutencies to be close to 50/50 too, but that map gives 100% of the vote to the winning side. A heat map would be better.
' rel='nofollow'/>Edited by BandOfBrothers on Tuesday 23 April 15:33
BandOfBrothers said:
I'm not sure those maps show what you think they do: Scotland is barely any more productive than East Anglia, but they voted on opposite sides and western Wales must be one of the poorest areas in the country, yet voted to remain.
I suspect the reason for that is the level of EU subsidies received, but that would be a much bigger determinant than GDP.
It's also not a very good measure of the support for either side - the vote was extremely close, so you would expect a lot of the constiutencies to be close to 50/50 too, but that map gives 100% of the vote to the winning side. A heat map would be better.
Scotland in particular has unusual factors in its economy, high levels of fiscal support, high levels of public sector workers, low population density, highly politicised etc. However, your heat map shows 40-50% support for remain - it doesn't have to be binary why people vote for something - there are a plethora of reasons - but what happened in 2016 - enough people who felt real dissatisfaction voted against the status quo. Despite being told that it was almost certainly going to make you poorer. You don't need them all, just enough to make significant long term impact in the economy. It wasn't 50/50 in England, it was about 54:46 split on a high turn out - I'd suggest more than enough people had the hump in 2016.I suspect the reason for that is the level of EU subsidies received, but that would be a much bigger determinant than GDP.
It's also not a very good measure of the support for either side - the vote was extremely close, so you would expect a lot of the constiutencies to be close to 50/50 too, but that map gives 100% of the vote to the winning side. A heat map would be better.
Edited by BandOfBrothers on Tuesday 23 April 15:33
This isn't a debate about Brexit - but impact of wealth inequality at the ballot box. The Tories are going to delay as long as possible any election so they can prey for as much economic good news as possible. They need rate cuts and low inflation to be landing in Q3; they don't have another plan. Even if they did, they are still likely toast and gone for a decade. We are going to need braver policy to tackle the regional wealth divide, I wouldn't be ruling anything out. Today's defence spending announcement was another token policy play. 2.5% GDP by 2030, it ought to be a lot higher.
The brexit result is not aligned much with wealth inequality or economics, it has no real place here.
Scotland and Wales have had their own nationalist issues that influenced the vote so it wasn’t a surprise that a chunk of those areas favoured Remain.
The central southeast has the highest level of integrated immigrants, many of whom came from Europe or at least appreciated the idea of a highly mixed society so of course a Remain vote was a given there.
Scotland and Wales have had their own nationalist issues that influenced the vote so it wasn’t a surprise that a chunk of those areas favoured Remain.
The central southeast has the highest level of integrated immigrants, many of whom came from Europe or at least appreciated the idea of a highly mixed society so of course a Remain vote was a given there.
You have to look at multiple data strands - a number of surveys have been done that showed a very high linkage between income and educational attainment (the later being an emergent property of wealth if the IFS is to be believed) also played a very significant part of voter behaviour in 2016. Had we focused on equality of educational outcome and economic security - they'd be no Brexit.
Its just another example of uneven distribution of resources (like) houses, creates wider problems.
Its just another example of uneven distribution of resources (like) houses, creates wider problems.
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