The reality of life for many MANY people.
Discussion
X5TUU said:
Yes medical and very few cars I buy new ... I don't take a huge amount of notice of politics but I do hear a lot about people earning 250k+ and simply assumed more people do than is clearly the case ... personal perception problems I guess
It's a shade under 200,000 people in the U.K. who earn £250k+Around 1m earn £100k+
Many more live the lifestyle.
motco said:
TurboHatchback said:
IMO the great driver of inequality in the UK is property prices, the 'haves' and the 'have nots' are delineated by whether they own property, inherit property or can get a mortgage. Having a roof over your head is unavoidable and paying rent is directly moving money from the poor into the pockets of the already wealthy, when that rent is a huge proportion of your salary it's pretty galling and means you are forever trapped in that situation whilst being squeezed tighter and tighter by rent rises. So long as property can be used as an investment and the population continues to rocket this trend will continue, the vested interests of the wealthy in seeing prices climb ever higher means nothing will be done to reverse it.
If any problem as complex as this can be summed up in a nutshell, you have done it there. This is especially true in successful areas such as London. Other successful areas are available...
So the 'problem' or cause if you like for people's 'struggle' in life would appear to be: house prices being driven up by lots of demand but lack of supply and wages being driven down by lots of supply.
I think one of the things or question which has been on people's minds in the last few years has been 'how do we remedy this situation?'. Some would say if it were remedied, we would also address pressure on the NHS and the congestion on our roads, or at least slow the worsening situation. I think any political party which says they will open the doors further to immigration is intentionally hurting the very people they claim to help.
I think one of the things or question which has been on people's minds in the last few years has been 'how do we remedy this situation?'. Some would say if it were remedied, we would also address pressure on the NHS and the congestion on our roads, or at least slow the worsening situation. I think any political party which says they will open the doors further to immigration is intentionally hurting the very people they claim to help.
crankedup said:
It's almost as if the relative wealth gap is growing and those with plenty of wealth can't help make more, usually on the backs of those struggling it seems to me.
It's what happens when there is excess 'cash' but it's not wealth made directly 'off the back of others' as that is how all wealth is created ultimately but it's about excess wealth as a result of excess 'cash' excess cash (for this read debt) just massively inflates the natural process to unnatural levels and rates. Anyone who just lives abnormal white collar life who owns a property, has investments and a pension has, as a result, seen their paper wealth rise dramatically while those who do not 'own' any assets have become poorer due to their need to rent many of these assets (homes etc) at the excessively inflated values. Excessive wealth divides are extremely bad for a society which is why they have always been curtailed or the consequences of the terminal result is extremely bad. But it's not a case of one group specifically or actively 'milking' another per se.
BOR said:
Capitalism : Works very very well for some people. Less well for millions of others.
Name a system proven to work better. The lives of even the poorest in society in the west are incomparably better than any at time in the past. Capitalism isn't perfect by a long way but better than anything else.
Edited by rovermorris999 on Wednesday 19th October 18:55
Edited by rovermorris999 on Wednesday 19th October 18:56
DonkeyApple said:
It's the cause of the massive rise in property values that is the root issue. But that's a function of the great economic miracle of deregulation of the lending markets that began in the 80s and was accelerated in the 90s. It has nothing to do with property shortages or population growth but a deliberate Western policy of inflating values to encourage spending and elevate taxation. The net result of such policies is always an increasing of the wealth divide until there is some form of revolution. Which is nice.
London has the second most overvalued property market in the world (according to UBS) so there are some British specific circumstances, not common to the western world, which are to do with population growth and land released for housing.I would put the start of current trends with New Labour as they both restricted still further supply of land and encouraged population growth from overseas. The fact that a supposed left wing government greatly facilitated the trend toward a smaller middle class is only surprising until you realise who Blair was really serving.
To get out of the mess we are in, which is partly due to globalisation, but much exacerbated by open borders and planning constraints we need radical reform .
A good starting point would be a national landbank (as in South Korea) combined with the replacement of existing planning controls.
Edited by JagLover on Wednesday 19th October 20:30
DonkeyApple said:
It's the cause of the massive rise in property values that is the root issue. But that's a function of the great economic miracle of deregulation of the lending markets that began in the 80s and was accelerated in the 90s. It has nothing to do with property shortages or population growth but a deliberate Western policy of inflating values to encourage spending and elevate taxation. The net result of such policies is always an increasing of the wealth divide until there is some form of revolution. Which is nice.
Property values were shooting up well before the 1980s so deregulation wasn't the initial cause.JagLover said:
DonkeyApple said:
It's the cause of the massive rise in property values that is the root issue. But that's a function of the great economic miracle of deregulation of the lending markets that began in the 80s and was accelerated in the 90s. It has nothing to do with property shortages or population growth but a deliberate Western policy of inflating values to encourage spending and elevate taxation. The net result of such policies is always an increasing of the wealth divide until there is some form of revolution. Which is nice.
London has the second most overvalued property market in the world (according to UBS) so there are some British specific circumstances, not common to the western world, which are to do with population growth and land released for housing.I would put the start of current trends with New Labour as they both restricted still further supply of land and encouraged population growth from overseas. The fact that a supposed left wing government greatly facilitated the trend toward a smaller middle class is only surprising until you realise who Blair was really serving.
To get out of the mess we are, in which is partly due to globalisation, but much exacerbated by open borders and planning constraints we need radical reform .
A good starting point would be a national landbank (as in South Korea) combined with the scrapping existing planning controls.
Planning constraints are also not as relevant as made out. If employment levels had been maintained in the North in the 80s then there wouldn't have been the enormous economic migration to the South East over the last 30 years. It's all too easy to blame external economic migration for London's population growth but the reality is that it is excessive economic migration from within the U.K. That accounts for the true issue.
500,000 empty homes in the U.K. Most in the North. Lack of career opportunity in the North and regions in general, combined with over 30 years of State policy to plaster over this issue by deregulating debt further and further so people can spend more and more while also building up the City to produce enough revenue to distribute as charitable handouts to the regions rather than investing in the whole of the UK and not force people to have to relocate hundreds of miles to further their career prospects. There's no need to build more homes in the South East or further inflate the infrastructure when the logical long term solution is to invest in returning true employment prospects to the regions. And London was much more pleasant when the regions were more prosperous.
Robertj21a said:
DonkeyApple said:
It's the cause of the massive rise in property values that is the root issue. But that's a function of the great economic miracle of deregulation of the lending markets that began in the 80s and was accelerated in the 90s. It has nothing to do with property shortages or population growth but a deliberate Western policy of inflating values to encourage spending and elevate taxation. The net result of such policies is always an increasing of the wealth divide until there is some form of revolution. Which is nice.
Property values were shooting up well before the 1980s so deregulation wasn't the initial cause.You can see prices starting to climb from the early/mid 70s but then you need to look at what was happening to inflation at that time. The key spikes over the norm are at points when the then Government removed key regulation that had been put in place to curb house price inflation and prevent the hideous social issues it triggers. However, if you inflate the value of everyone's home then as a Govt you can use this to borrow more in the capital markets while your population spends more as it feels artificially wealthier and so your tax receipts go up meaning you can spend more etc etc. And then you get to points like 2008.
Our excessive house price inflation has been purely as a result of the economic miracle of inflating money supply.
I wanted to chime in on this about "agency" staff. I come from a middle class background and I have been to University and I find myself working in the civil service on an agency contract of one year. This is due to the fact that 97% of jobs listed locally are all via recruitment agencies and even the civil service has laid off thousands and replaced thousands with office staff through these agencies. The vast majority of the other contract staff I work with have also been to University. Out of them all, not one person is working within the field they studied for. Mine is a computer science degree. We don't have to turn up each morning at an agency and we do have fixed contracts which we have been told will probably be for the next few years. Though I would never be able to get a mortgage through all this. I would love job security but sadly we don't live in the dream land.
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