Bbc Slowly Getting It...

[Chuffy Chuffnell]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21302065

Have young people never had it so bad?

Rising wages and low house prices helped the baby boom generation to prosper. Today's young face high unemployment, expensive education, and a lifetime of renting. Have they never had it so bad?

(quite a long article - worth a read - very HPC!)

There is a comments section too..!

[Toto deVeer]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21302065

Have young people never had it so bad?

Rising wages and low house prices helped the baby boom generation to prosper. Today's young face high unemployment, expensive education, and a lifetime of renting. Have they never had it so bad?

(quite a long article - worth a read - very HPC!)

There is a comments section too..!

To 2009 or so, expectations of the youth were never higher in history - needing to be brutally dashed since. Whose fault is that? Is it really worse than 1910 or 1930? Or many other periods in history?

[Chuffy Chuffnell]

To 2009 or so, expectations of the youth were never higher in history - needing to be brutally dashed since. Whose fault is that? Is it really worse than 1910 or 1930? Or many other periods in history?

The article specifically states that this is the worst time to be young SINCE the war - obviously pre-war generations have had it worse.

Please read it (and the comments - which are encouraging): it's perfect HPC stuff - house price bubble pricing the young out, the contrast between growing up in the 50s/60s and now, high education costs, people moving abroad... etc.

It's taking time (years and years) but the stuff that was obvious to many HPC members years ago is now coming to the public's (The Flock) mind.

Edited February 5, 2013 by Chuffy Chuffnell

[Guest eight]

To 2009 or so, expectations of the youth were never higher in history - needing to be brutally dashed since. Whose fault is that? Is it really worse than 1910 or 1930? Or many other periods in history?

I was earning £140/week as a 16 year old apprentice, straight out of school, in 1990.

[Chuffy Chuffnell]

I was earning £140/week as a 16 year old apprentice, straight out of school, in 1990.

So that's the equivalent of earning £1200 a month today. Which you'll be lucky to do at the age of 26...

Edited February 5, 2013 by Chuffy Chuffnell

[byron78]

I'd say pre war gens had it worse, but I'm constantly surprised by how few boomers understand how hard it is for a lot of youngsters.

My dad grew up during a time where if he didn't like his job he could tell his boss to stuff it in the morning and have a new one lined up by lunch. His low early life wage was enough to buy a small house and start a small family with a stay at home mum.

He'd be out work and homeless now or in a dodgy HMO. Worse: queues of boomers would be queuing up to beat him with rolled up copies of the Daily Express and their BTL portfolios, to let him know how that was his fault.

Edited February 5, 2013 by byron78

[Tired of Waiting]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21302065

Have young people never had it so bad?

Rising wages and low house prices helped the baby boom generation to prosper. Today's young face high unemployment, expensive education, and a lifetime of renting. Have they never had it so bad?

(quite a long article - worth a read - very HPC!)

There is a comments section too..!

Good article.

In October 2011, a new group, the Intergenerational Foundation, argued that older people were "hoarding housing" and should be encouraged to downsize.

"Older generations own more than two-thirds of the nation's housing stock," says Angus Hanton co-founder of the foundation. "They have rewarded themselves with unaffordable pensions and intimidate policy makers through sheer cohort size and lobby-power."

[doomed]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21302065

Have young people never had it so bad?

Rising wages and low house prices helped the baby boom generation to prosper. Today's young face high unemployment, expensive education, and a lifetime of renting. Have they never had it so bad?

(quite a long article - worth a read - very HPC!)

There is a comments section too..!

I dont think anyone under 40 reads the BBc website going by the comments. Apparently the young have never had it so good

[Toto deVeer]

I'd say pre war gens had it worse, but I'm constantly surprised by how few boomers understand how hard it is for a lot of youngsters.

My dad grew up during a time where if he didn't like his job he could tell his boss to stuff it in the morning and have a new one lined up by lunch. His low early life wage was enough to buy a small house and start a small family with a stay at home mum.

He'd be out work and homeless now or in a dodgy

HMO.

Much of this problem is not intergenerational. It has to do with the creeping financialization of each sector of the economy. The BBC article is a bit misleading on this. I don't like this intergenerational argument - it is a diversion from the real cause.

Edited February 5, 2013 by Toto deVeer

[Starla]

http://www.bbc.co.uk...gazine-21302065

Have young people never had it so bad?

Rising wages and low house prices helped the baby boom generation to prosper. Today's young face high unemployment, expensive education, and a lifetime of renting. Have they never had it so bad?

(quite a long article - worth a read - very HPC!)

There is a comments section too..!

While I absolutely agree that as it stands young people (I could extend that to a lot of age groups) are facing a lifetime of renting - wouldn't those that believe we are on the verge of a property price collapse take a more optimistic view that for those in work ,their ability to afford to buy and leave rented accomodation, will be vastly improved shortly.

[cybernoid]

Ten years too late. Other forums too are showing signs that the views expressed here for years are entering the mainstream. I remember when people said I was mad to point out there was a problem. Now they choose not to remember I mentioned it, and talk about it as though they didn't hold the opposite view only a year or two ago. One says to me, 'well with hindsight ... blah blah buy to let problems blah blah'. The problems experienced now are those I pointed out as risks before they 'invested'. Selective memories! Can't help some people.

Now I just don't say anything.

Bit late now to wake up isn't it?

[byron78]

Much of this problem is not intergenerational. It has to do with the creeping financialization of each sector of the economy. The BBC article is a bit misleading on this. I don't like this intergenerational argument - it is a diversion from the real cause.

Not blaming him or his generation, just making a statement of fact really.

He was able to pull himself up by his bootstraps (my dad was born an orphan and could barely read or write) because there was always work he could do. At 35 he joined the police force in the 80s because all the factories he had worked in as a younger man went pop. He was able to buy his first house on what would be a minimum wage job's salary today and keep both me, my mum, and my sister on it. Not saying it was easy, but we survived! :-)

[Gone baby gone]

Is it really worse than 1910 or 1930? Or many other periods in history?

Relative to the other generations, I would say it probably is worse than any other period in history.

This time much of the pain - so far - has been focused like a laser beam on the people under 25.

People talk about pulling the ladder up. This time they took the ladder up, chopped it into pieces, burned it and then ate what was left.

[SirGaz]

I was earning £140/week as a 16 year old apprentice, straight out of school, in 1990.

You were doing well, I started as a product design office apprentice in 1989 and I was on £65 a week and was the highest paid apprentice at the first year engineering school, I didn't crack the ton a week until I was in the third year of the apprenticeship.

[Toto deVeer]

Not blaming him or his generation, just making a statement of fact really.

He was able to pull himself up by his bootstraps (my dad was born an orphan and could barely read or write) because there was always work he could do. At 35 he joined the police force in the 80s because all the factories he had worked in as a younger man went pop. He was able to buy his first house on what would be a minimum wage job's salary today and keep both me, my mum, and my sister on it. Not saying it was easy, but we survived! :-)

Sorry I hope you didn't take my comment as a criticism - I was just pointing out the real problem - and that is that finance has overtaken real production and skill during the last 30 years or so.

At present no politician has the will take pre-emptive action to introduce a remedy , so we will have to wait until circumstances force it upon us.

Atlas Shrugged.

[Guest eight]

You were doing well, I started as a product design office apprentice in 1989 and I was on £65 a week and was the highest paid apprentice at the first year engineering school, I didn't crack the ton a week until I was in the third year of the apprenticeship.

I think I was about middling from our group, there were other companies (tellingly, Rothmans) that paid better. One of my contemporaries accidentally got his girlfriend knocked up when he was seventeen - he bought a house in a Durham pit village and settled down!

[byron78]

Sorry I hope you didn't take my comment as a criticism - I was just pointing out the real problem - and that is that finance has overtaken real production and skill during the last 30 years or so.

At present no politician has the will take pre-emptive action to introduce a remedy , so we will have to wait until circumstances force it upon us.

Atlas Shrugged.

Don't worry I didn't take it as a criticism, and for what it's worth I agree with you.

I think we've got a lot of things backwards at the moment. A lot of the problems are very evident (benefit bill too high, cost of housing astronomical etc), but our politicians/media seem to be re-arranging deckchairs (or trying to decide who to tell us to blame for the disorderly arrangement of the deckchairs) most of the time.

[byron78]

You were doing well, I started as a product design office apprentice in 1989 and I was on £65 a week and was the highest paid apprentice at the first year engineering school, I didn't crack the ton a week until I was in the third year of the apprenticeship.

That's about (or slightly more than) double that in today's money - say £140ish.

The chap on £140 in 1990 was earning around £275 in today's money (and using a calculator that's probably a bit out of date). Above minimum wage (just about).

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-1633409/Historic-inflation-calculator-value-money-changed-1900.html#axzz2K1JxnJnl

[Gone baby gone]

That's about (or slightly more than) double that in today's money - say £140ish.

The chap on £140 in 1990 was earning around £275 in today's money (and using a calculator that's probably a bit out of date). Above minimum wage (just about).

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-1633409/Historic-inflation-calculator-value-money-changed-1900.html#axzz2K1JxnJnl

Is that using the quite magnificent inflation figure that doesn't include the cost of housing...

[byron78]

Is that using the quite magnificent inflation figure that doesn't include the cost of housing...

I'm presuming it's much worse with housing costs factored in. Much, MUCH worse...

[Gigantic Purple Slug]

I dont think anyone under 40 reads the BBc website going by the comments. Apparently the young have never had it so good

That's because they are all lying in bed spending all day on ipods and playstations.

[Gone baby gone]

[Toto deVeer]

Actually this outcome could be the result of a period of generally falling interest rates - first in accumulated the equity last in can't.

Edited February 5, 2013 by Toto deVeer

[shindigger]

Ten years too late. Other forums too are showing signs that the views expressed here for years are entering the mainstream. I remember when people said I was mad to point out there was a problem. Now they choose not to remember I mentioned it, and talk about it as though they didn't hold the opposite view only a year or two ago. One says to me, 'well with hindsight ... blah blah buy to let problems blah blah'. The problems experienced now are those I pointed out as risks before they 'invested'. Selective memories! Can't help some people.

Now I just don't say anything.

Bit late now to wake up isn't it?

I did a Best Man speech at the weekend.

As i put in to context the era in which i met the groom, (1996) i got in a dig about Tony Blair only owning 1 property in Islington, how you didn't need a lottery win to own a house in London Zone 3, and how you didnt need to go to Wonga.com to afford a night out down the pub.

Went down really well. Audience of 130 people got to hear that.

Edited February 5, 2013 by shindigger

[Andy_K]

Was there a cull of all 45-64 year olds that I missed? Why aren't they included? They're surely relevant