jiltedjen

1981 to 1996 with 1988 being ‘peak millennial’ 2000 onwards is Gen Z as said previous it’s not the rarer edge cases which will matter, some won’t get anything. But most will get loads. and it’s the ‘most’ getting 2.5 trillion on mass which is going to cause ‘issues’ moving forward. No matter how much we can give credence to the fact many won’t get a penny, most will become spectacularly wealthy. and yes I fully agree, we are moving quickly to neo-feudalism for some family lines, boomers flogging off the family home and spending all that wealth may condemn their family line to renting forever. I mean a bit like monopoly wealth does tend to concentrate over time. most of history had a small ruling class, and everyone else. See this video by the rich (but poor sounding bloke) who is doing the rounds on YouTube “The asset economy”

£2.5 trillion wealth transfer from the boomers to millennials over a relatively short predictable period, it’s going to cause some disruption.

I have seen it also on marketing and product design roles. There are a few IT people moaning also. seem a big churn in ‘in demand roles’ as people seem to be being forced to chase money instead of staying comfortable. I’m in engineering and seen an uptick in headhunting (as their engineers have moved to greener pastures and companies want to back-fill lost workers) seen some unusually bad economic signs from my work. Areas which should be doing ‘good’ when times get tough (people buying spare parts to keep older worn products running instead of buying new) have also fallen off a cliff, that’s unheard of. so people are not buying new, and not even fixing their worn/broken bits. Things are pretty much ‘halting’ or world-wide everyone is holding off spending money. hopefully this is an overreaction and just human nature. Hopefully people are just ‘holding their breath for now’ And everything will spring back aggressively next year (things still need replacing - there is still genuine ‘need’) Either that or things have gotten so bad that things have been left broken/abandoned/mothballed with no sign of demand. we have halted sales to certain customers as they have now exceeded their credit limit (going bust?) and insurance is going to be claimed to make us square, (insurance/banking sector instability coming?) hard to tell.

that’s the interesting thing, I think everyone is working off the assumption that as each generation reaches old age they will be ‘the richest’ as historically that’s how it has worked. however, we are in a very unusual situation where Gen-X generally will be screwed over as they spending power plummets against millennial spending power over a few short years as millennials rapidly become absolutely minted and by far the richest generation. normally we have mechanisms in place to devalue the olds savings (inflation) to even it all out (effectively a wealth transfer from old to young) but that’s not been the case for 30-40 years now. I don’t think people are factoring in how seismic this change will be. bear in mind the boomers for their endless faults were minted mostly in asset terms (living in their wealth). So all that excess hoarded wealth was ‘locked away’ from spending into the economy, apart from minor various equity release schemes etc (which just in themselves was like injecting heroin straight to the economies blood-stream) but when millennials take possession of the wealth, they themselves will have homes owned outright, or mostly paid off (from a life of being crushed) before receiving the wall of money. so that money won’t be needed to be lived inside of (boomers living in their houses) but instead will be fully ‘free’ to be consumed. now think about the debt orgy leading up to 2008, fed by debt, and from a tiny fraction of boomer wealth being spent via equity release, that was an almost world ending boom/crash at the time. And that was a tiny amount of the spending power of the boomers finding its way into the economy. if your gen x now, and feel like your doing ok, vs your peers or younger colleagues, and have plans for a reasonable retirement, your world experience and expectations of historical precedence may of screwed you over already. Life is always a competition and dog-eat-dog. money is just a claim on available limited recourses. The pie is finite. so actual money amounts are a bit ‘pointless’ it’s more about what it allows you to make claim on as biggest share of the limited pie you can. It’s not about the money amounts, JUST that you have more than the next guy. it’s all relative. but that massively screw’s you over, if suddenly the generation below you, can claim most of that finite pie of resources. Your cash pile is rendered ineffective and basically worthless against new-found millennial spending power. houses/gold/stocks hoovered up, and at the same time the available workforce shrinks rapidly (as millennials retire before you) massively jacking up cost of care and services and goods. Just in the years where you want to throw money into a pension - kids have left and you have disposable assets to buy shares, you find the prices has already rocketed before you can add a reasonable position before retirement. it’s going to cause massive massive issues.

It very hard to discuss generations as it’s all grey areas and very gradual, even 5 years makes a huge difference in life prospects due to the housing crisis. and that can cover vastly different situations even within generational cohorts. however it’s fair to group the main ‘bulk’ of each cohort, as a kind of overlapping bell curve, where at times they overlap, but within those curves centrally, are indeed ‘typical’ examples of what’s discussed. and generally the discussion is based around ‘typical’ generations not edge cases. but with the nature of bell-curves generally what’s said about typical versions of each generation applies to the biggest bulk of that cohort. yes there will be people who go into care, but generally most (main bulk) of people don’t go into care homes, or if they do it’s for a short period. and yes on individual levels what’s discussed may not apply to you, but for the greater bulk of the population it applies to more people than it doesn't. to get bogged down into rarer cases, or people who married between generation's, or edge cases detracts from the greater commentary of what the wealth transfer could mean to MOST people. admittedly on a personal level, it’s matters to YOU very much if it just happens to be the care home wiping out all potential life changing inheritance to zero, and you were unlucky. but the greater bulk will get a sizeable inheritance. which on mass could cause real issues to everyone INCLUDING YOU and your family. And yes, again, some people will be frugal, some people won’t change habits. Some people will go mental. However, how will it affect your life when MOST millennials act in an expected way when MOST do get a large inheritance. equally the millennial inheritance orgy is building up rapidly around 2039 reaching peak of its curve around 2044 - peak boomer death year, and then going down the other side of the curve. so in about 10 years time we start to see the first of the millennials dropping out of work wealthy, and ramping up. the inflationary effects start to kick in as that dam of hoarded boomer wealth starts to hit the population as a trickle at first then a wall of water soon after. for Gen x this just happens to be when they become least able to deal with the rapidly reducing spending power, while on the last push just before retirement. It’s the ‘grand correction’ I guess where the ‘loser sandwhich’ generation no longer ‘feels great’ to be part of, as the wealth typically for most of the population gets transferred from boomers to millennials. as a millennial it is horribly frustrating to constantly be living having been dealt a bad hand, and having to be polite while others sit and brag about how cheaply they bought houses and how much money they made. and I have posted on here many times about what I feel about boomers and their unearned hoarded wealth - and the drastic consequences leading to a baby bust etc. however as time moves on, and nothing changes, eventually the big wheel keeps on turning, and boomers cannot hoard their wealth beyond the grave. Millennials will never really get justice on having their % claim on wealth held away from them for sooo many years, but there will be one day, a sweet experience of overtaking generation X when it all clicks through, a much less evil of course. but will be satisfying. I suppose when there are deep frustrations, and bragging etc, and rubbing it in, it’s nice that there is a small bit of justice in the end, some final satisfaction I guess you can call it. finally after a lifetime of hurt to obtain the mantle of responsibility for being the ‘richest generation’ it’s funny as all that unearned HPI that everyone talks and brags about, there will be plenty of Gen X managers disgusted and upset to be ‘dumped in the Sh**’ when their ‘underlings’ finally hand in their notice with untold riches and retire, with more of the ‘unearned HPI’ than any other previous generation. Again - talking about the greater percentage. some people will still be screwed by parents. Some are unlucky, etc. no-one should count their chickens before they are hatched. but it’s good to know somewhere, some millennial who has experienced the hurt, gets to tell their bragging older smug manager where to go.

Massive increase in LinkedIn begging posts, especially in the last week, it’s that fairly rare time where contract workers or freelance workers who were making bank find things have gone cold. some builders moaning they cannot charge the earth for simple tasks and rates are going down, and completion is increasing. Same houses have been for sale for about 18 months now. one or two added. Nothing sold. i suspect when the weather gets nicer some ‘removed from market’ properties will return.

yes it’s not a perfect situation, as loads of grey areas but generally Gen X have either late greatest generation or silent generation parents, a few will have boomer parents. but generally millennials are mostly the boomers kids. generation alpha generally have millennial parents, where roughly gen Z have gen X parents so we could see this reverberation of wealth peaks over time to: - boomers, then to - millennials, then to - gen alpha with the biggest losers being sandwiched between the above generations (roughly): - gen X - gen Z - generation beta but the point I was making earlier is, the really interesting dynamic of a long standing ‘loser’ generation (millennials) in a work place, suddenly snapping between the ‘hard done by, down trodden’ generation of workers, to catapulted to the wealthiest people in a work place over a relatively short time window (peak boomer death years) is going to cause some strange social situations. where millennials may be retiring before gen X, or suddenly buying nicer houses than their older mangers etc. I certainly personally pick up on the ‘Vibe’ of smugness from core age gen X, as as far as they are concerned they have benefited from buying cheaply before the millennials, live in nicer houses, have nicer lifestyles (all linked directly to age of entering the housing market and HPI) but will be strange mentally to adjust from feeling like winners, to hearing about the absolutely vast sums their underlings are suddenly gaining access to. i suppose that’s the nature of wealth hoarding and reverberations of death over time. Gen X generally having already received inheritance, or due to receive smaller sums than eventual millenials receive - as Boomer excess house consumption was fairly uniquely a boomer occupation and less culturally significant to the silent generation. its probably the first time it has actually happened (in living memory) where people who previously felt smug, suddenly realise their purchasing power starts to pail in comparison to those younger than themselves. i think this ‘mental anchoring’ is going to cause some serious cognitive dissonance as it unfolds. and will probably lead to plenty of gen X, determined to ‘feel superior’ as their ‘rightful position’ start to do stupid things they cannot afford to try and maintain their mental image they have painted of themselves. equally millennials absolutely loaded after years of being absolutely crushed will probably also act strangely and go out of their way to re-pay the ‘rubbing it in’ of their new found situations. often receiving vast sums of money after having built strong foundations and years of frugality (having never been able to adjust to having ‘means’) where gen X have lived to their ‘means’ for years now. I have been sat as a millennial many of times and forced to hear tales of older workers having bought cheaply, and trading upwards. how satisfying it’s going to be when collectively as a generation we repay the bragging with our new found mountains of money. there is going to be a lot of upset gen x wondering where it all went wrong when it all comes to fruition. And prices quickly adjust to millennial spending power far out of reach of their (in comparison) meagre savings (having been able to live to their means during their lifespan). in some ways millenials are the ultimate ‘front loaded pain’ generation, and gen X are the ‘back end loaded pain generation’ it may also mean the years of actually being able to consume for Gen X has put them into a horrific situation, where they thought they just had to compete with retirement savings (and thus purchasing power) against their own cohort, find suddenly their savings on massively insufficient as they never factored in the wealth transfer. As pensions/income are always dependant on the working generations, so total savings pots must be used to compete with others savings pots to obtain the biggest slice of a finite pie (of income/care) available from the working populace at the time. so rocketing prices as boomer money is finally freed, against a backdrop of a ‘come to god’ moment on the realisation of insufficient savings for Gen X RIGHT BEFORE they want to retire. It could lead to millennials leaving work places for early retirements, and Gen X forced to work into their dotage having miscalculated savings/spending power over a lifetime. as I said earlier it’s a unique situation, so perhaps it’s forming a perfect trap not before seen.

I guess it can be a bit rubbish if your gen X and feeling your doing ok (having bought cheaply years ago) and you have your eye on a bigger property, feeling pretty smug about life. then suddenly your priced out of the nicest houses by a generation you felt sorry for, but felt better than. the sudden surge in purchasing power far in excess of what you can muster by those beneath you. as a millennial in a work place, generally the boomers have gone now, just the odd one or two left, and now we have smug gen x managers. often themselves having already had their inheritances (which were much less back then). enjoying their bigger houses bought for less years ago. its going to be a super strange dynamic as the accumulated/hoarded wealth of the boomers starts disappearing millennial ‘less than’ workers, and huge houses and lifestyles for more junior millennials rocket in quality. the realisation of how unfair HPI actually is will kick in for gen X on mass when they see that hoarded well snap to boomers kids. How unfair it is. and how suddenly they will no longe feel (or vote) like winners in this system but losers. millennials total accumulated wealth pre-inheritance will just be spending ‘fun money’ compared to the money tidal waving towards them. how quickly tables turn.

Someone has to eventually own those massive boomer houses eventually I guess. equally some millennials have already managed to created a strong foundation off their own back, house sorted etc. yet still in line for large inheritances later down the line. It will certainly be a bit excessive by then. i guess it’s some compensation to how hard life has been, other generations, like gen X had their shot at cheap housing and better pay back in their day. just a shame for millennials that their huge wealth comes too late in life, sometimes £1,000 now is worth more now on a human level than millions when your almost 60, by then kids have been delayed or not be born etc. given the ratio of workers to retired is vaguely sustainable, we might even get to keep a large chunk of the inheritance without it all being used for care.

plenty of people who have worked really hard in more challenging locations who are struggling to be able to afford kids. the Mail likes stories which stir up hatred, by putting forward unlikeable people phrased as a sob story. Like ‘this moor migrant only got a two bed house but wanted a three bed house “ stories like these are designed to undermine the seriousness of the housing crisis and undervalues arguments made to sort it out. i know people on good wages, who didn’t borrow recklessly, who have had kids, and genuinely are in the red each month, while working overtime etc, it’s a real issue which is mirrored all around the country. A horrible state of affairs, you don’t have to ask around very far and you would easily find some hard workers which everyone would have sympathy for. but instead they find some feckless deluded morons to put forward of examples of why people are not having kids. imagine some boomers reading that article? what would their take away be? well they would say they need to cut their cloth to suit and get their priorities right, and they would be correct. Just morons total feckless idiots who undermine the housing crisis argument. but as I said it’s designed that way. True struggles are hidden and only the feckless put forward. and yet idiots on here with some kind of kinship with these morons claim I’m being elitist or wrong? perhaps they are the kind of useful fools which help the houses crisis to worsen.

my point was the whole title of the article. we are on £100k and can’t afford kids. reads as: we earn what we deem as a lot of money, and we deem that we deserve a house more than others, and can’t comprehend why we can’t afford kids?!? It’s entitlement and delusion. The acid test on worth, is what can you earn doing the same role outside of London? often it’s either minimum wage or close to it, or the role does not exist at all, true worth is almost nil. London housing is one of our biggest national exports, it’s for the world elite to own, like it or not. it’s not for the average joe. And has not been since the 60’s. it kind of undermines actual realistic problems that a lot of the more deserving half of the population are facing by them being used as an easily picked apart delusion couple, and that’s a very deliberate ploy to undermine arguments. what we need is article showing realistic struggles not just some feckless deluded morons.

it’s always the same when you point out hard truths. You’re probably in London earning £50k feeling pretty special and deserving, but I’m shattering your world view with some basic logic. Someone worked out on here that £60k in London gives spending power of minimum wage outside of London. that’s how special that wage actually is. ”but I can’t earn my wage outside of London” because your not worth it! When talking about the housing crisis makes sense to ignore the delusional jokers and worry about more realistic prospects. Did minimum wage earners (or their London equivalents) ever actually be able to afford a house? no not really, it’s worrying about unrealistic situations. Getting into a newspaper article saying you overextended so much based on your own delusion and now can’t afford to have kids does more damage than it does to help the situation. the housing crisis, has started to push out the better half of the population - the deserving half, and that’s when society gets unstable, not when delusional jokers moan about their own delusion.

It’s also the context to earn an average wage (for London) is pretty unspectacular when you consider the endless opportunities that London actually affords you. its not like earning the national average wage in some shite Welsh mining village with basically no opportunities. That’s by far more impressive. to earn average (for London) it’s actually pretty poor, and yes a bit lazy, if your in London you should be rocketing upwards if you work hard enough, it’s not like you can’t change jobs every 2 years for a promotion. its not like that ‘in the sticks’, but it doesn’t matter, the better workers get the houses regardless of wage, as it’s always the better people on a group getting the limited houses, it’s pretty simple. the point is, this couple is nothing special, and average for London is actually poor considering the endless opportunities they are not taking. as a non Londoner myself, and living ‘in the sticks’ I still have to be in the top 20% of my cohort to ‘win’ the houses, even though I earn less than the couple on the story, I’m still ‘special’ considering lack of opportunities afforded to me, and barely any opportunity to change jobs. Better to be a big fish in a little sea, than a small fish in a big sea. the story smacks of delusion, and total denial of real self worth. they don’t deserve a house in London. They are not better than me. but they think they are. outside of London they would learn their real self worth. as I said what I’m saying is upsetting. As many people base their self worth upon their wage, against a national average, but that’s insane. it’s mental and delusional. and that delusion leads to people buying houses they think they deserve, when they don’t. It’s entitlement. it’s massive detrimental to their future. people love to think they are special, or better than average. And will look to justify to themselves why they think that’s true. But it’s not. but to be fair smart people realise the truth about their own self worth, and cut their cloth to suit. They realise they are better off earning less outside London and don’t try to justify buying houses they can’t afford based on what they think they are worth. Or they don’t ’settle In’ comfortable deluding themselves that their wage is fine. some people are their own worst enemy. They are stopping themselves from having kids, based on their delusional self worth and actions. They should hate themselves, for what they have done to themselves. Mentioning their wage is somehow their justification to what they think they should be able to do, it just shows how much onus they have put into their wage as their ‘worth’ massively incorrectly.

I wonder sometimes that holding off the inevitable crash, for more than a decade now, might actually cause some economic growth during the can-kick periods, just due to the sheer length of time passed? Is it true that economics is just one massive confidence trick? I wonder now that housing is no longer an issue for me, if I would of been better off forging a life in the initial green shoots of a recovery a decade after the crash in 2018, (having bought a house for peanuts after the crash), perhaps cheap enough to have been able to pay it off in 5 years by way 2023. or what actually happened when I suffered as most people my age, to buy eventually 10 years after the massive can kick (in 2008) in 2018. and then rode the wave of excess money to had it paid off by 2023. Is one better than the other? would the first option been very painful, hard to find jobs, pensions slashed etc, or would the 2nd option of been better? perhaps the truth is. Without the zombie companies ever being allowed to die. The previous 16 years were just setting up for the next 50. the first option: massive crash - real recovery probably would of set some serious foundations for the next 50 years what actually happened, a series of can kicks, probably means the next 50 years will just be keeping zombies on life support and no growth while we kill ourselves trying to sustain the unsustainable. At some point someone has to pay the piper. someone has to be the ones to suffer pension cuts, and privatised healthcare, and their net worth plummeting. But at current rate of props and can kicks, that could be outside of any current posters age range.

Yes but they get benefits of living in London, good employment prospects and a London weighting in wages. That’s why London/SE is attractive and housing is super expensive. The truth is they are not worth or deserve what they think they are worth, the whole of the UK has a housing crisis, it’s sad, but the most deserving hardest workers (those who are a bit special) should be first in line for houses, which they are. they could accept they are only worth £25k a year wage outside of London, and accept that there are less jobs and no London/SE weighting. that’s what they deserve, that’s what they are worth. they can’t have great employment prospects and their wage AND expect a decent house. that unrealistic. they should work harder get more than a bog standard unimpressive wage (especially given the excellent prospects to improve their wage) and then they could buy. think many people are dreamers, people move to London and accept the rents etc, in exchange for job security or pure mass of opportunity, this couple agave a big standard wage for London, yet expect something only the top of the population can afford. I think what I’m saying upsets a lot of people in south east/london, as it’s true. And many people think they deserve a house, as they think they earn well, but they don’t, if your worth outside on London is low, then your worth inside London is low, your just a moron worker grunt who is in denial about how unimpressive and bog standard you actually are. you either get realistic, and move away, and accept your worth, or stand screaming at the moon like a moron who’s in denial. yes plenty of London workers earn much less, but they are just one person in a horde of millions who will trade living conditions for either: 1. Endless work opportunities which come with being in London, always have work 2. those who move to London to try and actually do something special and make it work 3. those who do it to save hard, then move to the Provences and outprice their bog standard poors/lazy workers moaning that you can’t afford something special, when your a bit a dullard people lazy person as your deluded about your worth based on a London wage which is ‘good’ is bloody thick.

ah the old ‘I earn good money so I should be able to afford X in London/south east’ its about human worth, if you can’t get the same wage outside of London your human worth is not high. the truth is people who should be on 25-30K outside London but £100k in London are pretty bog standard people. Who would expect to have a sub-par housing situation (as average people can’t buy average houses anymore) too many people in SE think they are better than they are due to wage, and frankly they are nothing special. if you are nothing special you won’t get a nice life in the modern world. Pretty simple. now I do feel sorry for those outside London who do work hard are indeed fairly special, who struggle to buy, as when the hard workers can’t get a reasonable quality of life then that’s deeply upsetting, but a couple in SE on £100k I don’t class as hard workers, but bog standard average workers with a London premium thinking they are special when they are not. Move somewhere you can afford and accept your not worth much, instead of screaming at the moon that you can’t afford the life YOU THINK you deserve (when you dont) it’s about an adjustment in expectations. Bog standard London folk/SE folk moaning about the housing crisis undermines the real issues.

If a can is kicked for a humans functional life, does that means problems are effectively solved instead of being a can kick? (At least for that generation) 2008 was a crash, and bailout etc. was serious but was 16 years ago now, and still no full blown crash. Just a series of can kicks. That’s a hell of a can kick. Lives have been lived in that time. I could of bought a much cheaper house 16 years ago if they had actually let the zombies die, but employment would of been horrific, crime much higher etc. instead they can kicked, and it’s been kicked so long, that for many housing has gone from number 1 issues to a none issue. we can never know I guess as we can’t see what would of happened had the can not been kicked. this is another can kick, another kick to add to hundreds more.

Was thinking about all the disposable vapes which contain lithium batteries, only really been a thing for a year or two on mass. must be perfect for exploding in when baked in summer sunlight and causing fires?

I think every generation has some kind of drastic change. certainly not coming in 5 years, maybe 10 years. the ratio of winners/losers, gets soo out of whack that its adjusts. although there was that damming paper on wealth equality and the only things that actually lead to that, tends to be war, plague etc, so fingers crossed I guess?

what worries me is: historically in countries with struggling populations there initially there is a battle between the right and the left. but the hateful right generally always wins. It’s human nature. we are the humans survivors of millions of years of the nastiest self interested people surviving. much easier to preach hate and blame and anger to stupid people, than to preach community and togetherness and social responsibility. what we need is a sensible left, and a return to social responsibility and drastic reimplementation of the social contract, that each generation should make life better for the next. but instead it’s easier to blame poor people or brown people, and be very nasty indeed. We have an aging population, grumpy miserable old people are the norm for voting. i think labour will win but it will be the last half sensible government we have, they will be broadly the same. the middle still pays for everything. the right will probably spend the next 5 years fighting between the lunatic oldies racist rabid right of ‘reform’ and a new faction of ‘new tories’ reinventing themselves for the new growing voter segment of those 20-45 themselves looking to correct ongoing injustices. Perhaps reform will try their luck taking control of the tories, just like corbyn tried his luck taking labour more left, and just like corbyn also fail. there will be a lot of convulsions, but basically, labour land slide first, then a battle royal between labour and racist reform tories for the following election, leading to a labour and Lib Dem coalition (very unpopular) then a landslide for the new tories, who probably will live on for three more elections (very very popular) I think the last of the boomers control was lost when boris was taken down, now due to age, I’m politics there are not enough oldies willing to implement oldies policies, it’s mostly gen-x now following their own self interest.

it’s related to annualised returns over long periods when factoring in inflation. means initially the safe savings accounts ‘win’ in return terms for the first 5 years, but over a longer period eventually the investment returns compounds more drastically, so year 1 investment pot instead of returning less than inflation could be returning 40% in year 20, but takes a few years to compound and to raise with inflation, whereas the savings account has a real return of say 2% above inflation, each year, but remains 2% each year above inflation for the next 20 years, and compounding does happen but much lower. both are better than just not investing. But the profile of returns depends on time-scale. annualised is total return of say 30 years (when factoring in inflation and compounding) and applying that return spread over each previous year. which makes it better to compare. Something like 7-10% annualised return in stocks factoring in dividend re-investment. But year one could be 0.5% year 30 could be 40%, So yes stocks are always better, but not for shorter time scales. if I were saving for a deposit for a home, and I was making good progress and it was going to take me 3-5 years, then stocks would make less sense than a savings account, but if I’m saving for early retirement over 20-40 years then it’s loads of time to weather the ups and down of the market and be in stocks to reach required levels, then de-risk as age runs out (and my ability to cope with downturns and time to recover runs low also) From talking to people in real life, most people cannot get their head around longer term investing, as they see the % return on offer from the banks in safe ready access accounts and see stocks as not worth any risk. Seems to be a common misconception. the dynamics of how something can be worse initially but better long term can be lost on people. this is made worse when you can sit and watch shares and underperform bog standard savings accounts for years and years. without understanding the above people will give up and change course just before the stocks start to take the lead and accelerate. have to have conviction in the strategy. there are also some ‘complications’ which short term can throw everything out of whack also, such as stock market crashes, or savings accounts paying less than inflation to start with, and investment approach (picking shares that go to zero) or even bank failures etc. stocks are almost always initially losing out to other investments especially when factoring in fees and charges, but do go on to massively out-perform. I guess the word ‘investment’ is critical here, knowingly losing out to other types of savings for the eventual much larger payout in 10-30 years.

plenty of people are suddenly having to wake up to reality. those low rates for years should of been for paying it down, not living it up. problem is most people don’t see risks, or will fully ignore risks. It makes it worse for everyone, bidding up houses etc . once upon a time if you had a flash car it was actually notable, had to work hard, debt was limited, it was a marker of someone who prioritised a nice car. Worthy of respect even. these days posh cars are just ‘moron markers’ as most of the time they are just debt with wheels on, you can’t tell who is well-to-do and who’s not. Anyone who has any money wouldn’t be seen dead in a chav white BMW/Landrover for fear of looking like a debt head chav. i think with reality smashing into people over the next few years, it’s going to be pretty rewarding to be financially secure, finally those sensible amongst us will feel like kings compared to the feckless morons around us. i have started to see the change, where those who looked a little beaten down by life (the frugal) are starting to seem happier and more content, while the show-offs and the reckless are all of a sudden starting to look really down and beaten down by life. I suppose the whole point of being frugal is so that you’re fine ‘when the crunch point comes’, which for years can feel really pointless, until, of course, it finally comes, and your fully vindicated on your approach and views. I expect a lot more posts of people struggling, cars on finances large mortgage, energy bills. there was a point when people cut their cloth to suit, people walked to work if running a car was too expensive. roads should be much quieter, should be easy to get a table for a meal out, everything should be cheaper. But soo much economic activity has just been debt fuelled, those who have actual money have had their purchasing power eroded against those using debt to buy. frankly plenty of people maybe couldn’t afford kids, and did it anyway, and now moaning they can’t afford a reasonable quality of life. while others have delayed kids to achieve some kind of sustainable position first. it’s a dog eat dog world, and with finite resources, some have to lose for others to gain.

nvidia earnings were announced after close of US stock markets yesterday, seemed to meet expectations japan stock markets snapped much higher also. AI bubble still forging onwards.

there is a baby bust going on. the ratio of retired to working age is becoming worse, and already talks of raising retirement age to 71 need someone to be paying taxes when we retire

Equality works both ways.