GregBowman

To be fair it's not just Scott or your director , some other cultures have a more pragmatic attitude to living a full life than the UK's keep them alive at all costs mentality. My Dad was Eastern European we would discuss family members in that vein, strangely positive because it encourages you to make the most of your healthy years

Did I say I thought they were doing well ? and for the Sales two how does $500k float your boat ? my daughters 34% pension worth a bob or two.. How were unions going to up that ?

👍🏻 It’s all luck and timing IT really boomed mid 80’s on and London and the South East in general. My son lives in LA and so I see the US system first hand totally agree re their lack of mobility from golf clubs to they way they fawn over people with money it’s a sort of faux class system far worse than ours. My son reminds them he went to an English public school and as such it’s a little beneath him all that stuff. When he explains his Dad left school at 16 and managed to get him and his sister through that system it does seem to blow their mind a little

In its defence it’s held up pretty well, I remember it as a quasi temporary structure which at the time was a white elephant. The success it became was quite a turnaround. Some elements probably beyond their design life after all it is a big tent not a building per se

Already 50% of mortgages are fixed according to the BOE can only see that rising Renting without paying a bean off for extended periods is the highest risk strategy you can adopt

What’s the risk compared to renting ? The value whether it goes up or down is of no consequence unless you want to sell. Plenty of fixes available even ten years. I doubt if you could get a rent deal fixed for 10 years. Which is one of the reasons higher interest rates won’t do that much to house prices, the mortgage market is very different to thirty years ago

Elegant post. House prices are nuts but I don’t get the I am waiting for them to bust syndrome. Affordability is another matter. As you say you might as well rent from the bank and yourself and chip away at the capital. It’s exactly the same position as I am in now with my business partners we scrabbled around to get a mortgage on our property in 2005 because we couldn’t get any money out of the pension fund quick enough, had to create a property partnership so we could rent from ourselves. After 17 years paying a below market rent that covered the mortgage payments and the maintenance we are now selling and will only have to pay capital gains on the rise in value, which has been less than the equivalent residential place but a reasonable rise none the less.

Unions were never going to stop the onslaught of globalisation which every worker supports every time they buy a piece of tech or clothing not made in the UK. It’s only meaningless if you chose it to be. Of the six children who are the next generation of the three of us who ran our IT business, 2 came out of uni with worthless 2.2 degrees, 1 dropped out and the other 3 bounced around before settling into careers. All 6 own their own place’s thinking on it not sure amongst them they have paid a penny rent to anyone else. I know my 2 have no uni loans neither does mr dropout. I would be surprised if any are earning less than £70k, the two in sales including my son are on stellar money. Their ages range from 27-32 They all had a little help with a deposit but no massive handout. All of them were taught to graft and all worked through uni and none took a gap year They were never going to need the protection of a union thirty years ago or now. They really aren’t unusual amongst my predominantly working class roots family and friendship circle. There is still plenty of opportunity and with the post covid skill shortages now more than ever, it’s tougher but certainly not as dire as you seem to believe

Nice post. I am not sure Thatcher worshipped money more business. Unions are generally self serving look at the public sector ones. There is a need for unions but they take the easy route totally absent in the fight against zero hour contracts or mass workplace abuses in the private sector I think she was more than a symptom, in thousands of us she sparked the idea we could have a crack at running our businesses outside the my Dad was a brickie traditional working class self employed. Totally agree with the empire comment which is overlaid with the snobbish attitude to trade and hand skills Although the British working class benefited enormously from empire hence imho their resistance to self improvement through education there hasn’t really been the need. Resulting in the situation where the lowest performing Ethnic group in schools is white working class lads.

Seriously ? Get back under your rock

Did my post mention public roads or even the UK ? You are a small mean minded dick comrade.

Definitely thinking of a Tesla S instead of my VW GTE . The i3s seems plenty quick enough but then again I have a Ducati 1260s multistrada I get my speed kicks on that hitting the horizon on an insanely powerful motorcycle is in a different league to any fast car and I have had a few. It’s a totally different rush altogether so much more visceral

I know the figures because my daughter is a grade 6 and showed me her payslip. She is only 27 at this rate will have the equivalent of a million pound pot in her early 40’s with a couple more promotions I welcome your partner and her getting something back but long term it is so unsustainable and is real pension apartheid , and yet private pension provision keeps getting hit

LOL Mrs T encouraged people to look up not along, The union barons wanted to keep me in my place It's different now but then there was real opportunity The labour movement has always been about equality lowest common denominator never about aspiration

One of my favourite chants ! ties in with the imposter syndrome many of us working class have who were lucky enough to be born in an era when there was real and affordable social mobility