Why The Younger Generation Will No Longer Have A Better Life Than Their Parents

[canbuywontbuy]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/comment/article-3577153/Why-younger-generation-no-longer-better-life-parents.html

In the post-World War II period, each generation was encouraged to expect higher living standards than its predecessor. Steady improvements in living standards were founded upon a good job, a nice home and an early and comfortable retirement. Today, the basic foundation of these expectations, continuous strong economic growth, is under threat.

The reality is that these elements that citizens in developed nations took for granted were based on fragile foundations. In the period leading up to the 2007-2008 crisis, around half the economic growth in the world was based on increasing borrowings. The crisis highlighted the problems of unsustainable, high levels of debt. Now, as existing borrowings must be reduced, economic activity has stagnated.

But....but....I thought it was the "feckless young people buying iPads instead of houses" that set the generations apart*. Turns out the boomers just got lucky before the debt ponzi got out of hand. Even the Daily Mail is telling us this now.

Although....the article doesn't admit the world is in far deeper debt now than it was in 2007/2008. LOL @ "existing borrowings must be reduced" - ask Osborne how he's getting on with the national debt, and look at lenders now offering 40 year and 100% mortgages.

The younger generations are poorer because of a housing ponzi scheme that should have been demolished in 2008 rather than continuously propped up.

*just on Ipads, how many nights out in pubs and nightclubs would an iPad cost? 3 months of social life? Interesting given younger people are far less likely to go pubbing and clubbing these days - far less than the boomers did ("well, we worked hard and played hard, don't make 'em like they used to, right?").

Edited May 7, 2016 by canbuywontbuy

[canbuywontbuy]

From the comments:-

When I first married my wife still worked and I had two jobs (working up to 16 hours a day) for a couple of years. Now it's never been easier for people to do 'something extra' to pick up more money. There more information available on the internet on any subject you want to check out, and there's more selling opportunities available on-line too. How about the people writing Apps and making a fortune, the guy last week who wrote a few books and published on-line? People posting videos of anything, car-crashes, etc. The guy who stripped a VW beetle to make chairs, etc. None of this was available in the 70's, we didn't even have car-boot or Sunday markets. The 'fittest' will survive!

Yeah, right - a zero hour job or making a few quid of adsense money from wacky youtube videos will really help you onto the housing ladder.

[thombleached]

From the comments:-

Yeah, right - a zero hour job or making a few quid of adsense money from wacky youtube videos will really help you onto the housing ladder.

My son told me a few days ago that he wanted to be a 'youtuber' when he grows up. He got quite an earful from me.

[crashmonitor]

Agree with you on the pubs thing, most are closing because its not something many of us do anymore except using them for meals out. Going to your local was very much a cultural thing of the early boomers.

Obvioulsy the younger generation aren't priced out because of their attachment to computers, more to do with globalisation of the employment market and a housing market that is fixed and which now is the preserve of boomers playing swap with each other or adding extra properties from their accruing investments courtesy of decades of mortgage free status and under taxation (especially council tax).

Got to say life was better without computers, yes i'm using one, but life was better like the picture as opposed to a slave box with gadgets. A microwave oven might have cost £300 and the televison £400 (add a nought for inflation) and look under C in the John Moores autumn winter catalogue 1978/9 reveals no result for the word computer (pre the Sinclair). Don't take my word for it look at all the happiness surveys since the 50s that have gradually deteriorated. Less is always more in life.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/05/06/15/19159EBC000005DC-3577153-image-a-19_1462544278283.jpg

Edited May 7, 2016 by crashmonitor

[Amiinsane]

From the comments:-

Yeah, right - a zero hour job or making a few quid of adsense money from wacky youtube videos will really help you onto the housing ladder

From the comments:-

Yeah, right - a zero hour job or making a few quid of adsense money from wacky youtube videos will really help you onto the housing ladder.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/comment/article-3577153/Why-younger-generation-no-longer-better-life-parents.html

But....but....I thought it was the "feckless young people buying iPads instead of houses" that set the generations apart*. Turns out the boomers just got lucky before the debt ponzi got out of hand. Even the Daily Mail is telling us this now.

Although....the article doesn't admit the world is in far deeper debt now than it was in 2007/2008. LOL @ "existing borrowings must be reduced" - ask Osborne how he's getting on with the national debt, and look at lenders now offering 40 year and 100% mortgages.

The younger generations are poorer because of a housing ponzi scheme that should have been demolished in 2008 rather than continuously propped up.

*just on Ipads, how many nights out in pubs and nightclubs would an iPad cost? 3 months of social life? Interesting given younger people are far less likely to go pubbing and clubbing these days - far less than the boomers did ("well, we worked hard and played hard, don't make 'em like they used to, right?").

Given that tons of pubs and clubs are going to the wall, it suggests that most young people aren't out drinking all day and night. in fact the biggest trend these days seems to be living with your parents in the desperate attempt to save for a deposit.

[spyguy]

From the comments:-

Yeah, right - a zero hour job or making a few quid of adsense money from wacky youtube videois will really help you onto the housing ladder.

Comments a fckmoron.

Writing apps masked a fortune- just roll up , knoick one out over weekend. Millionaire! Moron.

All that stuff that's available now but not in the 70s - like VW beetles.

[stormymonday_2011]

That OP piece of course should read the 'Younger Generation in the Western World'. One suspects that young Chinese are probably relieved that they do not have to live through the Cultural Revolution like their boomer counterparts. Ditto most young Vietnamese would probably prefer today than their parents youth in late 1960s and early 1970s when they could expect to be doused with napalm and Agent Orange. Syrians and Iraqis can at least comfort themselves that their world has been sh*t for nearly all generations.

Edited May 7, 2016 by stormymonday_2011

[EssKay]

That OP piece of course should read the 'Younger Generation in the Western World'. One suspects that young Chinese are probably relieved that they do not have to live through the Cultural Revolution like their boomer counterparts. Ditto most young Vietnamese would probably prefer today than their parents youth in late 1960s and early 1970s when they could expect to be doused with napalm and Agent Orange. Syrians and Iraqis can at least comfort themselves that their world has been sh*t for nearly all generations.

Great for them

That's not much comfort if you're young in the west though is it?

Especially given the fact that the primary reason for the improved prospects of the Chinese young is because their western counterparts have been sacrificed on the altar of globalisation

Edited May 7, 2016 by EssKay

[StainlessSteelCat]

From the comments:-

Yeah, right - a zero hour job or making a few quid of adsense money from wacky youtube videos will really help you onto the housing ladder.

They are right in a way - there are new opportunities which didn't previously exist. Trouble is that work doesn't suit everyone and it isn't any way secure, and nor does it offer anything by way of career progression. Meanwhile, the entry level jobs for the young are drying up and paying less.

Edited May 7, 2016 by StainlessSteelCat

[Executive Sadman]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/comment/article-3577153/Why-younger-generation-no-longer-better-life-parents.html

But....but....I thought it was the "feckless young people buying iPads instead of houses" that set the generations apart*. Turns out the boomers just got lucky before the debt ponzi got out of hand. Even the Daily Mail is telling us this now.

Although....the article doesn't admit the world is in far deeper debt now than it was in 2007/2008. LOL @ "existing borrowings must be reduced" - ask Osborne how he's getting on with the national debt, and look at lenders now offering 40 year and 100% mortgages.

The younger generations are poorer because of a housing ponzi scheme that should have been demolished in 2008 rather than continuously propped up.

*just on Ipads, how many nights out in pubs and nightclubs would an iPad cost? 3 months of social life? Interesting given younger people are far less likely to go pubbing and clubbing these days - far less than the boomers did ("well, we worked hard and played hard, don't make 'em like they used to, right?").

Its funny when the oldies blame 'young people wasting money on ipads and phones' all the time, given electronics are so much cheaper in real terms, and when I look at boomers spending when they were young I see massive record collections.

Everyone I know has since about the early 2000s, downloaded music and movies for free. They get a new phone every other year, fine. Theyre still Skint. Broke.

[Executive Sadman]

dp

Edited May 7, 2016 by Executive Sadman

[Executive Sadman]

dp

Edited May 7, 2016 by Executive Sadman

[crashmonitor]

Its funny when the oldies blame 'young people wasting money on ipads and phones' all the time, given electronics are so much cheaper in real terms, and when I look at boomers spending when they were young I see massive record collections.

Everyone I know has since about the early 2000s, downloaded music and movies for free. They get a new phone every other year, fine. Theyre still Skint. Broke.

Tbh everything is cheaper....I bought an autumn winter GUS catalogue 1978/9 off ebay and tbh everything looks about the same price with the exception of electrical goods which have got cheaper in spite a fourfold increase in RPI. From memory a 20" colour television was £368 and a microwave oven £300. and as I have opreviously mentioned nothing under C for computer in the index of a thousand pages.

Edited May 7, 2016 by crashmonitor

[Executive Sadman]

Tbh everything is cheaper....I bought an autumn winter GUS catalogue 1978/9 off ebay and tbh everything looks about the same price with the exception of electrical goods which have got cheaper in spite a fourfold increase in RPI. From memory a 20" colour television was £368 and a microwave oven £300. and as I have opreviously mentioned nothing under C for computer in the index of a thousand pages.

But people are still skint. Admittedly, I think quality has fallen. A TV used to seem to go on forever, same with Lawnmowers. Now they break after a couple of years.

It cant be that people are just accumulating stuff, their houses are tiny (the under 40s)

[Mrs Bear]

Tbh everything is cheaper....I bought an autumn winter GUS catalogue 1978/9 off ebay and tbh everything looks about the same price with the exception of electrical goods which have got cheaper in spite a fourfold increase in RPI. From memory a 20" colour television was £368 and a microwave oven £300. and as I have opreviously mentioned nothing under C for computer in the index of a thousand pages.

Nearly all household goods and clothes were proportionately a lot more expensive before the advent of mass cheap imports.

I don't suppose I'm the only one here who remembers glasses (drinking) being given away free at petrol stations. It would seem ludicrous as an incentive now, when you can buy nice enough glasses dirt cheap in Asda, but they weren't cheap then.

[winkie]

Far more stuff and tat about now, and upgrades of little extra benefit worth paying the extra for....less future security, jobs offering less value, fewer opportunities for a greater number of people...unstable and unknown uncertainties...... Everything hanging by the balance to tipping point.

[janch]

Nearly all household goods and clothes were proportionately a lot more expensive before the advent of mass cheap imports.

I don't suppose I'm the only one here who remembers glasses (drinking) being given away free at petrol stations. It would seem ludicrous as an incentive now, when you can buy nice enough glasses dirt cheap in Asda, but they weren't cheap then.

Yes. We used to have hand-me down clothes and I remember my mother cutting sheets in half when they developed a hole and stitching them together the other way round (if you se what I mean ie sides to middle) and darning socks etc. Nothing much was thrown away either. This was the 60s/70s so not that long ago.

I still have a glass dish I got from a petrol station with green shield stamps

[canbuywontbuy]

.....and few young people can afford a house to put the glasses into. It used to be that houses were affordable, and then you had further aspirations to make the house better (the DIY boom) - not to sell on - but just as a personal aspiration to live in an even better house. Now most young people can't even get started with that line of thinking.

Edited May 7, 2016 by canbuywontbuy

[nnails]

i can rember my dad losing his temper in currys over the video. I did not lose his temper often. I now realise it was over a 400 quid amstrad video recorder around 1985ish. I guess my dad wage would have been around 500quid a month. A big guess there.

but now if we brought a tv recorrd it would be £100 but uk wage would be per month £1000. you would be less angry but i for one would not currys get away with faulty stuff.

i wonder how long the cheap electonic era will last

[Mrs Bear]

i can rember my dad losing his temper in currys over the video. I did not lose his temper often. I now realise it was over a 400 quid amstrad video recorder around 1985ish. I guess my dad wage would have been around 500quid a month. A big guess there.

but now if we brought a tv recorrd it would be £100 but uk wage would be per month £1000. you would be less angry but i for one would not currys get away with faulty stuff.

i wonder how long the cheap electonic era will last

I remember buying a cassette player/recorder in the early 70s, the first such thing I'd ever bought. It was a relatively cheap one but still cost £25 - my take-home pay at the time was about £100 pcm, though since working for an airline I did get some overseas allowances on top. IIRC it was the first thing I ever put on a credit card - an Access card I'd only just acquired.

Just a few years later, maybe 1975, Mr B bought his folks a state of the art Sony colour TV - all they had at the time was a black and white one from Radio Rentals. It was just before Wimbledon, which his old man was addicted to. It cost over £400 - an awful lot at the time.

Edited May 7, 2016 by Mrs Bear

[nnails]

I remember buying a cassette player/recorder in the early 70s, the first such thing I'd ever bought. It was a relatively cheap one but still cost £25 - my take-home pay at the time was about £100 pcm, though since working for an airline I did get some overseas allowances on top. IIRC it was the first thing I ever put on a credit card - an Access card I'd only just acquired.

Just a few years later, maybe 1975, Mr B bought his folks a state of the art Sony colour TV - all they had at the time was a black and white one from Radio Rentals. It was just before Wimbledon, which his old man was addicted to. It cost over £400 - an awful lot at the time.

I seem to remember it was quite comon to rent tv back then because they was expensive and unreliable?

[Venger]

Change is needed. It can be by choice with societies debating the issues properly and reaching an equitable solution to share the costs of the adjustment. Alternatively, it will happen as the system collapses with devastating and highly disruptive consequences.

Plugging his book a bit, it seems to me.

Time for it to be a generational debate choice is over - they've not wanted to know during mad and madder HPI++++ and BTL stupidity. Adjustment is coming. All the core-voters BTL HPI lovers, didn't realise that Gov has duty to health economy and the banks. HPC and fresh lending. BTL has taken hit after hit after hit since 8 July 2015.

Anyway nonsense 'devastating consequences'. Only to some BTL chancers, HPI massive ego heads who are trapped in 'what it is worth' at mad-gainz values, and a few who took the decision to buy at very mad prices.

Healthy economy consequences from HPC and fresh lending, at volume, with high transactions for decades, and all that implies for healthy financial system. Money left over to be spent in more productive economy, rather than unproducive housing assets.

Too many have suffered the devastating conseqences in the BTL mad-gainz.

If I was given the chance, I'd push the HPC crash button right now.

HPC is coming.

..Sir Jon Cunliffe: Of course, you also need to estimate whether, if a number of buy-to-let landlords with mortgages exit the market and the flow of new buy-to-let mortgages goes down because of the extra stamp duty, that means more first-time buyers coming into the market because there is a slowing in house-price growth.

Life isn't fair remember, and you can only expect dribs-and-drabs of price falls at most, especially in expensive areas, and perhaps not even that.

Until real HPC.

They have found a house they like, which does need modernisation, and because it's quite a bit more, and there is very little at any sort of affordable level, we have offered help which they are accepting this time.

I did briefly suggest waiting for a bit in case prices do start coming down, but my daughter is worried about them moving even further out of reach. They are in an expensive part of the country anyway, and given what happened last time I suggested waiting, I didn't mention it again. Like you, they would plan to stay in the house long term and will improve it considerably. Our future son in law is very capable with any sort of DIY. If the house were already done up, it would almost certainly be out of their reach now.

I am well aware that BOMAD is very unfair on those who can't expect any help, but sadly life never was fair, and most parents like to help if they can. Of course I wish prices had come down to realistic levels - I would not give a toss if the value of our own house halved tomorrow. But at best all I can see now is dribs and drabs, and maybe not even much of that, at least not in expensive areas.

Edited May 7, 2016 by Venger

[Biggus]

Defered pleasure or consumption is probably the defining feature of the middle class. It used to be the case that saving a portion of your income every month for a decade or so could give you a small independent income. Now you'd have to save for about a hundred years for the same result. So what's the point? Buying a home has been pushed out of reach, especially of people encouraged not to save but to take on debt instead. Is it really suprising that an environment of discouraging savings and property ownership is destroying the middle class?

What's worse is the shift in attitudes that comes with the instant gratification culture being fostered. A generation of borrowers and are hollowing out middle class values. Once you learn the habits of a deadbeat you are condemned to live as a deadbeat.

[Mrs Bear]

I seem to remember it was quite comon to rent tv back then because they was expensive and unreliable?

True, but I think reliability had improved by the mid 70s. Still expensive, though. I don't think Mr B's folks ever had any trouble with the Sony. After they died we had it in our loft for ages - Mr B couldn't bring himself to junk it. Eventually we put it on Freecycle maybe 6 or 7 years ago. I never thought anyone would want it - just the 4 channels and nowhere to plug in anything else - but someone did come and take it within a couple of days. It was still working fine!

[Rave]

True, but I think reliability had improved by the mid 70s. Still expensive, though. I don't think Mr B's folks ever had any trouble with the Sony. After they died we had it in our loft for ages - Mr B couldn't bring himself to junk it. Eventually we put it on Freecycle maybe 6 or 7 years ago. I never thought anyone would want it - just the 4 channels and nowhere to plug in anything else - but someone did come and take it within a couple of days. It was still working fine!

Very prescient of Sony to have installed a fourth channel 7 years before Channel 4 started broadcasting!