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

[Bland Unsight]

Frankly, compared to the scale of wealth destruction we're going to see, BTL financing isn't even a drop in the bucket.

Isn't it a bit overblown to call credit write-downs "wealth destruction". If the supposed "wealth" was never really there, how can it properly be understood to have been destroyed?

I can get excited about accounting entries, but I don't mistake them for the underlying economic reality. People. Stuff. Animal spirits. Promises, dumb as shit promises and totally dumb as shit promises relating to magic beans.

It'll be what it'll be.

However, whilst BTL getting its stupid face ripped off might be a rounding error in some contexts, it may have material redistributive effects when the fortunes of Fergus Wilson are tallied against 800 other Kent residents. This is not a forum for the elite. Some of us identify ourselves as the people in the the cheap seats and redistribution amongst the cheap seats matters to us.

[Big Orange]

Socialising more with people my own age or younger and I notice the broadening trend of people needing to work multiple jobs or doing voluntary work, with very smart people more likely being unemployed or in rubbish jibs. And still a lot of businesses like to run skeleton crews...

[Inoperational Bumblebee]

A bit of light relief. Saw this on Facebook and thought it was kind of appropriate here...

[Riedquat]

Since I'm too lazy to go through six pages, has anyone actually defined what a better life actually is? I had a quick glance at the first post and it seemed to be concentrating on the usual distractions and "must keep growing" fallacies.

[justthisbloke]

Since I'm too lazy to go through six pages, has anyone actually defined what a better life actually is? I had a quick glance at the first post and it seemed to be concentrating on the usual distractions and "must keep growing" fallacies.

Quite. The quote in the OP talks of "standard of living" - which is not at all the same as "quality of life". The former broadly translates into "you own more stuff", and the latter into "you own more time". I know which definition of "better" my life decisions target.

[iamnumerate]

I think the main point is that certainly in 60s it was possible for a working man with two kids and a stay-at-home mum could buy a house (house not a flat ie with garden etc) with a 3x salary mortgage.

Now last week on TV housing minister?? (MP for Croydon) saying 250k price for a flat was OK because with HtB and a deposit two people with combined 45k salaries could get a 4X joint salary morgtage. No one challenged the figures or the madness.

That is the most depressing thing that no one challenges it. I have family in Spain and the housing boom there has caused massive construction (even now). About 12 years an ok flat there was about 60% of the price of my flat in London (since sold). Now it is about 15% although things are bad in Spain they are not so poor that £30K for a 3 bed flat is a lot (and this is with Ninja mortgages being available).

[crashmonitor]

That is the most depressing thing that no one challenges it. I have family in Spain and the housing boom there has caused massive construction (even now). About 12 years an ok flat there was about 60% of the price of my flat in London (since sold). Now it is about 15% although things are bad in Spain they are not so poor that £30K for a 3 bed flat is a lot (and this is with Ninja mortgages being available).

Like Ireland, the Spanish property boom was always on shakey foundations....unlimited building land and unrestrictive planning controls, a stable population and a sinking economy. Politicians here have a test bed in a narrow corridor from Wembley north London through to Northampton where you pack all comers into a narrow strip from all over the world, have restrictive planning controls and see what happens. It might be the most God forsaken place to live in N Europe but it has become the most expensive outside a major city.

Actually the nicest places to live happen to be the cheapest and the includes the rural north of England and Spain, so what if economic activity is slow. Leave the madness and misery to the Home Counties.

Edited May 10, 2016 by crashmonitor

[Riedquat]

Quite. The quote in the OP talks of "standard of living" - which is not at all the same as "quality of life". The former broadly translates into "you own more stuff", and the latter into "you own more time". I know which definition of "better" my life decisions target.

Precisely, pursuit of the former is damaging the latter. It's a hangover from the time when the former did indeed make life better (don't want to go back to working in a Victorian factory or medieval field) but for some reason there's this conviction that that's a continual, linear path of improvement and that "improvements" aren't a game of diminishing returns. We've had sufficient practicality for many decades now.

That all said there are serious issues around these days, which this site's raison d'etre demonstrates. There's rather a lot of confusions about what's cause, what's effect, and what's part of what.

Edited May 10, 2016 by Riedquat

[winkie]

Since I'm too lazy to go through six pages, has anyone actually defined what a better life actually is? I had a quick glance at the first post and it seemed to be concentrating on the usual distractions and "must keep growing" fallacies.

Safety.

Security.

Community......and S.M.A.R.T. targets.

[TheCountOfNowhere]

This problem is easily solved

[stormymonday_2011]

Precisely, pursuit of the former is damaging the latter. It's a hangover from the time when the former did indeed make life better (don't want to go back to working in a Victorian factory or medieval field) but for some reason there's this conviction that that's a continual, linear path of improvement and that "improvements" aren't a game of diminishing returns. We've had sufficient practicality for many decades now.

That all said there are serious issues around these days, which this site's raison d'etre demonstrates. There's rather a lot of confusions about what's cause, what's effect, and what's part of what.

The UKs obsession with property as a route to wealth, security and happiness is at the core of the problem and that malaise infects even some of the more fervent supporters of an HPC on here. Implicitly some of them are buying into the British property dream as much as those who are outright HPI rampers. What generates a lot their anger is that they feel excluded from it. Edited May 10, 2016 by stormymonday_2011

[crashmonitor]

Precisely, pursuit of the former is damaging the latter. It's a hangover from the time when the former did indeed make life better (don't want to go back to working in a Victorian factory or medieval field) but for some reason there's this conviction that that's a continual, linear path of improvement and that "improvements" aren't a game of diminishing returns. We've had sufficient practicality for many decades now.

That all said there are serious issues around these days, which this site's raison d'etre demonstrates. There's rather a lot of confusions about what's cause, what's effect, and what's part of what.

I think there's a lot more unnecessary expenditure than unnecessary work, though I guess the expenditure bit provides work for others which is why the Government encourages waste. Rather than concentrate on the work side of the equation, the earliest way to a ''get out of jail free card'' early is to figure out the expenditure side of the equation. Some of the most overworked have no money and are trapped by Society and cultural expectations.

[winkie]

I think there's a lot more unnecessary expenditure than unnecessary work, though I guess the expenditure bit provides work for others which is why the Government encourages waste. Rather than concentrate on the work side of the equation, the earliest way to a ''get out of jail free card'' early is to figure out the expenditure side of the equation. Some of the most overworked have no money and are trapped by Society and cultural expectations.

So many things are intentionally broken so that jobs may be created to fix them....

[Riedquat]

So many things are intentionally broken so that jobs may be created to fix them....

I'd say that crashmonitor's post is a pretty good summary of it. It's all rather gone off the rails, we see genuine improvement in the past, on the back of a lot of work (even if the elite were still creaming most of it off for themselves) and say "That's good, we need to keep doing that!" The problem is that it turns into "progress" for its own sake, rather than actually meaningfully improving anything (since it isn't tackling any genuine unpleasant issues, as they've been largely sorted), and work for the sake of work instead of what it produces.

[zugzwang]

The UKs obsession with property as a route to wealth, security and happiness is at the core of the problem and that malaise infects even some of the more fervent supporters of an HPC on here. Implicitly some of them are buying into the British property dream as much as those who are outright HPI rampers. What generates a lot their anger is that they feel excluded from it.

+1

Naming no names but I think you've got to the essence of the divide here. Those who believe that UK property wealth is real but that they have been denied their share of it, and those who believe the UK is bust.

[winkie]

The UKs obsession with property as a route to wealth, security and happiness is at the core of the problem and that malaise infects even some of the more fervent supporters of an HPC on here. Implicitly some of them are buying into the British property dream as much as those who are outright HPI rampers. What generates a lot their anger is that they feel excluded from it.

Yes, for far more people, no longer realistic or achievable and certainly not timely.

I think there's a lot more unnecessary expenditure than unnecessary work, though I guess the expenditure bit provides work for others which is why the Government encourages waste. Rather than concentrate on the work side of the equation, the earliest way to a ''get out of jail free card'' early is to figure out the expenditure side of the equation. Some of the most overworked have no money and are trapped by Society and cultural expectations.

Very true.

[Venger]

The UKs obsession with property as a route to wealth, security and happiness is at the core of the problem and that malaise infects even some of the more fervent supporters of an HPC on here. Implicitly some of them are buying into the British property dream as much as those who are outright HPI rampers. What generates a lot their anger is that they feel excluded from it.

Perhaps, but some of us feel the system is excessively slanted to one side (HPI / worshipping HPI - virtually and msm newspaper story suggesting HPI+ is good, and all the BTL invasion), and try and push back against that. My view is one of wanting affordable widespread homeownership, purging the BTL madness.

I don't accept that because many of us want a rebalancing that we must somehow be lacking peace-harmony and happy views of ourselves and the world - or just some basic opposite reflection of the HPI side with all its ugliness, and have that inside us as well because of 'the system' - as the opposite but full of it too. I want hpc and no future hpi.

That somehow we're lacking in knowing what spiritual wealth is- that we don't have the right to push back against this housing situation (housing financialisation to extremes). Or that is where our focus should be even more so, until reached some Zen style transformation to become entities of pure energy, transcending like in an episode of Star Trek... renting and saving and working productively whilst kicking up the rent or making do with ever less.

My guess is we are in tune with spiritual wealth it far more with a lot of basic positive human positive traits than so many of the HPI forever complacent and BTL heads, and we still have a right to push back against the HPI situation, to find its faults, to hope and position for rebalance. To push back against all the excuses for those backing the HPI+ side.

Then there's me and my husband, earning the same, can't afford to buy a flat, will NEVER now have the chance to benefit from the HPI boom that got my friend and her hubby a detached Victorian villa. Even if house prices fell 50 percent in the next 10 years we'd never build up the equity they made on the rising market in order to EVER buy a house like theirs.

We don't live an extravagant lifestyle, by the way: we don't have a car, we don't buy consumer durables, we don't go on holidays, we save as much as we can, we give to charities and do local voluntary work and local political party campaign work when we have time, we live as economically and as greenly as we can.

Maybe I should have just gone for the money and not cared about anything else. I spent all my teenage years and my 20s working incredibly hard at school and university so that I could get to a good university and get good grades and get a decent job that paid a decent amount and -- fond hope! -- do some good for society too.

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That's great, really. Well, that's me told. I'll just slave away comforting myself with the fact that I have a spiritual destiny that is beyond the hallmarks of worldly success like houses and children and a comfortable life, that I am not entitled to aspire to Sounds like we're all regressing -- to the kind of society where the plebs lived under a starry-eyed brand of religious thought-control where they were told, and truly believed, that it was their destiny to know their place and not question their betters, no matter how hard they worked or how deserving they were; and must never question the fact that idle people lived nicer lives than them, no matter how undeserving. How great this country was then! Why they begrudged the unearned wealth of their betters was beyond reasoning!

Only, where this used to be based on arbitrary hierarchies of birth, now it's determined by whether one seized the Great Moment and stepped on to the star-blessed Property Boat, after the departing of which all others must revalue the normal yardsticks of worldly success, renouncing all worldly aspirations and abjuring all "expectations", in order to support and sustain the Great Property Owners, whose material success we Must Not Question or aspire to. Otherwise we risk spiritual death, if we (heretics! burn them!) question the Great Property Orthodoxy, and fail to realise our place in the Great Scheme of Being.

Why, we should merely be content to serve the property owners, and should be grateful for our lot! Obviously, for me, the road to enlightenment and peace is that I must realise that the "hallmarks of success are mere illusions." I shall ponder this pseudo-Eastern wisdom from my cramped rented flat; and feel superior in spiritual destiny to my "friend" in her large comfortable house. Never fear, my disheartened HPC friends, we shall receive our reward for our privations after death! Let us comfort ourselves with that knowledge even as we subsidise the lifestyles of those with greater material wealth. We are the Elect.

Is that working better for you.....? blink.gif

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Why are you so keen to defend people who basically made money for nothing in a speculative boom market, just because they happened to buy a house at the right time? no-one is more aware than I am about finding happiness in small things. As I freely admit, I traded money and wealth to return to life of the mind (har har -- in reality, the life of petty politics and overgrown baby undergraduates, as other academics will confirm). I never expected to get so completely screwed out of the normal things in life -- a house. All these exhortations to find pleasure in little things and be grateful for what I have -- well, bring some more coals to Newcastle, why don't you! I don't see why I shouldn't be pissed off. Bulls, shouldn't you be a little worried that the well-meaning suckers in life -- the teachers, nurses, social workers, young people in general -- are starting to stick two fingers up at society? What on earth is going to happen to all those materialist people when the non-materialist do-gooders like me start giving up and saying, you got it, chaps, I give up, selfishness and greed are the way to go? No more free public sector or low-paid vocational work for you. No more scholars, or nurses, or care home staff, or vicars, or charity workers, or police, or foster parents, or cancer researchers -- they'll all be deciding that on this evidence, they're better off trying to screw other people and the system and hang doing anything worthwhile for society when you can lie to buy a nasty flat and paint it magnolia and hey presto you've earned 100k in a year whereas actually work hard and care about things and you're f**ed.

I have some beautiful yellow daffodils that I tended myself from small bulbs in a window-box outside my office, and often I gaze at them for a while and admire their natural beauty, and think how wonderful the miracles of spring are. They can occupy me for, oh, a full 3 minutes at a time before I return to pondering the injustices of my 75-80 hour working week and my financial inability to attain a decent standard of living. It's nice to appreciate the lovely small things in life, but it's getting boring now.

[Dorkins]

The UKs obsession with property as a route to wealth, security and happiness is at the core of the problem and that malaise infects even some of the more fervent supporters of an HPC on here. Implicitly some of them are buying into the British property dream as much as those who are outright HPI rampers. What generates a lot their anger is that they feel excluded from it.

You're overthinking it. Most of us just want a decent place to live which we can settle into without the risk of a landlord chucking us out in 6/12 months.

[Digsby]

You're overthinking it. Most of us just want a decent place to live which we can settle into without the risk of a landlord chucking us out in 6/12 months.

+1

It's not a malaise to want your own place to live, it is a malaise to want/expect it to be a source of wealth.