What If The 99% Refuse To Work & Consume?

[iamnumerate]

13 minutes ago, Cryptotrader said:

No. Not in my experience. They would rather see a job unfilled and cause chaos than employ someone over fifty. There are still plenty of systems out there relying on, or having '80s & '90s components/software. I had plenty of skills not easy to come by for newcomers as well as the latest stuff.

TSB/Lloyds could have found plenty of people in their fifties who were comfortable with the legacy as well as new systems - but they chose not to.

Wow, I did not realize that they were that stupid.  Hopefully Lloyds/TSB will change their attitude.

[Errol]

10 minutes ago, iamnumerate said:

Wow, I did not realize that they were that stupid.  Hopefully Lloyds/TSB will change their attitude.

Hahaha.

Edited May 21, 2018 by Errol

[ThePrufeshanul]

Congratulations for escaping the hamster wheel Cryptotrader!

[pathfinder]

I have told work I am winding it down by Christmas. Less than 1 day deadlines, Jumping around 6 different tasks as the priority shifts, Software unstable, used the same software for 23 years (I am bored), last agreed rate took 8 months to implement but the going rate has gone up £5 again, all this and the most unstable network drive I have ever seen.

Now this is just 3 days a week, this month however I snapped! Got a few things I have always wanted to do as an income stream. Plus I liked a dabble in Ebay (got to £400 a month using 16 hours a month of my time).

[scottbeard]

On ‎16‎/‎05‎/‎2018 at 19:51, dugsbody said:

I will keep repeating it:
We are much better off today than 50 years ago. We have better access to healthcare, services, our lives are longer (please don't cherry pick), we go on more holidays, our food options are far greater, our social protections are better, our working conditions are better, our transport is better, our social liberties are better (gay people can be gay and not fear castration), and countless other ways.

I agree with you absolutely - we are better off than 1968 by basically any measure you care to use.

What concerns me is that pretty much all of that improvement happened in the first 30 of those 50 years.  Since 1998 the rate of improvement seems to have slowed down, at least in the UK, very substantially. 

Since 1998 we've seen university become extortionate to attend, houses become unaffordable for most people and virtually every final salary pension scheme close to new people.  At every stage of life people are financially worse off, and even life expectancy improvements have stalled.  We have made some progress is other areas, but the "net position" seems pretty all square from 1998 to today.

Maybe it's just because here we've "had our turn" for improvements, and it's the developing world now seeing the improvements.  But I still feel we could do more in this country to generate more wealth and share it better. 

[RentingForever]

49 minutes ago, scottbeard said:

I agree with you absolutely - we are better off than 1968 by basically any measure you care to use.

What concerns me is that pretty much all of that improvement happened in the first 30 of those 50 years.  Since 1998 the rate of improvement seems to have slowed down, at least in the UK, very substantially. 

Since 1998 we've seen university become extortionate to attend, houses become unaffordable for most people and virtually every final salary pension scheme close to new people.  At every stage of life people are financially worse off, and even life expectancy improvements have stalled.  We have made some progress is other areas, but the "net position" seems pretty all square from 1998 to today.

Maybe it's just because here we've "had our turn" for improvements, and it's the developing world now seeing the improvements.  But I still feel we could do more in this country to generate more wealth and share it better. 

It could be that the first 30 years of improvement were funded off the back of cheap credit and  unfunded future-promises (see final-salary pensions); and the last 20 years a combination of reversion to mean and paying off the promises.

Not entirely convinced myself, but it's a possible explanation.

[iamnumerate]

52 minutes ago, scottbeard said:

I agree with you absolutely - we are better off than 1968 by basically any measure you care to use.

What concerns me is that pretty much all of that improvement happened in the first 30 of those 50 years.  Since 1998 the rate of improvement seems to have slowed down, at least in the UK, very substantially. 

Since 1998 we've seen university become extortionate to attend, houses become unaffordable for most people and virtually every final salary pension scheme close to new people.  At every stage of life people are financially worse off, and even life expectancy improvements have stalled.  We have made some progress is other areas, but the "net position" seems pretty all square from 1998 to today.

Maybe it's just because here we've "had our turn" for improvements, and it's the developing world now seeing the improvements.  But I still feel we could do more in this country to generate more wealth and share it better. 

Not in terms of cars, electronics and communications.  All a lot better than before

I agree with you about university, houses and pensions though.  Possibly if the Government didn't spend money making housing expensive via the benefits system and HTB we could have free uni and final salary pensions again.

[Riedquat]

1 hour ago, iamnumerate said:

Not in terms of cars, electronics and communications.  All a lot better than before

A lot better? They did what people wanted them to in 1998. The real improvements that actually made a real impact on quality of life all happened much, much earlier (although it tended to take quite some time between their invention and having an impact on most peoples' lives).  A car that doesn't rust as much is nice but hardly comparable to a functioning sewage system. That's why I regard most of the changes people cheer on now as fairly superficial (there are always some exceptions), and the problems we've got are largely social ones not ultimately caused by economic or (lack of) technological factors, and hence the solutions don't lie in wealth or technology, beyond using them as a tool to achieve those solutions.

Edited May 21, 2018 by Riedquat

[iamnumerate]

28 minutes ago, Riedquat said:

A lot better? They did what people wanted them to in 1998. The real improvements that actually made a real impact on quality of life all happened much, much earlier (although it tended to take quite some time between their invention and having an impact on most peoples' lives).  A car that doesn't rust as much is nice but hardly comparable to a functioning sewage system. That's why I regard most of the changes people cheer on now as fairly superficial (there are always some exceptions), and the problems we've got are largely social ones not ultimately caused by economic or (lack of) technological factors, and hence the solutions don't lie in wealth or technology, beyond using them as a tool to achieve those solutions.

Yes and no.  If you have relatives who live abroad then it is pretty nice to be able to phone them regularly without massive costs.

Also Broadband is a big improvement on dial up and PCs are so much better.

A lot of medicines are a lot better than in the past, when I was a kid the only treatment for mouth ulcers was bonjela which was useless - now I can buy which gets rid of the pain straight away - not a possibility until the late 90s.

 

[scottbeard]

1 hour ago, iamnumerate said:

Not in terms of cars, electronics and communications.  All a lot better than before

I agree with you about university, houses and pensions though.  Possibly if the Government didn't spend money making housing expensive via the benefits system and HTB we could have free uni and final salary pensions again.

Agreed, but as I said

Quote

the "net position" seems pretty all square from 1998 to today

In other words, from 1968 to 1998 pretty much EVERYTHING just got better, whether it's the quality of manufactured goods, equal rights or pay/pensions.  Whereas from 1998 to 2018 it's been swings and roundabouts.

[iamnumerate]

1 minute ago, scottbeard said:

Agreed, but as I said

In other words, from 1968 to 1998 pretty much EVERYTHING just got better, whether it's the quality of manufactured goods, equal rights or pay/pensions.  Whereas from 1998 to 2018 it's been swings and roundabouts.

Sorry I didn't see that.

Saying that I think from 68 to 98 there were some swings and roundabouts, housing probably got more expensive in that time (nothing compared to later of course).

[scottbeard]

3 minutes ago, iamnumerate said:

Saying that I think from 68 to 98 there were some swings and roundabouts, housing probably got more expensive in that time (nothing compared to later of course).

In affordability terms (which is not the only possible measure, but is arguably the most relevant) the mid to late 1990s are the cheapest houses in the UK have pretty much ever been (at least since the second world war).  Then mortgage companies realised they could lend based on two incomes, house prices shot up over 60% in 2 years, and life was frankly never the same again.

[iamnumerate]

30 minutes ago, scottbeard said:

In affordability terms (which is not the only possible measure, but is arguably the most relevant) the mid to late 1990s are the cheapest houses in the UK have pretty much ever been (at least since the second world war).  Then mortgage companies realised they could lend based on two incomes, house prices shot up over 60% in 2 years, and life was frankly never the same again.

Good point, a friend couldn't afford to buy in 94 and decided to save - it did not work out well!

[Riedquat]

2 hours ago, iamnumerate said:

A lot of medicines are a lot better than in the past, when I was a kid the only treatment for mouth ulcers was bonjela which was useless - now I can buy which gets rid of the pain straight away - not a possibility until the late 90s.

Bonjela tasted nice.

[iamnumerate]

2 hours ago, Riedquat said:

Bonjela tasted nice.

It was horrible - and more importantly useless

[zugzwang]

2 hours ago, Riedquat said:

Bonjela tasted nice.

Rinstead pastels. Yum.

[Guest]

19 hours ago, scottbeard said:

I agree with you absolutely - we are better off than 1968 by basically any measure you care to use.

What concerns me is that pretty much all of that improvement happened in the first 30 of those 50 years.  Since 1998 the rate of improvement seems to have slowed down, at least in the UK, very substantially. 

Since 1998 we've seen university become extortionate to attend, houses become unaffordable for most people and virtually every final salary pension scheme close to new people.  At every stage of life people are financially worse off, and even life expectancy improvements have stalled.  We have made some progress is other areas, but the "net position" seems pretty all square from 1998 to today.

Maybe it's just because here we've "had our turn" for improvements, and it's the developing world now seeing the improvements.  But I still feel we could do more in this country to generate more wealth and share it better. 

I kind of agree as well, but a few days ago I was watching an episode of Darling Buds of May with David Jason and thought to myself to use a Pop Larkin phrase, "just perfick", it's the life I dream of and yet it was nearly 70 years ago now when it was based.

This morning I had a quick peek at  the BBC news website, this morning they are picking on prices of petrol, it seems to be going up a few quid, cannot say I noticed and I put in £70 weekly. I dare say they will fight for us poor consumers just like they stir the sh** with food prices and make farmers lives hell about small rises when the fact is cheap UK food costs are historically fantastic, I still feel blessed when I come out of Lidl loaded up with healthy food that has cost me 50 quid.

Everywhere you look there are moans and groans about rises in costs in transport, fuel, white good, holidays, clothing, cars etc etc, it never ends, the BBC  among others that will stir the country up and create all that lovely competition that causes a price war that gives us all those lovely cheap prices in most cases, I can go to a Greek Island for a week on a days pay or fly to the other end of the planet in Australia or NZ for just short of 2 days pay.

But where is that magical competition when it comes to  housing, where are all the punch ups and treading over  each  to fight to get our hard earned money, where are the cheap offers to out do their competitors so we go to them, and most importantly where is the media and the BBC, whose fighting for this in justice of high costs.

No, this is how it works, not only will they make a person feel happy that he has to sell their soul for 25 years for an ex crack den, they will lend them money they cannot ever really afford to pay back and have a proper life and the buyer should feel honoured that he has been given this opportunity. 

This country is perverse, these people should be fighting  to get my money and not me pleading with them, not living in a country where top 10% wage earners if they are lucky can afford the dregs and have to be creative and dishonest to get on a housing market that will probably destroy their young years.

[The Spaniard]

15 minutes ago, inbruges said:

No, this is how it works, not only will they make a person feel happy that he has to sell their soul for 25 years for an ex crack den, they will lend them money they cannot ever really afford to pay back and have a proper life and the buyer should feel honoured that he has been given this opportunity. 

This country is perverse, these people should be fighting  to get my money and not me pleading with them, not living in a country where top 10% wage earners if they are lucky can afford the dregs and have to be creative and dishonest to get on a housing market that will probably destroy their young years.

They don’t lend money, they create new bank credit. It is these ephemeral numbers that we, the 99%, must use as our medium of exchange.

Almost all units of this swirling cloud of numbers (pounds) were thus borrowed into existence/circulation at interest from the commercial banks.

Hence it is fair to say that we  rent our medium of exchange, quite unnecessarily and at enormous cost, from the banking cartel.

This absurd money system is a primary cause of HPI.

See http://www.positivemoney.org for further analysis.

 

 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, The Spaniard said:

They don’t lend money, they create new bank credit. It is these ephemeral numbers that we, the 99%, must use as our medium of exchange.

Almost all units of this swirling cloud of numbers (pounds) were thus borrowed into existence/circulation at interest from the commercial banks.

Hence it is fair to say that we  rent our medium of exchange, quite unnecessarily and at enormous cost, from the banking cartel.

This absurd money system is a primary cause of HPI.

See http://www.positivemoney.org for further analysis.

 

 

Totally get what you are saying, but still, that pound I am earning and that's in my pocket has travel agents fighting between themselves for my business and all those lovely holidaysoft I take.  Same as the car I buy or the food is eat or the entertainment  I watch, it all works more or less under a capitalist system where they are all fighting for their market share.  

I am not sure what you would call the UK property market, it is anything but a market, and make no mistake it has been designed that way. The UK property market is a case of take it or leave it 

[Riedquat]

2 minutes ago, inbruges said:

Totally get what you are saying, but still, that pound I am earning and that's in my pocket has travel agents fighting between themselves for my business and all those lovely holidaysoft I take.  Same as the car I buy or the food is eat or the entertainment  I watch, it all works more or less under a capitalist system where they are all fighting for their market share.

The lending is why they want more of those pounds before they'll do anything for you.

[The Spaniard]

7 hours ago, inbruges said:

Totally get what you are saying, but still, that pound I am earning and that's in my pocket has travel agents fighting between themselves for my business and all those lovely holidaysoft I take.  Same as the car I buy or the food is eat or the entertainment  I watch, it all works more or less under a capitalist system where they are all fighting for their market share.  

I am not sure what you would call the UK property market, it is anything but a market, and make no mistake it has been designed that way. The UK property market is a case of take it or leave it 

Yes, the numbers in the banks’ computers work fine as a medium of exchange, all very slick and electronic these days.

However, these welcome properties of the payments system are logically independent of how the money numbers get into the system in the first place. This is the crux of the matter.

What rational group of money users would agree collectively to borrow their money supply into existence at interest from a commercial cartel? Why pay handsomely for the use of a bunch of numbers when they could readily supply themselves with the same utility at almost zero cost?

And yet we, the user community of the pound sterling, do just that!

[dpg50000]

On 21/05/2018 at 09:32, Cryptotrader said:

I left IT after 30 years, aged 50.

Absolutely no work on offer six years ago for a 50 year old. The bus loads turning up from Tech Mahindra to replace entire teams showed the direction IT was going in this country. (Watch out Bexiters! Big business will not give up their teat of cheap, educated and young workers). Not that it was the only factor - it's obvious that ageism is rampant in UK IT. Know who the real enemy is; It 'aint the immigrants!

So, for a while I tried hundreds and hundreds of entry level jobs in any sector. Still no joy - a few were honest and told me the reason was seeing Senior architect etc on my C.V. and binning my application on the basis that I was over qualified and "would get bored".

So... how to adjust from a regular salary, often into 6 figures.

Well, Bitcoin helped. I had a large collection of equipment in my lab - I set to work mining, Bitcoin at first then moving to Litecoin etc with high end graphics cards and on to ASICs. I also made big, big on cryptonotes - CPU mining as well as loads of Ripple doing stuff for SETI and medical research (protein folding simulation).

Now, outside of Aldi & Lidl I don't spend a penny in this country. The biggest non discretionary items we get from charity shops, Ebay etc. I do spend money on LPG for my £600 car I bought on Ebay six years ago, though! If it fails MOT I fix it myself.

Occasionally I top up by cashing out some crypto in Hungary - 5% corp tax. Luvvly, Jubbly!

Do I feel guilty? Hell no! I was expecting, willing, and qualified to work, in an industry alleged to have a 'severe skills shortage' for at least another 15 years. Now I have totally adjusted - there is no going back. I never read a novel in 25 years - any reading time was wasted having to bother with 'Routing TCP/IP, SIP Protocol, SQL etc etc. Now I have a much better quality of life.

And I watch the consumer economy tank from the sidelines. Am I bothered? No.

Yep, I have experienced many colleagues in their early 50's in I.T. be made redundant and never managed to get back into it, despite having a wealth of experience and proven track record of acquiring new and relevant skills. Used to be replaced by the Tech Mahindra types, but now seem to be replaced by  young, educated (but completely inexperienced) graduates on less than half the wage, funnily enough.

Edited May 22, 2018 by dpg50000