To think the UK is in terminal decline

It’s not just the UK. It’s happening all over Europe as well. I worry constantly about what the future will be like for my children when they are older. A lot of people seem oblivious to whats happening, living in Lala land. Either that or they are in denial and think it won’t affect them.

I agree - the next generation of the middle class is being completely crushed. Property prices, difficulty of pension saving, cost of childcare, cost of education to secure a job, lack of social mobility etc.

I think frozen thresholds on tax are becoming the major issue - combined with student loans repayments it means you might be paying 40%+ rates from minimum wage, 50%+ from higher rate.

By all means get your tiny violins out, but I probably had an ‘upper middle class’ upbringing and despite individually earning more than my parents at the same age… my lifestyle looks very different!

It also leaves me quite conflicted about the social contract I’ve always believed I’m part of - I pay loads of tax, and get very little in return. I also don’t have the lifestyle I’d expect on my income, mainly because of the cost of housing / childcare.

There is a huge discrepancy in lifestyle in this country based on wealth - here in London you’re now looking at £3-4k a month in mortgage if you want to buy even a small house.

I read an article by matthew syed about this kind of thinking this morning, the tendency towards negativity bias - most people in the western world are enjoying lives better than other generation that has existed

I think the decline is a global issue.

We've just moved back to the UK from overseas after almost 5 years due to issues there with high tax, inflation and the declining economy and basically the government there making it increasingly impossible for us to continue running our business and raising our family comfortably.

The grass isn't always greener - we have it worse in some ways but miles better in many many others.

Cancel Amazon and shop locally or if you really can't find what you want, buy direct from a UK company website.
Try and repurpose packaging so less for council to collect. Take your litter home. Have firm boundaries for your DC so they don't cause trouble at school.
Go to your local theatre and support your towns football team instead of subscribing to sky and Netflix

I agree. Also “wealth” isn’t real - money isn’t real. It’s all a construct of supply and demand. Pound notes in your pocket or numbers on a bank statement are just a representation of relative wealth compared to others, and can rise or fall according to exchange rates, inflation, underlying asset value, etc.

If one person gets wealthier another will lose wealth. So it’s impossible on a world wide scale for everyone to become richer. As we see today, westerners are getting poorer (but we don’t know it yet) due to the trillions of debt artificially making us think we’re wealthy. Easterners are growing their wealth at our expense - they’re the ones lending us the money to buy their goods and services to improve their economies and the wealth of their citizens.

The more people on the planet, the more our resources have to be spread. Double the people and you will halve average wealth, but it won’t be equal - some will be a lot richer some will be a lot poorer, mostly dependant upon your country/continent.

The super rich have brought up all the worlds resources and are selling them back to us at twice as much.

Yeah, there's no getting away from this decline.

I agree but the pearl clutchers insist we must be kind -so immigrants come in other thousands, thousands of public service jobs must be kept (they will be retiring soon many of them into their ample pensions) , we must pay out benefits without scrutiny, provide cheap social housing etc we actually need a doge to sort things so we can start again with a more reasonable tax and benefit systems for a chronically in debt country. This won’t happen so yes we are stuffed.

We have too many people on the planet. Decline is inevitable for the vast majority of countries.

I agree. But most of the developed Western World is heading towards economic end game. That’s why politicians are universally crap these days - they’ve no clue how to fix it and know they won’t get voted in if they say the inevitable - the best we can do is managed decline. Very worrying times for our children I’m afraid. The future is in the East not the West.