To think the UK is in terminal decline

It's a general rather than specific comment. All the massive monopoly type companies. The type of companies who prioritise CEO salaries and dividends over services. There are so many examples of this in the media constantly.

The thing that worries me is that during times of economic decline, global instability, people generally being poor and unhappy, this is when the authoritarian right wing governments swoop in and promise to fix everything by reducing immigration, cutting welfare, controlling the media, deregulation, etc. People vote for them because they're fed up and see them as having an easy fix (albeit a scapegoat), and that's how we ended up with Hitler, Trump, Mussolini, etc. I'm just concerned about the normalisation of anti-immigrant and anti-benefits rhetoric and extremely concerned we'll have Nigel Farage as our PM in 2029. And I don't think he'll be any good for the country in the long term (or the short term) because his policies rely on him as the "everyman" who gets real world problems, and his followers ignore that he's a millionaire stockbroker born into wealth and privilege. He's only out for himself and making himself and his cronies richer and if anyone believes he'll actually fix anything for us plebs, they're sorely mistaken.

The problem isn't immigrants, benefits, etc. The problem is the super rich (I'm talking multi millionaires before anyone jumps on me) are not pulling their weight and should be taxed more. I heard on the radio that a* *2% tax on extreme wealth over £10 million could raise £24 billion every year for the UK economy. But nobody's doing it, because the politicians don't want to tax their mates or themselves.

(Source - https://www.oxfam.org.uk/get-involved/campaign-with-oxfam/tax-the-rich-protect-people-not-wealth/#:~:text=Instead%20of%20making%20cuts%20to,public%20say%20they%20support%20this.)

But. At least we can still criticise the government openly here I guess. That's something they don't have in China. Or America nowadays.

Which huge corporations?

'We would surely be fools not to game the system as much as we possibly can?🤷🏻‍♀️'
Perhaps. The point I was trying to make is that the prevailing ethos (greed, selfishness) starts at the top so, of course, many other people in much less fortunate circumstances are doing their best to grab as much as they can.

Previously there was a certain amount of deference from the lower classes towards the wealthy, presumably (at least in part) due to an implicit belief in meritocracy, a feeling that the wealthy somehow deserved their positions.
Now we, the common people can collaborate online and see very clearly the various ways in which those with wealth and power use their wealth and power to work everything to their advantage.
We would surely be fools not to game the system as much as we possibly can?🤷🏻‍♀️

Well exactly
The wealthy (including the huge corporations) are by far the biggest gamers of the system. They write the rules!
This trickles down to the rest of the population, some of whom are gaming the system by grabbing some of the scraps.

Other people are "organising and taking positive action" by planning their lives to take maximum advantage of our benefits system and do the least amount of work to contribute towards it - again not the best outcome for the good of the country
@taxguru
I agree with you that people on benefits game the system. But then again so do the wealthy. So does pretty much everyone these days since (thanks to digital communication) we can collaborate and share information on a much wider scale and anyone who wants to optimize their situation (aka game the system within which they operate) can easily access instructions on how to do so.

Resources wars have been going on for many centuries. The difference now is that the limited supply or many things has been apparent and that we have massively over populated the finite planet earth.
We won't be populating other planets though. That isn't happening!

I totally agree with you @ImAChangeling and with @mathanxiety above.

@SamphiretheTervosaur comment is obviously patronising but, at the same time, totally fails to grasp reality.
Sure, there has always been criticism by elders of younger people and visa versa, that's as old as time. However, the fact is that today's younger generations (middle aged as well) are worse off in many ways than their parents and grandparents. This is the first time that this has happened in many, many generations. It's not thoughtful or intelligent to dismiss people raising these points by saying things like 'it was tough for me too, what do you youngsters know', 'etc. I expect there are many reasons why older people dismiss the younger generations when the huge differentials in basic needs (eg housing) are raised but these people should reflect more.

Thing is a lot of people are "organising and taking positive action" by emigrating which isn't the outcome for the good of the country.

Other people are "organising and taking positive action" by planning their lives to take maximum advantage of our benefits system and do the least amount of work to contribute towards it - again not the best outcome for the good of the country.

For the good of the country, we need to nurture and encourage those able to grow the economy and pay taxes, and the only way they'll do that is if they see significant benefits to themselves for doing so. Increasing their tax as some kind of punishment for success really isn't the way to go!

@Dotjones

What progressive liberal westerners have long failed to grasp is that making a fair world means making themselves and their descendents much poorer.

Finally, someone gets it! We've been peddled the lie/myth that somehow we can make "everyone" wealthier, i.e. increase the living standards etc of the third world, without it affecting our own wealth. It's nonsense. The Earth's resources are limited. The very nature of "money" is that it's merely a representation of your underlying assets etc. Your pound coin is only worth a few pennies for it's metal if no one else regards it's value as representing a pound. Foreign exchange fluctuations, interest rates, inflation, etc., and very quickly and easily make any currency pretty much worthless. When we transfer wealth to other countries, it means, inevitably, our own wealth falls in value, in relative terms. Yet time and time again, we hear so-called experts tell us that it's perfectly possible to virtually eradicate worldwide poverty without reducing our wealth - it's clearly bollocks. All that happens is that ultimately, wealth transfers from one person to another, from one country to another. It may take time, and in the meantime, the effects may be fudged to hide the fact it's happening, but ultimately everything is a transfer of wealth, from working for a day, to selling a product, etc. Someone gains, someone loses. It's double entry book-keeping on a global scale! Like someone makes money on selling some company shares - inevitably someone else loses the same amount of money. The planet Earth is ultimately in balance - until we colonise another planet, the resources, aka wealth are ultimately limited to what we have. All that happens over centuries is that wealth shifts from person to person, country to country, continent to continent according to scientific and technical changes, societal changes, etc.

Every generation up to ours has been convinced their world is in terminal decline. Perhaps the thing to do is to organise and take positive action. Rather than whinging anonymously on forums about immigrants and politicians. There’s a lot of good out there in the world and many worse countries to live in.

Oh please 🙄 where are you getting this rubbish from? The Daily Mail?

Yes sold off by a previous Tory government. Now all utilities are privately owned and many by foreign companies. Stupid mistake, we are paying sky-high prices for now.

Eventually western countries will not be able to service their debts and will go bankrupt. There will become a point where we can't pay and will write our debts off ourselves. Those we owe money to will have to either take military action against us or swallow their loss. If they try to invade us, they won't get much anyway if they won, and if we fended them off we could force them into writing the debt off as reparations.

I think the world will become less connected in the future and we will see a net emmigration rather than immigration. Some of this will be voluntary and some of it forced - people will stop coming here when we stop supporting those who come here. Somewhere else will be more attractive for economic migrants. Countries will become more insular, we'll produce what we need and there will be a return to a more feudal type of society where the masses are slaves in all but name.

What progressive liberal westerners have long failed to grasp is that making a fair world means making themselves and their descendents much poorer. The west thrived because it exploited undeveloped countries in places like Africa and Asia. By ending slavery and empires and by moving to actively treating these places as our equal we lost the things that made us more wealthy than them. We can't have it both ways.

Our past actions (good or bad) have caused our current decline, and we haven't reached terminal velocity yet.

Completely agree. Manufacturing was thrown under a bus in favour of service sector decades ago. Seems like on government thought it important. Now We make nothing here, our industries are foreign owned, even public utilities are foreign owned.

The thread 'what does your 18,19,20 year do for work' is very revealing and adds to the result we are heading for disaster. If this is sorted, I think it would go a long way to sorting out the other issues.

Of course house prices are high but if they give up, then what?

The real difference is the price of houses. Currently the average house is 8.5 x the average income which is much higher than previous generations.

True

We were in a good place before Brexit. That has royally f*ed us

Ahh right. Unfortunately there maybe many reasons to move we dream about it a lot. but far more important reasons not to on balance. Parents with Alzheimers being the main one. Australia for example we are now too old for their works visa programme and the USA we would both have to fully retrain for our degrees my husband spent 8 years at uni and is already saddled with student debt. I wouldn't move to another European country like France most of Europe is in the same state as UK from what I can gather.

Thanks

it was a kind of rhetorical question as it’s not fair to blame previous generations for this

the never ending immigration definitely plays a part

“I wholly appreciate that many will read this and hear a patronising voice, divorced from reality, with no understanding or empathy for younger generations”

Yes, you are right - I do judge as I am the same age as you and whilst this post might reflect the world as you see it, it contains no appreciation of what reality looks like for thousands of families.

Nearly one in three families in the UK today are struggling to afford basics such as food and shoes for their children. Some of us older generation are supportive and empathic of the struggles of younger generations.

@Hopper123 I get all that. All I'm saying is looking at it a different way such as "reasons why I should move" rather than "reasons why I shouldn't move" might change the outcome. I moved to France 5 years ago and have met a number of families with young children who have done the same. The education system is good, the way of life is better imo, the health system is excellent, house prices are much lower, weather is better. Anyhow, good luck with it or, as they say here, "bon courage". 😉

Following with interest