When does the "Cost of living crisis end"

[topcat2014]

There will always be inflation. The media created this thing called a cost of living crisis.

Recessions have a technical definition, so therefore a technical end.

What is going to be the trigger for society agreeing the cost of living crisis is over?

You claimed the figures were equal though?

I never said pensioners are the problem, I just said they are part of it…

I do find it utterly bizarre that a lot of MN posters are fixated on the fact that most pensioners have 'not paid enough into the system' and brush aside discussion about the many, many benefits claimants who have not paid a penny into the system!
The usual caveat about this not aimed at disabled

I find it utterly bizarre that some posters have such shocking comprehension skills.
I never claimed working age people have paid in for their benefits & upthread I said I don’t have an issue with linking benefits to what they have paid in.
I simply corrected a poster who claimed pensioners have all paid in enough because that is factually incorrect.

I also think people are confused about how the welfare system works. It isn't a 'savings account' people have been paying into whilst working that they then get to draw out in retirement. The current pensions are paid by current workers, as has always been the case. When you have a lower number of workers supporting a higher number of pension claimants then each working age person needs to pay more tax. My tax bill is extortionate and it grates, we need more workers to 'spread the load' but with the birth rate falling it will only get worse

I agree with lots of what you've said.

We need lots more cheap energy to drive economic growth. A healthy economy will involved lots of consumption, which is basically a good thing (provided we price in externalities). We want lots of sectors doing well that doesn't leave us strategically vulnerable or overconcentrated in services or any other sector.

My quibbles might be: growth doesn't come only (or fundamentally) from primary industries. It comes from primary, secondary, tertiary.

Would I rather be Switzerland (services) or Guinea-Bissau (primary)? Switzerland any day of the week. What matters for the level of growth isn't so much the type of activity as the value created/captured.

But really, the ideal is a Swtizerland-style services sector (which we pretty much have), plus lots of high-value manufacturing, plus reasonable-enough self-sufficiency in energy and food and other fundamentals so we are not too much a hostage of geopolitics.

Sounds good. There seems to be a nostalgia re manufacturing but it needs to be part of a good mix as you have said, and high end.

I recall listening to a Chinese analyst who said they did actually want to move on from being the ‘factory of the world’ (his words) into ideas and selling those. I think they are doing that atm.

When we spend (and waste) a tonne of money on surveys and consultations but the project they are based around doesnt materialise, the money hasn’t disappeared. DH works for one of those consultancies and he gets paid, we buy food with that money etc, spending to his company is still reflected somewhere in the GDP figures. What doesn’t happen is the actual physical project and the productivity saving that might result from that - so if it’s shiny new infrastructure that doesn’t actually get built, the (say) old road currently in use needs to still be repeatedly patched, the cars fixed as they are damaged by the potholes. If building the new road has environmental consequences we might not do it but then end up living with the environmental consequences from the keeping existing system that has to stay in use. This is also reflected in the GDP figures. All we do is direct money into different hands but at the same time look bureaucratic and inefficient. If we look like a country that is willing to ponder a lot but never gets anything done then buy shares in the consultants because they’ll still be raking it in. All that money paid of for HS2 to date went in some people’s pockets.

But isn't that just the modern equivalent of those councils who paid people to dig holes and others to fill them in again, just to give them something to do?

Yes, the money circulates, but with the sheer amount of modern imports (fuel, food, goods, utilities etc), a lot leaves the country, so doesn't "circulate" within the UK in the way it used to.

I agree, it’s insane. DH works for an environmental consultancy and a lot of his work will of course consider the environmental
impact of NOT doing the project as well as the impact of doing it but it pisses me off that regardless, the desk jobs for white collar workers like him remain and his payment for report writing gets reflected in the service side of the
GDP figures but skilled physicial work doesn’t go ahead and people decided to locate their businesses in other countries with newer infrastructure.

We need lots more cheap energy

Ay, there's the rub.
There is no more cheap energy.

A healthy economy will involved lots of consumption, which is basically a good thing (provided we price in externalities).

It is not possible to have infinite growth on a finite planet. At what point do you think we should cease economic growth?

There would be lots of cheap energy if we hadn’t abandoned nuclear! But we can restart. And solar and the rest are part of the solution too.

Not infinite, no. But there’s still a long way we both can and should go. In the West our lives are both more comfortable and more resource and carbon efficient than they were forty years ago. There are still billions of people in poverty, however measured. And a lot of the environmental problems that growth brings also get solved by growth/wealth/technology. (Compare villagers burning peat for heat and energy to people using modern clean energy).

There’s another risk with slowing growth, which is that it makes politics zero-sum, which is destabilising.

Maybe there’s a point where humans are sated and everyone can be happy with the level we reach. I suspect not though. I think efforts to try to force limits on growth just store up resentment and keep people needlessly in poverty.

I'm wondering if this is the case as well.

Dependents - old or young cost.

The other end is demographic dividend is the economic growth potential that happens when a country's working-age population (ages 15 to 64) grows larger than its non-working dependent population -children and older adults - it's what asia and china in particular have been benefitting from.

It's not a judgement - it's just demographic facts.

Eveyone picture Darwin and Einstien as old men - they did they work that got them famous and was revolutionary as young ambitious men. So fewer young people in population does tend to mean more conseravative risk adverse attitudes and less innovation it doesn't go completely just harder to have impact.

Our governments have been tinkering - raising retirement ages - but downside is you end up with higher disablity payments as section of population can't make it to retirment age. I did read recently many remaining young person jobs - which have declined - are going to people in 50-6-even 70s who want p/t low impact jobs.

Succesive government have been plugging demographic worker hole with immigration but that also has downsides - increasing poltcial implications, cultural and it means streched resources housing education with native workers further depressing fertlity rates.

The demogrpahics just are - they've been coming a while - since late 70s- but they do make growth much harder .

I'm surprised so many are blaming young people - they have harder job markets - and the ambitious one are loaded down with uni debt rents and house prices are every more out or reach.

On top of all this we've hampered ourselves with polices that hit industry like high energy costs.

But how do so many still not grasp this?!

one problem seems to be that every single pensioner seems to think they single handedly kept the economy going for 40 years and won’t entertain the idea that the pension part of the welfare bill is the highest. There is so much resentment from younger people because they will never have the opportunities or life those before them have had. You’re demonising mental health conditions and more disability claimants whilst conveniently ignoring that young people today are screwed over from every direction with house prices being unaffordable, rent a nightmare, constantly rising living costs, childcare costs, food shops increasing weekly, job markets dwindling, rise of AI destroying entry level positions - no wonder anxiety and depression are rife. People love to say ‘I just got on with it’ with no nuanced consideration of how different things were and how much EASIER certain aspects were.
Birth rates are falling because life seems impossibly hard so at some point there will be no one to tax!

We know!!

But the question is why is it ok for a 30 year old to claim benefits but not a 68 year old?
Why?
Its always they dont deserve their pension( benefits) because they havent paid in enough but a 35 year old who has paid in less -fine
Yes I know thats not how it works but you cant apply double standards
Ive chatted to two 66 year old women today
Both are relatively fit and healthy, this was at the gym
They are both struggling with FT work and counting down the days until 67
It will only get worse with those born after 1965 being in worse health than those who came before, mainly due to lifestyle choices

We need a huge shake up now but that should be getting young people capable of work back into work not saying No, sorry to pensioners

And Brexit

Yes and Labour are taxing anyone who gets off their arse to work to pay for the wasters

I agree with you but do you think that young people who are working are very sympathetic towards other young people who are not? The next big stage of fracture won’t be young vs
old, it’ll be those who have inherited huge sums through those vast increases in house prices and those still fending for themselves. There are lots of people on here upset that their parents with lots of housing wealth and good pensions aren’t helping them while they struggle with housing and childcare costs. As long as that wealth doesn’t go to care fees, in a few years time those same people will receive a lot of money either for themselves or for their children. I met some friends for dinner yesterday, a couple. They’ve always rented but all their parents have now passed away. They’re looking to buy for the first time, a 100% cash purchase house with the proceeds of their share sale of their parents houses.

TBH my Dmum felt like that in the 70 and 80s. My paternal grandparents had money - mainly as they'd worked three jobs - two full time and DGF working evening and rode the house and privatisation winds up. I think because they had struggled up from nothing themselves were less sympathetic to my parents hit badly by 70s inflation and Thatcher 80s the inheritance did get my parents through and still is retirement hit by reducancy and pension schems going under.

There won't be much for us though IL will leave bulk of anything left of house to kids so they may get a deposit - but they have uni debts. We got no help with house deposit or wedding costs - we paid entriely but got last of uni grants and first lot of laons for uni - but they can come back to us - which wasn't an option for me.

Maybe as more people have just one child the house wealth will make an impact but I do expect governments will look at taxing even more.

But not necessarily a vacancy for them to fill.

But the question is why is it ok for a 30 year old to claim benefits but not a 68 year old?

Is anyone really saying that it's "OK" for a 30 year old to claim benefits? They should be working, as with everyone else of working age unless they have a serious disability that stops them doing ANY work.

There are lots of vacancies, but not necessarily in the right locations and with "skill sets" that don't match. So we need to improve that. Re-Introduce accessible and affordable adult education so people can "re-skill" and "up-skill". Reduce burdens on employers so they're more likely to take on staff to train them in house etc.

Seriously is this really the level of debate? How can I make it easier for you to understand? It’s not about individuals 🤦🏻‍♀️

I did hear suggestion of for regional electricity pricing as areas that generate electricity are often near struggling economic areas.

It was ruled out. Instead we need to spend a lot updating the electircal grid to balance and transport the mismatch between generation locations with renewables and where people and industry currently are.

I'd like more FE options and evening and weekend course - and agree would help in many locations.