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?

So, more tax on those who work and more benefits for those who don't?

Well whilst there are vacancies for such roles, we need to stop paying benefits to people living in those areas.

When DH was in hospital for a couple of weeks in September, most of the cleaners, HCAs, admins, etc were white Brits. It was the doctors and nurses who weren't!

Agree, after 6 months on UC, claimants should be offered a hob, any job and if they fuck up they don't get back on UC for 6 months.

Yup, we really do need something like that to get people back to work. Not just UC, we also need to be tougher with those claiming minor disabilities - there's usually "something" that they can do, even if it's not their "perfect" job.

Boroughs in London still have the easy access adult collge courses, some daytime and some evening. In Tower Hamlets they re called Idea Stores - They are libraries and training facilities.

That's good some still exist, but no use for the majority who don't live in London.

I don’t actually think this person is wrong.
I’ve recently been reading a couple of books about the supplement and fashion industry and it’s opened my eyes to how manipulated and scammed we consumers are.

So, yes whilst there is a cost of living crisis, I think I’d save a lot more money/ or not spend way as much if I put a bit more thought into what we need rather than are influenced to want.

Whilst this is not really looking at living within my means, it’s more about stopping buying things that I don’t need.

I'm sure some people spend money on things they don't need, but it does seem that with eye wateringly high housing costs, child care, plus ever increasing costs of utilities, fuel and food, even people who aren't "wasting" money are struggling.

True, I was just passing on info.

At around the same time these unprecedented times end.

Yes. There are around 13.2 million more pensioners claiming the state pension than there were in 2004. Wages haven’t risen as fast as pensions due to the triple lock so something has to give?

In addition due to increased and more complex care needs the average healthcare spend on a pensioner is £7500 per year. So that’s an extra £99 billion in addition.

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Yes I am higher rate tax payer but I also review applications from people wanting hardship loans as part of a voluntary role
We have people on benefits applying because they think they are poor but they are able to spend on things I wouldn't even dream of buying (daily take away coffee, several take aways a week, pricey iPhone contracts, weekends away). The system is completely messed up. .

A lot of this expense is unnecessary. I’ve 2 sets of 85+ year old parents who have never had a serious illness but are regulars at the hospital and doctors surgery.

Why do you need a full medical and blood tests all the time at 90? We were discussing this the other day and said we don’t remember our grandparents ever saying they went to the doctor. Why are we constantly monitoring and testing healthy, but elderly 90 year olds?

Community and working class solidarity didn't disappear with industrialization. Chartism, the trade union, and co-operative movements, along with church based communities thrived in the industrial cities. At its peak, in the late 1970s, over 50% of the workforce were members of trade unions. Increasing individualism was a social trend of 1970s, accelerating in the 1980s, of people choosing to reject traditional working class identity and communities. Many are choosing to isolate themselves doomscrolling on their mobile phones, or passively sitting in front of their TVs, rather than choosing in-person interactions with friends and neighbours or becoming involved in their local communities.

As I've already indicated, new technologies can have bad effects as well as good effects. It depends on how they are used. The technological wonders I speak of are, for example the free modern treatments and drugs provided by the NHS (a source of collective wealth). The good effect here is in how the technology is applied. Other tech wonders are hot & cold running water, electric lighting, indoor flushing toilets, fridge-freezers, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, detergents, TV, radio, double glazing, insulation, bicycles, trains, buses, nuclear/solar/wind energy, and this £40 computer I bought on ebay with which I am communicating in a productive discussion with you, in this relatively positive on-line community.

It is a bit early to tell what the outcome of AI will be. In the 1980s factory robots and personal computers did do away with many industrial jobs and traditional skills, paper archives, card indexes, typewriters, carbon paper... New jobs in new industries were created.

Back in the 1980s I would not have predicted that people would make money from cat videos. Whether such cultural/technical innovations are worthwhile is debatable, but people have it in their power to choose what they do. I think people make bad choices in deciding what will make them happy, but I'm not going to attempt to impose my world-view on them.

Thank you. Compared to most places at most points in history, 21st Century UK is paradise. Is it perfect? No. Do some have it hard? Yes. But we should give thanks we have a (mostly) honest set of politiciants, police officers, judges etc., free education and healthcare and a reasonable social security system

This with bells on. So many people think they deserve to work 35 hours a week and have foreign holidays, cars and days out with kids at the weekend. Like you, the people I know working 50-60 hours are fine. But we will be annihilated on here for thinking that’s normal.

Also, when things go wrong either on a personal or a national level our answer is always subsidise it. not, oh, heating oil is going up, let’s use less while we can, it’s let’s subsidise it.

This.
We are now used to the sort of luxury that would have v been unimaginable in the past.
Have been reading about Eleanor of Acqitiaine - wife to two Kings, mother of three Kimgs and of two Queens had nothing like the lifestyle of a family now on benefits.
People a couple of generations ago had much less decent housing, health, education, travel variety of food, entertainment etc and low expectations. They worked harder and died earlier, so did not require endless heath interventions or ‘care’.
The immeasuranly better lifestyles of those who don’t work are paid for by the diminishingly fewer peolle in productive employment.
Simple maths.

Yes, but we're clearly going backwards as all those "nice" things are being financed by 3 TRILLION of debt so won't carry on. We've just basically borrowed ourselves a decent lifestyle that we can't afford. We've also clearly "peaked" in the 80s, 90s, and 00s, again due to the illusion of growth and wealth financed by borrowing and selling off assets. The country has only run a surplus in just 5 out of the last 50/60 years! Until we get some competent politicians who are willing to cut the deficit and grow the economy, things will continue to get worse, not better. The only other way to reduce the huge debt burden is inflation to "inflate away" the debt, but that will worsen the cost of living crisis as everything would cost more!

Yup, far too many people not working enough, whether unemployed and not working at all, or UC claimants on part time hours, or early retirees - it's not just the cost of paying benefits etc, it's the loss of economic output. We need politicians who have the gumption to "get people working", whether unemployed, on benefits, early retirees etc- we need the education/training/support to give people the skills needed and also a more logical tax/benefit system that encourages people to work rather than penalise them!

100% People will work less so they don't pay taxes. The thresholds need rise.

In the end our wealth comes from labour

That is what Marx got wrong. Since the industrial revolution, most of our wealth has come from the work done by fossil fuels. That is the main source of 'surplus value'.
Without fossil fuels, most of us would be needed to work in agriculture, in the fields, as people did before about 1800.

It's going to take a generation of calm steady growth

Which is just not going to happen with fossil fuels gradually (or not so gradually) going away.
History does not go backwards; we will still have solar and wind power and advanced electronics. But we will not have growth and wealth anything like we have enjoyed over the past 300 years.

Well if you look out the window the roads need sweeping, kerbs are full of weeds and litter everywhere or national service where they learn discipline and skills
We need a system where people cannot lounge on benefits
Government schemes where they do unskilled labour in return for benefits, leading to apprenticeships where they can train
Its criminal that we have NEETS, sitting in parks smoking weed and vaping,a lost generation

We have always had NEETs though

I work 25 hours a week, anything over that is 50% tax. I don’t want to work f/t & done need do.