to want to go and live in Brazil? Or India? Or China?

[headfairy]

Or anywhere that's not dying on it's feet with crippling economic woes. I am so depressed about the current situation, developments at work are going to make me increasingly worse off - I do appreciate I'm lucky to have a job now, but those developments are actually going to make it too expensive for me to work so I probably won't have one in 5 years. I've spent 20 years building my career and I'm going to have to let it all go.

I can't see our lives getting better for a decade, and the intervening years are going to be bloody hard. I want to go and live somewhere where the future is rosy. Not grim and cold.

We are fucked because of the demographic timebomb.
The post war baby boomers are retiring now, will live for ever and we have to pay their pensions.
The mid-sixties boomers are hitting the age of 47, the age at which people tend to stop spending and start saving.
America, India and Brazil all have new young people to fund the system.
The liability for future public sector pensions would make and actuary weep.

On the bright side, an ageing population is less likely to be warlike.
Places with huge numbers of young people and poverty are the worry (Somalia).

We have thought that things would gradually improve but we are going to have a 'lost decade', and we are all going to get all girl guide sensible.

It is very bad luck on recent graduates.

And where does this sustained growth come from? Certainly if there is high unemployment there are low tax receipts so the government is less able to kick start the economy, less investment in capital projects and infrastructure development.

It was interesting reading recently about the M25's 25th birthday, it's quite a common belief that our recovery has been hindered in part because our roads infrastructure is so poor (I didn't realise this, but apparently when the M25 was given final planning approval the government of the time made sure its capacity couldn't be increased too much as a way of appeasing the green lobby - hence the horrible traffic jams we have on it now). We just don't have the infrastructure in place to come out of this any time soon.

Competitive not comparative, damn you iPhone.

Am currently reading 'The Next Convergence'....it might like it.

I was for the record being slightly facetious about moving to Brazil... I certainly feel like it, but I wouldnt' take the dcs so far from their family. But I hope that by the time they join the jobs market there's actually something for them to do there.

Where does this sustained growth come from? Well quite. Where indeeed? The idea that the private sector would somehow soak up all the public sector redundancies was a nonsense from the get-go anyway, and with the private sector in such a dreadful state too, then it's just double ridiculous. I know of architects, banking employees, publishing workers, all highly experienced private sector employees all being given the chop.

I know why there were so many public sector redundancies... there were far too many people working in the public sector and the costs were just huge and it was the only thing the government had any control over. They can't do anything about the private sector. But I just feel it's been handled so badly. so knee jerk, with no forethought as to where all these people are going to go. And when you make wholesale redundancies, you condemn those people's children too don't forget!

sustasined economic growth comes from the upcomi9ng generations, which we do not have. Brazil does, India does and, to a lesser extent, the US does. It is all about demographics, which should be obvious because the taxpayers are the ones funding the unlimited liablity of public sector pensions.

I don't really understand why the public sector are striking. Dave C does not poo money. We (the UK) are only holding onto our AAA rating by the skin of our teeth, and that is partly historical, like our ('our') seat on the security council at the UN.

Russia, China and most of Europe have an aging population, which renders war unlikely.

But yes, we are fucked. People in their forties and fifties now who have made no pension provision will be beggars, and there are a lot of them. Those who have made provision will resent subsidising them.

No more boom or bust was the perfect illustration of Gordon's failure to get to grips with demographics.

There was a critical mass of the % of the population employed by the state. The private (wealth generating) section could not sustain it.

for once I can't even get all political about this. I can see how just about everyone's fucked up in the name of greed and money. Everyone is culpable really.

It is demographics, not politics.

We are entering a decade of stagnation and it is going to be very hard.

YANBU the 21st century will be the asian century and so a move to China or India probably wouldn't be a bad thing for you or your children

YANBU this country is becoming more and more uncompetitive in the global economy yet we do nothing but squabble over small public spending cuts. Meanwhile the BRIC nations continue to growth and become more influential and devloped. The best gift anyone could give their children would be the ability to speak mandarin as China will become the economic superpower in the world.

We are dependent n the City for the tax that funds Scotland, Wales and the North. I love the left but they do tend to cling to their financial illiteracy.

Come to China. Since moving to Shanghai three years ago, I've had more work than I ever could have dreamed of in London (editing and writing). The standard of living is higher in my suburb than it was in London, rent is cheaper, I eat out at restaurants as much as I want, the pace of development is fast and compelling - I could go on.

I don't have children myself yet, but plan to have them here. Childcare is cheap, my children will learn fluent Mandarin, and there are some excellent schools.

Move to a rural village and things would be different.

Of course, China isn't perfect. There's corruption and human rights issues, but England's government isn't ideal either.

We are in China, and have no plans to return to UK any time soon.
There is a lot of misconception in the media about China, and this causes brainwashing to so many.
It some times saddens me, to see how some of teh rest of the world view China.
Sure it's not perfect, but I say better than UK and many more.

The general talk about restrictions in China is almost laughable.
There is far more freedom in China than there will ever be in UK.

Security, so little crime, that I only worry when I reurn to Manchester, then I start thinking where to hide my wallet.

We have great health care, with very minimum cost.
Dental hygienist, wash, clean, polish, £7.00, tajing a good 2 hours !
An xray for example cost 80p
30 minutes with a specialist, cost £1.00
DH recently went for a sperm sample check, we went in, and within 15 minutes, sample was delivered to the team, within 1 hour, we got all the written results, plus photo's of the sperm, and this is a 7 days a week, 8 an to 8pm walk in.
The test cost us £10.

Fay

Op, try not to believe everything you hear about our road network. HTH.

headfairy when your colleagues at work talk about it, how do they see the next 12-24 months panning out?

Dp has been talking about this for 5 years now, about how there will be social unrest, high unemployment, but he can't say how bad it will get.

My oloine American friend lives in China and his coat, when he is indoors. There isn't ant central heating in his apartment. He is sick of cold showers.

YADNBU

Can you even get working visas for these countries?

Are you allowed to buy property?

Brazil, ok, but avoid big towns with lots of violence.

India... No thanks

China, have no idea.