to wonder why the govt are not doing anything about the spiralling cost of living?

[dirtyface]

they are making cuts left right and centre, but IMO are not looking at the bigger picture which is the REAL reason people are so skint. ie because of the cost of living ie food, gas, electric, (my particular bugbear) petrol , housing, local taxation.

this is why people are not spending money on the high street etc. its cos no bugger has got any disposable income after they have been fleeced every month paying for the essentials. i for one spend a good proportion of my earnings on petrol, so does dh and i am sure i speak for many people

obviously i am mostly talking about mr and mrs average joe on average incomes, ie, say min wage to about 30k or so. but am sure the higher earners are squeezed as well esp with them cutting off CB and tax credits etc after a certain income

whats going to happen? is it just going to keep going up and up. it scares me

disclaimer: i don't understand how any of this works so sorry if i sound thick. there is probably some clever obvious reason why "they" cant sort the cost of living out a bit

noobieteacher, yes indeedy, who would want to invest here when they can get some dude to work for a couple of dollars an hour?

I have seriously considered moving abroad to a developing country and doing what I do soley based online. The contractors get peanuts in terms of British wages, but it actually allows them a very good standard of living in their part of the world. Not fair!

We'll be a de-developing nation. In fact, I think we already are and I worry that in a few generations we'll have sewage in the streets and kids begging. Then again, I am a melodramatic twat at times.

Your point about overseas workers is interesting, because some small businesses round here have actually put job adverts on Gumtree asking for Eastern Europeans. I'm pretty sure that's illegal.

My beef is that there are young unemplyed people here, still living with parents and they can't be arsed to do these jobs. I think they should just man the fuck up and take these jobs whilst they still have mum and dad to fall back on. At least they'll be able to apply for something better and show that they actually have a work ethic.

I would say the government and indeed most politicians are out of touch.

That said, I don't see how a domestic government can fix globalisation and all the problems that brings.

Rather than looking for the government to help us, we need wherever possible, to help ourselves and each other.

Trying to support local businesses is a good start. I think small things mount up. For example, some local Steiner types have started an excellent food scheme for local businesses and they sell their fruit and veg at a very competitive price. Nevertheless, they can stick their £3.70 loaves of bread.

Word, the trouble is that people just don't help each other. British builders employ people on minimum wage, nearly always from abroad because only they can afford to live like that long term. They are also less likely to complain about poor practice. It's tragic what some men in the buiding trade are going through.

The buy local schemes are nice in principle but they hardly make a dent. I wanted to advertise that I only use British workers as a business selling point but was told it is discrimination. This has to come from government.

In fact we are getting to the point now where the employers are non uk, they will never employ British and all their earnings go abroad. We hardly have a British building industry any more, they are Polish and Irish and their earnings go abroad.

So the great 'building new homes will solve all our problems' theory is just going to mean taxpayers money going overseas.

But how can the immigrants live on these minimum wages, unless their incomes are being topped up by housing credit etc Are they really paying their council tax? how do they get to and from work? hence my previous post about not knowing numbers of immigrants in prison, or not paying their tax or whatever. Do they really have driving insurance? I mean it costs a fortune for anyone under 25. The figures don't add up, shouldn't we curb the numbers of immigrants and push brits into these jobs.

(I know it's not that simple but how do they pay their way?)

I think our young people do want to work. I live in Greater London and on our local radio station there was a phone in. A guy who lived quite near me phoned in and said he was the only British person on a building site and he was skilled so mananged to survive.

the building company he worked for did take on our kids as apprentices and wore them out mixing cement etc but wouldn't keep them on because it was cheaper to employ eastern Europeans as they don't have the overheads etc. Also they are exploited in some senses living in huts down the bottom of people's gardens that don't officially exist and are only really garden sheds for council tax purposes.

I think it is a myth that our young people don't want to work and achieve and also that gives the government and employers free reign not to employ them and to comply with this rumour.

often wages are paid cash in hand so no N.I. and taxes being paid. I know this isn't always the case.

Justin, like I said, we've got 6-10 people living in 2 bedroom apartments here. Few of them have cars, some take public transport or buy a banged-up old bike. They eat roti, dal and veges - which are very cheap as long as you don't shop at the supermarkets. Several grocery stores nearby sell the fruits that the supermarkets won't accept (because of rain spots etc) and sell them very cheaply. They all seem to be saving money just fine.

Another thing that could be done is to reduce waste in local government, the NHS, the civil service...any big public organisation, really.

I work for a local authority and the amount of money wasted is ridiculous - things like not scrutinising overtime, managers who are so far removed from the guys doing overtime that they have no idea what is being done in that time, if anything. I can think of three separate groups of staff (one small (5 staff), one of maybe 20, and one of 150) where they are doing incredible amounts of overtime, in some cases doubling their salaries, with almost nothing to show for it. There are tiers of useless fuckers managing this and this has been pointed out to each of them, and nothing has been done. One particular person is doubling his salary year on year, and is coming up to retirement when he will retire on a final salary pension calculated as an average of what he actually earned over the last 3 years. He is quite cold-bloodedly increasing the overtime call-outs as a result - he manages about 50 men and for his overtime to be justified, he has to call them out too. It is total madness and because his boss can't see the problem, it goes on.

My team has been shouting about this stuff for the last 6 years. In addition, management in local authorities is crap - the job for life mentality is so strong that even in cases where people are proverbial for taking the piss and a by-word for being crap at their job, they remain. No one manages by performance. They don't know how.

There are so many areas in one relatively small section of a local authority where we could either save a fortune or increase productivity incredibly - what impact would it make if councils could afford to employ more people because they were managing their money better? And then trained them to do a good job/taught them new skills? If they could repair roads and keep them in decent condition so you didn't have to replace tyres all the time, get your suspension fixed, reduce wear and tear on buses so public transport could be cheaper? If they used their money to expand public transport networks so more people could travel to where they needed to be? If they did such a good job that they could hire themselves out to do private work and actually offset some of their costs?

Sorry. Rant over. Honestly, I'm not about bashing the public sector, I work in it and I believe in it. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't need a hell of a lot of improving. I know it could be run far more efficiently than it is being now, and fixing that would mean more jobs and reduced costs.

Oh and the bit that would help me most is if the cost of heating oil came down. I pay £200 a month for oil - the cost is ludicrous! I rent, so can't change the type of heating. If fracking helps with that, I'm all for it.

Cheddar, you need to do some whistleblowing. Standing by and watching isn't an option any more, while child support services are cut. Think of those kids when you write the letter, suffering so these people can rake in cash.

TooExtra. Completely agree with you about local authorities. Worked there and couldn't believe the level of incompetence, 'jobs for the boys' and stupidity. Managers very complicit in bad performance and having never worked anywhere else have no means for comparison.

This is why we dramatically need to change what local authorities provide. I want them fixing roads and picking up garbage NOT involved in social policy or welfare. I certainly don't want some over harassed social worker who probably hates her job making judgements on my child or any really. Significantly reducing govt at a local level is key. Why dear god does the same service need to be provided by six different authorities across a county? Local govt has turned into a huge empire that exists to provide employment for the average. Reduce reduce reduce.

It's still a small portion of overall give spend but add on local council tax and its a big spend!

Sorry views are unpopular but until you've worked in it you just don't know!

Govt spend not give spend...

Alemci, They take on immigrants so they don't have to pay NI, they are subcontracted and pay their owm tax.

Speed humps cost £20,000 each so I've heard.

cheddar, either you are being ripped off or you live in a draughty mansion.

so are the immigrants meant to pay their own N.I. which seems a bit iffy and difficult to administer etc. or is the sub-contractor meant to sort it out.

does that mean the tax office receives the contributions?

if not how can this system be good for the economy?

We pay £95 a month for oil.

The HA are thinking about installing a more cost effective boier type thingy.

Oil is a massive rip-off.

Councils don't get enough scrutiny to be doing education and social services. Nothing has changed and it's all down to a handful of officers, dubiously voted in to make decisions about things they know nothing about. Sod the traffic calming measures, we want the vulnerable supported and protected, and that isn't happening while 10 men stand around a pile of rubble watching one man shovel it and call it a local service.

boier? boiler of course.

Alemci, the immigrants are self employed, therefore they are the subcontractor. Each pays their own tax.

Feminine, whatever happened to the green revolution in housing?

This thread is making me want to emigrate.

yes, that must be quite a burden though if you are new to GB and don't know the system etc.

'there are more jobs for the unemployed than people think. Granted, a lot of them are shitty or have zero hour contracts, but a lot of British born people think they are above these kinds of jobs.'

Don't you think it might be the case, PaulSmenis, that British born people don't take zero hours contracts because they can't afford to? Zero hours contracts mean irregular income and cause cashflow problems. If you're poor and have no financial safety net, zero hours contract is just about the last thing you need; without a guaranteed income people get find themselves unable to pay for rent/bills/food/transport to work.

As for non-British-born people snapping up these jobs, well, maybe they saved a bit of a cash cushion before they came here. Or maybe they're living fairly miserable hand-to-mouth lives.

I live in a draughty 3 bed bungalow! And it's an average calculated for the year based on the number of litres we've ordered in the last 12 months. As last winter was so long and it was our first with a baby we felt obliged to keep the heating on more than usual, so we're paying more now.

As for whistle-blowing, I'm currently part of a review that's trying to fix it. The director keeps promising big things such as suspending certain people/moving them out of our service/getting independent investigators in (all promised in April) and none of it has happened yet. Frustration is mounting high and I am fairly sure that if the director doesn't get his finger out something highly inflammatory is accidentally going to fall into the hands of the local press.

Williamina, the trouble is that we can't even fix roads properly! (Not the fault of the workers, the fault lies with the shit management who fuck the staff over regarding their pay, don't measure productivity, and then try to claim everything is fine when it patently isn't)

I worry where the incentive is for kids to work hard & get a good job when they will still struggle to get on the housing ladder. DH & I earn decent money but can't afford anything like the properties we grew up in despite earning about triple what our parents did (factoring in inflation of course).