To think that people are actually getting more ridiculous in their expectations??

[Youmadorwhat]

I mean ffs, 9.99 for Netflix per month Is justified because it’s entertainment but never mind the fact that you are in deficit every month🙄

Childcare, anything medical (including hospital car parks), education, school dinners and housing should all be subsidized substantially or FREE (and 24/7) I mean should the government not just collect the babies from the maternity ward and hand them back at 18!

I even saw a thread a while back where someone stated that all extra curricular activities should be subsidized for children 🙄

I know people are struggling I get that but the government CANNOT afford to prop up everyone!! Especially when a lot of people are actually at a tax deficit anyway!! Rant over!!

This is so wrong! Do you know that currently 1 in 6 nurse role is a vacancy?

Is this really very surprising? Many people cannot afford to go to university to become
or retrain as a nurse as you now need a degree for it. Many people have been let down educationally and so don't think that going to university is an option for them. Many people cannot afford or find childcare that will fit around the shifts that they do as a nurse. Also nursing wages tend to be low for the effort to get the qualification in the first place.

UK GDP per capita is around $45k, whereas in Norway it's $82k. There is no way that the UK could support a Scandinavian style welfare system

This is why we need to invest in our people so that we can raise the earning potential for this country. At the moment we have some of the lowest productivity in the Europe. We are currently just in a race to the bottom.

UK GDP per capita is around $45k, whereas in Norway it's $82k. There is no way that the UK could support a Scandinavian style welfare system without a dramatic population decrease, it just won't happen.

Surely the Norwegian GDP is due to the North Sea oil and not to the population size? Or could you explain how having a small population increases a country's GDP?

Sweden's GDP is around $53k per capita, which is considerably lower than that of the US, so clearly nothing to do with population size. Finland's is around $45k, so very similar to that of UK. Iceland's is much higher- again, because of North Sea oil.

A higher population means higher costs, but it also (if managed well) means more taxpayers.

But Kpo58 is absolutely right that productivity is very low in UK atm and this needs looking into.

This is why brexit scares me. Who is going to produce anything here if the raw materials and labor cost more than elsewhere and we produce less in the same amount of time and that's assuming there are people with the relevant skills in the first place?

i do think people's expectations have risen. When I bought my first house (3-4 jobs to save the deposit), it was the expectation you literally slept on the floor for a month till you could afford a bed. All furniture was secondhand, ditto bedding towels and curtains. The fridge was also important to save for. Our table was a sheet of plywood on top of milk crates, and our seating was a cushion on a milk crate to start with. No car, no holiday, no foreign flights, not even a TV.

Annie Sloan and F&B weren't invented. You didn't rip out the kitchen and re-do it., you just painted the walls, and maybe replaced the lino after time. Etc

Surely the Norwegian GDP is due to the North Sea oil and not to the population size? Or could you explain how having a small population increases a country's GDP Ireland GDP per capita is ranked 5th at 78k with no oil!

Is this really very surprising? Many people cannot afford to go to university to become or retrain as a nurse as you now need a degree for it
That's why there are loans and grants. Kids coming from poor families are entitled to grants that puts them in similar position to many working families.

I'm so tired of listening to excuses after excuses. Yes it will be 8mpossible for a minority of kids coming from poor families, but the vast majority do have access to higher education.

Of course if you are going to opt to have kids before Uni,inevitably it will be more difficult. We all have to take some responsibility for the choices we make.

@Ariela

We did the same, everything second hand and no proper furniture for years, but we did our best with what we had. I’m not saying it was ideal, but it spurred us on to work harder and keep going. It was our life to improve. We didn’t expect others to do it for us. People seem to have such high expectations now that just aren’t realistic. But somehow it’s all society’s fault or the government’s fault, nothing to do with the individual.

productivity is very low in UK atm and this needs looking into.

This was one reason I was so suspicious of the Brexit proposal. And govt that was genuinely dedicated to leaving the EU should have prepared a strategy that included boosting production within the UK, but instead farming and manufacturing have both declined under the Tories.

That's why there are loans and grants. Kids coming from poor families are entitled to grants that puts them in similar position to many working families. There are no grants anymore - what decade are you living in? And the loans are means tested - many families really struggle to give their kids the parental contribution...as much as they want to, it is causing real hardship but you just continuing living in a different decade in your head accusing other people making excuses.

Our furniture has always been hand-me-downs and second hand, or built ourselves. We could afford new but mostly choose not to. So what? There’s no virtue in it and I think that people with the expectations you describe are not so common as you believe. It just suits you because it’s easier to think badly of others than to think about how you aren’t prepared to help

Not everyone is clever or academic enough for uni. But they should suffer for that right?

You really do not have to be clever nor academic to go to uni these days.

A higher population means higher costs, but it also (if managed well) means more taxpayers

Exactly

A higher population means higher costs, but it also (if managed well) means more taxpayers| One would also imagine higher population would give better economies of scale too which should allow for better efficiencies.

Kids coming from poor families are entitled to grants that puts them in similar position to many working families.

I'm so tired of listening to people who can't be bothered to look up a few facts. THERE ARE NO GRANTS. And haven't been for quite some time. Costs of student accommodation (including rooms in private houses) rising dramatically.

And the cuts in benefits for the disabled and terminally ill mean that quite a few young people have to help support their parents or siblings because you can't just let them starve.

Exactly, cory!

I think this could have been phrased better.
'People are not prioritising what Is important'.
They cannot afford certain things, yet can smoke, have an I phone and the latest designer top. I had a friend like this and I got utterly fed up with it. She would moan I had better things, yet went to oxford shopping, over spending and then needed money from me for her electricity.
What people should be learning at school is how to budget not fucking algebra.

agreed Thatsalovelycuppatea

You know, all you smuggoes banging on about how people should save, and do without anything but the bare minimum to subsist on, poverty could happen to you, too. Unless you are solidly in the billionaire class - or someone who has finally paid off the mortgage they took out in the early 90s - it wouldn't take very much to have you queueing at the foodbank, too.
You might have a good job (or a spouse with one) now - but employers can go bust, downsize, change direction and then it's bye bye paycheck. Entire industries can dwindle away to nothing in a fairly short space of time, which means far fewer jobs suited to your skillset - and far more people competing for them.
You could develop a serious illness, or be injured in a way that permanently affects your ability to do your current job, or any job. Or your spouse or child could end up needing 24/7 care.
If you are dependent on your spouse to earn the family living, your spouse could get tired of you and decide to leave - and an awful lot of people who want to dump a spouse want to keep as much of the family money and assets for themselves as they possibly can.

If you have either not had a job, or not had to change jobs, for a decade or so, you probably have little or no idea of how much worse the job market is these days. There might be jobs but, unless you have connections or very specialised skills, they are often poorly paid and extremely, unreasonably demanding (zero hours contracts which also forbid you to work for anyone else, 'flexibility' which means unpaid overtime at very short notice, being expected to just accept being spoken to as though you are an utter moron not allowed to go to the toilet when you want to, shouted at for failing to hit unrealistic targets, and 'let go' if you take too much time off to care for a sick child.)
There's also the likelihood that automation and the 'disruption' economy is coming for your security. The disruption model is another way of transferring money from the poor to the rich: agencies rake off all the profit while insisting that employees are in fact freelance contractors so get no sick pay, holiday pay or health and safety assessments.
You're not better, smarter or tougher than poor people. You're just luckier. At the moment.

The harder I work, the luckier I get. Or something.

Nah, just kidding.

Actually I'm disabled and can't get a job for love or money! Would love to work again though ( did for 15 years before disability struck).
Anyway, it's not a Top of the Pops (shows my age) as to who is smarter/tries hardest/works hardest/has chip on shoulder etc.

A 22 year old at my work has saved a deposit, great, well done her. However, she wants a 3 bedroom with large garden. A one bed flat to get started with simply won’t do. I remember ‘back in the day’, you started small and moved up, so maybe not into a house with garden until several years later when the wains came along.

Yes, some people do take out and never put in to the system but let's not get too smug here. Anybody can lose their job and find themselves on hard times, anybody can get a chronic illness, anybody can fall prey to emotion/mental issues. And yes, some people do seem to feel that even though they could work, and don't, they're entitled to live a very full life but if we penalize them we risk taking down the innocent with them- a society that needs so many food bank has problem. And before anyone suggests I'm a scrounger I've never had children, worked full time for 40 years and own my own home so I've put in a lot and taken very little

I think years ago the transaction costs in buying and selling houses felt lower now it's eye wateringly high, if you can buy a 3 bed house first off then that's not such a bad decision.