Younger people should be rewarded for lockdown via affordable housing

[Ordree]

As others have noted, young people (not just those in frontline roles) are making enormous sacrifices to protect others, mostly but not exclusively from much older age groups. They will be bequeathed a damaged planet, a ruined economy and they will have done further damage to their mental health by staying indoors for months on end. They are the ones paying older people's pensions when they won't have anything like the same financial security to look forward to themselves. Yes I know older people paid their elders pensions during their working lives, bit never has there been such an imbalance. As the economy is likely to be ruined short to medium term anyway, would it not be reasonable to start the biggest givernment-funded housebuilding programme ever, allow younger people who have just bought to write off negative equity losses against tax, and essentially redress some of the appalling imbalance between generations and classes?

Ok, so, we have magic money from taxes to now subsidise housing for 'young people'

Lets pretend a 1 bed house now costs £50,000.

Now what? Who is giving these same young people enough money for a deposit?
Who is going to stop richer young person A bidding £55,000?

The n richer young person B asks parents to help and can bid £75,000.

Just to add to my last post my parents are a perfect example. Their pension has lost a considerable amount of money and they don’t have the ability to go back to work and earn that back now. Both because they’re not desirable employees and their ability to work (both physically and mentally) is for a much more limited duration than my own.

So they’ve lost money with no immediate means to recover. That has and will reduce their income now for the rest of their retirement and possibly their lives, reduce their standard of living and potentially their life span. They won’t be the only ones.

Could you also explain where the funding will come from without essential services (that benefit us all) being impacted?

Also interesting that your idea of compensation is monetary. Are the lives saved not compensation enough?

As someone in my 60s giving up my Bank Holiday weekend to work on COVID-19 clinical trials while there are "young people" gathering in parks despite the social distancing directives, I think OP may be making some rather sweeping assumptions.

I think survival and business as usual should be enough of a reward for any of us.

Could you also explain where the funding will come from without essential services (that benefit us all) being impacted?

Every piece of public funding by definition costs and takes money away from other sources. There are fee services that do not have a disproportionate benefit to one or other group. Free school meals disproportionately benefit lower income people with children. The money which is spent on them could be spent on raising the state pension, but it isn't. Note I am not saying that I think it should be. Money spent on public transport disproportionately benefits those living in urban areas. This money, having been spent on public transport, then cannot be spent on, say defence. Every single public spending decision has an opportunity cost. This does not mean that it is wrong.
Looking at it another way, was there something deeply grievously wrong with houses costing £35,000 in 1984? Was there a massive public outcry and suffering due to people being chronically disadvantaged from house prices being "too low"? If as I think the answer is "no", then why is it a good thing that a situation not causing significant suffering has been so dramatically altered?

Sorry, what ‘sacrifices’ are they making? Being stuck inside for 3 weeks (so far) like the rest of us. Big whoop. I actually agree that something needs to be done to provide affordable housing for all, including young people, but to link to a reward for not going to the gym, the pub or whatever for a couple of months is ludicrous.

Every piece of public funding by definition costs and takes money away from other sources.
You haven’t answered my question, you’ve provided examples.

The economy has changed OP. That’s what’s happened. You can’t change one element without it have a knock on effect on the whole thing. You’re failing to look at the bigger picture and your avoidance of my very direct question above demonstrates that perfectly. You’re also looking at one sub group in total isolation and not acknowledging the very real impact this pandemic has had on everybody.

I don’t know your age but have visions of someone sat in their bedroom with a heavy bottom lip saying “it’s not fair”.

It’s isn’t fair, not on anyone, but you can’t argue you have someone suffered disproportionately. The younger you are the longer you have to recover financially from this crisis and so arguably you’ll be the least affected. If you haven’t got any assets, which I suspect you haven’t, you haven’t actually suffered any loss.

House prices will come down as a consequence of a struggling economy and there you will have some rebalance to the inflated prices we’ve seen in recent years.

If anything I can’t see your arguments actually refer back to the current pandemic, beyond your own perception of hardship at having to stay indoors. Rather, your arguments relate to factors already in existence and aren’t relevant in the context of a pandemic. So I’m not sure how you’ve concluded some form of compensation is due. You haven’t shown how the pandemic itself has resulted in a loss. Your loss, according to your messages was already there. If anything the pandemic will benefit you for reasons I’ve mentioned above in that if the economy crashed house prices will fall as a result. So actually, the compensation you desire will be there. But it won’t be in the form of a handout, but a global recession. Sounds great doesn’t it?

*I don’t know your age but have visions of someone sat in their bedroom with a heavy bottom lip saying “it’s not fair”.

It’s isn’t fair, not on anyone, but you can’t argue you have someone suffered disproportionately. The younger you are the longer you have to recover financially from this crisis and so arguably you’ll be the least affected. If you haven’t got any assets, which I suspect you haven’t, you haven’t actually suffered any loss. *
Making unfounded presumptions and conjecture about the person making a point with which you disagree does not in any way lend weight to your argument. As for your invented image of someone sitting "with a heavy bottom lip saying it is not fair" this is simply an attempt to infantilise and discredit someone with whom you disagree by visually associating them, a person you have never and will never meet, with a self-centred child. It is a poor tactic and says more about yourself than anyone else.

A programme of building publicly owned housing Oh, you mean council housing like we used to have. Simple, stop the right to buy and councils will invest in housing again.

Fair point OP.

You’re not actually addressing anyone’s points with a counter argument and actually you’ve just done exactly what you’ve accused me off in your response-attempted to discredit me, whilst ignoring any other points that require a more considered response.

Making unfounded presumptions and conjecture about the person making a point with which you disagree does not in any way lend weight to your argument

Which is ironic because steadfastly refusing to answer any question you don’t like, really doesn’t add weight to your already thin argument.

It’s fairly clear to everyone that the young will pay higher taxes for longer to pay for this recession. Output has reduced by 14%. Its unthinkable to say the young won’t be paying for this for years and years.

Our pension pot DH built up isn’t great now. We have other assets but obviously they are now devalued. We don’t have time to earn the money to rebuild this but we won’t be in the situation of paying a lifetime of tax because our lifetime is a lot shorter than those who are the next one or two generations down. So they will need help.

Ordree’s argument is based on fact. We do support the old in preference to the young.

Yes people will be made redundant but mortgages atm are very cheap and even if one person in the family is working it shouldn’t be too much of an issue paying the mortgage.

@oliversmumsarmy that very much depends on where you are, mortgage on our small 2.5 bed semi costs £1500 a month!

There is some breathtaking rubbish on this thread. So many posters have no idea about the cost of housing and the cost of mortgages. Young people pay a lot because houses are expensive! No one could ever afford 15% mortgages now. The reason we could is because, by comparison to now, houses were cheap! It’s basic economics and fact.

Big misconception on this thread. The baby boomers are not the same generation as the ones who fought the war. Clue’s in the name, the baby boom was after the war.

Those who fought the war did get some recompense - that was what the whole mid and post war boom in the welfare state and ‘homes for heroes’ was for.

Am in favour of the op? Not quite though. For a start what is young. The millennials, which I think is what is referred to, were not the first generation to be affected by the house price boom and contracting economy, we in generation x were, and we are generally ignored. I don’t want to see the Millennials simply replace the baby boomers in years to come as the most entitled group ever. I would like to see a complete paradigm change, a re invigoration of democracy and actually listening to all sectors of society - surely this has shown that the lower paid, lower ranked levels of society are often those we need the most, and the status and pay systems in Britain are bonkers and broken.

Like the post war period I want to see a rebuilding with a flatter society with less inequality which values all contributions not just those espoused by the current high status muppets or governed by the loudest voice.

You know, instead of just ignoring generation x we could act as something of a bridge here. But it would require a huge shift, towards acting in good faith for the benefit of all. At the moment I just want to bang the boomers’ and millennials’ heads together. And the flounce off and take my ball in.

Wrong: homes for heroes was after the First World War, not the second. Baby boomers are post ww2 babies. No they didn’t go through the war but their parents did. Baby boomers have had the best of times.

According to the Bank of England inflation calculator £17500 in 1984 =£56,700 in 2019

That is an inflation calculator not a salary calculator

The average weekly salary in 1984 was £135 per week

That is £7020 per year.

Now the average salary in 2019 is £36611 so more than 5 times as much.

So it shows how much more the people you know were on.

They were earning 2.5 times more than the average salary.

I said mid and post war. At least I meant to, did it autocorrect?

Like the post war period I want to see a rebuilding with a flatter society with less inequality which values all contributions not just those espoused by the current high status

This.

A quick search of your other posts shows you complaining of experiencing racism. Yet here you are, posting ageist shite. You do realise that ageism is against Mumsnet Talk Guidelines, just like racism is, @Ordree

Economic fact isn’t ageism. It’s dividers freely in a free society. What tosh!