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AIBU?

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Younger people should be rewarded for lockdown via affordable housing

783 replies

Ordree · 09/04/2020 17:51

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?

OP posts:
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ZombieFan · 11/04/2020 22:09

@LalalalalaLlama couldn't agree more.

Oliversmumsarmy · 11/04/2020 22:32

A universal basic income of £40,000 would eradicate poverty overnight. To pay for it we could just tax all income above 40k at 100%. Hasn't anyone every thought of this before

Well Labour tried in the 60s with the 97.5% tax and it brought the country to its knees.

If minimum wage was £40,000 per year then everything would just go up at the same rate so how would that help anyone.

Alsohuman · 11/04/2020 22:34

🤣

ZombieFan · 11/04/2020 22:59

😂😂

bettybattenburg · 11/04/2020 23:07

A universal basic income of £40,000 would eradicate poverty overnight

I didn't realise that the magic money tree was a giant redwood.

drcb83 · 11/04/2020 23:10

@zombiefan if there is £40k for everyone, and anyone that earns more is taxed at 100% - where is the incentive to try? To go to uni? Where will e.g. doctors and scientists come from? They would train then you would get a massive brain drain abroad. Is ludicrous!😂😂

Oliversmumsarmy · 11/04/2020 23:21

Exactly what happened in the 60s

No one who thought they could earn more stayed.

There is a world out there and people who work and want to make something of themselves aren’t going to want to stay in a country that wants to keep them on the same salary as a road sweeper when another country will appreciate what they have to offer and give them a salary commensurate with their qualifications

ZombieFan · 11/04/2020 23:22

drcb83 Of course people will still 'work'. Doctors and Scientists want to do good its not about the money. And why would they need money if they had a UBI of £40,000?

LalalalalaLlama · 12/04/2020 00:16

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

k1233 · 12/04/2020 00:58

Here's something you might find useful OP - Cost of living over time, stated in current $ equivalents

www.budgetdirect.com.au/interactives/evolution-cost-of-living/

eaglejulesk · 12/04/2020 01:31

@Moondust001 - Totally agree with your very sensible post. However, I suspect the OP will never be swayed from her opinions and we are all just wasting our time.

Oliversmumsarmy · 12/04/2020 02:15

ZombieFan
Yes they will work but any one good ones will be snapped up abroad and with the cost of living going up here because salaries increase then whoever is left would be the people who can’t move.

What incentive would there be if everyone was to earn only £40k per year?

You might as well leave school at 16 to stack shelves at Tesco and start earning ASAP.

Why would you go to university and waste the earnings of £200,000

I think you give people too much credit.

Whether you are a scientist or doctor you need to have a wage that rewards you for your work.

Saying people will still do the job because of the love of it is just naive.

What happens to the millions unemployed? What will their benefits be because there will be many millions unemployed if you can only earn/pay yourself or your employer £40,000 per year

As I said before this in some form has happened before.

It led this country into one of the worst periods of history.

Kokeshi123 · 12/04/2020 02:26

There needs to be some urgent talk about generational redistribution of some kind.

We already had issues of older generations building up assets and having their wealth protected at the expense of the young, even before 2016.

With Brexit, predominantly older voters have damaged the economic future of younger generations.

Now our kids and their kids are going to be paying for this lockdown for a very long time. And no, the vast majority of them would not have died from CV19 even if it had been allowed to run riot.

At the very least, things like triple locked pensions deserve some scrutiny.

Kokeshi123 · 12/04/2020 02:30

LOLing at the "this generation fought for us in the war!!!!"

There are very few WWII veterans left these days.

If they’d been born 50 years earlier they’d have left school at 14 and been sent to war.

50 years ago was 1970! The school leaving age was already 16 in 1972. The leaving age was already 15 in 1945. Britain hasn't fought a "total war" since WWII which ended in 1945. There are some quite strange ideas about the past on this thread.

ZombieFan · 12/04/2020 03:49

Oliversmumsarmy People will work because they want to make the country to be a better place. Why do they need additional incentive?

Whats wrong wrong with getting a job stacking supermarket shelves?

Going to university would advance your education & the understanding of our country, why would that be a waste?

Whether you are a scientist or doctor you need to have a wage that rewards you for your work.
40k is plenty, as op suggested why do you need more? We have to think to think about people who dont earn money (as a priority).

TriangleBingoBongo · 12/04/2020 06:52

@ZombieFan Grin

00100001 · 12/04/2020 07:37

Yes, there are incredibly few WWII. Veterans, they'd be 95+!

mpsw · 12/04/2020 07:39

A bit less than that - if you joined at 16 in 1944 you'd now be 91/92

drcb83 · 12/04/2020 07:43

Okay, say this utopian world could exist, you would have to have started a long time back - you could not switch now.
You would guarantee that you would have a brain drain if you said it now. (I am one of those people that would leave for sure and one of the specified professions)
People have mortgages that are based on their salary for example. Suddenly you say 'your take home is 40k', and the housing industry crashes.
If you wanted to go socialist, you would need a 'revolution' - Sweden had one and now is a good model for your ideals but without the brain drain.

00100001 · 12/04/2020 08:23

for interest, there are around 500,000 over 90s in the UK - and about 1/3 of those are male. So a maximum of c. 170,000 WWI veterans - that assuming all of these served in WWII.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/ageing/bulletins/estimatesoftheveryoldincludingcentenarians/2002to2018

MilkTrayLimeBarrel · 12/04/2020 08:30

@Pigsdofly - what a disgusting comment - you are quite happily consigning everybody over 55 to the bin! I assume you don't have parents or grandparents or aunts and uncles? I suggest we could easily do without wingeing freeloaders with half a dozen kids by different fathers.

Parker231 · 12/04/2020 08:43

The furlough is costing £16bn a month - there will be no economic positives for anyone for a very long time, regardless of which generation they are. I’m guessing that all forms of taxation will be increasing significantly in addition to the losses coming up from leaving the EU at the end of the year.

drcb83 · 12/04/2020 09:00

Yep - and 10+% unemployment. Probably young people taking a large brunt of that.

Parker231 · 12/04/2020 09:02

Everyone will take the hit - generation is irrelevant.

ChrissieKeller61 · 12/04/2020 09:07

I wish younger people had more balls tbh. They work harder than any generation i've ever seen, with less opportunity. Why aren't they kicking off ?