AIBU to be totally confused (cost of living crisis)

[LittleBitHeiressLittleBitIris]

AIBU to not be able to understand/ grasp the scale of impending disaster that is building over the increased cost of living?

I genuinely don't see how millions of people with outgoings that are about to be actually higher than income is going to play out.

I'm not trying to be goady and obviously realise no-one has a crystal ball but am I missing something? Has this ever happened before in other recent times/ other cultures and what was the result. I can't even imagine what could happen.

I feel really clueless! Any ideas/ opinions/ further reading much appreciated 👍

@Tanith

"We have been through this before, anyone remember the 70s and three day weeks? Or the 80s when base rate went up 4 times in one day to 15%"

Yes, I do. In the 80s, I remember suicides and people posting their keys through the banks' letterboxes because they could no longer afford their mortgages and couldn't sell their houses.

I also remember that the Conservative party was in Government for both.

I remember loads of women on antidepressants in the 70s. I think they got referred to as "mother's little helpers." It is miserable to never have a treat, to never have the food you'd like, to always have to say no to kids.

The Tories have done what they always do. Those on low income start clawing their way up the ladder a bit, trying to have a better lifestyle for their children than they had themselves, and they get knocked back down into their 'place'.

They wore us down with endless lockdowns, businesses closed, small businesses went under, people lived on what bit of savings they might have had, and then as soon as we start clawing our way out of it.. boom. Get back in your lane. Oh and a nice anti protesting law brought in just in case we decide to revolt.

I’m as far from a Tory supporter as it’s possible to get but we’d be where we are whoever was in power. This is global, just like the 2007 crash that Tories are still trying to blame on Labour.

@Blossomtoes

I’m as far from a Tory supporter as it’s possible to get but we’d be where we are whoever was in power. This is global, just like the 2007 crash that Tories are still trying to blame on Labour.

Of course it is. Some people are very naive and blinkered.

@Blossomtoes it is global, but the government has a choice of how to respond. Do you continue pumping money to your friends through dodgy public service contracts and continue funding white elephants like HS2? Or do you actually spend the money you have to help people who need it the most?
The price cap level on utilities is also a choice. Power companies are making record profits. The price cap could be much lower.

My mother was surprised we’d not seen an increase in our disposable income during the pandemic. The thing is if your budget was already cut to the bone, no holidays, no Netflix, no eating out, which is the norm for a great many people then there is no give, no cutting back. We pay our housing bills, we have £10 a month sim only deals, the only thing that can be cut from our budget is the £28 a month for swimming lessons. That’s a shit place to be in. And we both work full time.

[quote alltheapples]@ChickenStripper thanks for that link. Interestingly I still hear the myth about pension pots disappearing if firms go bust, because that did happen to many people until the government provided guaranteed backing. I spoke to one woman in MN who had twice lost a private pension pot in this way.
You may be right. But I am personally pretty cynical. And the idea that no one can live on a state pension plus benefit top ups is clearly false.[/quote]
I suppose it depends on your definition of "living". I don't have a mortgage and would struggle on it - my utilities and Council Tax are about 350/400 and going up before I start thinking of anything else.

@ChickenStripper but you get benefits as well. I understand if you are well off though it seems impossibly low.

Austerity was a political choice of how to respond to the last crash - other options were followed in other countries. Austerity has left no give in the system so now we are facing another global problem - but with less safety net across society, and with more individuals who have been ground down before this crisis even starts to bite.

I don’t think you can do much more than survive on a state pension plus pension credits. It wouldn’t be living and I wouldn’t want to try.

And the pandemic has eroded savings for many of the poorest while the rich have saved more money than ever.

To the PP saying that the public sector should just strike to get the pay increases. I am in the public sector. We have been on strike very recently. And we were battered by the public at every turn. There was zero support from the general population and we were pilloried and lambasted as lazy and workshy. We aren’t. We just on our knees like the rest of the public sector thanks to over a decade of cuts and underfunding.

So people.may have to cut their cleaners hours or give up the aupair

Or don't even have to, but decide it would be prudent to anyway, piling more misery on people with low wages.

@GreenNewDealNow

What a miserable little country we are.

The gov literally put a bill through parliament to prevent us all from protesting

@Blossomtoes congratulations on being well off. We both work and by the time we pay the mortgage, we don't have that much more than we would get in a state pension plus benefits anyway. On full state pension you are unlikely to be paying council tax or very little.

@Nicholethejewellery

The Tories in 2019 got just under 44% of votes cast which represented about 30% of the electorate as a whole. I can understand it being pointed out that some people did vote for a party who we always knew were going to be more interested in their corporate mates than anything else, but the fact is that the clear majority didn't.

The majority didn't - but more people voted Tory than anything else. That's the trouble, the opposition is too divided. If Labour/Lib Dems/SNP/PC/Green etc all got together and agreed to field one candidate per constituency to represent all of them then maybe the Tories wouldn't win. They won't because they all have their own individual interests and spend as much time justifying why THEY are the best alternative to the Tories, as opposed to justifying why anyone would be a better alternative.

In any democracy I can think of it's not a straightforward case of the majority having to vote for something for it to win. In the Brexit referendum something like 38% of people voted for Brexit (I'm plucking that figure from memory), so 62% didn't. But that 62% was split between people who voted against it, people who spoilt their ballot and people who weren't motivated enough to bother to vote at all.

On the cost of living crisis, I think the 1920s comparisons are valid but actually it will be more like the 1930s. In the 20s there was something of a boom, consumer borrowing increased, and in the 1930s it all went wrong. People struggled to find work, those that did were poorly paid, and many had to rely on state benefits that were not really enough to live on.

What I think will happen is that people will mostly just cut their spending or borrow more. While people remain in work things will more-or-less carry on, but as people cut their spending businesses will go under and more will be out of work - leading to less spending, more businesses failing, more unemployment and the cycle repeats.

Actually the Brexit vote was much more reflective of the wishes of the electorate than any General Election.

It was a simple majority - you either got what you wanted or not, and at 77% it had a higher turnout than most General Elections.

You can't count people who didn't vote as "not voting for Brexit" - they didn't vote for anything but you can't assume they would all have voted one way.

I agree with @ChickenStripper at least to an extent. Her description of modern consumerist lifestyles - sure, there might be lots of people who don't live like that, but most of the people I know do (affluent area). Some people will be able to keep affording this lifestyle - but there will be a significant number who can't. I know people who live like this (huge amount spent on 'lifestyle') who walk to work at the end of the month because they literally can't afford to put petrol in the car until payday - they have no savings or financial buffer whatsoever. In some ways, it's not a bad thing if those kinds of lifestyles change (mainly because they're helping to wreck the planet with endless consumption and tat), but there will also be lots of people on lower incomes who depend on that lifestyle spend to pay the bills. Plus, the less people spend, the less tax revenue will be available to support those who really are on the breadline.

[quote alltheapples]@Blossomtoes congratulations on being well off. We both work and by the time we pay the mortgage, we don't have that much more than we would get in a state pension plus benefits anyway. On full state pension you are unlikely to be paying council tax or very little.[/quote]
There’s no need to be rude. I wasn’t rude to you. I appreciate I’m fortunate.

Fake job adverts definitely exist! I've seen one for a very specific job that was 100% fake because it happens to be my job. It was slightly vague about the institution where the vacancy was (but could only have been the place I work) and was a job that only me and one other person do, neither of us are leaving, and I'm the only one doing it full time (which is what it said the role was).

I've also seen jobs advertised for airport baggage handlers in my small town which is an hour from the nearest airport...!

It feels like they did the dropping interest rates thing before to pull us out of the fire, but now with inflation, they don't have that tool anymore. I just have no idea what they can do to sort things out now. And Boris Johnson doesn't look like he has a clue either.

Time for some hellishly large windfall taxes on the wealthy? why though? It sounds rather jealous and vengeful , no one should take the blame for soaring prices.
Are we going to guilt trip anyone with spare cash?

@Blossomtoes sorry. It is just jarring to hear someone say they can't possibly love on what you do live on, and manage fine on.

to act like the flaming job centre
Stupidest name ever for a place that no longer actually has details of jobs

@Onionpatch

Austerity was a political choice of how to respond to the last crash - other options were followed in other countries. Austerity has left no give in the system so now we are facing another global problem - but with less safety net across society, and with more individuals who have been ground down before this crisis even starts to bite.

And now we need to stop believing this Tory narrative of austerity.

National economics aren't the same as balancing a household budget, it is a false and oversimplified model that the Tories have been promoting since the 70s because it suits their agenda of dismantling public services and keeping the riffraff in their place.

When we look back in history we need to look at how the USA got out of The Great Depression. It wasn't via cutbacks and austerity, they spent and invested their way out.

Trickle up is much more efficient than trickle down economics. We need to support the poorest having a decent lifestyle not just because it is humane but because it is also better for all working people.

Posters above go on about "wasting money" on nail art and takeaway coffees but these things are keeping people in jobs and keeping the economy moving. If people cut back on all but essentials the economy stagnates, people lose their jobs and we all suffer.

I don’t want to minimise because I know a lot of people are worried. I just want to say that all of this was said about Brexit and then about COVID. The dire forecasts never really materialised, certainly not on the grand scales predicted.