To think the country is b*gg*r*d, and life as we once knew it is over?

[RejectedFleece]

Just that really.

@RejectedFleece Please provide specific examples of what exactly 'feels' different.

BORING

We are in a cycle,twas ever thus.

Boon and bust

Even the worst fires make the soil fertile so new things can grow. Ive been through enough, boom and bust in my own life not to worry.

@Movingdecisions quite

My OH was invited to be a magistrate but he was warned that he wouldn't be able to remove the guilty from society very often because the prisons were overcrowded so it was a fruitless endeavour he felt . There were programs he could try to get them into but those were understaffed and not fit for purpose. So crimes will increase as more people need money

I expect my life to be worse than my relatives in some ways. My grandparents retired at 60 my grandad is still alive at 85 that's 25 years of retirement. My dad is retiring at the age of 58 I'm expecting to have to work until very late in comparison.
QE has fucked this country over they kicked the can down the road.

You are so right. It all passes. It may take a while but it does eventually pass.

My friend ( my age ) keeps saying to me ' this is different' and I understand what she means too.
Maybe the ones in charge are keeping something up their sleeve ? Maybe they do know how bad it will be and have to keep it from us ? I don't know, but it's unsettling and I worry about my children too :(
My own carefree teen years were halcyon compared to the crap they are going to have to put up with.

Nice to see there’s at least one person that gets it. This will not just be a bit of a dip, this is the beginning of a long painful decline for Western civilisation, no doubt doing our best to make it just as bad for the rest of the world on the way down as we did on the way up.

It's interesting that some - most? - posters have made very specific assumptions about what OP means.

I dont usually remember names or who Im talking to but I remember this one and the attitude and aggressive nastiness.

Dominoes. Exactly. They are falling one by one and nothing can stop them because they are all inextricably linked. Also, the law of unintended consequences is holding a knife at the countrys throat. It IS different this time. Very.

Wage stagnation means peoples wages havent gone up, so how have more people entered into higher tax rates?

Peoples wages should go up but income tax bands should rise. It's to do with inflation.

"Meanwhile, average weekly pay in the year to October 2019 was 4.3% less than the pre-downturn peak of peak of £525 in February 2008, when taking inflation into account."

Globalisation has well and truly hit. The lines of rich vs poor are now national rather than international. I expect there’s a good couple of hundred million people in China who are better off in terms of living standards and disposable income than the bottom 20% of the UK.

The wage at which people start paying tax and then start paying higher rate tax has risen, few people are paying higher tax than they used to. its one of the big problems we have in this country, fewer people are paying tax and that tax is at a lower rate.

@bellac11

I would also say again that the tax take is lower than its been in modern times

all tax or just income?

Dominoes. Exactly. They are falling one by one and nothing can stop them because they are all inextricably linked. Also, the law of unintended consequences is holding a knife at the countrys throat. It IS different this time. Very.

Total rubbish.

I was saying today to my daughter that I remember when my mother was loudly complaining about the rocketing prices of food as we joined the common market back in the early 1970's. The price rises appear comparable. I'd never truly appreciated her upset over this until now.
She'd eek out mince with breadcrumbs to make it go further. Grow veg to make cheaper meals. We really are heading in this direction.

But it came right eventually. I do remember the 1970's as having very little. The majority of people haven't lived through this and it will be a shock.

Ah well theres a can of worms!!

Income tax for sure. Tax from alcohol and cigarettes have also certainly gone down, VAT has probably gone up I would guess but I was only talking about income tax.

The wage at which people start paying tax and then start paying higher rate tax has risen, few people are paying higher tax than they used to. its one of the big problems we have in this country, fewer people are paying tax and that tax is at a lower rate.

Of course the wage at which you start paying tax has risen. It can't stay the same because of inflation!

"The number of people paying 40% or 45% tax has risen from 4.25m to more than 6.1m workers since 2019, figures show."

why do you think fewer people are paying higher tax, the thresholds have been frozen so it will drag more people in.

You can absolutely see the climate crisis deniers in this thread, can’t you? With their breezy “twas ever thus!” as we stare down the barrel of end times.

you can't just look at income though

Excellent contribution. Care to expand?

Interesting article and tbh one I'm surprised to see on the BBC website

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-62064506

I think the worst thing about the UK is people think they have values but they're all superficial. It's all about what accent you have and what daft imported car you drive, people think these things signify something worthy when in reality they don't. We have dim people in charge of serious things as a result. It's reflected in Parliament where rich fuckboys have a bizarre say in anything at all and it's reflected in your local hospital departments where the same rich kids wearing stethoscopes make decisions that affect real people's lives just because they were born rich enough to have an easy start in life. I'm not dazzled by any of it is fact it makes me feel a bit nauseous.