When will things go back to being not shit?

[Intheclub]

In 2019, everything seemed happier. We were prosperous (on the whole and certainly more than compared to now) and because of that the economy grew. Putting the heating on when it was cold or going out for a meal once in a while was something that was totally normal for the majority. Of course, that isn’t to say there was no poverty and everything was perfect in 2019 - far from it- but it was significantly better than what we have now. There seemed to be far more joy in life, people seemed happier and less worried.

There has since then been two very traumatic crisis - the pandemic and the cost of living. I honestly dread to think the effect this will have on “Gen Z” teens as well as young kids with a worldwide disease meaning they can’t have natural childhood experiences and then (for many) their family struggling to afford even basic essentials.

I don’t know if this is everyone’s experience but I can certainly say that within my own group of friends it’s so depressing. Half of them never want to do anything, usually because of money or after covid they just can’t be bothered. Many of my friends are also struggling with their mental health.

It honestly feels like 2019 was the end of some kind of “golden age” and I honestly don’t see a way of getting back there any time soon. I suspect it will take another generation to come through before the impacts of this all stop having such a strain on the world.

Aibu to ask when, if ever, things will stop being so crap?

It all started to go wrong in 2016.

Austerity and Brexit had both happened by 2019. Our public services were already in decline. I long for the early years of the Millennium when my kids were small and things just seemed to work. I remember one child being very poorly as an infant and our GP did a home visit!!!! The problems with social care didn't seem to exist then either (from experience). There seemed to be plenty of carers and far less bed blocking in hospitals. Yes I realise our ageing population has contributed to this but this could have been planned for. Successive governments have been incompetent for decades. And don't get me started on energy. The crisis we face now, which will get worse, has been predicted by progressive and green voters for decades!!!!!

80s weren't great where I grew up - nor where DH grew up - big manufacturing areas.

I do remember mid 90s feeling more optimism but we were young adults at time so how much was that enjoying being young and care free - though do thinkmy area had an upturn in economics though along side that rampant house inflation meaning I was never going to be able to go back after university and buy/live long term.

A few years after we get a Labour government. Public services are always better under a Labour government. Then the Tories accuse them of overspending. Not bloody surprising is it when they have to correct years of deliberate underfunding.

DH and I were just talking about how brilliant everything was in the late 90s early 00s compared to now. I’m not sure things were rosy in 2019 though

For a lot of people things were still shit in 2019. Buying a house was still impossible, police didn't bother investigating burglaries, operation waiting lists were long, etc etc.

I do wonder if aging population is going to make that harder next time.

More retired people needing services and fewer tax payers to pay for them.

Austerity did real damage to services and years of underfunding since - it's an ever worse starting point - even so Post Second world war Labour government did huge things - and yet I don't see any of that ambition. I fear it will be higher taxes and slightly less shit/better management possibly and blame Tory's for as long as possible.

I think we will just have to adjust our expectations.

We will have to accept the following:

1. NHS will disappear with time so we may have to budget for private health insurance for anything beyond emergency care. perhaps while there is still a labour shortage, people without private health insurance should ask their companies to provide it (if they can't increase salaries). In time, hopefully a state health insurance that is affordable for all will emerge.
2. Low state pension relative to earnings so older people may have to work longer, take in lodgers or take in adult children to help keep the lights on
3. Young people may only be able to afford to buy flats (if they are better off) or not be able to buy at all. If they want a house, they either have to be in the top 5% of earners or buy with their parents in multi generational home set ups (perhaps a clever arrangement can be made to ensure that everyone's interests would be protected in the event of divorce). Younger people who don't have local parents may rent in the city and have their kids living with parents.

Welfare will still exist but it will be increasingly hard to live on it. There are lots of countries outside the UK where this is the norm. Are people any less happy in those countries? I don't know but I don't get what is so special about us that we assume that we can have a welfare system and the right to live in nuclear family set ups when we are a relatively poor country in the Western hemisphere (poorer than Germany, France, Scandi countries, Benelux, Canada, USA Netherlands, Israel in terms of gdp per capita)? I am left wing myself, but I don't really see why we 'deserve' such things automatically. Everyone deserves healthcare, to be warm, well fed and to have a roof over their heads. But at the same time, can we really expect to have these nice things- free healthcare at the point of service, majority living in houses with gardens, state pension, comprehensive welfare if we are a poor country?

UK is a poor country with some very rich people- even the FT has said this. We will probably still have a sizeable middle class- 10% of the population who will inherit houses, have overseas holidays, pay for healthcare, educate privately or send their children to highly rated state schools plus private tuition. But 90% of the population will have to scrimp and save for healthcare and daily needs unless they pool their resources (with family or friends) by living communally. Right now, lots of people are struggling because they are attempting to live on one income or 1.5 incomes, this has never been viable for most of human history, 1950s to 1980s was a bit of a blip.

Hopefully there would be some affordable healthcare insurance which would cover the 90%; i would expect the healthcare needs of bottom 20% to be covered.

I think the only way to go back to happier times is to travel back to 1997.

IMO, the seeds of all this gloom were sown with the financial crisis. The banks being bailed out was completely the wrong thing. Quantitative easing has gone on far too long and contributed to the asset bubbles, most noticeably in housing. Brexit is looking like a car crash, certainly in the short term. Covid stopped most of the world for 18 months and had a huge toll in lives and health, that's now damaging the NHS. Putin's Ukraine war has hatched an energy and cost of living crisis.

And then there's the imminent end of the Western epoch, and a demographic crunch. Plus climate change. In total, that's the recipe for our societal misery. But as individuals, we have to control what we can and take our happiness where we find it.

Didn't see much of that 'societal misery' when I was out and about today, I saw lots of families out having a good time before Christmas

“Things are looking up, by Jove,” said guy who canvassed Mayfair residents on their feelings about the economy.

Mayfair, aint that in london? Is that the only place in the UK people can enjoy Christmas?

Reminds me of that poster who said people are not struggling because she was buying a golden retriever puppy for £3000. and every puppy in the litter was sold off.

There are whole shopping centres in Indonesia where people saunter around carrying chanel handbags. My Indonesian friend at university told me about them and also how she exclusively socialized in such shopping centers, all her friends went to them. She also went to a UK boarding school that charged 33k per annum. She also said that she wasn't rich compared to many of her friends, and she counted herself as 'middle class'. 50% of Indonesians live on less than $1 per day. So which narrative is true? Both are and they exist in the same country.

There was that guy in Question Time earning £80k in some trade business who was adamant he wasn’t in the top 50% of earners in the UK, never mind top 10%.

It is the one of the few areas in London which is almost uniformly wealthy. Most areas are mixed otherwise! A terraced house in my area costs £1.4 million but 20% of children in the local primary school are still on free school meals.

You haven't been born yet if you think this is hardship!

Socialmedia- quite, I was making the point that aome people are still enjoying Christmas and that's allowed

how would you define hardship? Do we need to go back to being barefoot, starving and have cholera outbreaks before you use that word?

I am reasonably well off. I largely ignore the media.

but there are serious issues going on with poverty and the way those in power treat everyone else. I don't think anyone needing the health service for themselves or their loved ones would say there's no hardship. I don't think it's right that energy profits are going through the roof when people can't heat their homes.

A big part of this is overpopulation, but another big part is that worldwide, govts are focussed on things that don't improve quality of life.

Pollyanna is going to hell in a handcart… along with a number of others.

how would you define hardship? Do we need to go back to being barefoot, starving and have cholera outbreaks before you use that word?

Well just thinking back as recently as my grandparents' generation... .they lived through two world wars, had family members killed in both, lost their first child to poverty (pneumonia and starvation), spent seven years apart when my grandfather immigrated to a new country before earning enough to send for his wife and child, worked like dogs to raise their family until my grandfather literally dropped dead and my grandmother survived him by a few years only to go through a horrific death from cancer.
Their children (inc my mother) worked from a young age, picking fruit, delivering newspapers, babysitting, collecting bottles for recycling and all the money they earned went straight into my grandmother's purse.
When my grandfather had a heart attack they all had to work even harder... no sick pay or welfare in those days.
They wore hand-me down clothes, as the youngest girl my mother even inherited her sister's hand me down shoes that were too small for her!
My mother contracted childhood polio which left her with a lifelong weakness in her arms.
When she finished secondary school at the top of her class there was no money in the family or grants/loans available to enable her to get any further education.
And yet to the end of her days my mother was constantly cheerful, smiling and grateful for the "wonderful" (her words) life she had lived.

I agree that there is obviously hardship in the world but not many of us have experienced it.

Interestingly, Daniel Finkelstein's column in the Times today is about not giving way to pessimism. As @BootifulLoser wrote above, there is hardship but it's rare in modern Europe.

He recommends a book by Martin Seligman called Learned Optimism which I shall read after Christmas. It's not a Pollyanna thing, the point is that an optimistic outlook sees more opportunities and is more creative. Maybe most of MN should read along.

Bootiful interesting, my grandparents sound like they had similar lives. They were pleased their children and grandchildren were having a better experience.

Xing pessimism often makes for better planning. I have coped much better with my own problems, on a practical level, with good planning that was informed by what I think of as realism.

someone else referred to that column on another thread, in reference to practicalities.

Then good planning helps with quality of life...if you're high up enough Maslow's pyramid of course.

genuinely surprised by some of these responses, but some people literally can't go on unless they Pollyanna.

Yes, the other thread were fairly scathing of the column, and much of their reasoning was sound enough. I like to think I plan ahead to cope with life well enough, but I am naturally a logistician according to those career plan/profiling aptitude tests. I tend to be fairly upbeat in general and can usually spot a silver lining. The MSM are a bit relentless in the pursuit of bad news, so it's easy and tempting to keep scrolling through acres of anguish, and the Insta-filtered influencer world is so air-brushed it's understandable that many feel their lives fall short.

Yes, but even the media ignorers like me - totally unaware of Instagram too - we experience the problems in our lives, which are a lot different than a just few short years ago.