Cost of everything. Race to the bottom.

[Eddyraisins]

The cost of things are horrendous no point in denying that.

A mortgaged family are probably £400-500 down a month from a couple of year ago.
A non mortgaged maybe £300. For renters if landlord has put rent up then its the same as above. Food, the insane gas and electricity costs, petrol, food bills gone up 25 percent plus. Just everything. Any spare money doesn't go as far as it did anyway.
Now insurance is creeping up. Everything is up.

It sucks all round.

Why are people fighting at the bottom instead of looking up?

Yes people on min wage work hard and have many different challenges, time also stands still if work is boring. It can be really hard. I also see people that have studied hard and earning ok but they can't switch off after work, have students loans, have been sold the idea life should be slightly better. It should be! Both have their challenges.
Life is shit we are all down.
Battling at the bottom while the rich are fine.
It is representative of that cartoon. The guy with all the food pointing at a guy with some food, pointing at someone with an empty plate saying he is goong to take yours.

Lets compare up not down. AIBU to stop blaming each other and blame upwards?

Many of us are struggling lets not take that away from those struggling.

What's your post in response to?

Just my family arguing really. I do see it on here too though.

Time to get this government out. They have created this situation and continue to benefit from it. The cost of living crisis was never inevitable.

To be fair, the cost of living crisis is being felt on a global level, not just the UK. So not sure that's entirely accurate.

The crisis might be global but the uk isn't managing it well

Fucking hell this has been done to death. The rich are protected by their wealth and if you over tax them they will either disappear abroad or tax avoid. That’s why we have so many stealth taxes such as VAT. You are just not going to be able to force the rich to solve this problem, no matter how palatable this sounds. The answer is the bring interest rates down.

If this is in regards to the deleted post can I just point out that she basically insinuated that she would be better off not working hard in MW job and claiming benefits. It isn't a race to the bottom to say she was better off in her job than those in that scenario. I think you can complain about your situation without turning it into a benefits bashing thread. 👍

Other countries are experiencing a cost of living crisis due to post-Covid inflation and Russia's in invasion of Ukraine.

We have these factors to deal with as everyone does, plus an extra dosage of government mismanagement of the economy. Why has the UK been hit the worst out of all developed countries?

Lets compare up not down. AIBU to stop blaming each other and blame upwards?

Blame upwards? Who are you blaming? Someone with more money than you? Blaming them for you not having money?

Sorry im just trying to understand your post.

The super rich bank off shore. They are largely either capable of paying the smartest or are the smartest members of society. Therefore any move to make them pay more is just a challenge to pay less. The middle aspire to that life style so don't oppose it as if they could they would likely to do the same.

Now look at the bottom they are doing exactly what the middle opposes I.e having kids they can't afford, not working 40hrs a week yet still going out smoking and drinking of course your going to be annoyed at them.

In our case even dropping the 40% tax to 20% would cover our increased mortgage costs, COL increases etc. We would then use that for spending on things that matter to us, as we already save it wouldn't be sat there so it's a win win as the government would still get tax. Looking at that on a population scale it discourages off shore banking, tax planning etc as it seems fair compared to the current system of the middle funding what they don't believe in.

And so they should.

Because the properly rich and corporates have all the power, more power than Governments because they have options. So taxation isn’t the solution, rethinking is. Because essentially we are reliant on foreign investment and the big corporates move their businesses at a drop of a hat if they don’t like what the Government does. And our main tax take is from taxing employee income. If those employees lose their jobs it ends up costing the Government more, so they keep pandering to business.
I was reading something about house builders recently not spending huge amounts of money and time on buying land and years of planning and then building on it, but a council just giving the land with planning upfront and then them building and renting that building out again. We need more schemes like that and not selling off those council houses again. So I would create schemes like that where pension funds invest directly into reasonable rents to essential honest workers who look after property and pay lower rents. Teachers, police officers, nurses that kind of thing.

I don't. It's in response to people saying you shouldn't complain as there are people worse off.

I do often wonder if I'd be better off doing a terrible job at wor, which would basically just involve working 9-5 rather than 8-8. Then I'd probably get made redundant, be very poor overnight and no longer pay annual income tax amounting to 3x the average salary. That would presumably turn me from some evil rich bitch (paying taxes, outrageous) into deserving. Seems to be the general view of most threads about money.

Yes I do blame the government.
Course there are factors. They haven't managed it well.

I can't find that cartoon. Does anyone know which I mean?

To me a "race to the bottom" is more about people getting annoyed that doctors are striking to earn a salary commensurate to their skills and responsibility because someone else doesn't earn that much. Or people resenting public sectors pensions rather than demanding that EVERYONE should have a decent pension.
A MN classic - poster asks advice to about getting an ex to pay what they actually owe in child benefit, but even now they get what some perceive as a reasonable amount. Cue them being told that they should be happy with what they already have as some mothers get nothing.
That's the race to the bottom.

It's your "blame upwards" that has confused things, OP!

@AnotherTeaPlease - you shouldn’t be “blamed”. You should be incentivised so that other people see the point in doing what you did and aspire to do the same.

We need to rethink structural issues and use things like technology and personal responsibility. My work health insurance gives me money off for being fit and lower weight. All private health insurance has that concept up to a certain age, you pay less if you don’t smoke or are not obese. We need to incentivise people in a gentle way somehow.

Then what do you mean by blame upwards? Why blame anyone but yourself for how your life is turning out?

The Jacob Rees Moggs of this world.