To think the UK is in terminal decline

[ThisOchreBiscuit]

Jobs Civil service to cut thousands of jobs

Nothing positive is happening in this country. It’s just cuts, cuts and tax increases but these arent doing anything to scratch the surface.

The whole country is being propelled up by a massive Ponzi scheme: house prices and immigration. House prices make all home owners feel richer and immigration makes the GDP figures look better.

I suppose I shouldn’t complain as I am a child of immigrants. My parents came here in the 70s from India. They were virtually penniless but they have now been retired for 15 years, earning a state pension from 65 and still getting their final salary pension. They own their home in London and have thousands in savings. They were able to achieve this whilst working in low skilled factory jobs.

Now, professionals with university degrees would struggle to achieve their life style.

I think we are heading to a social mobility and quality of life that is closer to India and than the traditional western view, with wealth in the hands of a small number of landlords.

A has just purchased a completely nice family home near me for £500k and added a back and loft extension and turned it into a 6 bed HMO charging £800 per room.

They will make a 15% return on their £250k investment.

They’re not wrong, sorry. It’s great you’ve done so well for yourself but you’re not the norm.

I’m a Millennial and broadly speaking I agree with you.

In my social circle a lot of people complaint about not being able to afford a house, but what they mean is they can’t afford a house or flat that is exactly what they want - something fashionable and in a fashionable place. The ones who have bought something a little tired have spent £££ ripping out perfectly good and neutral bathroom/kitchen suites to replace them with something high tech and expensive, only to complain they’re skint.

Similarly with clothes - everything is North Face, Nike etc they would never buy clothes from supermarket brands or cheaper shops.

They’re all very self conscious and the thought of putting up with something a bit dated or uncool for a while to save money doesn’t seem to occur to them.

@Hopper123 It does seem to me that you are arguing why not to do something (moving to another country) rather than arguing to do something.

That's a nice zen perspective, but it doesn't take account of the financial reality facing people under 40.

I'm 'tapping 60' too and see my DCs facing financial pressures that I did not. ExH and I bought a nice house in a nice area on one average income. Thst house would now require two well above average incomes to buy.

My parents bought a house in the 1960s for £4000. It is now worth north of £700k, with only some small modifications done. That is many ticks above inflation. It used to be a neighbourhood of stay at home mothers and children playing in the gardens all day.. The children who now live in the neighbourhood spend their days in childcare. The beautiful big gardens are quiet as the grave.

Many young people have resigned themselves to never owning their own home, and even more problematic, never having children, simply because they can't afford them.

There's much more than a generational diivide at play. Those who can make a great starting salary upon graduation have an enormous advantage over those who don't. Those who can play real life Monopoly with buy to let properties have security that their peers will never have. Security is key - so many on zero hours contracts or low pay will never have it. It is the great divider.

Why do the houses have to be so b***dy expensive.

Because planning policy is so restrictive. if you have an owned house then it is in your own interest to prevent other new houses being built nearby because it would spoil your views and decrease the value of your own house.

Pick up a local paper when there is a photo of a local protest about a new housing development and I will guarantee that the vast majority if not all the protesters will be home owners.

Not sure what you mean. I'm not arguing anything or making much of a point about moving really. What I'm saying is that if I could I'd move and work somewhere else, as I have done in my younger years. Time and age is not on our side now but likely will be for our kids and we would encourage it and hope they have the choice and ability to do so. This country is not showing many prospects for my kids in the future and that is very disappointing and worrying for me as a parent.

I don’t think it’s planning policy -it’s also increasing population -and many divorces, people living longer, people not choosing to live in extended families.
How many old people live alone and on into their 90s. I’m 70, pop when I was young was 50 million now it’s approaching 70 million. My DGPs died at 58, 65, 82, 78. It suits house builders to keep prices high. Houses are being built everywhere I look but we need millions.

Because the population is increasing faster than we're building houses. Basic supply and demand. And birth rates are dropping, so population isn't increasing because of that.

The UK has been in terminal decline for about 50 years. The country has been asset stripped by successive governments all trying to balance the national books by taking a short cut. We have near enough no major industry left - we don't produce or make anything for ourselves. Totally dependent on imported goods now, even basic necessities like food we aren't capable of being self sufficient.

Also the expansion of unis meaning loads of family homes converted into student accommodation, worsening housing shortages in uni towns.

And holiday let’s and air bnb likewise taking away residences from the market.

Touristy uni towns have the double whammy with huge numbers of homes no longer being lived in as long term homes causing awful local housing shortages and very high housing costs due to supply and demand.

Following with interest

@Hopper123 I get all that. All I'm saying is looking at it a different way such as "reasons why I should move" rather than "reasons why I shouldn't move" might change the outcome. I moved to France 5 years ago and have met a number of families with young children who have done the same. The education system is good, the way of life is better imo, the health system is excellent, house prices are much lower, weather is better. Anyhow, good luck with it or, as they say here, "bon courage". 😉

“I wholly appreciate that many will read this and hear a patronising voice, divorced from reality, with no understanding or empathy for younger generations”

Yes, you are right - I do judge as I am the same age as you and whilst this post might reflect the world as you see it, it contains no appreciation of what reality looks like for thousands of families.

Nearly one in three families in the UK today are struggling to afford basics such as food and shoes for their children. Some of us older generation are supportive and empathic of the struggles of younger generations.

Thanks

it was a kind of rhetorical question as it’s not fair to blame previous generations for this

the never ending immigration definitely plays a part

Ahh right. Unfortunately there maybe many reasons to move we dream about it a lot. but far more important reasons not to on balance. Parents with Alzheimers being the main one. Australia for example we are now too old for their works visa programme and the USA we would both have to fully retrain for our degrees my husband spent 8 years at uni and is already saddled with student debt. I wouldn't move to another European country like France most of Europe is in the same state as UK from what I can gather.

We were in a good place before Brexit. That has royally f*ed us

True

The real difference is the price of houses. Currently the average house is 8.5 x the average income which is much higher than previous generations.

The thread 'what does your 18,19,20 year do for work' is very revealing and adds to the result we are heading for disaster. If this is sorted, I think it would go a long way to sorting out the other issues.

Of course house prices are high but if they give up, then what?

Completely agree. Manufacturing was thrown under a bus in favour of service sector decades ago. Seems like on government thought it important. Now We make nothing here, our industries are foreign owned, even public utilities are foreign owned.

Eventually western countries will not be able to service their debts and will go bankrupt. There will become a point where we can't pay and will write our debts off ourselves. Those we owe money to will have to either take military action against us or swallow their loss. If they try to invade us, they won't get much anyway if they won, and if we fended them off we could force them into writing the debt off as reparations.

I think the world will become less connected in the future and we will see a net emmigration rather than immigration. Some of this will be voluntary and some of it forced - people will stop coming here when we stop supporting those who come here. Somewhere else will be more attractive for economic migrants. Countries will become more insular, we'll produce what we need and there will be a return to a more feudal type of society where the masses are slaves in all but name.

What progressive liberal westerners have long failed to grasp is that making a fair world means making themselves and their descendents much poorer. The west thrived because it exploited undeveloped countries in places like Africa and Asia. By ending slavery and empires and by moving to actively treating these places as our equal we lost the things that made us more wealthy than them. We can't have it both ways.

Our past actions (good or bad) have caused our current decline, and we haven't reached terminal velocity yet.

Yes sold off by a previous Tory government. Now all utilities are privately owned and many by foreign companies. Stupid mistake, we are paying sky-high prices for now.

Oh please 🙄 where are you getting this rubbish from? The Daily Mail?

Every generation up to ours has been convinced their world is in terminal decline. Perhaps the thing to do is to organise and take positive action. Rather than whinging anonymously on forums about immigrants and politicians. There’s a lot of good out there in the world and many worse countries to live in.

@Dotjones

What progressive liberal westerners have long failed to grasp is that making a fair world means making themselves and their descendents much poorer.

Finally, someone gets it! We've been peddled the lie/myth that somehow we can make "everyone" wealthier, i.e. increase the living standards etc of the third world, without it affecting our own wealth. It's nonsense. The Earth's resources are limited. The very nature of "money" is that it's merely a representation of your underlying assets etc. Your pound coin is only worth a few pennies for it's metal if no one else regards it's value as representing a pound. Foreign exchange fluctuations, interest rates, inflation, etc., and very quickly and easily make any currency pretty much worthless. When we transfer wealth to other countries, it means, inevitably, our own wealth falls in value, in relative terms. Yet time and time again, we hear so-called experts tell us that it's perfectly possible to virtually eradicate worldwide poverty without reducing our wealth - it's clearly bollocks. All that happens is that ultimately, wealth transfers from one person to another, from one country to another. It may take time, and in the meantime, the effects may be fudged to hide the fact it's happening, but ultimately everything is a transfer of wealth, from working for a day, to selling a product, etc. Someone gains, someone loses. It's double entry book-keeping on a global scale! Like someone makes money on selling some company shares - inevitably someone else loses the same amount of money. The planet Earth is ultimately in balance - until we colonise another planet, the resources, aka wealth are ultimately limited to what we have. All that happens over centuries is that wealth shifts from person to person, country to country, continent to continent according to scientific and technical changes, societal changes, etc.