To refuse to pay current prices?

[Blusteryskies]

I'm probably unreasonable for asking such a question, but has anyone else reached the point where they just won't buy things anymore even though they can afford to? I no longer see the point of buying things. Clothes, meals out, house items etc. Everything seems so overpriced and quality no longer correlates with price. I've decided I literally don't need to buy anything. I have enough clothes to last me years, furniture, homewares etc. Unless something dies, I won't be replacing it. Why do we need new clothes because someone has decided style has shifted massively in the past few years? Interiors likewise. I'm stating the bleeding obvious, but it all just feels like a con to fleece us out of our money and now brands are ever increasing their prices and their profit margins. I'm just fed up of it, and no longer feel like it's worth participating in mass consumerism. It's a never ending cycle of pointless, unfullfilling consumption.

because the gaps in the labour market struggling to be filled were nearly always about unpleasant jobs that people ‘don’t fancy’ ( care, NHS, manufacturing production lines, warehousing ) aren’t qualified for ( HGV driving, bus driving etc) or are ‘unsociable hours’ - which are hard for anyone with families and caring ( so often women) or not fit and relatively healthy to do for sustainable levels of time - they were never really about a bit of part time retail in normal hours or even working in coffee shops or cafes ( especially if you live in a student heavy town or city as I do)

Whilst they aren’t great places to hang around or chill, if you just want a takeaway coffee you may as well go to Greggs or Maccy Ds for half the price ( and less)

Because the more people who are working, the more people will have the money to buy stuff and therefore more jobs in retail will be needed
The quest for ever expanding growth is what drives both business and government. The more hamsters there are on the wheel, the faster it turns

I don't know. The economy has changed recently. The job market is very tough.

Only if the people getting back into work then indulge in discretionary spending and not, you know, ensure they pay their bills on time and don’t finish the month overdrawn, pay down their debts, or build up a savings buffer.

There was no greggs or McDonald nearby but I’ll consider that in future.

The alternatives were Starbucks, Krispy Kreme, and cafe Nero so I thought I’d support the one that was the least commercial (out of that bunch) but yeah lesson learned!

Oh absolutely! But of course, all society is set up to extract the maximum amount of cash from each of us through social manipulation and marketing hype. I have no evidence but I highly doubt someone newly back in the workforce wouldn’t spend at least some extra on discretionary stuff

Yeah, it's not actually as simple as there being people who need jobs and vacancies that need filling. The jobs that are accessible, desirable and doable aren't the ones where we have shortages.

Yep, it’s one thing that some people don’t seem to get - we had an awful lot of younger single Eastern Europeans and Europeans in general here working in these jobs that only really work easily if you have no ties, can do shifts , sometimes need your own transport to get to easily at odd times and often need to be quite fit too - so what happened was lots left, didn’t like the way things were going and the general anti anyone not British vibe- Tory gvt then realise ‘ooops , we’ve got issues in some quite key areas- employers can’t get ‘native’ people to do these jobs’ so they change the goalposts at which point start allowing in whole families from places like Pakistan, Phillipines, Nigeria in order to get people into these jobs in a hurry . I had a desk in a centre that was doing the visas and it was obvious this was happening - so instead of some young fit Lithuanian guy needing next to no support if any, no schools, shared housing , rarely needed GP etc - you then got whole families needing the lot and pressure in everything from housing to medical - an absolute shit shower that wasn’t thought through - it’s clear that some jobs that ‘are’ available just aren’t remotely suitable for many who not in employment or underemployed - and for a whole variety of reasons of reasons and that won’t change for certain sectors

Tory governments were never good at long term planning. Or anything really.

Indeed.

It’s interesting, yes clearly wasn’t thought through, I think what many people who voted for brexit wanted to happen was that these jobs were made more attractive and accessible, e.g. school hours shifts, transport, higher pay for unsociable hours etc. Years ago I used to live in an area where there were a lot of factory jobs that local people would work in and the working conditions seemed alot better, there were even family fun days they used to run for the staff families and Sundays were paid double, 1 even had a 24 hour nursery. Many other jobs now requiring a degree, it was possible to do with on the job training funded by the employer, e.g nurses, paramedics, I think this was what people were hoping we’d return to. Granting visas for people (and their families) to come in and do these jobs was a huge betrayal that will have repercussions for years to come

The jobs of nurse and paramedic have changed though and there is a lot more responsibility, so them having an education is a good thing, IMO. When I lived in the UK, I remember being seen by a nurse rather than a doctor at my GP practice, and the nurse being able to examine and prescribe. I don’t think we can go back to training school leavers on the job for that level of responsibility.

I understand that as a HCP myself, however if myself and still much of the workforce were good enough with just 5 GCSEs to go into a fully paid position as a student nurse from college and be trained up to the required level, why are today’s young people being forced to have top A levels and fork out 60k and 3 years of no salary for the privilege?

I actually do agree with you on this - I did student SRN nurse back in the80s under project 2000 and we got paid ( not great but we certainly didn’t have loans) - my own view is that any degree that requires you to have substantial amounts of work based experience ( and we were on the wards for every 6 weeks out of 10) doing a job not that dissimilar to paid employees for vast parts of it should not have tuition fees and a modest grant too - so doctors, nurses, teachers etc basically should not be ‘paying to play’ - which is how it feels -

Waiving tuition fees - yes.

Replacing nurses who have undergraduate and often post graduate degrees with school leavers - no.

We want bright people in these roles because there’s a huge amount of responsibility. And the brightest, by and large, pursue higher education. Do we honestly think we’ll get better nurses if we relegated the profession to something one can enter with just 5 GCSEs?

Used to be like that though and was it any worst?

Yes that was definitely what people didn’t want

we seem to have to have immigration when I don’t know anyone who actually wanted it in the first place in the early 2000s

It would help if nurses were chosen for training on aptitude rather than just academics. There are many nurses these days who don't seem to have a clue how to relate to patients as people rather than problems to solve

People didn't suffer when ever nurse didn't have a degree. If fact often treated better

Yes. I hate feeling ripped off and paying more for worse quality. So I only buy the bare minimum now, work out deals, shop secondhand etc.

Yes, it worked much better before. Older nurses have said about the lack of care and compassion which you don't get by just doing degrees as it is a job you have to love to do well and put up with the crappy general public (my words).
Also nurses used to clean the wards to a proper hygenic standard. Outside cleaning companies do a terrible job in a lot of hospitals leading to relatives feeling they need to clean which is also not good.

As someone who has 2 degrees, including a 1 class honours, I think you are over rating (usually childhood) academic success, the evidence is overwhelming that it is environmental rather than intrinsic factors that mainly influence academic success and also whether a person even chooses to pursue higher education. As a health care professional, the only thing I would be interested in is whether the candidate has the required capacity to be trained and educated up to the required level needed. I know many older nurses who came in via GCSEs only who are amazing intuitive nurses. I also know quite a few who came into nursing with even fewer qualifications via the enrolled nurse route who are also wonderful. There are countless examples through history of people who were apparently intellectually brilliant but who you would certainly not want caring for you as a nurse or doctor.