To be absolutely sick of hearing about the cost of living crisis

[Katypp]

I surely can't be the only person sick to death of hearing about the cost of living crisis?
I am tired of reporters interviewing middle-class (usually) mothers inside paid activities such as soft play and hearing them moan about how they are struggling to make ends meet.
Have we completely lost the ability to cut our cloth according to our means or does 'struggling' now mean carrying on spending as usual then complaining when there's no money left?
There have never been as many massive new cars on the road, towns are full of hairdressers, nail bars, brow bars, tanning salons, soft play, play cafes, coffee shops, ice cream parlours, dog groomers, most of which didn't exist 25 years ago and are probably the recipients of the money of the families who say they can't keep up with spiralling costs.
Yes, some families will have been hard up before prices started to go up and will have nothing else to cut back on. They have my sympathy.
But i am utterly fed up of hearing how hard households ars being hit by the cost of living crisis when all that's needed is a few minor cutbacks which they don't want to make.

Well on your first point, there is evidence of a generalised level that the particular person you brought up had lots and lots of rich and powerful friends who are all heavily invested in protecting each other at all costs, and could be classed broadly as "high achievers" so your defensiveness speaks volumes.

I have found Libertarians an interesting bunch. In favour of free markets and small state because they want more, they already have what most would consider "enough" and have a tendency to drift to the "right" when the lower echelons get stroppy and can't establish security by hard work alone, and start asking questions, because their choices don't reap the rewards that are promised.

Also perfectly happy with socialism (childish though it apparently is!) when it benefits the wealthy. It's almost as though people assign themselves labels that they don't really understand...

I assure you there are plenty of extremely high achievers who have happy, loving families and who do not abuse women or girls. How ridiculous and frankly desperate.

What do you consider “enough”? Might it not occur to you that what you feel is enough for you might not be enough for the next person? Your ideology snuffs out ambition.

You really must work on your reading comprehension. You are wasting people's time.

"Enough" in my books is shelter, food, education and enough societal cohesion for both those who can achieve to do so, and those who can't to still be treated like human beings, not flawed economic units requiring punishment or at worst termination. This used to be the standard aspired to in a civilised society even if not fully borne out in practical terms.

Our consciousness and intelligence should allow us to perform beyond the evolutionary principle of survival of the fittest only. Thereby beckons a slippery slope that relatively recent history has demonstrated ends well for very few indeed.

And yet many high-achievers wouldn't be so without socialism.

Socialism has actually been an essential building block in the wealth of the boomer generation. A true 'free market' can only exist if the majority of the population are educated enough to have choices about their future. And the only reason that can happen is through socialist policies regarding education and healthcare.

The unsupported poor who don't have access to healthcare and education have no means by which to move up the ranks to become contributors to the free market. The evidence is there in our history.

My own parents, who bafflingly have similar attitudes to you about socialism, owe their own success to both socialism and their own graft. Both attended grammar schools, an education which they would not have received without state intervention. One of them only survived childhood because of the socialist NHS.

Of course, you will tell me you don't mean those things, or you will point to the state of the modern education system/healthcare system.

Socialism understands that we don't live in a vacuum, that am educated and healthy majority is better for all. And most of us can see that the collapse of the education and healthcare systems outside of the private sector is detrimental to society and, by extension, the free market.

The boomers had the greatest opportunity of upward mobility of any generation before, and that is partly why they are the richest. To deny the role socialism has played in that mobility is childish indeed.

I am no communist. But I absolutely recognise the role socialism has played in my prosperity. I'd be a fool if I didn't. Capitalism is not my enemy, but capitalism that isn't tempered by the socialist programmes we have had in this country is a bad for society as Communist Totalitarianism.

You only move the goal posts in the way you describe if you give the same increase in income to everyone.

Lifting those people on 60% or less of median income out of poverty only moves the goalposts in the way you describe if you don't do it by giving everyone more.

As well as helping those in poverty increase their income, reducing housing costs is probably the most effective tool because poverty is measured as income after housing costs (which is why more social housing would be one of the most effective tools for combating poverty)

Median income is calculated by lining people up from lowest income to the highest and looking at what the middle person earns (adjusted for family size etc)

For example:

Example one

Person 1) Income = £20
2) £20
3) £50
<<<<<<<<<<<< poverty line £60
4) £75
5) £100 <<<<< median
6) £110
7) £110
8) £175
9) £200

Example two

1. £50 <<<<<<<<<<<< poverty line £60
2. £65
3. £70
4. £85
5. £100 <<<<< median
6. £110
7. £110
8. £175
9. £200

Reduced housing costs and / or increased income through wages or benefits lifts person 2 and 3 out of poverty, median income remains the same.

People 1 through 4 have more disposable income, perhaps cheaper and more secure housing. Less well off people spend the money they have at shops or on services to facilitate basic standards of living as they can't afford to squirrel it all away in pensions and long term savings. This means that the economy improves for everyone because more VAT is collected and production increases to meet demand which increases GDP.

It is also completely disingenuous to state that the reduction in absolute child poverty is a good news story because it is a false narrative.

For starters, relative child poverty has remained static at 30% since 1997.

Material deprivation as measured by the Townsend model decreased from between 1997 and 2008 but has been increasing every since and currently puts between 18% and 24% of children in material deprivation.

Using you absolute poverty definition

It fell from 43% to 27% between 1997 and 2008 - largely because of the implementation of tax credits, growth and rising wages using 1998/99 as the baseline.

The baseline was adjusted to 2010/11 and between 2010 and 2015 it remained static at 27%.

The 2010 baseline remained in place until 2024 where absolute poverty looked like it had decreased to 17% but this did not take into account the fact that the cost of day to day essentials had increased at rates that are higher than inflation.

Last year, the baseline was reset again to 2024/25 and is now back to 27%.

The government have also created a new Deep Material Poverty measure - it has a similar ethos to the Towsend model and lists 13 indicators of a basic standards of living:

1. A damp-free home
2. Adequate heating to keep the home warm
3. Fresh fruit and vegetables daily
4. Three meals a day for the children
5. Comfortable, well-fitting clothes
6. Two pairs of properly fitting shoes
7. Access to public transport or a car when needed
8. An internet connection and device for schoolwork
9. Replacing worn-out furniture
10. Replacing broken electrical goods (like a fridge or washing machine)
11. Money to go on a school trip or social activities
12. Celebrating special occasions (like birthdays)
13. The financial buffer to save a small amount for unexpected expenses

A family is in deep material poverty if they lack four or more of the things on that list. Currently that is 13% of children.

So we have:

30% of children in relative poverty
27% of children in absolute poverty based on 2024-25 standards
Between 18% and 24% in deprivation based on what the public deem to be minimum living standards
13% in deep material poverty based on what the government deem as absolute basics.

We are the 6th richest nation in the world and the second richest nation in Europe - no-one in their right mind should try and spin over a quarter of children living in poverty and over 10% living in deep poverty as some sort of good news story and claim that highlighting it is spinning some kind of narrative.

They increased spending on public services which meant GDP also increased. Go and have a look at the debt as a % of GDP figures in the Labour era - it was stable and only really started to increase as the financial crisis kicked in.

There was no boom and bust until the financial crisis, which was not Labour's fault no matter what the Tory narrative wants us to believe.

Public services improved massively and they invested in infrastructure. They also lifted millions of children out of poverty.

You only have to compare the areas which managed to hold onto the funding for Building Schools for the Future which all have newly built or refurbished secondary schools with those that lost it when the Tory purge started to see the difference public investment makes vs the false economy of 'saving money'.

The areas that lost the funding have crumbling buildings which aren't fit for purpose with issues like the RACC problem now needing even more investment to fix.

Oh and PFI was originally introduced by John Majors government - Blair and Brown just expanded it.

There’s no suggestion by the poster that people now can’t afford to buy a house. They acknowledge it is expensive. I read it to mean that people still could by a house, if they did what the majority did in the 80s? Lifestyles and priorities are different now and that’s okay. All of our choices have consequences. I perhaps think that the younger generation may have it correct, prioritising travel, entertainment and lifestyle above property ownership.

I think young people now have to make a choice - committing to property ownership or enjoying the lifestyle described above. There wasn’t that difficult choice to make in the 80s, as that lifestyle wasn’t available to the masses so perhaps property ownership wasn’t felt as such a sacrifice.

Different decades have brought different challenges, e.g. the eye watering interest rates in the 80s and again, around twenty years ago, when mortgage payments consumed up to 48% of disposable income. Currently, inflation of house prices over wages.

The poster talks of two people living with parents and assuming minimum wage, saving an equivalent amount of around 50k over two years and buying a 2 bed terrace. This still seems possible, in the vast majority of areas in the UK, no?

They left the country when tax on the wealthy was lower than it has ever been!

What else do you want to give them exactly?

It is not the politics of envy because I am not talking about your standard millionaire business person who maybe has 5 or 10 million in the bank I am talking about billionaires who have made a significant amount of their wealth by gaming the system and use that wealth to buy influence to game the system even more.

You haven't even engaged with any of the specifics of the arguement - just generalisations.

Why are you OK with Jim Ratcliffe being able to avoid paying tax on his £15 billion personal fortune by pissing off to Monacco, while the British tax payer gives his private business, which made over £3 billion profit after tax in 2022 and 2023 a grant of £50 million?

We're not talking Bob the Builder here who has made a £5 million fortune and employs 150 laborors, drives a brand new Range Rover and lives in a mansion in Essex - fair play to him - he deserves everything he has.

We're talking about people with billions. It would take someone on the average UK wage 384, 231 years to make £15billion. Even if you earned £1 million a year, it would take you 60,000 years.

This is not about taking hard earned money from people who have worked hard. It is about distributing large sums of wealth to make society a little bit fairer.

50k in 2 years is over £2,000 per month. Minimum wage full time (40 hours) is around £1,500 after tax. So if someone is living with parents to save, you're assuming they're paying no rent, buying no food, making no contribution to their parents costs etc. Given many parents with late teen/early 20s children are likely also feeling the pinch, that's a privileged position to be in, to not need to take anything from your children to cover their adult costs.

Adding in commuting costs, potentially running a car (insurance, tax, maintenance etc), plus general living costs (phone, clothes, socialising), there's nothing left of their minimum, full time wage.

But let's say they manage it. Do absolutely nothing but save for two years. And there's two of them. Minimum wage is just over 25k a year. To buy a house that is likely averaging £300k with a 10-15% deposit, you need an income of £60k to pass affordability, plus minimal monthly commitments. Minimum wage isn't covering that. Even with two of them. And the cheaper houses are hard to come by in areas where they are close enough to their jobs to be able to commute.

Here you go @LuckyHazelFox

Hard data - please explain how these figures show the Tories do better with the economy than Labour and how public services, education and access to health care has improved after 14 years of Tory rule.

The 97 - 2010 Labour government:

Increased GDP per Capita at a faster rate than the Major government and Europe. Under the last it barely increased and Europe caught up.

They stabilised debt as a % of GDP keeping it steady at around 40% despite increases in spending. Despite austerity and slashing of public services, it has just gone up and up under the Tories - its almost as if investing in public services helps growth - who knew 🤔

They increased health spending as a % of GDP and left the Tories with a health service that was classed as one of the best in the world. Tories have continued to increase the % of GDP spent on health to 8% - do you think they have spent it wisely? Are we healthier as a nation now? Do we have better access to health care?

Inherited public spending of 20% of GDP and left office with the same proportion - increased to 25% under the Tories...and look at the amazing services we have today to show for it.

Actually reduced spending on education as a % of GDP but somehow found the money for more teachers and Building School for the Future. Tories spent more and have left us with an education system on its knees and crumbling school buildings.

So go on - tell me how the Tories are so much better at running the country - but use evidence, not generalisations and platitudes.

I'm not even a Labour supporter - I tend to vote LD but there is no way you can look at any of the available evidence, either financial or in terms of value for money and the quality of services and people's lives and say that what we need is more of the Tories way of doing things.

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Haven't bothered to read any of that since the Tories aren't in power. Once again, why do you like going backwards? You're deflecting. There's another 3 years of this government. Which between the personal egos, infighting and not putting the country first, I'm sure we've got some more instability to come. Sorry was that meant to be a gotcha?

The kind done under Blair and Brown for Vodafone, Goldman Sachs and Google? People always blame the Tories for cosying up to the big multinationals but Labour did it too, until they got caught out when such deals became publicised!

The reality is we NEED to do deals with billionaires and multinationals as we need them more than they need us. We need them to employ people in the UK, pay employers NIC and VAT, pay business rates, occupy "prime" retail spots to drive customers to them thus providing footfall to smaller shops nearby etc. We also need at least some of the owners to "live" in the UK to pay tax on their huge wealth/incomes.

Perhaps we should actually become a tax haven ourselves, like Panama, Gibraltar, IOM, BVI etc and stop pretending.

It was well publicised that for the first term of office, "New" labour went with the Tory fiscal policies. It was their second term when Brown went crazy with spending. Your graph illustrates it. First 5 years of stability and reduced debt (when they adopted Tory fiscal policy) then it starts to go wrong for the last 8 years with debt increasing despite Brown claiming they were "boom" years. Any fool can "boom" the economy by borrowing money and spending it.

Course you've not. You've got the slogans, no idea how to back them up.

It isn't on the Tories to navigate us through this mess. All this data on their previous governance can go someway towards where we are at now. However, two years of useless Starmer putting his minority interests first are not addressing his inadequate CoE and that's only for starters. No vision except to keep blaming the Tories. Labour aren't a party bringing any business acumen. No wonder Kemi wipes the floor with the lot of them.

Nobody except Labour needs slogans right now. The rest of the parties are sitting back and laughing at them. When are Labour going to start backing up its policies? Two years, clock ticking, failed measures pipe dreams and caving into unions. More of that to come with Burnham. That should keep a huge proportion of MN posters happy.

Now you've stated the bleeding obvious, have you got anything to add? Of course governments do deals with big business 🙄 What is it you're saying they got "caught out" with - governing?

And please, do share what this wild spending was? While you're at it, tell us what was happening to the economy right before the coalition government took power in 2010?

What's that saying about keeping quiet and risking people thinking you're a fool?

I've heard that one. I've also heard the one about the left, when cornered, resorting to personal insults. It's how you roll.

Thread taken over by Labour/Tory voters.

"It is better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."

Great isn't it?

Very presumptuous of you.

OK. So you've used a quote to attack and now aren't owning it. 🤔