Please explain to me like I’m a 5 year old. How do we fix the economy?

[bushproblems]

The job market is shocking, the minimum wage rise has not pushed up the salaries in the next bracket, food is so expensive and working hard no longer feels like it provides the rewards it used to.

Im earning more than I have in my life, but I feel poorer than I did 10 years ago when I was just above minimum wage.

I get that employers have more costs so the profits of a company won’t trickle down like it did, but what, or who, can fix this?

Im feeling very despondent about the future for me and for the younger people in my family

You absolutely can! Not sure where you are getting your info from! You make the trains longer and extend platforms. It’s got some disruption built in but better than ripping the country up as HS2 is doing. Using double decker trains as other countries do isn’t cheap due to our bridges but we did not need HS2. And the price we have paid could have been better spent in the north. It’s difficult to find anyone justifying it now unless you just read propaganda of course. Most economists say the business case doesn’t stack up. Capacity could have been upped elsewhere and who is going to pay the premium prices to save 15 minutes? Idiots with more money than sense I assume. We have raped and pillaged the countryside for this but I guess you don’t care. Have you actually seen what has happened?

It's also fuelled housing cost inflation with lots of extra people going to far away unis so needing accommodation to live it whilst there, often taking up family homes converted into bed sits or the building of huge new purpose built student accommodation. Good for the construction industry, but very bad for the taxpayer funding it via student loans and the poor graduates having to repay student loans.

Completely agree. The whole idea of HS2 was sold as improving the economy of the North, so which end did they start with first, and run out of money on? The south! It would have made much more sense to improve transport connections in the North to encourage economic development, so that is where the initial investment should have been made instead of blighting areas in the south for years by the threat of possible compulsory purchase on land which has in many cases never materialised.

What does this have to do with anything?

The discussion was about low birth rates and the possible reasons behind them. I was simply pointing out that affordability can’t be the primary factor because countries where having children isn’t so prohibitively expensive and parents get support (free childcare, extended paid parental leave, free university for their children etc.) also exhibit low birth rates - even lower than the UK.

Exactly this, the emphasis on academic success being the gold standard is where we need to start.

We need to stop pushing the notion that a few poorly scraped GCSEs are enough to get kids into decent well paid work with prospects for advancement , because they generally aren’t. Yes kids need English and maths as basic skills, but if there were well taught , well valued , certified and standardised routes into trade or vocational skills that were seen to have the status of academic study then maybe this ridiculous notion that only a degree - in whatever meaningless area of study - will suffice would die the death.

Gone are the days when less academic children were pushed into factory work, firstly that sort of work doesn’t exist any more and secondly we need to recognise that trade, vocational and practical skills should be valued both socially and financially because, for a start, they are far more valuable to the economy than yet another second rate degree in , for example, media studies.

it has everything to do with your opening sentence: free uni
sorry if you cannot cope with more than one discussion at a time

Stop throwing worker's money at the feckless. People that are in dire straits, mentally or physically so desperately ill they can't work and think it's a good idea to bring a child into that situation. But hey ho, it's their right isn't it and someone else's money will pay for it.

Re the UK for production of goods etc., when our manufacturing base was off shored to the far East it was mostly because of cheap labour over there. Over the decades, manufacturing has become robotised/computerised and wages in China etc have risen, so there's no reason at all why we shouldn't start building our own manufacturing base again as we could invest in automation, using the same kind of robotics used in China, meaning relatively small labour force needed in such automated factories. At least we'd save the economic and environmental impact of transporting thousands of containers by ship around the World! No reason why we can't buy plastic injection moulding machines to produce our own "plastic crap" in the UK rather than importing it from China. Likewise with electronics which is likewise mostly robotic made these days. Ultimately, as wages and working conditions improve in the Far East, even "labour intensive" productive work like making clothes may well become cost effective to return to the UK, but we'd need a business-friendly government with sensible taxes and grants/subsidies, which is highly unlikely sadly as most recent governments seem to like kicking businesses and prefer to import cheap crap from abroad, thus to the detriment of our economy, the balance of payments deficit, the national debt ever increasing, etc.

This with bells on. There are so many ridiculous courses at our local Uni. When our local trades are crying out for plumbers and electricians.

And what should happen with the children born into such families?

@Wot23 Have you seen the stats on uni take up? It’s 37%. We have around 50% in the workforce with degrees because of older workers and those from abroad. We are not sending 50% to uni and never have. However 37% is too high. Nearer 30% is better with far more on offer just below degree level.

This means all the talented leaders would go to tech and financial services where entry salaries are higher and nobody will want to run care homes, retail or hospitality.

Gary Stephenson is a grifter.

The wealthy usually reinvest their wealth - but usually in ways that primarily benefit the wealthy. Most of the reinvestment doesn’t circulate in the wider economy, it doesn’t raise living standards and it isn’t invested in building businesses, funding innovation, or improving productivity.

It is usually “extractive reinvestment” - buying property to rent seek, share buybacks, financial speculation and monopolistic consolidation. They reinvest by buying financial assets from other wealthy people, investing in assets that already exist (shares, property), and earning returns that mostly flow back to the top.

This is why we have government schemes such as tax breaks to encourage innovation, tax breaks for small businesses, government investment in infrastructure, innovation, and government funded schemes to increase productivity, for example AI wouldn’t have got off the ground without government funding. It was literally 5 decades of public funding as there’s been no commercial use for 50 years, AI researchers have been trained at publicly funded universities and done publicly funded research, public services have acted as early buyers of AI providing stable funding and Government funded and built the computing and internet infrastructure eg the early supercomputers, the internet, academic computer clusters. AI would have got absolutely nowhere without government funding.

AI is just one recent and prominent example but it’s not the exception. Government funding is behind innovation and crucial infrastructure in ways people seem to be totally oblivious to. All of which much be funded by taxation.

Wealth is reinvested in the stock market! In pension funds! What wealth do they have apart from homes where no one benefits? What do you actually think wealth is? Ok some have gold bars but most have wealth investment strategies. These are about investing in a range of vehicles and of course they provide for society. Try living in a society where few have wealth. It’s not attractive and certainly no NHS or benefits.

It would also mean all the talented leaders would move abroad to countries who didn't have such ridiculous laws!

@HermioneWeasley Define talented! Not everyone has talent for tech. There are other well paying jobs!

If you were responding to me then yes, wealth is invested in the stock market, as I said. I don’t think you read / understood my comment.

HermioneWeasley is a very senior lawyer. I think she knows this.

yes I am referring to workforce, not student population, hence my reference to salary levels
Cherie's hand puppet has almost achieved his 50% target, although AI says:

exceeding 50% for young adults in England by age 25, and significantly higher for women than men.
As of late 2024, approximately 50% of the UK population aged 19–64 hold a qualification at NQF Level 4 or above (which includes higher apprenticeships, degrees, and doctorates). For specific age groups, this increases:

• Age 30–34: Roughly 50% are university graduates.
• Age 15–64: About 40.6% of this broader group hold a degree.

Maybe she can define it for the rest of us then.

Well yes, and that!

The massification of HE started in the 1980s under the Tories, who also oversaw the ending of the polys in 1992. A lot of the 1980s big increase in people going to uni was just women going in more equivalent numbers to men.

basically, the current economic model is operating exactly as it was designed to but it’s clearly not designed for the average person, or for the kind of stability most people hope for in their everyday lives
economic wise

we rely heavily on countries like china and other low-cost manufacturing hubs for labour and production

this makes products cheaper to produce, which keeps multinational corporations profitable

workers everywhere, of course, want and deserve fair wages, but the globalized system creates intense competition, which drives wages down and limits bargaining power

at the same time, most consumers prefer low prices, which is why platforms like amazon, ebay, and other online retailers thrive by sourcing goods from abroad rather than from local producers

even in a service-based economy, there’s a finite need for workers only so many people are required to run essential services, hospitality, retail, and other roles

sure, it’s possible to create more jobs, but unless people are willing to pay the full cost of labour, many roles cannot generate sufficient profit to be sustainable litter picking, basic maintenance, or many local service jobs are prime examples

from a monetary perspective

there’s only a certain number of people needed to keep society functioning in a reasonably efficient way

beyond that, the system relies on low-cost labour globally to maintain profits and keep prices low

and while “printing money” is sometimes floated as a solution, it’s not simple institutions like the bank of england have constraints, and excessive money creation risks inflation, which affects everyone, especially the average worker
longer-term, some argue that a more unified global system one where labour laws, wages, and workers’ rights are standardized worldwide could address some of these imbalances

until something of that scale exists, society relies on the benefits system to catch those who fall through the cracks

otherwise, large portions of the population may experience conditions reminiscent of victorian-era inequality, where basic subsistence and security are precarious

the reality is

there is only so much profit to go around

with globalization, automation, robotics, and ai, many traditional human roles are becoming less essential

even if new industries are created, they often require fewer humans to function effectively

morally, it’s troubling to think of people as “expendable,” but economically, the system simply optimizes for efficiency and cost, not human fulfillment

at the end of the day, the economy functions the way it does largely because society collectively demands goods and services at the lowest possible price, and the system delivers exactly that

My DD, 33 did a business degree, then did a Nursing degree, now doing a Masters and setting up own business. Not less of: More please!