LEAVE the Conservative Party and save your country!

1…136137139141142…1135

Comments

  • TheBigBean
    TheBigBean Posts: 22,079
    pangolin said:

    TheBigBean said:

    My grandparents got to live through two world wars (fight in one of them) and grow up in the great depression. My parents got to retire in their 50s with a defined benefit pension. I got to spend years travelling, but will need to retire much later. I have sympathy for the young of today and think more could be done, but life is different for every generation.

    This is a fairly common sentiment I think. If benign apathy paid the bills the wealth divide would be closed in no time.
    To be fair, I was happy to pay more tax, so people could continue to receive free education or training, and I'm happy for inheritance tax to be increased substantially. Those two items alone would provide opportunity for all.

    I'm just saying that retiring in your 50s is something that happened in the past, but so too is being shot by your own side for not climbing out the trenches.
  • pangolin
    pangolin Posts: 6,668
    TheBigBean said:

    pangolin said:

    TheBigBean said:

    My grandparents got to live through two world wars (fight in one of them) and grow up in the great depression. My parents got to retire in their 50s with a defined benefit pension. I got to spend years travelling, but will need to retire much later. I have sympathy for the young of today and think more could be done, but life is different for every generation.

    This is a fairly common sentiment I think. If benign apathy paid the bills the wealth divide would be closed in no time.
    To be fair, I was happy to pay more tax, so people could continue to receive free education or training, and I'm happy for inheritance tax to be increased substantially. Those two items alone would provide opportunity for all.

    I'm just saying that retiring in your 50s is something that happened in the past, but so too is being shot by your own side for not climbing out the trenches.
    I guess I'm struggling a bit with the relevance of that to the debate.
    - Genesis Croix de Fer
    - Dolan Tuono
  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 29,895
    TheBigBean said:

    pangolin said:

    TheBigBean said:

    My grandparents got to live through two world wars (fight in one of them) and grow up in the great depression. My parents got to retire in their 50s with a defined benefit pension. I got to spend years travelling, but will need to retire much later. I have sympathy for the young of today and think more could be done, but life is different for every generation.

    This is a fairly common sentiment I think. If benign apathy paid the bills the wealth divide would be closed in no time.
    To be fair, I was happy to pay more tax, so people could continue to receive free education or training, and I'm happy for inheritance tax to be increased substantially. Those two items alone would provide opportunity for all.

    I'm just saying that retiring in your 50s is something that happened in the past, but so too is being shot by your own side for not climbing out the trenches.
    Retiring at 50 with a realistic expectation of 25 years of leisure was always a bit of an aberration.
    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 75,660
    TheBigBean said:

    My grandparents got to live through two world wars (fight in one of them) and grow up in the great depression. My parents got to retire in their 50s with a defined benefit pension. I got to spend years travelling, but will need to retire much later. I have sympathy for the young of today and think more could be done, but life is different for every generation.

    I don't understand the argument here. It's different for every generation. So what?

    That's literally what I'm trying to say. It *is* different in this generation - the economic opportunities and wealth is markedly different and that is driving the political change in the country.

    _
  • TheBigBean
    TheBigBean Posts: 22,079
    pangolin said:

    TheBigBean said:

    pangolin said:

    TheBigBean said:

    My grandparents got to live through two world wars (fight in one of them) and grow up in the great depression. My parents got to retire in their 50s with a defined benefit pension. I got to spend years travelling, but will need to retire much later. I have sympathy for the young of today and think more could be done, but life is different for every generation.

    This is a fairly common sentiment I think. If benign apathy paid the bills the wealth divide would be closed in no time.
    To be fair, I was happy to pay more tax, so people could continue to receive free education or training, and I'm happy for inheritance tax to be increased substantially. Those two items alone would provide opportunity for all.

    I'm just saying that retiring in your 50s is something that happened in the past, but so too is being shot by your own side for not climbing out the trenches.
    I guess I'm struggling a bit with the relevance of that to the debate.
    The lifestyle your parents led isn't relevant. Far better to focus on ways to provide opportunities to everyone in the future.

    Any better?
  • Stevo_666
    Stevo_666 Posts: 61,960
    rick_chasey said:

    Stevo_666 said:

    rick_chasey said:

    The same reason everyone expects economic growth to happen.

    Are you suggesting that there is a ceiling for economic growth?

    Either way, whether they should feel that or not, that is the feeling, and that is driving the politics.

    Nope, I'm suggesting that you wait. As I wrote above.
    I'm not sure you understand the issue.

    At the same given age, previous generations were substantially wealthier relative to the rest of the population. That means younger people are priced out of more parts of the economy.

    It's not about patience. It's about economic opportunity.
    I'm not sure you understand my point. Have another read.
    "I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]
  • kingstongraham
    kingstongraham Posts: 28,293
    Stevo_666 said:

    rick_chasey said:

    Stevo_666 said:

    rick_chasey said:

    The same reason everyone expects economic growth to happen.

    Are you suggesting that there is a ceiling for economic growth?

    Either way, whether they should feel that or not, that is the feeling, and that is driving the politics.

    Nope, I'm suggesting that you wait. As I wrote above.
    I'm not sure you understand the issue.

    At the same given age, previous generations were substantially wealthier relative to the rest of the population. That means younger people are priced out of more parts of the economy.

    It's not about patience. It's about economic opportunity.
    I'm not sure you understand my point. Have another read.
    Your point is that the people who have inherited will feel differently about the imbalance than those who have not (or have not yet). That is not in dispute, see the graphs.

    The gap between those who will inherit and those who will not is getting wider. If this is considered to be not an optimal eventuality, then maybe something should be done about it.

    If you are in the "will be passing something on" category, you might not think that it is in your interest for anything to change - hence Conservative vote increases with age. I'm interested in whether being younger but in the "likely to inherit something" category correlates with Conservative voting. I doubt it.
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 43,682
    My parents are from Rick's infamous "boomer" generation. My mum retired at 65 and my dad at nearly 70. My mum has a bit of public sector, final salary pension albeit only accrued over about the last 20 years in poorly paid jobs so it doesn't amount to much. My dad's pension is rubbish and he was earning far less (take home less than £300 per week) when he retired than he was in the late 80s - this in a job that had a 7 year apprenticeship when he started. My daughter is earning more now in her early 20s than he was at retirement so it's never as simple as some of these statements make it out to be.
  • surrey_commuter
    surrey_commuter Posts: 18,867
    My good for nothing father got to retire at 60 on a FS pension but he did grow up in a house with no electricity, got evacuated in the war, lived with rationing until he was 19 though by then he was doing national service for two years
  • kingstongraham
    kingstongraham Posts: 28,293
    Pross said:

    My parents are from Rick's infamous "boomer" generation. My mum retired at 65 and my dad at nearly 70. My mum has a bit of public sector, final salary pension albeit only accrued over about the last 20 years in poorly paid jobs so it doesn't amount to much. My dad's pension is rubbish and he was earning far less (take home less than £300 per week) when he retired than he was in the late 80s - this in a job that had a 7 year apprenticeship when he started. My daughter is earning more now in her early 20s than he was at retirement so it's never as simple as some of these statements make it out to be.



    The difference between the amount you will inherit as a proportion of your lifetime earnings and someone who had more wealthy parents is lower than someone with parents in the equivalent earnings percentile in the following generation. That is what the growing wealth gap means.
  • morstar
    morstar Posts: 6,190
    Grant Shapps actually has a full blown flag pole in his background.
    I wonder if he raises and lowers the flag on starting and finishing work.
  • morstar
    morstar Posts: 6,190
    Politics is a brutal business isn’t it.
    Our incompetent government have somehow avoided any serious scrutiny from the press for a couple of years lurching from farce to farce.
    Now all of a sudden, when things are largely looking quite positive (given the circumstances), the PM is finally being put under pressure and the daft witch in NI is probably about to lose her job.
  • kingstongraham
    kingstongraham Posts: 28,293
    morstar said:

    Politics is a brutal business isn’t it.
    Our incompetent government have somehow avoided any serious scrutiny from the press for a couple of years lurching from farce to farce.
    Now all of a sudden, when things are largely looking quite positive (given the circumstances), the PM is finally being put under pressure and the daft witch in NI is probably about to lose her job.

    Good time to get the job, isn't it? If you were Michael Gove, that's the way you might be thinking.
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 75,660
    edited April 2021
    kingstongraham said:

    Pross said:

    My parents are from Rick's infamous "boomer" generation. My mum retired at 65 and my dad at nearly 70. My mum has a bit of public sector, final salary pension albeit only accrued over about the last 20 years in poorly paid jobs so it doesn't amount to much. My dad's pension is rubbish and he was earning far less (take home less than £300 per week) when he retired than he was in the late 80s - this in a job that had a 7 year apprenticeship when he started. My daughter is earning more now in her early 20s than he was at retirement so it's never as simple as some of these statements make it out to be.



    The difference between the amount you will inherit as a proportion of your lifetime earnings and someone who had more wealthy parents is lower than someone with parents in the equivalent earnings percentile in the following generation. That is what the growing wealth gap means.
    You can put the stats in front of people till you're blue in the face and people will just go "this doesn't correlate with my specific experience" and immediately dismiss the stats and say the whole argument is nonsense.

    If you did the same with your reaction to the vaccine people would mock you for not understanding probability.

    Way of the world.
    _
  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 29,895
    This is quite fun from Alex Massie.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/boris-the-unserious/
    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • shirley_basso
    shirley_basso Posts: 6,195
    kingstongraham said:

    morstar said:

    Politics is a brutal business isn’t it.
    Our incompetent government have somehow avoided any serious scrutiny from the press for a couple of years lurching from farce to farce.
    Now all of a sudden, when things are largely looking quite positive (given the circumstances), the PM is finally being put under pressure and the daft witch in NI is probably about to lose her job.

    Good time to get the job, isn't it? If you were Michael Gove, that's the way you might be thinking.
    Especially as he's stayed below the parapet for some time.
  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 29,895
    rick_chasey said:

    kingstongraham said:

    Pross said:

    My parents are from Rick's infamous "boomer" generation. My mum retired at 65 and my dad at nearly 70. My mum has a bit of public sector, final salary pension albeit only accrued over about the last 20 years in poorly paid jobs so it doesn't amount to much. My dad's pension is rubbish and he was earning far less (take home less than £300 per week) when he retired than he was in the late 80s - this in a job that had a 7 year apprenticeship when he started. My daughter is earning more now in her early 20s than he was at retirement so it's never as simple as some of these statements make it out to be.



    The difference between the amount you will inherit as a proportion of your lifetime earnings and someone who had more wealthy parents is lower than someone with parents in the equivalent earnings percentile in the following generation. That is what the growing wealth gap means.
    You can put the stats in front of people till you're blue in the face and people will just go "this doesn't correlate with my specific experience" and immediately dismiss the stats and say the whole argument is nonsense.

    If you did the same with your reaction to the vaccine people would mock you for not understanding probability.

    Way of the world.
    You can hardly blame people for being more concerned with their immediate circumstances than macroeconomic trends of the whole country, especially when they have negligible ability to directly influence those trends. None of the levers that can be pulled are within their reach and there is no political feedback loop to induce government to pull the levers it has.
    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • pangolin
    pangolin Posts: 6,668
    rjsterry said:

    rick_chasey said:

    kingstongraham said:

    Pross said:

    My parents are from Rick's infamous "boomer" generation. My mum retired at 65 and my dad at nearly 70. My mum has a bit of public sector, final salary pension albeit only accrued over about the last 20 years in poorly paid jobs so it doesn't amount to much. My dad's pension is rubbish and he was earning far less (take home less than £300 per week) when he retired than he was in the late 80s - this in a job that had a 7 year apprenticeship when he started. My daughter is earning more now in her early 20s than he was at retirement so it's never as simple as some of these statements make it out to be.



    The difference between the amount you will inherit as a proportion of your lifetime earnings and someone who had more wealthy parents is lower than someone with parents in the equivalent earnings percentile in the following generation. That is what the growing wealth gap means.
    You can put the stats in front of people till you're blue in the face and people will just go "this doesn't correlate with my specific experience" and immediately dismiss the stats and say the whole argument is nonsense.

    If you did the same with your reaction to the vaccine people would mock you for not understanding probability.

    Way of the world.
    You can hardly blame people for being more concerned with their immediate circumstances than macroeconomic trends of the whole country, especially when they have negligible ability to directly influence those trends. None of the levers that can be pulled are within their reach and there is no political feedback loop to induce government to pull the levers it has.
    I don't think anyone blames anyone else for saying anything along those lines. What people take issue with is others saying "this doesn't match up with my immediate family circs so I flat out don't believe it".
    - Genesis Croix de Fer
    - Dolan Tuono
  • orraloon
    orraloon Posts: 13,299
    shirley_basso said:

    kingstongraham said:

    morstar said:

    Politics is a brutal business isn’t it.
    Our incompetent government have somehow avoided any serious scrutiny from the press for a couple of years lurching from farce to farce.
    Now all of a sudden, when things are largely looking quite positive (given the circumstances), the PM is finally being put under pressure and the daft witch in NI is probably about to lose her job.

    Good time to get the job, isn't it? If you were Michael Gove, that's the way you might be thinking.
    Especially as he's stayed below the parapet for some time.
    With an ally sitting inside the Daily Heil propaganda machine.
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 75,660
    edited April 2021
    rjsterry said:

    rick_chasey said:

    kingstongraham said:

    Pross said:

    My parents are from Rick's infamous "boomer" generation. My mum retired at 65 and my dad at nearly 70. My mum has a bit of public sector, final salary pension albeit only accrued over about the last 20 years in poorly paid jobs so it doesn't amount to much. My dad's pension is rubbish and he was earning far less (take home less than £300 per week) when he retired than he was in the late 80s - this in a job that had a 7 year apprenticeship when he started. My daughter is earning more now in her early 20s than he was at retirement so it's never as simple as some of these statements make it out to be.



    The difference between the amount you will inherit as a proportion of your lifetime earnings and someone who had more wealthy parents is lower than someone with parents in the equivalent earnings percentile in the following generation. That is what the growing wealth gap means.
    You can put the stats in front of people till you're blue in the face and people will just go "this doesn't correlate with my specific experience" and immediately dismiss the stats and say the whole argument is nonsense.

    If you did the same with your reaction to the vaccine people would mock you for not understanding probability.

    Way of the world.
    You can hardly blame people for being more concerned with their immediate circumstances than macroeconomic trends of the whole country, especially when they have negligible ability to directly influence those trends. None of the levers that can be pulled are within their reach and there is no political feedback loop to induce government to pull the levers it has.
    Then don't dismiss the macro commentary out of hand then, right?

    So far the rebuttals to the actual data we've had are make believe family trees and their jobs, stories from people and their parents' circumstances and quotes from Churchill.

    My argument which kicked it all off was "the wealth and economic circumstances of younger people versus older people is driving a new political polarisation in uk politics, where age is the biggest indicator for who you will likely vote for"
    _
  • TheBigBean
    TheBigBean Posts: 22,079
    You need to propose solutions if you think the current situation is wrong. I have done that.
  • kingstongraham
    kingstongraham Posts: 28,293
    Sarah Vine has decided to "help" Johnson by saying his £200k decoration is fine because he "can't be expected to live in a skip".
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 75,660
    Sure I regularly do that.

    It's more I don't think many people on here recognise either situation.
    _
  • elbowloh
    elbowloh Posts: 7,078
    kingstongraham said:

    Sarah Vine has decided to "help" Johnson by saying his £200k decoration is fine because he "can't be expected to live in a skip".

    Yeah, i heard that too.

    I think people forget that the £58k is on top of the £30k that is already allocated for redecorating / furnishing the flat. All the stuff in the flat couldn't have been more an a couple or years old anyway and John Lewis furnishings are probably out of the range of the majority of the population as it is.
    Felt F1 2014
    Felt Z6 2012
    Red Arthur Caygill steel frame
    Tall....
    www.seewildlife.co.uk
  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 29,895
    rick_chasey said:

    rjsterry said:

    rick_chasey said:

    kingstongraham said:

    Pross said:

    My parents are from Rick's infamous "boomer" generation. My mum retired at 65 and my dad at nearly 70. My mum has a bit of public sector, final salary pension albeit only accrued over about the last 20 years in poorly paid jobs so it doesn't amount to much. My dad's pension is rubbish and he was earning far less (take home less than £300 per week) when he retired than he was in the late 80s - this in a job that had a 7 year apprenticeship when he started. My daughter is earning more now in her early 20s than he was at retirement so it's never as simple as some of these statements make it out to be.



    The difference between the amount you will inherit as a proportion of your lifetime earnings and someone who had more wealthy parents is lower than someone with parents in the equivalent earnings percentile in the following generation. That is what the growing wealth gap means.
    You can put the stats in front of people till you're blue in the face and people will just go "this doesn't correlate with my specific experience" and immediately dismiss the stats and say the whole argument is nonsense.

    If you did the same with your reaction to the vaccine people would mock you for not understanding probability.

    Way of the world.
    You can hardly blame people for being more concerned with their immediate circumstances than macroeconomic trends of the whole country, especially when they have negligible ability to directly influence those trends. None of the levers that can be pulled are within their reach and there is no political feedback loop to induce government to pull the levers it has.
    Then don't dismiss the macro commentary out of hand then, right?

    So far the rebuttals to the actual data we've had are make believe family trees and their jobs, stories from people and their parents' circumstances and quotes from Churchill.

    My argument which kicked it all off was "the wealth and economic circumstances of younger people versus older people is driving a new political polarisation in uk politics, where age is the biggest indicator for who you will likely vote for"
    It's not being dismissed out of hand. It's been suggested that the overall trend is perhaps an over-simplification. The bit I'm disputing above is that age is anything more than a correlated indicator. If you keep focusing on age, rather than the actual causes, we will never even identify the problem properly, let alone find any solutions.
    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • elbowloh
    elbowloh Posts: 7,078
    rick_chasey said:

    rjsterry said:

    rick_chasey said:

    kingstongraham said:

    Pross said:

    My parents are from Rick's infamous "boomer" generation. My mum retired at 65 and my dad at nearly 70. My mum has a bit of public sector, final salary pension albeit only accrued over about the last 20 years in poorly paid jobs so it doesn't amount to much. My dad's pension is rubbish and he was earning far less (take home less than £300 per week) when he retired than he was in the late 80s - this in a job that had a 7 year apprenticeship when he started. My daughter is earning more now in her early 20s than he was at retirement so it's never as simple as some of these statements make it out to be.



    The difference between the amount you will inherit as a proportion of your lifetime earnings and someone who had more wealthy parents is lower than someone with parents in the equivalent earnings percentile in the following generation. That is what the growing wealth gap means.
    You can put the stats in front of people till you're blue in the face and people will just go "this doesn't correlate with my specific experience" and immediately dismiss the stats and say the whole argument is nonsense.

    If you did the same with your reaction to the vaccine people would mock you for not understanding probability.

    Way of the world.
    You can hardly blame people for being more concerned with their immediate circumstances than macroeconomic trends of the whole country, especially when they have negligible ability to directly influence those trends. None of the levers that can be pulled are within their reach and there is no political feedback loop to induce government to pull the levers it has.
    Then don't dismiss the macro commentary out of hand then, right?

    So far the rebuttals to the actual data we've had are make believe family trees and their jobs, stories from people and their parents' circumstances and quotes from Churchill.

    My argument which kicked it all off was "the wealth and economic circumstances of younger people versus older people is driving a new political polarisation in uk politics, where age is the biggest indicator for who you will likely vote for"
    I don't think you've proved the link between the data about relative wealth and how this you will likely vote.

    Its NOT the economy stupid.

    People didn't vote for Brexit for example because they thought they'd be better off.
    Felt F1 2014
    Felt Z6 2012
    Red Arthur Caygill steel frame
    Tall....
    www.seewildlife.co.uk
  • TheBigBean
    TheBigBean Posts: 22,079
    rick_chasey said:

    Sure I regularly do that.

    It's more I don't think many people on here recognise either situation.

    I must have missed it then. I mostly see you complaining about boomers and saying that voting by age is more polarised.
  • orraloon
    orraloon Posts: 13,299
    elbowloh said:

    kingstongraham said:

    Sarah Vine has decided to "help" Johnson by saying his £200k decoration is fine because he "can't be expected to live in a skip".

    Yeah, i heard that too.

    I think people forget that the £58k is on top of the £30k that is already allocated for redecorating / furnishing the flat. All the stuff in the flat couldn't have been more an a couple or years old anyway and John Lewis furnishings are probably out of the range of the majority of the population as it is.
    Don't see that as "help", more like add some fuel to the fire in progress.
  • kingstongraham
    kingstongraham Posts: 28,293
    edited April 2021
    elbowloh said:



    People didn't vote for Brexit for example because they thought they'd be better off.

    Do you think people voted for Brexit thinking it would make them personally worse off? I don't know anyone personally who falls into that category.
  • shirley_basso
    shirley_basso Posts: 6,195
    elbowloh said:



    People didn't vote for Brexit for example because they thought they'd be better off.

    I thought they did

    'immigrants took our jobs'
    'immigrants clogging up our social housing'
    'immigrants clogging up the NHS'
    'immigrants all on benefits'

Categories