The problem with the benefit system
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You are slowly getting there. Life is unfair, and ranting on here will achieve the square root of zero.
If it is of any comfort, consider this. You are one of the fortunate ones.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.1 -
So skip a generation and give it to the ones just starting out in life. That doesn’t seem to be rocket science. They can then work in a job they find fulfilling instead of having an unhealthy obsession with earnings.
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It’s not unhealthy.
You’ll see it one day with your children when they have their own children. The little they will likely have despite earning well will shock you.
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That may be true in some cases but it is not in others. All our children are doing exceedingly well even though they are your age, and purely a guesstimate, earning less. So much so that our inheritance will skip them.
Those grandchildren are also already on a good path. In fact, maybe the inheritance should skip them. 🤔
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
The last thing we need is more 'independently wealthy' hobbyists undercutting those who actually need to make a living. Find a job you like; demand decent pay for it.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
You're naïve to think that an unhealthy obsession with earnings only affects people recently.
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The amount you need to earn for equivalent lifestyles is astronomical.
It’s not so much money obsessed as I want a life that’s not dissimilar to what I grew up with.
It just needs a tonne of earnings as nowadays wealth is what matters and that takes a while to build up unless you inherit.
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The same in what way? Size of house?
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Your life as an adult will be completely different from your life as a child. It's crazy to expect it to be the same. There is simply too much change over time.
You still seem to get plenty of overseas holidays each year.
You really give the impression of expecting everything at a much younger age that was ever realistic.
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Why not simply be grateful for having such a great childhood and now being in the top 10% (?) of earners?
You have little to moan about and what you do have is largely down to choices made. The choices are fine, just don't whine.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.1 -
So I had children the same age my parents did, in the same town.
I live in an area that, growing up, we were told not to go as we'd get beaten up, and it was where all the drug addicts hung out, because of all the little alleyways. This is still the case, fyi, it's just they have to dodge lots of prams on the way.
At the same age, with the same number of children an earners my parents lived on a road where houses cost on average, £700,000, with the size of house I grew up in nearer £900,000.
Edit: the house I grew up opposite, looking at it from my bedroom window, just went for £979,000.
So if I want to live in a house like that, I need to get earning.
Doubly so as I am actually in a higher percentile earnings wise than my father was at the same age, but he could buy the house and I can't!
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My elder daughter has her own house and a newer car than me despite not earning particularly well. I suspect it will be different for my younger daughter with her love of the London life and a degree in advanced waitressing (musical theatre) though although she has a decent chunk in the bank from the child trust fund we paid into.
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TL'DR earnings matter more because living standards for people my age have fallen, so to keep up you either have to get (un)lucky and inherit or you need to go and sort it out.
I am not content with accepting a worse sitaution, so I will try to earn more to compensate.
That is not an "unhealthy obsession" with money - it's about taking control of the problem, rather than shrugging and accepting a worse situation.
Be glad, those bigger tax bills will end up paying for your healthcare and state pension.
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I'm thinking more of proper jobs in fields that simply don't pay well and probably never will. If a working environment is enjoyable generally it gets people taking the job despite lower money, I don't think all / many doing those jobs are independently wealthy so much as they cut their cloth accordingly to do a job they love. I'm not talking about Tabatha or Giles 'working' in their godmother's Chelsea art gallery.
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I don't need the State pension thanks, I've been paying into my own since I was 16 so got a 5-6 year head start.
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Diddums.
House prices aren't going to drop, any more than the population is. On a grand scale it is no different from price rises on any other nice place. I mean everyone I went to uni with who left one or other of Oxford or Vancouver can't afford to go back.
There are many many places where you could "get a house like Dad's" but you are choosing not to. It's totally your choice, but for the love of god stop whinging about it.
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*it shouldn't be that way* and if you don't understand the collective resentment that creates, you don't understand modern politics.
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Cambridge is a very different city now to what it was 30 or 50 years ago. And areas within towns and cities change. London being a perfect example.
You have made a choice to be as close to the station as reasonable, you choose to live in Cambridge and work in London resulting in significant travel costs (financial, hassle factor and time). Your parents probably could walk to work.
Much of your outlook seems to be clouded by the choices you have made.
My parents lived in a bigger house than me, but they had 3 kids, I have one. I live in a nicer area, though further from many amenities. I travel more than they ever did. I worked in the mountains for 5 years. They never saw a European mountain in winter. My mum didn't fly until she was in her 70s. My life is different to they way theirs was. Not better, not worse, different.
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Yes, but I'm happy for someone to look at a sensible system of means testing and reducing / getting rid of it by time I reach retirement. My argument on this subject is that it is unfair to retrospectively take it off people who were led to believe all their working life that they would be getting it in return for what they paid in. I've also said many times that the triple lock is ridiculous - there is no reason for it to increase in any other way than to keep pace with the cost of living. I can't see why it should be related to earnings and having a backdrop of it increasing even if inflation and earnings are falling is plain bonkers.
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I'm only giving my perspective to illustrate the point. As much as it makes everyone criticise me constantly for my life choices - as if it actually makes a difference.
You are right, I am fortunate, so imagine what it's like for those who are not. Much worse...!
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I was told my entire childhood if I worked hard and earned well I could live comfortably! Tough sh!t, as per the advice here.
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And you can and you will.
You are at a stage in your life with a mortgage and two young children when your essential expenditure is around the highest it will be, and that will be the case for a number of years to come. But you seem to expect to have the life of a 50+ year old when in your early 30s.
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It literally does make a difference. You have, I accept, a sliding scale of convenience, earnings and prices to balance, but you've gone high on convenience, relatively high on price and high on earnings. Those are your choices and they are fine.
But you refuse to accept that if you dialed down the earnings 20%, for example, you might be able to dial up convenience and dial down price (per day ft at least) by much more.
Or rather, you object to needing to.
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No. Given I earn more I should have a better life than my parents did at the same age, let alone worse.
Id have to want them dead to have that, which isn’t right.
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I'd say that the choices you have made have contributed to a possibly lower QUALITY of life.
What do you actually mean by 'a better life than my parents'?
You have access to massively better tech, easier travel (your commute excepted maybe), better quality products generally, better choice for most things, easier to avoid being ripped off as you can compare the cost of things very easily, better air quality etc etc
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A well located house with the right number of bedrooms for the size of family :). And the same level of disposable income.
And travel is definitely worse post 9/11. Even I remember that as a kid.
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It's pretty tedious how threads about the national pension scheme always turn into having a go at Rick and his personal situation.
- Genesis Croix de Fer
- Dolan Tuono0 -
You don't think that, in a large part, that's because of the way he generalises about the older generation and how easy everything was for them?
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I think the last bit is pretty key tbh
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