Mansion Tax, Oh Boy What A Gaff!

[Bats]

They didn't "shot back up" - I was (due to the popularity of interest only / endownment mortgages) in negative equity for some years. They were high in 91, and perhaps for a brief period afterwards, then crashed for quite some time.

I was speaking of the last/current incident, but even 91 proves the point. A bear isn't dead if it gets up and starts dancing again, be it in five minutes or five years.

As you said in a previous post - they're only worth what somebody is prepared to pay for them. Otherwise, it's purely speculative.

And as I've been saying, that we put so much into this speculation is downright harmful.

Sometimes wages may not always rise with inflation - sometimes they've already risen in other times greater than inflation.

I'm not talking hypothetically, I'm talking real life, in the UK, now.

I don't have any problem with things being adjusted in terms of inflation, per se.

You're in a bit of bother with the comprehending.

Just because in other times, the first time buyer market was perhaps more accessible, or people made greater sacrifices, or a perfect storm of the world conspiring against first-time-buyers, it's not so much as I don't see a problem with it, I just don't see it as quite the problem that those with a sense of entitlement seem to.

First "sometimes", now "perhaps". Can you drop the hypotheticals? I'm aware the topic of being a 20 something by it's nature doesn't concern you, but it's generally rude to speak about people's troubles as if they're an interchangeable thought exersise.

Besides which, you're now describing people who want the same shot at life you did as having a "sense of entitlement". Pardon us for expecting each new generation to have it at least as good as the last.

I couldn't afford a car when I bought a house. Nor to go to the boozer once a week. Nor to go on holiday.

And we can't afford those things or afford to buy a house.

We all make compromises. If getting on the property ladder had been beyond my means, I wouldn't have scweamed and scweamed that it wasn't fair, I would have had to wait longer - as I did before buying a car, or considered it not worth the sacrifice.

You know this is quite an interesting worldview you've got here. You're a self laid egg, sorry, self made man, and nobody should ever get angry and demand things get better, or even stay the same, and in your eyes anyone who protests things being made actively worse is juvenile.

I got a part-time, menial job, seasonally, from the age of 16 - yes. I suspect such lowly jobs are still out there, and not all swallowed up by immigrants.

That wasn't a steady wage, it as crap, seasonal rates, not year 'round.

You'd suspect wrong (and the swipe at immigrants is telling), because as I've mentioned we're on what's called "zero hour contracts" now.

You were spoiled to get seasonal work. We get the odd few hours a week, near randomly, with no advanced notice, to the degree that lots of us "employed" teens and twentysomething end up at the dole on and off.

Seasonal work? Luxury.

I didn't save for four years. Probably about 4 or 5 months, enough, with a truly meagre amount of savings I had in the bank, to get the minimum deposit, and just about cover all the setup costs.

We're in 2014, and if what you're saying is true then that underlines how massively the situation has changed. If a 20 year old walked into an estate agent's with four or five month's savings they'd assume he had a learning disability. It took my sister until the age of thirty to afford a house, and she only managed that because the crash'd just happened and prices dropped.

What? Seasonal crap work, for crap money?

Sound's brilliant compared to a workfare scheme.

Depends on where you choose to live.

100k is not the base price to get on the housing ladder. It may be in some areas, it may be a pipe-dream in others.

You "choose" to live where ever you can manage it. This is the bleeding edge of scraping pennies together, so it's not like we'd afford commuting. Say we've got a job and a downpayment. The choice is made for you: near work. And if you can't afford commuting but you score a job, it's going to be near where you currently live. So instead of choice, you've got: near work, near your mum's house.

I couldn't have done that, and afforded to run a car, go out boozing, or go on holidays, or the odd cheeky music festival. Choices. We all make 'em.

And as I keep saying, we can't afford that, or any of the rest of it. How many times?

Who or what spoiled me? Simply the time or era?

Era. Society and the opportunities there was then. You're not telling me, for instance, you were making mortgage payments on seasonal work. Don't expect us to do it on a zero hour.

Nobody put anything on a plate for me, I worked, innovated, pushed and didn't sit back on my hands to improve my lot at work, and get better remuneration.

I have the odd friend from the 6th form period of my life, that's gone on to be considerably more successful (probably the most successful person out of the friends I've had). And do you know what? Nobody gifted him that either. Not a rich family, or even well-off. He was bright, applied himself, knew from late teens what he wanted to do, and went out and got it.

Now he's very senior in an international market - personally, I'm very happy for him. He aspired, worked hard, focused from a relatively early age and achieved. Nobody handed anything on a plate for him. Sure, maybe he had some degree of luck - maybe the time was just right for him to do what he did - but sure as shit, nobody made it for him, other than him.

Some people I know would resent that. You'd be able to detect it from the manner in which they speak about him. Call it luck.

But he had a plan, and he stuck to it. To me, it always seemed a bit dry and uninteresting, but it's certainly worked out for him.

Yes, I get what you're saying, you're a self laid egg and your life exists in a vacuum with no influence from the people you know, the opportunities surrounding you or anything else.

I'll accept, in the current era, it may be harder. But all the same, people make choices all the time. Fancy phones, clothes and shoes of a certain brand, cars - when perhaps they can't really afford it, if we're honest, holidays, money pissed down the drain on socialising.

I've no problem with people doing whatever they want with the money they've got - but what does irk, is the implied sense of entitlement, and the apparent abhorrence that sacrifices and going without some things will have to be done.

And yes, I get it, for first-time-buyers, it's a more expensive proposition. But then there's a lot more money wasted on shit, that didn't happen anything like as much in the past, and still expect to be able to do expensive things.

"May"

You're doing it again! Reducing everything to a hypothetical with no certainty. A hypothetical that you've chosen to populate with weird reactionary Kids-These-Days stereotypes that have no grounding in reality whatsoever. What a shame that when you take a look at the great big mass of Yoofs you've applied broad strokes to, it turns out the big mass is actually made of lots of people, and what you're saying fits none of them.

As is telling me I was minted, that I had it easy.

Physician: heal thyself.

Any 20 year old with enough to buy a house is either minted, or from a different era such that he's only useful as a historical comparison between what what could be achieved then and now.

And how much did the laptop, iPhone and all these other acoutrements cost in the first place.

What iPhone? I've not got one, probably won't for years and years. You're doing that thing again where you argue against an idea of a group of people rather than an actual group of people, or even one person.

"and all these other accouterments". You're sure we've got something, because your worldview demands it, but won't wait for any sort of evidence to roll up.

As for original cost - none of your business, or mine. Could be a gift. Frankly, its whattaboutism to even bring it up.

As I said, it's not the problem with having such things, if people can truly afford them - it's the sense of expectation that people should be able to have them, regardless of means.

Who's expectation? Your expectation that we've an expectation? At any rate, you only have to buy an iPhone once. The rent is forever.

I grew up in the 70s. We had fvck all. And I mean fvck all. Yes, perhaps there was a little bit more prosperity in the 80s, but by that point we were grateful, not expectant.

When I got to about 16 or 17 I didn't expect to learn to drive or have a car - I couldn't afford, and by that point, I should no longer be being a financial burden on my parents, if I've got a job. And besides, they were in no financial position to start funding such a thing for me. Same for my older brother.

And you think the modern poor having some cheap electric tat lying around changes anything? It's superficial. You sound like the tabloids having a go at people who "aren't really poor" because they've got a flatscreen tv that's worth nothing.

I learnt my skill - nobody did that for me, nobody sat me down and handed over the knowledge.

By the time I got sent on the courses, I'd already been doing the job for ages, and it was just a completeness thing.

I started in a crap, mundane, clerical job. Showed initiative, and applied for better / more financially rewarding, and more interesting (to me) work.

I don't think you actually read what I wrote. You fell out of bed, got a job, then taught yourself how to do it. Good for you. It's no longer the 70s or 80s, you can't do that now.

Employers want a CV with a flattering cover letter, your professional qualification in the subject and your years of experience, or else as the 20 something of today you're buggered.

I'm not making any assumptions on what your invdividual choice of laptop is worth, or whether you're employed or otherwise.

I'm merely pointing out, that in todays world, what seems to have been taken as essential, is really nothing of the sort, and yes, it probably is harder to get on the property ladder. Some still manage it, though.

My issue with what you wrote about what I did, was this assumption that I was "minted" that it all just landed on a plate for me - the reality is, I worked hard, but more than that, achieved and parlayed that into better positions, and went without what other people wouldn't have, in order to buy a house.

That's just as much the trite cliche as the one you applied to the circumstances I had when I was 20.

Literally your trite cliche. You've being going on about kids these days and their iphones, and how they don't want to make sacrifices...

You're almost at a revelation here, but I get the feeling you can only skirt so close to the edge by being immune to going over.

The reality was, I'd learnt from my parents generation - priorities, going without, and making more long-term choices.

You don't need to tell me about austerity, I grew up in the 70s. I spent countless nights only being able to have any light in the house because we'd got some candles to light.

My priority is trying not to "go without". I've been going without for years now irrespective of any electrical plastic crap I use to make my life less dull at no cost to me.

Simply put the experiences and expectations of a young person back then is nothing like the experiences and expectations of a young person today. But you're only picking up on the unimportant parts. Having an iPhone vs a ZX Spectrum or whatever is just superficial, to use an example that'll have you going "I didn't say anything about a Spectrum" if your track record of point-missing continues.

You weren't a teen in the late 2000s. You're not a 20 something in the 2010s. You didn't pull a Marx and live amongst them, spending years studying their lives and role in society to develop any nuanced understanding of the matter.

You're just some rando doing the Kids These Days Get Off My Lawn routine without a sense of irony, telling someone that you've a better idea about their kin than they do. And it doesn't wash.

 

[Neil]

They didn't "shot back up" - I was (due to the popularity of interest only / endownment mortgages) in negative equity for some years. They were high in 91, and perhaps for a brief period afterwards, then crashed for quite some time.

I was speaking of the last/current incident, but even 91 proves the point. A bear isn't dead if it gets up and starts dancing again, be it in five minutes or five years.

Point being, it wasn't some temporary blip - it was just like other boom-and-bust scenarios. Prices rose to a high, then fell - not for just six months, either, they took years to get back to where they'd peaked.

But it's pointless posturing, anyways - my point has been all along, that boom / bust, peak / trough has occurred a few times, but long term, houses are houses, and tend to - over the fullness of time, accumulate in "value".

Over a short enough period that can look to be wrong, but decade on decade, largely holds true.

As you said in a previous post - they're only worth what somebody is prepared to pay for them. Otherwise, it's purely speculative.

And as I've been saying, that we put so much into this speculation is downright harmful.

Either they're only worth what people are prepared to pay for them, or they're being diddled with on some arbitrary basis, purely at the whim of some despot stroking a cat.

But if nobody is buying then nobody is buying, and sooner or later supply will be sufficiently devalued to align with demand.

If people are buying, then what's the problem? Not the right people buying?

Yes, at present, it's more difficult to get on the property ladder. But it was never particularly easy - my grandparents had to scrimp and save to be able to buy a house, same for my parents, same for me. None of that was easy.

I'm not saying nothing should be done to address whether anything can be done to ease things for first time buyers - but all the same, normally, over time, the market normalises.

Sometimes wages may not always rise with inflation - sometimes they've already risen in other times greater than inflation.

I'm not talking hypothetically, I'm talking real life, in the UK, now.

And in real life, and in the UK, there has been times when wages have risen more than inflation.

Just because in other times, the first time buyer market was perhaps more accessible, or people made greater sacrifices, or a perfect storm of the world conspiring against first-time-buyers, it's not so much as I don't see a problem with it, I just don't see it as quite the problem that those with a sense of entitlement seem to.

First "sometimes", now "perhaps". Can you drop the hypotheticals?

I'll do or write what I like, same as you feel free to apparently be able to speak on the behalf of an entire generation. Don't like it, scweam and scweam. Tell your mum if you like.

I'm aware the topic of being a 20 something by it's nature doesn't concern you, but it's generally rude to speak about people's troubles as if they're an interchangeable thought exersise.

I'm not doing that.

What you're doing, is trying to say that because in earlier times, some aspects of life weren't as difficult as now, means people should have a natural expectation to them.

When I grew up in the 70s, for many a night, you'd be being ambitious for expecting the electricity to be available.

If those times I lived with are hand-waved about, why should anybody empathise with peoples' current lack of fulfillment? It's automatically worse when lesser problems are current?

Besides which, you're now describing people who want the same shot at life you did as having a "sense of entitlement".

No I'm not.

I'm talking about young people I see and have minor contact with, that have lots of "luxuries" in life, bemoaning the fact that it's harder to get on the property ladder.

Now I'm not rubbing my hands in glee at that - I genuinely would hope for everybody who works hard, earns enough, to be able to buy property if they so wish. It's just that nowadays the people I see doing such moaning, have lots of expensive "toys", go out when they like, expect to have a car as soon as they are old enough to drive - and have factored all of that into their basic existence.

Pardon us for expecting each new generation to have it at least as good as the last.

Again with the "us" - who do you claim to be speaking for as a group?

I couldn't afford a car when I bought a house. Nor to go to the boozer once a week. Nor to go on holiday.

And we can't afford those things or afford to buy a house.

Who's "we"?

Surely you're not claiming to be representative of an entire generation, nor somebody seeking property ownership?

We all make compromises. If getting on the property ladder had been beyond my means, I wouldn't have scweamed and scweamed that it wasn't fair, I would have had to wait longer - as I did before buying a car, or considered it not worth the sacrifice.

You know this is quite an interesting worldview you've got here. You're a self laid egg, sorry, self made man, and nobody should ever get angry and demand things get better, or even stay the same, and in your eyes anyone who protests things being made actively worse is juvenile.

I didn't say nobody should protest things being actively worse.

What I have said, is the people I've seen, moaning about how hard it is, have a lot better lifestyle than I did at their age.

I got a part-time, menial job, seasonally, from the age of 16 - yes. I suspect such lowly jobs are still out there, and not all swallowed up by immigrants.

That wasn't a steady wage, it as crap, seasonal rates, not year 'round.

You'd suspect wrong (and the swipe at immigrants is telling)

I had hoped you had better comprehension than that.

It wasn't a swipe at immigrants, it was a swipe at people using the immigrant argument as a reason for there apparently being no jobs worth a damn.

because as I've mentioned we're on what's called "zero hour contracts" now.

Who's this "we" again - and whilst zero hour contracts are certainly more prevalent, not everybody works under such terms.

You were spoiled to get seasonal work. We get the odd few hours a week, near randomly, with no advanced notice, to the degree that lots of us "employed" teens and twentysomething end up at the dole on and off.

Seasonal work? Luxury.

Funnily enough, I don't recall feeling spoiled at the time.

All the same, I did a decent enough job - such that the guy I worked for still wanted me to do work for him, once I'd got a full-time job when leaving 6th form.

So I did, for a few years - until it started to have impact on my main job.

I didn't save for four years. Probably about 4 or 5 months, enough, with a truly meagre amount of savings I had in the bank, to get the minimum deposit, and just about cover all the setup costs.

We're in 2014, and if what you're saying is true then that underlines how massively the situation has changed. If a 20 year old walked into an estate agent's with four or five month's savings they'd assume he had a learning disability. It took my sister until the age of thirty to afford a house, and she only managed that because the crash'd just happened and prices dropped.

And some football player can probably buy a very normal house with a weeks wages (in some cases).

Depends on where you choose to live.

100k is not the base price to get on the housing ladder. It may be in some areas, it may be a pipe-dream in others.

You "choose" to live where ever you can manage it. This is the bleeding edge of scraping pennies together, so it's not like we'd afford commuting. Say we've got a job and a downpayment. The choice is made for you: near work.

You've got a bike, haven't you - this is retrobike, after all.

I used my bike, plenty, for commuting to work.

I couldn't have done that, and afforded to run a car, go out boozing, or go on holidays, or the odd cheeky music festival. Choices. We all make 'em.

And as I keep saying, we can't afford that, or any of the rest of it. How many times?

And as I keep saying, who's this "we" you presume to speak for?

There's plenty I see of similar age, who manage to have a reasonable lifestyle, who still bemoan how unfair modern life is.

I never did point my finger the way of the unemployed or people on benefits. That's entirely your construct you've foisted.

Who or what spoiled me? Simply the time or era?

Era. Society and the opportunities there was then. You're not telling me, for instance, you were making mortgage payments on seasonal work. Don't expect us to do it on a zero hour.

What's this obsession in revisionism, that says things are automatically harder for the youth of today?

Do the stats show that there's hugely more unemployment now, than there was in the late 80s?

I'm not expecting anybody to do anything who's subject to zero hour contracts. I'm saying that the young people I see, who are working, full-time, with an iPhone, a newer car than me, manage to go out plenty, and go on holiday, then bemoaning how difficult it is to buy a house - well maybe if they weren't pissing away money, or as much money, on shit that doesn't matter, and compromised more, made do, they'd have more chance, but so many, these days, define that as their minimum standard of living.

Look at the riots and looting a few years back. Started with some sketchy rationale about a protest from somebody being shot, comforting themselves by looting big screen TVs, iPhones, boxes and boxes of trainers, and big bags of fecking Doritos.

Truly, rebels without a cause.

I'll accept, in the current era, it may be harder. But all the same, people make choices all the time. Fancy phones, clothes and shoes of a certain brand, cars - when perhaps they can't really afford it, if we're honest, holidays, money pissed down the drain on socialising.

I've no problem with people doing whatever they want with the money they've got - but what does irk, is the implied sense of entitlement, and the apparent abhorrence that sacrifices and going without some things will have to be done.

And yes, I get it, for first-time-buyers, it's a more expensive proposition. But then there's a lot more money wasted on shit, that didn't happen anything like as much in the past, and still expect to be able to do expensive things.

"May"

You're doing it again! Reducing everything to a hypothetical with no certainty. A hypothetical that you've chosen to populate with weird reactionary Kids-These-Days stereotypes that have no grounding in reality whatsoever. What a shame that when you take a look at the great big mass of Yoofs you've applied broad strokes to, it turns out the big mass is actually made of lots of people, and what you're saying fits none of them.

Bollocks.

You're just foisting it as an attack on people in a situation like yourself, rather than the people I'm actually describing - which do truly exist, I've seen them, and I've had my ear bent about them.

As is telling me I was minted, that I had it easy.

Physician: heal thyself.

Any 20 year old with enough to buy a house is either minted, or from a different era such that he's only useful as a historical comparison between what what could be achieved then and now.

There's still some validity in the comparison - my point all along is that for what I CHOSE to do, I had to make sacrifices and not be able to do things plenty of my peers were doing. Some wouldn't choose such a thing, whether a possibility for them, or otherwise - I'm not suggesting it as some kind of ideal or aspiration.

In comparison, the young people I see today, don't seem willing to make any sacrifices - all the things they have now - which are truly luxuries, have become part of what they perceive as basic standard of living.

You have decided to take that out of context, and apply it to ALL young people, that you appear to be self-identifying with, and are presuming to be able to speak for, en masse, that clearly have no means for home ownership at present. That was no different when I was young, too - plenty didn't have jobs good enough to be able to support them buying a house, either.

As I said, it's not the problem with having such things, if people can truly afford them - it's the sense of expectation that people should be able to have them, regardless of means.

Who's expectation? Your expectation that we've an expectation?

No.

Not you. Not "we" either.

The young people I've seen and observed, had their parents moan to me about it, who effectively get the moon on a fecking stick, and still bemoan that they can't afford to buy a house, whilst they're fully grown, and still leeching off their parents, all the while working full-time, having a lifestyle that a couple of decades ago would have been that of the rich-and-shameless.

THAT'S who I'm talking about. And they're not a construct of my imagination, they're people I see, and people that friends and acquaintancies have moaned to me about, because it doesn't matter, apparently, how hard, bleak or basic things were in the past, now is now, and now needs an iPhone, new-ish car, car insurance paid for by mummy and daddy, bailouts and bungs, constantly from mummy and daddy, all the while they're working full-time, and working out when they can have their next jaunt to Ibiza.

The difference is, as soon as I was working, that was the point that I realised my parents had been supporting me all my life up to that point, and regular income was the time when I should stop being a burden and start contributing.

I grew up in the 70s. We had fvck all. And I mean fvck all. Yes, perhaps there was a little bit more prosperity in the 80s, but by that point we were grateful, not expectant.

When I got to about 16 or 17 I didn't expect to learn to drive or have a car - I couldn't afford, and by that point, I should no longer be being a financial burden on my parents, if I've got a job. And besides, they were in no financial position to start funding such a thing for me. Same for my older brother.

And you think the modern poor having some cheap electric tat lying around changes anything? It's superficial. You sound like the tabloids having a go at people who "aren't really poor" because they've got a flatscreen tv that's worth nothing.

I'm not saying anything about the modern poor.

I'm talking about the modern young people I see, who are far from poor. Capiche.

I learnt my skill - nobody did that for me, nobody sat me down and handed over the knowledge.

By the time I got sent on the courses, I'd already been doing the job for ages, and it was just a completeness thing.

I started in a crap, mundane, clerical job. Showed initiative, and applied for better / more financially rewarding, and more interesting (to me) work.

I don't think you actually read what I wrote. You fell out of bed, got a job, then taught yourself how to do it. Good for you. It's no longer the 70s or 80s, you can't do that now.

I just fell out of bed and landed a job, and another, and another, with progression, in an area I had skill in.

OK.

Tell you what - you want to dismiss my early work career as being piss-easy, and full of luck, and I'll treat it with the contempt it deserves, and return the favour in respect of the people I'm talking about.

Any modest career progression I got, happened because I had drive, applied myself, didn't moan about "not having been on a course", and got on and innovated at a time when much was changing.

Employers want a CV with a flattering cover letter, your professional qualification in the subject and your years of experience, or else as the 20 something of today you're buggered.

'cos in my day, nobody ever needed to polish their CV, start below where they're had potential for or anything like that.

We just walked into the company we eyed up, marched up to the comely reception girl, went 'round the desk, snogged her, slapped her on the 'ariss and said "Here you go darlin', be a doll, take this CV up to the guy who's just about to give me a job on a plate, quick smart. And when you're done with that, mine's with milk and two sugars..."

The hiring manager, in true Gene Hunt fashion, came stomping down, shouted over "Oy! You in the shiney suit! I like your style, you're hired.", threw over the keys to the Quattro and said "Brown sauce on my bacon butty, son..."

That's EXACTLY as it happened, would I lie to you...

The reality was, I'd learnt from my parents generation - priorities, going without, and making more long-term choices.

You don't need to tell me about austerity, I grew up in the 70s. I spent countless nights only being able to have any light in the house because we'd got some candles to light.

My priority is trying not to "go without". I've been going without for years now irrespective of any electrical plastic crap I use to make my life less dull at no cost to me.

Simply put the experiences and expectations of a young person back then is nothing like the experiences and expectations of a young person today. But you're only picking up on the unimportant parts. Having an iPhone vs a ZX Spectrum or whatever is just superficial.

Indeed - were that the only difference, it'd be semantics.

But it's not.

The difference is, this whole thing about entitlement, about expectations - how, apparently, the world owes people things, that are just basic requirements. 'cept they're not basic requirements. They're luxuries. And growing up through times where luxuries were truly rarer than an Austin Allegro that never broke down, I have little tolerance for differentiating between shit and shinola.

The people I'm talking about, have a better standard of living and lifestyle than I did at their age. And I don't resent them for that. It only irks, when they've got it better, yet still moaning that with all that, they can't afford to buy a house. So spend less, compromise, do without, and then let's see where they are. If they're driving around in a new-ish car, no doubt having to fork out a load of insurance, and don't absolutely need it, there's a big chunk of money that they / or more likely, their parents could save towards a deposit.

When I first bought a house, I didn't start moaning to anybody that I couldn't afford a car or the insurance, or a mobile phone, or a couple of weeks in the sun. Point being, if people are already pissing away loads of money on things that are nice-to-haves, then bemoaning how they can't afford a unicorn with the spangly mane, maybe it's time to realise that nobody ever promised them a rose garden.

And once again, you'll likely assume that's an idictment of you / the people you choose to assume you can speak for, and bicker against it - but all the same, I've already stated the people I'm talking about. If you can't afford something, you can't afford it.

You weren't a teen in the late 2000s. You're not a 20 something in the 2010s. You didn't pull a Marx and live amongst them, spending years studying their lives and role in society to develop any nuanced understanding of the matter.

There's nothing special about the 2000s or the 2010s. Same shit different day.

The world hasn't magically reinvented itself, and there's truly nothing new under the sun.

Presumably, from your comments, your last few years have involved serious academic studies of sociology, then? You have qualifications and greater life experience?

Or are you simply trying to imply I'm no longer young enough to know everything.

You're just some rando doing the Kids These Days Get Off My Lawn routine without a sense of irony, telling someone that you've a better idea about their kin than they do. And it doesn't wash.

I'm not saying anything of the sort.

What I am saying, is repeating the tales of woe of parents I know, who've got "kids" of that age. And I'm still calling them "kids" because they're still acting like that. People who are notionally adults, working full-time, and earning reasonable money for their age, yet still leeching off their parents - well I suppose it's 50/50, really - the parent for bringing 'em up that way and enabling, and the "kids" for not reaching adulthood without a bit of realisation.

 

[technodup]

Some people should spend more time looking for work or creating it themselves than moaning about their situation on the internet. I can't believe some of the pish spouted in this thread.

Life is what you make of it. It's not 'fair', it's not 'progressive' unless you make it so. Forget other people making it for you, they're too busy fending for themselves.

A wise man once told me that generally (not speaking about the disabled before anyone starts) where you are in life you deserve to be. Decide what you want and pay the price for it. If that price isn't worth paying you don't want it enough. And if that's the case stop expecting others to provide it for you.

ETA

The difference is, this whole thing about entitlement, about expectations - how, apparently, the world owes people things, that are just basic requirements. 'cept they're not basic requirements. They're luxuries.

That's the crux of it and to an extent I understand where Bats is coming from. Doesn't make him right though. In the 50s, 60s, 70s the gap wasn't the same, the company director drove a nicer car and stayed in a bigger house but in the next street. Nowadays people see bankers, footballers and reality 'stars' earning megabucks for seemingly very little and think this should somehow filter down. What they don't get is the market forces at play, footballers command high salaries because people want to watch them and will pay for it. Likewise investors want to make money and will pay for it. Not to mention the amount of time, and sacrifice that goes into these careers that people don't see or appreciate.

On the flip side if you have no particular skills people need or want then by definition you are worth very little on the job market. People are paid in accordance with the value they create. But there are still plenty of opportunities out there, new tech industries are springing up everywhere, cities like London and Aberdeen are booming. It's a case of going and getting what you want, the days of leaving school and walking into a shipyard, mill or mine with your Dad are long gone.