tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post3882110830829083062..comments2024-03-18T16:33:31.633+00:00Comments on Capitalists@Work: Disturbing news for the reality-based communityCityUnslickerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15929544047783163175noreply@blogger.comBlogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-432998096523917992017-07-07T13:18:58.188+01:002017-07-07T13:18:58.188+01:00A friend of mine graduated in 94, went traveling f...A friend of mine graduated in 94, went traveling for 3 months, had a gap year and then bought a house in South East London.<br />Possibly Milenials could save more but young people did spend on frivolities before the Osbrown house boom and could still buy a house.L fairfaxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12274756119129254373noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-55989043883874850632017-07-07T12:25:02.674+01:002017-07-07T12:25:02.674+01:00Now the money goes on hols to Ibiza, there are no ...<i>Now the money goes on hols to Ibiza, there are no savings.</i><br /><br />Really? Aberdeen to Ibiza is £79 return at the end of August and well south of £500 for a package including hold luggage and transfers. Another £500 spending money is enough for a couple of good nights out to the big clubs and a comfy week lounging about drinking beer and munching burgers and pizza.<br /><br />Very few of the millennials I've seen in Ibiza appear to be splashing out. OK, they tend to have iphones, but they are dressed from Topshop and Primark, eat cheese toasties for lunch and prefer to pre-load on supermarket booze or whatever chemicals they've smuggled through customs than pay club prices.<br /><br />Despite being packed to the rafters it doesn't take very long to get served at the bar in any Ibiza club, it's only the old codgers like me that don't baulk at parting with ten euros for a bottle of San Miguel.<br /><br />But then again, perhaps all the millenials you know from the city are the folk forking out the cost of a holiday every night to stay in Hard Rock and Ushuaia. Hardly representative of a typical Manchurian headed off to San Antonio for a week are they?Steven_Lhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05029437876479574883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-88152485336166301222017-07-06T08:57:40.392+01:002017-07-06T08:57:40.392+01:00Really interesting Laban. You repeat my experience...Really interesting Laban. You repeat my experience with the Execs that started the post.<br /><br />Millenials want it all though, they don't like sacrifice and there is no fear of the 'other.' In the 60's and 70's there was communism, there was an enemy. There was a reason to fight and save etc.<br /><br />Now the money goes on hols to Ibiza, there are no savings. I am only 40 but worked hard to save. In my team at work, all those who save and work have a property by their early 30's - even in London. And a nice one too. Those who don't, don't. But they are also Corbynista's who are worried about moats and beams. CityUnslickerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15929544047783163175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-69655871882332610402017-07-06T08:39:27.192+01:002017-07-06T08:39:27.192+01:00@andrew
I am not sure if the problem is wages and ...@andrew<br />I am not sure if the problem is wages and what you can buy. On a similar wage to my Dad I can probably more than he could in the 80s - apart from housing of course.<br />This is of course more important than being able to fly to Spain cheaply.L fairfaxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12274756119129254373noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-42666542256428992192017-07-05T17:22:46.505+01:002017-07-05T17:22:46.505+01:00@ Laban / Anon @10/38 am
Painting last night at 1...@ Laban / Anon @10/38 am<br /><br />Painting last night at 1.30am listening to the world service.<br />There was a business program - UK, India and Portland USA.<br /><br />Someone wrote in and asked about middle class wages over time.<br />The US person looked into it and found that <br />- yes, household incomes had risen by 80% in real terms since the 70s<br />- however, 74% of that 80% was due to longer hours and/or the entry of women into the workplace <br /><br />i.e. real _individual_ middle class incomes have been stagnating for a LONG time in the US.<br /><br />I suspect the same is true of the UK.<br />andrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07311993288675111834noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-80969876495228896482017-07-05T13:18:47.679+01:002017-07-05T13:18:47.679+01:00Yes.
The 'cliff edge' described by Remain...Yes.<br /><br />The 'cliff edge' described by Remainers has happened already and was caused by the EU.E-Knoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-84816270324978098802017-07-05T11:03:19.636+01:002017-07-05T11:03:19.636+01:00@Andrew
Plus 1.@Andrew<br />Plus 1.L fairfaxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12274756119129254373noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-61962826231507023562017-07-05T11:01:35.230+01:002017-07-05T11:01:35.230+01:00@ Anonymous
"And what I was saying on my blog...@ Anonymous<br />"And what I was saying on my blog six or even more years ago - we are going back, indeed the young have already gone back, not to the seventies but to the Twenties or Thirties - low wages, rent all your life, retire late on a small pension - with added debt just to make things even worse. This reality is what's caused the Corbynista revolt. OK, they have better healthcare, electronic toys, and nicer holidays than anyone bar the uber-wealthy did in the 20s, but how about their chances of raising kids when the landlord might put up the rent or you have to move every year?"<br />Very true of course Corbyn was part of the parliamentary party which caused this so he should not benefit.<br />" I'd want to know how we'sd created a world where the life-chances we'd had were no longer available to our kids and grandkids."<br />I know large scale immigration, benefit system encouraging people not to work (in the 70s you didn't pay for someone else to have better housing than you),not enough house building encouraging the wrong uni courses etc.<br /><br />PS Laban I liked your blog, start blogging again.L fairfaxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12274756119129254373noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-35239850886214715792017-07-05T10:38:54.142+01:002017-07-05T10:38:54.142+01:00What Andrew said. And what I was saying on my blog...What Andrew said. And what I was saying on my blog six or even more years ago - we are going back, indeed the young have already gone back, not to the seventies but to the Twenties or Thirties - low wages, rent all your life, retire late on a small pension - with added debt just to make things even worse. This reality is what's caused the Corbynista revolt. OK, they have better healthcare, electronic toys, and nicer holidays than anyone bar the uber-wealthy did in the 20s, but how about their chances of raising kids when the landlord might put up the rent or you have to move every year?<br /><br /><i>"how godawful the UK was organisationally and economically in the sixties and seventies"</i><br /><br />But by contrast with today it was a paradise for working people, where someone on average wages could afford both to buy a house and to support kids being raised by a stay at home mother. If you can't see that I wonder why. And in many ways it was economically better-run, in that we weren't kept afloat by debt as we have been ever since the Thatcher years. To think a general election (1970) could have been swayed by a trade deficit of what - £8 million? <br /><br />I was sat in a suburban garden the other night, drinking too much beer with a bunch of other semi-retired people, all with comfy final salary pensions, all perfectly fit and switched-on, all doing the odd bit of voluntary/contract/consultancy work here and there to keep the brain active, all with paid-off mortgages. If I'd been a 24 year old still living at home and listening in, I'd have been apoplectic. I'd want to know how we'sd created a world where the life-chances we'd had were no longer available to our kids and grandkids.<br /><br />Laban Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-64335003165247361342017-07-05T09:08:08.790+01:002017-07-05T09:08:08.790+01:00Stop paying the BBC licence en masse.
They can&#...Stop paying the BBC licence en masse. <br /><br />They can't prosecute us all. It is the BBC which is setting the agenda and the parameters of acceptability. Electro-Kevinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18073103431166273080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-17536828976392442662017-07-05T08:24:44.862+01:002017-07-05T08:24:44.862+01:00A lot of very insightful comments being aired - an...A lot of very insightful comments being aired - and a credit the "soundness" of folks contributing. But I've got to ask the question - does any one know how the man on the street (i.e not a Westminster insider) can actually start to make things better? There surely must be levers of democracy that can be pulled to sort this mess out...? any ideas? I'm desperate to see something done before we end up as the Peoples Democratic Republic of Britain!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-40854493713910232842017-07-04T22:18:44.209+01:002017-07-04T22:18:44.209+01:00Nigel Farage is, in fact, a conservative.
The BB...Nigel Farage is, in fact, a conservative. <br /><br />The BBC has been successful in portraying him as an extremist.<br /><br />The public have, therefore, been indoctrinated that conservatism is unacceptable. <br /><br />Theresa May had a big part in this. ("The nasty party.")<br /><br />Then they put her in charge of Brexit and she fucked it up. <br /><br />No surprise there. And Jeremy Hunt should be sacked but won't be - because soft no-Brexit is the plan. <br /><br />Electro-Kevinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18073103431166273080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-57695723901876185072017-07-04T22:16:56.346+01:002017-07-04T22:16:56.346+01:00"The Tories only have themselves to blame, th..."The Tories only have themselves to blame, they have not articulated a society they want, and believed "efficiency", "the market", and "modernity" will form the best outcomes."<br /><br />The sad fact is that the Tory party no longer believes in the market. They no longer believe in themselves. If the Tory party had their own Milliband-esque "three quid and you can pick the leader!" moment, we'd find a Farage figure installed post-haste and a subsequent poll surge to dwarf anything that Corbyn achieved.<br /><br />House prices need to correct to allow the young to get on the ladder. Allow the market to work its magic.<br /><br />Wages need to catch up with inflation. Stop importing third world and eastern European workers and allow the market to work its magic.<br /><br />Labour are looking to solve problems that actually exist. It's just the means that good capitalists disagree with. The Tories need to acknowledge the problems in the first place, and articulate realistic solutions. Otherwise, what is the point of the Tory party, other than to win power?Charlienoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-54116311156880641032017-07-04T21:50:52.048+01:002017-07-04T21:50:52.048+01:00@Don Cox
The point is to treat it as an investmen...@Don Cox<br /><br />The point is to treat it as an investment. There's no point having these tech hubs in London if all the best people keep moving to the US to go to uni. And why do we keep getting ripped off by the French or Japanese on big infrastructure projects that should be domestic?<br /><br />If someone wants to go study literature then let them pay their £9k fees but in the long run subsidising STEM will pay off. The BBC will cry about "arts" being "underfunded" but the man on the street doesn't care about luvvies.Knoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-34655427943163725722017-07-04T20:45:23.407+01:002017-07-04T20:45:23.407+01:00"so why do we think that if we tax wealthy pe..."so why do we think that if we tax wealthy people to hilt we'll not get less wealthy people?" <br /><br />I think you'll find that's not a bug but a feature theProlenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-33820676644359575322017-07-04T20:31:39.281+01:002017-07-04T20:31:39.281+01:00"Reduce uni fees but with a focus on STEM.&qu..."Reduce uni fees but with a focus on STEM."<br /><br />The problem with that is that STEM courses cost several times as much to run as the liberal arts, talking-and-writing courses. These cheap courses subsidise the STEM courses.<br /><br />So if you take them away, fees for STEM courses would have to go up. Maybe double.<br /><br />Don CoxAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-72977784165952432292017-07-04T18:49:55.160+01:002017-07-04T18:49:55.160+01:00Wait! Viagra? Get rid of the bloody Captcha!Wait! Viagra? Get rid of the bloody Captcha!dustyblokehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14032381020404935256noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-89641894643832656322017-07-04T18:18:59.481+01:002017-07-04T18:18:59.481+01:00I think the Tories should take on Corbyn's poi...I think the Tories should take on Corbyn's points but adapt them to the real world.<br /><br />More housing but also less immigration.<br /><br />More NHS funding but also BMI and smoking restrictions.<br /><br />Reduce uni fees but with a focus on STEM.<br /><br />etc.<br /><br />The BBC would shit bricks about all of these but I think this is actually closer to what people really mean when they say they want these things.Knoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-87349918271758430952017-07-04T17:45:39.574+01:002017-07-04T17:45:39.574+01:00hovis:
The 50% of young people target for universi...hovis:<br />The 50% of young people target for university originated with John Major.DJKnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-64659361319415905142017-07-04T14:33:48.169+01:002017-07-04T14:33:48.169+01:00There's a Christian saying, "The Devil ha...There's a Christian saying, "The Devil has the best tunes". Similar sentiment. patentlyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00602962323262055007noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-38517236249851101922017-07-04T14:31:56.365+01:002017-07-04T14:31:56.365+01:00Some perceptive comments, however remember there a...Some perceptive comments, however remember there are multiple answers at play.<br />So, is it the media, the education system or ‘market failure’ – it is all three.<br /><br />The media BBC, Sky and everyone else reflect a settled view that has always been soft left and now we see an extra frisson of excitement running through them when they talk of Corbyn and ‘Socialism’. <br />Agree there is no coherent questioning/ challenging of anyone. A friend’s facebook comment at the election ‘debates’ said of Paxman: he is trying to be Brian Walden but without the education, ideas or politeness. There simply is no longer a level of interest /debate . 24hr rolling media and a shorter attention span sees everything emotive & superficial.<br /><br />Another factor is education – a national standard curriculum and capture by a leftist establishment, multiculturalism and soft left views. The thing with Thatcherism, it won some economic arguments but left the field open to destroy culture. <br />Indeed the multinational Corporates and government have happily aided and abetted the left in destroying culture and indigenous value sets in the name of efficiency, modernity and creating “consumers”. (Not best example but the Corporate behemoth I work for enthusiastically installs toilets for transgendered people in the office whilst no one in the office building is ..) Combine both factors and hey presto you have iPhone totting young ‘Socialists’ pushing for Corbynism.<br /><br />As to Corbyn, I have said before he as identified issues that the Tories will not even touch. The University fees(*)(**) example for one – electoral poison identified by Corbynite left, offering to many here a piss poor solution, but it is something more than the Tories who run away doing the ‘move along nothing wrong, nothing to see here’ routine. <br />More generally it may be that a “free market” may fix things, but the Tories have never much of a free market party, talking of it, but in practice happily enabling their big Corporatist donors in regulatory capture and cosy deals. <br /><br />The focus on “Capitalism” is to an extent is false; you can have Capitalism (the most efficient return on Capital with only a few owners of it. That would not make things “better” per se for the majority of people. What gets confused is the need for personal agency and responsibility and freedom ( and freedom to fail). These have been seen by many as synonymous with ‘free markets’ and ‘capitalism’ but it is the results want not the fetishisation of the terms themselves which is what has happened. So the goal has been left open for the morons of the left to score. <br /><br />I could go on, this is a multi threaded subject and I have not even mentioned the secular religionhood that the NHS is now elevated to.<br /><br />The Tories only have themselves to blame, they have not articulated a society they want, and believed "efficiency", "the market", and "modernity" will form the best outcomes. Is the surge is not per se for Corbyn, a lot of cultof personality noise, but really on the ground bar the shouters, or against the perception of a broken system? (which I have been repeatedly saying it remains so since 2008 – actually before Blair Brown set the bomb ticking it just went off then). <br />PS: reading aphorisms from Taleb's Bed of Procrustes and so many apply here. <br />*The broken pledge on fee levels *& the interest charges; now sold to a private company that uses the machinery of State to collect and enforce debt. At the same time money has been printed and continued to be hosed at other equally undeserving sectors of the economy. <br />** The moronic Blairite policy of 50% to “University” and paying fees was based on a Graduate premium but that only works if you have a minority going to University. So the whole get a degree, get a good job etc. only works with a much smaller is a minority of the population that goes. (1950s around 3 – 4% of population, 8-9% by the 70’s and 80’s and now 50% - talk about devaluation.) I know Corbynite policy is not changing this.<br />hovisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-56946131953455184602017-07-04T14:06:54.863+01:002017-07-04T14:06:54.863+01:00Just a few weeks ago we were talking of a Labour i...Just a few weeks ago we were talking of a Labour implosion.<br /><br />Has double voting by students been checked ? I know my boy got two votes. He says registration for postal nullifies local but is this true ?E-Knoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-28564136122487697492017-07-04T13:12:08.051+01:002017-07-04T13:12:08.051+01:00"I despair, I really do. My own sons adore Co..."I despair, I really do. My own sons adore Corbyn as the True Messiah. They just laugh at my ancient memories of Wilson, Callaghan and Healey."<br /><br />This is what I have too, to the extent of one of them joining Momentum and going to their meetings although he wasn't so enthused by his local Labour Party meeting. (Good!) Any attempt to recall the previous era is met with indifference so they are impossible to persuade even when I tell them many high tax payers went to live abroad rather than pay here.<br /><br />Tories need to go back to basics with the idea that everyone is better off when taxation is low and the state is kept out of as much as possible and letting a free market do its stuff. We haven't had a true Tory government for decades. <br /><br />The other thing no-one young seems to grasp is that anything the state pays for has to be paid for from taxation or borrowing. Interest rates on the borrowings we have as a country are low at the moment but we will be broke if they rise to any extent and we don't get the debt down. Seemingly endless QE has stopped anyone from thinking this any more. House prices and other assets have been pushed up in price largely because of this magic money tree with all the "help" schemes governments have dreampt up. <br /><br />At the momemt only the banks and the 1% are winners and things will stay this way unless we come to our senses.<br /><br />If JC had said he would pay for his largesse by cancelling a few big things eg Trident, Hinkley, HS2 I might be more inclined to believe him. As it is though it just seems to be pie in the sky.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-81370108119295438722017-07-04T13:11:56.021+01:002017-07-04T13:11:56.021+01:00What if ... there were no politicians. Could you r...What if ... there were no politicians. Could you run a country without them and when can we start.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32841798.post-73398861252981364382017-07-04T12:22:47.178+01:002017-07-04T12:22:47.178+01:00The Corbyn mantra is a worry for the young.The Corbyn mantra is a worry for the young.James Highamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14525082702330365464noreply@blogger.com