Todays society

Apart from there's two sides to that. Part of the reason what you say is true is that the previous generation was the most prosperous ever.

It's only if you judge todays young to their parents that it works. If you judged them against their grandparents it would be laughable.

Similarly though who actually benefites in the long run? The wealth generated by your patents and grandparents eventually comes to you (in general terms, not you specifically). The benefits of the prosperous system doesn't stay with the boomers.

Nobody is shut out of the system, you're just getting different challenges and benefits to the previous generations.....but the choice is to focus on the negatives.

 

Same. I'm technically a millennial, came from what can only be described as poor situation but am pretty happy with where I have got to.

I find it a weird one because to me, my generation and my kids have NEVER had more opportunities. The "only" downside is that my parents lived through the housing boom (and didn't own one) so that will always affect the outlook.

Apart from that though I can't understand the negativity and disenfranchisement if I'm honest. Opportunity is there, but it seems to be an outlook that it doesn't count until its handed to people.

 

There are plenty of opportunities for the young of today but they have to work hard for it, Mostly it is a matter of making the best of what you have and most important of all is attitude, With this and hard work there is no reason you should be any worse off than the previous generation who did exactly the same.

 

My parents / Grandparents always said you get back in life what you put in. I find it quite ironic that society is now a " buy now pay for it later generation " . You only have to look at the personal debt that most families have today , i was always taught patience is a virtue and if you want anything you save for it . I use the same system even today , but if i wanted ( and without proof of income / finances ) rack up £1000s on store cards, credit cards , debit cards etc etc , and thats the crux of the problem . When i left school most of my friends went into mundane ( but fairly well paid jobs ) , i took on an apprenticeship which was very hard and poorly paid , but i'm fairly comfortable now through hard work and sacrifice earlier on . I used to call my mates " weekend millionaires " they thought little of the future , it's ok to want everything in life now ( instant gratification i suppose ) but in the long run somebody has to foot the bill . People scream poverty at present , but by what yardstick ?, i witnessed real poverty in 60s Bradford , it's nowhere near as bad these days despite what people would have you believe .

 

I disagree, older people vote tory in droves so that's who they govern for. I would also say that given things like suicide and mental health crises rates were skyrocketing prior to the pandemic, it's a bit more than just people choosing to focus on negatives. dont forget the financial crash in 08, where the economic fallout hit the young overwhelmingly. 10 years of conservative govt and cutting anything and everything set up to help young people and now the pandemic which again has economically speaking hit young people disproportionately again, given they are some of the most likely to be working in hospitality and retail. They are also more likely to be key workers again down them being more likely to work in sectors such as essential retail. So whilst one section has borne the brunt of the financial fallout, another significant section of young people are bearing the brunt of the risk as well.

Nobody benefits from an unfair system in the long run, as all it does is cause division and resentment if nothing else.

If you compare their grandparents to their grandparents it would be laughable as well. the point is that however many years of continuous progress has now halted.

 

I think that's it. I don't agree at all that the younger generation have access to fewer opportunities. But I do think there's an expectation of immediacy, a lack of real work ethic and an almost arrogance or sense of entitlement as to not being prepared to take on jobs that may be less than ideal. My daughter is 21. Always been a worker, went to Uni, and is in the process of joining the police. Has aspirations of a specific role in the police but recognises she'll have to put the hours in before even a chance is available. I think she's mad, but I'm super proud. Whereas, I have a 22 year old step daughter who tossed it off in school, doesn't know what she wants to do other than 'probably something in beauty or fashion' and can't keep a job for more than a few weeks for various issues and complaints she has. And is perplexed that she can't afford the things her sister does. Genuinely perplexed as to what she's not really going anywhere.

 

It's not continuous progress. It's about 4 generations of it being measured and it is all based on a housing boom that younger people- in general - will benefit from eventually.

As for mental health and suicide it's not particularly straightforward with those either, part of that is due to more awareness. I mean I'm pretty sure there were some significant mental health problems in the 1910s and 1940s but weren't measured in the same way. That awareness now is a good thing, as are the measures taken to solve it, not a sign that people are being shut out of a system.

 

There are many types of young people and not just one section, Like life in general they are made up of those that know what they want from life and are prepared to work hard for it, Those that just want a good life and again are prepared to work the hours needed to better themselves and those that feel the world owes them a living and not prepared to put the effort in blaming society instead of themselves,

Giving a University education to those without the drive and ambition to use it has created a section of the young that feel that it in itself should be enough to have entitlement without the work ethic needed to succeed

 

Prior to that we were industrialising and coming out of a subsistence farming economy. That progress has now stopped isn't a regression to the mean or anything. Wealth inequality is literally becoming the same as it was in the Victorian era. That is a failure to me.

There is also absolutely no guarantee they will eventually benefit. Housing costs way more as a proportion of wages than it did back in the good old days, as does pretty much everything else. The private rental sector is also at its largest size for some time, which on its own would not necessarily be a bad thing if rents were not as extortionate as they are. how can people save as effectively, when they have less money to save and the cost of every outgoing has increased? So if you aren't lucky enough to have rich parents and a super duper job at a young age, that's you locked into just surviving for the foreseeable future. Not everyone is fortunate or talented enough to progress to get good jobs either, which I personally don't think we should demonise people for. I think a greater proportion of people and particularly young people to keep it relevant want to work and gladly do so given the opportunity, and that most in low paid jobs are a combination of people trying to better themselves, people who might just not be capable of anything better and folks just flat out trying to survive however they can. And trying to do so with tons of people in better jobs who will most likely be served drinks, or served at the till by said people constantly telling them they should work harder and that they're lazy.

 

I wrote a massive post agreeing with you about how labour's factional infighting ruins them as a serious electoral force for the foreseeable future and the specific issues within each faction. What I wrote was applicable to Corbyn's tenure to some degree. If you want a wider critique on why Corbyn failed it was that he was a very poor communicator with people who didn't already agree with him amongst other things. That wasn't entirely his fault but he also wasn't effective enough to change his perception amongst a lot of people. The media absolutely slaughtered him more so than any other politician I've ever known in the media and I know that's saying something, but at the same time at crucial moments he absolutely said stupid or wrong things that alienated many people, and often couldn't see why what he'd said or done was problematic let alone retract his words. However I do think that many of the policies he pushed were good, bar some of the less well thought out and paniced ones like the broadband policy. And I also believed Corbyn himself was a good and nice person, and wanted to push someone like that to the fore rather than another identikit maniacal political bastard straight from house of cards. His opponents when others in the party did challenge him as I said before were people like Owen Smith, so ironically there also wasn't much of an alternative to corbyn for many.

The fact that things like the furlough scheme have near universal public support shows the public aren't afraid of governments spending money, but people have to feel secure about who they let spend that money. And ultimately, as with many other things, corbyn was just not trusted or liked by enough people to swing it, especially so given jo swinsons pm delusions splitting the vote everywhere they could.

 

Of course housing costs have gone up.......housing quality has gone up!!!

You can buy a house in Bradford for £40k but nobody wants them. It's not just about price is it?

Comparing Wealth inequality to the Victorian Age is laughable. It might be mathematically correct but the implications of it are completely different, the poor now are clearly not Victorian Poor!

I didn't have rich parents, got brought up on a council estate by a single mother, had 2 kids before I was 20, didn't have a super duper job when I was young......but not..... I'm doing okay. The mentality that the situation is "locked in" and determined by something stmystemic is exactly the sort of negative mentality I'm talking about.

I'll say it again, there has never ever been a generation with more opportunity.

 

I don't agree with the point on housing quality. A deregulated building industry is continually throwing up issues with developers improperly building homes to cut corners.

If its mathematically correct it's correct. The implications are laughable because it's a joke that in today's society that is even a possibility.

That's you and your personal experience. I have my personal experience which is similar in that my parents aren't rich and I've worked hard to get where I am. But I see a hell of a lot of my mates across the country as I've moved about a bit because I like to travel, who no matter how hard they try they can't get on in life like I know they would all like to and it's not for lack of effort. Be it from experiencing discrimination, having mental health issues that they can't get proper support for, or even simply just not being able to find a decent job. And then I look at the statistics and see that these issues are all rising on a national scale which leads me to believe that something is clearly not right here. I didn't just get out of bed one day and decide the system was a feckery

 

You don't think houses are of better quality than they were in the 80s? Wow!

And lack of regulation or cutting corners will have been worse back then, those things aren't new.

No, the pure maths isn't the important point. If your wage doubles compared to your peers then you are better off.......it doesn't matter if the richest person's wage has gone up by 10. Their wage has no impact on you. The richest people's income has gone up because technology allows purchasing to be centralised, but people are way too bothered about Jeff Bezos earnings when it has no impact on their lives at all.

If people can't get on, they can't get on. It's not a new or systemic thing.

And everything you've mentioned there is the best it's ever been. No generation has more help with those.

 

I don;t give a shit about Jeff Bezos' wage, you brought that up not me. Most of his wealth is tied up in assets anyway. What does concern me is that a CEO's median wage is now literally in some cases thousands of times what an average employee earns, when prior it would be something like a hundred times. that isn't right, because we aren't in a golden age of super effective CEO's, they aren't adding anymore value to the business than anyone in a CEO role was prior. Thats what happens when you smash people's ability to collectively organise for better pay and working conditions. Money that would have gone into wage rises now goes into CEO's back pockets. Nothing to do with Baldy Bezos and everything to do with unrestrained greed. Yes, their wage does impact ordinary people because companies don't have infinite pots of money with which to pay people, so if they started shifting more money to pay the top guys, that's less money to pay everyone else, which is fairly obvious to me. If they all had bottomless cash reserves you would be right but sadly that isn't reality.


So the last 12 years of cuts didn't happen? wait times for everything are up from when the conservatives got in to now. Overall employment is down, but youth unemployment is hitting pretty much the level it was in the 80s. It wasn't down to lazy young people then and it isn't now. Older people sneering that the young are lazy is not a new phenomena either.

 

The CEO wage is only thousands of times the average employees wage in a tiny, tiny proportion of companies - like Amazon. The average CEO wage in the UK is something like £80k I believe.

It's not because they are super effective.....its simply because the Internet has enabled company owners to massively expand their company's sales by removing geographical barriers. Top guys get paid more when income goes up and the Internet and technology has facilitated that.

Yes there's been 12 years of cuts - but from historically high levels. Spending on the sort of things you are talking about will currently be higher than any time prior to 2000 and awareness of issues will be the highest ever.

As you say, it's now getting close to 80s levels.....which kinda indicates its no worse than that generation. I don't think young people are lazy, that's a lazy generalisation in itself, but the outlook that everything is the worst its ever been and "woe is me" is utterly bizarre and self defeating. People's own mindsets are holding them down in a way an oppressive system could only dream of.

 

Blimey, are you still banging your old drum, chill out ffs