And they chose austerity as the way out & we are still in Austerity 10 years down the line . That’s a whole generation , we were in a worse position after the war & yet your generation have had the best opportunities ever , far better than the generation that have grown up in the last 10 years , if you’re on a zero hours contract what chance to even be able to chose , as you did, to buy your own home ? , remind us how much would it cost to buy a house in Bristol these days and how many multiples of a zero hours contract is that ?. Unless you are lucky enough to have parents that help you or you get left it in a will many of today’s youngsters will never even have the opportunity to chose to take out a mortgage to buy their own home.
In December, January and February we were out of the need for austerity … the need /application of austerity was the .gov way of paying off the debt …. housekeeping if you like... " if we use less butter on our bread, smoke 3 ***s a day less for the next 10 years and have a small cod chips every Friday instead of large with extra chips we can pay off our debt and / or have a tin of salmon for Sunday tea each week! zero contract is not fair I agree but it is implemented by unscrupulous employers … makes people "glad to have some work so can pay minimal wages" … its been around for over 10 -15 years .. so don't blame the government don't entirely agree with this statement, kids today do not have the same values …. lockdown has highlighted some of their attitudes... my kids are grown up all have homes and families … and they planned for it. GD's already planning at age 11 13 15 22 24 28 [ staff nurse ] for own homes and families … next doors kids are [both sides ] I am lucky I guess, NO FREEBIE HAND OUTS and a very wide circle of friends all home owners and family orientated... nothing wrong with renting … but there is a lot more ways to buy now than when I or any family up to 10 or so years bought …
Not sure your statement is to do with austerity if I'm honest...Tricky if you're on zero hours to achieve the multiples required, I agree. Very Low interest rates have driven house prices up, not like when I got on housing ladder at near 15%!! I'm not saying it's easy to be a first time buyer nowadays, if you can find the right bank to give you a mortgage..managing payments can be cheaper than renting. Makes me laugh that people are able to splash out over £40 per month on latest mobile phones, money for gaming etc..and expect the home to be kitted out with all the mod-cons straight away..not like in our day, when everything had to be saved for and most 2nd hand.. That's not austerity but priorities!!
My point about you deciding to have a mortgage was you borrowed money to buy the home John , you had to make sacrifices along the way to afford to pay it back I accept but you still borrowed money in order to invest in property. There is nothing wrong in borrowing money, it allowed you to invest it in buying property , If you’d borrowed it to buy non essentials that would be wasteful & you’d get no return on your money. if the government do the same and borrow money , especially benificial at the moment with low interest rates , to invest in infrastructure it’s an investment in the future & encourages growth in the overall economy , it provides meaning full jobs for the workers and suppliers that build the infrastructure, it becomes a virtual circle , rather than austerity which has the opposite affect causes the economy to contract and create a vicious circle. So borrowing for the right reasons & used wisely is a positive thing , not a negative . I do agree that if a government borrows money & don’t use it wisely it too can create more problems than it solves , its a matter of balance.
I remember arguing with my parents about who had the better deal. Dad pointed to the affordable travel, new cars, TVs and luxuries as evidence that my generation had it easy. I replied that although the aforementioned were expensive by comparison for his generation, he grew up with a job for life, and in an environment where an average mans salary could buy a house and feed a family without his wife having to go to work. He couldn’t see it. He still can’t - or maybe I can’t ......
I agree with you , in your dads generation Had his wife worked full time they could have afforded the things that we enjoy today. I do agree though that today young ones do expect everything now so to speak. Even in my day we’d buy a house and it would take a while before every room had carpets , todays generation would want it completely decorated with TVs in almost every room straight away, I’m not sure if that’s a bad thing or not.
Think of austerity not as about making sacrifices to pay the mortgage, like tightening your belt over the years , but more as deciding not to take out the mortgage in the first place In order to save money.
That's another reason why house prices have soared over the years.....both men & women going out to work..double the earning, double the lending... great for the bankers and more revenue for the government to use..
I had had my house for about 12 years then …. highest I paid was 15.7% started off about 7% in the 60's My point exactly 1for … we had daps at about £1 10s 6d, lasted a year or so today its over inflated "trainers @ £80 +/- and last a few months or a tee shirt /top/trousers/hoodie all at super inflated prices … games consoles what a con mk1 /2/3 in quick succession usually in 2 years no sense of "what does my future hold?" you basically answer your Q .. when you borrow [rent in a way ] to buy your house [ [my example from the 60's, I was paying about 28% of my wage ( about 3.25x ) whereas my socializing mates (work) were renting at about 20% ] after a few years my money being paid out was same/ less than their rent about 22% of both our wages. [ changed in 1980 -83 when rates went to 17% pa, renters had the best deal payments out wise] as I was saying my borrowed [rented property via mortgage ] was now worth a thousand £ more than I bought/ brrowed it for and our payments were similar / same, their borrowed rented property was owned by a third party! Move out please or want to move.... gosh all that maintenance decorating /gardening etc you have done ...left behind......for free!
I think you may be trying to disguise the hole you have created? AUSTERITY was a very necessary evil brought about by years of overspending mis spending and high interest on top of high interest due to losing your credit rating.... it is not something that is a general normality it is not a normal part of a circle ..how you put it, you are identifying a need that it [austerity] is a circle [ part of ] because tories follow labour ...repeat repeat repeat and the Tories invariably have to dig themselves out of a hole after getting back in after defeating labour before they start on the future wellbeing of all of us! ……...as was the case at the start of this year … we were out of the NEED for austerity and yes everyone was affected like the virus "we all have to make a sacrifice for the collective good"
It's dead easy for the likes of Starmer to sit back with no pressure on him and no real decisions to make and criticise everything he sees. Yes hindsight is a wonderful thing, and you'd hope lessons would be learned going forwards, but tough decisions affecting the UK and latterly the English population and the British economy had to be made by the incumbent government. I can only be thankful that Corbyn got such a pasting at the last election and wasn't in charge otherwise we would really have been in trouble.
AUSTERITY AND THE MORTGAGE are not linked so where will you live ? in a rent free plastic sheet covered shelter in the middle of stockhill woods! It is what commonsense tells you to do...budget ….I have to have a roof over my head, eat wear clothes keep warm have a leisure interest = work = human lifespan. choices are shop doorway and scrounge, homemade shelter in the woods, tent live off land /scrounge or maybe work , caravan, rent, buy a house or flat or barge houseboat etc etc etc by not taking out a mortgage how does that save you money? other than the first few choices of the comment above? my last mortgage cost me £108,300 plus £3600 endowment house has just been valued at £345k .gov reckons ave wage is £25 pa so the £120k draw down fund I have arranged SEEMS GOOD BUSINESS
This is my point. We're already in the top 3 worst in the world by any metric you use. How CAN you do worse than this lot? We've had more deaths yesterday in 60m people than the EU have in their 450m odd. If it wasn't so serious it would be impressive in how **** it is.
But with the size and population of London, it stands to reason why we are high.... Also many people ignoring the lockdown, gathering on beaches etc, doesn't help... Also see below!! You think this helps the cause? please log in to view this image
Population of Paris 11,017,000 French Deaths 29000 Population of London 9,304,000 UK Deaths 40000 Also with the confusing messages coming from the Government is it any wonder that people don't know what they should be doing during lockdown? If it's good enough for Dominic Cummings....
There are 200 odd countries in the world, some with dense populations and some with not-so-dense populations. Our excess deaths per million (the most reliable way of tracking across countries) is the worst on the planet with countries producing comparable data, even 3 times worse than the USA. please log in to view this image People can make all the excuses they like, I see you've even tried blaming the British people for being more moronic than other countries (probably true to be fair ). But you can't just say, we have a big city, that's why it's bad. Fact is, the government ****ed it completely. So I ask again, if the Government have done an okay job, what does 'bad' look like? What would bad be?
The government, on the advice of SAGE, locked down to late and on reflection Cheltenham and the Liverpool game should have never happened. Rob & Loaths Do you believe Corbyn, if the Labour Party had won the general election, would have gone against the advice at the time ?
Couldn't care less about Corbyn we're talking about our Government not some mythical being. As opposed to other countries in the world ours is seriously lacking