From this morning's City AM:
...a closely watched barometer of so-called unfairness between the generations shows prospects for young people have worsened in the past year as older peoples’ living standards have improved.
“The housing boom for the older generation in London and south east is a housing crisis for the under-30s,” Angus Hanton, co-founder of Intergenerational Foundation (IF), told City A.M. “This is moving towards a feudal society.”
The first link doesn't work any more, of course, as is so often the way with City AM articles which threaten to rock the boat, but thanks to the miracle that is Google Cache, it's still available here.
Tuesday 18 June 2013
Well said, Angus!
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8 comments:
And the evidence that "..older peoples’ living standards have improved." is?
VFTS, it depends on what you are comparing with what.
Feel free to argue that pensioners are in some respects worse off (because of low interest rate and greenie madness surcharges on domestic fuel, for example).
But younger folk have lost far, far more - higher taxes 9partly to pay the higher pensions), higher rents, higher house prices, higher fuel costs, higher unemployment etc.
So what, they'll get it all when the oldies die, won't they, so long as they keep voting for high house prices.
Mark,
Don't disagree about younger people, I wouldn't like to be starting out in life from their position.
It's the unsupported absolute 'living standards have improved' that jarred.
VFTS, sure, Angus misses the point a bit and thinks that this is all about young v old.
It's not, it's about workers v banking and landowning and subsidy parasites.
Inevitably, younger people fall into the first group and older people (as a whole) own a lot of land than they do, and get more in the way of benefits from the taxpayer etc, but whatever they get pales into insignificance.
It might entirely be that absolute living standards has improved for older people, but everyone tends to underestimate improvements in living standards and wouldn't readily accept this, this is just the way it is.
But they could be better off. Older people still have to pay for products and services that are highly taxed to avoid touching their paper wealth, so they are not exactly winners in the end either.
Dear Mr Wadsworth
" ... but thanks to the miracle that is Google Cache, it's still available here."
Oh no it isn't, at least not on my computer.
The Intergenerational Foundation seems to be a precursor to an organisation that would wish to equip everyone with a red crystal in the palm of his hand, which turns black after a specific time, whereupon the individual would be required to present himself to be terminated. Unless his name is Logan. And he feels like running.
Baby boomers have worked hard to build the world the current youth enjoy, not all of whom share in the zeitgeist of generational envy. The youth of today look forward to a world of opportunity and consumption undreamed of by my parents' generation who actually fought in the last world war and endured the privations and real dangers to life and limb of the War. Professor David Myddleton pointed out at a Libertarian Alliance conference that the UK suffered an average daily military and civilian death toll due to enemy action in excess of 200 people throughout the War.
I stand upon the shoulders of giants when it comes to my consumption. The youth of today stand higher than I, and they have their future to look forward to - a future which someone even now is shaping in their garage/basement/bedroom in ways which will leave your flabber well and truly gasted.
In the palms of their hands the youth of today hold power that two generations ago required the might of a great nation to supply. Their iPhone could complete the entire war work of the eight thousand plus people at Bletchley Park in a short time - hours? Days?
If you live longer, you die richer. Consider someone dying today at 89 and another at 69. Assuming they worked hard all their lives and invested wisely and achieved a rate of return on their investments of 7% per annum and their first 69 years exactly matched in constant money terms. The 89 year old would be 4 times richer, simply by living 20 years longer. A 99 year old following the same pattern would be 8 times richer than the 69 year old and twice as rich as the 89 year old.
Longevity also increases wealth.
Ruby red crystals in everyone's palm?
You support the YPP - Young People's Party. When do members become too old for the YPP?
What happens to the old YPP MPs? Councillors? EU Regional Assembly Members?
When will you be too old for the YPP?
Just asking.
DP
Being young is a state of mind, DP. Some people are still young at 90; some are already old at 19. The YPP is for everyone who is young-at-heart, no matter how long it has been since they were born.
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