Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

The Brexit Thread

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!! View Post
    I don't think there's anything particularly unique about your generation though A de C, other than the Circumstances they faced. I'd come to the conclusion that any group of people in that situation would largely have behaved the same.
    I agree, that's kinda what I thought I said.

    Comment


      I wonder if ursus feels this as well. The school leaving age was 15 until 1971 so for us Yanks, certainly myself, you're talking working class pensioners as having a 9th grade education. The real old farts have an 8th grade education, if they finished school before Butler raised the leaving age from 14.

      To its credit, the trade union movement and some strains of the working class have a real big self-improvement streak the American working class hasn't had for decades. My father-in-law left at 15 but was a voracious reader all his life. Always had a book in his hand, read at least two newspapers a day (usually the Mirror and a broadsheet - usually Times or Guardian). But if you didn't like book learnin', you ended up leaving school with a frighteningly limited toolbox.

      I've always wondered about this when you look at the staggering disparity in voting Leave between leavers and university graduates.

      Comment


        In fairness, a fair number of people had post-secondary education of some kind. College of FE, Teachers Training College, Technical College, Art School (over 200 in England until the early 60s), and other specialised institutions, like Music College, or Drama School. Most of these offered the educational equivalent of a degree today. British Universities, then, were much more selective than nowadays.

        Comment


          Originally posted by Tubby Isaacs View Post
          That's right, Amor.

          I think too there's a bit of haziness about buying a house, and what it meant 40-50 years ago. Sure, it was easier, but lots of people lived with parents till getting married, and often afterwards as well. That's very different from my idea of "buying a place", formed in the mid 90s, where lots of single people bought flats with not too much difficulty.

          Britpop, it was the best time ever! (etc)
          I mean, you're not exactly going to find a lot of Millennials looking down on living with your folks until getting married. Lots of us do that. I know people living with their parents who are married with a kid.

          Originally posted by Amor de Cosmos View Post

          Now we look around, notice how much harder it is, and (some, not everyone) look for somebody to blame. This is the problem, blaming not solving. Past sixty or so, you feel impotent and vulnerable. Pointing a finger (and voting) seems like all you can do, and sadly there plenty of people around to tell who who to point the finger at.
          The problem comes from the olds seemingly refusing to acknowledge their privileged economic position relative to the rest of society - even if a lot of it is tied up in their house - and not looking to take any concrete solutions to remedy this. If the franchise was restricted to people under the age of 50, Jeremy Corbyn would be Prime Minister and Bernie Sanders would very possibly be the President (or at least Hillary *would* have walked it). Wealth is going to have to be redistributed, and that may mean either selling your house or selling your second house or the value of your home plummeting via taking the teeth out of the property market.

          You can't thank yourself for sitting on a gold mine in a big, prosperous city and also wonder why the hell your children can't afford to live there.

          (If you haven't noticed, I'm rather speaking to other people besides you)

          I think there's also an important side issue which is that for people under the age of 35, all the Red Scare Reaganite Communism Is The Worst Thing Ever bullshit just has no meaning to us.

          Comment


            Originally posted by Amor de Cosmos View Post
            In fairness, a fair number of people had post-secondary education of some kind. College of FE, Teachers Training College, Technical College, Art School (over 200 in England until the early 60s), and other specialised institutions, like Music College, or Drama School. Most of these offered the educational equivalent of a degree today. British Universities, then, were much more selective than nowadays.
            Yeah, sorry, meant to say that I'm excluding people who went to college and such. Obviously it wasn't either Oxbridge or the pit at 15.

            Comment


              You can't thank yourself for sitting on a gold mine in a big, prosperous city and also wonder why the hell your children can't afford to live there.
              But you need rental and properties to buy. I moved to London in 1996, when it was quite cheap, and rented a room because it suited me. It would have been pretty ridiculous of me to think of the landlords as a load of bastards who should have sold it to an owner occupier. Where would I have lived?

              Comment


                The problem comes from the olds seemingly refusing to acknowledge their privileged economic position relative to the rest of society - even if a lot of it is tied up in their house - and not looking to take any concrete solutions to remedy this.

                I suppose it depends on what you mean by concrete solutions. In a practical sense I know several couples my age who've effectively passed on their inheritance to their children before they die, so they're able raise a family in this city. That means funding a single family home, and paying for childcare, and holidays, when necessary. Is that what you meant?

                Comment


                  Originally posted by Flynnie View Post

                  The problem comes from the olds seemingly refusing to acknowledge their privileged economic position relative to the rest of society - even if a lot of it is tied up in their house - and not looking to take any concrete solutions to remedy this.
                  I think this is where I stand. There's an almost wilful ignorance of a lot of Boomers of how policies which have benefited them have damaged the prospects of subsequent generations. Obviously there are many exceptions, and I'm pretty sure there's no malice. But - for example - generations who make repeated votes for policies that reinforce and inflate house prices, particularly NIMBYish shutting down of house building, are clearly responsible for how hard it is for the youngs to afford to either rent or buy (which becomes all the more galling if they then tell the youngs how it was when they got on their bikes to buy a house and if they could do it why can't the kids). Or generations who vote repeatedly for Pensions Triple Locks while at the same time driving down income tax and complaining about government borrowing are obviously undercutting all government provisions outside of the pension system.

                  As I said, it's not malice. It's just a wilful ignorance, and unawareness of how the system has rigged itself so strongly in their favour.

                  Comment


                    Originally posted by Amor de Cosmos View Post
                    The problem comes from the olds seemingly refusing to acknowledge their privileged economic position relative to the rest of society - even if a lot of it is tied up in their house - and not looking to take any concrete solutions to remedy this.

                    I suppose it depends on what you mean by concrete solutions. In a practical sense I know several couples my age who've effectively passed on their inheritance to their children before they die, so they're able raise a family in this city. That means funding a single family home, and paying for childcare, and holidays, when necessary. Is that what you meant?
                    you mean stuff that in germany isn't the preserve of those with solvent parents because the property market is designed to provide housing rather than rentier profit, and the ealthy pay more tax?

                    the thing about this is that it is evidence that the US and canada are becoming gerontocracies like italy, where only the old have weath and with wealth comes power. Hearing people complaining about having to help out their kids as a hardship rather than part of the responsibilities of power doesn't wash well with younger generations.

                    Comment


                      I think this is where I stand. There's an almost wilful ignorance of a lot of Boomers of how policies which have benefited them have damaged the prospects of subsequent generations. Obviously there are many exceptions, and I'm pretty sure there's no malice. But - for example - generations who make repeated votes for policies that reinforce and inflate house prices, particularly NIMBYish shutting down of house building, are clearly responsible for how hard it is for the youngs to afford to either rent or buy (which becomes all the more galling if they then tell the youngs how it was when they got on their bikes to buy a house and if they could do it why can't the kids). Or generations who vote repeatedly for Pensions Triple Locks while at the same time driving down income tax and complaining about government borrowing are obviously undercutting all government provisions outside of the pension system.

                      As I said, it's not malice. It's just a wilful ignorance, and unawareness of how the system has rigged itself so strongly in their favour.



                      But if those things are true, then they're true because of electoral decision making, when most people — we're told — vote in their own self interest. If the generations that are suffering voted in their self interest, wouldn't things be better for them? However if they don't vote at all then things are likely to stay bad. I mean, when I enter a ballot box, I'm thinking about making the best decisions for my kids and grandkids, but I really hope they're not relying on everyone else doing the same.

                      Comment


                        Lots of people walk into a ballot box thinking of what would be good for their kids as the exclusion of everyone else. They see their kids' experience as somehting that is controllable by them, rather than subject to big impersonal forces like housing markets, tax poloicy, landbanking and the rest. They think that what they've got in this world needs to be carefully stewarded because that's all they've got to pass on, so they'll vote to lower inheritence tax, lower taxes on themselves etc etc.

                        What they've lost, and what we've lost, is a sense of class identity. It's Thatcher's victory; there is no such thing as society, just individuals and families, as far as enough people are concerned. That's why ultimately the Boomers are a dead loss. They grew up in the UK and USA with the fruits of the struggles of generations of their forebears, and grew up not as members of a class who sturggled tiogerher and fought together and built together but as a group of people who made it because they worked hard. Like all people who have acheievd some success, be they billionaires, or people owning a 3-bed semi in Doncaster, they believe it was all about them. Whether that's because they grew up without the sense of struggle that their own parents took for granted, or because of somehting more to do with neuroscience about attrubution bias doesn't matter.

                        Comment


                          Because buying a house makes you change sides. The Wealthy old who have paid for their house, and frequently have more than one property, have convinced those who have bought their house on a 35 year mortgage to ally with them against those without a house. If you buy a house, you become intrinsically opposed to any market solution that reduces the value of your house, or taxes you for any increase in the value of your asset. In most countries, the proportion of people with houses is greater than those without them. So the response is Fuck them.

                          Sharply rising house prices should be seen as a serious and embarrassing governmental failure, yet in many western countries are seen as something to be cheered. The easy, obvious, quick and cheap way to resolve all housing problems everywhere is for the state to build massive numbers of apartments, and tear the floor out from under rents and house prices. It's difficult to imagine any "Homeowning democracy" supporting this, particularly if they had to pay more tax to fund it.

                          Comment


                            Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!! View Post
                            y
                            the thing about this is that it is evidence that the US and canada are becoming gerontocracies like italy, where only the old have weath and with wealth comes power. Hearing people complaining about having to help out their kids as a hardship rather than part of the responsibilities of power doesn't wash well with younger generations.
                            And nor should it, Though I have to say I've never heard anyone think of helping their kids as a "hardship," a disappointment maybe.

                            I can't answer for the US or Italy. In Canada, especially this part of Canada, accrued wealth is almost entirely down the massive increases in property values over the past forty years. For most people, myself included, this has been almost entirely accidental. You buy a small house, two years later you have child and need a bigger one, and surprisingly, find you've made a bunch of money. Rinse and repeat. I don't know if we've become a gerontocracy in the process, I hope not. Immigration, (increasing the population at about 1% per year) heavily favours youth, which should mitigate against it.
                            Last edited by Amor de Cosmos; 01-03-2018, 19:13.

                            Comment


                              Sharply rising house prices should be seen as a serious and embarrassing governmental failure, yet in many western countries are seen as something to be cheered. The easy, obvious, quick and cheap way to resolve all housing problems everywhere is for the state to build massive numbers of apartments, and tear the floor out from under rents and house prices. It's difficult to imagine any "Homeowning democracy" supporting this, particularly if they had to pay more tax to fund it.

                              The NDP/Green Provincial government here in BC is planning to do exactly that.

                              Details here.
                              Last edited by Amor de Cosmos; 01-03-2018, 19:12.

                              Comment


                                Originally posted by Amor de Cosmos View Post
                                I suppose it depends on what you mean by concrete solutions. In a practical sense I know several couples my age who've effectively passed on their inheritance to their children before they die, so they're able raise a family in this city. That means funding a single family home, and paying for childcare, and holidays, when necessary. Is that what you meant?
                                My instinct is to see this is both patronising and patronage. It also, of course, means that the wealth is hereditary.

                                For things to change, they have to change structurally, rather than millennials relying on having rich parents and relying on the fickleness of those parents in passing wealth down.

                                From my perspective, it would be reassuring to see some wider awareness of this among the Boomers - we might not see actual political or structural change, but it would be nice to see my parents' generation admit that they were inordinately lucky: life almost entirely in peacetime, jobs for life, affordable housing, nailed on state pensions, nailed on final salary pensions, no student debt, and so on.

                                Comment


                                  If you buy a house, you become intrinsically opposed to any market solution that reduces the value of your house, or taxes you for any increase in the value of your asset.
                                  And yet we had the Tories proposing to use unearned wealth from house prices to fund pensioner social care, and Labour saying "pay it out of everybody's taxes". Just as we had the pensioner trying to stop the main state pension rising so fast, and Labour attacking them for it.

                                  Sure, Labour wanted to increase inheritance tax and the Tories attacked them, but nobody is looking at this stuff in the round.

                                  Comment


                                    From my perspective, it would be reassuring to see some wider awareness of this among the Boomers - we might not see actual political or structural change, but it would be nice to see my parents' generation admit that they were inordinately lucky: life almost entirely in peacetime, jobs for life, affordable housing, nailed on state pensions, nailed on final salary pensions, no student debt, and so on.

                                    But we* do that constantly! Really, I have that conversation with my kids, my students, the twenty-year-olds in the local coffee shop all the time. I mean, I could walk down the street in sackcloth and ashes with a sign around my neck but that isn't going to solve anything is it?

                                    * When I say we, I don't just mean me and my family. The opening student forum of my program begins with, an acknowledgement and mea culpa that skills based jobs are both harder to get, and harder to define than they were when we we were in their shoes. Chatting to AdeC jr at the weekend. His career prep instructor began his first class with a "We have seriously let you down" speech, in regard specifically to tuition fees.

                                    Comment


                                      Some interesting figures on median age.

                                      Italy is indeed a very old country, but younger than Germany (pre-refugees, I think).

                                      The UK is younger than lots of developed countries, including Canada.

                                      Italy's demographics seem to explain quite a lot. The other day there was an appalling BTL fest on the Guardian, where "what's wrong with the left in Italy?" was explained about 50% "too much identity politics" and 50% "too much neoliberalism".

                                      Lots of people who might be voting for the PD simply haven't been born.

                                      Comment


                                        Yeah, the Germans and Japanese eh?

                                        Comment


                                          From my perspective, it would be reassuring to see some wider awareness of this among the Boomers - we might not see actual political or structural change, but it would be nice to see my parents' generation admit that they were inordinately lucky: life almost entirely in peacetime, jobs for life, affordable housing, nailed on state pensions, nailed on final salary pensions, no student debt, and so on.
                                          Higher education participation rates

                                          1970 8.4%
                                          1990 19.3%

                                          Somebody born going to university in 1990 (when I did) isn't even close to being a boomer.

                                          Comment


                                            Originally posted by Amor de Cosmos View Post
                                            Sharply rising house prices should be seen as a serious and embarrassing governmental failure, yet in many western countries are seen as something to be cheered. The easy, obvious, quick and cheap way to resolve all housing problems everywhere is for the state to build massive numbers of apartments, and tear the floor out from under rents and house prices. It's difficult to imagine any "Homeowning democracy" supporting this, particularly if they had to pay more tax to fund it.

                                            The NDP/Green Provincial government here in BC is planning to do exactly that.

                                            Details here.
                                            Reading the actual underlying document I can't help but be simultaneously struck by how radical it is compared to most other places in the Anglosphere, yet how ridiculously timid, underwhelming, and essentially xenophobic that document is. I get that there is a huge problem with foreign capital inflating the Vancouver market, but the first five points out of 30 are 1. Taxing non locals who have investment properties (but not locals) 2. really taxing non canadians and 3. restricting where they can buy. and four and five are slightly increasing the tiny taxes on sales of houses above €2 million. It then proudly tells us that "This is what a progressive tax system looks like." Well.........

                                            point six is making Air Bnb people collect VAT, and point seven seems to be about doing away with assistance to buy homes, or transferring some of that money to renters. It's pretty unclear.

                                            As to the amounts of money and the number of houses they're planning on building, I can't help but noticing that though it is 10 times as big as the republic of Ireland, BC has exactly the same population, and seems to have many of the same problems with housing. $6.6 billion to help housing partnerships over 10 years quite frankly is nothing, and 114,000 houses would barely be a drop in the ocean over a decade in Ireland. I can't imagine it would be very different in BC. They want to build 14,000 apartments, which would be a decent start for the first year, but they plan to do it over a decade.

                                            There's some good but desperately timid looking stuff about renters, and the situation in Ireland would be substantially improved if we were even to adopt these timid methods. But that document is so overwhelmingly inadequate that I'm not sure that they should really have bothered.

                                            "This is what a progressive Tax system looks like" my hole.

                                            Comment


                                              Well, for a coalition government with a majority of two seats you're unlikely to get Clem Atlee. After being run by a government that was beholden to the Provincial real estate industry for fifteen years it's revolutionary.
                                              Last edited by Amor de Cosmos; 01-03-2018, 20:12.

                                              Comment


                                                I'm not sure that that should really enter into it. An overheating property market is a fucking existential nightmare for any economy. This is not a time for half measures. Theresa May is ramming through an ultra extreme barking mad brexit on a slimmer margin than that. For a nominally Social democratic party, in coalition with the fucking Greens, that is a desperately timid document. I only wish our govt were even that timid.

                                                Our minister for housing is an obvious empathy free sociopath, who represents the richest constituency in the country, where the primary property concern was returning housing prices to the values they had reached before the celtic tiger. No wonder we are building no more than 10,000 houses a year.
                                                Last edited by The Awesome Berbaslug!!!; 01-03-2018, 20:17.

                                                Comment


                                                  Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!! View Post
                                                  I'm not sure that that should really enter into it.
                                                  Oh, it enters into it. The first NDP government here passed 39 pieces of groundbreaking legislation and didn't get a sniff of power again for nearly two decades. Something they expected to happen. This one is playing the turtle rather than the hare, as it has to balance the interests of a much more diverse population than was true in '72. Given the context it's better than expected.

                                                  Comment


                                                    It's a tortoise.

                                                    Comment

                                                    Working...
                                                    X