[HN Gopher] Poor people 'surviving not living' as UK social cont...
___________________________________________________________________
Poor people 'surviving not living' as UK social contract collapses,
says report
Author : myshpa
Score : 105 points
Date : 2023-09-05 21:30 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| xwdv wrote:
| This is the danger of living somewhere with low salaries but
| justifying it by low cost of living and robust government
| welfare.
|
| Once the rug is pulled and cost of living goes up or the
| government sucks you're screwed. If you had a high salary you
| could just pay your way out of this mess yourself.
| Pingk wrote:
| I can't speak to the poverty side, but anecdotally my colleagues
| and I work in a high-tech profession and our salaries are hardly
| competitive.
|
| I'm earning less than 33K as a cybersecurity engineer and I'm
| struggling to save up for a house, my student loan has increased
| from interest since graduating, and I'm the frugal one at work.
|
| UK wages have been stagnant for over a decade while the cost of
| living has increased so much.
|
| There are better paying companies I could move to, and I'm
| keeping an eye out, but as the article states - there are
| systemic problems in this country that the people in power are
| failing to tackle.
| krona wrote:
| I can't speak to your circumstances but even graduate engineers
| in the East/south-east of England wouldn't get out of bed for
| <PS50k. Maybe you need to move.
| hankchinaski wrote:
| If you are not actively looking for a better paid job you
| should. That salary for cyber anywhere in the UK is grossly
| underpaid.
| siquick wrote:
| I had been considering moving back home after 10 years of
| living in Australia so started researching wages for
| Engineering roles and the salaries were so low, with the cost
| of living nowhere near balancing out against the low salaries.
|
| I'd expect a big boost in wages since they left Europe due to a
| loss of available employable market but it seems the opposite.
| SenAnder wrote:
| > I'd expect a big boost in wages since they left Europe due
| to a loss of available employable market
|
| Despite Brexit having arguably been driven by immigration
| concerns, immigration to the UK has _increased_ since that
| vote, and reached a record of 606k in 2022 [1]. It has been
| increasing since 1995, and in 2015 13.2% of the UK population
| was foreign-born [2] - so not counting children of
| immigrants.
|
| [1] _Britain's record-high immigration -- in charts_ - https:
| //www.ft.com/content/cb9120d8-0595-49d9-8f66-92b95acba... -
| unpaywalled: https://archive.ph/Wqalm
|
| [2] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/GBR/united-
| kingdom/imm...
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> I'd expect a big boost in wages since they left Europe due
| to a loss of available employable market but it seems the
| opposite._
|
| Salaries have spiked, immediately after brexit, but have
| stagnated because no new investments are gonna happen in a
| country that's separated from the EU single market, so all
| new big tech has decided to expand instead to Amsterdam,
| Dublin and Berlin.
| ilikerashers wrote:
| London is still the best in the EU for tech salaries.
| They're just flat and have been so for the last year.
|
| 33k is pretty low for cyber security but there is this:
| https://metro.co.uk/2023/03/30/hm-treasury-listed-head-of-
| cy...
| isaacremuant wrote:
| 33k is criminal, mate. You may be dealing with stuff and not
| want to "switch" right now but, find a short/mid term plan to
| switch because, even though UK is not US in terms of salary,
| it's also not Spain. The cost of living is very high not to
| have something that feels at least moderate.
|
| You and your mates don't work in a "high tech profession"
| typical if they're being scammed with those salary ranges.
| That's not normal.
|
| Now, the UK is definitely going to shit in terms of social
| contract and taxes, fueling wars and corrupt bureocracy instead
| of betterment of society, but that doesn't change the fact that
| the salary you have should not be such.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| A few thoughts that I hope are helpful:
|
| - remove irrelevant non-tech jobs from your CV and LinkedIn,
| even if they were long stints
|
| - I don't know the market for cybersecurity engineers, but I
| guess that it might be too narrow of a niche in a small country
|
| - don't just 'keep an eye out': actively look for jobs; also
| consider that some US companies are willing to hire remote in
| the UK
|
| - given you already have some python experience and a strong
| mathematical background, my suggestion would be to learn as
| much as possible about software engineering and data science,
| and consider building a career in one of those fields; most
| people can't study stats due to weak math foundations, but you
| don't have that problem
|
| - if you don't think a remote job is a good fit for you,
| consider moving to London
|
| - surround yourself with smart, hardworking people
| retrac98 wrote:
| This seems very low for the job, even for the UK.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| Failing is putting it lightly.
|
| Conservative governance is the opposite of supporting people as
| individuals and worse as population.
|
| They're going backwards as a social politik
| api wrote:
| I ask this all the time: how can real estate costs in
| particular be so high with these wages?
|
| SF gets all the press for having loony real estate costs but vs
| wages it's actually not the worst. The craziest places are
| those with $1-2M starter homes and low pay.
|
| How can a market even exist?
| Jochim wrote:
| Landlords and foreign investors.
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| My theory is the change in cultural demographics.
| European/North American parents find it weird to help their
| kids buy housing. In Chinese culture, that is very much the
| norm. My Indian friend will get his down payment from his
| parents.
|
| So people don't need to buy housing with their own resources
| in many cases. It can also include the resource of two more
| people, or even 6 more people (grandparents chip in).
| isaacremuant wrote:
| > European/North American parents find it weird to help
| their kids buy housing.
|
| This is absolutely not true. I don't know where you're
| taking this from.
| ticviking wrote:
| In North America its often considered "crippling"
| children to give them too much help. I've seen it
| repeatedly, with some families giving children 3 months
| after graduation to begin paying rent.
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| Everything from parents kicking their kids out or
| charging them rent at 18 (or ever) to anecdotes from
| North American friends of how they got pushed out of home
| to pay rent while in university.
|
| The endless lectures of Dave Ramsey on not wanting to
| provide a "hammock" for kids are also an abundant source
| of information.
|
| North American parents won't consistently have a college
| fund for their kids. Also planning to pay for the down
| payment on their home is absolutely not normal for them.
| ecshafer wrote:
| Coming from a working class / poor background it
| absolutely is true. Until I graduated and working in a
| wealthy area with upper middle class background people, I
| had never heard of anyone having their parents pay for
| their house. This is really split based on how Wealthy
| your background is.
| ilikerashers wrote:
| Not generally bought by salaries. Family money,
| investments...
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| It's similar to other places, like Canada. Demand far
| outpaces supply. This leads to what I call a "propertied
| spiral", where people with property (propertied class) are
| enormously in favour of protecting the market value of their
| property to the point of constraining attempts at increasing
| supply (often but not always), where people who are just able
| to afford property live with quite a bit of precarity and
| large debt to income ratios, where people who are just unable
| to afford are still renting, which heightens demand on rental
| properties, pushing rents higher (because of the supply
| constraints), which squeezes even hard on people who are
| barely able to survive. And so on and so on. This is actually
| a picture of most real-estate markets pre-WWII, if I
| understand right.
| michaelt wrote:
| The government is more than happy to use inane schemes like
| "government-backed loans for 20% the cost of new-build
| properties" to prop up the market and ensure house buyers end
| up with the absolute largest amount of debt possible.
| Somehow, these schemes are then marketed to voters as
| "helping first-time buyers"
| kalupa wrote:
| which new build properties? there's a massive lack of
| supply and a huge amount of demand
| bandrami wrote:
| It's a deal with the political devil: if people view their
| house as an investment, housing prices _must_ rise faster
| than inflation, or they 're a horrible investment. But if
| they rise faster than inflation, new entrants to the housing
| market are priced out.
| tmnvix wrote:
| Cheap credit and a rising market are all you need.
|
| Good for those with existing capital who can access the
| credit and use growing equity to leverage new investments.
| Terrible for anyone without existing capital actually earning
| an income.
|
| Both of these factors appear to be changing in many places
| (very significantly here in NZ). Interesting times ahead.
| ak_111 wrote:
| If you are on 33K doing cyber then you must be in an area where
| houses are cheaper than normal. If you are in London, then as
| you acknowledged you are doing it real wrong and you should be
| upping your job search game.
|
| Your main point stands though - tech jobs pay much worse than
| they do in the states. The only two competitive uk tech jobs I
| seen are DeepMind and hedge fund (not even investnent banks are
| competitive)
| mtsr wrote:
| Competitive salaries with the US isn't really a thing in
| countries with socialized healthcare, welfare, etc. With
| these institutions in place life looks qualitatively
| different at any salary.
|
| Problems start when these institutions get systematically
| dismantled and salaries don't change to make up for them.
| 23B1 wrote:
| Had a handful of UK-based employees join our company in a merger;
| I was shocked at how underpaid experienced professionals were
| compared to our (U.S.) wages - and I was incensed when our
| investors balked at a (nominal) raise for them.
|
| I have a hard time separating agendas from reality these days,
| but I'd love to get someone who is smart on the UK's to
| understand how that country got there, especially considering my
| (probably wrong) impression that things like healthcare, a major
| expense here in the U.S., seem to be taken care of. I understand
| wages are stagnant, but... _why_?
| DanBC wrote:
| Read "Britania Unchained" (available at various shadow
| libraries). Then, when you've read it, realise that it was
| written by Kwasi Kwarteng, Priti Patel, Dominic Raab, Chris
| Skidmore and Liz Truss.
|
| It's garbage front to back. We elect fucking idiots who are in
| thrall to a tiny clique of rabidly anti tax arseholes who would
| rather set their granny on fire than pay any tax at all. And
| then we wonder why the country is on fire.
| Silhouette wrote:
| Obligatory notes for non-UK readers:
|
| We _didn 't_ in fact elect the Truss administration in any
| meaningful sense. Nor did we elect the current Sunak
| administration in any meaningful sense. In fact historically
| close to half of our Prime Ministers have landed the job
| without first leading their party to victory in a general
| election.
|
| Our system of government places the vast majority of the real
| power at national level. That power is normally wielded by a
| Prime Minister who is only indirectly elected by commanding
| majority support among the directly elected MPs in the House
| of Commons. That means the PM and the government they in turn
| appoint can change without any general election taking place.
|
| In theory MPs are supposed to hold the government to account
| on our behalf. Unfortunately those MPs are themselves elected
| via a First Past The Post voting system that is infamously
| unreasonable on almost any mathematical basis that should
| matter. It frequently results in a large majority of MPs for
| a single party that did not win anything like a majority in a
| general election while simultaneously reducing smaller
| parties that still won a significant minority of the popular
| vote to parliamentary irrelevance.
|
| As ever with these political problems the feedback loops
| consistently prevent anything being significantly improved.
| At any given time the one of our two largest parties that
| almost always has a majority of MPs and runs the government
| as a result would have to surrender its dominance in order to
| effect meaningful change in our democratic structures and
| turkeys rarely vote for Christmas. So we end up with a
| situation not so different to the US, where there are
| effectively only two parties that matter and the real
| decisions are often made before the main election when the
| parties select their preferred candidates internally. And
| each party ends up being a "broad church" with a lot of
| internal disagreement and inconsistency because breaking up
| into smaller parties that more faithfully represent the true
| opinions of their members would guarantee losses in every
| election forever if the other guys didn't do the same thing.
| gizajob wrote:
| Yeah but at the same time, tons of d*ckheads in the south
| keep voting for the same cohort of Tory Ratbags, so the
| faces change but the policies and chaos remain.
|
| Next labour will get in, not be able to fix anything
| because they have no real policies, and they'll be back
| again.
| stuaxo wrote:
| You're voted down but right - it's hilariously bad, written
| as if by a teenager that has just discovered Ayn Rand.
|
| Its a short read.
| jeremiahbuckley wrote:
| Every US company I've worked with that ended up with a London
| dev branch as part of an acquisition seems well aware of the
| wage disparity. They pull over the cream of the crop on L1
| visas. It's like temp-to-perm except 1000 times worse because
| it's Sr resources with families broken on the countrywide
| collusion to underpay IT workers.
|
| Part of it seems to be that the UK based companies don't expect
| massive success. They have a thing, it makes some people at the
| top a pretty good living, that's enough. They obviously could
| create massively successful companies based on the talent
| available, but no one wants to.
|
| Or possibly more accurately: the people who want to realize
| that proximity to other like-minded people is critical to
| success, and they leave.
|
| Every originally-from-the-UK tech worker I know in the US is
| well aware of how lucky they were to get out.
| ak_111 wrote:
| Probably the UK central banker has the worst job in the world
| right now.
|
| I can't think of any other place where people's sense of net
| worth is as tied up with their house price as it is in the UK,
| while at the same time the increase in house price that people
| have been conditioned to believe is the norm over the last
| decades is wholly unsustainable given the stagnant wages. Take a
| look at house price to wage ratio over the last two decades.
|
| Something has to give eventually either a mighty correction in
| the housing market that will shock many that were lead to believe
| it is the only safe investment, or an uprising of those who have
| no chance of getting on the ladder.
|
| I would love to be proven wrong by a sudden influx of broad-based
| well-paying jobs, but I just don't see how and where they will
| come from.
| ditn wrote:
| > I can't think of any other place where people's sense of net
| worth is as tied up with their house price as it is in the UK,
| while at the same time the increase in house price that people
| have been conditioned to believe is the norm over the last
| decade is wholly unsustainable given the stagnant wages.
|
| Canada.
| gizajob wrote:
| Also Australia. Property is king.
| wk_end wrote:
| > I can't think of any other place where people's sense of net
| worth is as tied up with their house price as it is in the UK
| [...]
|
| Without diminishing the scale of the crisis in the UK: Canada
| checking in here.
| coderjames wrote:
| > I can't think of any other place where people's sense of net
| worth is as tied up with their house price as it is in the UK,
| while at the same time the increase in house price that people
| have been conditioned to believe is the norm over the last
| decades is wholly unsustainable given the stagnant wages. Take
| a look at house price to wage ratio over the last two decades.
|
| United States. In inflation-adjusted dollars, house prices are
| up 118% since 1965, but income is up only 18% [1];
| alternatively, house-price-to-income ratio has increased from
| 90x in 2012 to 135x in 2022 [2]. US Millennials have been
| deemed "the unluckiest generation" when it comes to home
| ownership in the US.
|
| [1] https://www.realestatewitch.com/house-price-to-income-
| ratio-...
|
| [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/591435/house-price-to-
| in...
| oceanplexian wrote:
| I can't follow these kinds of comparisons, because housing
| isn't a function of wages. The only thing that affects housing
| prices is the supply of houses.
|
| Does the UK have a large supply of houses? Does London have a
| lot of spare land where they can build new houses? Is the
| population of the UK increasing or decreasing? These are the
| only question you need to ask to predict what will happen to
| real estate values.
| vinyl7 wrote:
| A house can be priced as high as it wants...if no one can
| afford the mortgage then I guess its just going to sit there
| with a For Sale sign for decades?
| ak_111 wrote:
| I suggest you do a bit of research on how income relates to
| house prices.
|
| Here is the tldr: in country where most people buy houses on
| mortgages, and mortgages are given based on a person's income
| then wages will pay a direct and very important role on house
| affordibity.
|
| Also house supply is important but far from the only factor
| effecting house prices. If gov builds 1000 new houses and
| they instantly get bought by, say, the Saudi sovereign wealth
| fund it will have virtually no impact on house prices.
| dugite-code wrote:
| > The only thing that affects housing prices is the supply of
| houses.
|
| Well yes and no. I would argue, treating housing as an
| investment vehicle for both corporate and foreign interests
| has had the biggest influence on low end housing prices
| around the world. Corporate buy-ups, government backed loans
| and "affordability" scemes have all actually pushed pricing
| higher.
|
| To be clear A large percentage of corporate and foreign
| ownership isn't actually needed to have a large influence on
| pricing simply because of where they are most likely to
| invest. Just a couple of percent adds significant upwards
| pressure on the low end of the market where affordability is
| felt the most keenly. After all buy low sell high.
| 88913527 wrote:
| Financing seems to have a large impact on prices, as does
| zoning, and supply. But the ability to borrow money and use
| leverage is paramount.
| scotty79 wrote:
| > The only thing that affects housing prices is the supply of
| houses.
|
| And supply of capital in search of investment vessel.
|
| Wage workers are just taken along for the ride.
|
| Most properties in UK are bought and traded for investment
| purposes. Home ownership of UK is one of the lowest in EU.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| There is a breakdown of education and personal ambition. Once
| someone has been brought up to be 'feral' with no education and
| even a disdain for education, it tends to knock down families for
| generations.
| Sharlin wrote:
| That's dangerously close to victim blaming...
|
| The UK is an inherently classist society. No need for disdain
| when it's been the case for literally a thousand years that
| certain people are afforded excellent education, and others...
| aren't. Any disdain of education among the working class is
| more a consequence than a cause.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Look at the education outcomes statistics.
|
| Immigrants from South and East Asia have children who fare
| much better than those from the "white working class". It's
| not because of society or money, it's because of culture and
| values.
|
| I am not blaming 'victims' but on the other hand if you don't
| do anything to help yourself you can't expect success...
|
| A personal anecdote: we tried to get one of our children into
| a grammar school and so got private tuition for 11+ exam
| preparation. 90% of those attending were of Indian origin,
| very few 'Brits'. And we are also immigrants.
| sg47 wrote:
| But conservatives everywhere want exactly this. They are
| keeping their audiences and electorate stupid with Fox News,
| etc and making the rich richer.
| christkv wrote:
| The highest prices are in deeply liberal cities.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| My kids assume they will never own their own home. They had
| their education trashed by covid. It is hard to be ambitious
| when you see success as impossible.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Covid revealed good schools and bad schools. But it also made
| plain parents who valued education and parents who didn't.
| polar8 wrote:
| Not with that attitude they won't!
| eastbound wrote:
| Shaming people for being losers is not a good way to enroll
| them again onto a path to success. It actually causes
| murders, if you count the incels that are shamed until they
| commit a mass murder to have their suffering heard.
|
| I'm an ambitious guy with lots of success and I work day
| and night. But I'd never reckon bravery in someone who's
| working day and night, they have it easy, since they
| ecosystem is answering positively to more work from their
| side. So I just had to bring in the work. Oppositely, when
| the economy pulls of down by your bootstraps, it takes real
| courage to be ambitious.
| coastermug wrote:
| Genuinely interested here, who are you referring to as 'feral'?
|
| I see a lot of very well educated non-feral people in the UK
| struggling to make good wages and a 'proper' standard of
| living. I think that's what is meant by a broken social
| contract ?
| nathan_compton wrote:
| If this happens it is a failure of _society_. It isn 't as if
| people just up and decide one day "I guess I just want to be
| poor and miserable."
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| It's both. Society plays a role but people do, too.
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| They do repeatedly, by taking no action to change it.
| Sharlin wrote:
| Must be nice, being that naive.
| nine_zeros wrote:
| I really don't understand. A drop in prices of housing alone will
| fix all the problems (as long as banks are backed by the central
| bank like they are in the US).
|
| Write laws that:
|
| - Prevent non-humans entities (trusts, shell-companies,
| foundations etc. from buying houses for the next 10 years)
|
| - Ban airbnb
|
| - Increase property taxes on vacant properties.
| api wrote:
| None of those things would be nearly as effective as what seems
| to be the unthinkable: building more housing.
| Jochim wrote:
| Developers only built half the homes that they were approved
| to build over a 10 year period[0].
|
| The destruction of the provision of social housing has been a
| disaster.
|
| [0] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/may/08/over-1m-h
| ome...
| candiodari wrote:
| The issue (elsewhere than the UK) is that regulations have
| also made building so expensive that it's actually not
| worth it. People cannot pay for new houses, even on very
| cheap land. I don't even understand how it's supposed to
| work, by the current building standards in .be I'd say
| about 80% of all houses (mostly older ones) would be torn
| down if we follow the letter of the law. And a lot of those
| building standards (e.g. electrical safety, piping safety)
| apply to existing housing, not just to newly built ones.
|
| Social housing used to be famous for the government simply
| not following building codes (whether that meant maximum
| land occupancy or isolation/material standards), and
| disclaimed responsibility when it lead to accidents. But it
| made a lot of people home owners.
| SenAnder wrote:
| Vancouver tripled its housing supply, but housing
| affordability got _worse_ :
| https://biv.com/article/2023/05/patrick-condon-behold-
| vancou...
|
| It turns out that if the demand is effectively infinite
| thanks to immigration, you can't reduce prices by increasing
| supply.
| jlev1 wrote:
| Tripled its housing supply _since 1960_ according to that
| article. Meanwhile Vancouver's population went up by more
| than 4x. So it doesn't seem surprising affordability would
| get worse!
|
| Edit: Patrick Condon (who wrote that biv.com article) seems
| terrible. Here he is opposing _connecting UBC to
| Vancouver's SkyTrain_ :
| https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2019/01/29/Last-Voice-Against-
| Sky...
| SenAnder wrote:
| > Meanwhile Vancouver's population went up by more than
| 4x.
|
| My point exactly. Meanwhile Canada has had sub-
| replacement fertility since 1973:
|
| https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/CAN/canada/fertilit
| y-r...
| ok_dad wrote:
| I'm in the USA but if I don't put my house into trust for my
| kid then he has to go through probate and spend tens of
| thousands to get it when I die. I agree corporations and
| investors shouldn't own houses just for investment purposes,
| but you also need some amount of rentals allowed because not
| everyone wants to buy a home. I'm not sure where it is, but
| there's a fine line separating the moral investment into houses
| from immoral rent seeking.
| nine_zeros wrote:
| > I'm in the USA but if I don't put my house into trust for
| my kid then he has to go through probate and spend tens of
| thousands to get it when I die.
|
| And that's by design. Every human coming into the planet
| should start from a reasonably same starting point. By not
| taxing inheritance, the super wealthy's children start much
| further than the children born to non-wealthy families.
|
| The tax on inheritance is the best way to ensure that there
| is "some" inheritance but not enough that the children start
| at a starting point that is insanely ahead of others.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| "rent seeking" as an economic term has nothing to do with
| house or apartment rentals.
| lottin wrote:
| - Close the borders
|
| Good living conditions are like a magnet for economic migrants,
| and the wholesale arrival of migrants will start a race to the
| bottom which will destroy any quality of life.
| rcarr wrote:
| What you're missing, is that all the property owners take out
| massive amounts of credit, believing that the rise in property
| values will cover it and they can just remortgage in 5 years.
| So they buy pointless shit like Range Rovers even though they
| live in the city and take luxury holidays they wouldn't be able
| to afford otherwise. The smarter ones use the extra credit to
| buy more houses. If the property prices tank all these people
| go bankrupt. No government will let it happen because they'll
| become unelectable for decades. It's truly absolute dogshit.
| FredPret wrote:
| Or... you could try the supply and demand method.
|
| Increase supply (build more), keep demand steady (sane interest
| rates, sane immigration rates, speaking as an immigrant), and
| housing costs simply must fall. Yes, even if a single
| corporation buys every last house in the UK.
|
| Fight supply and demand at your peril.
| scotty79 wrote:
| > Increase supply
|
| Supply can be vastly increased by punishing large owners
| severely for letting their properties stay empty.
| jjcon wrote:
| Given UK age demographics that is going to happen over the
| next few decades anyway, putting all efforts into increasing
| supply could lead to the opposite problem in the not too far
| future.
| betaby wrote:
| Unlikely, all UN demographics predictions were/are wrong.
| Population is mostly grows everywhere unless that region a
| war zone. Being that growth driven by births, immigration,
| refugies or illegal move is irrelevant in context of
| supply/demand.
| jfim wrote:
| > Population is mostly grows everywhere unless that
| region a war zone.
|
| Define everywhere. Japan and Greece have seen population
| declines in the last few years, for example.
| seydor wrote:
| the war has made construction hugely more expensive in many
| countries
|
| The globalization of the real estate market has always been a
| setup for a scam and everybody knows it, yet keeps doing it,
| and the whole west is now stuck in this catch-22.
| archsurface wrote:
| The UK housing "market" is the sacred elephant in the room.
| betaby wrote:
| Hello from Canada!
| JonChesterfield wrote:
| It seems likely the houses are overvalued, on the basis that
| ratio of house price to income has increased dramatically, and
| also that a significant fraction of the pension provision in
| the country is investment in property. I'm not sure what the
| housing market collapsing would mean for the UK but am doubtful
| it would fix more problems than it spawns.
|
| For what it's worth, the tax system is aggressively punitive
| towards companies that want to buy real estate. Landlords with
| mortgages can't offset the interest against profit any more so
| a bunch of those are no longer viable concerns and sold up.
|
| Some conquence to vacant property might be good, beyond the
| already punitive stamp duty when you go beyond the first one. I
| think you get hit for capital gains when selling non-primary
| residence as well.
| raydiatian wrote:
| Didn't think I'd see "social contract collapse" in 2023 but here
| we are. Anyway, cute the flames, let's eat the fucking rich
| already
| haunter wrote:
| And that's western Europe. Now imagine what's happening in the
| poorer EU countries (Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania etc)
| AlbertCory wrote:
| > Now imagine what's happening
|
| Now there's a western-centric statement, if ever I saw one. Why
| do you assume "the poorer EU countries" are like the west, only
| worse? Other replies give more nuance.
| retrac wrote:
| The "new" European economies are poorer but they're also more
| egalitarian. Lower average income, but more people near the
| average. That creates the odd situation where a young person
| born into poverty in, for example, Poland, or Estonia, may have
| better prospects than someone born today into poverty in the
| UK, or even France. More of a real chance at social
| advancement, ending up middle class and socially-economically
| secure. Quite a reversal from just a few decades ago.
| aylmao wrote:
| I was recently in the UK and a friend there expressed a
| similar pessimistic sentiment-- "things are really bad here,
| the whole world is going down the drain".
|
| Back where I'm from, things aren't looking as bleak as they
| are in the UK. I found that comment amusing really. The
| assumption that since Britain has historically been wealthy
| and a one of the better places to live, if things are not
| looking great there, they must be so everywhere or something.
| Darmody wrote:
| Romania has the highest home ownership in Europe. Hungary is
| third. The UK is near the bottom.
|
| In eastern Europe it's common to see young people building
| their own houses in rural towns near the big cities. They earn
| less money, yes, but they don't waste 50% of it on rent.
|
| It's a different way of survival.
| allendoerfer wrote:
| Switzerland has the lowest. A famously poor country of people
| wasting their money on rent, somehow topping all rankings
| concerning standard of living. ;-)
| maest wrote:
| Poland's doing ok. So are Romania and Hungary. There is
| inflation, but there is also a lot of economic growth.
| paganel wrote:
| As a Romanian I can confirm that, all things considered, we
| are not doing that bad. Inflation hurts a lot of people, of
| course, but we've had way, way worse than this back in the
| '90s, so those of us who are older than 40 or so just sigh,
| maybe swear at the politicians and then hope that things
| won't get worse.
|
| What's really helping, for now at least, is that housing is
| still relatively affordable (with the exception of Cluj, a
| very IT-focused city). If that housing affordability were to
| disappear then, yeah, the optics would definitely change.
| seydor wrote:
| they are cheaper to begin with. 10% inflation on expensive
| countries has more impact, considering that wages remain static
| everywhere
| erulabs wrote:
| I mean, listen to modern UK music for about 10 minutes and you'll
| hear this. I like "nothing great about Britain". "Top Boy" isn't
| exactly about people thriving.
| gibsonf1 wrote:
| The winning formula that seems to work without fail is more
| individual freedom/capitalism. (Not corporatism or crony
| capitalism or statism of course)
| nathan_compton wrote:
| Capitalism inevitably devolves into crony
| capitalism/corporatism. Indeed, what is happening in the UK is
| literally after decades of of increasing liberalization! So
| "works without fail" seems to be an exaggeration at least.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| There's no such thing as "crony" capitalism. It's just
| capitalism without hiding the nasty bits.
| gibsonf1 wrote:
| The freest countries are the most prosperous - this is the
| evidence: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-
| rankings/freest-co...
|
| Note that Hong Kong used to be at the top of this list prior to
| 1997 when China started taking away their freedom.
| nathan_compton wrote:
| Note that this index is _freest_ but not the most capitalist,
| which you seem to be conflating.
| gizajob wrote:
| Singapore is pretty rich while not being particularly high on
| that list...
| slt2021 wrote:
| [flagged]
| _visgean wrote:
| not exactly everyone who is suffering from poverty voted for
| brexit.
| d--b wrote:
| Apparently, poor people mostly drove the brexit vote
| https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/31/people-
| who-...
|
| Doesn't mean they deserve what is happening to them though...
| [deleted]
| BearhatBeer wrote:
| I always chuckle a bit when I hear the term social contract. It's
| not legally enforcable, isn't codified, people can't choose to
| partake in it, and has always been intentionally vague. Almost
| like a trick to convince the masses that they're owed something
| by the "leaders."
| fancyfredbot wrote:
| "poverty cannot be tackled by raising incomes alone, and
| highlights housing and childcare costs, the additional costs of
| disability, and energy and travel costs as areas to be addressed"
|
| I'm not sure how to interpret this since clearly raising income
| does allow people to pay these costs. If the report is saying the
| government needs to intervene in the housing, energy and
| childcare markets, then that would be a breath of fresh air.
| ngcazz wrote:
| I think that's safe to assume, since income is contingent on
| employment and occupation at any given point - keep those
| services affordable to reduce the risk of citizens losing
| access to them
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| our costs for these things are insane, $2000 monthly.v
| netherlands is richer than UK but their childcare costs half as
| much. In germany it's free. Same story for housing, I have
| friends around europe and people with twice as much floor space
| pay much less rent
| karaterobot wrote:
| > netherlands is richer than UK but their childcare costs
| half as much. In germany it's free.
|
| Is this private childcare setting its own rates in a market,
| or some public childcare service paid for with increased
| taxes, or some hybrid (i.e. private with supplemental
| government funding, or private with mandated limits on
| pricing)?
| brnt wrote:
| 1500-2000 EUR per kid is usual in Amsterdam as well. There's
| a wage dependent subsidy though. Kita's aren't free, though
| much cheaper.
| drak0n1c wrote:
| What that statement means is that measures to facilitate supply
| side volume are also necessary, giving the demand side money is
| not the only option. If it is too cost-prohibitive and risky
| for incumbent firms and potential new competitors to supply an
| increasing volume of services or goods then buyer subsidies
| will only inflate prices further.
| asdadsdad wrote:
| can the media please give the UK a break please? it's exhausting.
| go cover the us, france, whatever.
| klyrs wrote:
| The media is covering all of those places and more.
| asdadsdad wrote:
| is the uk really burning like all the bad news are reporting?
| hankchinaski wrote:
| The guardian is a British newspaper
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| Poor people voted for Brexit, as it would mean more jobs.
|
| Well, time to start working 3 of them. Reduces your housing costs
| as well, as you should always be at work. Hard to have much
| sympathy for people voting for the leopards to eat faces getting
| their faces eaten.
| notacoward wrote:
| What about the people who voted _against_ Brexit but still have
| to suffer the consequences? There are millions, and millions
| more who couldn 't even vote e.g. because they were too young
| at the time. "You voted for this so suffer" seems like a
| remarkably cruel response.
| gambiting wrote:
| And don't forget people who live here who literally couldn't
| vote at the time and also have to suffer the consequences.
| eastbound wrote:
| Those people voted to be free.
|
| Free from a superpower that trashes the countries who try to
| leave them. Free from a superpower where you only get one vote
| every 5 years and the rest is managed by administrations
| outside of democratic rule. When I see my country not allowed
| to negotiate with UK, because we have to let the EU diplomats
| negotiate, it's horrible.
|
| It's horrible what we're doing to the UK people. It's bullying.
| It's revenge for leaving us. Let's not dismiss how important is
| the role of the EU in the fall of the UK.
| javcasas wrote:
| The EU negotiates as a block because that's how blocs are
| strong: by not having a part that can be "negotiated"
| (bullied) into concessing.
|
| UK decided to be outside the bloc, and now it has to
| negotiate with the bloc, like everyone else.
| gizajob wrote:
| Not sure what the need is for downvoting this opinion.
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