[DeeDub]

There is an interesting article on the BBC News site today which I tend to agree with.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-18456131

The generation of people typically occupied by our parents has a lot to answer for. They benefitted from the post-war growth which saw the development of things such as the NHS and increased home ownership. However when it became their turn to do their bit (contine to invest in infrastructure) they pushed the cost onto us (their children) and their grand-children by way of things such as structural budget deficits and private finance initiative. All this meant they could have their two cars and two weeks in the sun. While at the same time the government spent money like crazy without raising taxes.

The current situation is that they are happily residing in their houses which have vastly increased in value over the past 15 years enjoying record low interest rates. While people of our generation have little chance of owning our houses anytime soon and will be stuck paying for projects that began before we were even born.

Edit: My bad. I've seen someone already linked this earlier.

[Aphotic Cosmos]

Serious and massive austerity will have to happen one day, whether we like it or not. We'll never like it, to be fair, so we may as well get cracking now while we still have some influence on the world stage, putting us in better stead than most other nations for the future. Socialist, capitalist, whatever - it's impossible to deny the kernel of truth at the heart of Ferguson's point, which is that much as individuals cannot borrow as yet uncreated wealth from unborn children, society cannot justly steal from them either.

[Herr]

I agree with the article, all the money into that utopian socialist dream the baby-boomers tried to build for themselves will eventually have to fall on their children.

Doesn't sound too different from Oriental and Asian cultures then eh?? Where the young are expected to take care of their parents in the old age......except this is done by choice and on ability, here it seems like the state has somehow mandated we take care of everyone's parents.

[lbsf1]

(Original post by Herr)
I agree with the article, all the money into that utopian socialist dream the baby-boomers tried to build for themselves will eventually have to fall on their children.

Doesn't sound too different from Oriental and Asian cultures then eh?? Where the young are expected to take care of their parents in the old age......except this is done by choice and on ability, here it seems like the state has somehow mandated we take care of everyone's parents.

But in asian culture you will then be looked after by your children. So if you compare that to our economy that would be like just borrowing and then shifting it onto our children, and so on thus the dept would never be paid.

[Joinedup]

(Original post by Herr)
I agree with the article, all the money into that utopian socialist dream the baby-boomers tried to build for themselves will eventually have to fall on their children.

Doesn't sound too different from Oriental and Asian cultures then eh?? Where the young are expected to take care of their parents in the old age......except this is done by choice and on ability, here it seems like the state has somehow mandated we take care of everyone's parents.

most of the time since the ww2 we've had conservative governments.
2 cars and an annual holiday doesn't sound like too much to ask if you're working hard in a first world country tbh.

[Joinedup]

The care of the old by their extended family got broken when people started rattling around the country in nuclear families in search of work. Dunno how the asian model's going to hold up as people of working/parenting age become more mobile and the society becomes more individualistic.

[DeeDub]

(Original post by Joinedup)
most of the time since the ww2 we've had conservative governments.
2 cars and an annual holiday doesn't sound like too much to ask if you're working hard in a first world country tbh.

If you can afford it then it is fine (although running two cars and paying for a family holiday is mighty expensive when you crunch the numbers). The problem is that the contract between government and electorate became distorted as the government convinced people they were richer than they actually were by deferring taxation to future generations. This is something which has be going on for 30 years or so but has become particularly bad in the last 15 years. Ignoring the increase in national debt due to cyclical stimulus (the merits of which are for another discussion) there has been a huge increase in other liabilities such as Private Finance Initiatives.

[Joinedup]

Possibly 2 cars means different things to different people... I was thinking about a nuclear family with 2 working adults using them to get to work and earn better wages than they would if they were restricted to walking everywhere. I don't know many people who just buy 2 cars in order to park them up and watch them gathering dust, but maybe it's common among academic economists . We're unlikely to be reopening the mills where people could walk to work... I don't see what prof fergusson's angling at here really.
But Yeah you are right about pfi being a dodgy deal imo.
Fwiw he was talking on radio 4 about the education system and barriers to employing under 17 year olds last night as well, probably it's being podcast.

[Llamageddon]

There's a whole generation of people who can't do maths, use computers or spell.

Sadly they have the majority of our nations wealth, run most government departments, gave themselves huge pensions that we can't afford to pay for and ****ed up the environment too.