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Young adults have less to spend on non-essentials, study says

theguardian.com

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Re: Young adults have less to spend on non-essentials, study says

#61

Post by basch »

golergka wrote: post #11
minikites wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The American right wing already believes food is a luxury: https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/10681363932375572...

But that tweet is nothing of the sort. Food is not a luxury, but you can never have a right for someone else's labour.

But food stamps arent the right to someone elses labor. The laborer is getting paid. Its taking tax money and giving it to a producer and a consumer.

Its really no different than a subsidy.

If you think taking money from the population and redistributing it is theft, youre basically arguing against taxes.

Re: Young adults have less to spend on non-essentials, study says

#62

Post by NeedMoreTea »

xcklo wrote: post #50
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've increased your earnings, but if you run the numbers it's very unlikely you're actually better off unless you have a property appreciating at London speed. Over my career (I did contract in London around y2k) I have more in my pocket each month - after expenses - by staying outside the SE. Rent or mortgage, commuting costs, the price of everything else - food, beer, tickets. Sure, I could earn £x extra and have…

Not sure I really follow the "cost of beer" thing. One of the merits of high income high expenses is that "luxury" spending is relatively affordable in the long run, because your discretionary income is a larger absolute number. On the other hand your time becomes more expensive. But since most medium income medium expenses locations means less opportunities to do other things with other people that isn't always a go…

But that was my point. Even with the London loading of salaries, which is miles away from the SV salary differentials you see bandied around on here sometimes, the London absolute number is usually smaller for most jobs. Banking is the one exception for some roles.

To invent some undoubtedly wrong numbers out of thin air: Earning £35k in Leeds or Manchester leaves a few hundred more to spend on luxuries and nights out than £50k working in a similar role in London. By the time you accounted for the huge extra expense on mortgage, season tickets to get to work, services and even ignore the price of a pint, you have less in absolute terms to spend than your "poor" Northern friend. I simply couldn't get it to add up the few times I tried. Now had the opportunity been to be a quant, I might have taken the opposite view... :)

I could have saved for deposit in the North, taken mortgage the day I moved there, accepted a markedly worse quality of life and lower money left after expenses for twenty years, to move elsewhere at the end with a nice nest egg. That's just a contributory pension with no tax relief.

Re: Young adults have less to spend on non-essentials, study says

#63

Post by tialaramex »

wastedhours wrote: post #28
tialaramex wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oxford is different because of geography. In most places where housing is too expensive the core problem is politics. That's not easy to solve, but it's universal. But in Oxford the biggest obstacle is that the obvious place to put more houses is in fact a swamp. For students it works out OK (so long as numbers don't grow too much) because the very wealthy people who paid for Oxford's university to exist built somewh…

> Oxford's university to exist built somewhere for students to live right inside the university too For those it's true, but also forgetting there's more than one university in Oxford. There are plenty of places on the East and North sides of the city where denser housing could have been placed, but it comes down more to politics around NIMBYism and preservation, more than geography.

Serious question: How many other real universities (not places with one office above a coffee shop offering correspondence courses to the gullible) are there in Oxford? I spent some of my teens playing pinball in the student bar at one of the Oxford Brookes halls (Harcourt Hill maybe?) -- and already by the point you're counting Brookes you're stretching the point, it wouldn't be named that if Oxford wasn't famous. It's not quite "London" Stansted Airport, but it's barely in Oxford.

Re: Young adults have less to spend on non-essentials, study says

#64

Post by partingshots »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #26
Tsiklon wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately the UK economy is very London centric. And the deck is very much stacked in London's favour due to the sheer numbers who live in London compared to the rest of the UK - (greater than 1/8th of all people in the UK live in London). I moved to London from a UK regional capital, and personally I've had the opportunity to improve my earnings much further than would be achievable at home for my particular bra…

You've increased your earnings, but if you run the numbers it's very unlikely you're actually better off unless you have a property appreciating at London speed. Over my career (I did contract in London around y2k) I have more in my pocket each month - after expenses - by staying outside the SE. Rent or mortgage, commuting costs, the price of everything else - food, beer, tickets. Sure, I could earn £x extra and have…

That’s why you need to move to places with better income to cost of living ratios.

Re: Young adults have less to spend on non-essentials, study says

#65

Post by wastedhours »

tialaramex wrote: post #63
wastedhours wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oxford's university to exist built somewhere for students to live right inside the university too For those it's true, but also forgetting there's more than one university in Oxford. There are plenty of places on the East and North sides of the city where denser housing could have been placed, but it comes down more to politics around NIMBYism and preservation, more than geography.

Serious question: How many other real universities (not places with one office above a coffee shop offering correspondence courses to the gullible) are there in Oxford? I spent some of my teens playing pinball in the student bar at one of the Oxford Brookes halls (Harcourt Hill maybe?) -- and already by the point you're counting Brookes you're stretching the point, it wouldn't be named that if Oxford wasn't famous. I…

I worked at Brookes for several years, I can definitely attest their campus is in Oxford (Harcourt Hill is miles out, as is Wheatley, but their main campus for the last decade or so is right next to South Park in Headington). It's not a stretch to say they're properly in the city and now have a claim to having "Oxford" in the name - and large swathes of the student body now live in the city proper.

If you want to take the naming thing, then consider Kidlington Aerodrome is called "London Oxford Airport"...

Re: Young adults have less to spend on non-essentials, study says

#66

Post by bosie »

foldr wrote: post #45
ck425 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really need to use a term other than city to describe what you're describing. I live in a city, Edinburgh, as do the various folk who have mentioned living in Manchester etc. Their not mega sprawling metropolises like London but their still cities. You're confusing the discussion by using the term improperly.

Edinburgh has a population of 489,000. You can call it a city if you like, but it's not comparable to London in any way.

Please provide your definition of what a city is.

Re: Young adults have less to spend on non-essentials, study says

#67

Post by xcklo »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #62
xcklo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I really follow the "cost of beer" thing. One of the merits of high income high expenses is that "luxury" spending is relatively affordable in the long run, because your discretionary income is a larger absolute number. On the other hand your time becomes more expensive. But since most medium income medium expenses locations means less opportunities to do other things with other people that isn't always a go…

But that was my point. Even with the London loading of salaries, which is miles away from the SV salary differentials you see bandied around on here sometimes, the London absolute number is usually smaller for most jobs. Banking is the one exception for some roles. To invent some undoubtedly wrong numbers out of thin air: Earning £35k in Leeds or Manchester leaves a few hundred more to spend on luxuries and nights ou…

That could certainly be the case as some housing markets now seem to require initial capital to make sense. But I wonder if part of it isn't accepting a specific deal (or life)? Which is probably a good idea, but not something everyone can do. At least my impression is that most people who move to big cities do so because they want to establish themselves in life.

The question is whether average person trying to do so is going to have better success in Leeds than London. Or if it is going to be mostly the same thing but with less opportunities. Once you know roughly what you want to do, or what position you are in, medium size cities tend to make more sense. But I don't think that is controversial.

I think many young people argue if they are going to have to change jobs every few years, commute some distance, have high rent or whatever else that affects their quality of life they might as well do that somewhere where they at least think it might count for something. Whether in the future or right then.

Re: Young adults have less to spend on non-essentials, study says

#68

Post by golergka »

danaris wrote: post #57
golergka wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is their duty and responsibility to give back You cannot decide what other people's legal duty or responsibility is if they hadn't entered a voluntarily agreement with you. And moral duty should never be imposed by violence - it's always up to individual moral choice. > To say otherwise is, effectively, to say that it's OK to want everyone beyond the walls of your castle to starve. No. To say otherwise is to val…

> You cannot decide what other people's legal duty or responsibility is if they hadn't entered a voluntarily agreement with you. You appear to be one of those who worship at the altar of inviolable individual self-determination. That concept is antithetical to a functioning society. I understand its allure—it seems to be a logical and empowering thing. But it's fatally flawed, because humans are not individual creatu…

> You appear to be one of those who worship at the altar of inviolable individual self-determination.

Actually, the opposite is true. My ideal place to live is a commune without personal property, and I love being in such temporary environments in places like music festivals (local copies of burning man).

But I draw a very sharp distinction between society and state, and want to minimize the state's reach. All these ideals of sharing and charity should only be implemented through personal free choice, and never - through organization which has monopoly on violence.

For me, it's the basic security principle of separation between minimal operating system kernel and a fat application that manages all of it's features. The smaller the kernel, the less code there is to have vulnerabilities in, the less chance there is of compromise.

The less power the state has, and the more functions it gives away to society, the less chance there is that the state can be corrupted.

Re: Young adults have less to spend on non-essentials, study says

#69

Post by foldr »

bosie wrote: post #66
foldr wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edinburgh has a population of 489,000. You can call it a city if you like, but it's not comparable to London in any way.

Please provide your definition of what a city is.

You can define the word how you like. London and Edinburgh aren't on the same scale.

Re: Young adults have less to spend on non-essentials, study says

#70

Post by golergka »

qntty wrote: post #53
golergka wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In nature, a person cannot have infinite wealth. In nature, most of children die in infancy, might makes right, murder rates are sky-high and starvation is a constant threat. So, if anything, using "in nature" is working against your case, not for it. > The idea that someone can have as much wealth as they want Nobody can have as much as they "want" - but everybody should be able as much wealth as they have acquire…

> In nature, most of children die in infancy, might makes right, murder rates are sky-high and starvation is a constant threat. > So, if anything, using "in nature" is working against your case, not for it. Total non-sequitur. The point is that the idea of unlimited wealth is an artificial construction. > everybody should be able as much wealth as they have acquired through any kind of lawful exchange. Any state that…

> Total non-sequitur. The point is that the idea of unlimited wealth is an artificial construction.

But you're trying to reach some kind of value judgement from this point - as if "artifical construction" means it's bad in some way. It is not. On the opposite, these completely virtual notions of money and finance helped achieve modern-day prosperity that humanity enjoys.

So, yes, it is artificial, which makes it good.

> which gives the people who wealthy people are being protected from basic human necessities and dignity

So, pay off the potential looters and thieves to sooth them? You do understand that this is basically "might makes right" moral imperative and nothing more?

> The state who gives an artificially constructed right to wealthy people (the institution of private property) can also give an artificially constructed right to poor people (basic needs and dignity).

First of all, the artificially constructed right of private property is given to all, equally. And second of all, while both of these rights are artificially constructed, one is moral, while the other is not.

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