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UK households set for largest fall in living standards in six decades

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141–150 of 166 posts

Re: UK households set for largest fall in living standards in six decades

#141
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m hoping the UK joins the United States. We’ve already started to merge our military industrial base and have a long, shared history. Maybe they would receive preference for US LNG/coal shipments too as a result. This is unrealistic bordering absurd, you just came out of Brexit sold under the pretense of increased freedom and sovereignty. The UK didn't even like the special deal it had with the EU, unique concess…

Our difference seems to be that I don’t put much weight on your view that nationalism will dominate the discussion. Standard of living will. My hope is UK citizens make decisions to benefit themselves, their family, friends, and community. The UK cannot maintain its current standard of living without a very large partnership of some sort. Once living standards get bad enough people will be open to non-traditional opt…

What would the United States get out of this?

Nothing.

Re: UK households set for largest fall in living standards in six decades

#142
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m hoping the UK joins the United States. We’ve already started to merge our military industrial base and have a long, shared history. Maybe they would receive preference for US LNG/coal shipments too as a result. This is unrealistic bordering absurd, you just came out of Brexit sold under the pretense of increased freedom and sovereignty. The UK didn't even like the special deal it had with the EU, unique concess…

I mean I agree it’s not popular, but the UK would be better off as a 51st state than they currently are now.

Absolutely not! I can't think of any major economy that is more of a hell-hole than the USA. That applies over so much of the major features of the place: extreme politics, gun violence, "justice" system, policing, prison system, healthcare, gerrymandered elections, racism - loads of stuff where the problems may exist elsewhere (including the UK), but to nowhere near the same extent. The UK may have some problems, but it's nothing we haven't been through before.

Re: UK households set for largest fall in living standards in six decades

#143
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m hoping the UK joins the United States. We’ve already started to merge our military industrial base and have a long, shared history. Maybe they would receive preference for US LNG/coal shipments too as a result. This is unrealistic bordering absurd, you just came out of Brexit sold under the pretense of increased freedom and sovereignty. The UK didn't even like the special deal it had with the EU, unique concess…

Our difference seems to be that I don’t put much weight on your view that nationalism will dominate the discussion. Standard of living will. My hope is UK citizens make decisions to benefit themselves, their family, friends, and community. The UK cannot maintain its current standard of living without a very large partnership of some sort. Once living standards get bad enough people will be open to non-traditional opt…

Nationalism was the main reason why Brexit happened. The way it was sold to the people was by being more independent so the UK could limit immigration (well that didn't happen, and they could have actually done this before but chose not to) and so they didn't need to send money to the EU to build roads in foreign places the average UK pensioner would never dream of going (it's gone down from a net of around £8B to £1B).

Re: UK households set for largest fall in living standards in six decades

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our difference seems to be that I don’t put much weight on your view that nationalism will dominate the discussion. Standard of living will. My hope is UK citizens make decisions to benefit themselves, their family, friends, and community. The UK cannot maintain its current standard of living without a very large partnership of some sort. Once living standards get bad enough people will be open to non-traditional opt…

What would the United States get out of this? Nothing.

Taxes?

Re: UK households set for largest fall in living standards in six decades

#145

brexit. Everyone in the media try to ignore the elephant in the room. But, brexit. I know several companies who are winding down, because they can't export. Just too much trouble and money. It is everywhere, and nobody talks about it. brexit.

don't forget the 700 billion on lockdowns and the rona.

This is nothing compared to Brexit, and didn’t hit the UK uniquely.

Re: UK households set for largest fall in living standards in six decades

#146
post #36
post #30

I'll get downvoted for this, but this isn't true if you're one of the two protected classes in the UK: pensioners or welfare recipients. Both will see their income rise with inflation. If you're working then, sure, you're getting screwed as always because after just spending billions locking down the economy to saving boomers from Covid, this year we decided to spend billions bailing out boomers pensions, paying for…

It's truly all the fault of the powerful and influential welfare scroungers, just like the Telegraph says. Thank you for being so brave to speak your truth.

I'm from a working class family, and when I say working class, I mean so working class that most my family doesn't even work. I'm not making this up, I'm simply telling you about something that's unfair that I've been experiencing for years, but because it's not aligning with your narrative you're assuming this is some talking point I've got from the Telegraph...

But what's your point? Are you suggesting I'm lying, or are you suggesting that what I'm describing isn't a problem?

Why is it okay that everyone on benefits in my family has more than those who work? How is that at all reasonable?

Obviously I agree welfare scroungers aren't root cause of the problem. The issue is that we tax income and not wealth, and redistribute wealth from the have-nots (millennials, etc) to boomers (the wealthiest generation in the country). If your a boomer with 10 houses you don't pay any tax on that wealth. You just pay taxes on any income you might decide to take from renting them. This is a large part of the problem. The government tax you when you're trying to work your way up, but if you're already rich you don't have to worry about things like income tax.

Then on top of the broken tax system if you're working class or lower-middle class trying to work your way up you're not even paying for decent things like health care and education you're paying for economic policies that only benefit boomers and a nice standard of living for those abusing the welfare system.

I'm not your enemy here. I want fairer system. I want people in my family to stop seeing having kids and not working as the best path to independence. The suffering I see daily from this is heart-breaking. Drug abuse, prison, damaged kids. And I'm not blaming those on welfare because if you're working class welfare is literally the only way you can ever hope to have your own home. It just drives me insane when the job centre is recommending my family not to work because they'll never make as much as they're getting by being on benefits and not working.

We need to incentivise work by lowering income tax and tightening up the welfare system so it can't be abused as a source of tax-free income. At the same time we should more aggressively tax wealth. Higher stamp duty on second home purchases, higher capital gains tax, higher inheritance taxes, higher taxes on luxury goods etc.

We wouldn't need all this welfare in a economy that prioritises and rewards those who work.

Re: UK households set for largest fall in living standards in six decades

#147
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m hoping the UK joins the United States. We’ve already started to merge our military industrial base and have a long, shared history. Maybe they would receive preference for US LNG/coal shipments too as a result. This is unrealistic bordering absurd, you just came out of Brexit sold under the pretense of increased freedom and sovereignty. The UK didn't even like the special deal it had with the EU, unique concess…

Our difference seems to be that I don’t put much weight on your view that nationalism will dominate the discussion. Standard of living will. My hope is UK citizens make decisions to benefit themselves, their family, friends, and community. The UK cannot maintain its current standard of living without a very large partnership of some sort. Once living standards get bad enough people will be open to non-traditional opt…

> The EU can’t offer much energy, national security, or manufacturing support these days and U.S. is the only other reasonable option.

The UK literally relies on the EU energy market (and vice versa), with lots of imports and exports between the two. There isn't enough of it, but there's already a codependency there. National security is debatable, but as a part of the EU the UK would be leader among equals (big army and nukes), so cooperation would be on an equal footing. Manufacturing of what, specifically?

Re: UK households set for largest fall in living standards in six decades

#148
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Housing shortage. Driven mainly by a wealthy class of nimby home owners.

The houses were originally bought 30ish years ago for around £40.000. It’s not like the current owners can retrieve any of that value increase. All the other houses around have increased by the same amount, so moving isn’t really realistic.

Workers have to pay rent. Retirees don’t. To have the same post housing income as a pensioner with a 20k pension a workers needs to be earning nearer 60k.

This could be solved by large amounts of house building, but wealthy retirees don’t want that.

Re: UK households set for largest fall in living standards in six decades

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Workers have been told we can’t have pay rises matching inflation because that would fuel inflation. But pensioners get a 10% pay rise.

Two wrongs make it right? Shouldn't workers get a pay rise?

But they instead get a tax rise to pay for the pensions.

Re: UK households set for largest fall in living standards in six decades

#150

brexit. Everyone in the media try to ignore the elephant in the room. But, brexit. I know several companies who are winding down, because they can't export. Just too much trouble and money. It is everywhere, and nobody talks about it. brexit.

Definitely not everyone. https://bylinetimes.com/2022/11/02/brexit-polls-uk-public-wa...
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