Vocal Voices

Research by the Resolution Foundation shows that one in three of those born between 1981 and 2000 wish they had been born in their parents' time, and two thirds worry about job security, not being able to buy their own home or retire comfortably.

This is a dismal picture painted by that cohort of twenty to thirtysomethings. These are usually the people with the confidence and drive to move a country, a society, forward, and yet here they are crying into their cups.

I do have some sympathy. In their time the have seen Libya, Iraq/Syria, Afghanistan and the rise of Islamic terrorism. They have witnessed housing bubble after housing bubble push prices out of reach for many of them to ever own a home. They lived through the financial crash of 2008 and nearly ten years of austerity. They have seen millions upon millions of immigrants move in and take jobs away. Now they have Brexit and the uncertainty surrounding it.

However, that same Brexit could just be the thing they need.There could well be a huge outflow of people returning to their homelands or looking for opportunities elsewhere. New business start-ups are going to have to happen, especially in manufacturing. There is every possibility that if immigrants do decide to leave in sufficient numbers that the housing market could crash and be re-set.

It is not all doom and gloom for those who are prepared to grasp the opportunities.

Master O is one of those Millennials. Job-wise, he's had a torrid time since leaving school, and he's had (and still does) to rely on The Bank of M&D to survive. It's a very different scenario from when Mrs O and I were at that age, and the life-time opportunities open to us in those days are pretty much non-existent now. The country has changed dramatically in the last 20 years or so, and not for the better, IMO. One lives in hope, of course, that Brexit will provide greater opportunities for the youngsters - but I'm not holding my breath.

Things are way more difficult for young people now than it was when we were getting started. A massive outflow of decent paying jobs and a massive inflow of competing labour.
Globalism in action.

TheOstrich wrote: The country has changed dramatically in the last 20 years or so, and not for the better, IMO.

That is my opinion too. But I do think that things will change back at some time in the future.
When our factories become manned by AI (artificial intelligence) robots, society will return to
one-income families again, which might cure many of today's problems.

A lot of our "problems" here are twofold, baby boomers and immigrants. Immigrants are filling our schools, hospitals and houses. We can't build them fast enough. Jobs aren't a huge problem unless you are on the bottom rung. Companies don't often promote internally and train up, they would rather hire trained, so you swap jobs, but can't get off that bottom rung by swapping jobs as you don't have the skills. And a fair percentage of baby boomers are still working, and drawing the pension. How is that allowed? And that bring me to baby boomers. I don't know what your population demographic is, but ours has a HUGE bubble in that age group. They aren't yet ready to downsize the home ( though it is starting to happen) so they are sitting in family homes, with no real need for all that land/space/number of bedrooms and my generation (not quite millennial) found actually finding a family home on the market to buy almost impossible, and so prices go up. Not only were we competing with other families we were also competing with immigrants, especially cashed up Chinese who could pay double. Little wonder why our market has taken off.
Baby boomers now don't want to leave as all smaller properties have been taken, (by other boomers who rent them out to crammed in families who can't afford to buy a family home) and as such prices are through the roof, so the next options are retirement villages which charge like a wounded bull, I can't see how they are legal, and are designed to bled the bank account dry if you stay there for more than 3 years. Little wonder why they aren't a popular choice till people are not long on this earth.

I'm not blaming either of these population groups, but the government for not foreseeing an obvious problem and taking steps 30 years ago to mitigate the problems we now face.

Weka wrote:I'm not blaming either of these population groups, but the government for not foreseeing
an obvious problem and taking steps 30 years ago to mitigate the problems we now face.

That sums it up admirably, Weka. So many of today's problems are due to incompetent politician of the past.

Workingman wrote:I do have some sympathy. In their time the have seen Libya, Iraq/Syria, Afghanistan and the rise of Islamic terrorism. They have witnessed housing bubble after housing bubble push prices out of reach for many of them to ever own a home. They lived through the financial crash of 2008 and nearly ten years of austerity. They have seen millions upon millions of immigrants move in and take jobs away. Now they have Brexit and the uncertainty surrounding it.

I have less sympathy. They have not had to live through one or even two world wars. They have not had to live under the sword of nuclear Armageddon, the conflict of two superpowers bumping against each other, the hardship of near hyperinflation and the cataclysmic changes to the job markets that drove me to the Forces due to a total lack of jobs. There was a time when 90% of the population of the UK didn't have a prayer of owning a home, that changed and then, it seems, has changed again.

The homes I put down, in part, to both Maggie and Blair/Brown. Selling off the council house stock caused a bubble in the housing market which has still not worked its way out of the system. In fact it will probably impact house stability until either there is WW3 or 100 years have passed. Maggie kicked it off to force change on our working landscape. She succeeded. Blair and Brown drove it onto the rocks, set fire to it and had a dance on the burning deck of the wreck, for no other reason than it brought in votes for them.

Now the millennials are complaining. Really? If I had a time machine I'd go drop them off in 1939 UK for three years.

We have become a cossetted and pampered nation of whingers.

Perhaps Brexit and the upheaval that brings, will change things. Although it will take a few generations of those who have had to work harder in the world, for that to filter through.

I agree with Ossie and Cromwell, it is harder now than it was for us Baby Boomers! I walked straight out of school at 17 into a job that would now require an expensive degree, and was a home owner at 20!

That just can't happen now. I can't see my eldest ever getting on the housing ladder, despite having a reasonably well paid job, managing in-house IT for his local council. Becky works with animals, that is a low paid career path. Not sure what Harry will end up doing yet, but as he lives in Surrey, like his older brother, he will need a huge deposit to ever own his own home.

I don't think it is a fair comparison to bring the war years into this Suff. You and I are a similar age, and we had it easy compared to the generations both before and after us!