Trying to take politics out of it, which I know isn’t easy… after all Labour weren’t in power in France which is still having a very rough economic time of it and Tories aren’t in power in America, which is still bouncing along the bottom of economic growth…

Bad things
1. We’re taking a hell of a long time to recover from the recession
2. Wages have barely moved in 10 years
3. Inequality is increasing
4. Deflation/slow economic growth
5. Super-high house prices- likely to lead to another crash or at least sucking money out of our pockets which could be spent in the real economy
6. Possibility of war – Russia/China/US/Saudi
7. Immigration/refugee crisis from Africa/Middle East to Europe
8. NHS funding crisis
9. Obesity
10. Ageing population
11. Immigration – tricky one this, but how sustainable is a growing population for UK – it’s also a good thing if it grows the size of the working population
12. Pensions crisis – a whole generation have failed to save enough
13. Robots come to take your job
14. Mental health crisis
15. Low productivity
16. Superlow interest rates leading to asset price bubbles
17. Massive credit growth forecast

Good things
1. We didn’t have full-on economic breakdown/depression in 2008
2. Most? people are ok – surviving – not sure if this is true or not but consumer spending seems to be sustained, as does consumer confidence
3. Superhigh house prices leading to the wealth effect which supports consumer spending
4. Economy is ok. Not in recession, outlook not great but not lousy either
5. Are we sowing the seeds of a post-consumerist world as we all reflect on the situation?
6. Rise in the use of mindfulness and meditation making us nicer?
7. Rise in cycling – tackle obesity and pollution
8. Jobs market ok – even if pay isn’t increasing
9. More people self-employed reduces the power of corporates as employers
10. Social media takes power away from the authorities
11. Low cost technology
12. Cheap internet access for most – more information, more communication
13. Deflation keeps prices low
14. Robots doing our jobs might free up our time for better work/life balance and leave us just the interesting work?
15. Superlow interest rates allows people to manage their debts and leaves them money left to spend on stuff, keeping the economy going

Not an exhaustive list, just food for thought and to provoke a discussion but overall, do we think our future is looking just ok, good, or not very good at all?

STW, on your marks, get set, DISCUSS 🙂

after all Labour weren’t in power in France

I’m sure some on here will still blame them though, after all apparently the collapse of Lehman Brothers in the US was caused by Gordon Brown 😉

We’re all going to die. 100% inescapable fact. 😐

Its going to be very windy and very rainy for at least another week.. Not good short term news.

define future. I’ve got the day off tomorrow, which means I’m pretty optimistic it’ll be better than the here and now.

Bad thing: you’re going to die.

Good thing: It might be painless.

“Most? people are ok – surviving – not sure if this is true or not but consumer spending seems to be sustained, as does consumer confidence
3. Superhigh house prices leading to the wealth effect which supports consumer spending
Superlow interest rates allows people to manage their debts and leaves them money left to spend on stuff, keeping the economy going”

These are not good things.

what this shows is a fundimental lack of understanding of the situation from the consumers point of view and the sticky plaster nature of the governments policies……

I call it mobile phone consumerism….. i can afford the monthly – **** the rest of the details.

On a positive note; Brannigans Roast Beef and Mustard crisps are back in circulation again

We’re all going to die. 100% inescapable fact.

Not necessarily 🙂

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34581809

We’re all going to die. 100% inescapable fact.

It is thought by some people that true AI will happen in the next 30-50 years and that the outcome will either be we will all be wiped out in the blink of an eye or live forever.
http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-2.html#4

Happy trails!

binners – Member

On a positive note; Brannigans Roast Beef and Mustard crisps are back in circulation again

OP didn’t want us to politicise this, but you must be a toff with such high falutin’ crisp habits.

The dominance of the West is gone. we are in a terminal decline. The centre of global economic activity has already shifted from the mid-Atlantic in 1980, to somewhere around the gulf states today and is projected to be East of India by 2045.

Were in a pretty unique period in history at the moment/ In developed countries we’re going to have to figure out how to support two generations of pensioners /retirees. (the baby boomers being a big old cohort) add to that the fact that most people don’t really start working until they’re in their mid twenties and things start to look a little tricky.

I cant see any big technological paridigm shifts coming along to help smooth things out. I reckon we should be starting to look at discouraging population growth as a priority, rather than pretending that constantly adding more people will keep the worlds economies afloat.

On a positive note; Brannigans Roast Beef and Mustard crisps are back in circulation again

OP didn’t want us to politicise this, but you must be a toff with such high falutin’ crisp habits.

Nonsense – Brannigans Roast Beef and Mustard are the crisp equivalent of Chuck Norris.
You need to be rock hard to take on a packet of those bad boys.
You will lose but you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you’ve been thrashed by the best. High falutin’ toffs need not apply.

Go anywhere with Jet2 and you’ll realise there’s no hope

Hmm.

I’ve accepted that, short of a lottery win:

1. I will never own my own home
2. I will never pay off all of my credit card debt – even if household spending was cut to bare necessities, the (rising) interest charges on the balance will prohibit me from ever quite getting there
3. I won’t ever receive a pension, either private or state – I can’t afford private, and I currently have a predicted 42 years to go before state age. Considering that prediction has risen about 13 years in the last 10, I can’t see it being less than 100 by the time I get to the current predicted age!
4. As above, I will probably die working
5. There will be no ‘college fund’ for the kids. Currently only looks like the youngest will take that route, which gives me another few years to find a second, nightshift job to fund the extra £15k a year that will cost by then.
6. I’ve missed the boat on all the ‘get rich quick’ job opportunities – e.g. back when I was at uni and the North Sea £3k a month for washing dishes on a rig jobs were being offshored to the Philippinos for less than a third of the UK rate.

On the plus side:
1. It’s unlikely the kids will put me in a nursing home
2. My risk of dying of cancer is significantly reduced as I will probably die younger
3. The only ‘asset’ i currently have, an Orange ST4, was a gift and therefor can’t be taken from me if I have to declare bankruptcy (which would probably leave me more actual spare cash than I currently have, unless the rules have been changed!)
4. I don’t have the stress of ‘wealth management’, watching the property market, or worrying about ‘losing it all’…
5. Robots stealing my job isn’t that likely -indeed it isn’t for most of us, as if we don’t have jobs, there’s no point spending money on robots as nobody will be able to buy the products/services they provide!
6. Sex is still going to be free.

I was just going to defend my crisp choice, but PP beat me to it.

If those crisps were a person, they’d be the one ripping there top off, then offering you out, outside the kebab house, at two in the morning, for looking at their bird!

DO YOU WANT SOME?!!!!

Where I’m from, real men eat pork scratchin’s. (With Wolves tattoos on them.) 😉

ETA Fill your boots for forecasts here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/global-strategic-trends-out-to-2045

Economic diagram on page 7.

Got my health, kids and wife = happy fella, everything else is fluff…. 8)

Nope – too much up in the air for me at the moment.

14. Robots doing our jobs might free up our time for better work/life balance and leave us just the interesting work?

No they’ll simply allow employers to employ less people and work around the clock. They won’t still employ all the people they used to on the same money for less time, there’s no money in that for them.

yeah its interesting how thats working out for the supermarket till operators – instead of 15 till operators it takes 3 or 4 to man the 20 screaming robots that are intent on telling you what to do before you have even had a chance to think about it …. i guess thats 10 people who now have infinately more time to pursue their other interests …..

Compared with when I started work 35 yrs ago we are in general far better off. The internet. Dirt cheap mobile phones and other technology. Car ownership rose from 19 million in 1971 to 31 million in 2007. It isn’t the 1% fat cats driving those millions of cars. We are living longer healthier lives. Peak oil fears have proved unfounded. Anyone born in a western country post WW2 won first prize in the lottery of life. Compared with being born anywhere in earlier generations or in the 3rd world today we are better off in every way.

If you look for them you can always find things to worry about but in general I’m optimistic. Health, family, and not wanting things because other people have them.

Maybe humanity’s best days lie ahead.

http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/munk-debate/

“Car ownership rose from 19 million in 1971 to 31 million in 2007”

An incredibly strange metric from which to measure quality of life though ???

Question:
How many people look at these factors and then decide to bring new life into it?

🙁
I stand to inherit little from my parents, neither of whom own their own homes.
I am heading towards 40 and have yet to get a pension underway after having to pay off uni loans, save for a wedding and then save for a house deposit.Last few years I opted to pump money into the mortgage as opposed to into a pension, I’m not sure if this was the right or wrong thing to do at this point in my life.
😐
I’m about to change jobs introducing a commute by car and train replacing my current bike only commute, negatives are lots of hours out of the house, cost and lack of exercise. Positives are the time to read or watch something on the train, the new job pays better and has more opportunities and better benefits, the pension for one.
🙂
Over the last 10 years my salary has more than doubled and it about to increase again, I’ve got married bought a home and had some great times. I’ve learnt a fair bit in that time and passed on some knowledge to others too.
I’ve also not suffered any serious health issues and neither has my wife.

Could be better could be worse, may as well get on with it!

I was once told that I would be dead by about 50 from a stroke. A few years later they fixed my AF and now I can expect to live longer than that, but in what sort of state I don’t know. Ultimately, we all die. If you can accept that, then you’re pretty much set. I think I’m just about there now.

About other things? I don’t know. I think it unlikely that my wife and I will ever be able to have kids of our own, something that we have been planning and saving for for seven years. Realising something you want so much may never happen is hard and turns all your plans on their head. It does sometimes make me wonder why I am still here, pushing myself to get promoted or look for other jobs and save for the future when we should just go and enjoy ourselves.

I do keep thinking about moving to Canada or somewhere else though.

How do you get a wolf tattoo on a pork scratchin?

…. i guess thats 10 people who now have infinately more time to pursue their other interests …..

Well with UK employment at a record high the other interests may be a different job.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/uk-employment-employment-record-high-wage-increase-sluggish-manufacturing-slump-1528201

An incredibly strange metric from which to measure quality of life though ???

But a good rough measure of disposable income. spending it on a car is just a choice.

Just been promoted , family all doing well , live in our own bubble and hardly ever read the news ect .

The futures bright the futures Orange (5 this weekend in the lakes )

fasthaggis – Member

How do you get a wolf tattoo on a pork scratchin? You mean a Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. tattoo? (The Black Country is one of the major pork scratching production centres of the UK.)

If you don’t get the joke then, suffice to say, never fall out with a man who owns a pig farm.

But a good rough measure of disposable income. spending it on a car is just a choice.

Not entirely, a huge % of cars are bought on finance, rather than savings built up over time from disposable income. A mate at Ford said before the crash their Finance division made more profit than the manufacturing division, a mate at BMW Finance said after 2008 crash they were screwed if they couldn’t borrow money from the markets to then lend on to their customers to buy their cars, and a recent article in the Economist made a point that VW will be in difficulty if they have their credit rating downgraded (which they now have) as they won’t be able to borrow money so cheaply to then provide finance to sell their cars

Optimistic? If I focus on the positives, the things I can change and the things that are important then yes I am optimistic. If I worry about all the things wrong with the World I get a bit overwhelmed and frustrated about how little I am able to or have the energy to improve.

I keep my expectations in check and that keeps me happy and grounded.

After having a crappy few years I saved up for a campervan hopefully it gets finished next month…So yes optimistic about holidays next year LOL

JeZ

…The dominance of the West is gone. we are in a terminal decline. The centre of global economic activity has already shifted from the mid-Atlantic in 1980, to somewhere around the gulf states today and is projected to be East of India by 2045.

good news for our manufacturing exports then – lots of rich potential customers!

never fall out with a man who owns a pig farm.

Aye,there was a story up here like that,they never did find his wife.

Worked with some lads from the Black country for a bit. full on black country accent >> “Ow ah,yow jocks,a don’t ounderstan awurd yow say,now ayah comin fi sum snap?” << full on black country accent 😯

You couldn’t make it up,lovely folk though ,once I got a translater . 🙂

brooess – Member
…A mate at Ford said before the crash their Finance division made more profit than the manufacturing division

a mate of mine at ‘car company X’ said their opt-in health care scheme was more profitable than the manufacturing division…

and a huge amount of cars are not bought through choice they are bought because people live 55 miles from their job……

CO2 has more or less passed 400ppm and continues to accelerate. We’re now half way to the (arbitrary but best scientific guess) 2 degree rise that will mean irreversible and catastrophic climate change that will render large swathes of the world uninhabital, create massive droughts, rising sea levels, food scarcity, unstable governments and mass human migration on a level that makes the current refugee crisis look like a (long) walk in the park. Apart from that, Yep, I’m optimistic, everything is tickety boo thanks very much 🙂

I’m optimistic about my future – and looking forward to it. I’m going to be dead by 2050 though.

Much much more worried about my kids’ future.

good news for our manufacturing exports then – lots of rich potential customers!

UK manufacturing currently in recession following 2 quarters of decline (seen this in the FT and Economist and noted it’s not reached headline status in the mainstream media!)

Rolls Royce share price currently in freefall – one of the very best manufacturing companies we have I thought?

Not disputing your point but current evidence not supporting it, sadly…