MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/sep/24/student-finance-cbi
A letter in the Guardian the other day which made the claim from one generation (a 23yr old) that an older generation (I'm assuming the 50-65s here) are making him and his ilk pay the price for their elder's comfort.
Anyone here agree with this generational blame-laying? Some of our more, let's say "mature" forum people, have you a view? Have you had it too good at your children's future's expense?
As a 33 year old Im not sure if I fall into one generation or the other - I benefited from free university education and a small grant during the period they were phased out. Im not sure I hold my parents responsible for the asset bubble, but then equally the nature of inheritance seems to be a perfectly good method of sorting that out... although an inequitable mechanism it may be for society.
As for paying for university fees, I like the idea of a graduate premium tax (but not a windfall tax as they can be very disruptive), say an additional 1p or 2p on a graduate's income tax for 10 years say, that can be made retroactive.
Mind you, they guy who wrote the letter could probably do with some maths and economics training first...£370k? and then maybe something to remove the chip from his shoulder 😉
I'm 40 maybe i could blame my parents generation for inventing nuclear weapons 🙄
flip - your parents must have had you fairly late in life 😯
I blame the unborn.
[i]I benefited from free university education[/i]
Ditto. I doubt I'd be able to afford my BA today.
And I could [i]never[/i] blame my parents for anything, whatever Larkin says. 😀
Blame the parents? No.
My parents are in their 70s. Their generation worked bloody hard and under conditions were H&S accidents and industrial diseases were commonplace. They are enjoying a comfortable retirement, but they have certainly earned it.
My father started work the year that National Insurance came in - he therefore contributed from day 1. He took early retirement at 56, and was the only was the only person from his 1946 apprenticeship intake to be still alive. For his trade, very few of his generation lasted to retirement at 65, and those that did were typically dead with 2 years.
Thats the reason the currently retired are well off - lots paid in, few got the chance to take out.
Today it's the other way around - fewer paying in and most living longer and in better more active health.
Aren't there more people going through the University system, which would increase the costs?
I'm not sure it's [i]right[/i] or a total explanation for anything, but it has legs alright. There is the possibility of a real political dividing line. Labour just announced free care for the wealthy elderly so they didn't have to sell their houses to pay for it. Meanwhile, even the Lib Dems have abandoned the idea that a university eduation should be funded generally.
I'd not be at all surprised to find a major current of resentment down there among the yoof. No-one will blame [i]their own[/i] parents, who are almost invariably the salt of the earth, but I bet they'll blame other people's parents for pulling up the ladder.
this is just the tip of the iceberg - eventually the dwindling number of those in work are going to rebel at having to support an enormous rump of useless, idle grumpy old gits who moan endlessly about entitlement
the question assumes that there is a 'quality of life' which is standard and is ours by right. Life is life, changes are inevitable and there is no correct level of provision of anything - wealth, food, health etc. who is to say how things should be? each generation blames the previous one, but for what? it is what it is, get on with making as good as it can be given the available resources.
Is this to some extent also a reflection of voter demographics, i.e. bugger all young people vote, so having policies that are favourable to them isn't instantly beneficial for a party.
something must have happened in britain during the 60s and 70s to create the horrible 'i cant stop em going out/fighting/burning things/swearing/insulting people/stealing if they want to' parenting that is bringing up the great mass of horrible teenagers/children to be vile little aggressive disrespectful ungrateful sods...
that is a great exaggeration, but what i really want to say is you have to look back further than the present to work out how we have got here. its not like until 1983 everyone was the salt of the earth and then children changed.
something must have happened in britain during the 60s and 70s to create the horrible 'i cant stop em going out/fighting/burning things/swearing/insulting people/stealing if they want to' parenting that is bringing up the great mass of horrible teenagers/children to be vile little aggressive disrespectful ungrateful sods...
except people have been saying exactly the same for at least 1,000,000 years (although originally there may have been more grunting)
meikle_partans
That would be the election of Thatcher and the destruction of working class employment leading to the creation of the underclass of long term unemployed that had not previously existed. Couple that with the "loadsamoney" attitude and it created what you see now.
TJ - fair point. There wasnt long term unemployment at the turn of the 19th century. Just a lot of extremely impoverished breadline queuers and workhousers. Long term unemployed was created by the social security system, not Thatcher 🙂
It's natural level is another argument though.
PS a graph for you and Grizzly, coz I know how he loves them 🙂
[img] 
[/img]
[i]Is this to some extent also a reflection of voter demographics?[/i]
Yes, absolutely. I can't help thinking that there is a power base out there which is simply not being exploited by anyone at present. You'd just have to find a way to turn that disaffected irritation into support...