Re: When is being skint ?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Maurice Swan
I left school the first day I could when I turned 16 (1964).....5 'O' levels over two attempts.....hated it.....got a decent job a few weeks later.......some years later decided to study for Computer Programming as that seemed the future.....no student or other loans those days.....
Good choice of degree. The point is there are lots of little anchors holding people down these days as I'm sure there were then too, but because of the cost of housing now, it has far more of an effect.
Take student loan though. I earn roughly the UK median wage and I am barely touching the sides after interest. It is essentially an extra 9% income tax band that exists only for those who were conned into going to uni, I don't mind much because mine is a maintenance loan which I used to live it up (I was the year before loans for fees) but think of kids coming out over the past 10 or so years, the majority will never pay it off in this economy, but they will pay more than they borrowed...
Rarely have promises which were made to the 'boomer' generation been broken, promises to youngsters are thrown out the window constantly.
Take the principle that student loans are fine because it increases your earning potential and you won't start paying it off until you are earning a good whack and have financially benefitted from that degree. Well the threshold at which my additional 9% tax rate kicks in is roughly 22k, so a smidge above min wage...
Anyway, the point really was, try not to be that guy that says he walked to school barefoot in snow for 15 miles and everyone now is a softy. Every generation has structural advantages and disadvantages, some more than others.
Re: When is being skint ?
I take your point and I do agree different times etc....but this has veered off what counts as poverty. I am just saying that there is very little REAL poverty in the uk compared to many peoples in third world countries who don't have even clean water, and literally live in shanties without it being their fault.
Re: When is being skint ?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Maurice Swan
I take your point and I do agree different times etc....but this has veered off what counts as poverty. I am just saying that there is very little REAL poverty in the uk compared to many peoples in third world countries who don't have even clean water, and literally live in shanties without it being their fault.
Yeah it's true, my only worry is that people will use the truth for different purposes. There are plenty of people who want to downplay inequality and relative poverty in the UK for their own gain - I am talking here specifically about a vast majority of the extremely rich who take the working population for fools day in day out. Its important that the fact that poverty is even more pronounced and deep in other countries isn't used to downplay inequality in this country.
For example, say that due to sewage our water supply became a bit dodgy (not out of the realms of possibility although I acknowledge that our tap water is pretty good in this country), we really need to make sure we don't end up in a situation where 'drink up! some people don't even water!' is an acceptable response.
Re: When is being skint ?
I've done my annual trip to Ponty tonight to spend a few hours with a few special people who had my back 12.5 years ago and IMO there was a distinct sign of a downturn in the economy.
