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You're actually doing a cracking job of making my point for me. There is a mantra/narrative about a wage-price spiral (informed by the 70s which has retrospectively been designated as a dreadful decade, when the vast majority of the population had it better than most of the succeeding decades)...

While I understand your first sentence, no idea what point you're trying to make. As to the second sentence, who's said that? As to your question about my second para, no, I'm not acknowledging what you claim, and the whole post constitutes a problematisation of the narrative/mantra of the...

Yes, exactly. And worth noting that 'pay rises' (which, in the case of public sector workers especially, are yet the latest but harshest iteration of over a decade of annual real-terms pay cuts) only really began to kick in over the past 6-12 months precisely when inflation peaked and then began...

I'd wager the explanation is too many within the electorate think that this is the way of things and don't think anything can be done about it.

Even those have stalled now and, with further (0.5%?) interest rate rises to come, they're not shooting up in a hurry again. Although, with an election on the horizon, you can't rule out our next PM trying to stimulate the housing market somehow.

Worst decline in living standards for workers on record, and things are going to get worse: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jul/19/uk-living-standards-fall-inflation-cost-of-living-crisis-prices Still, levelling up and all that.

Good point. Hadn't thought of that, thanks. Now you've raised it, I'd imagine there are a fair few anomalies that lead to lowered productivity as a result of self-employment, small limited companies, etc

Excellent. We'll be able to take on the Tories with that :wink:

To do that, we'd need an extremely brilliant rhetorician, a ruthless organiser, and a bottomless pit of money. Do indicate what you're going to bring to the party :smile:

Not quite. But I can see how you came to that conclusion and, as we've found common ground, I'll stop wasting your time :smile: For now at least...

Well, I think it is true. The stats you provide is just one metric, and hardly shows a plummeting work time (there is a marginal fall, granted). There are plenty of other metrics that could be resorted to (eg increasing work lives) that tell a different picture. What's more important is that...

Well, I think you're both wrong. The notion that all labour will be performed by a machine in 40 years time, and that the next generations will be enjoying a leisure-rich life is for the birds. We're currently working more, despite predictions from the likes of Keynes that we'd be working 15...

Well at least some threads on politics/economics can remain civil. I'll just add to the recent comments that there are some unlikely bed fellows: both right populists (and the more extreme elements of the identitarian right) and more traditional old school social democrats share some kinship...

Continued erosion of average households finances over 15 years, in stark contrast to the prior 45 years: https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/the-living-standards-audit-2022/ And, it's currently accelerating, when they update this, it'll be much, much worse.

The Tories long-standing hostility to single mothers reconfirmed: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jul/04/half-of-all-children-in-lone-parent-families-are-in-relative-poverty

Agreed, but the problem with that is most of us have got full-time jobs to do (and, often, work beyond our contracted hours), which reduces the time available to bargain hunt around multiple supermarkets.

Agreed. It's an absolute disgrace what the elderly have visited on the younger generations in this country over the past few decades. And the policy and fiscal frameworks just carry on working in favour of the former over the latter -- just witness who the burden of the recent NI increase falls...

I actually agree with KZN on this. There has been a massive expansion of schoolleavers going into HE since the introduction of the loan hikes, so it's difficult to sustain that argument. The issue of how many should go to HE and how to fund it is indeed a tricky issue. My proposal is as many as...

It has been said on here that only 25% will pay it off -- despite the same poster claiming that they're aware of the new scheme. It is the case that the projections under the new scheme are that 70% will pay it off.

Of course this is not going to have a short-term impact. But the contrast between your day and theirs is horrendously stark, and warrants registering.