Quote Originally Posted by buriramboy View Post
Quote Originally Posted by taxexile View Post
People who retire with the state pension as their only or main source of income are fuked but sadly the uneducated still don't realise this.
many, educated or not, do realise this, but after rent, mortgages, kids and food, are not able to save very much if anything, and thats before the loans for the 70" flat screens, virgin media, i-pads, netflix and the latest suv even enter the equation.

increasing numbers of people will, thanks to obesity, laziness related diseases and the sinister effects of brexit die horrible deaths before they reach 68 which should help balance the books a little, but for the rest, well at least they have 20 years to plan for their retirement.
It's all about choices, people are of course free to make their own choices but they are not free from the consequences of their choices. If they want the latest SUV on tick paying £600 a month as opposed to buying reliable second hand car which will do the same job and not saving for their retirement so be it when a retirement in poverty becomes their reality.
I don't think it is "all about choices", there really aren't that many choices. Even if you live on carrot tops and tap water, the cost of childcare and various insurances and interests and fees, taxes, bills, for this thing or that, strip away more money than a third world charity does.
The public sector pensions are not DB any more and are nothing to shout about - 4 figures for quite a lot of people! bolt that onto your state pension pittance! Then get the shock of your life as the gov' taxes your pitiful pension income, leaving you with a few hundred quid a month to cover a few hundred quid rent... and a free bus pass to rummaging in the bins round the back of a supermarket for those carrot tops.
The places where all the good quality jobs are, where people can get experience to go on to bigger and better things are the same places where housing and living costs outstrip earnings by 10 or more times, and the whole model is unsustainable. Many high tech industries can't get staff because of it. With the right skillset you can be bombarded with offers from all over the place - but even then - even when you pick one - and you're earning over the national average, it's simply not enough. Those who (ignore the speed limit that you can develop infrastructure at) believe that more mass immigration is somehow going to automagically make more money trickle down are deluded - it does the opposite - puts even more pressure on cost of living, and increases income and asset polarisation. The real pinch point is skills that can be location independent - programming, consulting/tech support - with those skills you can replace your traditional permanent contract with being a contractor, and base yourself somewhere cheaper but that still has the infrastructure you need - and millennials are (I reckon) even more inclined towards that life than previous generations.
When I was younger it just used to be nurses who would switch into bank nursing to do the same job for more money and less responsibility; but now it's techies and the pinch point is being transferred into pressure on employers who need to deliver on projects and export sales. The underlying cost of land is a unifying constraint on both employers and employees, it's not sustainable with incessant immigration - there needs to be a major quality filter on everyone coming in - you've now got to a point where child homelessness is increasing, and the notion that it's not linked to mass immigration seems wilfully disingenuous or deluded.

Quote Originally Posted by buriramboy View Post
Quote Originally Posted by AntRobertson View Post
Quote Originally Posted by buriramboy
no idea what advice you could give them?
Expand your horizons beyond worn out cliches and stale stereotypes?
Sadly they aren't worn out cliches, nearly every fucker in the UK has a new car these days as credit is so easy to obtain on them and people can't resist even though they can't really afford them and will end up having them repossessed. Even got to the stage where the Bank of England is worried about the amount of car finance people have. Same applies but to a lesser extent for mobile phones and Tv's. People feel entitled to have the latest stuff and they will have it even though they can't afford it and hence suffer in later life.
What are they to do if the cost of rent rises proportional to proximity of job? Are they going to rely on the the british rail system to get to work?!
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...onships-broken
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017...ries-southern/

Maybe they can just get up at 3am and walk the 20 miles to work, eh?