9 ms·

Young adults have less to spend on non-essentials, study says

75 points by playpause 7y ago

GaurVimen 7y ago
I wonder at what point the Tories will deem food and accommodation as non-essential?
- minikites 7y ago
  The American right wing already believes food is a luxury: https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1068136393237557254 https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/10681363932375572...
  - golergka 7y ago
    But that tweet is nothing of the sort. Food is not a luxury, but you can never have a right for someone else's labour.
    - nosianu 7y ago
      > you can never have a right for someone else's labour. The reason a human's productivity is orders of magnitude higher than that of a stone age person is the work of uncountable legions of dead people. Almost everything we have and know is due to network effects of humans working together in time and space. The current generation's productivity is almost all due to inherited tools and knowledge. You do live off of "other people's work", we all do. The amount that you yourself contribute, and that you are concerned about, is negligible in comparison to the inheritance. We can afford to be much, much more relaxed. You are not living a stone age life where your concern would have had merit, because most of what you achieve was indeed attributable mostly to yourself (although even then tools and techniques inherited from previous generations probably was a major factor). If somebody is able to "make millions", or even billions, how much is only their own effort? Put a baby in a swamp and see what they can achieve. That billionaire is sitting in the center of a vast network of humans in time and space - most of it consisting of the dead who cannot be paid even if you wanted to. It's certainly good and necessary to have such people in central network locations, I just dislike when people think those guys are "self-made". I let you live alone in a remote forest, and even with all modern knowledge, where is your "self-made" empire? Same for a 50k/year job, who still is vastly more productive than a $100/year stone age guy not at all because of superior skills or effort. Your position in the space-time human network determines most of your impact. So to what I quoted of your comment, that is exactly what we do, every one of us. Some just like to pretend that their own contribution is much more significant than it really is, because almost all of the productivity and possibilities are from the network and not from a particular person. So - relax! It isn't you who pays, it's the dead >99.9%.
      - golergka 7y ago
        This is true, and that's why you should advocate for charity - which is based on free will decision on controlling your own property and resources, just as all the interactions that make up modern world that you so thoroughly describe. The "human right" concept, however, is entirely different: it is referring to use of the mechanism that has monopoly on violence, the state, to redistribute these resources, by the use of or threat of use of said violence, without any free will involved. This mechanism completely removes individual capability of making a moral decision, and uses morality as a pretext to obtain monopolistic, bureaucratic power. In my view, this monstrous mechanism, which is capable of despotism thousands as bad as any other, should be only used for things that cannot be achieved without it, such as rule of law. Charity and helping others is a noble thing, but since it can be achieved without it, just through free individuals decisions, it should.
        TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
        There's always a state in one form or another. Always. The question is who controls it and who benefits from it, not whether or not it exists.
        golergka 7y ago
        > not whether or not it exists It seems that you're trying to frame my argument as if I wanted to abolish the state completely, but I have said nothing of the sort. Just as you're saying, the question is, in what form should the sate exist. And my answer is, in the most minimal form required to uphold the things that no other institution can.
        SantalBlush 7y ago
        The state corrects for market failures, which no other institution can. It can also pool risk much more efficiently than a corporation can. I'd say the current state (US or UK) isn't far off from what you describe.
        qntty 7y ago
    - basch 7y ago
      But food stamps arent the right to someone elses labor. The laborer is getting paid. Its taking tax money and giving it to a producer and a consumer. Its really no different than a subsidy. If you think taking money from the population and redistributing it is theft, youre basically arguing against taxes.
      - golergka 7y ago
        Yes, exactly.
- xcklo 7y ago
  Isn't that already the case to some degree? Not just the Tories, but pretty much all but a few fringe parties seem happy to make decent food and accommodation a luxury. For example: https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2018/11/08/eu-faces-affordable-housing-crisis-excluding-young-people-from-top-quality-job-opportunities-says-world-bank https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2018/11/08/e...
dev_north_east 7y ago
My advice to "millenials" (well I think technically I'm one, so let's say younger ones) is to stay the hell away from London. I read these articles on the housing crisis and staggering rent amounts and wonder am I even living in the same country as these people.
- xcklo 7y ago
  Many places outside of big cities are depopulating, have few decent jobs and services, and are still pretty expensive. If you are from the areas, have a family or an already decent career it might work, but for the majority it isn't a solution. And if people would actually would start moving somewhere else instead the same things would happens there.
  - ck425 7y ago
    There are still a lot of places in the UK outside of London that have plenty of jobs and are far more affordable.
    - mike-cardwell 7y ago
      I live in Nottingham. There are tonnes of tech jobs here in the Midlands, and housing is quite affordable.
      - davman 7y ago
        And yet the tech scene in Leicester is awful in comparison :(
  - dev_north_east 7y ago
    > if people would actually would start moving somewhere else instead the same things would happens there. Not really. Unless everyone moves to the same place. We need to diversify from London. Having everything centred there is madness.
    - 7y ago
RickJWagner 7y ago
Totally intuitive. Kids have always been broke. It's a trope seen in movies and tv shows that go back several decades, because it mirrors real life. In the early working years, people have never had much money. (Fortunately, this later corrects.)
- ck425 7y ago
  The article was comparing the same age ranges through time though. Young people are less well off compared to previous young people and old folk are more well off compared to previous old folk.
ptah 7y ago
older generation is not wise at all. they should be saving for when the current pension and old age benefit system collapses. i guess they are the same people that gave us climate change so i am not surprised at their shortsightedness
- hrktb 7y ago
  A sizeable portion of the older generation having fun right now also owns property, and will massively oppose any political move that could depreciate their property values. Sadly I don't think they are out of their mind spending so much, a lot of them have passed the FU point (enough assets to live decently whatever time is left for them)
  - ptah 7y ago
    the point is that it won't be a voluntary thing like a political move that will wipe them out economically
- ThrustVectoring 7y ago
  What you're saying makes sense for individuals, but not the generation as a whole. Total retiree spending is entirely financed by a combination of current tax receipts and selling assets. Pay-as-you-go and financially funded schemes are substantially equivalent here - current retiree consumption is 100% funded by current workers, the only difference being whether it's called something like "Social Security taxes" or "student loan payments". What additional saving does is improve the standard of living of current retirees, through increasing asset prices. What old people need is to invest in the productivity of current and future generations, so that society is rich enough to support them how they'd like without squeezing the life out of current workers.
- imtringued 7y ago
  They should spend their money as long as the current working population is large enough to satisfy the massive demand of the retirees. The workforce is shrinking over a long time frame. In 20 years there might be more pension money than there are workers to fulfill the demand. The end result is inflation because everyone is bidding prices up. Even if you double their savings, the end result could be zero because the inflation will eat the savings up. However, I don't think this is a big deal for the current boomer generation unless their average life expectancy suddenly reaches 90 but by the time I retire I wouldn't be surprised if there are labor shortages in developed countries.

75 points by playpause 7y ago

GaurVimen 7y ago

I wonder at what point the Tories will deem food and accommodation as non-essential?

minikites 7y ago
The American right wing already believes food is a luxury: https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1068136393237557254 https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/10681363932375572...
- golergka 7y ago
  But that tweet is nothing of the sort. Food is not a luxury, but you can never have a right for someone else's labour.
  - nosianu 7y ago
    > you can never have a right for someone else's labour. The reason a human's productivity is orders of magnitude higher than that of a stone age person is the work of uncountable legions of dead people. Almost everything we have and know is due to network effects of humans working together in time and space. The current generation's productivity is almost all due to inherited tools and knowledge. You do live off of "other people's work", we all do. The amount that you yourself contribute, and that you are concerned about, is negligible in comparison to the inheritance. We can afford to be much, much more relaxed. You are not living a stone age life where your concern would have had merit, because most of what you achieve was indeed attributable mostly to yourself (although even then tools and techniques inherited from previous generations probably was a major factor). If somebody is able to "make millions", or even billions, how much is only their own effort? Put a baby in a swamp and see what they can achieve. That billionaire is sitting in the center of a vast network of humans in time and space - most of it consisting of the dead who cannot be paid even if you wanted to. It's certainly good and necessary to have such people in central network locations, I just dislike when people think those guys are "self-made". I let you live alone in a remote forest, and even with all modern knowledge, where is your "self-made" empire? Same for a 50k/year job, who still is vastly more productive than a $100/year stone age guy not at all because of superior skills or effort. Your position in the space-time human network determines most of your impact. So to what I quoted of your comment, that is exactly what we do, every one of us. Some just like to pretend that their own contribution is much more significant than it really is, because almost all of the productivity and possibilities are from the network and not from a particular person. So - relax! It isn't you who pays, it's the dead >99.9%.
    - golergka 7y ago
      This is true, and that's why you should advocate for charity - which is based on free will decision on controlling your own property and resources, just as all the interactions that make up modern world that you so thoroughly describe. The "human right" concept, however, is entirely different: it is referring to use of the mechanism that has monopoly on violence, the state, to redistribute these resources, by the use of or threat of use of said violence, without any free will involved. This mechanism completely removes individual capability of making a moral decision, and uses morality as a pretext to obtain monopolistic, bureaucratic power. In my view, this monstrous mechanism, which is capable of despotism thousands as bad as any other, should be only used for things that cannot be achieved without it, such as rule of law. Charity and helping others is a noble thing, but since it can be achieved without it, just through free individuals decisions, it should.
      - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
        There's always a state in one form or another. Always. The question is who controls it and who benefits from it, not whether or not it exists.
        golergka 7y ago
        > not whether or not it exists It seems that you're trying to frame my argument as if I wanted to abolish the state completely, but I have said nothing of the sort. Just as you're saying, the question is, in what form should the sate exist. And my answer is, in the most minimal form required to uphold the things that no other institution can.
        SantalBlush 7y ago
        The state corrects for market failures, which no other institution can. It can also pool risk much more efficiently than a corporation can. I'd say the current state (US or UK) isn't far off from what you describe.
      - qntty 7y ago
  - basch 7y ago
    But food stamps arent the right to someone elses labor. The laborer is getting paid. Its taking tax money and giving it to a producer and a consumer. Its really no different than a subsidy. If you think taking money from the population and redistributing it is theft, youre basically arguing against taxes.
    - golergka 7y ago
      Yes, exactly.
xcklo 7y ago
Isn't that already the case to some degree? Not just the Tories, but pretty much all but a few fringe parties seem happy to make decent food and accommodation a luxury. For example: https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2018/11/08/eu-faces-affordable-housing-crisis-excluding-young-people-from-top-quality-job-opportunities-says-world-bank https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2018/11/08/e...

dev_north_east 7y ago

My advice to "millenials" (well I think technically I'm one, so let's say younger ones) is to stay the hell away from London. I read these articles on the housing crisis and staggering rent amounts and wonder am I even living in the same country as these people.

xcklo 7y ago
Many places outside of big cities are depopulating, have few decent jobs and services, and are still pretty expensive. If you are from the areas, have a family or an already decent career it might work, but for the majority it isn't a solution. And if people would actually would start moving somewhere else instead the same things would happens there.
- ck425 7y ago
  There are still a lot of places in the UK outside of London that have plenty of jobs and are far more affordable.
  - mike-cardwell 7y ago
    I live in Nottingham. There are tonnes of tech jobs here in the Midlands, and housing is quite affordable.
    - davman 7y ago
      And yet the tech scene in Leicester is awful in comparison :(
- dev_north_east 7y ago
  > if people would actually would start moving somewhere else instead the same things would happens there. Not really. Unless everyone moves to the same place. We need to diversify from London. Having everything centred there is madness.
  - 7y ago

RickJWagner 7y ago

Totally intuitive. Kids have always been broke. It's a trope seen in movies and tv shows that go back several decades, because it mirrors real life. In the early working years, people have never had much money. (Fortunately, this later corrects.)

ck425 7y ago
The article was comparing the same age ranges through time though. Young people are less well off compared to previous young people and old folk are more well off compared to previous old folk.

ptah 7y ago

older generation is not wise at all. they should be saving for when the current pension and old age benefit system collapses. i guess they are the same people that gave us climate change so i am not surprised at their shortsightedness

hrktb 7y ago
A sizeable portion of the older generation having fun right now also owns property, and will massively oppose any political move that could depreciate their property values. Sadly I don't think they are out of their mind spending so much, a lot of them have passed the FU point (enough assets to live decently whatever time is left for them)
- ptah 7y ago
  the point is that it won't be a voluntary thing like a political move that will wipe them out economically
ThrustVectoring 7y ago
What you're saying makes sense for individuals, but not the generation as a whole. Total retiree spending is entirely financed by a combination of current tax receipts and selling assets. Pay-as-you-go and financially funded schemes are substantially equivalent here - current retiree consumption is 100% funded by current workers, the only difference being whether it's called something like "Social Security taxes" or "student loan payments". What additional saving does is improve the standard of living of current retirees, through increasing asset prices. What old people need is to invest in the productivity of current and future generations, so that society is rich enough to support them how they'd like without squeezing the life out of current workers.
imtringued 7y ago
They should spend their money as long as the current working population is large enough to satisfy the massive demand of the retirees. The workforce is shrinking over a long time frame. In 20 years there might be more pension money than there are workers to fulfill the demand. The end result is inflation because everyone is bidding prices up. Even if you double their savings, the end result could be zero because the inflation will eat the savings up. However, I don't think this is a big deal for the current boomer generation unless their average life expectancy suddenly reaches 90 but by the time I retire I wouldn't be surprised if there are labor shortages in developed countries.