What made you UNHAPPY today!

[EGTE]

Thanks for your sympathy. I drive a Lotus.

[Clive59]

Can't you take it to court? He was breaking law staying in outside lane FFS. One of my pet peeves, UK is much better behaved generally than Australia though!

[march]

4 hours ago, EGTE said:

Thanks for your sympathy. I drive a Lotus.

Nope, not much sympathy for anyone undertaking in a 2 lane environment, the last one to do it to me nearly killed me (and my Lotus).

[EGTE]

Umm he was blocking the whole road for miles and miles and miles, begin extremely belligerent; it wasn't just a blast-past job. Sadly no camera in the car and unwilling to use mobile, so I'm screwed.

[ramjet]

Can't you point out that he was getting the film illegally with his phone? I presume you are being fined for the undertaking thing?

As Clive says above, Australia is shocking for people staying in the right hand lane. It is against the law to remain in the right hand lane unless you are overtaking a vehicle travelling at less than the speed limit.

Don't know how many times I have indicated to move right and slowed to move over behind the car beside me, only to have the car following (in the right hand lane as well) tailgate so that there is no safe room to move into, or the car behind me in the left lane ducking into the right lane and tailgating as well.

Several times I have just made the decision to indicate left, pull out of the traffic and wait for everyone to go past and then I move over to the lane I need to be in to turn right at the next intersection.

[Kimbers]

This has F**king outraged me. Absolute pandering to the Youth for votes. How can this not be Discrimination after a lifetime of paying their dues!!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48046595

'End pensioner benefits to help young', peers say

• Removing the triple lock for pensions - ensuring the weekly allowance rises by a minimum of 2.5% every year
• Phasing out free TV licences based on age (currently free for over 75s) and ensuring the government decides on whether to give free licences based on household income
• Limiting free bus passes for the over 65s and winter fuel payments until five years after retirement age

[oilmagnet477]

Kimbers - all this does is to illuminate how broken the welfare system is!

I agree with you in principle, however, by the time the current 'youth' come to pension age, having paid significantly more in dues (at least financially, if not in sacrifices elsewhere) than the baby boom generation, there is likely to be much less cash available and they won't get a state pension until 70+ (IMO).

I'm older than you and therefore closer to receiving any pension due but I can see how unaffordable the current state of affairs is (and I have contributed since the age of 16). Our Politics is broken (as has been made evident by the last 3 years) so I won't challenge on the vote attracting, but that's nothing new. The grey vote is still massive - The triple lock was a MASSIVE vote bribe to them.

Tax pounds in the UK need to be spent better. It seems any administration is always happy to sign away £billions on questionable projects (HS2, Trident replacement etc etc) but can never find enough money to fund the things that matter to real people on the ground (Education, Support for the needy etc).

It is always easy to look back and imagine things were better in the old days but the current youth don't benefit from any form of Mortgage Tax relief or enough affordable houses. I'll probably be very unpopular in my view but second home ownership should be taxed out of existence IMO. That would go along way to providing a market correction. Until (if ever?) we get away from the relatively recent concept of houses being investments instead of somewhere to live, I think it unlikely anything will change.

 

[Kimbers]

Start with Affordable housing. It should not be massive estates taking up loads of countryside, with the majority 3,4,5 bed houses it should be Flats and Apartments. You can build 30x 1 and 2 bed apartments in the same space as 5x 2 bed houses, by building up! And they are much much cheaper. But Part of the issue with this is that (like locally to us here) they build a set of apartments and sell the first 2 floors then the 3rd floor is social housing. The people who own their flats suddenly find that the council is housing released prisoners and drug addict in the same block and no one can sell their flat! There needs to be a total change in our attitudes to housing and social housing.   

Totally agree with spending of tax money. With only 5 year terms in Office different parties spend to get votes rather than for the good of the country. And sorry to sound like Trump but spend on our own country before others. How on earth we constantly allow Foreign Aid when we have thousands of people sleeping on the streets (Including children) over a million Pensioners not able to pay their own heating bills to keep warm or feed themselves properly and 3 million kids living in unacceptable poverty.

Your Hs2 is a well made point and should be cancelled immediately. Water, Electricity and Railways should be nationalised (I'm not a socialist but believe certain services should be state owned but run properly by business men rather than the Govt). They make Billions a year and that money could be reinvested to help those most in need. 

1 hour ago, oilmagnet477 said:

Kimbers - all this does is to illuminate how broken the welfare system is!

I agree with you in principle, however, by the time the current 'youth' come to pension age, having paid significantly more in dues (at least financially, if not in sacrifices elsewhere) than the baby boom generation, there is likely to be much less cash available and they won't get a state pension until 70+ (IMO).

I agree. My first introduction would be, Disabilities and conditions aside, if you are fit to work and on Welfare then you work to earn your welfare. I'm not talking working 40 hours to get your dole (i.e. slave labour) I'm talking "An equivalent amount of hours to your payout". £150 a week at £10 an hour you do 15 hours community service or volunteering at a hospital etc. I volunteer 50 hours a month and fit it in around a full time job so I am sure someone on Welfare can do it!

As for your point on current youth, one of the reasons they will pay more is because the country has been so badly managed by so many Govts for so many years. Wasted Trillions. Your point on retiring.....does anyone here seriously expect to retire? My pension is worth less than I pay in it monthly (£300 a month and it's worth £240 a month from the age of 67) so I don't expect to retire at all! I will HAVE To keep working and partly why I am starting to set up my own business, so I can do something "Gentler" as I get older and can do from my own home. I can't afford to retire and I suspect neither can the majority of people here.

Lastly, I have 2 sons who are both Autistic and they both work 60 hours a week in a minimum wage job. Funny, cause I did that working 2 jobs when I was young and my dad earnt £1 a week as an apprentice for a similar 72 hour week. We afforded our houses based on bloody hard work, long hours and dedication and only now at 52 can I enjoy that hard work...... though I still maintain 2 jobs (One I do for free). It's not new Ant. It's just working hard for what you get. Something most of my son's friends don't understand constantly telling them they work too hard and if they didn't work, like them,  the state will look after them or their parents and they could spend more time online. 

[andydclements]

There are big problems with nationalised industries, basically they don't have to be financially fit. Take British Leyland/ Rover as an example of a poor company that just kept sucking up money to produce poor products.

Regional Electricity Companies were probably no better,  in fact look at this report, and you'll see how in the 80s they were very inefficient, but after a few years in private hands (having to deliver dividends, or else the Execs get booted out) things improved way above the normal level.

https://www.ifs.org.uk/fs/articles/0036a.pdf

Table 1

1985– 86 RECs 90, UK production industries 84

 

1997– 98

RECs  196  (that's a 100% improvement)

UK production industries  129 (rest of industry achieved 50%)

 

So, either Electricity companies became the shining examples of how to be efficient, or they were more poorly run tan the rest in the early 80s. I suspect it was the latter.

[Kimbers]

I did mention above "but run properly by business men rather than the Govt". 

[C8RKH]

@oilmagnet477 I do think there is a rather nice shade of rosy pink to your spectacles re the past and maybe a little too much sympathy for the youth of today.

My mother worked from 16 through to 65, she is now 75. She has had Parkinsons for 10 years and whilst she is OK financially (not great, OK so no need to worry about the heating bills) she has no own transport. She lives in a town of 40,000 people in the North West of England. She could, until a few months use the bus to get about. But then they cut the bus services - first no Bank Holiday nor Sunday service, then reduced service on a Saturday, then 40% of the routes stopped.  She broke her femur in 3 places a few months back, so even if there was a bus running she couldn't use it as most bus drivers drive like "twats" and wouldn't wait for her to be sat down before launching themselves forward like max Verstappen at the start of a grand prix.  She paid her taxes for 49 years before she retired from working. The only thing she currently gets from the state is a reduced state pension (women who worked - usually with kids in the 70's and 80's - could pay a reduced NI stamp and she needed the few extra quid that that gave her then), winter fuel payment when triggered, a bus pass (about as much use as Corbyn in a negotiation) and rebate on her council tax. Hardly a massive drain in the tax take given what has she put in.

I started work at 16 (and paying NIC) and full time at 18. When I bought my first house my wage was £4.5k per year and the house I bought - a two bedroom terraced house) was £25k - so a multiple of just over 5!  And nothing more than a modest small house to boot. Interest rates were around 5-6% when i bought (not the 1 or 2% they have been for the past 10 years ish) and then they shot up to 14-17% and I had three jobs on the go just to keep the payments up on the mortgage and bills. I'd hardly say life was easy when I was 18-27.....

So, yes, it might not be easy for kids today, but relatively speaking it is not any harder than it was then, and unemployment rates are significantly lower now than then meaning there are jobs out there.  My son works in a local retail place. He makes about £13-14k a year right now at 21 but has a good life at home.  He does not pay us board as he saves like a squirrel knowing winter is coming. He enjoys life but does not waste his cash on drink and flippant things and so even on his wage, and at his age, he has saved up enough money to put a 40% deposit down on a flat!  It can be done! Graduates these days expect a starting salary of between £20k and £34k depending on job and location. Most of them believe they have a right to just "get stuff" and many of them would not know what a hard days graft was if their lives depended on it. Some of them are just useless, feckless bastards who just spend all day dreaming up scams and schemes to get rich quick via the internet/instagram/snapchat or whatever. Not all of them, but some of them. Some of them are not useless or feckless at all and actually put a huge amount of effort into the "online" escapades and from humble backgrounds actually make a lot of spondoolies - like in all walks of life, backgrounds etc - those that are prepared to put in the effort get rewarded.

Here's the rub - there is NO entitlement to own a home. To get a mortgage. To get a house. Yet alone two, or three etc.  There is nothing wrong with renting. Most of Europe rents and not buys. We have screwed it up in the Uk through our greed - we buy a house as an investment not as somewhere to live - we pray for it to rise in value so we can remortgage to go on a cruise, buy a new car, whatever. Then complain along with our children about how expensive houses are - no shit Sherlock - really!

We need to stop apologising for being a generation that generally worked hard. that took our chances. That made our own luck. That generated some wealth that we can enjoy in later life. And the younger generation just need to stop thinking they are entitled, get off their arses and do stuff - those that are doing stuff are actually generally doing quite well and getting on. it's the entitled ones that create all the noise and stamp their feet as life is not fair.

Just the opinion of a 52 year old middle aged spread male, who has fully paid up his contributions for his state pension with 36 years in the system, and will be paying in to it for another 16 years at least for no additional benefit whatsoever for himself whilst also paying a considerable sum in general taxation for each of those 36 years and hopefully the 16 still to come. Who said it - "meh, they've never had it so good....."!  :) 

 

 

 

[oilmagnet477]

You and I are exactly the same age and I suspect have a very similar view on life!

I agree with you and I wasn't necessarily saying that the past was great - it is just that there was historically a very different set up which tended to support the average family (not saying it was wrong, just unsustainable at Govt level).

My Dad built up and ran his own company from the late 60s until forced into Bankruptcy in the early 90s (another story!), my Mum largely stayed at home but also had a part time job. I cannot imagine how hard it was being 'entrepreneurial' through the 70s. They did, however, benefit from Married persons tax allowance, 100% Mortgage tax relief and house prices that reflected your annual wage (not 5x multiples).

It is always dangerous to generalise and I see many great kids today who are prepared to work f****** hard, just like you and me and those before us. I went through the same hideous interest rate crisis as you did and had a house repossessed as a result (which took me 10 years of chuffing blood sweat and tears to recover from but I repaid every penny and didn't declare myself personally bust (which would have been quicker and cheaper) - we did though benefit from 100% mortgages and low deposit requirements.

We all (well most of us I hope) try to make the best of the opportunities we are presented with at the time but I genuinely feel for any one who has to save up £50-60k as a deposit on even a modest income.

I exclude ALL spongers from my assessment - they deserve what they get. The genuinely in need I would support with my last penny and I fear successive Govts have left many of these people behind in an attempt to weed out the spongers.

Happy days 

[Barrykearley]

It’s easier just to blame everyone else and accept no responsibility for your own life.

seems to be the way of the world these days

[C8RKH]

15 minutes ago, oilmagnet477 said:

You and I are exactly the same age and I suspect have a very similar view on life!

I agree with you and I wasn't necessarily saying that the past was great - it is just that there was historically a very different set up which tended to support the average family (not saying it was wrong, just unsustainable at Govt level).

My Dad built up and ran his own company from the late 60s until forced into Bankruptcy in the early 90s (another story!), my Mum largely stayed at home but also had a part time job. I cannot imagine how hard it was being 'entrepreneurial' through the 70s. They did, however, benefit from Married persons tax allowance, 100% Mortgage tax relief and house prices that reflected your annual wage (not 5x multiples).

It is always dangerous to generalise and I see many great kids today who are prepared to work f****** hard, just like you and me and those before us. I went through the same hideous interest rate crisis as you did and had a house repossessed as a result (which took me 10 years of chuffing blood sweat and tears to recover from but I repaid every penny and didn't declare myself personally bust (which would have been quicker and cheaper) - we did though benefit from 100% mortgages and low deposit requirements.

We all (well most of us I hope) try to make the best of the opportunities we are presented with at the time but I genuinely feel for any one who has to save up £50-60k as a deposit on even a modest income.

I exclude ALL spongers from my assessment - they deserve what they get. The genuinely in need I would support with my last penny and I fear successive Govts have left many of these people behind in an attempt to weed out the spongers.

Happy days 

I do indeed agree with a lot of what you say there...!

[Chillidoggy]

58 minutes ago, C8RKH said:

@oilmagnet477 I do think there is a rather nice shade of rosy pink to your spectacles re the past and maybe a little too much sympathy for the youth of today.

My mother worked from 16 through to 65, she is now 75. She has had Parkinsons for 10 years and whilst she is OK financially (not great, OK so no need to worry about the heating bills) she has no own transport. She lives in a town of 40,000 people in the North West of England. She could, until a few months use the bus to get about. But then they cut the bus services - first no Bank Holiday nor Sunday service, then reduced service on a Saturday, then 40% of the routes stopped.  She broke her femur in 3 places a few months back, so even if there was a bus running she couldn't use it as most bus drivers drive like "twats" and wouldn't wait for her to be sat down before launching themselves forward like max Verstappen at the start of a grand prix.  She paid her taxes for 49 years before she retired from working. The only thing she currently gets from the state is a reduced state pension (women who worked - usually with kids in the 70's and 80's - could pay a reduced NI stamp and she needed the few extra quid that that gave her then), winter fuel payment when triggered, a bus pass (about as much use as Corbyn in a negotiation) and rebate on her council tax. Hardly a massive drain in the tax take given what has she put in.

I started work at 16 (and paying NIC) and full time at 18. When I bought my first house my wage was £4.5k per year and the house I bought - a two bedroom terraced house) was £25k - so a multiple of just over 5!  And nothing more than a modest small house to boot. Interest rates were around 5-6% when i bought (not the 1 or 2% they have been for the past 10 years ish) and then they shot up to 14-17% and I had three jobs on the go just to keep the payments up on the mortgage and bills. I'd hardly say life was easy when I was 18-27.....

So, yes, it might not be easy for kids today, but relatively speaking it is not any harder than it was then, and unemployment rates are significantly lower now than then meaning there are jobs out there.  My son works in a local retail place. He makes about £13-14k a year right now at 21 but has a good life at home.  He does not pay us board as he saves like a squirrel knowing winter is coming. He enjoys life but does not waste his cash on drink and flippant things and so even on his wage, and at his age, he has saved up enough money to put a 40% deposit down on a flat!  It can be done! Graduates these days expect a starting salary of between £20k and £34k depending on job and location. Most of them believe they have a right to just "get stuff" and many of them would not know what a hard days graft was if their lives depended on it. Some of them are just useless, feckless bastards who just spend all day dreaming up scams and schemes to get rich quick via the internet/instagram/snapchat or whatever. Not all of them, but some of them. Some of them are not useless or feckless at all and actually put a huge amount of effort into the "online" escapades and from humble backgrounds actually make a lot of spondoolies - like in all walks of life, backgrounds etc - those that are prepared to put in the effort get rewarded.

Here's the rub - there is NO entitlement to own a home. To get a mortgage. To get a house. Yet alone two, or three etc.  There is nothing wrong with renting. Most of Europe rents and not buys. We have screwed it up in the Uk through our greed - we buy a house as an investment not as somewhere to live - we pray for it to rise in value so we can remortgage to go on a cruise, buy a new car, whatever. Then complain along with our children about how expensive houses are - no shit Sherlock - really!

We need to stop apologising for being a generation that generally worked hard. that took our chances. That made our own luck. That generated some wealth that we can enjoy in later life. And the younger generation just need to stop thinking they are entitled, get off their arses and do stuff - those that are doing stuff are actually generally doing quite well and getting on. it's the entitled ones that create all the noise and stamp their feet as life is not fair.

Just the opinion of a 52 year old middle aged spread male, who has fully paid up his contributions for his state pension with 36 years in the system, and will be paying in to it for another 16 years at least for no additional benefit whatsoever for himself whilst also paying a considerable sum in general taxation for each of those 36 years and hopefully the 16 still to come. Who said it - "meh, they've never had it so good....."!   

 

 

 

52? Pffft.

I’d had you pegged at 61, at least.

[C8RKH]

16 minutes ago, oilmagnet477 said:

They did, however, benefit from Married persons tax allowance, 100% Mortgage tax relief and house prices that reflected your annual wage (not 5x multiples).

I genuinely feel for any one who has to save up £50-60k as a deposit on even a modest income.

 

However, they do these days have "help to buy schemes", zero deposit schemes and also increasingly shared ownership schemes where you buy say 25-40% of the house, rent the rest and can then buy a bigger share as you grow older and can afford it. Then, like my 25 year old daughter, there are the "help to save ISA's" that thje government puts free money into to help/encourage youngsters to save for a deposit and other schemes too. As I said, it is in reality no harder now than it was then. It is certainly NOT harder now, nor was it easier then!

The £50-£60k deposit is I would guess a "southern" England thing.  Here in Scotland you can get a really nice 2 bed flat in a nice town/city for anywhere between £60-£100k - as Tebbit said they can get on their bikes and move!  The south of England is not THE ONLY place to live surely?  I've spent my time in my career working all over the palce and regularly moved for a job/promotion whatever. I never expected it to land on my door step.

I do think our views are similar, I do think I am probably less tolerant than you and probably not as nice a person!  ( That's a compliment by the way - I don;t give them often so you better bloody well enjoy it!  lol...)

8 minutes ago, Chillidoggy said:

52? Pffft.

I’d had you pegged at 61, at least.

That's my waist!  I was entitled to eat the pies and so IO bloody well ate the pies!

[andydclements]

1 hour ago, Kimbers said:

I did mention above "but run properly by business men rather than the Govt". 

But that doesn't really work, because any nationalised industry knows that if it runs out of money, they'll get it from the government.So they can spend what they want rather than what they can afford.

[C8RKH]

1 hour ago, andydclements said:

But that doesn't really work, because any nationalised industry knows that if it runs out of money, they'll get it from the government.So they can spend what they want rather than what they can afford.

Yup, and that works really well in France. Oh, erm, sorry, well it doesn't work but you know what I mean....

[Barrykearley]

2 hours ago, C8RKH said:

The £50-£60k deposit is I would guess a "southern" England thing.  Here in Scotland you can get a really nice 2 bed flat in a nice town/city for anywhere between £60-£100k - as Tebbit said they can get on their bikes and move!  The south of England is not THE ONLY place to live surely?  I've spent my time in my career working all over the palce and regularly moved for a job/promotion whatever. I never expected it to land on my door step

Scotland..... oh come on folks don’t want to live in the dark ages 🎣

[C8RKH]

Says the man who lives in Worcestershire where the only things that look worried after dark are the sheep and the chickens!   🐑🐔💔

[Barrykearley]

Can’t beat a bit of leg pulling @C8RKH. Folks just don’t get it these days.

I’m a child of thatcher, grew up in a top floor council flat, worked flat out once old enough to have a paper round. Kids these days simply don’t get it.

[oilmagnet477]

"Southern" does not mean ANYWHERE south of Scotch Corner!

I live in the East of England and it is where I was born and raised but along the way I've moved south to Surrey and then North to West Yorkshire (gorgeous but F'king expensive) and back to Norfolk.

We moved here ostensibly because back in 2005 it allowed us to upscale house and keep the same overhead BUT more importantly because I have family here and we wanted to have closer ties (and make use of GParents when we had younger kids)

Getting on your bike is, I agree, a great way to get started but there are many reasons why some don't or can't move. We were lucky to have the balls/confidence/cash/job security to make a move but I readily accept that this doesn't suit all. For example, the amount we spent on child care, before I went PT and looked after the kids, virtually wiped out any benefit of me working.

I am lucky enough that I now live in an idyllic setting in rural Norfolk (after several moves, much DIY home improvement and significant personal cost and discomfort) but we have now accommodated my elderly MIL on site to avoid the cost and crap alternative of leaving her in care. Multi-level Family living used to be accepted as the norm back in the day but now seems as acceptable as eating meat. I love one and am not so in love with the other but that's life.

PS I love Scotland and would move in a heart beat but would have to terminate Sturgeon first!

PPS - this goes back somewhat to my gripe with second home ownership but if we all moved north to Scotland, none of the locals could afford a house and we'd be back to the "Come home to a real fire - buy a cottage in Wales scenario". Moving isn't the simple answer - it is all wrapped up in too many people for not enough homes - how you solve that one is anyone's guess (and probably a whole new forum!)

[Barrykearley]

10 minutes ago, oilmagnet477 said:

PS I love Scotland and would move in a heart beat but would have to terminate Sturgeon first

Don’t upset @C8RKH he loves her

[oilmagnet477]

20 minutes ago, Barrykearley said:

I’m a child of thatcher

So, if Dennis wasn't your Dad, then who was????

She used to have a real thing for Ronald Reagan...................

[Fueltheburn]

5 hours ago, Barrykearley said:

Don’t upset @C8RKH he loves her

For the record. Most of us hate Jimmy Cranky.

Enough of the independence... YOU LOST!