By Daviemoo
We’re trapped in a death spiral of poor economy in the UK. Inflation continues to be manipulated by the Bank of England, the Conservatives continue to waste British taxpayer money on dealing with piffling issues like illegalising the inhalation of laughing gas or million pound schemes to deport innocents- but this is only half the problem. A fiscally irresponsible government is detrimental to the foundations of a country’s wealth- but a politically ignorant nation adds to the problem, and this is the perfect storm we’re weathering across the UK. People simply do not understand how an economy functions and are fed by those who may understand but who toe the line of those in charge- and it’s time to debunk the nonsense.
Economics of a country is not like household economics. Many similar terms are used but these terms exist in their own vacuum. Talking about national debt as though it is the same as an unpaid credit card is ridiculous: National debt in normal times exists because governments sink wealth into key areas of infrastructure, investing into the nation to allow for future growth- is it better public transport to allow people to travel further and cheaper for work? Is it more robust means of education to help everyone gain higher qualifications or pursue niche roles? It doesn’t matter- the people of the UK are glibly swallowing nonsensicalities spat out by tories and their enablers when it comes to national debt. National debt is a positive, it shows governments trying to improve, rather than hoard gold like Smaug in a top-hat.
Additionally, the almost inconceivably vast number of articles written by middle class middle aged well to do pundits, slating “this generation”, talking about overpriced coffees and avocado toast… There’s a perception that the “next” generation is wasteful, that we don’t invest, that we’re irresponsible and we’d rather buy frivolous nonsense than get a mortgage.
You just know I could pull out any number of graphs that show how house pricing hasn’t kept up with property prices, that people live in houses bought in 1987, my year of birth which have quadrupled or more in price. Yes, salaries were lower- but parity was closer than anything we’ve ever experienced in our adolescence. The never ending cycle of blaming us for not being able to buy property is so tedious I could cry whenever I read it, wanting to shake some sense into those who wrote it. People used to be able to have a house and a car on a single wage- now I work two jobs and still cant afford a mortgage, because my rent goes up annually, council tax does, electricity is 5 times the price of the EU’s wholesaling- But this leads on to another demonstration of the easy ignorance displayed by so many of the “we had it hard in our day too!” Crowd.
“The average house in the UK currently costs almost nine times the UK’s average earnings, based on data as at 30 November 2022. The last time house prices were this expensive relative to average earnings was in the year 1876, nearly 150 years ago.”
Research on the terrifying truth of house price and salary disconnection
You want people to stop spending frivolously, as if that £3 every Tuesday and Thursday on a medium coffee from Costa is what’s holding us back from mortgages- what do you see these frivolous purchases as? Let’s say everyone, every single adolescent wholesale stopped buying our coffees or our Tesco meal deals. How would that affect the economy?
People all too easily forget that economy runs on interaction. No it’s not, of course, at the same scale as a house purchase- the mere act of inquiring about a mortgage creates more wealth in the economy. But economies function on many levels, and I doubt all of us no longer making purchases with what we earn would positively affect the economy!
The issue that so many of these article spitting vipers and their faithful adherents miss, is that we are a generation who grew up on lies and fairytales. We were told the UK was a huge successful country, all whilst being told it wasn’t actually ours as anything but symbols and iconography.
You come from the greatest country in the world – but unless it’s shaking a St. George’s Cross in the face of someone who just lost to our football team, what does that mean for us? Since 2009 we’ve been under austerity, austerity 2.0, austerity 3, revenge of the austerity. Then they offered the masses another trove of lies wrapped up in a cheap hope costume: brexit. “Do you want things to stay like this, or do you want change? Do you want to try and go back to the halcyon days of being a superpower or do you want to be like… this” they said after beginning the Y incision into public services and investment. Hardly a mystery as to why everything went the way it did.
But what was our reward? Are we a world renowned superpower again?
Here’s some things which have happened since that vote.
*A prime minister caught lying to the public, throwing parties and shirking his vital duties during a deadly pandemic which took 250,000 of our fellows away
*An economic pummelling with our exports up but the economy flatlining because the real terms cost of export has become prohibitive for businesses
*A government paralysed by the venom of scandal: Lies, blackmail, sexual assault, infighting and more
*Brexit decimating the British economy even worse than coronavirus- which also hit the economy
*Another prime minister who only knows how to write 80087355 on a calculator and who blew a £1`00,000,000,000 hole in the economy through fiscal ignorance
*A Health Secretary who hired his friend with public money then proceeded to damply grope her on camera when his role was to prevent us from being killed
*An education secretary who was so stupid that he was knighted for keeping his mouth shut about the first prime minister’s dodgy behaviour
*PPE VIP Lanes ruled illegal and dealt with illegally
*The vital app that would keep us all safe during the pandemic being handed over to a woman whose nickname was Dido “Dataloss” Harding, who could not be removed because her husband is the person who you report nepotism in governmental appointments to!
*The app losing thousands of peoples data as predicted
*A scandal about lobbying where a government minister was paid vast sums on his already huge salary to promote a company not fit to handle contracts, which ended up worsening the pandemic
*An “eat out to help out” scheme that spread the virus made by our current prime minister who was too distracted hiding he and his wife’s immigration status so they could save on taxation on their £731 million fortune
This isn’t even an exhaustive list- it just rolled off the tongue.
The problem isn’t young people buying Starbucks, the problem is complete fiscal idiocy from the top down and the seeding of ignorant ideas about frittering money on takeaways instead of an economy in free-fall, ridiculous ignorance of monetary crises and ignorant decisions and inaction leading to the irreconcilable divorce of the “next generation’s” normal life with the idea of being able to save enough money to be able to live well.
As the cost of living continues, as the government continues to slurp lazily at the toes of the tycoons who own big business across the UK- and now further afield as many have fled the disastrous consequences of a brexit they pushed for- we will continue to be tarred with the brush of lazy and feckless, when the simple truth is half of the blame lies with a government wholly incapable of doing the job they slithered into on untruths, and a nation of those who raped our generation’s wealth and laugh at us from behind their Scrooge McDuck bank vault doors, telling us to buy cheaper coffee and we’ll have a nice 2 up 2 down in six months.
One day soon this generation will begin to expire, and a generation of those trapped in dire straits will begin to wrap their hands around the controls of an economy in free-fall. One only hopes that they are not exhausted by the long fight to get there, and can wrest this wreckage into some form of control. In the mean time, before you offer solicitation on what we can give up to achieve the heady dream of property ownership, ask yourself how you got there, and wonder why you aren’t extending the hand of help to those who so sorely need it.
Politically Enraged 