7 ms·

I'm not super-rich and I'm doing fine in London. So is everyone I know and that includes nurses, programmers, artists and carers perhaps ironically. None of the

by buffoon 11y ago

I'm not super-rich and I'm doing fine in London. So is everyone I know and that includes nurses, programmers, artists and carers perhaps ironically. None of them are moving away. What is a big problem is hyperbole, media and vocal whiners. Social mobility is bollocks as well. It's perfectly possible to do it and it is easier than it has ever been due to the sheer piles of education available for little to nothing and the thousands of opportunities. Motivation and time are the only constraints. Edit: everyone I know has moved up the social ladder, if there is one. We all appear to be in the same shit at the end of the day.

DanBC 11y ago
Carer is a term defined in law as someone who provides care without being paid for it. Did you mean carer, or did you mean care worker?
- buffoon 11y ago
  Carer. My neighbor is one for her two disabled children. She sells art and things on ebay to make ends meet.
  - pjc50 11y ago
    Can she really make enough on ebay to pay for London rents? Or is she heavily dependent on benefits that are vulnerable to being cut, such as housing benefit and disability benefit?
    - buffoon 11y ago
      She has a mortgage that the benefits are paying interest only on and disability benefit as well for her children. She bought the house in 2002 so the mortgage isn't terrible. I think she breaks even every month on a good month. I will add that her husband died from bowel cancer in 2006. If ever you think your life is a bitch, it's a good comparison point.
      - branchless 11y ago
        That is insane. Why are working people paying someone's mortgage? The personal situation this woman finds herself in sounds dire and my sympathies go out to her. However from a financial point of view this is simply the state preventing mortgages from ever failing. Banks are protected by our taxes.
        DanBC 11y ago
        > Why are working people paying someone's mortgage? They aren't. They only pay the interest. The claimant still has to pay off the capital. Your lack of understanding of this bit of SMI (previously housing benefit (and this rule has been a rule of HB for very many years)) makes it pretty clear that you don't have a clue what you're talking about.
        branchless 11y ago
        Housing benefit is a major cause of the problems we have. It's "landlord benefit". Rents should not be topped up because landlords want more. If you don't think housing benefit is a problem we are just wasting time. Your view on market rates, on how land prices are set is just not thought-through. You don't understand how prices are set and are sadly one of a large bunch of people who want to help but who are making life worse for everyone because you want to get all touchy-feely instead of reading some books.
        pjc50 11y ago
        Housing benefit isn't brilliant, but we can't just cut it off without a huge expansion of council house building for people to live in instead.
        branchless 11y ago
        Sure I'm not proposing a single "solution". However I am saying that housing benefit is a substantial part of the near-enslavement of the UK. It's so bad even "shelter" haven't been calling for it recently as it dawns on them how things actually work and that they've been campaigning for the bankers for years.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
cjrp 11y ago
Just because you and everyone in your social group is doing fine, doesn't mean there isn't a problem. See, for example, the massive increase in food bank reliance.
- buffoon 11y ago
  I was brought up on a very rough London housing association estate in the 1970s and 1980s. Most of the people complaining do not know poverty or have anything to compare it to. Poverty for me was being sent out at the age of 5 to nick milk off people's doorsteps at 6am because the local food canteen was empty the night before and no one would dare kick a child in because the police might actually give a shit then...
  - IkmoIkmo 11y ago
    Again you can't take your single rags to riches or rags to middle class or whatever anecdotal story as evidence of a larger trend. I feel most sociologist who have looked at the numbers and they'll tell you it's not too pretty (although I agree it is often overblown and there are some obvious benefits for poor people in London who can benefit from a city with tons of solid infrastructure, e.g. in education which can be really beneficial). Anyway I hear a lot from friends in London that the gap between poor and middle class isn't all that bad. The poor get quite a bit of state support and seem to manage with a whole 'lot of compromise, and benefit from the opportunities of a metropolitan city with lots of talent, good schools etc more than say the poor would do in say Glasgow. But for (upper) middle class in London is where it gets tricky because the pricing is upper class, your income is middle class and state support for the middle class is negligible, and then for upper class it's fine as their income matches the city's pricing, their biggest worry is probably a possible housing bubble popping over the next decade, something the lower and probably much of the middle class too might even benefit from. This is just what I've heard, can you comment on that from your experience?
- gaius 11y ago
  If you give things away for free, people will take it and come back for more. That's all you can learn from food banks. Meanwhile the evil Tory government is capping benefits at more than the national average wage...
babatong 11y ago
Thank you! I can only second what you say. As a student living off savings from a previous minimum wage job, it is quite possible to live a comfortable life in London. Motivation and time are most certainly part of the few constraints. I'd like to add financial wit to that. Most people who struggle also struggle to control their finances in any way and spend irresponsively.
- buffoon 11y ago
  Financial wit is a killer definitely. A lot of people spend a lot of money on things that they don't need then complain about their life collapsing around them. I've done this before and spent 5 years digging myself out of it. Everything I'm saying is because I've learned about it the hard way. I'm glad to say that they teach this in secondary schools now. I have hope for the younger generations.
- hiram112 11y ago
  Come back and tell us what you think in 10 years if/when you're married and have a few kids. It is exactly the same with the tech hubs in the US - SF, Seattle, East Coast, etc. I'm from the midwest, which I suppose is the equivalent to North England. Like the author, one here needs to move to a hub to obtain an interesting position and good salary. The problem is that housing and other costs (tolls, taxes, etc.) have been pumped up so high, it is nearly impossible to live well (past your early 20s) in one of these cities, assuming you'll one day move out of the shared flat with 4 roomies. I've done the numbers, and the choices are grim: 1) Stay here with a high salary and job prospects but never have kids. 2) Have kids, move hours out of the city, and spend my life commuting. 3) Move back to the sticks, take a huge pay cut, work on crappy Enterprise crud apps, but at least live in something larger than 500 ft^2 studio in the ghetto.
  - buffoon 11y ago
    4) have three kids, work on crappy enterprise crud apps, live in a house in a nice area near good schools. It's fine. Seriously.
  - philbo87 11y ago
logingone 11y ago
Of the millions of people in London, how many of them do you know? Presumably a statistically significant proportion or you wouldn't mention it for risk of appearing blinkered and living in a bubble.

by buffoon 11y ago

DanBC 11y ago

Carer is a term defined in law as someone who provides care without being paid for it. Did you mean carer, or did you mean care worker?

buffoon 11y ago
Carer. My neighbor is one for her two disabled children. She sells art and things on ebay to make ends meet.
- pjc50 11y ago
  Can she really make enough on ebay to pay for London rents? Or is she heavily dependent on benefits that are vulnerable to being cut, such as housing benefit and disability benefit?
  - buffoon 11y ago
    She has a mortgage that the benefits are paying interest only on and disability benefit as well for her children. She bought the house in 2002 so the mortgage isn't terrible. I think she breaks even every month on a good month. I will add that her husband died from bowel cancer in 2006. If ever you think your life is a bitch, it's a good comparison point.
    - branchless 11y ago
      That is insane. Why are working people paying someone's mortgage? The personal situation this woman finds herself in sounds dire and my sympathies go out to her. However from a financial point of view this is simply the state preventing mortgages from ever failing. Banks are protected by our taxes.
      - DanBC 11y ago
        > Why are working people paying someone's mortgage? They aren't. They only pay the interest. The claimant still has to pay off the capital. Your lack of understanding of this bit of SMI (previously housing benefit (and this rule has been a rule of HB for very many years)) makes it pretty clear that you don't have a clue what you're talking about.
        branchless 11y ago
        Housing benefit is a major cause of the problems we have. It's "landlord benefit". Rents should not be topped up because landlords want more. If you don't think housing benefit is a problem we are just wasting time. Your view on market rates, on how land prices are set is just not thought-through. You don't understand how prices are set and are sadly one of a large bunch of people who want to help but who are making life worse for everyone because you want to get all touchy-feely instead of reading some books.
        pjc50 11y ago
        Housing benefit isn't brilliant, but we can't just cut it off without a huge expansion of council house building for people to live in instead.
        branchless 11y ago
        Sure I'm not proposing a single "solution". However I am saying that housing benefit is a substantial part of the near-enslavement of the UK. It's so bad even "shelter" haven't been calling for it recently as it dawns on them how things actually work and that they've been campaigning for the bankers for years.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

cjrp 11y ago

Just because you and everyone in your social group is doing fine, doesn't mean there isn't a problem. See, for example, the massive increase in food bank reliance.

buffoon 11y ago
I was brought up on a very rough London housing association estate in the 1970s and 1980s. Most of the people complaining do not know poverty or have anything to compare it to. Poverty for me was being sent out at the age of 5 to nick milk off people's doorsteps at 6am because the local food canteen was empty the night before and no one would dare kick a child in because the police might actually give a shit then...
- IkmoIkmo 11y ago
  Again you can't take your single rags to riches or rags to middle class or whatever anecdotal story as evidence of a larger trend. I feel most sociologist who have looked at the numbers and they'll tell you it's not too pretty (although I agree it is often overblown and there are some obvious benefits for poor people in London who can benefit from a city with tons of solid infrastructure, e.g. in education which can be really beneficial). Anyway I hear a lot from friends in London that the gap between poor and middle class isn't all that bad. The poor get quite a bit of state support and seem to manage with a whole 'lot of compromise, and benefit from the opportunities of a metropolitan city with lots of talent, good schools etc more than say the poor would do in say Glasgow. But for (upper) middle class in London is where it gets tricky because the pricing is upper class, your income is middle class and state support for the middle class is negligible, and then for upper class it's fine as their income matches the city's pricing, their biggest worry is probably a possible housing bubble popping over the next decade, something the lower and probably much of the middle class too might even benefit from. This is just what I've heard, can you comment on that from your experience?
gaius 11y ago
If you give things away for free, people will take it and come back for more. That's all you can learn from food banks. Meanwhile the evil Tory government is capping benefits at more than the national average wage...

babatong 11y ago

Thank you! I can only second what you say. As a student living off savings from a previous minimum wage job, it is quite possible to live a comfortable life in London. Motivation and time are most certainly part of the few constraints. I'd like to add financial wit to that. Most people who struggle also struggle to control their finances in any way and spend irresponsively.

buffoon 11y ago
Financial wit is a killer definitely. A lot of people spend a lot of money on things that they don't need then complain about their life collapsing around them. I've done this before and spent 5 years digging myself out of it. Everything I'm saying is because I've learned about it the hard way. I'm glad to say that they teach this in secondary schools now. I have hope for the younger generations.
hiram112 11y ago
Come back and tell us what you think in 10 years if/when you're married and have a few kids. It is exactly the same with the tech hubs in the US - SF, Seattle, East Coast, etc. I'm from the midwest, which I suppose is the equivalent to North England. Like the author, one here needs to move to a hub to obtain an interesting position and good salary. The problem is that housing and other costs (tolls, taxes, etc.) have been pumped up so high, it is nearly impossible to live well (past your early 20s) in one of these cities, assuming you'll one day move out of the shared flat with 4 roomies. I've done the numbers, and the choices are grim: 1) Stay here with a high salary and job prospects but never have kids. 2) Have kids, move hours out of the city, and spend my life commuting. 3) Move back to the sticks, take a huge pay cut, work on crappy Enterprise crud apps, but at least live in something larger than 500 ft^2 studio in the ghetto.
- buffoon 11y ago
  4) have three kids, work on crappy enterprise crud apps, live in a house in a nice area near good schools. It's fine. Seriously.
- philbo87 11y ago

logingone 11y ago

Of the millions of people in London, how many of them do you know? Presumably a statistically significant proportion or you wouldn't mention it for risk of appearing blinkered and living in a bubble.