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Guardian Unlimited Money | News_ | Study reveals financial crisis of the 18-40s:

Patrick Collinson
Tuesday March 28, 2006
The Guardian

An official government study into Britain's personal finances reveals a lost generation of 18- to 40-year-olds unable to cope with debts and soaring house prices, with alarmingly low levels of savings and little hope of building a decent pension.

The study, by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and Bristol University, published today, is the biggest of its kind undertaken in Britain. It paints a picture of a generational divide fuelled by higher education costs and the collapse of company pension schemes - with 42% of adults now with no pension and 70% with no meaningful savings.

The FSA will call today for a new national strategy to improve Britain's financial capability, including workplace-based financial seminars targeted at 4 million employees; making personal finance more prominent in the national curriculum from 2008; and "money doctor" packs which will be sent to 1.5 million new and prospective parents each year.

What a typical and completely ineffectual response. A few leaflets and seminars to tell people to do better. Whilst it is still important to ensure that those who have worked all their lives now have a decent quality of life in retirement, we need to radically rethink our economic and fiscal policies to address this looming generation of have-nots, including me!

All of this bullshit about us being better off than we ever have been and so on is worth nothing if that better off means that we slave longer and harder for it. The monetary system has created a similar problem to the feudal systems that preceded mass home ownership, only this time there is little way out because people just do not have the capability to build up that same asset backing as previous generations had.

Forbes reported recently that:

Making a billion just isn't what it used to be. In our inaugural ranking of the world’s richest people 20 years ago, we uncovered some 140 billionaires. Just three years ago we found 476. This year the list is a record 793. They’re worth a combined $2.6 trillion, up 18% since last March. Their average net worth: $3.3 billion.

India's quota, 23 people worth between them $99bn compares with per capita GDP of just $3,400. Lakshmi Mittal's fortune increased in one year by the equivalent of SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND UK median incomes. Now don't get me wrong, I do not believe in a zero sum wealth game. I'm not some rabid trot that thinks they only get rich because others are poor. They get rich because money attracts money, because of the system that they are so good at playing. Because assets are transferred from poor to rich through landlordism (check out how many of Britain's rich list as rich because they own large tracts of our common wealth, the land of the UK itself that the rest of us need to pay them to occupy) and debt money.

This is not a call for some kind of punitive taxation - what's the point if, like Philip and Cynthia Green you can go through a year paying something of the order of five figures only in tax anyway, but for a new predistributive system that allows us all to share in our birthright, this planet, equitably and gives people a chance.

Dr Tia MacGregor, who might have been my ward colleague if I were elected last year has ditched her Young Middle Class Assocation membership card and joined the, er, Young Middle Class PartyTories.

As foretold on Tuesday here, she has joined Paul (is-it-a-middle-name-or-some-affectation-I-ought-to-drop-if-I'm-joining-the-party-of-the-aristocracy) "Austin" Sargent, in taking their little "Independent Group" on Oxford City Council under Mr Cameron's wings. For the moment then it's just the two of them and at least they'll get to remain leader and deputy leader, Nanki-Poo and Poo-Bah, or whatever they want to style themselves.

Quoted in the Oxford Mail, Dr MacGregor said: "So far no one has said anything negative, but I am sure there will be people who are not happy with my decision to join the Conservatives when they voted for a Liberal Democrat."

I can now let you into a little secret Tia that most of your former colleagues were too polite to tell you; one reason you've not heard anything negative might be that most of your constituents don't know who you are. I lost count of how many doors I stood at canvassing last year having to mutter excuses for the Lib Dem councillor they never saw, never heard from and didn't know. And of those who did appear to know you, I sincerely doubt many of them would be happy with your decision.

Apparently "they did not quit the council and call a by-election because of the cost to the taxpayer."

What about the cost to the reputation, already at rock bottom, of the democratic system, the cost to the voters who have been thoroughly defrauded by your actions? In what way have your councillors allowances and time been spent representing them when you're no longer in the party they voted for? Googling around I see that District by-elections cost somewhere between £1500 and £3000 per ward in other authorities. Or about a pound per household. Since, Tia, you say that "I am impressed with [Tory] policies and on a personal level their views on the NHS" (which are what, precisely?) if we can raise that amount privately, will you go and seek a second opinion from your constituents?

And how can your new hero Dave say that Gordon Brown will lack a mandate without a General Election while embracing your treachery and refusal to consult the people who put you where you are?

I got tagged by James Graham. But being a terrible recluse with no friends, and having seen almost everyone I know in the blogosphere tagged by someone else, I decided that I would give my response over at Lib Dem Voice.

Technorati Tags: gordon brown meme

Heard in the office* earlier today. Is Reid standing to make Gordo look like a good thing to Labour members?

*I share an office with a member of Labour's NEC who was asked by another colleague what she thought of the leadership possibilities from what I can gather.