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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Baby Boomers
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Anglo Catholic Relict
Shipmate
# 17213
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by OddJob:
So far nobody's actually defined which baby boom they're referring to. A major boom occured just after World War 2, followed by another in the early 1960s, whilst we're probably in the midst of one right now. AFAIK the peak occurred in 1962 - in GB at least.
Baby booms go in waves. When one boom generation matures, it creates another.
Posts: 585 | Registered: Jul 2012
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
AIUI the baby boom began in 1946 and lasted until 1965. The birthrates then were much higher than they had been in the preceding decades and than they were afterwards.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
AIUI the baby boom began in 1946 and lasted until 1965. The birthrates then were much higher than they had been in the preceding decades and than they were afterwards.
Moo
Which, as far as the USA was concerned, was the period between the end of WW2 and America's overt involvement in Vietnam.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.:
quote:
Originally posted by argona:
Yes, that's how it was. And even in the 70's, when I qualified, I read that on average, a teacher who retired at 65 was dead by 67.
I doubt teaching was such a brutally tiring occupation even in the 70's. In the US in 1975, a 65 year old had an additional life expectancy of 16.1 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control. And even in 1950, it would have been 13.9 years.
In the UK, that was what the figures were - and us women were made aware that retiring at 60, we could look forward to living well past 67. I certainly knew one head who died within a couple of years of retirement.
More recent figures, from Hansard, 2001, are "In the latest valuation report at 31 March 2001 the assumed life expectancy of teachers in normal health at age 60 was 26 years for men and 29 years for women. At age 65, assumed life expectancy would be about five years less than at age 60."
I was told at an NUT meeting that for every year taught after 60, life expectancy would drop by one year - which could be a conclusion from that answer from Stephen Twigg above.
I was born at the leading edge of the Bulge - I think Boomer seems to go on some time after the UK Bulge. (Thanks Oddjob for defining that.) My schooling and college training was mucked about by establishments getting ready for the expansion in the following year. I have always been aware that I was paying in for the support of those who came before me, who didn't have the chance to pay in for themselves before the establishment of the welfare state. And I am a bit puzzled about the use of the word welfare to imply something only for the poor - I grew up thinking welfare was for everyone, a common good, including the NHS, pensions, child benefit paid to the mother so she was independent of the man's income. It has become a negative, along with refugee, asylum seeker, human rights, when all of those things should be markers of a good society.
The idea that the people who have contributed to the generation before them should now be seen to have cheated the generation but one after them comes from the same Orwellian rewriting as that which redefined those words. I think it may be the lot after the Bulge, who also benefitted from free education etc, who have most to gain from dissing us.
And have you seen who runs the charity shops and other volunteer groups which support those who need support?
[ 29. August 2013, 21:49: Message edited by: Penny S ]
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
Fell foul of not noticing default human mode - the head who died shortly after retirement was a man who retired at 65.
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would love to belong
Shipmate
# 16747
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Posted
When I bought my first house in 1989, the mortgage interest rate was about to reach its post war peak in the UK of 15.4%. My recollection is that this was reached about April 1990. At the same time MIRAS (mortgage interest relief at source) was being phased out. I honestly thought that I would not survive.
Posts: 331 | From: Lost and confused | Registered: Oct 2011
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I went through that interest rate peak, as well. And without the benefit of the married man's property allowance on taxation, being a single woman (and one whose Dad had to complain to the building society that they were not putting into practice the change in the law that meant I didn't need a male guarantor).
There was an advantage, though. I had an endowment mortgage, and because of those high rates, the savings covered the capital of the loan, as they did not with later mortgages.
Yesterday, I heard about another problem for us Bulgy people - doesn't apply to me, but does to many. The sandwich situation, caring for the generation above, and also for the next but one, with grandparents providing child care, even while still, in some cases working. (Leaving aside the ones having to care for children with special needs.) As well as having to fund children into their 20s and possibly having them still in the family home.
The anti-boomery ignores those people.
And the people like the school cleaner who had to have several jobs to keep her family, and who I was horrified to find was younger than me, as she looked so much older. she was in the Boom generation.
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Oddjob: quote:
Most perceived difficulties stem from growing expectations. For example, how many 'struggling' younger people take foreign holidays, eat take-aways, own more than four changes of clothing and spend time relaxing instead of sitting at a table repairing things?
They may do and have all these things, but quite a lot of them are only able to afford them because they are locked out of the housing market. So they have enough money to buy a nice car on a 3-year instalment plan or a holiday in the Bahamas, but not enough to put down a deposit for a house and convince a lender that they can afford mortgage repayments.
Personally I'd say takeaways and ready meals are a result of lowered expectations...
[ 06. September 2013, 15:08: Message edited by: Jane R ]
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Oddjob: quote:
Most perceived difficulties stem from growing expectations. For example, how many 'struggling' younger people take foreign holidays, eat take-aways, own more than four changes of clothing and spend time relaxing instead of sitting at a table repairing things?
They may do and have all these things, but quite a lot of them are only able to afford them because they are locked out of the housing market.
Some of us can afford all those things and were still able to get a mortgage ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) .
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
My parents were 15 years married and with us 3 weans before they bought their first (and only) house. And it cost £2,100.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Our first house cost $80K. We bought when I was a student because it was cheaper to own than rent. Selling it allowed us to buy a bigger one for 135K 10 years later, which is now valued at >500K. We got in on the good part of the baby boom with houses. You see why baby boomers are hateful. A lot of them around there bought more than one house and rent them out now. Cheap, easy.
I'm also remembering gasoline at 18¢/gallon when I started driving, that'd be an Imperial gallon or 4.54 L (the USA one is 3.89 L). We were horrified when it went to 39.9¢ as I recall. Now we're paying $5.58 / gallon. Blame boomers for that too.
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
I'm getting heartily sick of facts and figures around here. Especially when they're not adjusted for inflation. Why can't you all just throw unsupported assertions at each other like usual?
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
Okay.
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
And I am a bit puzzled about the use of the word welfare to imply something only for the poor - I grew up thinking welfare was for everyone, a common good, including the NHS, pensions, child benefit paid to the mother so she was independent of the man's income.
I think the US is a bit behind the UK in thinking of all these things as entitlements rather than something only for the poor. That can be both good and bad. I think things like national health care are for the common good but I also believe that automatically paying child benefit to the mother "so she's independent of the man's income," is placing the male parent in a sort of villain mode and releasing him from his natural obligations.
As for young people buying cars and taking expensive holidays because they're "locked out of the housing market?" Is it inconceivable that they save that money for a few years until they can afford a down payment?
We didn't buy our first house until we were over fifty. Renting isn't poverty and I don't think home ownership should be considered an entitlement but something that comes with a little bit of "earnest" money demonstrated by saving up that down payment. As we said in banking they need to show both a willingness to pay and an ability to pay. Income shows the ability but only through savings and regular payments of utilities etc, do they show their willingness.
I'm a Boomer. My parents were WWII people and they and most of their friends worked, saved and sacrificed far beyond my peers to earn their lifestyle. My generation amazed me with their lack of ability to save money at all. While I was working in loans the finance rates on cars were as high as 18%. People would sit down with me to get a loan for a $20,000 car and I would read them the total cost of the loan with great emphasis, usually almost twice the sticker price of the car over a five year period. Try as I would I could never talk anyone out of these purchases. They also had huge credit card balances.
Now my friends and I are all retired and I see the result of a lifetime of paying double or triple for all the things they couldn't wait a few months to have. As military people we know exactly what all our friends earned over the years and fellow enlisted people and officers alike are retiring with nothing but their pensions. I have a friend who had the same, non-college educated job I have, whose husband retired at the same enlisted rank as my husband. They had no children. We had one we put through college. They retired with zero in savings and lots of credit card debt. We were able to pay cash for a new house and have over a million in savings. We didn't expect everyone to be the tightwads we were but they denied themselves nothing and are now in a state of panic if their furnace breaks.
Now there's a new generation* doing even more whining and less self denial plus the list of must have consumer goods grows larger.
*Excepting all the cool green, minimalist young people who are right after my heart.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Oddjob: quote:
Most perceived difficulties stem from growing expectations. For example, how many 'struggling' younger people take foreign holidays, eat take-aways, own more than four changes of clothing and spend time relaxing instead of sitting at a table repairing things?
They may do and have all these things, but quite a lot of them are only able to afford them because they are locked out of the housing market. So they have enough money to buy a nice car on a 3-year instalment plan or a holiday in the Bahamas, but not enough to put down a deposit for a house and convince a lender that they can afford mortgage repayments.
Personally I'd say takeaways and ready meals are a result of lowered expectations...
If they bought second-hand cars and skipped the expensive vacation for five or ten years, they would be able to afford a house. Later on, they would be able to afford new cars and expensive vacations.
Moo
[ 07. September 2013, 12:41: Message edited by: Moo ]
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
What's a new car? Expensive vacation? We had a weekend in Venice but the church funded that plus some camping holidays in France. Newest car is that we have now which was just under five years old when we bought it.
I suppose our main 'discretionary expense' over the years has been the choice to have five children rather than the more usual two or three. I don't know exactly what a child costs from birth to eighteen but it does necessitate a substantially bigger house, which we haven't been able to buy, but everyone gets on and we've been very lucky.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
My parents were 15 years married and with us 3 weans before they bought their first (and only) house. And it cost £2,100.
My Dad was a minister, so Mum worked to save up so that they could buy a house when he retired (Grandma looked after us kids).
The amount they saved and gleefully put in the building society? £500, which would easily have bought a house. There was no such thing as inflation then.
So, forty years later they spent the money - on a new 'fridge!
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif) ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
<edited to add, the rules changed and they were allowed to keep their house for both of the rest of their lives, no inherited property for me 'tho!>
[ 07. September 2013, 13:32: Message edited by: Boogie ]
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
My parents were 15 years married and with us 3 weans before they bought their first (and only) house. And it cost £2,100.
My Dad was a minister, so Mum worked to save up so that they could buy a house when he retired (Grandma looked after us kids).
The amount they saved and gleefully put in the building society? £500, which would easily have bought a house. There was no such thing as inflation then.
So, forty years later they spent the money - on a new 'fridge!
<edited to add, the rules changed and they were allowed to keep their house for both of the rest of their lives, no inherited property for me 'tho!>
Well my parents were both working on what would now be less than minimum wage. They couldn't afford to buy a house and in those days people didn't lend to farm labourers - the job was considered too insecure (In fact, farm workers were the last group to get the dole: it only came in 1947: until then your work was considered as temporary. Add to that the tied cottage system where you could be homeless in 7 days - everyone else had a month - and you can see why most thought they were exploited).
My dad never missed a day's work in 56 years, never claimed a benefit. His reward? Never owned a car, never went on a holiday and now he lives in a damp rented house. Nice if you can get it - not.
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by OddJob:
For example, how many 'struggling' younger people take foreign holidays, eat take-aways, own more than four changes of clothing and spend time relaxing instead of sitting at a table repairing things?
Basic clothing these days is very cheap. Certainly it's possible to spend a lot of money on "fashion", but basic clothing suitable for keeping you warm, decent, and appropriately attired for work is a small fraction of any employed person's budget, and on a completely different scale from things like foreign holidays - let alone housing.
In fact, clothing is so cheap these days that it's entirely possible to spend more on laundering it than on replacing what has worn out.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
Twilight, the child benefit going to the mother was because of observed problems in some families, where the contents of the pay envelope somehow never got home on a Friday. Surveys of some areas in, for example, London, revealed that this was not a minor problem. Regardless of expectations of what the men ought to have been doing, the government felt that the children should be cared for, being the future of the country.
Maybe it is not inappropriate to suggest villainy in some cases.
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
Wow, Penny. What losers.
Anyone who things fecklessness (and recklessness) is new in British society is fooling themselves. Get paid, get drunk, beat the wife if she complains when you get home was all too common, and still goes on.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Ok, are those of you who are complaining about new cars, expensive vacations, etc. totally unaware that most people don't ever get those things? (And I don't just mean in "3rd World" countries.) Let alone not being able to afford a car, or any kind of vacation. In the US, anyway, many people don't get any paid vacation at all.
Many people live in "food deserts", where there are no real grocery stores. If they're lucky, there may be mom-n-pop grocery stores. But those are expensive, and carry little (if any) produce. If such people are lucky, there *might* be fast food places nearby. Or they might be able to wrangle enough change to take a cross-town bus to a real supermarket. When there, they may have to buy the cheapest food (incl. TV dinners and junk food) just to get enough calories, never mind nutrition.
New clothes? Even cheap ones are too expensive for lots of people. They make do with what they've got, shop at thrift stores and yard sales, or find ways to get them free.
It's like that (American) movement to simplify your life, get rid of most of your stuff, etc. Most people are trying to stay at a survival level and climb up a little bit, which is far below the vaunted simplified level.
Get a clue.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Trisagion
Shipmate
# 5235
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Most people are trying to stay at a survival level and climb up a little bit, which is far below the vaunted simplified level.
Get a clue.
Rubbish!
The expression "Most people are . . .", if it means anything at all, must mean "More people are . . .than are not". In other words a majority (I suppose Americans might say plurality) conform to the predicate. Are you seriously telling me that more than 50% of Americans, that is over 158 million out of 315 million inhabitants of the richest country on earth are existing at "survival level"? This in a country where median household income is around $50k/year and 80% of households have an income of more than $20k/year. I don't believe a word of it.
The one thing we can say with near certainty about the US, Golden Key, is that most people are living significantly above survival level, even if there is a significant number who, scandalously, live in poverty and some who live close to survival level.
Get a clue, as you so pithily put it.
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ceterum autem censeo tabula delenda esse
Posts: 3923 | Registered: Nov 2003
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Actually I think very large numbers of people in the US fit some of those descriptions.
But I also think much of it is unique to the US and doesn't apply to the other countries that Shipmates hail from. I have never, for example, heard anyone talk of food deserts in any other country. Only in the US.
Also, the vacation leave arrangements in the US are shockingly bad. But then, I don't know how great they were for previous generations of Americans either. And this was a thread about generational differences.
It might be a very wealthy country but it is also a very very unequal one in terms of wealth distribution that takes a view on social welfare quite unlike the views of Canada, Australia, New Zealand or western Europe.
[ 08. September 2013, 09:12: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
There are food deserts in bits of inner city UK - the rough end of Sunderland for example.
The concept of 'food deserts' extends to the better value shops of all kinds in the UK. Around Newport we have all the usual supermarkets (Tesco, Sainsbury, ASDA and Morrisons) but only ASDA has a city centre store, and that's on the fringe of the centre. To use the others it's a bus ride to some out of town shopping centre. Anyone who can't drive is usually stuck with four bus rides: one into town, another out to the shops, and two more to get home all while carrying bags. On top of that all the clothes shops you would expect in a town centre have moved out and about 35% of shop premises in the centre are now empty. Between pro-business/anti-people planning laws, councils that don't act in the interests of those they represent and businesses doing what comes naturally, those least able to help themselves suffer disproportionately: when we couldn't use the car for a couple of months we had food delivered twice a week, but then we've got a bank account with a debit card and a computer, which many on welfare won't have.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
Americans now have more cars than adults and even if we have to shop in expensive stores we still spend less percentage of income for food than people in any other country.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
Americans now have more cars than adults ...
How many adults does the typical American have?
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Moo: quote:
If they bought second-hand cars and skipped the expensive vacation for five or ten years, they would be able to afford a house.
Maybe in the US they would. Over here, banks and building societies are becoming far more cautious about lending money for mortgages. Most will only give you a good deal if you have a good credit record and a large deposit to put down, and reserve all the best deals for their existing customers, so first-time buyers have to pay over the odds as well. I just checked a few figures on the Nationwide Building Society's web page and if you buy a house on a 75% mortgage you can get a 3.8% interest rate - if you need a 95% mortgage the best they will give you is 4.7%. It doesn't sound like much, but on a loan of thousands of pounds it is quite a significant difference. Average house prices vary quite a lot according to region, but most are well above the amount a lender would be prepared to give a single person and many are beyond the reach of an average couple. In Cornwall and Devon, for example, average house prices are ten times the average wage.
If you're a first time buyer in an expensive region and you don't have any rich relatives willing to lend you the difference between what the house will cost and what the bank is willing to lend you, you're basically stuffed. It's not the economies after you've bought it that are the problem; it's finding the deposit in the first place. And while you're saving up for that deposit you have to live somewhere else - if you can't live with your parents (because their house is too small, or you've had to move away to find a job) then a lot of the money that you might like to save for the deposit on your house will be going into the pocket of your landlord.
[ 08. September 2013, 19:46: Message edited by: Jane R ]
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
I've always kind of wondered about the food desert thing, because I live in a city with some really poor neighborhoods, and there are plenty of places to buy food in them -- not just fast food joints and corner bodegas, but plenty of grocery stores, too. There's a whole bunch of grocery stores that in fact cater specifically to the poor, urban marketplace. And then I found this in the New York Times:
quote:
It has become an article of faith among some policy makers and advocates, including Michelle Obama, that poor urban neighborhoods are food deserts, bereft of fresh fruits and vegetables.
But two new studies have found something unexpected. Such neighborhoods not only have more fast food restaurants and convenience stores than more affluent ones, but more grocery stores, supermarkets and full-service restaurants, too. And there is no relationship between the type of food being sold in a neighborhood and obesity among its children and adolescents.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
I've always kind of wondered about the food desert thing, because I live in a city with some really poor neighborhoods, and there are plenty of places to buy food in them -- not just fast food joints and corner bodegas, but plenty of grocery stores, too. There's a whole bunch of grocery stores that in fact cater specifically to the poor, urban marketplace. And then I found this in the New York Times:
quote:
It has become an article of faith among some policy makers and advocates, including Michelle Obama, that poor urban neighborhoods are food deserts, bereft of fresh fruits and vegetables.
But two new studies have found something unexpected. Such neighborhoods not only have more fast food restaurants and convenience stores than more affluent ones, but more grocery stores, supermarkets and full-service restaurants, too. And there is no relationship between the type of food being sold in a neighborhood and obesity among its children and adolescents.
Having actually downloaded this study and read it (the first one linked to in the NYT article, which specifically made a measurement of food accessibility), I find it problematic in one huge area: density of stores <> accessibility of stores. I can get in my car and drive to 20 different grocery stores in 5 or 10 minutes. They may be more spread out where I live, but they are eminently accessible. Somebody without a car living somewhere with crappy public transportation, although such neighborhoods might have more grocery stores per square mile when aggregated together than my little slice of suburbia, does not have more access to green food than I do. This is briefly nodded to at the end of the journal article, but it does not enter into her numbers or conclusions at all. In short, I don't think she has measured what she claims to have measured.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
I live in a reasonably affluent neighborhood in Boston, and it takes the better part of two hours to make a "quick trip" to the supermarket by public transportation. There's a Whole Foods I can walk to in 40 minutes- it takes over an hour to walk back if I'm hauling groceries. Fortunately I have a car, and can make it to a Stop N Shop and back in about 30 minutes.
[ 09. September 2013, 01:13: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Oddjob: quote:
Most perceived difficulties stem from growing expectations. For example, how many 'struggling' younger people take foreign holidays, eat take-aways, own more than four changes of clothing and spend time relaxing instead of sitting at a table repairing things?
They may do and have all these things, but quite a lot of them are only able to afford them because they are locked out of the housing market. So they have enough money to buy a nice car on a 3-year instalment plan or a holiday in the Bahamas, but not enough to put down a deposit for a house and convince a lender that they can afford mortgage repayments.
Personally I'd say takeaways and ready meals are a result of lowered expectations...
If they bought second-hand cars and skipped the expensive vacation for five or ten years, they would be able to afford a house. Later on, they would be able to afford new cars and expensive vacations.
Moo
We live in an apartment, don't own a car, never traveled overseas. I feel like I have to save up for train tickets to see my parents once a year or so. Almost all of our clothing is bought in thrift shops and liquidators.
We have a computer apiece and share a cheap cell phone. Having one computer is a necessity, and a cell phone as well, especially as we don't have a landline. We don't repair many things, but frankly most things in this culture are made to be disposable. Fixing things is generally more expensive because of the way things are made.
I find this description of the lives of a young adult (FWIW, my wife and I are 30) rather alien.
ETA: FWIW, we're not really poor. My wife has a decent job. It's just that living is expensive.
[ 09. September 2013, 01:32: Message edited by: Bullfrog. ]
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Jane R
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# 331
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Posted
Alien to me, too, Bullfrog and I am about 20 years older than you. We're doing OK at the moment but as first-time buyers we would never have got on the housing ladder at all if family members hadn't helped us out with the money for the deposit. We've had a grand total of four foreign holidays in 24 years, didn't have a car for the first five years (and always get a second-hand one anyway). And we also have reasonably well-paying jobs - I don't know how people on minimum wage manage.
Renting a house may not be a 'badge of poverty' in some places, but in the UK it means you are paying significantly more than an owner-occupier would for the same type of accommodation; if you weren't poor when you signed the rental agreement you will be after a few years of it. The housing market went kablooey in the 1980s when the Tories allowed council tenants to buy their houses but refused to allow councils to use the money from this to build more social housing.
I lived in council houses as a child. They were good, solid houses and the council maintained them very well; you could decorate them as you wished without having to get the landlord's permission (within reason); the rents were very reasonable and my parents were able to save up for a deposit on a house of their own whilst raising three children. I have also lived in privately rented accommodation as an adult; sky-high rents (our first mortgage was £50 a month cheaper than the rent we were paying on a much smaller place), you have to get the landlord's permission just to hang up a picture and in one place we lived we had to threaten legal action to get the landlord to replace a defective fridge.
It's not fair to blame young people for lack of thrift; the goalposts have moved. Things are obviously different in the US, but in the UK the main culprit is the vastly overinflated cost of housing and the concentration of well-paid jobs in the south-east and London.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ruth W
I've always kind of wondered about the food desert thing, because I live in a city with some really poor neighborhoods, and there are plenty of places to buy food in them -- not just fast food joints and corner bodegas, but plenty of grocery stores, too. There's a whole bunch of grocery stores that in fact cater specifically to the poor, urban marketplace.
There are food deserts in places where very destructive rioting took place many years ago. Seven years ago my daughter and her husband moved into a house in Washington, in a neighborhood which had been predominantly black for about eighty years.
At the time they moved in, there was no place to buy groceries except a CVS about eight blocks away. I walked there one day to buy some coffee cream. It had an expiration date a week later than the day I bought it. When I got back to my daughter's, we discovered that the cream was sour.
The neighborhood is very slowly becoming gentrified; there is now a store only two blocks away which specializes in fresh produce and other healthy foods. That store was not there when there were only poor people living in the area.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Zach82
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# 3208
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Gentrification can create food deserts too, by pricing affordable supermarkets out of the area. The West End in Boston is as gentrified as neighborhoods come (they bulldozed the whole neighborhood and put up bland high-rises), but the only place to shop for groceries is the ridiculously overpriced Whole Foods. It's not a car friendly neighborhood, so getting to an affordable store is not easy.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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I live in a relatively downmarket part of London and there six food shops within 100 metres of my door. Large supermarkets maybe 15 minutes away by bus. Street market is about half a mile away - veg is cheaper there than in the supermarket.
The "food deserts" do exist but they aren't in the inner city They are in large out-of-town housing developments, poor outer suburbs - the sort of low-rise housing built between the 1930s and the 1970s on the assumption that in the future everyone would have a car.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
I live in a relatively downmarket part of London and there six food shops within 100 metres of my door. Large supermarkets maybe 15 minutes away by bus. Street market is about half a mile away - veg is cheaper there than in the supermarket.
The "food deserts" do exist but they aren't in the inner city They are in large out-of-town housing developments, poor outer suburbs - the sort of low-rise housing built between the 1930s and the 1970s on the assumption that in the future everyone would have a car.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Angloid
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# 159
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That's true for London (or your part of it), ken, but not universally true for all UK cities. The more there is an ethnic and cosmopolitan mix, the more likely you are to find a variety of independent (and reasonably priced) food shops. Liverpool is quite polarised between north and south: whole swathes of north Liverpool (predominantly white and poor) have little other than poorly stocked corner shops and places like Iceland. Whereas the inner-city south (which is as poor) has many 'ethnic' food shops because the population is more mixed.
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Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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the giant cheeseburger
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# 10942
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
The "food deserts" do exist but they aren't in the inner city They are in large out-of-town housing developments, poor outer suburbs - the sort of low-rise housing built between the 1930s and the 1970s on the assumption that in the future everyone would have a car.
We have a similar problem with new urban sprawl on the edges of our main cities' suburban areas and in commuter belts, greenfield developments go up without appropriate provision for all the other services needed by a community. Supermarkets with decent (if not excellent) fruit and veg aren't so much the problem but other things like schools, libraries, medical and dental services, full-service post shops and so on.
It's a particular challenge for churches too, even some of the larger denominations get caught flat-footed time and time again and only realising too late that there are whole new suburbs without any non-government community services and no space left to locate them. They need to be keeping an ear to the ground and getting a foot in the door with the developers and local government early in the planning process so they can at least use the denomination's central funds to purchase land for a potential future building while getting a mission church started meeting in a hired school hall.
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If I give a homeopathy advocate a really huge punch in the face, can the injury be cured by giving them another really small punch in the face?
Posts: 4834 | From: Adelaide, South Australia. | Registered: Jan 2006
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Golden Key
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# 1468
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Trisagion--
Sorry for the delay: massive connection problems, sorting out ideas, etc.
I shouldve been more clear about what I meant by“survive", in an American context. I was thinking in terms of having certainty of standard housing, healthy food, clean water, clothing, employment/income, necessary transportation, basic education, medical care, and safety. (Same things everyone in the world should have.)
Certainty = a) not being the classic“one paycheck away" from being homeless; and b) being able to readily obtain all of the above affordably, without undue stress.
My country's a mess in many, many ways. Examples relevant to this discussion:
--Many of Wal-Mart's employees are eligible for food stamps while working.
--Due to the malfeasance of brokers and bankers and their buddies, huge numbers of American’s have lost their homes, jobs, and/or retirement savings.
--The Affordable Health Care Act ("Obamacare") is still under attack.
--The“sequester”federal budget cuts have caused new suffering across the country, on every level of government.
--Teachers arent given enough money for teaching supplies, and wind up spending their own inadequate salaries to buy them. Some even provide food for their students.
--Some members of Congress think that since spending on food stamps has increased (because more people are on the program!), that means that food stamp funding should be cut--'cause, clearly, the program's too generous and people are abusing it.
![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
I'm trying to use a minimum number of links, to keep the H/As pacified—excuse me, happy. ![[Biased]](wink.gif) But the links below are good starting places:
--Check out AlterNet's article, “10 Ways America Has Come to Resemble a Banana Republic:
What will it take for America to reverse its dramatic decline?”
-- As the Occupy Movement says ,
quote:
“We are the 99 percent. We are getting kicked out of our homes. We are forced to choose between groceries and rent. We are denied quality medical care. We are suffering from environmental pollution. We are working long hours for little pay and no rights, if we're working at all. We are getting nothing while the other 1 percent is getting everything. We are the 99 percent."
(Fixed a stray bracket - orfeo.)
[ 11. September 2013, 09:56: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
(Apologies for above coding mess; connection dropped when I tried to fix it.)
Re food deserts:
I looked specifically for info on San Francisco's food deserts, 'cause I know we have them.
-- "Can Food Deserts Become Oases?"--PBS Independent Lens blog. Has links to gov't info, including a national food desert map. FYI: according to the blog post, the NewsOne site ranks SF's urban food deserts as the 6th worst in the country.
-- Victoria Holliday wrote about SF food deserts, and taking the SF Food Bank Hunger Challenge. Brief article, but makes some good points.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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The USDA food desert map is here. The two low-income, low-access supposed food deserts closest to me are a gated retirement community and an industrial area where no one lives. There's a big spot up in LA that didn't look good, until I looked at where it actually is -- another industrial area.
Also, they're missing some grocery stores. They've got spots in Los Angeles County indicated as having no grocery store for half a mile where I know there are grocery stores -- I looked at Google street view to be sure I had the addresses correct. Apparently the USDA is not aware of some of the small local chains. Or of at least one Wal-Mart Supercenter.
I'm not saying there aren't food deserts. But I think people living in rural areas where there is no public transit are more likely than Angelenos to have problems with access to places to buy decent food.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Re: Trisagion's comments on US income levels--
Those figures can be deceiving, because they don't reference the contexts of cost of living and living wage.
MIT has a living wage calculator, as part of a Poverty In America project. The front page states:
quote:
Our tool is designed to provide a minimum estimate of the cost of living for low wage families. The estimates do not reflect a middle class standard of living. The realism of the estimates depend on the type of community under study. Metropolitan counties are typically locations of high cost. In such cases, the calculator is likely to underestimate costs such as housing and child care. Consider the results a minimum cost threshold that serves as a benchmark, but only that. Users can substitute local data when available to generate more nuanced estimates. Adjustments to account for local conditions will provide greater realism and potentially increase the accuracy of the tool. As developed, the tool is meant to provide one perspective on the cost of living in America.
(Emphasis mine.)
Here are the figures for San Francisco, CA. IME, many of the figures are too low. I know that, back in the early 90s (?), the SF Bay Guardian had an article estimating that a living wage then would be $15/hr. But it does give you an idea of how expensive SF is.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
IME, many of the figures are too low.
They're too low for Long Beach as well. For a single adult, after food, childcare, housing, medical, and transportation they have "other" expenses listed at $97. Once you've paid the utility bills, there's not much left for things like clothing and a phone.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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Mama Thomas
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# 10170
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Posted
There are also many other areas that were built in the 60s and 70s as upper middle class housing areas that I can show you that were build without sidewalks (footpaths, pavements) and have few or no street lights, and certainly no bus stops, and were specifically zoned to be residential only.
Therefore there are no shopping possibilities for many elderly people who live in these areas. Their children are grown and long gone; pensions haven't kept up with inflation and they being elderly Americans have no idea what to do with a computer. Food shopping and doctors appointments are hard to get to.
When their also elderly friends, neighbours and church members can no longer drive them around, I have no idea what they are going to do. Their boomer kids might have to do something.
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All hearts are open, all desires known
Posts: 3742 | From: Somewhere far away | Registered: Aug 2005
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Gentrification can create food deserts too, by pricing affordable supermarkets out of the area. The West End in Boston is as gentrified as neighborhoods come (they bulldozed the whole neighborhood and put up bland high-rises), but the only place to shop for groceries is the ridiculously overpriced Whole Foods.
Yup, hence its nickname (here, at least) of "Whole Paycheck"!
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
I'm not saying there aren't food deserts. But I think people living in rural areas where there is no public transit are more likely than Angelenos to have problems with access to places to buy decent food.
I viewed a programme that stated nutritional options in rural areas were indeed fewer.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Food First has much info about hunger, food supply, etc., around the world.
If you ever encountered the books "Diet for a Small Planet" and "Recipes for a Small Planet", then you're familiar with the author Frances Moore Lappe. She started Food First.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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