One year on was it worth it?

[Philiptigerrice]

Honest to god.
#FacePalm
:laugh:

[Gedge]

Seminole - you absolutely totally miss the point here.


A few kids might have cheap cars - so what - most don't - and lets not forget - it can cost you THOUSANDS a year, to buy a season ticket for public transport now.

Most have phones, because frankly, its difficult to function without one these days.


My parents got a free education, earned good wages, had decent pension packages, retired at 58 & 60.

My parents got a mortgage that was three times just my Dads salary (he was a Copper). He saved for a year for the deposit. (Mum worked part time - but then quit to be a wife and mum)

The house they bought for £13,000 is now worth a third of a million.

For a Copper to buy that now, he'd have to have no car, no food, no phone, no electric, no rent, no wife and no kids, no nothing - for a year - or he could live in a shitty flat, paying off his £50k student loan and wishing he could afford to get married and have kids.

My parents look around and say they worked hard for what they have.


No they didn't! Its a lie.

The housing market generated all their wealth - they didn't work any harder than anyone nowadays - they just had the good fortune to be baby boomers - they did it all pretty much debt free.

Thats just not possible these days - because their generation set it up that way.


I've absolutely no idea how my kids will ever buy houses without my help. No idea at all.



If my mum and Dad were both 22 years old now - they'd have a joint income of around £40k a year.

There's NO way on earth they could achieve now, what they did then.

A bit unfair using your dad as an example as on top of his wages hecwould receive rent allowance which was based upon the property rateable value and could be nearly 40% of the main salary .. I know because I was one too...my first property was a flat £21000 ...that was around 5 X my basic salary but by getting a rent allowance on top , I could get a mortgage ( through the police at special rates etc).... my friends outside the job did not have this advantage and many borrowed deposits, lied about income and bonuses in order to get mortgages that left them barely able to feed themselves, let alone run a car ..( hence why so many had a motorcycle as their sole transport) ...ok we didnt have computers and satellite tv to pay for, but we still struggled to make ends meet ( queuing up at the Sgts desk to be in line for some overtime was a pretty common way to end a shift ...most of us moved house several times taking on increasingly large mortgages as our families grew...my house is worth about the same as your parents, but at 60 I still have a mortgage ( so thats around 40 years ive been paying one, much like what is on offer now ...) ...did we work harder than today? Debatable, but we certainly didnt work less hard ..

[anagallis_arvensis]

Well my mum was a nurse, single mother of two after my father died when I was 2 and my brother 6. Saved hard and bought our council house. Now I know no one ever worked harder and I dont begrudge her a thing but she paid very little for the house and sold it 10 years later for over 10x what she paid, bought another and that doubled in 10 years. Good luck to her and glad she has been able to down size and do alright in retirement but can the young of today hope to see this sort of wealth increase for doing nothing? Only the well off ones that can buy a house.

[Gedge]

Well my mum was a nurse, single mother of two after my father died when I was 2 and my brother 6. Saved hard and bought our council house. Now I know no one ever worked harder and I dont begrudge her a thing but she paid very little for the house and sold it 10 years later for over 10x what she paid, bought another and that doubled in 10 years. Good luck to her and glad she has been able to down size and do alright in retirement but can the young of today hope to see this sort of wealth increase for doing nothing? Only the well off ones that can buy a house.

There was a relatively small number of people that got lucky off the stupid decision to sell off council housing stock..it undoubtedly hasnt helped in the long term ...a poor decision at the time and still a poor decision looking back but at least some people got a good leg up, which hopefully will enable them to pass something on to their heirs ( without the decision Its likely that your mum would still be in rental property with little in the way of savings...so maybe some good will eventually come from it ..( I don't begrudge anyone taking the chance btw... had I lived in a police house I would definitely have bought it and been considerably better off now)

[Seminole]

Honest to god.


#FacePalm

:laugh:

Glad I raised a smile.
I'm smiling at the thought of someone who was in nappies at the time calling his parents liars and thinking he knows how easy their generation had it.
classic stuff

[lebowski]

Lebowski - you missed my point.

The package Regs may or may not have come about from an EU Directive - (A year before the Maastrict Treaty?) its not really relevant but I'm happy to be corrected if wrong....



What is relevant is the fact that all of the other EU Regs on Pool Design, Maintenance, Health and Safety etc etc ad nauseum, weren't followed, in a resort that was built 7 years after full EU Membership, in a Resort that was made possible by EU funding, that boasts of its EU standards.

There's a bloody big difference between rights, and responsibilities.

What we came across, in this one small incident, was a dynamic whereby the Region we were in were enjoying ALL of the Rights of EU Membership - and taking almost NONE of the responsibilities.

We saw it at the airport that was paid for by the EU.
We saw it in the pool design where the lawfully required standards were ignored.
We saw it in the lack of inspections - that got signed off without being done.
We saw it in the maintenance that was legally required and not done.
We saw it in the lack of any trained first aiders or first aid kits they are required to have.
We saw it in the flawed construction standards that were never met, but got signed off.
We saw it in the ambulance where the E111 Card was ignored and cash taken from us before we could get of the ambulance.(Because, thats not how we do things here)
We saw it in the bill for the X-Rays that we shouldn't have had to pay.
We see it in the way that the insurers took our money and can fuck us off knowing that we can't touch them, because they are based in Spain and the EU law offers us no support.
We saw it out of the window of the hospital, looking at the dusty unworked foundations of a new hospital, gone to ruin because all the EU money was long since siphoned off and the works abandoned, to the open shame of the locals.


So - I don't really care where the one useful piece of legislation came from - because the one Regulation that does offer us some hope, ironically is designed to leave the responsibility in the UK.

And its designed that way BECAUSE we can't trust some nations to meet their responsibilities.

I actually feel a little sorry for our Tour Operator - I expect that they did request all of the correct docs and inspection reports - but they were all falsified. They used the resort in good faith - but because the 1992 Regs are their to protect me - the UK operator is the Duty Holder - because if they weren't - I'd get nowhere. When they have settled, probably out of court as the case is indefensible - they will then start the arduous task of countersuing the resort. Thats not come about because our EU neighbours are amazing has it? Its come about precisely because - they do things differently.

Which is fine.

But its why the whole show was never going to work once it was expanded outside of the major western nations.



At every step of a shitty journey - everyone we were meeting were taking money from the EU, and not meeting ANY of their responsibilities - and it could have cost my daughter her life.



They have the new airport, roads, and resorts - they all got finished - they bring the money in.

The hospital - well, it doesn't make any tourist money - so they didn't bother with that.

Thats my point - thats my complaint - and our story highlights one of the biggest issues a lot of us have with the EU.

They pour billions of Euros into areas with no come back on whether they're actually meeting their half of the bargain - they aren't!

I think we are actually both highlighting the same point, that the EU put regs out there, but it's a lottery as to who follows them and to what extent.

You can certainly argue that someone should be checking that everything is done as it's meant to be, but then that's a huge and expensive task. But one that should be done.

We now have to work with the EU without being able to influence them, is that really sensible?

We pulled out on the basis of what facts? The fact is there were no facts, how could there be!? The only known things were what had gone before.

The EU needs changing, but is it any better than what we have in the UK? A government that clearly doesn't listen to the people, only looks after their chums and that are so arrogant. They do not care about anything other than staying in power and allowing their extremists to get us out of Europe.

If anyone thinks the the UK govt is any better than the EU needs their bumps feeling. At least the EU tried to protect human rights, stop people being exploited and try to keep them safe. Herr May is going to change all that!

The EU isn't perfect but it's better than what the UK is fast becoming.

[AlanHolt]

I'm really confused. People voted to leave the EU because they are a bunch of unelected dictators telling us what to do, but here we read that they don't tell us what to do, its up to each individual country to decide which suggested rules to follow and which to ignore (which is what i've been saying for the past year or so).

[AlanHolt]

Obviously being a thick Leave voter with my masters degree and chartered professional status I can't explain that I voted to leave because I loathe Eurocrats like Junckers and how they spend £400m moving the EU HQ from Brussels to Strasbourg for 2 months every year to make the French feel better

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Thats nothing compared to what the UK wastes, the £26bn on IT blunders, £18bn on ID cards, £17bn on HS2 to save 20 minutes on a journey, etc, etc. The list goes on.

BTW, having a degree does not guarantee that anyone will always make the best decision

[Africa John]

Obviously being a thick Leave voter with my masters degree and chartered professional status I can't explain that I voted to leave because I loathe Eurocrats like Junckers and how they spend £400m moving the EU HQ from Brussels to Strasbourg for 2 months every year to make the French feel better
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[Africa John]

BTW, having a degree does not guarantee that anyone will always make the best decision

Thank you for your sanctimonious opinion

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