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James Woodcock
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 September 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 8673
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| Posted: 23 September 2026 at 4:55am | IP Logged | 1
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To try to counter the vast gulf between house price increase and wage
increase, we now have 35 years + mortgages. That are way above 3 times
wage.
Couple that with the 10% student tax, which is now for life, the lack of
prospect of a state pension for younger people and you have a perfect
storm of doom.
Renting is not a way out either - kids are looking at one room bedsits that
cost as much per month as the mortgage payments on my four bed,
detached house!
How did we let the housing market, how did we let prospects for kids come
to this?
And then we still allow, nay, corporates encourage, the strip mining of
companies to the point that companies that are over a hundred years old
die. And people go, well, they didn’t adapt.
But often, that is not what is happening.
Costs rise, but the extra profits are taken by shareholders - we are seeing a
spectacular example of that in the water sector and the postal service in the
UK.
Rather than using profits to improve things, or even using them to just get
the main job done, shareholders have taken an ever increasing amount from
those earnings, leaving precious little to do the job.
Enshitification has become the accepted business model - remove staff
from front service desks, make things fail, use lower grade materials,
remove services that used to be included.
There are a lot of things that are available now that did not used to be
available, but so much of what was available is no longer available, or is
harder to get, or has to be paid for.
There is a constant drip, drip, drip, of things getting worse
And that is what kids are seeing.
Everything is now a monthly subscription, nothing is a one time buy.
Everything is designed to get a constant slice of what you earn. And
everything is being moved from being included to having to subscribe to
access it - and the internet and AI is making/going to make that worse - and
kids see that!
Yes, let’s have things connected to the internet they are told. And then they
see things being turned off because of that. They see built in obsolescence
all around them, forcing replacements
We live in a world where we can do so much more - it’s amazing!
But the basics of live. They are getting so much harder to do. And the
solution we tell kids, is to stop buying coffee.
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Bill Collins
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 26 May 2005
Location: England
Posts: 11700
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| Posted: 23 September 2026 at 6:48am | IP Logged | 2
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My nephew is in his early 30's and has never learned to
drive. My mum was quite upset when she gave him money for
lessons on his 17th and 21st birthday's whilst he was
studying a university telling him it was another
qualification. But he has a job, and travels the world
alone as far as Japan and is quite happy not driving.
Also regarding bad parenting, this is going back 20+
years...i had a work colleague who had two daughters
around 7 and 8 years old and they were a nightmare. Thet
were bought tablets and because they wanted a different
colour, they threw them down the stairs. He asked me and
another colleague what he should do? I am not a parent,
the other colleague was a parent. We both replied that he
shouldn't buy them another tablet, teach them a life
lesson that they can't get their way by breaking things.
Guess what? He and his wife caved in! The girls continued
to be a nightmare.
I agree the disparity between house prices and earnings
nowadays must be daunting to young people. But i do think
that constantly upgrading to the latest, most expensive
phones, and the 3 year PCP new car deals don't help the
young manage their money well.
I changed my last phone after 8 years for one that cost
£130, and my car is 7 years old.
Also it's shocking the amount of people who seem to live
on fast food deliveries, or spend daily on
Starbucks/Costa coffee. A £5 coffee five days a week is
£1,300 a year! I really think schools should teach money
management.
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Brian Miller
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 28 July 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 32254
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| Posted: 23 September 2026 at 12:06pm | IP Logged | 3
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Our local high school actually does require each kid take a money
management class before they graduate. I’m not sure if it’s just our school
or if it’s system-mandated.
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Bill Collins
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 26 May 2005
Location: England
Posts: 11700
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| Posted: 23 September 2026 at 1:20pm | IP Logged | 4
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We had money management, compound interest etc but that was
50 years ago, and there wasn't the plethora of
subscriptions etc in those days.
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