[3catcircus]

Originally Posted by Kapitan

To be honest being a "city boy" ive been know to kill the odd cactus so I don't give much hope of me growing food stuffs, id bet it would be the same for most people.

I have been in supermarkets where moms and dads have said to kids do you know where milk comes from? yeah mommy from a carton in tesco so again not much hope.



On the maritime scale were looking at being back to normal provided nothing else happens by around late Q1 2022 maybe Q2 2022 that gives you an idea of how out of sync we are, thats important as 90% of world trade is done via sea, and the majority of food stuffs is shipped by sea.
Note this is in a perfect situation IE no more lock downs, no natural disasters and no covid.



Amazons core distribution is based on transport road and air predominantly, with a limited amount via sea, so if they are all out of sync you can bet even the mighty Amazon will (and is) suffering.

Naturally it is a scale of economics, its cheaper to import products from China because labor is so cheap so western economies cant compete product for product.
In Canada its cheaper to buy saudi oil and ship it to Vancouver than it is to get it out of the ground in Alberta.



You need a throw away culture in order to spur growth and product development, take the early 1900's as a prime example how many times have you heard "in my day things were built to last" well that is one reason the crash of 1929 happened consumers stopped buying because they had all they wanted.
Products went unsold because the consumer simply said well i have one of these it works I don't need another.
With that mindset we would all still be driving model T fords and using a washer and dryer inherited from our grand parents, the throw away culture has led to growth and spending in a domestic economy.
Having the latest gadget has become all the rage take I phone for example every so often a new phone and they stop supporting the old ones, then they go on big marketing campaigns and if you haven't got the latest gadget your stuck in the past almost vilified for it.

The western capitalist model is based on debt, it uses fractional reserve banking to create money from nothing, without the issuance of loans the banking houses couldn't create currency, when they issue a loan they create currency from nothing, hence why we have a FIAT monetary system that's not tied to a commodity. (1971 president nixon decided that one)



I agree with your statement here, I think the swiss have it about right they cap the number of people doing degrees and further education to 20% of the graduating year.
This means you have to be very good at all your subjects to be considered for a place in a swiss university and also critically the majority of places are for swiss citizens only.

After all the more degrees you give out the less value a degree has, in many western countries now you can get a degree in just about anything.
Brighton UK university was offering a degree in surfing I do believe, I mean what exactly will a surfing degree get you?
And if your having to go back and do remedial math's and English before doing a degree course or having to do it alongside a degree then realistically isn't that saying something about your lower education system?

The degree I did was meant for my profession, its actually very niche so its tailored to transport logistics and supply chain.
I don't have the best grades from high school, the only reason I was able to even do the degree was because I have time in service in the profession which qualified me.

Two income families earning the average UK wage £25,000 per year each will be saving for atleast 12-15 years just for a deposit and likely they would have had to live with their parents before striking out, anyone who was trying to do that renting has very little chance.

Government says that 2% inflation is healthy in reality if you have 2% inflation per year and wage stagnation year on year you loose 2% of your purchasing power as a consumer, so is it healthy of course not.

I have to say though those who choose to do university education should pay for it, it should not be subsidized by the tax payer.
Yes the debt is like a millstone around your neck for years but why should someone who has little hope of getting into a university thus likely to earn a lower wage for life have to subsidies those that do go to university and likely go on to be earning more than the average wage.

I also think the individual has to take some responsibility as well, many of my generation (I think I'm a millennial 1988) seem to think it is there right to free education, housing, jobs etc well they need to understand its not a right its a privilege.
Many of my old school friends went to university got degrees and masters came out and because they couldn't get a job in the field they studied just didn't work citing its not the job I want or qualified for.

I have done jobs I never wanted to do because the money was more important than anything else, its only now I am doing the further education.
The key point here is I am doing it now because I can pay for it without incurring the massive debt.

In reality the friends that I had that went to University became detached from reality, I cant have that car because it doesn't fit my status, or I can only live in this area and my house has to be £500,000 or more and stuff like that.
My Mrs was of that same mind, when we got approved for a house here in Canada the bank said yep your good to $475,000 my eyes popped in shock, but she was ready to go by that house for $475,000.
It was only when she realized that we would have very little hope of paying it all back before we died that she came onto my wave length, We don't live in the city where a shoe box costs half a million, but what we do have is 3 lots and a 4 bedroom house at $175,000 and a mortgage that's affordable.
The house I have if it was in Winnipeg would be close to a million, so yes we made sacrifices.

I guess I came at it from a different approach I did what was needed to be done, I saved up, lived where I needed to live even if I didn't like it and then worked my way up to where I am now.

Yes I have debt, I do have a mortgage, I do have a line of credit and I do have a vehicle loan, however my income and out going balance up and I still make enough to save money.

The entire system needs a re think and not just in the UK Canada or the USA but globally, if I can figure this out and make it work then why cant no one else?

I think that the entire western economic model is irretrievably broken - going back to when we came off the gold standard. Not by itself, but when you have fractional reserve banking with nothing to peg real value against, it's a problem.

Now, there is no real definition of what constitutes a living wage in any given country since it's all one currency pegged to another. Best we can do is pegging it to the value of a barrel of oil. And we saw how that value went into the negative region last year "We'll pay you to take a barrel of this oil." That oil has a real value that is obviously out of synch with it's speculated price.

And that is likely also part of the problem - market speculation that has nothing to do with the actual value of commodities or company stocks - but how you can manipulate things based upon temporary changes in reserve currency exchange rates.

Fully agree that entitlement is a problem. I did ok in high school - good grades with college scholarships offered (but not completely paid for). High school was not a big challenge. I knew that if went right into college, Is probably not do well. So I joined the navy, became a nuclear trained janitor, got out, completed a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in 3.5 years instead of the normal 5, and have been employed ever since. I make a very good salary. My wife, with 20+ years as a school teacher, makes a very good salary.

Combined, we are considered in the upper middle class, strictly from a wage-earning standpoint. But, we bought our first house in 2005 at the height of the market before the 2008 crash. We had to pay, between having to put a new roof and septic and boiler, and the difference in sale price vs mortgage balance, close to $75,000 when we sold and moved to a townhouse in a town with better schools for our kids. We also live in a state that has income tax and with very high property taxes.

Our "real" buying power is a fraction of what it could be. Someone living in a lower cost of living state, making our salary, would likely be able to afford a palatial estate. When we were looking at buying our new house, we were approved for a mortgage that was insane, but the price point for a single family home in that office range only offered homes in need of significant work or that were smaller than we needed. We ended up deciding on a townhome because of this. The mortgage company was like "You're only spendi g $300k but we approved you go to $500k. Why not get more house?" We explained that our original plans were to throw $50k as a down payment to lower the mortgage and buy more house since we could finance the entire loan since it was a VA loan, but we couldn't due to the costs to get out of our old home - so anything in a single family that was still at or below $500k wasn't worth the asking price. They looked at us like we were crazy for not taking on more debt than we were comfortable with. Spend $3000/month on a mortgage? No thanks.

People see the price, and forget that you're still having to pay for property taxes and insurance, so a base monthly mortgage payment is possibly double what you think it will be. There are people who are mortgaged to the hilt to have a giant home and an expensive car - but they have nothing in the home and are eating instant ramen...