Priti Vacant has a plan, a deal with migrants plan.

[andyhinch]

Tend not be so economically active - like buying the latest trainers, clothes, iPhones, so lower volume, but more big ticket items possibly?

No evidence for this, just seems likely :)

I buy loads of shit mate, not on trainers mind :-)

 

[hilts]

Yes it's growing but the rate at which it's growing is falling. It's certain that the figures from 2020 to 2030 will be less than 6.9%. Eventually there will be zero growth but that's perhaps decades away.

We are clearly moving into a period where there will be more older people than anyone else. Older people aren't as productive, they don't pay taxes and they don't really spend much in the economy.

So when this flattening out or reduction happens then what?

 

[BeerIsTheBest]

As Rascal mentioned earlier I think it's more likely that government investment hasn't kept up with population change as opposed to there's just too many people. Right now the population is only growing by around 0.4% per year, how can we not cope with that? The problem is the government will spend over £1trillion publicly this year and you'd struggle to figure out what it actually gets spent on.

Either way the trajectory of the population shows that we're slowly approaching a point where the population will start to reduce because our birth rate is very low and our death rate is higher. The only bridge between that is immigration and with the birth rate staying as is we need more immigration and not less. We haven't got an aging population, we have a population that is skewed by people living longer who are having less children.

Now some would say that a falling population might be a good idea but it's actually bad because it's impossible to grow as a country if the population starts to fall. Most starter and less skilled type jobs for example are worked by young people and it's a bit difficult filling those jobs when there are no young people. The taps have also been closed to the EU so we're going to see big problems in the labour force as there just aren't enough people.

Back in the baby boomer days it was traditional in a couple for the mum to stay at home to look after the kids, that's mostly impossible today because of the finances involved. If we are going to shut off to immigration then we really need to look into helping young people to have more kids. By that I mean we need to help them into affordable housing and they need help with childcare and better paternity/maternity benefits.

Inbetween
with regards public spend I know from some work I did that a decent chunk goes to the provision of state pensions. State related pensions are (as far as I know) ‘unbudgeted’ so the assumption always was and remains that, until this changes there will be enough £ coming into state coffers. The proposition was sounder when there were a lot more worker bees forecast to be born and work their lifetime and people didn’t live for quite so long.

im not sure whether the figures below include the Civil Servant pension scheme which is potentially another enormous commitment that is us budgeted and continues to grow as people are enrolled into any remaining gvmt type Final Salary Schemes.

Government expenditure on state pension in the UK 2000-2021​

Published by D. Clark, Apr 1, 2022
The government of the United Kingdom is expected to spend approximately 101.2 billion British pounds on the state pension in 2020/21, compared with 98.8 billion in the previous financial year. Since 2000/01, UK government spending on state pensions has increased by 62.5 billion pounds.

 

[hilts]

And we still have a labour shortage.

The Govt (rather quietly) has been making it easier for non-EU migration to help fill the gaps, but we are still short, as is the case with most developed countries.

Would be cheaper, easier and more productive to put refugees up in a B&B and get them a job then spending millions on trying to fly a handful to Rwanda :)

I know we have a shortage the debate is about population increase.The fact the concern is always about economics is why we are heading into one of two disastrous conclusions. A ideology of continues growth of people cannot last forever.

It will have to be dealt with eventually the way we operate in this world but we will continue to damage our own environment because its convenient knowing full well it won't be us having to try and solve it.

 

[manclad]

I buy loads of shit mate, not on trainers mind :-)

It's called the "grey pound".
And all political parties actively court it because of the economic clout that older people have.

 

[andyhinch]

It's called the "grey pound".
And all political parties actively court it because of the economic clout that older people have.

Yeah, I’ve got plenty of time on my hands a no debts so any income is disposable.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

Yeah, I’ve got plenty of time on my hands a no debts so any income is disposable.

Buy us a house Andy. ;-)

 

[andyhinch]

Buy us a house Andy. ;-)

I might buy you a pint ;-)

 

[domalino]

 

[domalino]