Investment! Veritas LA Jacks gain 78% since '07

[graween]

You're lucky then 8)

But the impact is more on regular basics products, like food, etc.

 

[frugal]

I don't know what the French is for inflation, in this sense, but in the uk it doesn't always mean higher wages, over the same period! In fact, it usually doesn't!

I just did the depressing calculation that since I started in my current job inflation has pushed the cost up living up by 21%, but my salary has only gone up by 6%. That is taking the official inflation figures whcih leave out a lot of goods that have rapidly increasing prices.

 

[beech1948]

getting back to the value theme.

My father was a skilled labourer. He worked in a chemicals factory for BP. His wage was about average for the area. He raised my brother and I, bought a house, ran a car and kept a wife who did not work.

Today people at this skill level are poor. Can not afford a house, the wife works wether she wants to or not, they probably don't have the use of a car or run an old banger.

I wonder why. Certainly governments are family unfriendly with reference to taxation. Employers plead poverty when discussing wage rises but pay millions to the directors and shareholders ( such as I).

Somehow the wages we earn do not keep pace with the raises in productivity and inflation. That is due to poor bargaining and even to poor management of the economy.

I often look back with envy at the relative affluence of those days and wonder what we have lost.

regards
Alan

 

[frugal]

I often look back with envy at the relative affluence of those days and wonder what we have lost.

We have lost the ability to survive without every one over the age of 17 owning a car. We have lost the ability to survive without satellite TV, 46" plasma screens, stacks of CDs and DVDs, playstations and PCs. We have lost the ability to cook our own food, to survive without takeout being three meals a week. We have lost the ability to get some exercise outside rather than pay a gym hundreds of pounds to do the same thing.

Most importantly we have lost the ability to save and make do until we can afford to buy what we need rather than buying what we want on impulse and putting it all on a credit card to end up paying twice as much.