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Picklebobble2 · 56-60, M
If you can afford to buy a home outright with no loan attached.
Enough cash available for emergency repairs should you suddenly need it.
All bills from taxes to electricity and beyond.
And a reasonable standard of living for the predicted rest of your life.....that should be enough
Enough cash available for emergency repairs should you suddenly need it.
All bills from taxes to electricity and beyond.
And a reasonable standard of living for the predicted rest of your life.....that should be enough
Picklebobble2 · 56-60, M
AdaXI · T
@Picklebobble2 I know love I worry for my daughter and her generation. Even myself like at 44 what's it gonna be like when I reach retirement age? Like I don't have a private pension or anything extra in the tank as it stands so yeah it's just scary. x
乂ᴼ ₒ ᴼ乂
乂ᴼ ₒ ᴼ乂
zonavar68 · 56-60, M
@Picklebobble2 Have to win a lottery to buy a home with no mortgage here. I had to fight my sister through court to get any share of our mum's estate after she passed away in late 2020 and only got my (small - about 20 pct) of the estate value funds in October last year (yes almost 3 yrs later) which enabled me to finally at age 55 buy a house by myself. I have a sizable mortage (about 75 pct of the property price) with a 30 year term. I was careful to make sure on my perm part-time income I'd be able to service the loan and pay for everything else. I pay a bit more than the minimum payment which over time will work in my favour, but that's a long-game to help me when I retire from work somewhere around age 70 (if I'm able to).
ninalanyon · 61-69, T
@Picklebobble2 @AdaXI I would advise anyone under thirty to emigrate to a country like Norway that has a functioning social security and pension system. No zero hours contracts, a state pension that you can live on (even in Norway). Housing is cheaper than the UK if you stay away from the centres of the few big towns.
We don't actually have a legally enforced minimum wage because collective bargaining and tariff agreements make sure that companies have to pay a decent hourly rate.
It's not paradise but it seems to me that being poor here is not such a burden as it is in the UK.
We don't actually have a legally enforced minimum wage because collective bargaining and tariff agreements make sure that companies have to pay a decent hourly rate.
It's not paradise but it seems to me that being poor here is not such a burden as it is in the UK.
SunshineGirl · 36-40, F
@ninalanyon It sounds like paradise. There was a fantastic drama series on BBC4 - trans. A State of Happiness - about the North Sea oil boom in the 1970s and the way in which it transformed Norway's economy. The UK shared in much of the new wealth, but did not invest in a sovereign wealth fund as Norway did. So the benefits were less evenly distributed and the windfall did not lead to greater social harmony.
ninalanyon · 61-69, T
@SunshineGirl It's not really quite that simple in reality. My feeling is that what is different between Norway and the UK is solidarity and class. Norway has the first and the UK has the second. The UK was heading in the right direction I think in the fifties and sixties but the turmoil of the seventies was used (or misused) by Thatcher and co. to destroy that feeling of solidarity and fellow feeling and replace it with competition and and the presumption that a person's problems are inevitably their own fault.
The Norwegian oil fund, more properly the State Pension Fund wasn't set up until the 1990s, long after the oil boom was well under way. But the oil companies had been taxed heavily from the start as well as Statoil (now Equinor) being setup to own and exploit the resource directly. At least some of the credit must go to an Iraqi oil geologist, Farouk Al-Kasim, who had seen what uncontrolled exploitation of oil did to his own country and went out of his way to help Norway avoid the same fate.
But to get back to the solidarity point. It is the idea that the assets of the country belong to the people in it that makes the difference, together with the idea that this generation must manage the resource for the benefit of the next.
But as I said, it's not paradise and there are forces at work in Norway too who want short term gain at the expense of sustainability. The FRP (Progress Party in English, although they are anything but progressive) have proposed that the income from the oil fund be distributed to the people similarly to what is done in Alaska. The result would simply be to dissipate it and fritter it away.
But, you are right, the UK should have kept hold of the money instead of just dumping what little tax it did collect into the general Treasury.
The Norwegian oil fund, more properly the State Pension Fund wasn't set up until the 1990s, long after the oil boom was well under way. But the oil companies had been taxed heavily from the start as well as Statoil (now Equinor) being setup to own and exploit the resource directly. At least some of the credit must go to an Iraqi oil geologist, Farouk Al-Kasim, who had seen what uncontrolled exploitation of oil did to his own country and went out of his way to help Norway avoid the same fate.
But to get back to the solidarity point. It is the idea that the assets of the country belong to the people in it that makes the difference, together with the idea that this generation must manage the resource for the benefit of the next.
But as I said, it's not paradise and there are forces at work in Norway too who want short term gain at the expense of sustainability. The FRP (Progress Party in English, although they are anything but progressive) have proposed that the income from the oil fund be distributed to the people similarly to what is done in Alaska. The result would simply be to dissipate it and fritter it away.
But, you are right, the UK should have kept hold of the money instead of just dumping what little tax it did collect into the general Treasury.
ninalanyon · 61-69, T
@ninalanyon Of course emigrating to EU or EFTA countries is not as easy as it once was. Now you have to do it the way I did which was to get a job and apply for work and residence permits. In between then and Brexit all you had to do was get there and start looking for a job, no paperwork.
Picklebobble2 · 56-60, M
@ninalanyon I keep telling my children to keep their eyes and ears open for places abroad that might offer them a better standard of living.
The industries and institutions i grew up with no longer exist. And those running the show have no interest or intention of improving anything anytime soon.
The industries and institutions i grew up with no longer exist. And those running the show have no interest or intention of improving anything anytime soon.
SunshineGirl · 36-40, F
@ninalanyon Yes, and I fear that the turmoil of our current decade (which in many ways echoes the 1970s) is beung used to untie whaterever social binds still exist.
I found the pre-1970s depiction of Norway very interesting. A largely rural economy, deeply conservative and traditional. Very similar to Switzerland around the same time in that both were emerging slowly from centuries of domination by larger neighbours. But whereas Switzerland went down the freemarket route and became a haven for kleptocrats (my opinion), Norway has (so far) managed to combine the pursuit of prosperity with social harmony and international responsibility.
I found the pre-1970s depiction of Norway very interesting. A largely rural economy, deeply conservative and traditional. Very similar to Switzerland around the same time in that both were emerging slowly from centuries of domination by larger neighbours. But whereas Switzerland went down the freemarket route and became a haven for kleptocrats (my opinion), Norway has (so far) managed to combine the pursuit of prosperity with social harmony and international responsibility.
ninalanyon · 61-69, T
@SunshineGirl
Women were given the vote on the same basis as men in 1910.
24 hours a week of school was compulsory for children 7 to 12 by 1899 (earlier in Oslo): https://www.oslo.kommune.no/OBA/tobias/tobiasartikler/t19901.htm
And higher education is free as it was for people of my generation in England. For approved courses at approved institutions it will even finance study for a bachelor's degree abroad although I think that then they loan the money and cancel the debt only if you pass.
Nonetheless it is a capitalist society, despite being a more egalitarian society we have about as many dollar millionaires per capita as the UK.
managed to combine the pursuit of prosperity with social harmony and international responsibility.
I think that has a lot to do with the Norwegian realization in the nineteenth century that such a country can only really work if everyone pulls in the same direction and can pull. Women were given the vote on the same basis as men in 1910.
From the late 1880s professional, charitable, and political associations increasingly advocated public-health proactivism. The Norwegian Physicians' Association was established in 1886 for the express purpose of promoting medical influence—specifically the importance of public and private hygiene—in society.
...
In 1912 parliament legislated a reorganization and substantial expansion of the state medical service. The number of primary medical officers (municipal and rural districts) was increased from 161 to 372 and a new office of county medical officer was created to be an intermediate link between the district and the central directorate of medical affairs. The position of the directorate in the central administration was also upgraded within the Ministry of Social Affairs. Three years earlier mandatory sickness insurance for about one-third of the country's active workforce had been enacted with its own system of administration.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1369017/...
In 1912 parliament legislated a reorganization and substantial expansion of the state medical service. The number of primary medical officers (municipal and rural districts) was increased from 161 to 372 and a new office of county medical officer was created to be an intermediate link between the district and the central directorate of medical affairs. The position of the directorate in the central administration was also upgraded within the Ministry of Social Affairs. Three years earlier mandatory sickness insurance for about one-third of the country's active workforce had been enacted with its own system of administration.
24 hours a week of school was compulsory for children 7 to 12 by 1899 (earlier in Oslo): https://www.oslo.kommune.no/OBA/tobias/tobiasartikler/t19901.htm
And higher education is free as it was for people of my generation in England. For approved courses at approved institutions it will even finance study for a bachelor's degree abroad although I think that then they loan the money and cancel the debt only if you pass.
Nonetheless it is a capitalist society, despite being a more egalitarian society we have about as many dollar millionaires per capita as the UK.
SunshineGirl · 36-40, F
@ninalanyon I remember learning about how the early settlers of Iceland (who mainly originated from what is now Norway) adopted Christianity in 1000AD through the Althing (the oldest parliament in Europe). Not because they were particularly enthusiastic about the new faith, but because they feared the consequences of division within a small, young society. So consensus was valued well over a millennium ago!