Re: The Great British Class Survey
 

What it means I have no idea, but I know where I came from, where I am and hopefully where I'm going ;)

Re: The Great British Class Survey
 

I'm not taking the test I'm quite happy knowing I'm upper gutter class ;)

Re: The Great British Class Survey
 

not too bad I would think....

YOUR RESULTS
You scored 38/100 for economic capital
Your financial resources are about the same as the average person in the UK. Find out more below.
You scored 100/100 for social capital
Your social network is wider than the average person in the UK. Find out more below.
You scored 100/100 for cultural capital
Your range of cultural interests is broader than the average person in the UK. Find out more below.


wish it was 100/100 for financial as well...

Re: The Great British Class Survey
 

if our finances are average lol heaven help the country lol

as for the other two just shows my church has a lot of variation in its congregation and i meet a lot of friends through charity work

as to culture i have always liked a bit of most everything bar opera and country and western lol

but now i am just frustrated not knowing if i am in the royalty class or not ;)


You scored 61/100 for economic capital
Your financial resources are about the same as the average person in the UK. Find out more below.
You scored 100/100 for social capital
Your social network is wider than the average person in the UK. Find out more below.
You scored 90/100 for cultural capital

Re: The Great British Class Survey
 

interesting on ignition's reply the site appears to be trying to give him financial advice which follows the vested interest's of getting the property market on another unsustainable boom. Same advice on mine after I checked.

Re: The Great British Class Survey
 

The property market is responsible for many people's misconceptions of how wealthy they are. It's why house prices are about the only price people are happy about when it rises.

Which is odd really, if you're planning to move you won't benefit, if you're looking for a first home it's another huge wealth / debt transfer, as if the younger generation need any more.

Re: The Great British Class Survey
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_-r_m6rbUA&NR=1

bbc not normally this good at interviews, a very good interview. cameron doing lot of spin there.

Re: The Great British Class Survey
 

To be honest I don't know how any young person these days can afford to either:
a. buy a first property
b. insure a car

Both of these were considered 'perfectly normal & standard milestones' in a young persons life, with the majority of us achieving that before we hit 30 not that many years ago.


Now you have kids living with their parents into their 30-40's, Insurance being added to the parents (although insurance companies are now starting to clamp down on fronting)

Not good news really, considering the youngsters are supposedly the 'future' for the Country.

Re: The Great British Class Survey
 

You scored 56/100 for economic capital
Your financial resources are about the same as the average person in the UK. Find out more below.
You scored 40/100 for social capital
Your social network is about the same as the average person in the UK. Find out more below.
You scored 30/100 for cultural capital
Your range of cultural interests is narrower than the average person in the UK. Find out more below.

Re: The Great British Class Survey
 

The wealth part is flawed.

IMO an individual is worth the sum total of their assets minus debts. I own my own house having paid the mortgage off 20 years ago. There is a lot of difference between outright ownership and the fractional ownership that some people have.

You can moan about house inflation from now until eternity but at some point lack of activity will come back to bite you big time. I struggled for years with a young family to raise a deposit and become encumbered with a draconian mortgage. Now in retirement it has paid off because judging by an identical house ( 6 doors away) I would have to pay £21,600 in annual rent to live in what I own. That would hurt:( IMO retirement planning involves a cost free roof over the head as a number 1 priority.

We always have and from what I perceive will always have an imbalance in the demand\supply ratio of housing and other than relatively short term setbacks, that will always drive prices upwards.

Re: The Great British Class Survey
 

Was you working during periods of high wage inflation?

My dad brought our old house in the 70s, and wages shot up and he said it was very easy to pay off after that.

Re: The Great British Class Survey
 

Yes. The period of financial uncertainty spanned about a decade from the early 70's until 1982. During that period many struggled and became poorer and poorer as financial plus political problems followed one after the other. Strikes were commonplace as the hurt was relentless.

High wage inflation followed general inflation as workers simply had to catch up in order to avoid poverty. It is easy to look back without the detail and pick out a couple of salient points but it was a very hard time.

I made some very foolhardy but highly fortuitous decisions through that period and bought a first house, incurred huge fixed interest loans and bought a business. I then levered up several rungs on the housing ladder in one jump using a period of narrowed differentials in price. I paid off my first mortgage out of money accrued in my current account whereas years earlier I had been juggling credit cards:). Salaries did rocket.

Inflation made all the decisions correct. It was the courage of youth, a good job and fortuitous timing in the cycle of financial change that came together to avoid disaster and make those choices good.

That period was extremely painful with a combination of annual erosion of income plus inflation galloping way ahead of earnings with poverty beckoning millions. We have the start of a mini repeat happening now with costs running ahead of earnings but this is nothing compared with the past. I hope it does not become the same because people get hurt badly and the eventual winners are a minority.

Re: The Great British Class Survey
 

Which brings to my current point, your situation is different, I cannot see someone today should they choose to buy a house suddenly getting high wage inflation, todays business world is very different, mainly in that there is now conditions that will restrict wage inflation that are here for the long term.

Re: The Great British Class Survey
 

During my life there were many periods when detrimental conditions looked as though they were here to stay but they never were nor will be. Conditions may take a decade or more to change but at some point they must because wealth cannot change hands.

Wage inflation which is actually pegged to progressively lower workers living standards will last only as long as workers are able to tolerate the pain. It was pain back in the 70's\80's which led to wage inflation and very few were not fed up to the back teeth with the annual grind of pain on top of pain. It takes as long as it takes and it hasn't really started to bite yet but people will get fed up and become irrational. In the UK the public mood changes slowly but snaps with surprising spontaneity when a trigger appears as with Thatcher and the Poll Tax.

I see many of the large employers are reporting bumper profits. I bet the workers in those companies are wondering how much their wage restraint is contributing?. The combination of falling living standards by the workers with wealth transference to share holders plus a government that is set on being unpopular are the seeds of a massive catch up wage inflation sometime in the future.

The BoE having got projections wrong for this year reckons it will all be OK on the inflation front within two years. They are terrified to move interest rates for fear that it will drive house buyers into re-possession and that is another wage trigger of epic proportions.

It is just a matter of time before something gives and it is governed by pain. As somebody stated some time ago, "we can talk the talk but can we walk the walk"

Re: The Great British Class Survey
 

Still not convinced it will give, but am hoping you are right. What you said about the BoE somes up whats been wrong with this country for so long tho. The housing market seems to be king above almost everything else, it seems our leaders will have millions out of work, the poor suffering with inflation just so the precious housing market survives. To me its been obvious why interest rates are pegged down and its that damn property market. Interestingly as well, reposessions under labour were about 2/3 of those under the tories in the early 90s yet it barely hit the news, me thinks they were scared of damaging confidence they simply didnt report it.