formally "we was poor, but we was happy" now morphed to usua

[Robin Orton]

You state the "luckiest" year to be born is 1948, how can you say that when the rationing wasnt even over by then?

On balance, children brought up, as I was, under rationing, probably benefitted from it. Everyone had enough for adequate nutrition, but restrictions on fat and sugar meant that we didn't get obese and probably didn't start furring up our arteries in early childhood as the present generation are probably doing.

[Annie.]

[quote="rod taylor
Granted that life for a 1948er would be difficult until the age of 6 but after that they have had access to a quality of life that is unprecendented in human history. Anywhere in the world.

Full Employment
No war
Increased womens rights
increased gay rights
the swinging sixties
the great days of the NHS
Contraception
The potential to run a household on one income
The housing bubble
Retirement at 60 and 65
Increased life expectancy
foreign travel for the first time

For those born in 2012 with our entire economic model found to be dodgy and the shadow of China and climate change. I know when I'd rather have been born.[/quote]

foreign travel is like nipping down the road to todays youth,
contraception in the early 60s was pioneered by woman like my mother who were fed up having children, lucky youth of today?
potential to run ahouse hold on one income? you are having alaugh!
I have had to fight like hell to keep my house,housing bubble? should I have a council place then and reduce the stock?
I actually dont retire till im 68.
greater days of the NHS? yeah,I love the super bugs made possible by lack of hospital hygiene.
Gay rights? dont affect me sweetie.
womans rights? thats whay woman still have tofight for the same wages as a man gets for the same job.
swinging 60s? I was there is wasnt that swining, you really shouldnt believe all that you read.
Ok no war,at least not here.
full employment,fair enough, but it didnt last long did it?

The history of unemployment in the UK is central to both the economic and social history of the country.

The 1950s and 1960s saw a very low rate of unemployment (around 3 per cent on average) as a result of the "postwar boom". Servicemen during the Second World War had been promised full employment after victory, and no government of the period was prepared to break this pledge. Technological advance, a stable international trade environment, the success of Keynesian economics and the stability of the Phillips Curve (which postulated a relationship between high inflation and low unemployment) created a situation which did approach full employment - although of course, at that time the majority of women remained in the category of the "economically inactive".

The economic orthodoxies of the boom years collapsed in the 1970s. The energy crises of 1973 and 1979 generated "stagflation", rising inflation and rising unemployment - something the Phillips Curve deemed impossible. In Europe, fixed exchange rates pegged to the German mark forced EU member states to deflate their economies to keep pace with low-inflation West Germany. The failure of Labour's "In Place of Strife" labour market reform proposals in the late 1960s had led to a situation where union power was increasingly stifling markets by keeping wages high. Unemployment topped one million for the first time in January 1972. During the 1979 "Winter of Discontent", when even gravediggers went on strike to protest against pay freezes, unemployment stood at 1.1 million,
There were a lot less living here also.

I remember the 3 day week, trying desperatly to pay my mortgage,
it wasnt easy and im fed up with people like you telling me we were lucky.

[Eagle]

All generations have their ups and downs.

Life did seem more simple then . Did not get a TV until 60 and then only 2 channels. Ended about 11pm with epilogue and national anthem. Those were the days respect.

I started work in 66 and only had 2 weeks holiday plus 2 less bank holidays and every other Sat morning was worked. How many of todays youth would tolerate that ?

I do feel sorry for many of the young generation. Society and their parents have led them to believe the world owes them a living.
I realise far to many immigrants but how much effort do youngsters make to get these jobs.
Fruit picking , House cleaning , Cafe work etc etc.

[Suzee]

Hmmm I think Gay Rights affect everyone Annie, it's about treating all human beings with respect no matter who they happen to love.

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

[Annie.]

OK. Annie. Now take everything you have written about your gilded life and compare it;

a) with those born 50 years before you.
b) with those born 50 years after you.

I guarantee neither had it or will have it so good.

It is only because of the Baby Boomers telling us how lucky WE are that I feel like instilling a little reality into this conversation. And you know what? MY life isn't easy. Maybe it is LIFE that isn't easy.

Now we are getting somewhere Rod,
no era was easy, It might look good on paper in records etc but as individuals we all know how it was really.

[Annie.]

Hmmm I think Gay Rights affect everyone Annie, it's about treating all human beings with respect no matter who they happen to love.

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

As I said it doesnt affect me personally, I like respect and want respect though
but dont feel thats just down to Gay rights, i am not against Gays I really dont care who is what as long as it doesnt affect me.

[Annie.]

OK. Annie. Now take everything you have written about your gilded life and compare it;

a) with those born 50 years before you.
b) with those born 50 years after you.

I guarantee neither had it or will have it so good.

It is only because of the Baby Boomers telling us how lucky WE are that I feel like instilling a little reality into this conversation. And you know what? MY life isn't easy. Maybe it is LIFE that isn't easy.

Now we are getting somewhere Rod,
no era was easy, It might look good on paper in records etc but as individuals we all know how it was really.

PS it wasnt the baby boomers who started this conversation it was Julietp who said my generation had it better than today, and she put it very rudely I thought,But heyho such is life today.

[Suzee]

Hmmm I think Gay Rights affect everyone Annie, it's about treating all human beings with respect no matter who they happen to love.

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

As I said it doesnt affect me personally, I like respect and want respect though
but dont feel thats just down to Gay rights, i am not against Gays I really dont care who is what as long as it doesnt affect me.

It could affect you personally one day if you knew a gay person and they were having problems with discrimination because they were gay....
A civilised society is about caring about others even if what happens to them doesn't directly affect you.
So in that respect 2012 has got to be an improvement on some of the years being discussed here.

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

[Robin Orton]

It might look good on paper in records etc but as individuals we all know how it was really.

This is one of the reasons this discussion is not going anywhere. Annie believes, apparently unshakeably, that her own experience is conclusive evidence for what has been going on in society as a whole. Others disagree. There can be no meeting of minds.

[Annie.]

Hmmm I think Gay Rights affect everyone Annie, it's about treating all human beings with respect no matter who they happen to love.

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

As I said it doesnt affect me personally, I like respect and want respect though
but dont feel thats just down to Gay rights, i am not against Gays I really dont care who is what as long as it doesnt affect me.

It could affect you personally one day if you knew a gay person and they were having problems with discrimination because they were gay....
A civilised society is about caring about others even if what happens to them doesn't directly affect you.
So in that respect 2012 has got to be an improvement on some of the years being discussed here.

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

Suzee, with respect, I never brought up the subject of Gay rights, I do happen to know a few Gay people and would happily fight for their right to live their lives.
so I suppose you could say things have improved from that angle, I was around when there was "queer bashing" not nice at all.
I care very much about other peoples right to live good, honest, peaceful lives,I haven't said otherwise.

[Annie.]

It might look good on paper in records etc but as individuals we all know how it was really.

This is one of the reasons this discussion is not going anywhere. Annie believes, apparently unshakeably, that her own experience is conclusive evidence for what has been going on in society as a whole. Others disagree. There can be no meeting of minds.

but its not only my "experience" Robin,
I am not looking for a "meeting of minds" just a realisation that not all was rosey in previous generations.

[Eagle]

How did this end up with Gay rights? What about bankers? They must be to blame.

Rod
If employers paying immigrants below minimum wage they should be fined. British workers should fight for these jobs rather than give up on the dole.

[Tim Lund]

It might look good on paper in records etc but as individuals we all know how it was really.

This is one of the reasons this discussion is not going anywhere. Annie believes, apparently unshakeably, that her own experience is conclusive evidence for what has been going on in society as a whole. Others disagree. There can be no meeting of minds.

Minds can meet if they will agree to look at quantifiable data. Of course it's far from the sum of human happiness, but living longer is not a bad measure; although it's strongly correlated with income, as measured by GDP, it allows all of us who out live Eva Rausig to be better off in what counts in life. For more on life expectancy as a quantifiable alternative to GDP, see various writing by the Nobel Prize winner for economics, Amartya Sen.

And when it comes to life expectancy, things very definitely are getting better. I'm not going to try to explain what the numbers on the left mean, but this chart (the data is from Sweden, but the picture will be the same in the rest of Western Europe)



- source here - tells the story.

[Robin Orton]

If we're still comparing people born in 1812, 1912,1948 and 2012, members of each of the successive 1812, 1912 and 1948 cohorts will obviously have (or will have had) longer lives on average than their immediate predecessors. I expect people currently in their forties (born in say 1972) will do at least as well as those born in 1948. But I don't think anyone knows how the 2012 cohort will do.

I would in any case require some convincing that longevity is, in itself, a good proxy for happiness.

[CaptainCarCrash]

I would in any case require some convincing that longevity is, in itself, a good proxy for happiness.

Happiness is supposedly the key to a longer life or it's a cigar from Hamlet.

[Tim Lund]

I would in any case require some convincing that longevity is, in itself, a good proxy for happiness.

Let's consider the possibilities

• Happiness can never be knowm
• Happiness can only be known subjectively
• Happiness can be assessed objectively

In the first case, this whole discussion is a waste of time - as it may indeed well be.

In the second case, there is no reason for people to pursue any happiness other than what they know subjectively - so most likely the pure selfishness of just pursuing their own happiness, but more alarmingly the pursuit of what you know will make other people happy, even if they don't agree. Vide Mao, Pol Pot, Robespierre, et al.

So, welcome Robin to the third option and the fresh air of objectivity, in which minds can meet, even if not using quantifiable proxies - but they do help. What better general approach could you suggest than observing what people do when given a choice? And what more consistent human choices are there than to choose life, at least up to a point when it has become intolerable? I'm not saying there might not be, but Amartya Sen's argument is that it will be hard to find. And you'll have to find something other people will agree on - that's part of the requirement for objectivity. Otherwise you slip back into the subjectivity of option 2.

[Tim Lund]

I would in any case require some convincing that longevity is, in itself, a good proxy for happiness.

Happiness is supposedly the key to a longer life or it's a cigar from Hamlet.

It could also be ... [youtubes]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgJy8ZKHoWY[/youtubes]

[Annie.]

Average price of a house in 1972 was £2000? , gosh I paid way over the odds at £14000 then! I think you are exaggerating.;0))

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

[Robin Orton]

Returning to Tim's interesting points, I doubt whether happiness can be assessed objectively. I suspect it can only be understood as part of a value system - as the possession of, or at any rate being close to, what you believe to be the highest good in that system. That highest good might be a cigar called Hamlet, it might be tanks of gin and lots of naked women (as suggested by a character in a Kingsley Amis novel I read many years ago) , it might be

[...] an ocean tide
Or a sunset fading on a mountain side
A big old heaven full of stars up above
When I'm in the arms of the one I love

as per Ken Dodd, it might be God, it might be all sorts of things.

On the other hand I suppose there might be something which one could call well-being (not happiness) and for which one might be able to devise generally acceptable objective measures - things like physical and mental health, availability of food, shelter, education, opportunities for personal development, culture, political freedom etc. Longevity (or at any rate the number of 'quality-adjusted life years') could well be one of those measures.

[Annie.]

Average price of a house in 1972 was £2000? , gosh I paid way over the odds at £14000 then! I think you are exaggerating.;0))

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

I was exaggerating a bit. Its was £7374 according to a website I've just looked up.

So you did pay over the odds, Annie. Must be worth a fortune now! Lucky you!

Depends where you look,in wiki it says £10.000

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]