Do you think, on balance, that the young have been selfish or selfless in their conduct during the pandemic?
Still plenty of time left in this admittedly unscientific poll, but already the answer is pretty clear.
And frankly, that’s the way I would have voted too.
Nearly every piece of statistical evidence suggests the young have been remarkably SELFLESS during the pandemic.
Clearly they didn’t face the same health risks as the elderly during the pandemic, but most young people followed the lockdown strictures and rules.
Even when lockdowns end they remained remarkably committed and considerate.
This is an @ONS survey abt behaviour POST lockdowns:
Younger generations already face far greater economic disadvantages than older generations: more student debt, lower real earnings potential at the equivalent stage in their career than their parents, worse mental health outcomes. Covid exacerbated many of these issues…
Young people lost years of face-to-face learning.
They were deprived of the rites of passage other generations have taken for granted.
Yes: covid has been tough for everyone.
But those scars on attainment & mental health tend to last longer for the young.
I find this chart scary.
Then there are the economic scars.
One of the long-standing issues facing younger generations today is how difficult it is to get on the housing ladder. With inflation so high and interest rates now so low, that will potentially push asset prices higher.
That brings me to a pretty astounding statistic.
In the past year, the average house has earned more than the average youngster.
🏠 UK house prices are up by £24,600
💷 Over the same period the average 18 to 29-year-old had medium earnings of £23,250.
The asset divide is widening
The good news for the young is that another form of economic scarring may be less bad than it looked last year.
Economic activity among the young has recovered v fast since last year (blue line here).
Inactivity now much higher among older workers.
Anyway, put it all together and I struggle to see how anyone could come to the conclusion that the young, on balance, behaved selfishly during the pandemic.
Yet here’s the thing.
Last year @BobbyDuffyKings asked the same question I did above in a survey… kcl.ac.uk/policy-institu…
Here’s what he found.
49% of people said young people had been selfish (vs 31% who said they were selfless)
More strikingly, even young people themselves (millennials, Gen Z etc) agreed, albeit in smaller numbers: more of them voted that the young were “selfish” over “selfless”
What to make of it?
I’m not sure.
I’m quite haunted by it.
Were people more swayed by anecdotes - stories abt parties; long lens pix suggesting no social distancing (eg this from May 2020) - than data?
Are generational stereotypes are more powerful than reality?
Something else?
I’ve written something about this in a piece for The Sunday Times.
Not sure I’m any closer to solving the conundrum above. Not sure of any definitive answers.
But the generational consequences of Covid feels like a seismic issue we need to keep discussing thetimes.co.uk/article/fcca47…
Oh, a @drjennings tweet reminded me I meant to post this chart too - also in my S Times piece and originally from a @JimReid35 report.
Towards the end of this decade millennials and below will dominate G7 electorates.
Will that change things?
And if so, how?
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🧵Some thoughts re inflation.
Not the data today, but two deep issues we should prob spend more time thinking about. 1. While economists and policymakers may have convinced themselves that the cost of living squeeze is over, for millions of households, it doesn't feel that way.
The key thing to remember here is that when economists talk about inflation what they're really talking about is the ANNUAL RATE at which a basket of goods and services changes price. And certainly, that rate is much lower than the 2022 peaks...
But, as I say, what that number is is simply looking at the difference in the LEVEL of prices over the past year. This chart is that level. (The actual consumer price index!).
And yes, look over the year to May and it's up 3.4%.
🧵Why, barely 24 hours after the Spending Review, is everyone already going on about tax rises?
Are they REALLY coming?
Or is this an "incoherent argument", as one leading minister calls it?
Well here's a thread explaining what's really going on here.
Bear with me...
First things first.
Key thing to remember is that the main job of HMT is to generate enough money, mostly via taxes (left hand bar here), to finance all its spending (right hand bar).
If that left hand bar isn't high enough, we have to borrow to fill the gap.
That's the deficit!
This week's Spending Review was about the right hand column, obvs. But not ALL of the column.
Actually more than half of govt spending is on stuff that WASN'T covered by the spending review - on benefits, debt interest, pensions etc. It's called "annually managed expenditure"
🧵
You may recall a spate of stories a few years ago about appalling working conditions & abysmally low pay in Leicester's clothes factories.
The hope was those stories would shame businesses into improving working conditions.
But here's what ACTUALLY happened next...
👇
Instead of staying in Leicester, most brands abandoned it & shifted production to N Africa & S Asia.
Today Britain's biggest centre of textile & apparel manufacture is battling the threat of extinction.
It's a mostly untold economic story we've spent recent months documenting
Once upon a time Leicester was the beating heart of UK clothes manufacturing.
The city was dotted with factories making clothes for big name brands.
Now, according to one estimate, the number of clothes factories has dropped from 1500 in 2017 to under 100 this year. A 95% fall.
How big a deal is the new trade agreement unveiled between the US and the UK? Here are some initial thoughts.
Start with this: this is total UK exports to the US over the past 5yrs: £273bn. Right now most of this will face a 10% tariff. Some things (eg cars) face 25% extra
Let's break down that total. The biggest chunk is cars. Just under £30bn. That's covered under the agreement. So too are steel/aluminium exports. Much smaller at £2.7bn...
These sectors will benefit from special deals (though much of the detail still remains vague).
Rolls Royce will apparently get tariff free access for its jet engines. That mostly helps Boeing, but also Rolls Royce. Jet engines comprise a surprisingly large chunk of UK exports to the US, about £17.3bn. So let's shade that red too...
🚨
The Chinese owners of British Steel say they are now considering shutting their blast furnaces and end steelmaking at Scunthorpe in early June - only a few months away.
It would mean an end of virgin steelmaking in the country that invented it during the industrial revolution
British Steel say the main question now is timing: whether the operations will close in June, in September or later.
It says tariffs are one of the reasons the blast furnaces are "no longer financially sustainable".
Press release 👇
The news means @jreynoldsMP faces two interlocking crises in the coming months: 1. The imposition of US tariffs on an ever growing segment of British exports 2. The end of virgin steelmaking (the UK would be the first G7 country to face this watershed moment).
This is big stuff
Donald Trump just announced 25% tariffs on anyone importing oil from Venezuela.
This is odd.
Because the country importing the most crude from Venezuela is... the US.
Capital Economics chart of Ven oil exports by Capital Economics via @rbrtrmstrng
But it raises a bigger point
🧵
Why does the US import so much oil from Venezuela?
Mainly for the same reason it imports so much oil from Canada.
And no it's not just because they're close.
It's because most US refineries are set up to refine the kind of oil they have in Venezuela and Canada.
To understand this it helps to recall that crude oil is actually a broad term. There are LOTS of different varieties of crude - a function of the geology of where the oil formed and the organic ingredients that went into it millions of years ago.
It's called "crude" for a reason