When my Grandfather was young, 80% of the people held 10% of the money. They were never going to buy a property. My Grandfather bought because he worked his ass off as an accountant in a cubicle producing the once quarterly single report ledger, by hand.
When my father was young he joined the RAF and He and my mother scrimped and saved for a solid decade before being able to afford the 30% deposit on a run down house in one of the cheapest areas of the country. It was not until my mother took a job as a teacher and my father was promoted to Sergeant that we had any extra's in our life beyond affording the house. A TV? Only because my father was an electrician and he bought a broken one and repaired it. it was a 9 inch black and white valve TV, I watched the Apollo Moon landing on it.
When I was young the economy of my city was destroyed by 26% inflation and the good socialist policies of a "wonderfuli" government, who thought that buying the public workers votes every 6 months with a 20% pay rise, whilst my father got 2% in the forces, had caused total havoc across the area.
I joined the Army on a 9 year contract because I had been staring at the same 5 jobs in the jobcentre for a year. College didn't improve my chances with any of those 5 jobs.
When my children were young they lived in an area of total depravation with 50% unemployment for over 5 years. No jobs, no opportunities, drugs rife on the streets and gang violence increasing by the year.
For me, the Army taught me that Nothing was for granted and if I wanted anything I was damned well going to have to get out there and do it for myself.
Yes, I was lucky to marry my current wife, fall into solid income and be able to take advantage of the once in a generation opportunity of the council house fire sale. This allowed me to get onto the property ladder, but, even then, I had to pay a mortgage at 12.5%, not the piffling rates there are today. I also had to put up 10% as 100% or 110% mortgages were still not the thing.
Mobile phones? Didn't even exist. Internet? For me a few years later but only because I work in IT and had all the technology. It was another 4 years before the people around me began to catch up.
From there my life has grown and blossomed. But I've had to work 50 to 100 hours per week to make that happen. I have had to work wherever the work is and leave my family behind in order to make it.
Nothing, Not One Single Thing, just came to me. Job, income, home. I had to work bloody hard for it and I had to sacrifice for it.
I get just a tad irritable when I hear the bleating of the "entitled" who just aren't "getting what they deserve"
The world has always been shite for everyone who hasn't made the world better for themselves.
The advice of #1 son?
"If you are looking for sympathy you will find it between shit and syphilis in the dictionary"
I am just a little tired of the "entitled" generation with their internet and TV's and holidays abroad and their living at home till they are 30 before venturing out. Whilst complaining that they are, somehow, hard done to.
I can assure you that my father, living in the Blitz in London as young boy, didn't think they were having a life of Riley.
So the environment is screwed and it's not getting better. So get out there and do something about it. Don't complain, don't whinge, don't expect someone to magically just "fix it". Get out there and kickstart a company that will grow into an environmental Tesla.
I'm constantly being told "I'm not doing enough". Well I'm missing my family and restricting my life and working to drop my footprint from the heights it was. What the Bloody hell are the Entitled generation doing?
Yeah, that's right, stopping mass public electric transport, complaining on the weekend or Uni holidays, having mass demonstrations.
Yep, that's constructive. That'll do it every time.
Meanwhile they can "environmentally" insist we burn 100,m tonnes of CO2 grinding down glass and use it as a filler for construction....
Right. I know, I'm bad and I'm doing nothing. Or not doing enough.
Tell me though, how much more is the idiot standing on the Tube train doing than me? What does he actually do in his life to reduce his emissions? If we put his life under a microscope just how would that work out?
Because I can tell you that a Vegan diet in many western countries is just a tad more emitting than our ER Vegans would have us believe.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200211-why-the-vegan-diet-is-not-always-greenSo pardon me for being a little bit grumpy but I just want to level set the expectations of our youngest generation.
The only thing you are Entitled to is to work damned hard for your future.
Starting now.
