Season ticket sales at 7 year low...

[jjb1970]

Considering how ludicrously over-priced house prices are these days not having those gadgets really would be a drop in the ocean. Yes, there's a lack of financial prudence around but for most young people prudence simply wouldn't be enough to get a house. The average house price to average salary ratio is the highest it's ever been (well, since 1969 that's as far back as any graph I found from a quick Google search went). Current seems to be around 5 (I've seen figures between 4.5 and 6), and the highest before (which puts now as 4.5) peaked only briefly in the 70s at 3.8. I'm no fan of the obsession with high tech gizmos, but they're not much of a contribution towards being unable to afford a house.

I agree, and when I was younger the prevalence of drinking, smoking, night clubbing, going to watch football etc was just as financially draining (if not more so) than the current obsession with gadgets. The ratio of house prices to earnings combined with the cost of renting is a barrier to home ownership regardless of how financially prudent people are.

[Mike Storey]

It's interesting in that the chart follows a fairly typical theory in economics apart from the post-war spike (which is also a relatively typical situation provided enough male members of the population survive a war). But from the early '60s onwards the progression is fairly typical of a relatively wealthy society moving into a post industrial situation where children become less of an economic asset to the family than they were previously and where advances in medicine have reduced rates of infant mortality and the need to 'replace' children who have died.

 

Thus a population begins to stabilise (as it did in Britain) with a relatively stable birth rate possibly showing a small continuing decline - unless something happens to change that pattern.  in the case of the UK it is noticeable from that graph that the birth rate began to climb in the early 21st century and it seems to be fairly widely stated that such a change is due to immigration and the arrival of an increased number of young adults, in other words political initiatives have changed what would otherwise have been a relatively natural course (and one which is being repeated elsewhere in Europe as well as some other countries (also often portrayed as 'an ageing population', which in effect it usually is.   The problem which seems to have occurred in Britain, if nowhere else, is that the recent, artificial,  population increase has injected extra demand for services and employment which sit uneasily with the way the natural course of population and economic change was going - e.g. 2 million unemployed is now almost regarded as a norm instead of the old worries when the figure got to 1 million.  Put simply the political initiatives to artificially increase the population have not been managed, or even considered, against the economic and goods & services changes needed to meet a changed population pattern and we are now seeing a result of far more than a decade of such a disparity.

 

Which probably has little or nothing to do with season tickets.

 

Does not explain the comparable boom in the late 80's.

 

Most immigrants have been young white males, so immigration is only a partial explanation.

 

The fact remains that the birth rate is not increasing the population - it is insufficient even to replace it on historic norms which require 2.1. It has not hit that since about 1970.

 

The vast cause of population increase, and overwhelmingly the cause of greater pressure on services, is that average life expectancy has been increasing faster than the economy's ability to deal with it. Without significant immigration, many of the services needed for them would have collapsed by now.

 

As for season ticket demand, without immigration, the volume of people of working age would have slowly declined, and therefore commuting would have declined in all probability. I believe it has been reported that, for the first time in decades, average life expectancy appears to be stabilising (or even decreasing marginally) but it is too early to say this is a trend rather than a blip. But if it is a trend, and as immigration has dramatically decreased in the past 18 months, we shall see what medium term effect this has on rail travel, let alone the wider economy. 

[Nearholmer]

Us graph.

 

Now this IS a 1950s baby boom.

Edited January 13, 2018 by Nearholmer

[Reorte]

The fact remains that the birth rate is not increasing the population - it is insufficient even to replace it on historic norms which require 2.1. It has not hit that since about 1970.

Why is it 2.1 instead of 2? The difference between the number of male and female births?

[Nearholmer]

Regarding demand on resources, as mike says the big issue is longevity.

 

Babies and children are surprisingly undemanding on health care, and we all begin to look expensive from our fifties, then, if we survive that long, become an absolutely astonishing drain on the nation when we reach 85. An average 85+ person uses in health and social care, more than a child needs in the combination of healthcare and schooling.

 

And, typically neither the boy nor the aged-grandpa (more likely grandma) buys a season ticket .......

[Jonboy]

Why is it 2.1 instead of 2? The difference between the number of male and female births?

Simply because not everyone makes it to adulthood. The higher the child mortality rate (accident, illness etc) of a country the higher the ratio to maintain a stable population.

[Reorte]

Simply because not everyone makes it to adulthood. The higher the child mortality rate (accident, illness etc) of a country the higher the ratio to maintain a stable population.

That should have the same effect on the numbers as people who do make it to adulthood but don't have children, i.e. they bring the average down, so whilst the people who do have children need to have more than 2 on average the overall average is still 2. For example I've got a brother and sister, each with two children, and I don't have any, so the average per person for us is 1.33. That would be the same if I had died as a child. To get it to 2 either they could have another each, one of them could have another two and the other no more, or I could have two, makes no difference.

Edited January 14, 2018 by Reorte

[The Stationmaster]

Does not explain the comparable boom in the late 80's.

 

Most immigrants have been young white males, so immigration is only a partial explanation.

 

The fact remains that the birth rate is not increasing the population - it is insufficient even to replace it on historic norms which require 2.1. It has not hit that since about 1970.

 

The vast cause of population increase, and overwhelmingly the cause of greater pressure on services, is that average life expectancy has been increasing faster than the economy's ability to deal with it. Without significant immigration, many of the services needed for them would have collapsed by now.

 

As for season ticket demand, without immigration, the volume of people of working age would have slowly declined, and therefore commuting would have declined in all probability. I believe it has been reported that, for the first time in decades, average life expectancy appears to be stabilising (or even decreasing marginally) but it is too early to say this is a trend rather than a blip. But if it is a trend, and as immigration has dramatically decreased in the past 18 months, we shall see what medium term effect this has on rail travel, let alone the wider economy. 

 

Er not quite. The UK population has been steadily increasing until recent years where it has seen a massive increase.  Thus (using world Bank figures) it stood at 52.4 million in 1960, by 1970 it had grown to 55.66m and by 1980 to 56.31m - a slowdown on the decade in the rate of growth.  In 1990 it had risen again to 57.25m and by 2000 it had grown to  59.12 million and reached 62.77m in 2010  and stood at 65.64m in 2016 - the more recent decades would be one heck of an increase if they arose solely from people living a few years (statistically) longer.

If we look at the ONS figures (which also show 65.6 million for 2016 they do show in detail some arising from an excess of births over deaths and this has been rising at a greater rate since 2002 than it had since the 1960s.  But the greatest growth driver has been net migration which according to the ONS has increased the population by an average net figure of 251,000 per annum over the period 2004 -2016 and the ONS also notes that this has affected the birth rate (and death rate).  Thus in reality the greatest driver of population growth has been what could be described in overall economic terms as an artificial rather than a natural change.

 

Whether this immigration has had much impact on season ticket sales remains a very open question but in view of the fact that many immigrants tend to live near their place of work or live in London I suspect the impact has been minimal.

[Mike Storey]

Er not quite. The UK population has been steadily increasing until recent years where it has seen a massive increase.  Thus (using world Bank figures) it stood at 52.4 million in 1960, by 1970 it had grown to 55.66m and by 1980 to 56.31m - a slowdown on the decade in the rate of growth.  In 1990 it had risen again to 57.25m and by 2000 it had grown to  59.12 million and reached 62.77m in 2010  and stood at 65.64m in 2016 - the more recent decades would be one heck of an increase if they arose solely from people living a few years (statistically) longer.

If we look at the ONS figures (which also show 65.6 million for 2016 they do show in detail some arising from an excess of births over deaths and this has been rising at a greater rate since 2002 than it had since the 1960s.  But the greatest growth driver has been net migration which according to the ONS has increased the population by an average net figure of 251,000 per annum over the period 2004 -2016 and the ONS also notes that this has affected the birth rate (and death rate).  Thus in reality the greatest driver of population growth has been what could be described in overall economic terms as an artificial rather than a natural change.

 

Whether this immigration has had much impact on season ticket sales remains a very open question but in view of the fact that many immigrants tend to live near their place of work or live in London I suspect the impact has been minimal.

 

I think we are debating from different ends, but the result is the same. A blip over the past ten years or so, which is now declining, does not explain the previous increases when the birth rate has been so low for decades. I also doubt the recent ONS figures as anything more than estimates until the next full census - there are clearly nowhere near 3 million more homes in the UK since 2010, even allowing for many immigrants living six to a room and so on. Their average net migration figures also only account for just over half of the population increase between 2000 and 2016.

 

For interest, consult those same data, and you will see average age of the UK population increasing at a remarkably rapid rate, in part due to longevity and in part due to the low birth rate. So much so that the percentage of people over "working age" (whatever that is these days) is forecast to move up to around 25% in the next decade. That is an awful lot of pensions, health care and social services for an economy to support. Other than instituting a kind of Handmaiden's Tale regime, I cannot see how we can do without high levels of immigration in future, unless the way society and the economy are structured and funded, changes dramatically.

 

However, as we all know, predictions are almost useless these days, as the world keeps changing so quickly. It will be interesting to see what does indeed happen.

[Reorte]

For interest, consult those same data, and you will see average age of the UK population increasing at a remarkably rapid rate, in part due to longevity and in part due to the low birth rate. So much so that the percentage of people over "working age" (whatever that is these days) is forecast to move up to around 25% in the next decade. That is an awful lot of pensions, health care and social services for an economy to support. Other than instituting a kind of Handmaiden's Tale regime, I cannot see how we can do without high levels of immigration in future, unless the way society and the economy are structured and funded, changes dramatically.

High levels of immigration to deal with people living longer is just kicking the can down the road. The immigrants eventually retire, then what, even more to support them? That's a pyramid scheme style approach, and the sheer population level we've already got doesn't exactly help to make the UK a pleasant place to live in, even away from the most densely populated parts. Immigration is only a solution when the problem is a birth rate significantly below replacement (even then you need to be careful if you care about being a parasite on other countries). I guess society and the economy are going to have to change. In any case it makes me question just what the point of decades of supposed efficiency improvements has been if it doesn't mean we don't need as high a proportion of people working to support the whole population.

[Nearholmer]

On that last point: we ain’t seen nothing yet.

 

Mechanisation, followed by software and automation have already eaten the jobs of most agricultural labourers, most heavy industrial operatives, a significant number of construction workers etc, they are steadily chomping through the jobs of less-skilled white-collar workers, and are nibbling at the heels of even expert professions.

 

Just watch to see how few distributed software-based systems decide to buy season tickets and to commute. I’m expecting them all to be ‘home workers’, beavering away without climbing out of their processors.

[Mike Storey]

High levels of immigration to deal with people living longer is just kicking the can down the road. The immigrants eventually retire, then what, even more to support them? That's a pyramid scheme style approach, and the sheer population level we've already got doesn't exactly help to make the UK a pleasant place to live in, even away from the most densely populated parts. Immigration is only a solution when the problem is a birth rate significantly below replacement (even then you need to be careful if you care about being a parasite on other countries). I guess society and the economy are going to have to change. In any case it makes me question just what the point of decades of supposed efficiency improvements has been if it doesn't mean we don't need as high a proportion of people working to support the whole population.

 

I agree. I am not arguing for or against, just trying to understand what has been happening and perhaps what might happen.

 

Incidentally, the evidence thus far is that EU immigrants tend not to stay permanently (with inevitable exceptions), and return to their home country, or another country offering a better job. Germany, with its even greater problem with an ageing population, has relied on such a system for decades, with its promoted "gastarbeiter" regime. Ignoring the Syrian etc refugee issue, the use of immigration in Germany to enhance its working population, has continued even though productivity improvements there have been far higher than in the UK over many decades. Thus, the UK has an awful lot of catching up to do.

[jjb1970]

I think most people who look at how we manage pensions, healthcare etc for an aging population would agree that it is effectively a pyramid scheme and unsustainable without some fundamental changes. Add in the fact that the human race is rapidly approaching obsolescence in terms of economic productivity and the need to make fundamental changes in pretty much all aspects of business and life if we are to de-carbonise and I think most of the existing economic examples are analogous to the classic adage of two bald men arguing over a comb. The problem is many can agree that something needs to be done as long as somebody else takes the pain.

[Pandora]

Regarding demand on resources, as mike says the big issue is longevity.

 

Babies and children are surprisingly undemanding on health care, and we all begin to look expensive from our fifties, then, if we survive that long, become an absolutely astonishing drain on the nation when we reach 85. An average 85+ person uses in health and social care, more than a child needs in the combination of healthcare and schooling.

 

And, typically neither the boy nor the aged-grandpa (more likely grandma) buys a season ticket .......

But there are so few 85+ in the age group,  around 1 in 6, and in end of life health care costs  are exactly that , end of life costs ,  whether you drop off the twig in your 50's, 60's 70's 80's etc

Edited January 18, 2018 by Pandora

[Nearholmer]

But, everyone is moving along the demographic conveyor belt, and a significant number of them (well, us, I suppose!), a higher proportion than ever before, is predicted to survive long enough to become seriously, seriously expensive to look after.

 

Added to which, I'm not at all convinced that 'end of life costs' per person are the same irrespective of when you fall off the conveyor belt. My gut feel is that a higher proportion of 'early departures' will be from 'shorter, sharper' causes than is the case with 'late departures'.

 

What proportion of the people who die aged 60, say, have spent the preceding five years highly dependant, aka 'expensive'? Now repeat that thought for post-85 departures. No figures to hand to back that up, so I will try to check.

 

None of which alters my central point that all the fuss about demands placed on resources by a recent 'baby boom', partly among young recent immigrants to the UK, is probably misplaced fuss. It's not these young children who are the real challenge to resources, it's old bnggers who've been here for donkeys years that pose the proximate challenge to resources.

[Mike Storey]

But there are so few 85+ in the age group,  around 1 in 6, and in end of life health care costs  are exactly that , end of life costs ,  whether you drop off the twig in your 50's, 60's 70's 80's etc

 

Sorry, but that is completely untrue cf several governmental and NHS Trust and NHS England, Scotland and Wales reports over the past 10 years. The key costs are not end of life (as in Hospice or Palliative care), but in prolonging life. Human faculties deteriorate significantly with age, on average, thus the need for greater, human intensive care, rises with age, on average, the longer a person with dementia, chronic arthritis or respiratory conditions and so on, survives.

 

Anecdotally, my mother survived to within a few months of her 100th birthday, but required serial, inpatient treatment at hospitals over fifteen years, three times a day visits by carers at home and finally a long stay in a nursing home. My father dropped dead 30 years earlier with practically no NHS involvement.

 

My mother-in-law is now 98 and going through much the same, for the past 10 years, and is now confined to a specialist nursing home to see out her days. Her husband died in his forties, after a brief hospital stay, of pneumonia.

 

My wife has had MS for 18 years, and receives regular attention medically, and constant care from me. I now know many people with MS who have survived since diagnosis for decades. Life expectancy for MS sufferers was c.10 years from diagnosis, only 40 years ago.

 

On the other hand my grand parents all died in their seventies or early eighties, with little NHS or Council care involved.

 

In all these situations, I have seen the huge amount of resources devoted to the care of the elderly and the chronically ill, across several counties (and here in France now), and it is the success of modern science in prolonging life that is costing society hugely, both financially and in the very long term need for extra, healthy human beans to cope with it. Match that to the naturally occurring reduction in the numbers of healthy humans of working age available to do that, and you have a perfect storm. Again, anecdotally, there is now a crisis in my MIL's nursing home in Kent - they have virtually no nurses. Of 8 regular nurses going back two years, 6 were from the EU. All 6 have left the UK since last year, and only 1 has come to Kent to replace them. One of the UK nurses has also left (to go to Australia!), and the agency they use for back up can hardly find any either. NHS nurses have been drafted in to fill some of the gaps - but who is suffering elsewhere because of that? The owning company is now looking to convert to a basic care home, as they are in Special Measures because of the problem, so yet another resource will be lost to those who need nursing care, and I have no idea whether my MIL will be able to stay there any longer. Other companies are just giving up, according to news reports.

 

Immigration may be "kicking the ball down the road" but the problem is here, right now, not in some future utopia. Whilst the oft-suggested merger of Health and Social Care would be a welcome improvement to the situation, in that the allocation of resource would become much more "efficient", it does not solve the huge gap, one that is getting larger all the time, whatever the govt protesteth (too much) that they are doing about it.

[Nearholmer]

Mike

 

There might be one, rather radical, way of squaring two significant challenges of modern society, those being: how to give 'life purpose' to all the people who are put out of work by software-based systems and telecoms; and, how to care for an increasing numbber of frail elderly people.

 

Tax the bejasus out of the small proportion of the population that accrues the profits from the technological revolution, and spend the income first training, and then employing, younger people to look after older people, that being a job rather unsuitable for robots.

 

A serious proposal, but not one that I expect to be taken seriously.

 

Kevin

[Reorte]

None of which alters my central point that all the fuss about demands placed on resources by a recent 'baby boom', partly among young recent immigrants to the UK, is probably misplaced fuss. It's not these young children who are the real challenge to resources, it's old bnggers who've been here for donkeys years that pose the proximate challenge to resources.

Those who are young now become old in time. A few decades ago were people saying "this is great, this young, working population"?

[Reorte]

Mike

 

There might be one, rather radical, way of squaring two significant challenges of modern society, those being: how to give 'life purpose' to all the people who are put out of work by software-based systems and telecoms; and, how to care for an increasing numbber of frail elderly people.

 

Tax the bejasus out of the small proportion of the population that accrues the profits from the technological revolution, and spend the income first training, and then employing, younger people to look after older people, that being a job rather unsuitable for robots.

 

A serious proposal, but not one that I expect to be taken seriously.

Although finding enough people willing to look after the elderly is an issue it's not the crux of it. Even if you can find enough it's still not going to be a very significant proportion of the working age population. It's the economics of the situation rather than the practicalities that are a concern (although that the former doesn't seem to help the latter raises questions too).

[Nearholmer]

Reorte

 

#143 Which is why I said 'proximate' challenge; there are clearly others to come!

 

#144 Which is why I advocated taxing those who profit from the technology that renders people unnecessary. The money has to come from somewhere, and having people liquidate their accumulated assets (flog their house) to pay for late-life care will clearly have to be part of it, but even now it isn't enough, so it feels like tax time.

 

Kevin

[Reorte]

Reorte

 

#143 Which is why I said 'proximate' challenge; there are clearly others to come!

 

#144 Which is why I advocated taxing those who profit from the technology that renders people unnecessary. The money has to come from somewhere, and having people liquidate their accumulated assets (flog their house) to pay for late-life care will clearly have to be part of it, but even now it isn't enough, so it feels like tax time.

Fair enough on point 1. On the second it'll run into the usual issues. If you tax it somewhere else won't in order to get the companies setting up there, and will out-compete in the short term. This is perhaps taking it to the extremes but if you tax to the level of supporting the now lost job you may as well just not automate the job in the first place (which is fine by me, but the way things are going alas won't work).

[Nearholmer]

True, geese, golden eggs and all that.

 

But, to coin a phrase, ‘something will have to be done’ about both of these issues, and I’m not hearing any other proposals of any substance,

 

As I said above, mine is a serious proposal that I don’t expect to be taken seriously, largely because it’s an approach that would be massively difficult to implement, given that the major beneficiaries from ‘tech’ are the shareholders and senior execs of either multinationals corporations or multinational private companies. These are difficult entities to tax, and, as you say, they can too easily re-locate themselves for tax purposes.

 

Redistributive taxation is, after all, a well-tried mechanism for spreading-a-little-wider the earnings accreted from technological advance. Philanthropy is another, but brings up a heap of issues about power and control, and is notoriously fickle.

Edited January 18, 2018 by Nearholmer

[Mike Storey]

Although finding enough people willing to look after the elderly is an issue it's not the crux of it. Even if you can find enough it's still not going to be a very significant proportion of the working age population. It's the economics of the situation rather than the practicalities that are a concern (although that the former doesn't seem to help the latter raises questions too).

 

Why do you keep pumping this? "It" (being the number of people beyond working age, a significant proportion of whom will need increasingly sophisticated levels of support) is forecast to become 25% of the total population in the next decade, which will be approximately 50% the size of the working population. At what point do you consider that ceases to be "insignificant"??

 

It is most certainly a matter of economics. Pensions, health care and social care now form the largest draw on the public purse (not out of work or disability benefits per se, which is where the current government's focus has been, being the least effective electoral resistance).The practicalities are of most immediate concern, but BOTH that and the increasing difficulty of funding all three in the future, are more than a concern. They are an imminent crisis.

 

If the economy is about to enter a lengthy downturn or at best, slow growth, whilst it adjusts to our new found situation (bar some kind of miracle), I seriously doubt you have researched the matter adequately.