CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has suggested that £14,400 (gross) is the minimum a single person needs for an acceptable standard of living including participating "fully in society".
Interestingly owning a car was not viewed as an essential. There's a story on the Beeb today about someone who does earn exactly £14,400 and struggles (and has, and needs a car).
"is also significantly higher than the amount you would expect to earn on the minimum wage (£5.80 an hour)."
People can live on very little - if they have to...
Perhaps the current 'we all share the pain' agenda, will make people think about what they really 'need' - but it also has to take a closer look at the gaps between 'minimum', 'average' and 'top'.
I recently heard the current boss of the BBC who is paid (earns???) £600+k failing to defend his pay convincingly. His main defence was 'things have changed' and 'I'm quite sure the next person won't be paid more than £500k'...
Two curious things about the Government's current economic 'forecast'.
1) House prices are expected to rise 30% in the next 5 years - even though a) pay is unlikely to rise much b) people are finding it harder to buy their first house and (some) finding it impossible to keep paying the mortgage, c) inflated house prices were one contributor to the recent 'crisis'.
2) There is an expectation that all the jobs 'lost' in the public sector will be replaced by ones in the private sector (with little increase in unemployment).
In both case 'experts' (who don't work for the Government) seem to think such optimism is unjustified.
I would love to own my own house. I could drill holes in walls and redecorate my bathroom and everything. Trouble is that people are also going to be less keen to leave a (reasonably) secure job in order to move to more affordable areas without also extending their commute, which could otherwise become excessively expensive by car or public transport instead of cycling or walking.
£14K would do you in Poland or China
When I first started working, after I had paid for the ludicrously expensive monthly train pass to Dundee I had about £850pcm to live off.
Although I know I could just have moved, I didn't and so for the sake of comparison was living on £12,000 a year gross. It was quite enough for a happy and very social existence, if not one I would choose to go back to now I've got used to having a few more possessions!
Ha! You were lucky.......
Well, you'd hope that enormous student loan would be good for something! Although it took a few years before my repayments even began to match the interest they were charging on it...
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