[lotsofpulp]

>Single common thread has to be poor governance.

I think a structural issue is aging demographics. Lots of welfare policies were enacted when the ratio of workers to non workers was much higher. For decades now, this ratio has been getting smaller and smaller, hence the constant political dilemma of which benefits to cut and how much and for who.

The UK seems like it will especially struggle with delivering universal healthcare promises, as well as pension benefits. Not only are fault lines along rich and poor, but they will be more and more along old and young.

[bambataa]

An ageing population and a pensioner class that vote solely for their interests are definitely problems. Notice that pensioners were, once again, the only group protected in the recent statement. They don’t even seem to be aware/grateful for this.

We could avoided a lot of the economic cost of Covid by asking the over-65s to shield and kept the wider economy more or less going, but that was unacceptable to them and instead we shut down everything for their benefit and now they aren’t even willing to contribute to the cost.