Kagey

If Thatcherite policies were flattening our manufacturing industry a new saviour was on the horizon, the Leisure Industry.

Slick business analysts predicted a boom in free time and that the new business opportunity was in ‘Leisure’. At that moment most of us were desperately trying to keep afloat as the arse fell out of the only economy we knew but we were assured that that this was just a short painful readjustment. In 1980 we were at the dawn of a new era.
Making stuff was a task for the third world and our service industries would soon take up more than the slack. Once the economic conversion was done the workers of our modern economy would have far greater wealth and more importantly increasing time to spend it. Retirement ages would steadily fall, as would the working week, 50 would be a good age to plan for retirement and a life of healthy pursuits and leisure. Those still working could expect a 30 hour week.

Prepare for Leisure!

In 1980 a start on the property ladder, a two bed terraced in central Reading, Berks would set you back circa£11,000 a new well appointed hatchback car c£3,000. A minimum 40-hour week was still a norm and a mortgage no greater than two and half times your annual wage.

25 years later the same property costs c£160,000 and the hatchback c£8,000. In practice the 40-hour week has increased considerably with many skilled and unskilled people citing 50 hours now being a norm. It’s now also probable that you will borrow four times you annual salary to get on the property ladder.

The corporations have squeezed the last penny from the cost of production from often poor developing world producers to make commodities from clothes to cars and food cheaper in real terms than ever before. While these cheap trinkets create an illusion of wealth rocketing property prices have made slaves of us all.

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Money Trick credit Socialist View