FT: UK consumer confidence slumps among over-65s but surges in young (unpaywalled version without the chart below – cancel that, site out of action currently).
This chart sums up so much that could be unpicked in the name of understanding change. Does it reflect a perception of finances shifting towards working classes (where we can now loosely define “working” class as those younger and with less skills and investments, and “owner” class as those with large amounts of finances – pension pots and investments – duly tied to share prices)?
Or does it represent a shift towards a new paradigm of technology, a new wave of incoming skills around innovation, and a fresh appetite for scraping away the old ways and for new lands of labour to be uncovered? (I’m not convinced from anecdotal tales in my own circle, but wage rises in the face of AI can’t be ignored, for those in the right space and sector.) Perhaps lower interest rates are the headline stat feeding into sentiment.
Or does it more ominously represent a perception of the state of the country based on what media you’re likely to consume and inhabit? The article is well worth a read for the analysis of the interplay between political views and levels of pessimism:
“In August, nearly all Reform voters expected the economy to get worse over the year ahead. The proportion declined to 80 per cent for Conservative voters, 58 per cent of liberal Democrats and 37 per cent of Labour voters.“
Each demographic and political bloc is clearly trying to find its own narrative for the state of the UK. The rallying cry of “this country is a joke” threatens to become the national anthem if you follow certain newspaper comment sections, and it’s pretty clear that algorithms create larger and larger echo bubble ecosystems, leading to confirmation bias as a service. All sides love to complain, and misery loves company. We – all of us – seek out the bad to justify our own viewpoint.
To see the confidence diverge in this way is… oddly hopeful. It’s a reminder that there can be some optimism and hope in what lies ahead. I feel firmly in the middle block – a cautious, curious figure trying to make some kind of sense of it all, but reluctant to be too committal one way or the other right now.
(Actually that’s a total lie. I’m fairly pessimistic about the next 5 years.)
But perhaps, sometimes, what we just need is something to change. Change is good, as good as a rest. With change comes opportunity. And if we spend all our time doomscrolling and whinging then, well, those opportunities will fly right past us, to be lost forever.
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