I keep reading articles which talk about 'The Bank of Mum and Dad' in the context of people buying their first home. Can we ban that phrase and talk about Intergenerational Wealth instead?
The Bank of Mum and Dad presupposes that parents have worked hard and been frugal and saved and now can slip a few bob to their feckless children. The reality is that Mum and Dad are probably beneficiaries of two stock market booms, caused by quantitative easing, and two property booms. They may well have inherited wealth themselves from their parents and their parents might have bought their council house for a pittance in the 80's.
'The Bank of Mum and Dad' is better described as a concentration of wealth in Capital and away from labour, capital that is overwhelmingly owned by older people. We couldn't be doing a better job of constructing a two tier society if we tried. We are treating income as if it was wealth and wealth as if it has no material impact on the lives of those who own it. The only political party which acknowledges this is Labour, which is reasonable since they are the only party which is actually socialist.
The Bank of Mum and Dad presupposes that parents have worked hard and been frugal and saved and now can slip a few bob to their feckless children. The reality is that Mum and Dad are probably beneficiaries of two stock market booms, caused by quantitative easing, and two property booms. They may well have inherited wealth themselves from their parents and their parents might have bought their council house for a pittance in the 80's.
'The Bank of Mum and Dad' is better described as a concentration of wealth in Capital and away from labour, capital that is overwhelmingly owned by older people. We couldn't be doing a better job of constructing a two tier society if we tried. We are treating income as if it was wealth and wealth as if it has no material impact on the lives of those who own it. The only political party which acknowledges this is Labour, which is reasonable since they are the only party which is actually socialist.