Brexit, and the Finances of the Young

The national media continue to try to turn news into controversy. Their words are often incendiary and designed to provoke debate and therefore attention – as a means no doubt of promoting their publications. So their headlines become “verbal click-bait”.

As most people now read news on the internet, the publishers could be considered as acting as “trolls”. Here is the definition in Wikipedia of an internet troll: “In Internet slang, a troll is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting quarrels or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community with the intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal, on-topic discussion…….”

Written words are not the only example. Laura Kuenssberg of the BBC has adopted a similar verbal approach in her reporting. It’s not just Labour party members who should be complaining about her hysterical style.

There were a couple of news items this week that caught my attention in this area. There were several comments on the report issued by the FCA on family finances. The report indicated that half of UK adults were “financially vulnerable” and that those in their 20s and 30s were reliant on borrowing (personal loans and credit card debt). It reported that one fifth of 25-34 year olds have no savings at all with many struggling to pay bills. But this was interpreted by some of the media as the new “generational divide”.

But was it not always so? I certainly don’t recall having much in the way of savings at the age of 30 and lived from month to month, sometimes using credit card debt. In other words, I doubt that the situation has been changing over time; although the elderly have become better off lately due to rising state pensions I am not convinced the young have been getting poorer. But the media like to put a “spin” on any news item to grab attention.

As the report shows, the elderly do have more savings as one might expect but they are not evenly distributed. One amusing statement in the report is “A high proportion of retirees do not know how much savings they have”.

It’s a report well worth reading although rather long at almost 200 pages. Here is one useful titbit of information from it: “Around one in five (22%) 45‑54 year olds hold a stocks and shares ISA and the same proportion hold shares or equities directly”. It would have been good to obtain more detail information on that but it just shows there are a lot of shareholders out there.

Another example of media hysteria is the reporting on the Brexit negotiations. Will it be a hard or soft Brexit? Will the bill be £20 billion or £100 billion? Are Tories threatening to quit if there is any compromise, or revolt against the rule of Theresa May? Will Jeremy Corbyn scupper the whole affair by underming the Bill going through Parliament to support it? Who really knows, but it all makes for good headlines.

The Financial Times has become one of the leaders in scare mongering over Brexit with regular articles of a polemic nature by Martin Wolf and Simon Kuper on the topic. The latest example was by Martin Wolf in yesterdays FT. Now I have never thought much of Mr Wolf’s opinions on financial matters since he supported the nationalisation of Northern Rock, but his latest article (headlined “Zombie ideas about Brexit that refuse to die”) is pure hysteria. I don’t mind the occasional editorial opinion piece on Brexit, or some reporting on the potential technical difficulties if not slanted, but this piece was just propoganda in essence. It pointed out all the difficulties associated with a “hard” Brexit where no trade deal is agreed beforehand, but that is well known and most folks do not think that is likely. It certainly did not give a balanced view of the arguments for or against Brexit and what our negotiating stance should be. In reality there is likely to be a compromise of some kind – that is what politics usually ends up being about – compromise after compromise. Indeed it is one of the frustratations of anyone in the political world that achieving revolutions, rather than compromise, is not just difficult but exceedingly time consuming.

It is certainly regrettable that the Financial Times, since its takeover by Nikkei in 2015 has become much more politicised, and there is less factual reporting and more opinion. Perhaps it is just pandering to the views of most of its readers (the London-centric financial players and international businessmen) but if they expect to influence politicians or the wider community they will be disappointed.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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