How is the housing market in the UK?

Here it's beyond crazy. Prices are out of this world but houses still sell as soon as they're on the market.

I fear that on top of a housing crisis, we'll soon be facing a huge economic inequality problem: there will be people who own a home and can live reasonably comfortably, even if they're not rich, and those whose every penny will go toward paying an exorbitant rent. 

The M42 has been named as the worst motorway in the UK (survey conducted by Transport Focus):

www.lbc.co.uk/news/revealed-m42-motorway-voted-worst-top-ranked-motorways-revealed/

Not only is it the worst, I also think it’s the most boring motorway to travel on. A total joyless experience.

(I wasn’t surveyed, by the way, every time I read about a survey, I wonder why no-one ever seems to ask me)

I imagine at some point, government intervention is going to be necessary in some form or fashion with the growing disparity between housing prices (both purchasing and renting) and wages. At least in the US and Canada, prices to income are stupidly out of whack.

Minor problems, compared to hurricanes making landfall; but, it's been a heck of a week for the books. We are down a person, due to one quitting and finishing out their notice (after making false accusations at 2/3 of the staff) and then another on vacation for her daughter's wedding. Then, my 40+ year-olf with the emotional maturity of a 10 year-old misses two days of work, because his transmission bit the dust and he can't get to work....despite ample public transportation and being within a couple of miles walking distance of the store.....but why try to do your part in a tough time?......and we have been operating our store with just 3 people...in advance of our Regional boss and District boss coming today. It went well and the man-child made it in to work, finally, so we could let the other person keep their day off. I had to give up mine, yesterday, to help cover (I expected that situation, on Monday), but have tomorrow and Friday off. Not entirely his fault, but he also knew we were as thin as a rail and didn't seem to think he owed us any obligation (after calling off sick fo half of last week) to try and find an alternate transport to work.

That was fine and we survived; but, today, I also got word from my optometry office...where I had to wait a month to get an eye exam for new glasses....tells me that after 3 weeks, they still don't have them and are being told that the factory or workshop or whatever cannot get them there before November. They texted me asking me if I wanted to wait or cancel the order. I read that and thought, "As opposed to what; find another optometrist, wait for an exam appointment to open up and have the same thing occur because no one does their own work anymore? I'll just have to wait.

Again, minor inconveniences, but it has me in the right mood for a horror movie, preferably with a revenge motif.

If it sounds like I am harsh about the co-worker, this is someone over the age of 40, who can't manage his personal life, routinely calling off work, dragging his problems to work with him, distracted by constant texts and phone calls from his partner, who is in her 20s and not much more mature. You can't give him constructive criticism because he takes everything personally and gets butt-hurt if you correct him. He makes excuses for everything, rather than learning from his mistakes and moving forward. He just needs to grow up and take some responsibility for his life. I used to deal with sailors like that; but they were 19 or 20 years old and finding out that the US Navy isn't high school. By 40, you are expected to have learned to be an adult. It just gets frustrating as we knew going into this week he was going to be the weak link, with our production supervisor gone. Luckily, we haven't been super busy; but it has been challenging and having your personal life disrupted because other people can't step up to the challenge gets old.

My boss and I are both veterans and we both agree that had he been in a military environment, he would have been one of the people crying in the dark on the first night of boot camp. That's if he was there now, not at 19. We do what we can to point him in the right direction; but, he still has to walk the path.

This is a university town, with buses running into the night and covering the whole town (two merged cities, actually).  He could walk to the store within an hour.  If it was an isolated incident it wouldn't have been a big deal, but we have dealt with this kind of thing constantly, coupled with him getting butt-hurt when we try to correct things or give him feedback, or getting all mopey because a customer was a bit rude and self-centered.  He endlessly moans about his personal life and finances, but does nothing to try to improve the situation.  One minute he complains about not having any money, while then talking about getting McDonalds just before.  Here's a tip, use the money you would spend at McDonald's to buy groceries that will feed you for several days, not just one meal and stop paying for streaming subscriptions and the like and spend it on necessities.  If your salary isn't covering the cost of living (two incomes, too, including one as a nurse), then look for a second job.

Like I say, I'd have more sympathy if it was an isolated incident or he was 22 and starting out adulthood with some handicaps; but, he's over 40 and still hasn't learned to act like an adult.  On top of it, he views all this garbage on Tik-Tok and has no skepticism when it comes to the ridiculous claims made nor can he see when he is being fed propaganda by deliberate agents of it, thanks to their algorithms.  My boss and I have both debunked things he has seen on there and told him to verify such nonsense on reputable news sites....which never have these idiotic claims and stories....and he never does.  I swear he must believe every urban legend that has ever been concocted.

The lack of critical thinking definitely cuts across generations, as I have witnessed tons of it.  Tik-Tok is definitely being used to feed political propaganda, as are other platforms, including Youtube; but, anecdotal evidence suggest that Tik-Tok users seem more susceptible to it.  Or maybe more inclined to want to believe it.

We used to carry a couple of books, one title The Madness of Crowds, which explored historical mass hysteria and delusions and the center of any of it was always a desire to believe the con.  Grifters always said you can't con an honest man....which is BS; but, greed factors heavily into a lot of cons.

Heck, you had entire national economies tied up in tulip bulb futures, at one stage of history, well before some idiot "financial advisor" recorded a video or had a cable tv show or podcast.

My wife used to show me Youtube videos that she thought were amazing, then stopped because I usually deflated the fantasy by pointing out where it was edited or reversed, or flipped.  She saw one of a supposed "hoverboard," like in Back to the Future 2 (not the wheeled things sold as hoverboards) and I pointed out where you could see that it was being supported, but the wires or supports had been digitally erased, that there were no shadows underneath, despite the sun overhead, because of digital alteration.  She showed me another of a cat slipping some hat on its head and I pointed out that the footage was reversed and it was actually yanking a hat off, after its owner had put it there, freezing it at points to show here where the edits were.  She got mad at me because I was spoiling her fantasy.  I think that is a big part of why people will accept the Tok-Tok stuff.

We see the elderly cons play out, where they have been contacted by someone, probably in the middle of the night, claiming to be a grandson or other family member, needing them to overnight ship them cash to make bail or some such.  We cannot ship currency (falls under Federal jurisdiction, with specific paths), so they are told by the con artist not to reveal what it is and ship it via the fastest (and most expensive) method.  We were suspicious about one recently, asked again and again if it contained currency, as it was obviously paper and tried to advise the customer, but they wouldn't listen.  We alerted the depot about it and they got permission from company security to open the package and, sure enough, it contained $30,000 in cash.  It's not just that, either; we see tons of fraud from on-line sales on Facebook and have people come back in, asking if their package has gone out yet, so they can stop it.

I admit I am a pretty skeptical person, but, even as a child I tended to view commercials with a suspicious eye.  We used to get consumer advocate David Horowitz's syndicated tv show, where he would re-enact stunts done in commercials, to test the validity (usually debunking them) and his mantra always stuck with me:  if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.  Same with watching guys like The Amazing Randi (James Randi) debunk so-called psychics and faith healers, with great ease.  He famously made Uri Geller look like a fool on the Tonight Show, when he advised the producers about how to control the experiment so that Geller could not use trickery to determine which cannisters had water and which didn't, by passing his hand over them, without touching them.  he told them to glue the cannisters to the table.  He wasn't allowed to touch them, but kept "accidentally" bumping the table.  Since the cannister were glued down, they didn't move and we couldn't tell which had water in them and which didn't, by detecting the movement of the fluid inside.  Randi then appeared on the show, after the Geller appearance, and demonstrated the spoon bending stunt, and other frauds, like "psychic surgery."  Yet, to this day, people still believe this hocum.