What's changed is that the '60s-'90s economic/employment situation is probably not going to repeat itself. My dad had basically a guaranteed-for-life job once he got a college degree, and a generous defined-benefit corporate pension, neither of which really exist anymore. And if you didn't go that route, you could apprentice in a skilled trade and also have a good middle-class job.
On the other hand, the income streams of the younger generatonis look much more like annuity than perpetuity. Iven if you make nice earning for a couple of years, housing/college debt is predicated on 30-50 years of consistent earnings. The consistency of any person X earnings today is pretty unlikely to persist. Even a successful person can be made obsolete in a 5 yrs timespan (say--company is sold, market changes, etc). This is thus leading to entirely odd outcomes as there is a mis-match of earnings/liabilities for personal balance sheets for teh yound. ie, moving jobs/et vs massive debt it takes to run housefold/pay for future kids school, etc.
Its also an equity problem for texes. one or two good years get taxed and two or three lean years later, you lost a bit chunk of earnings to takes. if you had smooth earnings, you would pay lower taxs, etc. whereas the older generation is sitting on tax-free capital gain on housing, so low income/low taxed, yet they are conrolling massive asset value.
This system is what killed japan culturally. zero percent interest rates will do that to you. so the future looks bright if you think the lottery style outcome is a good one to play, but on average it is losing bet except for those selling tickets.
The `professional' unemployed, for example, don't appear to exist in anything like the same numbers in Norway, which removes a significant source of drain. Early retirement, which was fashionable here for a good number of years, is almost unheard of there. The expected level of pensions in Norway is lower too; here, people employed in the public sector routinely expect their pension to be ~50% of their final salary.
Taxation on nearly everything makes it much more expensive than it is over here. One notable example was the sports car of a man I know: here, it cost him about £30k; in Norway, the exact same model would have cost him more than three times as much. (That's an apples-to-apples comparison -- I'm not erroneously comparing a Kroner amount to a Sterling amount.) Another thing he was amazed about was how `cheap' cigarettes and alcohol are in the UK; somewhere between one-half and one-third the price they are in Norway.
I don't know enough about Germany to explain their success, but my impression is that it's partially a cultural thing, and partially that they still have a strong, manufacturing-based economy.
The main taxes intended to actually raise revenue are corporate/personal income taxes, and the VAT.
There is also a subtle sense that sharing resources and participating to make them as good as possible is the logical approach to things, and it feels 'socialist' in a modern sense. I'm struggling to describe it but there is definitely something there when they prioritise what, where and how to spend money that is difficult for Brits to get their head around.
Also, I know a fair few Swedes and they all comment that they like our country but it's where they come to slum it and have fun. We were described as 'charmingly rough.'