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A wee night out.

Arkless Electronics said:
The property bubble must be burst and go back to the levels which could be considered "historically correct". This means a lot of people losing a lot of money that they should never have made in the first place.
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I agree with Arkless on this and although negative equity would be painful it would pass in time. Renting is 'painful' all the time and there seems little real sympathy or action to help renters. High property prices for homes and business' are a real fiscal drag on the economy and one of the reasons the UK is so uncompetitive compared to many other countries.
 
Tony L said:
I take it you are either not a home owner and not likely to be, or if you are you have no mortgage? You would certainly feel different were you, like huge numbers of working folk in this country, mortgaged up and carrying debt
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But the continuously rising house prices that are perceived as good for owners and investors are very bad for prospective owners (people’s kids) and those with the least in society.

Government needs to find a way to regulate house prices. To make sure that mortgages are kept affordable relative to wages so that there’s enough disposable income left to drive the economy. Otherwise you get boom and bust recessions. Which is what we’ve had for decades, which hurt the least well off the most.

But of course this means squaring up to the banks and wealthy investors that profit from the base needs of families; a roof over their head.

A politician says this and the media start to talk about politics of envy, socialist ideas that died in the 70s etc.

And then people on forums regurgitate this shite.
 
Gone are the days when everyone could have three strips of fair land to till and having tilled and toiled may they barter their good corn for all their other lifely needs.

We have capitalism instead.

You want to re-invent the wheel.
 
Tony L said:
I take it you are either not a home owner and not likely to be, or if you are you have no mortgage? You would certainly feel different were you, like huge numbers of working folk in this country, mortgaged up and carrying debt. I remember this scenario well from the Tories boom/bust culture in the ‘80s and seeing folk who had scraped everything they had together to get on the property market only to find themselves made redundant and in negative equity, i.e. they owed more to the building society than their house was worth. The result is bankruptcy, losing everything, and all the stress and stigma that brings. Seeing others go through this is one reason I am so debt-averse. Basically it is this that you are wishing on people with your statement above.

PS To be honest I’ve been very lucky with property as I got a mortgage on a good city centre loft apartment in the run-up to peak Blair and sold after a couple of years when I had enough equity to buy a little terrace somewhere less desirable outright. I had the intellect to recognise a bubble and get out (most folk just moved on upwards), but other than that it was pure luck. Even so I know enough about it not to wish negative equity on anyone.
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Yes I'm wishing bankruptcy on millions you are quite right. If the result is that 10's of millions can have a better life then it is a price worth paying. It was very wrong that so many people became very wealthy in the first place and in such a short time merely because they happened to have bought their home years ago before the bubble happened, and as a consequence, for so many more people to have had the ladder pulled away... to be forced into expensive rented accommodation with no way out.
If enough new houses are built so that everyone can have a roof over their head this will obviously curtail demand and result in properties being worth vastly less... as it should be. This is why various govs have not dealt with the housing crisis! House prices and rents are being kept artificially extortionately high so that the people who have always been rich through property remain rich and at the expense of a vastly greater proportion of the population that just want somewhere decent to live!
 
Snufkin said:
I agree with Arkless on this and although negative equity would be painful it would pass in time. Renting is 'painful' all the time and there seems little real sympathy or action to help renters. High property prices for homes and business' are a real fiscal drag on the economy and one of the reasons the UK is so uncompetitive compared to many other countries.
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Logically the answer has to be adequate social housing provision and ideally provided solely by the state which would take a lot of the burden/profit incentive away from the worst private landlords (the type that get away renting dreadful shite to benefit claimants). I’d love to see social housing totally separated from the private housing market, i.e. we get to the situation where no state housing benefit at all is paid to private landlords, though history has taught us that way ghettos, sink-estates and all-round shitholes lie as it effectively segregates the population into geographical areas of non-productive vs productive, those in social housing and those who can afford to get out. Other European countries seem to avoid this rather better than us, so there must be lessons to be learned in order to mitigate this to some degree.

Arkless Electronics said:
If enough new houses are built so that everyone can have a roof over their head this will obviously curtail demand and result in properties being worth vastly less... as it should be. This is why various govs have not dealt with the housing crisis! House prices and rents are being kept artificially extortionately high so that the people who have always been rich through property remain rich and at the expense of a vastly greater proportion of the population that just want somewhere decent to live!
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I don’t agree. Social housing is its own thing. The state building houses will only impact those who wish to live in a state-owned house, i.e. not an overwhelming majority of working people. I’m all for building it as stated above, and I have absolutely no issue at all if it drives a lot of dodgy landlords out of business, but most folk will still want to buy. I really don’t see any correlation between homelessness and anything other than low-end social housing provision. Homelessness has far more to do with failed mental healthcare provision and lack of education, training and therefore employability. It won’t impact middle-class house prices in the slightest!
 
Arkless Electronics said:
Yes I'm wishing bankruptcy on millions you are quite right. If the result is that 10's of millions can have a better life then it is a price worth paying. It was very wrong that so many people became very wealthy in the first place and in such a short time merely because they happened to have bought their home years ago before the bubble happened, and as a consequence, for so many more people to have had the ladder pulled away... to be forced into expensive rented accommodation with no way out.
If enough new houses are built so that everyone can have a roof over their head this will obviously curtail demand and result in properties being worth vastly less... as it should be. This is why various govs have not dealt with the housing crisis! House prices and rents are being kept artificially extortionately high so that the people who have always been rich through property remain rich and at the expense of a vastly greater proportion of the population that just want somewhere decent to live!
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Cluelessly simplistic view of the housing market and human nature.
 
Joe said:
Gone are the days when everyone could have three strips of fair land to till and having tilled and toiled may they barter their good corn for all their other lifely needs.

We have capitalism instead.

You want to re-invent the wheel.
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Take a look at tonight’s C4 news and you’ll see that even arch capitalists, former Tory economic advisors, are questioning capitalism
 
ks.234 said:
Take a look at tonight’s C4 news and you’ll see that even arch capitalists, former Tory economic advisors, are questioning capitalism
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I question it too... I see no way on which it can go on and on always producing 10% more each year or it goes bust.
 
Joe said:
Cluelessly simplistic view of the housing market and human nature.
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That human nature is is to be greedy, selfish and "enough is never enough" is the whole ****ing point! That's why there needs to be checks and balances on it from law and governance. Like I said earlier "the law of the jungle" is what needs stomping on by our better instincts!
 
stevec67 said:
As Tony says there is no need for this kind of class warrior stuff. Wealth creators need some form of reward. It's not an either-or thing, you won't fix homelessness, child poverty and malnutrition by banning Lear jets and yachts because there simply aren't enough of them and you may indeed make it worse by changing the model. I run my own business as do you, I pay the necessary taxes. However if I had a very high income and a portion of it were taxed at 95% I simply wouldn't bother earning that bit and I'd spend that time in the mountains. Who's lost then?
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Who are "wealth creators?" I have no objection to those who risk their own money in setting up and running a business, making a lot of money out of their success, but do bankers fall into this category, or the heads of oil companies looted from the Russian or Saudi people? Do the members of the board of a multinational put more into the company than the people who manage it at street level. Yes, there should be a differential, but has it got out of control. Taxing the super rich is the only sensible way forward.
 
I'm puzzled, unemployment has never been lower, we have a pretty good wefare state for those who can't/won't work, I don't see how so many people cannot look after themselves, that is some serious shit that takes some explaining, it goes back a couple of generations. It isn't just homelessness either, it is begging at relatively epidemic levels, by people who aren't even homeless, it is the growth of a sector of society so lacking in personal ambition and basic morals that they will take money from children, I've seen it in my own town, school girls giving money to grown men sat on blankets in shop doorways, it is the crisis of personal responsibility that is to blame. I'm sure many will find this offensive, and that is indicative of the malaise that afflicts western Europe, my fathers generation worked like horses to build this country, strong Irish men, with appetites for hard drinking as well as hard working, they would rather kill themselves than beg. We need to look to the past for the strengths we now lack. I remember my parents giving spare change to a beggar once, I told them this beggar lived opposite me and hence wasn't homeless, they were so naive and slightly shocked, charming eh? The young sponging off the old!
 
Frankiesays said:
I'm puzzled, unemployment has never been lower, we have a pretty good wefare state for those who can't/won't work, I don't see how so many people cannot look after themselves, that is some serious shit that takes some explaining, it goes back a couple of generations. It isn't just homelessness either, it is begging at relatively epidemic levels, by people who aren't even homeless, it is the growth of a sector of society so lacking in personal ambition and basic morals that they will take money from children, I've seen it in my own town, school girls giving money to grown men sat on blankets in shop doorways, it is the crisis of personal responsibility that is to blame. I'm sure many will find this offensive, and that is indicative of the malaise that afflicts western Europe, my fathers generation worked like horses to build this country, strong Irish men, with appetites for hard drinking as well as hard working, they would rather kill themselves than beg. We need to look to the past for the strengths we now lack. I remember my parents giving spare change to a beggar once, I told them this beggar lived opposite me and hence wasn't homeless, they were so naive and slightly shocked, charming eh? The young sponging off the old!
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Mikey, I’d like to deconstruct that in front of you, but another time.
 
I do fear that the homeless are being exploited by organised gangs. This was raised by an uncle of mine who used to work for Save the Children. Not sure how much truth there is in this but it does add to the general misery of the situation.
 
Arkless Electronics said:
That human nature is is to be greedy, selfish and "enough is never enough" is the whole ****ing point! That's why there needs to be checks and balances on it from law and governance. Like I said earlier "the law of the jungle" is what needs stomping on by our better instincts!
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So a two-up back to back is good enough for anyone ? "You may not desire a more spacious kitchen/living room/ bedroom ? You may not move to the countryside for a better view and a better lifestyle because the government of Jez had decreed that your accommodations are more than adequate for a family unit'. How big is that unit allowed to be in your world ? ......Three kids and you are doing another homeless person out of a room ?...how many homeless people are you putting up in your house this winter ?

It was the Law of the Jungle that made an ape , a very long time ago , to look over an horizon and to reach that little bit further that got the human race out of the jungle.
Your sort of thinking would leave the human race still in the jungle.

It is the desire of some to want more, to explore potentials , that brings us all up. They are the inventors , the investigators and the creators. Good God man ..you're one yourself ! Without those people who want more ( and that expression is all encompassing ) we would all still a small tribe of about 100 apes sat around scratching our arses.

You are sat typing this bollox on a computer invented by someone who wanted more. You send that bollox down a telephone line invented by some one who wanted more. You send it to a website set up by someone who wanted something more.

Your simplistic world view won't wash..sorry.
 
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