Banks

[ahinton]

I have not set myself up as having the answer but Government has . I have offered my criticism of their answer, that's all.

Indeed so!

However a good ol' fashioned Keynes local authority/housing association building programme would provide a huge stimulus to the economy in several forms and it is something that this pairing knows how to do. A much-needed review of housing tenancies would be required too.We have to get away from this madness of the only serious housing choice being home ownership that for so many people has proved to be the road to serial unhappiness & poverty.

I agree in principle with much of this and what is surely of paramount importance is first to ensure that there is sufficient housing stock to meet the needs of everyone who requires to be housed, though who pays for the planning, construction/renovation et al will be an ever-present problem, just as will ensuring that there will be sufficient work for people who move into those new homes once built/renovated.

That said, whilst home ownership is not "the only serious choice", it is not in and of itself an unreasonable choice in principle and I do not perceive a realistic likelihood that it will ever play a significantly greater rôle in the journey on that "road to serial unhappiness and poverty" thanwill home rental, as long as either option remains unaffordable for some.

The only serious criticism that I have yet to hear about home ownership is its lack of realistic affordability for some people but, whilst I do not doubt this, there are also many who cannot afford to pay rent in either the private or the social housing sector; it accordingly occurs to me that the "road to serial unhappiness and poverty" may in many cases already have been travelled by some and that their inability to afford adequate bought or rented housing is part of the fallout from this rather than the other way around. As a matter of interest, do you have a rooted objection to the very principle of home ownership?

[ahinton]

As so often the case, you pick up a small symptom of a problem that is systemic to capitalism and run with it to the exclusion of its... systematicy.

I think that you mean "systematicity", but I do not see how I am "picking up" any symptom of any problem when merely questioning what others might think to be the best solutions to a problem which is hardly a small one! It's a reasonable question to ask, surely?

Anyway, speaking of answering questions, you've certainly posed no shortage of them here! However, as the thrust of many if not all of them appears to be to widen the terms of reference from housing issues to those of capitalism in general, I am prompted by them to ask you if you really believe that the kinds of housing issues referred to above are wholly endemic to a capitalist society and would accordingly be made somehow either to disappear or not even appear in the first place in a non-capitalist one? - and, should your answer be affirmative, could you explain how and why this would be the case?

It can't be solved under the present system is the short and long answer because capitalism has the intrinsic need to grow written into the intersticices of its modi operandi

I think that you mean "interstices", but does not what you clearly perceive as the problem of the need for growth within capitalism originate with the human need for growth (by which I do not just mean economic growth but growth in aspirations and the like)?

Any solution would I feel have to pose at least the following sine qua non questions

Why is growth intrinsic to capitalism and what are its consequences?
What drives the cycles of boom and recession, and need they be endemic to any economic and political system?
Is greed inevitable or are we being conditioned into believing it so?
If so, by whom, to what ends, and why?
If not, how is it possible to mistrust our own nature without being in contradiction?
What makes competition allegedly thought by most the driving motivator of human activity and is it inevitable?
Would we all automatically sink into indolence and moral degeneracy without competition?
If not, how could Alpha Male/Female behaviour be more positively redirected than now, and by whom?
How would who is in charge be decided, how much paid and be made accountable?
What is the role and function of reproduction - biological, ideological, by virtue of historical amnesia etc - under capitalism?
Why build on flood plains or in earthquake zones? Population explosion?
What is the function of product obsolescence?
What is the function of the fashion industry?
Is it not possible that, unpressurised, we could decide on material possessions when enough is enough?
What is the function of blame under capitalism?
Why is grass always said to be greener on the other side of the wall/fence, hedge... you choice of barrier?
What if everyone saw through the "truths" of religion right now?
Would there be any need for a need to go on living?
Which way would the US populace vote in the forthcoming presidential election?

OK, let's have a crack at some of these, whether or not their initial premise is valid, in the order in which you pose them.

I've answered the first on in part already.
Short-sightness and no.
Not necessarily and some of us are by some people.
Mainly governments and those in charge of vast global corporations in order to exercise undue amounts of control over the victims.
It's up to each individual to deal with this; most don't even bother to try to give serious consideration to it at all.
I don't know and, whilst I don't believe it to be inevitable, it has its place which it should not abuse.
I don't see why we should.
I couldn't answer that.
This would depend upon the style and structure of government.
Whatever it may be (and I presume you to refer here solely to human reproduction), I cannot imagine that it would be so different, if indeed at all, under non-capitalism.
God knows!
Making people buy more goods more frequently; its origins are, once again, in economic short-sightedness.
I'm the wrong person to ask this question.
Yes - and likewise so even if pressurised.
Just as it would be under any alternative system!
It's just a figure of speech to illustrate what is sometimes true and at other times a myth.
That would depend on what each of them saw.
"A need for a need"? An eye for an eye"? That would presumably be a matter of personal choice and/or belief.
The wrong way, perhaps!

ENOUGH!!!...

I was watching an old video of a programme titled "Spend spend spend" last night in which various pundits, sociologists, psychologists etc declared that we were all hooked on consumption, and that only a major catastrophy within the system would force us to think, nay feel differently about ourselves, others and our place in the world and act accordingly. It's potentially the first time in my life certainly since 1968 that opportunities for deep questioning have been so acutely posed, and I would think, more acutely, since capitalism wasn't really on the barbecue back then.

To the extent that this is true it represents a grave indictment to those sectors of humanity that have fallen prey to it; I have even heard it argued that this has also been bad for capitalism!

[handsomefortune]

capitalism wasn't really on the barbecue back then.

would be great if we could just eat it!

after a decade plus of 'spend spend spend' i have noticed the very first signs in the media, that women are mystified as to 'no space in their homes'...because they have had to give up whole rooms to the extensive amount of clothes that they will never actually wear!

is that good capitalism? or the 'looks nice, but dim' variety? it must be a horrendous sensation to look back on personal spending habits, and wages and bank loans for increasing numbers who are homeless, or now have shaky, or temporary accommodation arrangements.

[amateur51]

Indeed so!


I agree in principle with much of this and what is surely of paramount importance is first to ensure that there is sufficient housing stock to meet the needs of everyone who requires to be housed, though who pays for the planning, construction/renovation et al will be an ever-present problem, just as will ensuring that there will be sufficient work for people who move into those new homes once built/renovated.

That said, whilst home ownership is not "the only serious choice", it is not in and of itself an unreasonable choice in principle and I do not perceive a realistic likelihood that it will ever play a significantly greater rôle in the journey on that "road to serial unhappiness and poverty" thanwill home rental, as long as either option remains unaffordable for some.

The only serious criticism that I have yet to hear about home ownership is its lack of realistic affordability for some people but, whilst I do not doubt this, there are also many who cannot afford to pay rent in either the private or the social housing sector; it accordingly occurs to me that the "road to serial unhappiness and poverty" may in many cases already have been travelled by some and that their inability to afford adequate bought or rented housing is part of the fallout from this rather than the other way around. As a matter of interest, do you have a rooted objection to the very principle of home ownership?

I live in one of the poorer boroughs of London. Locals have been watching in rapt fascination as a derelict pub has been turned into a Tesco Extra supermarket with one-, two- and three-bedroomed flats above and below, on the main road. The agent handling the sale of these new flats has a big hoarding advertising them as being available from £289,999. That presumably means that the one-bedroom flat on the main road above a supermarket is pennies short of £290k. Taking the national average salary as £25,000 and assuming a deposit of say £20k, that's a salary multiplier of 11 times for the remaining mortgage. So if average buyers are unable to buy, just who is going to buy a flat in a development over a supermarket and on the high street?

I'm not opposed to home-ownership of course but local authorities should prioritise building for rent because that's what most poor people can afford particularly when they are young, or starting a family.Things have swung far too much towards building for profit since the Thatcher years when local authorities where not only encouraged to sell off their silver, they were also not able to re-invest the monies released in further building, a truly wicked situation I believe.

[Resurrection Man]

As one who has asked (but yet to receive a viable reply to) a question broadly similar to that posed by Resurrection Man, my concern is with "Dave and his chums" only to the extent that they're the ones in power now; it is, however, a question that could as easily have been posed in respect of any of their predecessors and would have been of no less importance. "Dave and his chums" and their predecessors do not so much "set themselves up as the folk who know" as they're put in place by the majority of the electorate in the hope of their acting as such. Anyway, that is to some extent beside the point in that the mere matter of who sets them up to be what and why does not provide an answer to what they should do to resolve the problem; I'm still waiting to hear some ideas on that.

Eloquently put but I know that neither you nor I will receive any sane or sensible answer to that question. It never ceases to amaze me how the same people bang the same drum time and time again but without anything constructive to say. But when asked, as you have done, for a reasoned solution or suggestion as to how things could be done differently, the emptiness of their vacuous hyperbole is there for all to see.

And, I will predict that as soon as 'the ink has dried on the paper' as it were, the riposte will be a silly little attempt at schoolboy humour followed by many emoticons.

[ahinton]

I live in one of the poorer boroughs of London. Locals have been watching in rapt fascination as a derelict pub has been turned into a Tesco Extra supermarket with one-, two- and three-bedroomed flats above and below, on the main road. The agent handling the sale of these new flats has a big hoarding advertising them as being available from £289,999. That presumably means that the one-bedroom flat on the main road above a supermarket is pennies short of £290k. Taking the national average salary as £25,000 and assuming a deposit of say £20k, that's a salary multiplier of 11 times for the remaining mortgage. So if average buyers are unable to buy, just who is going to buy a flat in a development over a supermarket and on the high street?

I'm not opposed to home-ownership of course but local authorities should prioritise building for rent because that's what most poor people can afford particularly when they are young, or starting a family.Things have swung far too much towards building for profit since the Thatcher years when local authorities where not only encouraged to sell off their silver, they were also not able to re-invest the monies released in further building, a truly wicked situation I believe.

Well, London prices are always well above the national average, of course and the figures that you give serve to illustrate my point about the hopelessly unrealistic relationship between asking prices and salaries, although this is nothing new and well predated the Thatcher era. The problem with local authorities "prioritising building for rent", however, is that most of them can't afford to purchase the land for building or buildings for renovation and, as council taxes are largely capped and many local authorities are also heavily borrowed, there would appear to be precious little chance of this happening in the foreseeable future either; as I mentioned earlier, someone has to own the housing stock, be it social landlords, private landlords or individuals and whichever it is has to pay the same market rate for it as one another. The Thatcher policies in part served only to exacerbate this situation, but whenever I've seen "affordable housing" advertised it immediately becomes ever more unaffordable because the market takes over and makes it so by ensuring that asking prices increase in accordance with the laws of supply and demand, so unless we ever get to a situation where there's far too much housing for far too few people (an inconceivable scenario), those laws will probably always take precedence over any other relevant ones.

[eighthobstruction]

....

[MrGongGong]

Eloquently put but I know that neither you nor I will receive any sane or sensible answer to that question. It never ceases to amaze me how the same people bang the same drum time and time again but without anything constructive to say. But when asked, as you have done, for a reasoned solution or suggestion as to how things could be done differently, the emptiness of their vacuous hyperbole is there for all to see.

And, I will predict that as soon as 'the ink has dried on the paper' as it were, the riposte will be a silly little attempt at schoolboy humour followed by many emoticons.

"dave and his chums" include the rest of them IMV
one problem with politicians is that they try to pretend that they are somehow different from each other yet underneath (with a few exceptions) they all believe in the same things and then suggest that the mess they create is somehow "our" fault for

voting for them
or
not voting for them

but what would I know ? i'm just a fraudster who cons people out of their hard earned cash with funny noises .............

[teamsaint]

Eloquently put but I know that neither you nor I will receive any sane or sensible answer to that question. It never ceases to amaze me how the same people bang the same drum time and time again but without anything constructive to say. But when asked, as you have done, for a reasoned solution or suggestion as to how things could be done differently, the emptiness of their vacuous hyperbole is there for all to see..



And, I will predict that as soon as 'the ink has dried on the paper' as it were, the riposte will be a silly little attempt at schoolboy humour followed by many emoticons.

Vacuous hyperbole? look to your friends dave and co for that.
I would go back and re read the thread....plenty of solutions...maybe just not ones you like?

Answer to housing shortage? build lots of houses and flats. It can be done. Answer to public sector finance? stop attacking other countries , and spending money on nuclear weapons.
Not that difficult.


Are you REALLY suggesting that politicians don't set themselves up as "folk who know "?
last time I looked , they seem to have all the answers..all of them, left, right and otherwise.(or right, righter and rightest).

[Flosshilde]

Well, this much is hopelessly unworkable as a "solution", even if it might fall just short of actually being "crackers", but what do you think that the government should instead do in the hope of addressing these issues [housing rental costs] effectively?

The need for low-cost rented housing was met quite well by council housing, until Thatcher insisted that it should be sold to tennants at massive discounts, & prevented councils building new housing with the income. Then Blair/Brown completed the job by blackmailing councils into handing over the remaining stock to private organisations.


Is that sane & sensible enough for you?

Eloquently put but I know that neither you nor I will receive any sane or sensible answer to that question.

[teamsaint]

"dave and his chums" include the rest of them IMV
one problem with politicians is that they try to pretend that they are somehow different from each other yet underneath (with a few exceptions) they all believe in the same things and then suggest that the mess they create is somehow "our" fault for

voting for them
or
not voting for them

but what would I know ? i'm just a fraudster who cons people out of their hard earned cash with funny noises .............

I like the idea of cash with funny noises, MrCONCON, now that WOULD make the world a better place !

[Serial_Apologist]

I like the idea of cash with funny noises, MrCONCON, now that WOULD make the world a better place !

Like canned London smog - very popular with Piccadilly Circus tourists back in the 1960s, I remember.

[ahinton]

The need for low-cost rented housing was met quite well by council housing, until Thatcher insisted that it should be sold to tennants at massive discounts, & prevented councils building new housing with the income. Then Blair/Brown completed the job by blackmailing councils into handing over the remaining stock to private organisations.

It might have been met reasonably well by some of them in pre-Thatcher days but how well do you suppose that it might be today even had Thatcher's and Blair/Brown's policies not pertained since? Cash-strapped local authorities that are over-borrowed and cannot increase tax rates as they might otherwise like and who'd only be faced with massive taxpayer defaults even if they could simply don't have the ability to do this on anything like the scale that once they did; it's not just that housing and land cost far more to purchase these days, irt is also the case that the buildings let by local authorities are under their control and ownership so they're obliged to continue to maintain them adequately using often depleting reserves with which to try to do so.

[ahinton]

Answer to housing shortage? build lots of houses and flats. It can be done. Answer to public sector finance? stop attacking other countries , and spending money on nuclear weapons.
Not that difficult.

Ah - an answer at last! Yes, this would help, but can you imagine just how much (or rather little) of the defence spending thereby saved would end up being allocated to the housing market when every other claim on government spending would suddenly increase as each sector tried to shout louder than the next to get a piece of the cake for itself?

Are you REALLY suggesting that politicians don't set themselves up as "folk who know "?
last time I looked , they seem to have all the answers..all of them, left, right and otherwise.(or right, righter and rightest).

Well, I'm not necessarily doing so myself, but that's surely hardly the point. Your answer above would help if it were possible but it wouldn't go anything like far enough. Why? Largely because until there is a realistic relationship between incomes and house prices the affordability problem will continue to pertain in all three sectors of the housing market - homeowners, private tenants and social tenants.

[Flosshilde]

local authorities aren't 'cash-strapped' through an act of god, or a natural phenomenon, but because of central ghovernment policies and the activities of banks etc. Both English and Scottish governments have been freezing council tax for some years (& Thatcher capped it), so councils' abilities to raise finance are severely constrained. Councils have had to dip into reserves to maintain services.