Banks

[Flosshilde]

ahinton, you seem to diss all the possible solutions, complete, partial or final, put forward - how about a tentative suggestion from you? (or indeed from the body snatcher)

[ahinton]

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.

Does it not also occur to you that local authorities are cash-strapped not only because their tax raising powers are restricted by national government but also because some are over-borrowed, some have made unfortunate investments of taxpayers' monies and many of the less well-off taxpayers could not afford to pay vastly increased local taxes and would, as I wrote earlier, be likely to default on them?

[ahinton]

ahinton, you seem to diss all the possible solutions, complete, partial or final, put forward - how about a tentative suggestion from you? (or indeed from the body snatcher)

Not at all; I have already indicated in response to teamsaint above that the solution offered by him would help (and I'm all in favour of swingeing cuts in the national defence budget, especially where vast capital expenditure on nuclear weaponry development and manufacture are involved), but it could be no more than a partial one.

I have also already stated that the problem is one that affects some people who wish or find themselves obliged to house themselves by all three means - owning their homes or renting them from the public and private sector and that, as this is broadly speaking an affordability problem, it seems to me that, until there is a sensible relationship between salaries and house prices, that problem will continue - and if the laws of supply and demand aggravate this situation there would need to be new homes building on a vast scale in order to flood the market so that this could to some degree be overcome. Yes, more housing does nevertheless need to be built if sufficient developers can be found that are willing to take the risk on such investment (and, in addition, there's surely also at least some market for the refurbishment of currently derelict/disused buildings for use as homes to sell or let), but whatever it is must be financed and such finance will largely have to be by yet more borrowings which, in today's already over-borrowed climate, make such projects far less easy to achieve than they might be otherwise.

Who is the body snatcher, what is his/her relevance here and does he/she live in personally owned or private or social rented accommodation?

[Dave2002]

Thinking about this again I remembered something that has parallels

If you want to take a musical instrument on Ryanair you pay a special fee (£50)
a few years ago I was travelling back from Ireland with a colleague who had been teaching at the same institution
she plays the accordion and had paid for a bag and put a small accordion in her suitcase surrounded by clothes , her bag was the correct weight.
So when we get to checking in the bag they ask to look inside,
"that's a musical instrument" they say
"that'll be £50 please"

Given that in my world more or less anything could be a musical instrument does that mean that it's perfectly legitimate for a company to make up an abitrary rule that says that I should have to pay for thinking this ?

So O'Leary goes even lower in my estimation. Hum.

In the meantime - http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...tion-tax-italy

[Flosshilde]

Who is the body snatcher, what is his/her relevance here and does he/she live in personally owned or private or social rented accommodation?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_snatching

[Flosshilde]

I have also already stated that the problem is one that affects some people who wish or find themselves obliged to house themselves by all three means - owning their homes or renting them from the public and private sector and that, as this is broadly speaking an affordability problem,

Council housing wasn't affected by 'market rates' or the general level of house prices. That's the whole point of it.

Yes, more housing does nevertheless need to be built if sufficient developers can be found that are willing to take the risk on such investment

If councils were allowed to, & hadn't been seduced/forced into hiving off their activities to the private, or quasi-private, sector then they would be able to take on any 'risks' (not that I thinbk there would be any) of building & managing more houses to rent. You seem to believe that the position councils find themselves in is due to a natural process - it's not. It's the result of central government policies from Thatcher onwqards (possibly before) that has set so many restrictions on council activities that they find themselves virtually powerless. The present government talks about localism & devolving powers but in fact is centralising more.

[ahinton]

Council housing wasn't affected by 'market rates' or the general level of house prices. That's the whole point of it.

How, then, do councils manage to buy land for building or property for development and refurbishment more economically than anyone else. Council rents might not necessarily be affected by prevailing private rents which in turn are influenced by house prices, but when a council wants to purchase land and or buildings they're just another customer like anyone else.

If councils were allowed to, & hadn't been seduced/forced into hiving off their activities to the private, or quasi-private, sector then they would be able to take on any 'risks' (not that I thinbk there would be any) of building & managing more houses to rent. You seem to believe that the position councils find themselves in is due to a natural process - it's not. It's the result of central government policies from Thatcher onwqards (possibly before) that has set so many restrictions on council activities that they find themselves virtually powerless. The present government talks about localism & devolving powers but in fact is centralising more.

The last bit is sadly correct and is now being recognised at least by some as a big and expensive mistake - and one which, for all her privatising efforts, even Thatcher made with what was left that hadn't been privatised. Councils, however, do have to take risks with investments just like anyone else; the only difference is that they do it with other people's money whereas most people do it with their own. I'd not call their situation a result of a "natural" process but it would have been hard to avoid even if they'd not so hived off some of their activities.

[teamsaint]

to allow councils to buy land cheaply I would allow them to buy what they needed at market rates, and tax the owner at a very high rate, say 95% and then rebate the council.
The landowner would get a price better than for agricultural use, everybody's happy.

[amateur51]

What about the Bank of England stopping all this financing banks to increase their lending capacity which in fact gets diverted to their capital funds that they're niow required to set asie for a future crash?

What about nationalising Royal Bank of Scotland and turning it into a bank that funds local authority housing?

What about complusiory purchase of much of Tesco's land banks whereby it hoards land pending lengthy negotiations with local authorities for pernmission to build yet another local economy-skewing out-of-town supermarket?

There you go ahinton and RM - three ideas to enable the building of masses of new homes by local authorities for rent

[amateur51]

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.

It's gone very quiet over there!

[scottycelt]

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.

What English Government ... ?

[MrGongGong]

It's gone vey quiet over there!

The grey bit in the middle ?

[ahinton]

to allow councils to buy land cheaply I would allow them to buy what they needed at market rates, and tax the owner at a very high rate, say 95% and then rebate the council.
The landowner would get a price better than for agricultural use, everybody's happy.

YOU might - but then you'd not be able to force the sale and, under such a punitive tax consequence, the owner would withdraw his/her land from sale or not put it up in the first place, so who would benefit from that?

[ahinton]

What about the Bank of England stopping all this financing banks to increase their lending capacity which in fact gets diverted to their capital funds that they're niow required to set asie for a future crash?

If that were indeed stopped, what do you imagine would or could happen instead and how on earth might it ever benefit even the slightest portion of any sector of the housing market?

What about nationalising Royal Bank of Scotland and turning it into a bank that funds local authority housing?

But it is already largely "nationalised", although it's now making a thumping great loss,. given which sad but unavoidable fact one would have to ask where the money would come from out of this exercise to do what you suggest (or indeed anything at all)?

What about complusiory purchase of much of Tesco's land banks whereby it hoards land pending lengthy negotiations with local authorities for pernmission to build yet another local economy-skewing out-of-town supermarket?

You'd have first to try to create a law that would specifically disadvantage Tesco and any other organisation that had done the same kinds of thing; can you really imagine just how much of its already hard-pressed taxpayers' money a British government that tried to do this would lose when the ECHR bore down upon it following a case against that government being brought (no doubt successfully) by Tesco (et al)?

There you go ahinton and RM - three ideas to enable the building of masses of new homes by local authorities for rent

There you (and the rest of us) clearly don't go, for the reasons outlined above!

[mangerton]

What English Government ... ?

Ah. You're ahead of me!