A Bull's Perspective

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

FATBALLZ wrote: »

Or to rephrase that, until you've bit the dust and finished your comfortable retirement.

Nope. My retirement's provided for regardless.

The real issue is resources, both financial and human, to care for the older generations whilst providing a functioning economy, tax revenue, infrastructure, etc.

Given that the retiring generations are the ones who've massively benefitted from the boom in prices, it baffles me somewhat that you think the burden of social care needs to be passed on to their kids - looks very much like they are in a position to pay for it themselves much more than their kids are.

You entirely miss the point, as usual.

We currently have 4 working age people for every one pensioner, and lets face it, society is not exactly able to pay for fantastic infrastructure.

In 50 years, when the young of today retire, unless we have population growth that number will have fallen to just 2 workers for every pensioner....

It's simply impossible to maintain a functioning society, economy, healthcare system, etc, with that low a ratio, let alone pay for state pensions, etc.

macaque_2

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

I note immigration is significant, and will remain so. But it's not the only factor contributing to population growth, nor indeed for the increase in household formation.

Immigration is the main factor. If we solve that one, emmigration will do the rest.

We need more houses either way. And these are not problems.

We don't need more houses. We need a stable population and better use of the existing housing stock. The number of empty houses stood at 1 million several years ago. It is anyone's guess what the figure is today with low interest rates

We need a growing population for the next few decades whilst we shift the social care burden down through the generations or we end up like Japan, with 200% plus government debt to GDP ratios.

Who will look after the enlarged popution in their old age? More mass immigration perhaps? Some people call this the selfish generation. No prizes for guessing why.

The UK is ranked tenth by population density of states in Europe, behind Holland and Belgium, and only slightly ahead of Germany.

You are wrong but you can have your debating point because I used the word UK rather than England (which, by the way, keeps you in jobs and free University places)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/2967374/England-is-most-crowded-country-in-Europe.html

As we're clearly not overcrowded, it's a pointless question to answer.

We are overcrowded, badly so.

From memory, most of these people are housewives and students.... Do you propose forced labour?

By all means play with statistics but unemployment is a major problem today.

So whats the solution, forced redistribution of houses by need instead of a free market economy? All sounds a bit Stalinist to me......

OK, you've completely lost me.

A bedroom tax? Like the window tax of old..... That didn't work very well the first time around.

Scrap stamp duty and have a capital gains tax like shares (and houses in other countries). If necessary, have a deferrement scheme.

Interest rates are not artificially low..... They're where they need to be to undo the damage to the wider economy from your beloved crash.

Interest rates are artificially low.

your beloved crash

Nonsense. A house price correction without derailing the wider economy would be the perfect outcome. If we don't have a correction however, the economy is just going to get sicker and sicker.

AD9898_2

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Mortgage restrictions can never prevent HPI, they can only delay it.

Fair enough, I guess looking at the economic evidence we see before us the delay looks to be after most people over 35 at the present time are dead from old age.

doire_2

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Mortgage restrictions can never prevent HPI, they can only delay it.

I just dont get you at all......one day you moan about those poor helpless FTB's not getting a mortgage, the next day you're hoping for HPI which means those same FTBs getting into even bigger debt.

FATBALLZ

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

We currently have 4 working age people for every one pensioner, and lets face it, society is not exactly able to pay for fantastic infrastructure.

In 50 years, when the young of today retire, unless we have population growth that number will have fallen to just 2 workers for every pensioner....

It's simply impossible to maintain a functioning society, economy, healthcare system, etc, with that low a ratio, let alone pay for state pensions, etc.

Agreed, but given that the world already can't cope long term with the population as it is (given current technology), how is deliberately expanding it by a wide margin going to help? As a species we're already crossing our fingers that we'll invent something to increase our ability to support the current population, dramatically increasing population levels will just make it all the harder to find something that can actually meet the demand. Maintaining a functioning society when they're aren't enough resources to keep everyone alive is somewhat more difficult than doing it when there are enough resources but they're stretched a little thinner.

As the OP mentions a consequence of the boom is...

"helping even those on modest incomes in ordinary jobs build up some wealth to either realise when they sell-up or pass on to their children"

So why can't they pay for their own social care? If they can't it makes far more sense for them to retire later, rather than breed a generation of drones to pay for their retirement and then die when the resources run out.

geneer

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Nope. My retirement's provided for regardless.

Could it be any other way Spamish?

B_Blank

See I disagree with hamish as I want to see house price drops.

But I think he is right that we NEED immigration to defuse the ticking demographic time bomb in this country. We basically need immigration of people of working age.

FATBALLZ

B_Blank wrote: »

See I disagree with hamish as I want to see house price drops.

But I think he is right that we NEED immigration to defuse the ticking demographic time bomb in this country. We basically need immigration of people of working age.

Who is 'we'? I don't need immigration to pay for my old age, I'll have to pay for it myself anyway. Why don't the older generation use equity release to fund their old age?

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

FATBALLZ wrote: »

Who is 'we'? I don't need immigration to pay for my old age, I'll have to pay for it myself anyway. Why don't the older generation use equity release to fund their old age?

And will you be needing roads as well? How about services? Healthcare? Infrastructure?

All these things must be paid for out of tax revenue.

What do you think will happen if the number of taxpayers falls?

FATBALLZ

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

And will you be needing roads as well? How about services? Healthcare? Infrastructure?

All these things must be paid for out of tax revenue.

What do you think will happen if the number of taxpayers falls?

Taxes will be raised or people will retire later or both. Both far more preferable to guaranteed doom caused by policies of rapid population expansion.