Britons forced in to 'modern day slavery' by soaring house prices!!

olly300

thesaint wrote: »

Dave117,If the problem is pensions as you say, why not sort that out?

The government doesn't want to because they will lose votes (power) and money.

They can't upset:
1. the high paid civil servants who get the golden final salary pensions i.e. MPs, heads of civil service departments
2. the lower paid public sector workers i.e. people in the local dole office, people like porters and auxiliary nurses in the hospitals who are in unions. Remember the unions still hold some power in the Nu Labour party as they finance it.

The rest of populace in the private sector can go s**** themselves hence you get BTL.

BTW I saw this in The Guardian http://money.guardian.co.uk/property/buyingtolet/story/0,,2091246,00.html
lots of BTL are being sold.

zappahey

Melissa177 wrote: »

Around 2000-2002 it was tracking at about 5.8%, way over CPI. Then it settled at around 4% for a few years, and is now dropping.

I don't have a problem with public sector workers being paid commensurately, but they do get other perks like getting to leave on time in an evening, and getting good pension benefits.

What was tracking at 5.8%?

lynzpower

mikael wrote: »

I agree that it will become important to be able to produce more things we need ourselves, and not to do so is a very short-sighted view. Over the last ten years the perceived wealth in the country has been generated by selling each other ever more expensive houses allowing those who have sold houses to downsize to get a free ride of someone else who will have to work for 25 years to pay them. At the same time our economy has been hollowed out so that we no longer produce anything we can export to other countries to bring in new real wealth. Someday our country's borrowed money will need to be repaid. As a nation we have lived beyond our means importing everything we want from other countries and have mortgaged our future. Future generations will have nothing to mortgage and nothing to sell to the rest of the world. It really is quite a dire state, and it is amazing how so few people can see what is happening.

Could not agree more

mrsS_2

I disagree-
surely the wealth of the country has been created in the City of London-

Take away the City, then the house price situation in the south east would change somewhat!

deary65

mrsS wrote: »

I disagree-
surely the wealth of the country has been created in the City of London-

Take away the City, then the house price situation in the south east would change somewhat!

Can you explain what you disagree with, we might then be able to comment!

epz_2

mikael wrote: »

You have not understood what I have written. I was commenting on how we are not self sufficient in anything and how it will be our downfall. I do feel it would be much better if we were though, and it does matter.

You are just telling us your views that come from prejudice and rumor rather than facts.

By the way PC chips are not made in sweat shops but highly automated and sophisticated factories. Dresden in Germany is one example. Others are located in developing countries, but mainly due to less red tape and taxes.

self sufficency isnt the be all and end all, if china has a factory producing 5 million widgets a year and the uk consumes 50,000 a year do you really think it s more efficent to build a factory, tool up, have all the overheads etc to keep it british made.

you can call my views rumor and preduduce if you want but i haven seen you produce any evedance to support the view that our whole country would be harmed under circumstances where we stopped subsidising farmers and had a free food market. if i recall only .4% of the population is employed on the land with many of them being low payed temp jobs. then we have the the fact only 14% of the uk is developed, change that to 16% and you get an extra 14.2% housing stock etc

fyi im well aware how chips are made, i used to work for a laser lithography and wetdeck firm, the chip design and very high end stuff is kept local mostly due to tech expertise and subsides(think intel would build a fab in israel otherwise) the motherboard assembly and low end chips are all tywan and china.

mrsS_2

sorry- comment I disagree with is as follows

"over the last ten years the percieved wealth of the country has been generated by selling each other more expensive houses"



Manufacturing is no longer providing the bulk of income to this country, we are using financial services to prop up our balance of payments. If the City ceases to be a world leader in this field, then I think the house of cards will collapse.

olly300

mrsS wrote: »

I disagree-
surely the wealth of the country has been created in the City of London-

Take away the City, then the house price situation in the south east would change somewhat!

Not sure what you disagree with either but:
"ONS found that the gross added value to the economy from things such as iron and steel, railway transport and clothes making had fallen by 50% or more since 1992. But the "value" created by the letting of dwellings rose to £45bn, a gain of 120%."
http://money.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1858221,00.html
(From a quick google search)

pinkkaz

epz wrote: »

self sufficency isnt the be all and end all

Hmmm, you do realise that the earth can't have an infinite supply of natural resources (earth isn't infinite so everything on it can't be!) At one point we are going to run out of oil (and before that demand is going to outstrip supply) and then we are going to be in serious trouble if we are not self-sufficient. Right, had better get that vegetable plot planted!

mrsS_2

Actually- oil analysts believe we will NEVER actually run out of oil-the idea being that as the resource gets rarer, it becomes more and more expensive, so that the very last barrel of oil is in fact priceless!

that aside-theoretically, as oil gets more expensive to produce, as it is more difficult to extract, it then becomes economical for the large oil companies to develop alternative fuel sources.

I think that Brazil is running most of its petrol stations on bio fuel made from crops already.