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

epz_2

pinkkaz wrote: »

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!

yep, but we arent self sufficent in oil at the moment and out climate is wrong to grow fuels.

in my opinion it would be best energy policy to develop an array of pebel bed nuclear reactors (till they get fusion working) in the middle of nowhere and use them to produce hydrogen. this hydrogen can then be transfered into one of those wacky new aluminium alloys that can bind to it an release it when electricy is passed through it.

then you can then supply these fuels in existing petrol infrastructure and local hydrogen to electricity generating sites with the added bonus of eliminating transmission losses (which are huge) and ugly pylons.

ill be my solution is better thought out than most peoples stick a windmill on my roof and hope for the best.

Guy_Montag

mrsS wrote: »

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.

There's running out & effectively running out, it doesn't matter if there's one particularly difficult to reach pocket of oil somewhere off the coast of Antarctica, we're going to be stuffed when oil starts hitting $100/barrel & goes up from there.

Time to stop subsidising people breeding - Can't afford it? Don't have it!

& introducing some measures into the third world to encourage the same (contraception & mosquito nets should do the trick).

baby_boomer

Melissa177 wrote: »

What is driving the house price rises is:

- People are expecting to be able to afford to buy a house on their own.

Are they? And if they were it wouldn't drive house prices upwards.

Surely the rise of DINKIES (double income no kids) is the key social change which has driven the housing market to new levels?

PosterBoy77

epz wrote: »

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.

Even more bizarre. If you know that chips are not made in sweat shops don't add it in to your argument hoping that nobody will notice!

I don't have an issue with free markets or ending subsidies. However at the same time, for example, we would have to be happy with letting farm conditions and abattoirs be the same as those in the "low cost countries". In the UK we have very costly health and safety procedures for food production, but many "low cost countries" don't, hence why they are cheaper. Why should we for example be happy to turn a blind eye to how beef is produced if it arrives on a container ship, but be up in arms about conditions here?

I have been to Australia and they have massive cattle stations. They export much of their beef as live exports to Indonesia and Asia. It is cheaper not to bother doing the slaughtering, the freezing and the packing there, but to sell it live and the animals will be slaughtered locally at the far end just before they are consumed. This practice of shipping tightly packed live animals is illegal in the EU as we collectively feel it is not right, but it is cheap. If there was a level playing field then subsidies may not be required, but we would have to accept that our farmers would need to use the lowest cost techniques to operate with.

We are just as hypocritical when we have all sorts of health and saftey laws here for any company that still operates factories, but nobody cares about the conditions in which people in other countries work in to make cheap goods which are imported into the UK.

Someday the other poor workers will also want conditions like workers here have, and then we will have to pay the same and extra for the transport costs from the other side of the world.

At the end of the day the price has to be paid somewhere and simply pretending that it will not is burying our heads in the sand.

PosterBoy77

olly300 wrote: »

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)

That just shows the complete lunacy of our economy. Letting people borrow money to buy houses, and then let out the same houses to be lived in just as before has somewhow created £45 billion worth of wealth? How? They are still the same piles of bricks, no value has been added or created. Sheer madness!

[Deleted User]

PMSL at the article, speaking as a first time buyer that has bought at the peak of the house price bubble. I dont feel like a slave at all, I go to work, feet on desk cup of tea, bit of internet, do a bit of work here and there when it comes in. Im not minted but certainly alot better off then my dad was when i was growing up, despite him still earning more then me, grrr just one promotion away and ill be king.

deary65

mrsS wrote: »

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.

Lets look at this statement.

Because we are loosing our manufacturing (working class) base, we have created a large middle class( housing boom) and a smaller underclass,( the have and have knots) there is no longer a working class to speak of. Because of this our political parties are targeting the large middle class, this is why you find very little difference between them and their policies. The best result, ( I think) would be a hung parliament in the next election. This way you may get proportional representation and therefore a fairer reflection of the sentiments of the nation in parliament.

As to the city, this is noting more than a gambling casino. How I interpret this behavior, is two men squaring up to each other( the bulls and the bears). When the you are in a bull market the bulls take two steps forward and one step back, when you are in a bear market the bears take three steps back and one step forward. If you bear( excuse the pun) with me and monitor the graphs to should see this. Always remember man is basically an animal , and not an “original thinker” as some might have you believe we will not create anything which nature has not already done so.

nelly_2

deary65 wrote: »

Lets look at this statement.

Because we are loosing our manufacturing (working class) base, we have created a large middle class( housing boom) and a smaller underclass,( the have and have knots) there is no longer a working class to speak of. Because of this our political parties are targeting the large middle class, this is why you find very little difference between them and their policies. The best result, ( I think) would be a hung parliament in the next election. This way you may get proportional representation and therefore a fairer reflection of the sentiments of the nation in parliament.

As to the city, this is noting more than a gambling casino. How I interpret this behavior, is two men squaring up to each other( the bulls and the bears). When the you are in a bull market the bulls take two steps forward and one step back, when you are in a bear market the bears take three steps back and one step forward. If you bear( excuse the pun) with me and monitor the graphs to should see this. Always remember man is basically an animal , and not an “original thinker” as some might have you believe we will not create anything which nature has not already done so.

i agree with all that except - 'we will not create anything which nature has not already done so'

What about rubiks cubes

deary65

nelly wrote: »

i agree with all that except - 'we will not create anything which nature has not already done so'

What about rubiks cubes

Very good example, the rubric cube is very representative of nature, you have to get all the pieces to fit together, working in harmony.

neil324

sal-ad_daze wrote: »

Include subsidised homes for key workers in all areas to enable people who work in vital but low paid jobs the chance to own DECENT homes in DECENT areas.

My daughter has just qualifed as a teacher and starts her first job in September, there is no way on this earth she can afford her first home. She's stuck throwing money away on a rented flat where her home is not her own because she's restircted by the LL rules.

I'll stop there before I get on my soapbox and that's not good on a first post!

er why should tax payers money which everybody contributes to, used to subsidise teachers/nurses/police in "in DECENT homes in DECENT areas"
and the rest left to get on with it