Nationwide Feb:+9.4% YoY

N1AK

mayonnaise wrote: »

That tipping point won't be reached, shortchanged.
Sure, we had a decrease in the % of owners the last couple of years due to mortgage rationing, but with credit flowing a bit more freely now - and HTB - I expect the owner percentage to creep up again. Time will tell.

I'm not sure it'll do more than slow the decline. We're looking at a BTL, Parent in laws are looking at a BTL, even the brother in law who lives at home with parents is looking at a BTL. I know that sounds absurd but it's genuinely true

If you're one of lives haves then you can raise the capital for a deposit and have the earnings to fund the loans even with prices increasing; why wouldn't you when government is trying to make this the closest thing to a sure bet around?

TickersPlaysPop

N1AK wrote: »

People talk about cutting immigration as though it is a single issue with no knock on effects. Yes it'll mean the Cotswolds aren't nearly as busy on weekends, but if the retirement age for everyone had to go up by 8 years to balance the books then is that really a swap we want to make?.

At last! Great to hear what I've been thinking for 15 years.... we need immigration to balance the books for pensions. Why did New Labour never admit this and tell it like it is? It would have prevented a lot of racism and wasted front pages of the daily mail!

Graham_Devon

N1AK wrote: »

People talk about cutting immigration as though it is a single issue with no knock on effects. Yes it'll mean the Cotswolds aren't nearly as busy on weekends, but if the retirement age for everyone had to go up by 8 years to balance the books then is that really a swap we want to make?

Yes

Either that, or reduce costs elsewhere in the economy allowing people to save more of their income.

Bit of an open ended suggestion I appriciate, but what I'm getting at is that immigration itself alone cannot be the answer, as those immigrants too will increase the pension burden...aswell as increase pressure on all of our public services.

Just as an example, if we built enough houses, houses should be cheaper and therefore, people will have more money to save for pensions allowing us to look at the state pension. Always going to be difficult, but we may need to look at entitlements too and work on that.

CLAPTON

N1AK wrote: »

What Hamish is forced to endlessly point out is that there will be notable economic costs to restricting immigration. He, and I, think those costs will outweigh the benefits; the people arguing to restrict immigration like to pretend that there won't be any costs.

I think most people will answer 'yes' it is a price worth paying but they will also notice that rather there is a shortage of jobs both for the young and for the 50s and above.
So until all those wanting and willing to work have jobs, then there will be no particular pressure to enhance the working population by raising the retirement age.

And of course the crude measure of gdp doesn't include any measure of the true costs of inability to see a doctor when you need to, or the costs of the delays in our transport network both rail or road or the stress caused by the increasing housing crisis, overcrowding in schools etc.

N1AK

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Bit of an open ended suggestion I appriciate, but what I'm getting at is that immigration itself alone cannot be the answer, as those immigrants too will increase the pension burden...aswell as increase pressure on all of our public services.

And as you accept there stopping it alone isn't the answer. Immigrants have a far lower impact on pensions than natives and everyone uses public services, the difference is that immigrants have higher levels of employment and do more than an equal share to pay for them.

As long as the anti-immigration ground have to resort to baseless attempts to attack the economic contribution of immigrants their arguments aren't credible.

If someone simply came out and said they knew cutting immigration would mean cutting government spending considerably and they would, for example, accept:
> Delaying all retirement ages by 3 years
> Changing pensions to be linked to average wages
> Decreasing inheritance tax to £200k per person
> Cutting military spending by 20%
> Increasing the benefit/cost ratio required for a drug to be provided by the NHS
> Removing ISAs

As a way to pay for it, then they'd have a credible position. As it stands our budget doesn't balance long term even though it heavily leans upon immigrant workers. Take out the immigrant workers and we'd need to find billions of savings each year to make it come close to balancing.

N1AK

CLAPTON wrote: »

And of course the crude measure of gdp doesn't include any measure of the true costs of inability to see a doctor when you need to, or the costs of the delays in our transport network both rail or road or the stress caused by the increasing housing crisis, overcrowding in schools etc.

You think we'd keep all the schools open if we cut immigration? Of course not, we'd have to cut costs so we'd have more overcrowding in the schools that aren't closed to save money.

This is the issue with anti-immigration arguments. They're based on a collection of reasons and many of those reasons are a fiction. There's literally no reason to expect there to be more doctors per patient, and a good reasons to expect there to be less.

** In short, you say people will say 'yes' but they won't. They'll continue to believe in the fiction that goes like "immigration is a cost, everything would be better with less immigrants" as you're nicely demonstrating.

CLAPTON

N1AK wrote: »

You think we'd keep all the schools open if we cut immigration? Of course not, we'd have to cut costs so we'd have more overcrowding in the schools that aren't closed to save money.

This is the issue with anti-immigration arguments. They're based on a collection of reasons and many of those reasons are a fiction. There's literally no reason to expect there to be more doctors per patient, and a good reasons to expect there to be less.

** In short, you say people will say 'yes' but they won't. They'll continue to believe in the fiction that goes like "immigration is a cost, everything would be better with less immigrants" as you're nicely demonstrating.

The point that I'm making is that the 'costs' of increased numbers do not appear in the figures you quote : gdp whilst a useful 1930 invention does not give any picture of wealth or our effective per capita income.

So building a new school to accommodate more children appears as an increase in GDP and our infrastructure wealth: in reality it is a cost.

Given we have unemployment especially of the young and over 50s, and low productive (often ascribed to high immigration) there is plenty of surplus in the economy without the costs you claim.

I'm not questioning the arithmetic, I'm questioning the meaning of the maths.

N1AK

CLAPTON wrote: »

The point that I'm making is that the 'costs' of increased numbers do not appear in the figures you quote : gdp


Given we have unemployment especially of the young and over 50s, and low productive (often ascribed to high immigration) there is plenty of surplus in the economy without the costs you claim.

You're suggesting that schools will be less crowded if we slash immigration. I'm saying it's a nonsense because we'd have to close schools, and actually increase class sizes, if we did.

You're saying we'd be able to see doctors quicker and I'm saying that too is a nonsense as we'd have to cut back spending on doctors and other medical services per person.

You're suggesting that we'd have lower native unemployment, which is a particularly good example of making up a things to back the position you've already decided must be right. The news is full of the fact the government has just done a report showing immigration has had no noticeable impact on native employment during the last 4 years and the Tory's are trying to silence it because it makes them look as foolish as all the other people claiming the opposite.

Finally notice that I have made exactly one reference to GDP: Saying your claim that this is all Hamish cares about is pointless. You might imagine that I'm discussing GDP but your imagination doesn't make it so.

Graham_Devon

N1AK wrote: »

You're suggesting that schools will be less crowded if we slash immigration. I'm saying it's a nonsense because we'd have to close schools, and actually increase class sizes, if we did.

Can I ask why?

We never had to do this when immigration was lower? Indeed (and I may be wrong) I think we've closed more schools in the last 20 years than we did previously?

Certainly more hospitals have been closed.

Seems we got on OK before high numbers of people entered the country, but now it seems if higher numbers still don't enter, we'll have to close public services down? Therefore the options seem to be closing down, or overcrowding which don't seem to go hand in hand?

wotsthat

N1AK wrote: »

You think we'd keep all the schools open if we cut immigration? Of course not, we'd have to cut costs so we'd have more overcrowding in the schools that aren't closed to save money.

Schools would close if there were less children. Why would schools close at a higher rate than the reduction in children? I don't see how that's anything to do with immigration at all - more about policy.

N1AK wrote: »

If someone simply came out and said they knew cutting immigration would mean cutting government spending considerably and they would, for example, accept:
> Delaying all retirement ages by 3 years
> Changing pensions to be linked to average wages
> Decreasing inheritance tax to £200k per person
> Cutting military spending by 20%
> Increasing the benefit/cost ratio required for a drug to be provided by the NHS
> Removing ISAs

There have been a number of credible reports showing the positive economic effects of immigration. Even the most positive don't credit immigrants with keeping retirement ages down by 3 years, keeping military spending up by 20% etc. etc.

Aren't you just as guilty of hyperbole as the people you accuse of talking nonsense?