Brexit, The Economy and House Prices (Part 2)

GreatApe

Rusty_Shackleton wrote: »

Greatape, im not going to go through point by point, but youve made a lot of sweeping statements portrayed as fact that fly in the face of my own experience

Well you have no real experience of the past its just confirmation bias sillyness

and official statistics.

are you kidding me the official stats clearly show we are much richer and better paid than in the past. I have noticed recently people are comparing the peak of the bubble 2007 to just after a sterling crash and mid point in the cycle 2017 and saying oh look things are flat woe is me but that isnt fair its cherry picking dates

Case in point: there might not be a housing shortage, if you count all residential properties compared to the number of people in the country. That doesnt stop a huge number of people being homeless (and not just living on the street homeless, the hidden ones spending ages in b&bs or couch surfing).

homelessness is often due to addiction problems how many times must I say that?
Here is a video of your pal complaining 30 years ago about homelessness clearly it is not a new problem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhEPyjolGQQ

It also ignores where the housing is compared to where the demand is.

The only place there is a shortage of homes, and even then I dont think it is a server shortage is in zone 1-2 London everywhere else is acquitted also its mostly a problem for recent migrants not the locals

Similarly your claim about inheritence... I just, i dont know where you get this idea. Theres an awful lot of wealth to be inherited, but its not going to be spread widely amongst the population.

I have done posts on this forums showing the official stats of estates, it was a few years ago and it shows more than £70 billion in just inheritences for that one year (more in gifts) and since then wealth has only increased a lot (stock market up bonds up cash accounts up housing up land up other property up)

It is also very widely spread, marriage and kids spread it even further. Eg even a billionaire if they give to their kids who give to their kids who give to their kids etc etc unless they are inbreeding (which is uncommon in the west) the wealth gets spread thinner and thinner as people generally have 2 kids 4 grand kids 8 great grand kids 16....32...64...128...and so on

Also, not jealous of geological formations, but the socially responsible actions of a government with their windfall. I think we'd all be better off with leaders (and an electorate that supports them) that have foresight and see the long game. What the hell does the unions/thatcher have to do with thatcher spending north sea oil revenue on tax cuts?

You dont know what your talking about

With regards to other expenses compared to housing, its not something ive looked into enough to comment on stats, but from discussions with my parents, aunts/uncles, and colleagues... All in the 40-60 age bracket, who all have sympathy for my generation and admit that life was cheaper...

They are mistaken, probably because they are thinking back to nominal prices not real prices.
The data clearly shows goods and services were more expensive a generation or two ago much more expensive in the case of food and cloths. Generally speaking if you want to see what life was like a generation or two ago look at a developing country Id suggest turkey and if you want to look at what life was like 4-6 generations ago I would suggest looking at life in a poorer country like the poorer 3/4ths of india today

Granted, foreign holidays and other luxuries werent such an option, but to say food cost so much it outweighed housing? That sounds ridiculous.

why do you think your grand parents are so short compared to you? (or at least that is the case generally)

Gravity was stronger back then? or they didnt have as much food as you did growing up?

Dont even think about saying genetics, those dont change so much over just 1-2 generations

GreatApe

In 1951 only 29.5% of homes were owner ocupied. If they were so cheap and affordable and times were fantastic why did so few people own their own homes?

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-dwelling-stock-including-vacants

In 1955 A POUND of butter was 18p, a loaf was 4p, a pint of milk 3p and six eggs just 8p. And weekly wages were £9.25

Thus you could buy 300 pints of milk per week. Today milk costs just 25p a pint and someone earning £500pw could buy 2,000 pints of milk per week. In real terms milk cost nearly 7x as much as today and eggs cost 9x as much as today butter nearly 10x as much as today but bread cost about 3x as much as today. This reminds me of what my grandmother used to tell me often that their diet had much more bread in it than today

Not only was food 3-10x more expensive than today, parents generally had more children to feed also also work was more physical. You can easily spend 8 hours a day on your computer moaning life is hard and eat only 2,000 calories and you would be ok. Your great grand dad could not be a miner on 2,000 calories they had to consume closer to 4,000 calories a day to function

So no gravity was not stronger for your grandparents, they are shorter as they could afford less food and less high nutritional food and had to work more physical jobs. Food really was much more expensive for a family

HornetSaver

GreatApe wrote: »

why do you think your grand parents are so short compared to you? (or at least that is the case generally)

Gravity was stronger back then? or they didnt have as much food as you did growing up?

Dont even think about saying genetics, those dont change so much over just 1-2 generations

I'd say that over the past 120-150 years or so nutritional improvements have gradually led to size increases. Through the early part of that was very much dependent on class, and the middle part of that was very much caveated by rationing, and even when rationing was not in place, volatile trade networks (and therefore supplies of certain types of food and at times quantities in general). Then you had the period when the British economy was in the doldrums before joining the European Community and thus a lot of people did not eat a lot, and over the last 40-50 years or so is when average heights have really exploded.

My philosophy about property prices goes something like this. Houses were a lower percentage of people's incomes 45 years ago, when we as a country and a higher proportion of people as individuals were pretty poor. That subsequent generations have had less offensive attitudes towards women, those from other racial backgrounds and those from the working class, and the country has become more prosperous as a result, does not give a generation of whom the above cannot be said the right to claim that we've never had it so good and therefore to lump it on house prices.

GreatApe

200 eggs 42 loafs of bread would feed a family of 2 parents and 4 children it would be quite a boring diet and I am not sure it would be a balanced diet but lets go with that as it would meet the calories of the family. Its bread heavy as that is cheap and it has no meat which is probably more expensive than eggs

That is £4.35 for a weeks worth of bread heavy boring food and income is only £9.25 so close o 50% of your gross income (before tax) goes on just food. Today a family of 2 parents 2 kids could easily buy the same basic foods and spend less than 10% of their income on food so truly a massive change the likes of young Rusty can not comprehend

Also the idea that women all stayed at home is clearly wrong, the 1951 census shows 6 million women working and 12 million men working so at least half of women worked (perhaps closer to 60% as as women had a lower pension age to men) and of course they had more kids to look after and no domestic appliances to help them with the domestic tasks. That is also roughly true for 1921 (about 1/3rd of the workforce was women) so roughly the same as 1951

Thrugelmir

HornetSaver wrote: »

My philosophy about property prices goes something like this. Houses were a lower percentage of people's incomes 45 years ago, when we as a country and a higher proportion of people as individuals were pretty poor.

That's because they could borrow less. For my first house we borrowed the maximum from Lloyds bank of 2.75 times joint earnings. Mind you mortgage interest rates did hit 14%. So has to be put into perspective.

As banks found ways to leverage up their balance sheets up (1971 - 2007). Then over time money became progressively cheaper. Now we are sitting on the top of the plateau while central banks stabilise the situation. Over time the air will be released. Then we'll see how normalisation pans out. No one knows......

GreatApe

Banks lent less in the past because they knew that things like food cost a lot more.

If food goes from half a persons income to 1/10th of their income then housing costs can go up but still be more affordable than in the past

1951 was just 29.5% homeownership
2011 was over 65% for the locals

GreatApe

Also 1951 only about 2.3% of people went to university,
93.5% left age 16 or under
with 74% leaving at the age of less than 15

economic

GreatApe wrote: »

Also 1951 only about 2.3% of people went to university,
93.5% left age 16 or under
with 74% leaving at the age of less than 15

if there was a big waste of resources it would be the education system at university level. at least 50% probably 75% of the university courses should be scrapped. replaced by apprentiship style learning for jobs and skills to do with things like technology.

Rusty_Shackleton

Greatape, youre talking a lot about stats of wealth that are overall, and dont take into account distribution. When ive discussed with people in my life who are in my parents generation they dont remember what milk and bread cost 30 years ago, they describe what they used to do in their lives and could afford, while also owning their first houses. Also, money that was once spent on more expensive clothes (which incidentally fostered a more mend and make do attitude in most) has probably just diverted to technology and leisure activities, where spending had gone up drastically. The only thing my parents in particular comment on is how much more my generation spend on eating out, for them takeaways and restaurants were far rarer, ill grant you that. Now, either these people, from diverse backgrounds and in different areas of the country (i grew up in SE, now in NE) are collectively lying, or theyre all remembering fairly accurately and youre wrong. Hmm, whats more likely?

Also, stop with the homelessness is primarily due to addiction spiel. Unless you can provide some evidence for such a damning accusation. Which you cant, because its absolutely false. A lot of people are homeless because councils have a responsibility to house them and guess what... THEY DONT HAVE THE HOUSES, so many end up in temporary accommodation and B&Bs... In Peterborough i believe theyve recently bought a load of portacabin housing in to help deal with the problem! And its not due to 'no dss' landlords because landlords dont leave houses empty, so there are clearly lots of tenants that can rent privately. Honestly where have you got this idea that the majority of poor and homeless people are addicts?! Its literally ridiculoud, not even the daily mail comes out with quite so outrageous fiction.

Rusty_Shackleton

Greatape, while youre failing to find any evidence for your homelessness claims, heres some evidence against your claim:
House of commons library on (PDF) statutory homelessness (i.e. The official figures, which only include those who approach LAs for help... So the majority of them)

https://fullfact.org/economy/homelessness-uk/

Not a word about addiction. Bearly mention of the dysfubction you talk about. A lot of it is literally just can't afford somewhere to live, end of short tenancy, and family unable to provide support. Oh, and also lots of women and children escaping abuse.