Brexit, the economy and house prices part 5

Moby

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Not if they're smart.

Look at the polling data - the only reason Corbyn is in with a chance of becoming PM is precisely because the Tories have swung too far right and alienated a decent chunk of the centre ground voters,, who are holding their noses and voting Corbyn.

A genuinely popular, centrist, candidate leading a moderate party on either side would win a landslide in today's climate.

I used to think that and have a lot of time for Andrew Adonis and what he was saying this morning......a dose of reality in fact!
However Labour has a lot of brexiteers up north it alienates at it's peril. Corbyn also sees the EU as a free market super state so is a natural brexiteer himself really. Labour therefore has to tread carefully, accept the result and concentrate on the best 'jobs first' outcome?

Moby

GwylimT wrote: »

People do find higher taxes harder to accept. We live in Sweden, due to higher taxes all childcare is free at point of use, it is available at the weekend as well which is handy for many workers. You pay a small fee each month if you want the nursery to supply nappies etc I think it is about £70 a month.

Education is very good, all extras such as ingredients for cooking, sport shoes, lunch etc are included at no extra cost.

Parental leave is good, 480 days, with 320 of those days being paid at 80% of your income. This can be shared however you like, however if you share you can be off work at the same time as your partner and you are both paid. You can also take this on a part time basis, so if i go part time at work my parental leave will continue to be paid at a half rate until the allocated days are over.

The state pension can be drawn from the age of 61 (they are thinking of changing his to 63), typically people will receive around half their income, but many people also have private or work pensions. So the average person had a pension worth 70% of their salary on retirement, this means most have plenty in retirement. Those who worked a low income, or couldn't work due to disability receive a topped up pension of £560 a month. Even with the state pension the more you pay the larger pension you will receive.

If you are elderly and need home care, or a care/nursing home this has a cost, you pay 4% of your overall fees unless your income is low, if you own property you can choose to pay this in one lump sump when your property is sold (any unused years are refunded) or after death from your estate.


If you lose your job you are paid 80% of your salary for the first 200 days then 70% for the next hundred. If you are not part of a union you are instead paid a fixed fee of £25 a day. After 300 days you are enrolled into a job scheme and paid 65% of your previous dalary until you find work.

If you are ill you receive 80% of your pay in sickness benefits, you are also well supported, for example you will be givem treatment to assist you in getting back to work, such as physio etc to get you work fit. You can return on reduced hours and benefits will make up the shortfall in wages until you are well enough to go back on your previous full hours.

Perhaps Gwilym is lying too Great Ape;)

vivatifosi

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

A genuinely popular, centrist, candidate leading a moderate party on either side would win a landslide in today's climate.

Instead we had the 'too far right' Mayhem losing her majority and the 'too far left' Corbyn failing to capitalise.



Maybe.

But the extremists can never achieve anything lasting.

Extreme Right version of Tories get in and anger half the country, who then vote Extreme Left version of Labour in to demolish everything the Tories did, rinse and repeat.

It's a cycle of destruction and economic vandalism where nothing good for prosperity and uniting the country is ever achieved.

I reckon the UK public will become sick of it sooner or later and a genuinely uniting, sensible, compromising, middle ground, statesman-like politician will emerge and lead us back into sanity.

The only real question is how much pointless damage is done before that happens.

I may not even vote in the next GE and have voted in every GE since achieved voting age.

Neither side is palatable. I might vote Lib Dem but think they may not get far as they may be too associated with remain for Brexit supporting centrists to vote for them.

kabayiri

vivatifosi wrote: »

I may not even vote in the next GE and have voted in every GE since achieved voting age.

Neither side is palatable. I might vote Lib Dem but think they may not get far as they may be too associated with remain for Brexit supporting centrists to vote for them.

I vote for *any* party which moves the political seat of power further North than some tiny Southern corner of the British Isles.

I don't know any other way we are going to address the serious imbalances which will affect not just economic well being, but life spans.

There are 2 economies in the UK : the economy of London and the economy of the rest. We seem to think they should align. They are getting further apart I reckon.

Windofchange

GreatApe wrote: »

How can we both live in the same country yet have so differing views?

Indeed.

GreatApe wrote: »

Right now when I look around me and the 100+ families I know I don't see any poverty at all. Some of them have zero income yet are not poor the state gives them sufficient funds to live a decent life. I do see a lot of difficult lives due to dysfunctional behavior addictions and violence people lead difficult lives but it is not die to the economy or capatilism it is due to addictions and dysfunction

Except that those actually dealing with this first hand very much disagree with your world view that housing is cheap and the only reason people are poor is that they are drug addicts.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/dec/15/homelessness-report-working-families-stable-jobs-local-government-ombudsman

Some highlights for you as you no doubt won't "waste your time" with reading the article.

King said the common perception that homelessness was about people with chaotic lives who slept rough no longer held true. “Increasingly, [homeless people] are normal families who would not have expected to be in this situation.”

"Michael King said nurses, taxi drivers, hospitality staff and council workers were among those assisted by his office"

"...the latest quarterly homelessness statistics showed another year-on-year rise in the number of households classed as homeless. There are 79,150 homeless households in temporary housing, including 6,400 in bed and breakfast accommodation..."

This isn't just the South East either before you say well why don't they all get moved to Bradford. From my local authority website:

"We are unable to provide housing to everyone, and even those that are awarded a high priority may have to wait a several years before a suitable property becomes available."

Is it not therefore a logical conclusion that there will be plenty of people made homeless - loss of job, mental health issues, death in the family etc etc not because they are drug addicts, but due to an unexpected twist of fate? Your view that people are homeless purely because they are dysfunctional is ludicrous.

GreatApe

Moby wrote: »

You say I'm 'lying' but acknowledge yourself that you see 'a lot of difficult lives due to dysfunction'. Then you acknowledge 'poverty' because I see it....it's just that I willingly omit the dysfunctional issues behind it ??? I have no idea what you are talking about mate and I don't think you do either!

I don't consider someone who takes their weekly paycheck and goes to the slots losing it all every single week a poor person. I consider that a dysfunctional person who is poor because they are dysfunctional. Such people have difficult lives its got nothing to do with free trade or the economy. In that instance it is down purely to their gambling addiction.

So I accept there are many dysfunctional people who have difficult lives. I do not accept free market capatilism has caused any poverty. Almost all functional people in the UK have good lives

Wages are high and we have full employment. There is no poverty in the UK. There are dysfunctional people and families who are 'poor' because of their dysfunctionall lives. It also impacts people with money. I only know one true alcoholic a middle class man with a family a couple of homes and some money. Yet he lives a !!!! life he goes out gets drunk and picks fights with the biggest person in the pub then comes home bloodied black and blue for his wife to try and deal with it if he is in a particular bad mood she gets a lot of abuse too.

The fact that the trots ignores these dysfunctions tells you how much they really care. None at all. The trots just want power to control the economy and the government to put their mates as heads of companies and Unions. It's why you have to fabricate poverty not just poverty but abject poverty and blame it on the free markets. Fortunately most the public are aware of you lies. But I mist admit you are slowly conning more and more into believing these myths

GreatApe

Moby wrote: »

Perhaps Gwilym is lying too Great Ape;)

He is saying Sweden is good. Sure I don't doubt it I don't know enough either way but it is a free market developed country so the majority of functional families probably do OK. But I also suspect Sweden also has dysfunctional people. Alcoholics gambling addicts drug abusers and I would guess they love not so great lives.

But you and I are not talking about Sweden we are talking about the UK
Why do you find it so hard to accept most functional families live good lives in the UK?

GreatApe

Windofchange wrote: »

Indeed.

Except that those actually dealing with this first hand very much disagree with your world view that housing is cheap and the only reason people are poor is that they are drug addicts.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/dec/15/homelessness-report-working-families-stable-jobs-local-government-ombudsman

Some highlights for you as you no doubt won't "waste your time" with reading the article.

King said the common perception that homelessness was about people with chaotic lives who slept rough no longer held true. “Increasingly, [homeless people] are normal families who would not have expected to be in this situation.”

"Michael King said nurses, taxi drivers, hospitality staff and council workers were among those assisted by his office"

"...the latest quarterly homelessness statistics showed another year-on-year rise in the number of households classed as homeless. There are 79,150 homeless households in temporary housing, including 6,400 in bed and breakfast accommodation..."

This isn't just the South East either before you say well why don't they all get moved to Bradford. From my local authority website:

"We are unable to provide housing to everyone, and even those that are awarded a high priority may have to wait a several years before a suitable property becomes available."

Is it not therefore a logical conclusion that there will be plenty of people made homeless - loss of job, mental health issues, death in the family etc etc not because they are drug addicts, but due to an unexpected twist of fate? Your view that people are homeless purely because they are dysfunctional is ludicrous.

People in temporary housing are not homeless.

We only have a very small percentage of truely homeless people and almost all of them are drug addicts. I remember we had this conversation before and I linked to a BBC article showing that a big survey found 94% (I think it was 94% just going off memory might have been 96%) were on drugs or alcoholics and I suspect many of the remaining 6% were not telling the full truth.


Can you at least accept some of the following facts.

We are a high wage nation.
We have full employment (<2% unemployed longer term 6+ months)
We are a free people
Our police and army are good institutions (you don't fear a military coup or a police state)
We are liberal and accepting nation
We do a lot for the world giving much more than most Nation in foreign aid
Plenty of migrants have come to the UK and done well for themselves (long term migrants have higher house ownership than locals)
Lots of positives for the current system


As for your continual insistence on housing being unaffordable it doesn't stand up to facts. The majority of private renters are in private renting temporarily. Students people who move around the country for work recent migrants people who rent and own etc. Only 3% of Brits rent privately for more than 10 years. 97% buy or get a social house. It really isn't a problem its one of those fake news stories. I myself rented privately for 9 years. I added to the private rental stats but now I own. Private rental is churn. Your problem as has been proven multiple times is you really have a weak grasp of mathematics and logic yet you think you are second to none. The private rental sector being temporary churn is one fact you don't understand or want to IG ore for your own propaganda reasons.

This is a great country.
Free trade and capatilism is a great system

Rinoa

Meanwhile, in the EU capital, they're distributing cardboard tents for the 2600 homeless living on the streets.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-42517710

LHW99

another year-on-year rise in the number of households classed as homeless

I think this is what somewhat troubles me.
I understand that living in one room with small children is not good, and more needs to be done. But these people are not IMO actually "homeless" - they are not rough sleepers living on the streets.
I think it would be more useful for these statistics to be broken down more. Shelter includes:

• staying with friends or family
• staying in a hostel, night shelter or B&B
• squatting (because you have no legal right to stay)
• at risk of violence or abuse in your home
• living in poor conditions that affect your health
• living apart from your family because you don't have a place to live together

as being included in the definition of homeless.
On that basis, is a student son or daughter living in their family home also homeless?
On that basis, I and my mother were "homeless" for the duration of my childhood, as we had to move in with my grandparents as she couldn't afford accomodation of our own as she was low paid. But no-one would have classed us as that, and we would never have got onto a social housing list as we had somewhere to sleep and even as a lone parent she would therefore not be a priority.