Brexit, the economy and house prices part 5

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Moby wrote: »

have a lot of time for Andrew Adonis and what he was saying this morning......a dose of reality in fact!

Indeed.

However Labour has a lot of brexiteers up north it alienates at it's peril.

Maybe.

But I rather suspect a very large chunk of that Northern Labour vote didn't put much more thought into it than giving Cameron/Tories/Establishment a black eye.

Had it been an 'Old Labour' govt advocating staying in the result may well have been markedly different Up North.

Corbyn also sees the EU as a free market super state so is a natural brexiteer himself really.

Whereas the Tories see the EU as a Socialist superstate, with direct comparisons being made to the USSR (or EUSSR as some of the far right call it) on these very boards....

So if the far left see it as too much to the right, and the far right see it as too much to the left, it's probably as close to perfectly in the centre as it can be.

Labour therefore has to tread carefully, accept the result and concentrate on the best 'jobs first' outcome?

Which is staying in the EEA/EFTA.

And then the next generation of politicians can get us back in to the EU where we belong.

BobQ

GreatApe wrote: »

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

As a fellow member of the "I'm all right Jack" brigade, I think that your dismissal of the homeless as mostly drug addicts is quite cynical (I note that you cite no concrete evidence?).

ONS statistics show that a large proportion of those becoming homeless do so because of losing a rented home, tied housing, and relationship breakdowns.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-homelessness

Regarding your claim that renting is just transitional, this is probably true for some: well paid professionals with upward career prospects enabling them to save a deposit, and there will be a small proportion who choose to do this for mobility etc. so yes some natural churn.

But there are now nearly 6m privately rented homes which is increasing. There is a large proportion of them who cannot afford to save for a deposit or lack job security though low pay, sporadic self employment or the gig economy. This problem is getting worse.

To call this fake news is a gross under-estimate of the problem. What is the source of your claim that only 3% of the population rent for 10 years? Do they all move on to owner occupation within the 10 years? Or do many just move to other rented accommodation?

Note I accept the figure may be valid for a single household at a single property continuously renewing their tenancy.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/jun/12/one-in-four-households-in-britain-will-rent-privately-by-end-of-2021-says-report

GreatApe

Herzlos wrote: »

I think he's convinced himself that all poverty is somehow self inflicted via disfunction, thus helping them is pointless and thus he can justify not wanting to help.

He sort of has a point; some people are in poverty due to some sort of disfunction like a gambling addiction, and giving them money is a waste of time. Funding treatment is a different matter.

I have repeatedly said we should help those who have dysfunctional lives
The only problem is from what I gather its an almost impossible task.

What I object to is the propaganda that the UK is not a great country or that free markets have in some way caused hardship and misery for the many.
We have high wages full employment lots of freedom and opportunity. That is a fact.
The biggest problems we have today are dysfunctional people and families.
Something the state and charities and families should try their best to fix or improve.

Arklight

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Can we get this thread back on topic please.

Plenty of other threads for bickering about homelessness and house prices.

Are there any threads without bickering though?

GreatApe

Arklight wrote: »

Look up Rightmove and check what the average price of a 1 bed flat is to buy and rent for your locality. Then look at a local jobs site and check what an average salary is for an average job.

Then having acquired these facts sit down and have a think, for once, about the facts you have learned about salaries, and prices, and come back here and explain how someone on an average salary, in your area, can afford to privately rent and save a deposit to buy, without help from elsewhere.

Your comments on the homeless are ignorant.

Well I was at a wedding earlier today in Telford (which is about 30 miles west of Birmingham)
I met up with a couple of old friends.
A man aged 34 and his wife aged 26
Both from Ghana both migrants but have been here for about 15 years.

One works in a warehouse the other is a nurse both on low wages
They bought their 3 bedroom house for £95,000 three years ago.
Same type of 3 bedroom houses can be had for £100,000 today

They managed to get married buy a house and have a kid
They are functional decent people and are getting on with life while you spend all day on the internet spreading propaganda about how impossible and unfair free markets are.

BobQ

GreatApe wrote: »

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.

I agree where this happens it is partly their fault for what they have done. But addictions are complex mental conditions and are not amenable to simplifications of the kind you seek to apply. But lawmakers do not help in allowing these vulnerable people to be subject to continual encouragement to gamble. Also, while I have never been in that position, I can understand that when you are living a miserable life you might seek an easy solution to the problem.

There is no poverty in the UK.

But there is outside of your ivory tower, mounting use of food banks demonstrate this. I accept that on a global scale this is relative poverty, but living in this rich country that you are so proud of there are people struggling and having to choose between heating and eating or feeding their kids or themselves. In UK terms they are in relative poverty. Statistically it seems to be no worse than a decade ago but around 25% are in relative poverty.

As the Brexit vote showed there is a growing proportion of disaffected people who wanted change, a lot of younger people who feel that the economy is not serving them.

The notion that we live in a great country is fake news. Like in the land that invented the term, we have a lot of people who are doing very nicely and a lot who are struggling.

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

I suspect that your definition of trots extends to many in the Tory Party.

Free Markets are good, but unfettered and unregulated they do lead to poverty and unfairness. After all it was a former Tory PM who coined the term "unacceptable face of capitalism". Even for the likes of Corbyn political argument is not about owning the means of production. It is about making a market economy work for all the people not the few.

GreatApe

Arklight wrote: »

Your comments on the homeless are ignorant.

No they are not most homeless people are dysfunctional and in hard drugs.

How can you help them if you ignore the facts?

Arklight

GreatApe wrote: »

I have repeatedly said we should help those who have dysfunctional lives
The only problem is from what I gather its an almost impossible task.

What I object to is the propaganda that the UK is not a great country or that free markets have in some way caused hardship and misery for the many.
We have high wages full employment lots of freedom and opportunity. That is a fact.
The biggest problems we have today are dysfunctional people and families.
Something the state and charities and families should try their best to fix or improve.

We don’t have free markets. When someone opens a coffee shop or corner store and pays 100% of their tax then goes out of business because they can’t compete with the chain store over the road or internet firm that pays no tax, that is not a free market. It’s an oligopoly.

Your ilk seems to think that expecting employers to pay a living wage and for rich people to pay enough tax so that the state can provide basic services like health, education, transport and housing, is some kind of Stalinist assault on your liberty. Liberty to do what? Liberty to exercise your divine right to look down on people less well off than you? That seems to be the MO of the Right.

Arklight

GreatApe wrote: »

No they are not most homeless people are dysfunctional and in hard drugs.

How can you help them if you ignore the facts?

People who work with the homeless are well aware that substance abuse is a problem. I invite you to spend a winter living rough and see what happens to your alcohol consumption and overall mental health.

BobQ

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Indeed.

Maybe.

But I rather suspect a very large chunk of that Northern Labour vote didn't put much more thought into it than giving Cameron/Tories/Establishment a black eye.

Had it been an 'Old Labour' govt advocating staying in the result may well have been markedly different Up North.

Whereas the Tories see the EU as a Socialist superstate, with direct comparisons being made to the USSR (or EUSSR as some of the far right call it) on these very boards....

So if the far left see it as too much to the right, and the far right see it as too much to the left, it's probably as close to perfectly in the centre as it can be.


Which is staying in the EEA/EFTA.

And then the next generation of politicians can get us back in to the EU where we belong.

Lets hope so. The trouble is that giving politicians a good kicking rarely works. The last election did not even teach most of the Cabinet any humility whatsoever.