Right to buy tenant plan to cost LLs £50 Billion

Malthusian

Green_Bear wrote: »

That kind of surveillance is only really meaningful with artificial intelligence systems.

When you install that many cameras the point is for the humans to see the cameras, not for the cameras to see the humans. They're there to make people feel they're being watched whether they are or not. And change their behaviour accordingly.

There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live–did live, from habit that became instinct–in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every moment scrutinized.

Reducing the cost of police patrols and being able to track people's movements if you know who you want to track is a secondary benefit.

Green_Bear

Sailtheworld wrote: »

Or they could just avoid voting for a government proposing a big confiscation instead. A bit like now.

Well there could be a big sudden confiscation.
Or it could be a gradual, creeping process. Like the anti BTL changes have been so far.

Usually, a significant political change results from a significant (and often sudden) economic change.
The Nazis were a result of the Great Depression.
The breakup of Yugoslavia and the fall of the Apartheid govt were a result of the end of the USSR.
The population of Eastern Europe didn't wake up in 1945 and decide to become communist. It arrived with the Red Army at the end of WW2.

westernpromise

Green_Bear wrote: »

Yes. The rich own more assets. Hence growing inequality.

What's wrong with inequality?

Some people are taller than others but nobody seems to think tall people should have their feet cut off.

Darcey Bussell was perhaps the best dancer in the world but nobody suggests she should be handicapped with sash weights and divers' boots to reduce her to the average.

Some people are better looking than others but nobody suggests throwing acid in their faces.

What's wrong with inequality?

Green_Bear

westernpromise wrote: »

What's wrong with inequality?

Some people are taller than others but nobody seems to think tall people should have their feet cut off.

Darcey Bussell was perhaps the best dancer in the world but nobody suggests she should be handicapped with sash weights and divers' boots to reduce her to the average.

Some people are better looking than others but nobody suggests throwing acid in their faces.

What's wrong with inequality?

It leads to populist politics and social unrest.

The-Joker

Green_Bear wrote: »

It leads to populist politics and social unrest.

The uk could see hong cong style unrest

Cakeguts

Kohoutek wrote: »

We need to hugely overhaul tenancy law in this country, probably including, as has been suggested here, security of tenure and rent controls.

If appropriately robust regulation was brought it (e.g. including big penalties which are actually enforced) , it could also squeeze out a lot of the rogue landlords. The FCA did this with payday lending - they toughened the regulation in a way they knew would put a lot of the dubious lenders out of business.

It would be much more effective in improving renters' situation that this right to buy plan (given right to buy only works for renters that can actually afford a mortgage, for one). McDonnell is invariably interested in the 'smash the system' approach for the sake of it, though.

I don't know how old you are but I am old and I can remember what happened the last time they introduced rent controls and security of tenure. It was then a choice between stay at home with your parents or buy somewhere. There were very few properties available to rent apart from social housing and there were a lot more council owned houses then than there are now. If you wanted a council house you could get one.



If you introduce security of tenure and rent contols you will find that there will be an increase in vacant properties. Many of today's landlords can remember what it was like with rent controls and security of tenure and the fact that it basically reduced the amount of rented property to a shortage of badly maintained housing.


The good quality private rental housing has only been around since the introduction of the assured shorthold tenancy. Before then it was rough and in short supply. It seems that people have short memories or don't do any research.



If you introduce rent controls and security of tenure the people with the decent rental properties will sell up and a lot of these are not first time buyers housing but family housing.

Cakeguts

westernpromise wrote: »

What's wrong with inequality?

Some people are taller than others but nobody seems to think tall people should have their feet cut off.

Darcey Bussell was perhaps the best dancer in the world but nobody suggests she should be handicapped with sash weights and divers' boots to reduce her to the average.

Some people are better looking than others but nobody suggests throwing acid in their faces.

What's wrong with inequality?

It is what is wrong with the education system of today. Everyone must have a degree in nothing. Everyone must pass all the exams so they make them so easy that it is difficult to fail anything. If you can write your name at the top of the paper you can pass GCSE etc. No one is allowed to be at the bottom. Everyone must be equal except that it doesn't work like that. Even if you pay everyone exactly the same wage some people will still have more money than others because some people are more frugal.



This business of taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor is already in place. It is called tax. There are many working class people who are wealthy. Not because they have inherited money but because they work in jobs that are well paid like bricklaying or plumbing or other trades that all pay more than degrees in nothing.



It gets me down because in the UK at the moment you are rewarded with large sums of cash for doing nothing.


I think the biggest inequality is between people on low incomes who pay tax and people on the top benefits who get them tax free paid for by the people on low incomes. You shouldn't be able to get more from the state than others are earning.



So for a given area if there are families living on the minimum wage that should be the top that you can get in benefits regardless of how many children you have.

Green_Bear

Cakeguts wrote: »

I don't know how old you are but I am old and I can remember what happened the last time they introduced rent controls and security of tenure. It was then a choice between stay at home with your parents or buy somewhere. There were very few properties available to rent apart from social housing and there were a lot more council owned houses then than there are now. If you wanted a council house you could get one.



If you introduce security of tenure and rent contols you will find that there will be an increase in vacant properties. Many of today's landlords can remember what it was like with rent controls and security of tenure and the fact that it basically reduced the amount of rented property to a shortage of badly maintained housing.


The good quality private rental housing has only been around since the introduction of the assured shorthold tenancy. Before then it was rough and in short supply. It seems that people have short memories or don't do any research.



If you introduce rent controls and security of tenure the people with the decent rental properties will sell up and a lot of these are not first time buyers housing but family housing.

I agree with all this.
I too remember this situation in the 1970s.
The supply of private rental property for tenants was much less than today and it was worse quality.

BUT there were fewer prospective private tenants looking.
However, those prospective tenants did have less choice - as the total market was smaller.

It was harder for (usually young, single) people moving to a new town to find a place to rent as a tenant. However, there were more lodging houses and guest houses, where the landlady provided meals sometimes. People often stayed in these places until they got married and either bought a house or got a council tenancy.
Or (what is often forgotten these days) the family would get social housing via the husband's public sector employer (eg police housing, water board housing etc). This was often reserved for married men with families. Single men stayed in lodgings.

BUT what was less common back in the 1970s, was families forced into private renting, when they wanted to buy or have council housing.

It was a different situation back then. Family life and employment was more settled. There wasn't the same demand for council housing from single parents, as divorce was less common. Council housing was for respectable working families - not junkies and ex prisoners.

Overall, I would say things were better in the 1970s. Despite the fact that the small amount of private sector rental property for tenants (rather than lodgers) was of poor quality.

Chrysalis

in every political decision there is winners and losers.

If I am been brutally honest, in regards to housing policy over the past 3 decades, landlords have been massive winners which is why BTL is booming.

Any "correction" to the market is going to hurt private landlords, no other way round it. The only thing that wouldnt hurt them is if the government guaranteed to cover all financial losses, which would be an absurb thing to do and cost the taxpayer instead.

With all that said I dont really support this idea.

I support masses of new council houses been built which of course will also hurt landlords. But I dont support any right to buy scheme. If governments just concentrate on people buying properties all the time, it solves nothing for those who "have" to rent.

What I would support (as I am also not a fan of deliberately ignoring a set of people, which in this case would be the landlords) is if the government started a mass house building scheme, we then maybe seen the BTL market crash, and then a flood of properties hit the market and prices shoot down, I would support the government buying those properties at a value of pre-crash as it would serve a purpose of both gaining properties to let out socially and also compensating private landlords for a government initiated market crash.

Green_Bear

The-Joker wrote: »

The uk could see hong cong style unrest

The UK has seen much, much worse social unrest. For 30 years in NI.

Great Britain has also seen social unrest.
I remember coming home on leave from NI - only to discover there was rioting in Toxteth.

(But Toxteth looked like a playground squabble compared to NI)