Why prop up the new build market instead of the ENTIRE property market??

Mickey666

Crashy_Time said:

Mickey666 said:

moneysavinghero said:

I'll repeat - population density being a barrier to better development is just a myth. We have tons of land even in the South-East where we could build quality homes, rather than force them into Persimmon's battery farm houses.

But people also like to eat. Yes you can cover all of the available land in houses, but then you can't use that land for growing food. Generally more houses is an indication of a growing population and therefore a growing demand for food. So at the same time as you are removing land for food production you are increasing the need for food. Not sustainable in the long term.

Well you're dead right to be concerned about sustainability but I'm afraid that mankind is already well past that because of  overpopulation and average lifestyle: https://phys.org/news/2009-11-mankind-earth-resources-alarming.html
Have a play with the numbers here: http://www.footprintcalculator.org/
In the absence of any sensible discussions on how to reduce our global population the only thing we can look forward to further environmental degredation and reducing average lifestyles.  It could be argued that we're already seeing the effects of reducing lifestyles - current generation being 'poorer' than their parent's generation etc etc.  It's slow, but it's inevitable.

That is due to the financial system and "financialization" of everything from education to basic living spaces, and everything in between, very little to do with population and environmental degradation.

You didn't bother reading the links then?  Your obsession with house prices means you can't see the wood for the trees.

princeofpounds

annetheman said:

And the more that gap widens, the more of us need the govt schemes, thus feeding the new build monster machine, thus driving up prices, thus widening the gap, thus more of us need..... etc etc.

That's a pretty good summary of why demand-side stimulus is so stupid to solve a problem of high pricing.

spoovy

The only strange thing to me about any of this is that people seem to genuinely believe that government finance ministers don't understand basic economics.  Surely a more likely scenario is that in fact they do understand basic economics, and that the whole point of H2B, just like the SDLT holiday, is to do what it's done -- force up house prices.

Mickey666

spoovy said:

The only strange thing to me about any of this is that people seem to genuinely believe that government finance ministers don't understand basic economics.  Surely a more likely scenario is that in fact they do understand basic economics, and that the whole point of H2B, just like the SDLT holiday, is to do what it's done -- force up house prices.

That's an interesting point.  I've long thought that government ministers, with all their special advisers, access to industry experts, select committees, etc etc, must surely be among the best informed people in the country - certainly more than the average person reading the daily papers anyway. 
So, when they make what appears to be daft decisions, it's more likely to be because the public doesn't understand their true motives, rather than them being genuinely stupid. 
Of course, discerning their true motives is not always easy because a large part of 'politics' is specifically intended to conceal such things, so most people just resort to making up their own minds about their motives based on their own political inclinations, and backed up by their favoured media outlets.

Crashy_Time

Mickey666 said:

Crashy_Time said:

Mickey666 said:

moneysavinghero said:

I'll repeat - population density being a barrier to better development is just a myth. We have tons of land even in the South-East where we could build quality homes, rather than force them into Persimmon's battery farm houses.

But people also like to eat. Yes you can cover all of the available land in houses, but then you can't use that land for growing food. Generally more houses is an indication of a growing population and therefore a growing demand for food. So at the same time as you are removing land for food production you are increasing the need for food. Not sustainable in the long term.

Well you're dead right to be concerned about sustainability but I'm afraid that mankind is already well past that because of  overpopulation and average lifestyle: https://phys.org/news/2009-11-mankind-earth-resources-alarming.html
Have a play with the numbers here: http://www.footprintcalculator.org/
In the absence of any sensible discussions on how to reduce our global population the only thing we can look forward to further environmental degredation and reducing average lifestyles.  It could be argued that we're already seeing the effects of reducing lifestyles - current generation being 'poorer' than their parent's generation etc etc.  It's slow, but it's inevitable.

That is due to the financial system and "financialization" of everything from education to basic living spaces, and everything in between, very little to do with population and environmental degradation.

You didn't bother reading the links then?  Your obsession with house prices means you can't see the wood for the trees.

Surely you are not denying my point though?

Mickey666

Crashy_Time said:

Mickey666 said:

Crashy_Time said:

Mickey666 said:

moneysavinghero said:

I'll repeat - population density being a barrier to better development is just a myth. We have tons of land even in the South-East where we could build quality homes, rather than force them into Persimmon's battery farm houses.

But people also like to eat. Yes you can cover all of the available land in houses, but then you can't use that land for growing food. Generally more houses is an indication of a growing population and therefore a growing demand for food. So at the same time as you are removing land for food production you are increasing the need for food. Not sustainable in the long term.

Well you're dead right to be concerned about sustainability but I'm afraid that mankind is already well past that because of  overpopulation and average lifestyle: https://phys.org/news/2009-11-mankind-earth-resources-alarming.html
Have a play with the numbers here: http://www.footprintcalculator.org/
In the absence of any sensible discussions on how to reduce our global population the only thing we can look forward to further environmental degredation and reducing average lifestyles.  It could be argued that we're already seeing the effects of reducing lifestyles - current generation being 'poorer' than their parent's generation etc etc.  It's slow, but it's inevitable.

That is due to the financial system and "financialization" of everything from education to basic living spaces, and everything in between, very little to do with population and environmental degradation.

You didn't bother reading the links then?  Your obsession with house prices means you can't see the wood for the trees.

Surely you are not denying my point though?

I'm not really sure what you mean by "financialization".  If you're referring to an economy based on continuous growth eventually getting into trouble then I'd agree because continuous growth is not sustainable in the long term.  Thing is, we don't really know what 'long term' means.  Our industrial age is not very old (150 years?) and has no historical precedent so we're moving forward into uncharted territory.  We all know that the forecasting accuracy of even the economic 'experts' is dismal so we can't really be sure what is going to happen . . . except that continuous growth is not possible in the long term, both economically or environmentally.

My bet is that things won't change as fast as you seem to think - how long have you been predicting a house market crash for example?  10 years or more?

However, things will gradually get worse if we can't do something about our global population.  Living standards will gradually fall, perhaps so gradually that no one really notices in their own lifetime, but our grandchildren might look back and wonder how we managed to have such a high standard of living while they are really struggling.  My earlier point is that we may already be seeing this with millennials increasingly complaining how they have it tougher than boomers.  I'm not actually convinced by that example, but it's indicative of how things will probably play out given that we are already ecologically overdrawn. 

Quite simply, we have finite resources and the more of us there are on the planet the less there will be to go around.  Certain groups may be able to maintain, even improve, their standards of living but it will be at the expense of others and we already see huge inequalities in living standards around the world.  By and large these inequalities are spread among different countries and arbitrary borders reduces direct confrontation of such issues, but as inequalities widen WITHIN countries, as we're increasingly witnessing, then the tensions arising out of such inequalties will come to the fore and cause ever increasing problems . . . which will be insoluble because, on average, mankind is ALREADY living beyond its means and 'the rich' are unlikely to voluntarily give up their privileged lifestyles to help 'the poor'.  

So you may well be right to suggest the future is bleak, but it won't be because house prices might fall, which is what I meant by not seeing the wood for the trees.  You're worrying about a slow puncture when actually the engine is on fire

Getting_greyer

Mickey666 said:

Crashy_Time said:

Mickey666 said:

Crashy_Time said:

Mickey666 said:

moneysavinghero said:

I'll repeat - population density being a barrier to better development is just a myth. We have tons of land even in the South-East where we could build quality homes, rather than force them into Persimmon's battery farm houses.

But people also like to eat. Yes you can cover all of the available land in houses, but then you can't use that land for growing food. Generally more houses is an indication of a growing population and therefore a growing demand for food. So at the same time as you are removing land for food production you are increasing the need for food. Not sustainable in the long term.

Well you're dead right to be concerned about sustainability but I'm afraid that mankind is already well past that because of  overpopulation and average lifestyle: https://phys.org/news/2009-11-mankind-earth-resources-alarming.html
Have a play with the numbers here: http://www.footprintcalculator.org/
In the absence of any sensible discussions on how to reduce our global population the only thing we can look forward to further environmental degredation and reducing average lifestyles.  It could be argued that we're already seeing the effects of reducing lifestyles - current generation being 'poorer' than their parent's generation etc etc.  It's slow, but it's inevitable.

That is due to the financial system and "financialization" of everything from education to basic living spaces, and everything in between, very little to do with population and environmental degradation.

You didn't bother reading the links then?  Your obsession with house prices means you can't see the wood for the trees.

Surely you are not denying my point though?

I'm not really sure what you mean by "financialization".  If you're referring to an economy based on continuous growth eventually getting into trouble then I'd agree because continuous growth is not sustainable in the long term.  Thing is, we don't really know what 'long term' means.  Our industrial age is not very old (150 years?) and has no historical precedent so we're moving forward into uncharted territory.  We all know that the forecasting accuracy of even the economic 'experts' is dismal so we can't really be sure what is going to happen . . . except that continuous growth is not possible in the long term, both economically or environmentally.

My bet is that things won't change as fast as you seem to think - how long have you been predicting a house market crash for example?  10 years or more?

However, things will gradually get worse if we can't do something about our global population.  Living standards will gradually fall, perhaps so gradually that no one really notices in their own lifetime, but our grandchildren might look back and wonder how we managed to have such a high standard of living while they are really struggling.  My earlier point is that we may already be seeing this with millennials increasingly complaining how they have it tougher than boomers.  I'm not actually convinced by that example, but it's indicative of how things will probably play out given that we are already ecologically overdrawn. 

Quite simply, we have finite resources and the more of us there are on the planet the less there will be to go around.  Certain groups may be able to maintain, even improve, their standards of living but it will be at the expense of others and we already see huge inequalities in living standards around the world.  By and large these inequalities are spread among different countries and arbitrary borders reduces direct confrontation of such issues, but as inequalities widen WITHIN countries, as we're increasingly witnessing, then the tensions arising out of such inequalties will come to the fore and cause ever increasing problems . . . which will be insoluble because, on average, mankind is ALREADY living beyond its means and 'the rich' are unlikely to voluntarily give up their privileged lifestyles to help 'the poor'.  

So you may well be right to suggest the future is bleak, but it won't be because house prices might fall, which is what I meant by not seeing the wood for the trees.  You're worrying about a slow puncture when actually the engine is on fire

You're post reminded me of a decent book called "2052".  I think it was written in 2012 but I'd recommend as a decent read. Makes lots of predictions obout the global economy in face of climate change.  I believe one of them was about global population.  The author says will peak at about,iirc, 10 bn then plateau before decreasing slightly.  I think this was due to change of socio-economic outlook for many women.  

Mickey666

There are loads of similar predictions, with a same basic premise that better education and living standards leads to smaller families, which is based on comparing 'developed' countries with developing' countries.  My concern is less about what may or may not happen naturally than the fact that global population isn't really on the table for discussion, when it is the driving factor behind pretty much every environmental problem you can think of.  As Sir David Attenborough has pointed out "All our environmental problems become easier to solve with fewer people, and harder - and ultimately impossible - to solve with ever more people."    Lots of interesting reading here: https://populationmatters.org/mythbusting

I think the problem is complacency, and predictions of the fertility rate reducing through better education in developing countries feed that complacency . . . 'oh don't worry, it'll sort itself out'.  But can we actually afford to take that risk?
Besides, it's based on people (as a whole) being rational and intelligent, but what if that's not the case?
Have you seen the film Idiocracy?  It was intended as comedy satire when released 15 years ago but it's increasingly looking like a documentary, especially considering recent events in USA.
This trailer gives the gist of its alternative scenario:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N9nVLXMhPc

MD201989

The entire market is still being propped up by ultra low emergency interest rates

spoovy

Mickey666 said:

There are loads of similar predictions, with a same basic premise that better education and living standards leads to smaller families, which is based on comparing 'developed' countries with developing' countries.  My concern is less about what may or may not happen naturally than the fact that global population isn't really on the table for discussion, when it is the driving factor behind pretty much every environmental problem you can think of.  As Sir David Attenborough has pointed out "All our environmental problems become easier to solve with fewer people, and harder - and ultimately impossible - to solve with ever more people."    Lots of interesting reading here: https://populationmatters.org/mythbusting

I think the problem is complacency, and predictions of the fertility rate reducing through better education in developing countries feed that complacency . . . 'oh don't worry, it'll sort itself out'.  But can we actually afford to take that risk?
Besides, it's based on people (as a whole) being rational and intelligent, but what if that's not the case?
Have you seen the film Idiocracy?  It was intended as comedy satire when released 15 years ago but it's increasingly looking like a documentary, especially considering recent events in USA.
This trailer gives the gist of its alternative scenario:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N9nVLXMhPc

I think it's less to do with complacency and more to do with totally understandable reluctance to live in a world where governments ration children.
Let's not forget this has been done before, and with horrendous outcomes.
So, educate, and improve living standards. What else is there?