On cash, this can cut both ways. A small businesswoman my mother knows doesn't ban card transactions but does hide the machine to perform them unless customers specifically ask to pay by card. She prefers cash because the processing fees are lower.
If by "processing fees" you mean VAT, yes its much lower when you don't report cash transactions.
Especially if you use that cash to pay people cash in hand, so you dodge Employer NIC too.
A lot of companies signed up for really expensive card processing companies many years ago and are either trapped in those contracts or do know / care enough to move to a cheaper provider.
So I wouldn't be going cash in hand = tax evasion.
Card processing fees dropped to the same rate as cash processing fees about a decade ago. You'd have to be on an absurdly old contract to not have caught up on that now.
I absolutely would go cash in hand = tax evasion. Especially when someone is trying to direct people into doing cash.
On a less acrimonious note.
One piece of automation that should really be tried is a proper integration of a business account with an accounts generating and PAYE system.
A few years back, I did a demo for an alt-bank of such a system. If you ran a small shop, it would do your accounts from the bank transactions, learning to allocate incoming and outgoing as you use it. You could easily do the PAYE stuff as well, in a similar manner.
Generating nice graphs from the data was quite easy, as well.
Given that many small business fail over tax and accounting issues....
Anyone who recommends Sage at this point will be put on The List.
As far as I know most accounting software can do that now, with all banks both major and alt.
Xero does it for me, very easy to use.
FreeAgent is owned by Natwest and free if you have a RBS / Natwest / Mettle business account.
On topic, I've just watched all of Sunak's 10-minute interview with Beth Rigby. It is painful. He's obviously been advised (or decided himself) that the route to success is to repeat, and itemise, his government's five priorities as often as possible, regardless of the question being asked. So he does, so much so that one loses the will to live. So, for example, even legitimate questions about the level of legal migration are responded to by 'yes, we'll cut the numbers - but stopping the boats is my priority'... It's really tedious.
It strengthens my view that Sunak is significantly over-rated by many people.
Hi mate, I agree with you.
Sunak does this weird Blair/Ed M tribute act that when you see through it starts to grate very quickly. The frank reality is that he's overseeing 13 years of failure whilst being a bit weird and odd.
Biden says US wont block any transfers from European countries
Positive if you're right but has any country said they will do transfers?
We don't have F16s to give, the US isn't giving any. Which countries have an abundance of F16s they're planning on giving? I'd love it if were true, but I'm not holding my breath.
Norway have almost 60 retired F16's sitting in hangers in perfect nick.
For som reason (age?!) I initially read that as "No way, I have almost 60 retired F16's sitting in hangers in perfect nick." I thought you were even richer* than I'd realised or wondered whether the post was in fact from Dura Ace.
*you know, being a pensioner and all
I wish
If Malc owned 60 F16s I can think of at least one poster on here who we might not have heard from again.
I though half the Norwegian F16s have been sold to the Romanians, already?
Mr. JohnL, been a long time since I learned about it and things may've changed since but I think renting was seen as both normal and had better laws in Germany compared to here.
OK It is the cheapest good size apartment available but I doubt you'd get a space under the stairs a la Harry Potter for that price in London.
Wow, thats an amazing price with bills included.
In London, I've seen one bed flats, nice but not luxury, with service charges of that level even if you own it "outright".
Berlin is great on this. How they manage it is probably worth a look.
Likely many reasons.
One factor will be that there's not the political/financial/economic/cultural concentration in Berlin that London has.
Yes few countries have capitals as dominant as London is. But still, Berlin is a big throbbing iconic city and it comes as a surprise to see how cheap it is to live there.
Berlin is not particularly wealthy by German standards, placing well behind Hamburg, Munich, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, and Dusseldorf. Also the hinterland to Berlin is not wealthy either. London is the only UK city that matches the German cities for wealth, and away from Rest of SE England and Scotland the UK regional average is well below the German comparable and not much above the EU average.
It is not just that most German cities are rich. Most UK cities, away from London, are poor.
Which is why new towns need to be built away from London to attract people and jobs to less prosperous regions, rather than mindlessly build over the greenbelt in an already overheated London and the South East. We could call it levelling up.
That is a back to front process though. The jobs and economic prosperity need to come first, then the demand to live there will increase, and so will the housing supply. You can't just build a load of houses in Scunthorpe and expect everyone to live there.
True but simply building creates jobs and economic activity, which can be combined with incentives for large employers, as with the post-war new towns.
The Green Belt was created due to the absolutely massive expansion of London into the surrounding Shires from c.1900 to c.1939 - without it people feared London would simply continue to grow exponentially and swallow everything else up, hence the 1947 Town and Country Act and the checks local authorities put in the 1950s.
Unfortunately, whilst this has successfully constrained the size of London, it has increased the cost of land as a % of new housing cost from 25% to c.70%
In rational economic world, perhaps what should have happened is that the finite land within the green belt was used more frugally and efficiently. More four storey terraces (see the nice bits of Hackney and Islington) rather than two storey semis.
Looking around, that hasn't really happened. Whether that's a question of regulation or that the distribution of incentives makes it sensible for people in Zone 6 to say "don't touch my gaff", I don't know.
AIUI the Victorian terrace isn't bad in terms of efficient usage of land and provides the kind of housing that people like. Relatively energy efficient too compared to detached houses I'd assume, and there must be cost savings from sharing party walls. If we learned from the Victorians' mistakes and built them with decent foundations and sound insulation I reckon they'd be the perfect home. Why don't we build more new developments like this instead of those horrible boxlike 'executive homes' that blight the landscape? I should state an interest here, I live in a 3-4 storey Victorian terraced house and it is a really fantastic family home. I reckon we sit on something like 175m2 of land (5m x 35m approximately) with 6 people living in 9 large habitable rooms, translating into almost 60 units per hectare and over 500 habitable rooms per hectare - the latter would render it high density housing, yet we own our own plot of land and can sit in the garden surrounded by greenery and birdsong. Can someone with expertise in this field explain why tall terraced houses aren't the model for new homes?
Because they aren't as popular as detached houses so detached houses are preferred to maximise return.
I think if you go back and look at history many terraces (including the famous ones in Bath) were originally built on a build to rent basis.
Yes that's true of ours - the whole estate was built for rent by a livery company and many of the homes were still owned by them until a few decades ago. They're popular now though - judging by how much they sell for.
The Green Belt was created due to the absolutely massive expansion of London into the surrounding Shires from c.1900 to c.1939 - without it people feared London would simply continue to grow exponentially and swallow everything else up, hence the 1947 Town and Country Act and the checks local authorities put in the 1950s.
Unfortunately, whilst this has successfully constrained the size of London, it has increased the cost of land as a % of new housing cost from 25% to c.70%
In rational economic world, perhaps what should have happened is that the finite land within the green belt was used more frugally and efficiently. More four storey terraces (see the nice bits of Hackney and Islington) rather than two storey semis.
Looking around, that hasn't really happened. Whether that's a question of regulation or that the distribution of incentives makes it sensible for people in Zone 6 to say "don't touch my gaff", I don't know.
There are specific panning laws that make turning a 2 storey property into a 4 storey virtually impossible. Going higher than your neighbours is seen as a particular evil.
Maybe that's why the superrich have their mega basements. At some point Kensington will surely collapse in on itself.
On topic, I've just watched all of Sunak's 10-minute interview with Beth Rigby. It is painful. He's obviously been advised (or decided himself) that the route to success is to repeat, and itemise, his government's five priorities as often as possible, regardless of the question being asked. So he does, so much so that one loses the will to live. So, for example, even legitimate questions about the level of legal migration are responded to by 'yes, we'll cut the numbers - but stopping the boats is my priority'... It's really tedious.
It strengthens my view that Sunak is significantly over-rated by many people.
Sunak is simply not very good.
The only thing that he has going for him is that he is Not Truss, or Not Johnson so some Tories who disliked them seem to have embraced him and think he is good by default.
It takes more than lacking someone else's flaws to be good.
You need to actually be competent at running the country, and being a weak pushover who is misrunning the country and puts his Councillors ahead of the country is not someone who is worthy of being Prime Minister.
Welcome back Bart. Spot on.
He's just a bit weird, if he was sensible he'd lean into that. This Blair tribute act is not helping him.
Gemany's 1990 population seems to be variously quoted at something around 78 or 79 million, and the figure for 2023 is given at 84.5 million.
1990 was 33 years ago. Its completely irrelevant. Yes, Germany's population rose between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then. Britain's population didn't between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then too.
What happened in 1990 isn't affecting prices today. Why do you want to bring 33 years ago into it, just to pretend that Germany's population has been growing in recent years? 33 years ago is not recent.
Two decades ago both Germany and Britain had affordable housing. In the past 2 decades, Germany's population has not grown - Britain's has soared but construction has not kept up. That is it.
That is the full story, as much as you want to drag the fall of the Soviet Union, or migration many decades ago into it.
From what I can see online, Germany's population was forecast to drop or stay stable, but hasn't.
I wonder if that's because of the Ukrainian war, and Germany still accepting a lot of Russian and Central Asia Jewish populations. So that maybe could be the reason why it's been actually repeatedly forecast to fall, or stay stable, but instead seems to have risen from about 81 or 82 million 20 years ago, to approaching 85 million now. Even the population predictions from various world websites from last year seem to be wrong, so I wonder whether perhaps the Ukrainian war, and the way in which that might have accelerated Gemany's long-standing policy of accepting post-Soviet Jews, might have been two key factors, there.
Why are you so pig-headed over this? What would you call this if not stable? 🤦♂️ Apart from a brief fall in 2010, subsequently reversed, their population has barely changed all century.
Germany is not Britain!
But again, that graph seems to stop about two years ago, because the current figures are moving towards 85 mill.
Germany seems to have already added another couple of million or so since then. That doesn't look like an unchanging population, to me. I think it might be easier to see what's actually going on in a couple of years, after the Ukraine War.
The graph stops in 2021 which is 17 months ago because that's when accurate data ends. Its also not that long ago.
There may have been some variance since then, but not enough to create a multi-decade pressure on affordability like the UK has.
The UK's population started rising in 1997. It took a few years until 2003 of consistently doing so before pressure really started to significantly affect the housing market - and since then the UK has consistently had growing population and a shortage of construction.
If Germany's population has risen in the past 12 months then that may put them where we were in 1997. If theirs rises consistently for years to come, and their construction fails to keep up, then they too will face an inevitable affordability crisis. But they're not in that position today.
The Green Belt was created due to the absolutely massive expansion of London into the surrounding Shires from c.1900 to c.1939 - without it people feared London would simply continue to grow exponentially and swallow everything else up, hence the 1947 Town and Country Act and the checks local authorities put in the 1950s.
Unfortunately, whilst this has successfully constrained the size of London, it has increased the cost of land as a % of new housing cost from 25% to c.70%
In rational economic world, perhaps what should have happened is that the finite land within the green belt was used more frugally and efficiently. More four storey terraces (see the nice bits of Hackney and Islington) rather than two storey semis.
Looking around, that hasn't really happened. Whether that's a question of regulation or that the distribution of incentives makes it sensible for people in Zone 6 to say "don't touch my gaff", I don't know.
There are specific panning laws that make turning a 2 storey property into a 4 storey virtually impossible. Going higher than your neighbours is seen as a particular evil.
Maybe that's why the superrich have their mega basements. At some point Kensington will surely collapse in on itself.
Actually, the process of building a basement is often, done properly, inserting modern foundations under a house that doesn't have any.
Who says the church is out of date - everyone in most of those pictures is wearing a dress.
I'd love a purple cloak like that. I have a shocking pink dress that would go very well with it. An open topped carriage and horse to pootle around the Lakes would be pretty nice too.
Biden says US wont block any transfers from European countries
Positive if you're right but has any country said they will do transfers?
We don't have F16s to give, the US isn't giving any. Which countries have an abundance of F16s they're planning on giving? I'd love it if were true, but I'm not holding my breath.
Norway have almost 60 retired F16's sitting in hangers in perfect nick.
For som reason (age?!) I initially read that as "No way, I have almost 60 retired F16's sitting in hangers in perfect nick." I thought you were even richer* than I'd realised or wondered whether the post was in fact from Dura Ace.
*you know, being a pensioner and all
I wish
If Malc owned 60 F16s I can think of at least one poster on here who we might not have heard from again.
I though half the Norwegian F16s have been sold to the Romanians, already?
Hasn't yet been approved by the US, I think.
And the US has a very large number of surplus F16s. If they don't want to sell them to Ukraine, they could supply European NATO partners instead.
Mr. JohnL, been a long time since I learned about it and things may've changed since but I think renting was seen as both normal and had better laws in Germany compared to here.
OK It is the cheapest good size apartment available but I doubt you'd get a space under the stairs a la Harry Potter for that price in London.
Wow, thats an amazing price with bills included.
In London, I've seen one bed flats, nice but not luxury, with service charges of that level even if you own it "outright".
Berlin is great on this. How they manage it is probably worth a look.
Likely many reasons.
One factor will be that there's not the political/financial/economic/cultural concentration in Berlin that London has.
Yes few countries have capitals as dominant as London is. But still, Berlin is a big throbbing iconic city and it comes as a surprise to see how cheap it is to live there.
In the past 2 decades Berlin's population has barely changed. London's has grown by 2 million.
Yet you think regulations are the difference? 🤔
Supply and demand isn't a surprise to anyone who understands the slightest thing about economics.
But anyone who understands a little more than the slightest thing about economics knows that supply & demand doesn't explain the whole of every problem in this world.
Of course it doesn't explain every problem.
It is the cause of this problem, though.
Germany has enough supply of houses, so they're affordable. Britain does not, so they're not.
You can't regulate that away, unless the regulations you're proposing are to allow mass construction - in which case, I'll vote for that.
The only sustainable way to decouple housing costs from supply-demand would be to socialise most housing. Ie far more of the housing stock being social housing, which if we weren’t building new, would need to be bought by government from private owners, at market value.
That would be a huge undertaking, and vastly expensive. I can’t see it ever happening. There are examples of very successful social housing in otherwise cripplingly expensive cities like Singapore, but always built new by government not repurchased from the private sector.
So we’re back to supply. We need to build more homes. Where and how is up for debate. I would say build dense, high and massively in our under-densified urban centres.
Socialising the housing stock could reduce the price. It would result in people on the waiting list. There is a genuine shortage of housing.
We are trying building tower blocks of tiny flats in London. It will be interesting to see how they fare when the heat comes out of the housing market.
Just down the road from me, they are building such blocks wedged between the A4 (very major road, a railway line and another busy road. Bloody horrible location, all in all.
And that's part of the problem. We're reduced to trying to shoehorn undersized flats onto tiny sites in poor locations where the only hope is to piggyback onto existing infrastructure. Because touching anything else is politically too difficult.
Peter Cook once said that the danger for Britain was that we could sink giggling into the sea. Increasingly I fear that we can strike giggling from that phrase, but a lot of Britain's problems are things we have imposed on ourselves.
On topic, I've just watched all of Sunak's 10-minute interview with Beth Rigby. It is painful. He's obviously been advised (or decided himself) that the route to success is to repeat, and itemise, his government's five priorities as often as possible, regardless of the question being asked. So he does, so much so that one loses the will to live. So, for example, even legitimate questions about the level of legal migration are responded to by 'yes, we'll cut the numbers - but stopping the boats is my priority'... It's really tedious.
It strengthens my view that Sunak is significantly over-rated by many people.
Sunak is simply not very good.
The only thing that he has going for him is that he is Not Truss, or Not Johnson so some Tories who disliked them seem to have embraced him and think he is good by default.
It takes more than lacking someone else's flaws to be good.
You need to actually be competent at running the country, and being a weak pushover who is misrunning the country and puts his Councillors ahead of the country is not someone who is worthy of being Prime Minister.
What I will say is that I think he had the potential to be Pretty Good. Events shape people, and I think as an opposition politician or a leader taking over in more benign circumstances he could have made a decent fist at things.
He has come in at the fag end of a deeply unpopular government who blew up their credibility with voters firstly by taking them for fools over covid lockdown, secondly by installing a PM so unfit for high office that she caused an economic crisis and had to stand down in a matter of weeks, and thirdly by being so irredeemably divided incompetent and out of ideas that nobody truly understands what their party is for anymore.
Most people would struggle with that hand. It’s actually to his credit that he’s actually managed to handle things as well as he has.
Biden says US wont block any transfers from European countries
Positive if you're right but has any country said they will do transfers?
We don't have F16s to give, the US isn't giving any. Which countries have an abundance of F16s they're planning on giving? I'd love it if were true, but I'm not holding my breath.
Norway have almost 60 retired F16's sitting in hangers in perfect nick.
For som reason (age?!) I initially read that as "No way, I have almost 60 retired F16's sitting in hangers in perfect nick." I thought you were even richer* than I'd realised or wondered whether the post was in fact from Dura Ace.
*you know, being a pensioner and all
I wish
If Malc owned 60 F16s I can think of at least one poster on here who we might not have heard from again.
I though half the Norwegian F16s have been sold to the Romanians, already?
Hasn't yet been approved by the US, I think.
And the US has a very large number of surplus F16s. If they don't want to sell them to Ukraine, they could supply European NATO partners instead.
I thought it was approved and they had been fairly massively upgraded as well?
On the subject of home ownership, I've just come across this, reminding me that far from being obsessed by home ownershiop, Britain is looking distinctly mid-table in Europe:
Otoh the economic powerhouse of Europe, Germany, has very low ownership rates. Maybe that is worth consideration.
Norway is wealthier per head than Germany and has 80% home ownership, very high home ownership rates now in Eastern Europe too. Italy, Spain and Ireland and the Netherlands also have a higher home ownership rate than the UK
All true but as I just said, Europe's economic and industrial powerhouse, viz Germany, has very low ownership rates. Maybe we should examine whether this is central to Germany's prosperity or just a mildly interesting quirk.
Probably partly explains why the right tends to be weaker in Germany than most of the rest of Europe and the West. As most Germans rent, even the main centre right party the CDU are not much different to the LDs ideologically here and now the SPD are in government with the Greens and FDP.
In terms of wealth per head Germany as a result though has amongst the lowest wealth in the western world (even if higher personal incomes than some western rivals). We, the US, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Nordic nations and the Netherlands, Japan and Singapore, Ireland even Italy and Spain have higher wealth per head than Germany
If median wealth includes home ownership, it is not a useful metric for our purpose.
Of course it is, as most peoples' wealth is mainly in their homes.
Most Brits still own property, most Germans don't. Hence on average wealth wise Germans are poorer than Brits
Yes but in questioning the economic performance of countries with high and low home ownership, it plainly begs the question to include housing wealth. Worse, it also stops examination of what might be a causal factor. Because money tied up in housing cannot be spent, it generates no jobs, no prosperity. Disposable income is key, that allows for discretionary spending and keeps the German lathes turning (to channel my inner Ramsay MacDonald).
Biden says US wont block any transfers from European countries
Positive if you're right but has any country said they will do transfers?
We don't have F16s to give, the US isn't giving any. Which countries have an abundance of F16s they're planning on giving? I'd love it if were true, but I'm not holding my breath.
It's a good question. Poland, which already has F16's and wanted more following the Russian invasion of Ukraine ended up getting similar FA 50's from Korea Aerospace because there was no availability. Presumably there are no US restrictions on providing F16's to Poland.
Tonight on @wbaltv11: A man with an AR-15 has been showing up for weeks to a school bus drop off for local elementary school students. Parents say their kids are afraid, the man says he’s protesting @GovWesMoore’s new gun control law. You’ll hear from both sides at 5+6pm. https://twitter.com/TollyTaylor/status/1659271827879804928
On topic, I've just watched all of Sunak's 10-minute interview with Beth Rigby. It is painful. He's obviously been advised (or decided himself) that the route to success is to repeat, and itemise, his government's five priorities as often as possible, regardless of the question being asked. So he does, so much so that one loses the will to live. So, for example, even legitimate questions about the level of legal migration are responded to by 'yes, we'll cut the numbers - but stopping the boats is my priority'... It's really tedious.
It strengthens my view that Sunak is significantly over-rated by many people.
Sunak is simply not very good.
The only thing that he has going for him is that he is Not Truss, or Not Johnson so some Tories who disliked them seem to have embraced him and think he is good by default.
It takes more than lacking someone else's flaws to be good.
You need to actually be competent at running the country, and being a weak pushover who is misrunning the country and puts his Councillors ahead of the country is not someone who is worthy of being Prime Minister.
What I will say is that I think he had the potential to be Pretty Good. Events shape people, and I think as an opposition politician or a leader taking over in more benign circumstances he could have made a decent fist at things.
He has come in at the fag end of a deeply unpopular government who blew up their credibility with voters firstly by taking them for fools over covid lockdown, secondly by installing a PM so unfit for high office that she caused an economic crisis and had to stand down in a matter of weeks, and thirdly by being so irredeemably divided incompetent and out of ideas that nobody truly understands what their party is for anymore.
Most people would struggle with that hand. It’s actually to his credit that he’s actually managed to handle things as well as he has.
If things were reversed and he were in opposition now he'd have a good chance of winning IMHO. But the problem is that he's associated with and has put through some very bad policies and decisions. He has to defend it all.
That map of the green belt though. I think people in general are having this debate on a misnomer, conflating green space around any village or town with green belt.
As shown earlier, a megacity covering the entirety of Norfolk would be perfectly possible whilst maintaining every inch of green belt.
Gemany's 1990 population seems to be variously quoted at something around 78 or 79 million, and the figure for 2023 is given at 84.5 million.
1990 was 33 years ago. Its completely irrelevant. Yes, Germany's population rose between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then. Britain's population didn't between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then too.
What happened in 1990 isn't affecting prices today. Why do you want to bring 33 years ago into it, just to pretend that Germany's population has been growing in recent years? 33 years ago is not recent.
Two decades ago both Germany and Britain had affordable housing. In the past 2 decades, Germany's population has not grown - Britain's has soared but construction has not kept up. That is it.
That is the full story, as much as you want to drag the fall of the Soviet Union, or migration many decades ago into it.
From what I can see online, Germany's population was forecast to drop or stay stable, but hasn't.
I wonder if that's because of the Ukrainian war, and Germany still accepting a lot of Russian and Central Asia Jewish populations. So that maybe could be the reason why it's been actually repeatedly forecast to fall, or stay stable, but instead seems to have risen from about 81 or 82 million 20 years ago, to approaching 85 million now. Even the population predictions from various world websites from last year seem to be wrong, so I wonder whether perhaps the Ukrainian war, and the way in which that might have accelerated Gemany's long-standing policy of accepting post-Soviet Jews, might have been two key factors, there.
Why are you so pig-headed over this? What would you call this if not stable? 🤦♂️ Apart from a brief fall in 2010, subsequently reversed, their population has barely changed all century.
Germany is not Britain!
But again, that graph seems to stop about two years ago, because the current figures are moving towards 85 mill.
Germany seems to have already added another couple of million or so since then. That doesn't look like an unchanging population, to me. I think it might be easier to see what's actually going on in a couple of years, after the Ukraine War.
The graph stops in 2021 which is 17 months ago because that's when accurate data ends. Its also not that long ago.
There may have been some variance since then, but not enough to create a multi-decade pressure on affordability like the UK has.
The UK's population started rising in 1997. It took a few years until 2003 of consistently doing so before pressure really started to significantly affect the housing market - and since then the UK has consistently had growing population and a shortage of construction.
If Germany's population has risen in the past 12 months then that may put them where we were in 1997. If theirs rises consistently for years to come, and their construction fails to keep up, then they too will face an inevitable affordability crisis. But they're not in that position today.
Median German house price is €551,483, in the UK it is only £290,000.
It is only the fact that most Germans live in apartments where the average cost is only €312,411 and indeed most rent that makes it more affordable. UK houses are actually cheaper on average than German houses outside London and the SE
On the subject of home ownership, I've just come across this, reminding me that far from being obsessed by home ownershiop, Britain is looking distinctly mid-table in Europe:
Otoh the economic powerhouse of Europe, Germany, has very low ownership rates. Maybe that is worth consideration.
Norway is wealthier per head than Germany and has 80% home ownership, very high home ownership rates now in Eastern Europe too. Italy, Spain and Ireland and the Netherlands also have a higher home ownership rate than the UK
All true but as I just said, Europe's economic and industrial powerhouse, viz Germany, has very low ownership rates. Maybe we should examine whether this is central to Germany's prosperity or just a mildly interesting quirk.
Probably partly explains why the right tends to be weaker in Germany than most of the rest of Europe and the West. As most Germans rent, even the main centre right party the CDU are not much different to the LDs ideologically here and now the SPD are in government with the Greens and FDP.
In terms of wealth per head Germany as a result though has amongst the lowest wealth in the western world (even if higher personal incomes than some western rivals). We, the US, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Nordic nations and the Netherlands, Japan and Singapore, Ireland even Italy and Spain have higher wealth per head than Germany
If median wealth includes home ownership, it is not a useful metric for our purpose.
Of course it is, as most peoples' wealth is mainly in their homes.
Most Brits still own property, most Germans don't. Hence on average wealth wise Germans are poorer than Brits
Yes but in questioning the economic performance of countries with high and low home ownership, it plainly begs the question to include housing wealth. Worse, it also stops examination of what might be a causal factor. Because money tied up in housing cannot be spent, it generates no jobs, no prosperity. Disposable income is key, that allows for discretionary spending and keeps the German lathes turning (to channel my inner Ramsay MacDonald).
Owning your own home is the biggest source of prosperity and security there is
That map of the green belt though. I think people in general are having this debate on a misnomer, conflating green space around any village or town with green belt.
As shown earlier, a megacity covering the entirety of Norfolk would be perfectly possible whilst maintaining every inch of green belt.
And why on earth would people in Norfolk want a megacity ruining their beautiful rural county?
Gemany's 1990 population seems to be variously quoted at something around 78 or 79 million, and the figure for 2023 is given at 84.5 million.
1990 was 33 years ago. Its completely irrelevant. Yes, Germany's population rose between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then. Britain's population didn't between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then too.
What happened in 1990 isn't affecting prices today. Why do you want to bring 33 years ago into it, just to pretend that Germany's population has been growing in recent years? 33 years ago is not recent.
Two decades ago both Germany and Britain had affordable housing. In the past 2 decades, Germany's population has not grown - Britain's has soared but construction has not kept up. That is it.
That is the full story, as much as you want to drag the fall of the Soviet Union, or migration many decades ago into it.
From what I can see online, Germany's population was forecast to drop or stay stable, but hasn't.
I wonder if that's because of the Ukrainian war, and Germany still accepting a lot of Russian and Central Asia Jewish populations. So that maybe could be the reason why it's been actually repeatedly forecast to fall, or stay stable, but instead seems to have risen from about 81 or 82 million 20 years ago, to approaching 85 million now. Even the population predictions from various world websites from last year seem to be wrong, so I wonder whether perhaps the Ukrainian war, and the way in which that might have accelerated Gemany's long-standing policy of accepting post-Soviet Jews, might have been two key factors, there.
Why are you so pig-headed over this? What would you call this if not stable? 🤦♂️ Apart from a brief fall in 2010, subsequently reversed, their population has barely changed all century.
Germany is not Britain!
But again, that graph seems to stop about two years ago, because the current figures are moving towards 85 mill.
Germany seems to have already added another couple of million or so since then. That doesn't look like an unchanging population, to me. I think it might be easier to see what's actually going on in a couple of years, after the Ukraine War.
The graph stops in 2021 which is 17 months ago because that's when accurate data ends. Its also not that long ago.
There may have been some variance since then, but not enough to create a multi-decade pressure on affordability like the UK has.
The UK's population started rising in 1997. It took a few years until 2003 of consistently doing so before pressure really started to significantly affect the housing market - and since then the UK has consistently had growing population and a shortage of construction.
If Germany's population has risen in the past 12 months then that may put them where we were in 1997. If theirs rises consistently for years to come, and their construction fails to keep up, then they too will face an inevitable affordability crisis. But they're not in that position today.
Median German house price is €551,483, in the UK it is only £290,000.
It is only the fact that most Germans live in apartments where the average cost is only €312,411 and indeed most rent that makes it more affordable. UK houses are actually cheaper on average than German houses outside London and the SE
Housing price details The median price of an apartment for sale is GBP 435,585. That means there are as many properties more expensive than GBP 435,585 as cheaper. As for houses for sale, the median price is GBP 663,111.
I think it's the median price of a house on their website - which looks to be at the higher/more expensive end of various markets.
So I think the €551,483 figure isn't right for Germany nationally.
On topic, I've just watched all of Sunak's 10-minute interview with Beth Rigby. It is painful. He's obviously been advised (or decided himself) that the route to success is to repeat, and itemise, his government's five priorities as often as possible, regardless of the question being asked. So he does, so much so that one loses the will to live. So, for example, even legitimate questions about the level of legal migration are responded to by 'yes, we'll cut the numbers - but stopping the boats is my priority'... It's really tedious.
It strengthens my view that Sunak is significantly over-rated by many people.
Sunak is simply not very good.
The only thing that he has going for him is that he is Not Truss, or Not Johnson so some Tories who disliked them seem to have embraced him and think he is good by default.
It takes more than lacking someone else's flaws to be good.
You need to actually be competent at running the country, and being a weak pushover who is misrunning the country and puts his Councillors ahead of the country is not someone who is worthy of being Prime Minister.
What I will say is that I think he had the potential to be Pretty Good. Events shape people, and I think as an opposition politician or a leader taking over in more benign circumstances he could have made a decent fist at things.
He has come in at the fag end of a deeply unpopular government who blew up their credibility with voters firstly by taking them for fools over covid lockdown, secondly by installing a PM so unfit for high office that she caused an economic crisis and had to stand down in a matter of weeks, and thirdly by being so irredeemably divided incompetent and out of ideas that nobody truly understands what their party is for anymore.
Most people would struggle with that hand. It’s actually to his credit that he’s actually managed to handle things as well as he has.
Rishi needs to stop cos-playing his predecessors. It is the same fault that damned Gordon Brown and Theresa May. If Rishi's schtick is to be sober competence and cooperation, he must accumulate runs in singles and the odd four rather than trying to hit every question for six with a Borisian content-free rant.
Who says the church is out of date - everyone in most of those pictures is wearing a dress.
I'd love a purple cloak like that. I have a shocking pink dress that would go very well with it. An open topped carriage and horse to pootle around the Lakes would be pretty nice too.
Couldn’t use it often, given the weather, though!
You'd be surprised. I reckon there would be very few days when I could not use it at all at any point during the day.
The other parties don't seem to have gained that much, so maybe a change in their methodology of likely voters, or Labour turn-out and don't knows, perhaps ? I've also wondered recently whether, from a couple of polls apparently showing more Labour to Lib Dem switching than that, some of Starmer's stances have started to alienate the civil liberties crowd a little.
On the subject of home ownership, I've just come across this, reminding me that far from being obsessed by home ownershiop, Britain is looking distinctly mid-table in Europe:
Otoh the economic powerhouse of Europe, Germany, has very low ownership rates. Maybe that is worth consideration.
Norway is wealthier per head than Germany and has 80% home ownership, very high home ownership rates now in Eastern Europe too. Italy, Spain and Ireland and the Netherlands also have a higher home ownership rate than the UK
All true but as I just said, Europe's economic and industrial powerhouse, viz Germany, has very low ownership rates. Maybe we should examine whether this is central to Germany's prosperity or just a mildly interesting quirk.
Probably partly explains why the right tends to be weaker in Germany than most of the rest of Europe and the West. As most Germans rent, even the main centre right party the CDU are not much different to the LDs ideologically here and now the SPD are in government with the Greens and FDP.
In terms of wealth per head Germany as a result though has amongst the lowest wealth in the western world (even if higher personal incomes than some western rivals). We, the US, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Nordic nations and the Netherlands, Japan and Singapore, Ireland even Italy and Spain have higher wealth per head than Germany
If median wealth includes home ownership, it is not a useful metric for our purpose.
Of course it is, as most peoples' wealth is mainly in their homes.
Most Brits still own property, most Germans don't. Hence on average wealth wise Germans are poorer than Brits
Yes but in questioning the economic performance of countries with high and low home ownership, it plainly begs the question to include housing wealth. Worse, it also stops examination of what might be a causal factor. Because money tied up in housing cannot be spent, it generates no jobs, no prosperity. Disposable income is key, that allows for discretionary spending and keeps the German lathes turning (to channel my inner Ramsay MacDonald).
Owning your own home is the biggest source of prosperity and security there is
Which is why the Tories should be the party that supports construction and encouraging as many people as possible to get that security and prosperity.
Yet you oppose it. And Sunak is pandering to people like you, instead of doing what a good Conservative should and encouraging as many people as possible to have the aspiration to have that prosperity and security.
That map of the green belt though. I think people in general are having this debate on a misnomer, conflating green space around any village or town with green belt.
As shown earlier, a megacity covering the entirety of Norfolk would be perfectly possible whilst maintaining every inch of green belt.
And why on earth would people in Norfolk want a megacity ruining their beautiful rural county?
Please don't take this as a proposal rather than a reducto ad absurdium point on what the green belt does and does not comprise
On topic, I've just watched all of Sunak's 10-minute interview with Beth Rigby. It is painful. He's obviously been advised (or decided himself) that the route to success is to repeat, and itemise, his government's five priorities as often as possible, regardless of the question being asked. So he does, so much so that one loses the will to live. So, for example, even legitimate questions about the level of legal migration are responded to by 'yes, we'll cut the numbers - but stopping the boats is my priority'... It's really tedious.
It strengthens my view that Sunak is significantly over-rated by many people.
Sunak is simply not very good.
The only thing that he has going for him is that he is Not Truss, or Not Johnson so some Tories who disliked them seem to have embraced him and think he is good by default.
It takes more than lacking someone else's flaws to be good.
You need to actually be competent at running the country, and being a weak pushover who is misrunning the country and puts his Councillors ahead of the country is not someone who is worthy of being Prime Minister.
What I will say is that I think he had the potential to be Pretty Good. Events shape people, and I think as an opposition politician or a leader taking over in more benign circumstances he could have made a decent fist at things.
He has come in at the fag end of a deeply unpopular government who blew up their credibility with voters firstly by taking them for fools over covid lockdown, secondly by installing a PM so unfit for high office that she caused an economic crisis and had to stand down in a matter of weeks, and thirdly by being so irredeemably divided incompetent and out of ideas that nobody truly understands what their party is for anymore.
Most people would struggle with that hand. It’s actually to his credit that he’s actually managed to handle things as well as he has.
Also, he got too much too soon. He never ran a spending department on the way up, which I reckon would have given him a usefully broader perspective on the role of government. He also never ran in a hopeless seat, which could have given him campaigning chops before reaching the big stage.
The pauses in this Beth Rigby interview- "How do you feel when you lose?" are very revealing. I don't think they show him to be a bad person, just not ready to be Prime Minister. (Shades of the way that David Cameron's struggles with his son's medical problems helped turn a standard issue chinless wonder into a real man.)
That map of the green belt though. I think people in general are having this debate on a misnomer, conflating green space around any village or town with green belt.
As shown earlier, a megacity covering the entirety of Norfolk would be perfectly possible whilst maintaining every inch of green belt.
And why on earth would people in Norfolk want a megacity ruining their beautiful rural county?
On topic, I've just watched all of Sunak's 10-minute interview with Beth Rigby. It is painful. He's obviously been advised (or decided himself) that the route to success is to repeat, and itemise, his government's five priorities as often as possible, regardless of the question being asked. So he does, so much so that one loses the will to live. So, for example, even legitimate questions about the level of legal migration are responded to by 'yes, we'll cut the numbers - but stopping the boats is my priority'... It's really tedious.
It strengthens my view that Sunak is significantly over-rated by many people.
I was worried when he took over but now not so much. He'd need to be something special to pull off a 92 from here and he's quite a way short of that imo.
On the subject of home ownership, I've just come across this, reminding me that far from being obsessed by home ownershiop, Britain is looking distinctly mid-table in Europe:
Otoh the economic powerhouse of Europe, Germany, has very low ownership rates. Maybe that is worth consideration.
Norway is wealthier per head than Germany and has 80% home ownership, very high home ownership rates now in Eastern Europe too. Italy, Spain and Ireland and the Netherlands also have a higher home ownership rate than the UK
All true but as I just said, Europe's economic and industrial powerhouse, viz Germany, has very low ownership rates. Maybe we should examine whether this is central to Germany's prosperity or just a mildly interesting quirk.
Probably partly explains why the right tends to be weaker in Germany than most of the rest of Europe and the West. As most Germans rent, even the main centre right party the CDU are not much different to the LDs ideologically here and now the SPD are in government with the Greens and FDP.
In terms of wealth per head Germany as a result though has amongst the lowest wealth in the western world (even if higher personal incomes than some western rivals). We, the US, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Nordic nations and the Netherlands, Japan and Singapore, Ireland even Italy and Spain have higher wealth per head than Germany
If median wealth includes home ownership, it is not a useful metric for our purpose.
Of course it is, as most peoples' wealth is mainly in their homes.
Most Brits still own property, most Germans don't. Hence on average wealth wise Germans are poorer than Brits
Yes but in questioning the economic performance of countries with high and low home ownership, it plainly begs the question to include housing wealth. Worse, it also stops examination of what might be a causal factor. Because money tied up in housing cannot be spent, it generates no jobs, no prosperity. Disposable income is key, that allows for discretionary spending and keeps the German lathes turning (to channel my inner Ramsay MacDonald).
Owning your own home is the biggest source of prosperity and security there is
Which is why the Tories should be the party that supports construction and encouraging as many people as possible to get that security and prosperity.
Yet you oppose it. And Sunak is pandering to people like you, instead of doing what a good Conservative should and encouraging as many people as possible to have the aspiration to have that prosperity and security.
I don't oppose it, I support new housing primarily in brownbelt areas and high rise in urban areas. I also support preserving our countryside and rural areas and not building all over it like Sunak and Gove now do and proper traditional conservatives and indeed 59% of voters overall do too.
If you as an ideological libertarian want to concrete all over the greenbelt and join Starmer and the 23% who want more housing in the greenbelt that is your affair
Gemany's 1990 population seems to be variously quoted at something around 78 or 79 million, and the figure for 2023 is given at 84.5 million.
1990 was 33 years ago. Its completely irrelevant. Yes, Germany's population rose between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then. Britain's population didn't between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then too.
What happened in 1990 isn't affecting prices today. Why do you want to bring 33 years ago into it, just to pretend that Germany's population has been growing in recent years? 33 years ago is not recent.
Two decades ago both Germany and Britain had affordable housing. In the past 2 decades, Germany's population has not grown - Britain's has soared but construction has not kept up. That is it.
That is the full story, as much as you want to drag the fall of the Soviet Union, or migration many decades ago into it.
From what I can see online, Germany's population was forecast to drop or stay stable, but hasn't.
I wonder if that's because of the Ukrainian war, and Germany still accepting a lot of Russian and Central Asia Jewish populations. So that maybe could be the reason why it's been actually repeatedly forecast to fall, or stay stable, but instead seems to have risen from about 81 or 82 million 20 years ago, to approaching 85 million now. Even the population predictions from various world websites from last year seem to be wrong, so I wonder whether perhaps the Ukrainian war, and the way in which that might have accelerated Gemany's long-standing policy of accepting post-Soviet Jews, might have been two key factors, there.
Why are you so pig-headed over this? What would you call this if not stable? 🤦♂️ Apart from a brief fall in 2010, subsequently reversed, their population has barely changed all century.
Germany is not Britain!
But again, that graph seems to stop about two years ago, because the current figures are moving towards 85 mill.
Germany seems to have already added another couple of million or so since then. That doesn't look like an unchanging population, to me. I think it might be easier to see what's actually going on in a couple of years, after the Ukraine War.
The graph stops in 2021 which is 17 months ago because that's when accurate data ends. Its also not that long ago.
There may have been some variance since then, but not enough to create a multi-decade pressure on affordability like the UK has.
The UK's population started rising in 1997. It took a few years until 2003 of consistently doing so before pressure really started to significantly affect the housing market - and since then the UK has consistently had growing population and a shortage of construction.
If Germany's population has risen in the past 12 months then that may put them where we were in 1997. If theirs rises consistently for years to come, and their construction fails to keep up, then they too will face an inevitable affordability crisis. But they're not in that position today.
Median German house price is €551,483, in the UK it is only £290,000.
It is only the fact that most Germans live in apartments where the average cost is only €312,411 and indeed most rent that makes it more affordable. UK houses are actually cheaper on average than German houses outside London and the SE
Housing price details The median price of an apartment for sale is GBP 435,585. That means there are as many properties more expensive than GBP 435,585 as cheaper. As for houses for sale, the median price is GBP 663,111.
I think it's the median price of a house on their website - which looks to be at the higher/more expensive end of various markets.
So I think the €551,483 figure isn't right for Germany nationally.
In my experience German properties are larger than British ones, and built to a higher spec, so price comparisons that don't correct for that are probably a bit off. (Germans are richer than we are and so they tend to have better stuff than us across the board).
Gemany's 1990 population seems to be variously quoted at something around 78 or 79 million, and the figure for 2023 is given at 84.5 million.
1990 was 33 years ago. Its completely irrelevant. Yes, Germany's population rose between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then. Britain's population didn't between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then too.
What happened in 1990 isn't affecting prices today. Why do you want to bring 33 years ago into it, just to pretend that Germany's population has been growing in recent years? 33 years ago is not recent.
Two decades ago both Germany and Britain had affordable housing. In the past 2 decades, Germany's population has not grown - Britain's has soared but construction has not kept up. That is it.
That is the full story, as much as you want to drag the fall of the Soviet Union, or migration many decades ago into it.
Time to roll out my Big Bang theory. Everything was ticking over perfectly well pre-Big Bang. Doctors, (commercial and merchant) bankers, lawyers, teachers, etc all rubbed along and housing eg in London was sensible.
Then with the advent and influx of zillions of US investment banks which hugely inflated wages in The City and brought in people with money to spend buying houses. This then pushed out the "traditional" professions and/or inflated wages also. The result being that property prices in core London went bonkers and then as people sought out areas adjacent to "nice" areas, those areas were gentrified and property prices went through the roof also.
I remember some friends being super-edgy by buying a house in Leamington Road Villas, London W11 for whatever it was 30-odd years ago. You can now buy a six-bedroom house in the adjacent road for £8.5m. Damn them!
That map of the green belt though. I think people in general are having this debate on a misnomer, conflating green space around any village or town with green belt.
As shown earlier, a megacity covering the entirety of Norfolk would be perfectly possible whilst maintaining every inch of green belt.
And why on earth would people in Norfolk want a megacity ruining their beautiful rural county?
Gemany's 1990 population seems to be variously quoted at something around 78 or 79 million, and the figure for 2023 is given at 84.5 million.
1990 was 33 years ago. Its completely irrelevant. Yes, Germany's population rose between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then. Britain's population didn't between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then too.
What happened in 1990 isn't affecting prices today. Why do you want to bring 33 years ago into it, just to pretend that Germany's population has been growing in recent years? 33 years ago is not recent.
Two decades ago both Germany and Britain had affordable housing. In the past 2 decades, Germany's population has not grown - Britain's has soared but construction has not kept up. That is it.
That is the full story, as much as you want to drag the fall of the Soviet Union, or migration many decades ago into it.
From what I can see online, Germany's population was forecast to drop or stay stable, but hasn't.
I wonder if that's because of the Ukrainian war, and Germany still accepting a lot of Russian and Central Asia Jewish populations. So that maybe could be the reason why it's been actually repeatedly forecast to fall, or stay stable, but instead seems to have risen from about 81 or 82 million 20 years ago, to approaching 85 million now. Even the population predictions from various world websites from last year seem to be wrong, so I wonder whether perhaps the Ukrainian war, and the way in which that might have accelerated Gemany's long-standing policy of accepting post-Soviet Jews, might have been two key factors, there.
Why are you so pig-headed over this? What would you call this if not stable? 🤦♂️ Apart from a brief fall in 2010, subsequently reversed, their population has barely changed all century.
Germany is not Britain!
But again, that graph seems to stop about two years ago, because the current figures are moving towards 85 mill.
Germany seems to have already added another couple of million or so since then. That doesn't look like an unchanging population, to me. I think it might be easier to see what's actually going on in a couple of years, after the Ukraine War.
The graph stops in 2021 which is 17 months ago because that's when accurate data ends. Its also not that long ago.
There may have been some variance since then, but not enough to create a multi-decade pressure on affordability like the UK has.
The UK's population started rising in 1997. It took a few years until 2003 of consistently doing so before pressure really started to significantly affect the housing market - and since then the UK has consistently had growing population and a shortage of construction.
If Germany's population has risen in the past 12 months then that may put them where we were in 1997. If theirs rises consistently for years to come, and their construction fails to keep up, then they too will face an inevitable affordability crisis. But they're not in that position today.
Median German house price is €551,483, in the UK it is only £290,000.
It is only the fact that most Germans live in apartments where the average cost is only €312,411 and indeed most rent that makes it more affordable. UK houses are actually cheaper on average than German houses outside London and the SE
Housing price details The median price of an apartment for sale is GBP 435,585. That means there are as many properties more expensive than GBP 435,585 as cheaper. As for houses for sale, the median price is GBP 663,111.
I think it's the median price of a house on their website - which looks to be at the higher/more expensive end of various markets.
So I think the €551,483 figure isn't right for Germany nationally.
In my experience German properties are larger than British ones, and built to a higher spec, so price comparisons that don't correct for that are probably a bit off. (Germans are richer than we are and so they tend to have better stuff than us across the board).
Continuing the general German theme, I've often found that the difference between Lidl and many lower-end British supermarkets, and on various fresh and non-fresh goods, is quite staggering.
Better quality, and wider range, for generally lower prices. The difference is so stark, and staggeringly easy to achieve for a cheap supermarket, that it's repeatedly struck me as some sort of metaphorical first-hand experience of how the German economy and its service culture must be working in general compared to ours, over the last few years.
On the subject of home ownership, I've just come across this, reminding me that far from being obsessed by home ownershiop, Britain is looking distinctly mid-table in Europe:
Otoh the economic powerhouse of Europe, Germany, has very low ownership rates. Maybe that is worth consideration.
Norway is wealthier per head than Germany and has 80% home ownership, very high home ownership rates now in Eastern Europe too. Italy, Spain and Ireland and the Netherlands also have a higher home ownership rate than the UK
All true but as I just said, Europe's economic and industrial powerhouse, viz Germany, has very low ownership rates. Maybe we should examine whether this is central to Germany's prosperity or just a mildly interesting quirk.
Probably partly explains why the right tends to be weaker in Germany than most of the rest of Europe and the West. As most Germans rent, even the main centre right party the CDU are not much different to the LDs ideologically here and now the SPD are in government with the Greens and FDP.
In terms of wealth per head Germany as a result though has amongst the lowest wealth in the western world (even if higher personal incomes than some western rivals). We, the US, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Nordic nations and the Netherlands, Japan and Singapore, Ireland even Italy and Spain have higher wealth per head than Germany
If median wealth includes home ownership, it is not a useful metric for our purpose.
Of course it is, as most peoples' wealth is mainly in their homes.
Most Brits still own property, most Germans don't. Hence on average wealth wise Germans are poorer than Brits
Yes but in questioning the economic performance of countries with high and low home ownership, it plainly begs the question to include housing wealth. Worse, it also stops examination of what might be a causal factor. Because money tied up in housing cannot be spent, it generates no jobs, no prosperity. Disposable income is key, that allows for discretionary spending and keeps the German lathes turning (to channel my inner Ramsay MacDonald).
Owning your own home is the biggest source of prosperity and security there is
Which is why the Tories should be the party that supports construction and encouraging as many people as possible to get that security and prosperity.
Yet you oppose it. And Sunak is pandering to people like you, instead of doing what a good Conservative should and encouraging as many people as possible to have the aspiration to have that prosperity and security.
I don't oppose it, I support new housing primarily in brownbelt areas and high rise in urban areas. I also support preserving our countryside and rural areas and not building all over it like Sunak and Gove now do and proper traditional conservatives and indeed 59% of voters overall do too.
If you as an ideological libertarian want to concrete all over the greenbelt and join Starmer and the 23% who want more housing in the greenbelt that is your affair
Since the brown belt doesn't exist, its quite easy and flippant to say that and then to dismiss everything realistic as your typical NIMBY self.
The population has grown by 20% in a generation. There simply isn't the 'brown belt' to build on to accommodate that.
There's no need to concrete all over the greenbelt. Just a tiny % of it would probably suffice realistically, but simply saying no to anything anywhere is bananas.
That map of the green belt though. I think people in general are having this debate on a misnomer, conflating green space around any village or town with green belt.
As shown earlier, a megacity covering the entirety of Norfolk would be perfectly possible whilst maintaining every inch of green belt.
And why on earth would people in Norfolk want a megacity ruining their beautiful rural county?
On topic, I've just watched all of Sunak's 10-minute interview with Beth Rigby. It is painful. He's obviously been advised (or decided himself) that the route to success is to repeat, and itemise, his government's five priorities as often as possible, regardless of the question being asked. So he does, so much so that one loses the will to live. So, for example, even legitimate questions about the level of legal migration are responded to by 'yes, we'll cut the numbers - but stopping the boats is my priority'... It's really tedious.
It strengthens my view that Sunak is significantly over-rated by many people.
Have you been paying attention to politics these past few years?
Recall how "Get Brexit Done" was the response to anything from new schools and hospitals to, er, Brexit in 2019. Hammering a message home has been seen to have demonstrable success so Rishi is evidently adopting this strategy.
Gemany's 1990 population seems to be variously quoted at something around 78 or 79 million, and the figure for 2023 is given at 84.5 million.
1990 was 33 years ago. Its completely irrelevant. Yes, Germany's population rose between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then. Britain's population didn't between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then too.
What happened in 1990 isn't affecting prices today. Why do you want to bring 33 years ago into it, just to pretend that Germany's population has been growing in recent years? 33 years ago is not recent.
Two decades ago both Germany and Britain had affordable housing. In the past 2 decades, Germany's population has not grown - Britain's has soared but construction has not kept up. That is it.
That is the full story, as much as you want to drag the fall of the Soviet Union, or migration many decades ago into it.
Time to roll out my Big Bang theory. Everything was ticking over perfectly well pre-Big Bang. Doctors, (commercial and merchant) bankers, lawyers, teachers, etc all rubbed along and housing eg in London was sensible.
Then with the advent and influx of zillions of US investment banks which hugely inflated wages in The City and brought in people with money to spend buying houses. This then pushed out the "traditional" professions and/or inflated wages also. The result being that property prices in core London went bonkers and then as people sought out areas adjacent to "nice" areas, those areas were gentrified and property prices went through the roof also.
I remember some friends being super-edgy by buying a house in Leamington Road Villas, London W11 for whatever it was 30-odd years ago. You can now buy a six-bedroom house in the adjacent road for £8.5m. Damn them!
The other parties don't seem to have gained that much, so maybe a change in their methodology of likely voters, or Labour turn-out and don't knows, perhaps ? I've also wondered recently whether, from a couple of polls apparently showing more Labour to Lib Dem switching than that, some of Starmer's stances have started to alienate the civil liberties crowd a little.
Omnisis was a huge outlier last time, so these numbers just bring it back nearer the pack. It's still pretty good for the Opposition though.
Gemany's 1990 population seems to be variously quoted at something around 78 or 79 million, and the figure for 2023 is given at 84.5 million.
1990 was 33 years ago. Its completely irrelevant. Yes, Germany's population rose between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then. Britain's population didn't between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then too.
What happened in 1990 isn't affecting prices today. Why do you want to bring 33 years ago into it, just to pretend that Germany's population has been growing in recent years? 33 years ago is not recent.
Two decades ago both Germany and Britain had affordable housing. In the past 2 decades, Germany's population has not grown - Britain's has soared but construction has not kept up. That is it.
That is the full story, as much as you want to drag the fall of the Soviet Union, or migration many decades ago into it.
From what I can see online, Germany's population was forecast to drop or stay stable, but hasn't.
I wonder if that's because of the Ukrainian war, and Germany still accepting a lot of Russian and Central Asia Jewish populations. So that maybe could be the reason why it's been actually repeatedly forecast to fall, or stay stable, but instead seems to have risen from about 81 or 82 million 20 years ago, to approaching 85 million now. Even the population predictions from various world websites from last year seem to be wrong, so I wonder whether perhaps the Ukrainian war, and the way in which that might have accelerated Gemany's long-standing policy of accepting post-Soviet Jews, might have been two key factors, there.
Why are you so pig-headed over this? What would you call this if not stable? 🤦♂️ Apart from a brief fall in 2010, subsequently reversed, their population has barely changed all century.
Germany is not Britain!
But again, that graph seems to stop about two years ago, because the current figures are moving towards 85 mill.
Germany seems to have already added another couple of million or so since then. That doesn't look like an unchanging population, to me. I think it might be easier to see what's actually going on in a couple of years, after the Ukraine War.
The graph stops in 2021 which is 17 months ago because that's when accurate data ends. Its also not that long ago.
There may have been some variance since then, but not enough to create a multi-decade pressure on affordability like the UK has.
The UK's population started rising in 1997. It took a few years until 2003 of consistently doing so before pressure really started to significantly affect the housing market - and since then the UK has consistently had growing population and a shortage of construction.
If Germany's population has risen in the past 12 months then that may put them where we were in 1997. If theirs rises consistently for years to come, and their construction fails to keep up, then they too will face an inevitable affordability crisis. But they're not in that position today.
Median German house price is €551,483, in the UK it is only £290,000.
It is only the fact that most Germans live in apartments where the average cost is only €312,411 and indeed most rent that makes it more affordable. UK houses are actually cheaper on average than German houses outside London and the SE
Housing price details The median price of an apartment for sale is GBP 435,585. That means there are as many properties more expensive than GBP 435,585 as cheaper. As for houses for sale, the median price is GBP 663,111.
I think it's the median price of a house on their website - which looks to be at the higher/more expensive end of various markets.
So I think the €551,483 figure isn't right for Germany nationally.
In my experience German properties are larger than British ones, and built to a higher spec, so price comparisons that don't correct for that are probably a bit off. (Germans are richer than we are and so they tend to have better stuff than us across the board).
Continuing the general German theme, the difference between Lidl and some British supermarkets, on various fresh goods, is quite staggering.
Better quality, and a better range, for lower prices, and the difference is so staggering it's repeatedly struck me as some sort of metaphor for how the German economy and sizes must be working in general , compared to us , and ovet the last few years.
Indeed. A visit to Germany is a sobering experience! They face serious challenges maintaining their position given the disruption in sectors like autos that they are so successful in, but I would not bet against them. The European single market is a massive boon for them, their borders are open with allies on all sides, and they are really good at marrying engineering and commercial imperatives.
One that I am seeing increasingly, is that if you are well off, you have two (or even more!) dishwashers. Dishes are taken from the clean one, put in the empty one, which is then run....
On topic, I've just watched all of Sunak's 10-minute interview with Beth Rigby. It is painful. He's obviously been advised (or decided himself) that the route to success is to repeat, and itemise, his government's five priorities as often as possible, regardless of the question being asked. So he does, so much so that one loses the will to live. So, for example, even legitimate questions about the level of legal migration are responded to by 'yes, we'll cut the numbers - but stopping the boats is my priority'... It's really tedious.
It strengthens my view that Sunak is significantly over-rated by many people.
I was worried when he took over but now not so much. He'd need to be something special to pull off a 92 from here and he's quite a way short of that imo.
Major had a larger (Both Thatcher's at the GE and at dissolution) majority than Sunak (Via Truss & Johnson) has to work with. Curiously though, no swing to Labour matching Mid Staffs in this parliament whereas the Lib Dems exceeded Ribble Valley and Eastbourne with their victories in North Shropshire, Chesham and Tiveton.
Mr. JohnL, been a long time since I learned about it and things may've changed since but I think renting was seen as both normal and had better laws in Germany compared to here.
OK It is the cheapest good size apartment available but I doubt you'd get a space under the stairs a la Harry Potter for that price in London.
Wow, thats an amazing price with bills included.
In London, I've seen one bed flats, nice but not luxury, with service charges of that level even if you own it "outright".
Berlin is great on this. How they manage it is probably worth a look.
Likely many reasons.
One factor will be that there's not the political/financial/economic/cultural concentration in Berlin that London has.
Yes few countries have capitals as dominant as London is. But still, Berlin is a big throbbing iconic city and it comes as a surprise to see how cheap it is to live there.
In the past 2 decades Berlin's population has barely changed. London's has grown by 2 million.
Yet you think regulations are the difference? 🤔
Supply and demand isn't a surprise to anyone who understands the slightest thing about economics.
But anyone who understands a little more than the slightest thing about economics knows that supply & demand doesn't explain the whole of every problem in this world.
Of course it doesn't explain every problem.
It is the cause of this problem, though.
Germany has enough supply of houses, so they're affordable. Britain does not, so they're not.
You can't regulate that away, unless the regulations you're proposing are to allow mass construction - in which case, I'll vote for that.
Don't worry I'm totally onboard with the argument that increasing supply is the most important of the various measures we could take. I do have a soft spot for rent controls though. When I was a student you could reduce a grasping landlord to jelly by threatening to take him to The Tribunal over the rent. Not sure what happened to that arrangement. I suppose it got canned by Thatcher along with the other market reforms and right to buy etc. Some of what has caused our affordable homes crisis started there imo.
Gemany's 1990 population seems to be variously quoted at something around 78 or 79 million, and the figure for 2023 is given at 84.5 million.
1990 was 33 years ago. Its completely irrelevant. Yes, Germany's population rose between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then. Britain's population didn't between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then too.
What happened in 1990 isn't affecting prices today. Why do you want to bring 33 years ago into it, just to pretend that Germany's population has been growing in recent years? 33 years ago is not recent.
Two decades ago both Germany and Britain had affordable housing. In the past 2 decades, Germany's population has not grown - Britain's has soared but construction has not kept up. That is it.
That is the full story, as much as you want to drag the fall of the Soviet Union, or migration many decades ago into it.
From what I can see online, Germany's population was forecast to drop or stay stable, but hasn't.
I wonder if that's because of the Ukrainian war, and Germany still accepting a lot of Russian and Central Asia Jewish populations. So that maybe could be the reason why it's been actually repeatedly forecast to fall, or stay stable, but instead seems to have risen from about 81 or 82 million 20 years ago, to approaching 85 million now. Even the population predictions from various world websites from last year seem to be wrong, so I wonder whether perhaps the Ukrainian war, and the way in which that might have accelerated Gemany's long-standing policy of accepting post-Soviet Jews, might have been two key factors, there.
Why are you so pig-headed over this? What would you call this if not stable? 🤦♂️ Apart from a brief fall in 2010, subsequently reversed, their population has barely changed all century.
Germany is not Britain!
But again, that graph seems to stop about two years ago, because the current figures are moving towards 85 mill.
Germany seems to have already added another couple of million or so since then. That doesn't look like an unchanging population, to me. I think it might be easier to see what's actually going on in a couple of years, after the Ukraine War.
The graph stops in 2021 which is 17 months ago because that's when accurate data ends. Its also not that long ago.
There may have been some variance since then, but not enough to create a multi-decade pressure on affordability like the UK has.
The UK's population started rising in 1997. It took a few years until 2003 of consistently doing so before pressure really started to significantly affect the housing market - and since then the UK has consistently had growing population and a shortage of construction.
If Germany's population has risen in the past 12 months then that may put them where we were in 1997. If theirs rises consistently for years to come, and their construction fails to keep up, then they too will face an inevitable affordability crisis. But they're not in that position today.
Median German house price is €551,483, in the UK it is only £290,000.
It is only the fact that most Germans live in apartments where the average cost is only €312,411 and indeed most rent that makes it more affordable. UK houses are actually cheaper on average than German houses outside London and the SE
Housing price details The median price of an apartment for sale is GBP 435,585. That means there are as many properties more expensive than GBP 435,585 as cheaper. As for houses for sale, the median price is GBP 663,111.
I think it's the median price of a house on their website - which looks to be at the higher/more expensive end of various markets.
So I think the €551,483 figure isn't right for Germany nationally.
In my experience German properties are larger than British ones, and built to a higher spec, so price comparisons that don't correct for that are probably a bit off. (Germans are richer than we are and so they tend to have better stuff than us across the board).
Continuing the general German theme, I've often found that the difference between Lidl and many lower-end British supermarkets, and on various fresh and non-fresh goods, is quite staggering.
Better quality, and a better range, for lower prices, and the difference is so staggering it's repeatedly struck me as some sort of metaphor for how the German economy and its service culture must be working in general , compared to us , and ovet the last few years.
It's odd, when you think about it. One of the stories that the British like to tell ourselves is that we're really good at retail, that our supermarket market is top notch. And yet these Germans come over here and deliver better produce at lower prices. And when the Brits try to copy that (there was a low-cost arm of Tesco's, wasn't there, which nobody hears of any more), they tend to fail pretty quickly.
Yes, Aldi and Lidl are relatively spartan, only have one version of most products and only sell kayaks for two weeks of the year, but on balance that might be a price worth paying. Less fur coat, more knickers.
Gemany's 1990 population seems to be variously quoted at something around 78 or 79 million, and the figure for 2023 is given at 84.5 million.
1990 was 33 years ago. Its completely irrelevant. Yes, Germany's population rose between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then. Britain's population didn't between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then too.
What happened in 1990 isn't affecting prices today. Why do you want to bring 33 years ago into it, just to pretend that Germany's population has been growing in recent years? 33 years ago is not recent.
Two decades ago both Germany and Britain had affordable housing. In the past 2 decades, Germany's population has not grown - Britain's has soared but construction has not kept up. That is it.
That is the full story, as much as you want to drag the fall of the Soviet Union, or migration many decades ago into it.
Time to roll out my Big Bang theory. Everything was ticking over perfectly well pre-Big Bang. Doctors, (commercial and merchant) bankers, lawyers, teachers, etc all rubbed along and housing eg in London was sensible.
Then with the advent and influx of zillions of US investment banks which hugely inflated wages in The City and brought in people with money to spend buying houses. This then pushed out the "traditional" professions and/or inflated wages also. The result being that property prices in core London went bonkers and then as people sought out areas adjacent to "nice" areas, those areas were gentrified and property prices went through the roof also.
I remember some friends being super-edgy by buying a house in Leamington Road Villas, London W11 for whatever it was 30-odd years ago. You can now buy a six-bedroom house in the adjacent road for £8.5m. Damn them!
That map of the green belt though. I think people in general are having this debate on a misnomer, conflating green space around any village or town with green belt.
As shown earlier, a megacity covering the entirety of Norfolk would be perfectly possible whilst maintaining every inch of green belt.
And why on earth would people in Norfolk want a megacity ruining their beautiful rural county?
They all mostly won't.
But it wouldn't affect greenbelt.
Wait, is Megacity One actually Norwich?
The Cursed Earth is Slough
Edit: would the police be up for the reduction in their arbitrary, stupid behaviour, required for them to become Street Judges?
Good morning Brexit lovers! Are the public aware of the October deadline for animal health regulations? This is now universally being described by producers, importers and customs companies as the "hard Brexit" deadline.
What does it mean? The price of meat is going to rise. And as we all know, the price of meat is already soaring. Not just meat, products that include meat. And not just imported meat, this is an industry cost which is going to resonate across the whole sector as its all interlinked.
“recognises the importance of immigration” meaning what? Oversees very high rates of immigration, while appointing a Home Secretary who constantly rails against the government’s own policies?
Rishi Sunak tells @ChrisMasonBBC says he REALLY wants to bring down legal immigration, but won't say by how much.
"It will depend on how the economy is doing at any particular time and the circumstances that we're facing."
That's what take back control actually means. Rather than hundreds of thousands of EU citizens coming here on their choice from freedom of movement we get to choose who comes and ensure that their skills meet our shortages. The position of Rumanian street beggar is definitely filled.
Right now, as we slowly try to adapt away from a low wage, low skill economy which developed under FoM, we have a lot of shortages so we need a lot of immigrants. Which is fine. One day we won't have such shortages at which point the number of permissions granted will fall very sharply.
Genuine question: in what sense do you think we are adapting away from 'a low wage, low skill* economy'?
Are we going to do away with, say, care workers, building labourers, fruit pickers, hospitality staff, farm workers, cleaners, delivery drivers, etc., etc.
(*Low wage ≠ low skill btw. Some of those jobs I have listed require quite a lot of skill, just not the sort of skill valued by society.)
All of those jobs saw massive increases in productivity during the 20th century via investment in new technology and training in new skills.
Yet for the last two decades that process has changed to 'get some migrants to keep the wages down' instead of investment and training.
The most visible instance of this regressive mentality is car washing where the taxpayer now subsidises migrants to wash cars whereas a generation ago machines did it.
WRT car washing, hand car washers simply do a better job than a machine.
Yup, no scratches, plus the inside valet, no machine can do that.
If you adapted the latest tech in robotics, yes, you could.
More delicate touch than humans has been demonstrated.
Still waiting for the robot that will load my dishwasher and put the clean crockery away afterwards.
Have 2 dishwashers so you don't have to put them away. The lazy rich solution. No solution for loading it - sorry.
Gemany's 1990 population seems to be variously quoted at something around 78 or 79 million, and the figure for 2023 is given at 84.5 million.
1990 was 33 years ago. Its completely irrelevant. Yes, Germany's population rose between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then. Britain's population didn't between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then too.
What happened in 1990 isn't affecting prices today. Why do you want to bring 33 years ago into it, just to pretend that Germany's population has been growing in recent years? 33 years ago is not recent.
Two decades ago both Germany and Britain had affordable housing. In the past 2 decades, Germany's population has not grown - Britain's has soared but construction has not kept up. That is it.
That is the full story, as much as you want to drag the fall of the Soviet Union, or migration many decades ago into it.
Time to roll out my Big Bang theory. Everything was ticking over perfectly well pre-Big Bang. Doctors, (commercial and merchant) bankers, lawyers, teachers, etc all rubbed along and housing eg in London was sensible.
Then with the advent and influx of zillions of US investment banks which hugely inflated wages in The City and brought in people with money to spend buying houses. This then pushed out the "traditional" professions and/or inflated wages also. The result being that property prices in core London went bonkers and then as people sought out areas adjacent to "nice" areas, those areas were gentrified and property prices went through the roof also.
I remember some friends being super-edgy by buying a house in Leamington Road Villas, London W11 for whatever it was 30-odd years ago. You can now buy a six-bedroom house in the adjacent road for £8.5m. Damn them!
In a nutshell. Time was you took your life into your own hands walking down streets wherein you can now buy houses literally for millions of pounds.
In the series Sons If Anarchy, a theme is fighting gentrification. On the basis that rich people will run the murderous lunatic machine gun selling bikers out of town.
Tonight on @wbaltv11: A man with an AR-15 has been showing up for weeks to a school bus drop off for local elementary school students. Parents say their kids are afraid, the man says he’s protesting @GovWesMoore’s new gun control law. You’ll hear from both sides at 5+6pm. https://twitter.com/TollyTaylor/status/1659271827879804928
Meh. Arm the elementary school kids with their own guns to protect them from him.
Gemany's 1990 population seems to be variously quoted at something around 78 or 79 million, and the figure for 2023 is given at 84.5 million.
1990 was 33 years ago. Its completely irrelevant. Yes, Germany's population rose between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then. Britain's population didn't between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then too.
What happened in 1990 isn't affecting prices today. Why do you want to bring 33 years ago into it, just to pretend that Germany's population has been growing in recent years? 33 years ago is not recent.
Two decades ago both Germany and Britain had affordable housing. In the past 2 decades, Germany's population has not grown - Britain's has soared but construction has not kept up. That is it.
That is the full story, as much as you want to drag the fall of the Soviet Union, or migration many decades ago into it.
Time to roll out my Big Bang theory. Everything was ticking over perfectly well pre-Big Bang. Doctors, (commercial and merchant) bankers, lawyers, teachers, etc all rubbed along and housing eg in London was sensible.
Then with the advent and influx of zillions of US investment banks which hugely inflated wages in The City and brought in people with money to spend buying houses. This then pushed out the "traditional" professions and/or inflated wages also. The result being that property prices in core London went bonkers and then as people sought out areas adjacent to "nice" areas, those areas were gentrified and property prices went through the roof also.
I remember some friends being super-edgy by buying a house in Leamington Road Villas, London W11 for whatever it was 30-odd years ago. You can now buy a six-bedroom house in the adjacent road for £8.5m. Damn them!
It would be interesting to see the background on the two Ukrainian pilots though. I would expect that Ukraine would have sent their very best. Did they have any previous experience of the F16?
Good morning Brexit lovers! Are the public aware of the October deadline for animal health regulations? This is now universally being described by producers, importers and customs companies as the "hard Brexit" deadline.
What does it mean? The price of meat is going to rise. And as we all know, the price of meat is already soaring. Not just meat, products that include meat. And not just imported meat, this is an industry cost which is going to resonate across the whole sector as its all interlinked.
Just thought I'd ask...
Not a scooby personally. Sounds like I'll be switching to something vegan, like venison.
Tonight on @wbaltv11: A man with an AR-15 has been showing up for weeks to a school bus drop off for local elementary school students. Parents say their kids are afraid, the man says he’s protesting @GovWesMoore’s new gun control law. You’ll hear from both sides at 5+6pm. https://twitter.com/TollyTaylor/status/1659271827879804928
Meh. Arm the elementary school kids with their own guns to protect them from him.
Its the only civilised thing to do.
They will need something heavier than Vegan Woke .223
That map of the green belt though. I think people in general are having this debate on a misnomer, conflating green space around any village or town with green belt.
As shown earlier, a megacity covering the entirety of Norfolk would be perfectly possible whilst maintaining every inch of green belt.
And why on earth would people in Norfolk want a megacity ruining their beautiful rural county?
On topic, I've just watched all of Sunak's 10-minute interview with Beth Rigby. It is painful. He's obviously been advised (or decided himself) that the route to success is to repeat, and itemise, his government's five priorities as often as possible, regardless of the question being asked. So he does, so much so that one loses the will to live. So, for example, even legitimate questions about the level of legal migration are responded to by 'yes, we'll cut the numbers - but stopping the boats is my priority'... It's really tedious.
It strengthens my view that Sunak is significantly over-rated by many people.
Have you been paying attention to politics these past few years?
Recall how "Get Brexit Done" was the response to anything from new schools and hospitals to, er, Brexit in 2019. Hammering a message home has been seen to have demonstrable success so Rishi is evidently adopting this strategy.
It might work.
Get Brexit Done worked because of the £350m on the bus sign - Get Brexit done meant when it was done the promised Land would exist and everything would be perfect. Heck it's the same approach the SNP used in Scotland everything will be better if we had control of our own destiny (and Westminister is a great tool to point all flaws at even if the issue is 110% due to SNP mismanagement),
Now Brexit has been done there is no similar Message that will have resonance so Rishi has a big problem as he can't point the blame elsewhere.
Her Gofundme is stalled at what's looking like a not nearly enough £595,000
I think she'll have to declare bankruptcy - "The family tree" is 317,603 in the Kindle Store bestsellers rank. Can't see her journalist gigs will pay her enough to get assets up to the ~ £2M she needs either.
Tonight on @wbaltv11: A man with an AR-15 has been showing up for weeks to a school bus drop off for local elementary school students. Parents say their kids are afraid, the man says he’s protesting @GovWesMoore’s new gun control law. You’ll hear from both sides at 5+6pm. https://twitter.com/TollyTaylor/status/1659271827879804928
Meh. Arm the elementary school kids with their own guns to protect them from him.
Its the only civilised thing to do.
I was just thinking this this morning listening to a disturbing feature on knife crime in this country.
"The best defence against a bad boy with a knife is a good boy with a knife".
We never hear such ludicrous sentiments here but apparently it is a problem - boys carrying knives in case they are attacked by boys carrying knives.
Tonight on @wbaltv11: A man with an AR-15 has been showing up for weeks to a school bus drop off for local elementary school students. Parents say their kids are afraid, the man says he’s protesting @GovWesMoore’s new gun control law. You’ll hear from both sides at 5+6pm. https://twitter.com/TollyTaylor/status/1659271827879804928
Meh. Arm the elementary school kids with their own guns to protect them from him.
Its the only civilised thing to do.
I was just thinking this this morning listening to a disturbing feature on knife crime in this country.
"The best defence against a bad boy with a knife is a good boy with a knife".
We never hear such ludicrous sentiments here but apparently it is a problem - boys carrying knives in case they are attacked by boys carrying knives.
It’s obviously stupid, because of the escalation issue.
The only rational approach is atomic weapons for every toddler.
Tonight on @wbaltv11: A man with an AR-15 has been showing up for weeks to a school bus drop off for local elementary school students. Parents say their kids are afraid, the man says he’s protesting @GovWesMoore’s new gun control law. You’ll hear from both sides at 5+6pm. https://twitter.com/TollyTaylor/status/1659271827879804928
Meh. Arm the elementary school kids with their own guns to protect them from him.
Its the only civilised thing to do.
I was just thinking this this morning listening to a disturbing feature on knife crime in this country.
"The best defence against a bad boy with a knife is a good boy with a knife".
We never hear such ludicrous sentiments here but apparently it is a problem - boys carrying knives in case they are attacked by boys carrying knives.
It’s obviously stupid, because of the escalation issue.
The only rational approach is atomic weapons for every toddler.
Is that why the planet were trialling it with Trump and Kim?
Tonight on @wbaltv11: A man with an AR-15 has been showing up for weeks to a school bus drop off for local elementary school students. Parents say their kids are afraid, the man says he’s protesting @GovWesMoore’s new gun control law. You’ll hear from both sides at 5+6pm. https://twitter.com/TollyTaylor/status/1659271827879804928
Meh. Arm the elementary school kids with their own guns to protect them from him.
Its the only civilised thing to do.
I was just thinking this this morning listening to a disturbing feature on knife crime in this country.
"The best defence against a bad boy with a knife is a good boy with a knife".
We never hear such ludicrous sentiments here but apparently it is a problem - boys carrying knives in case they are attacked by boys carrying knives.
It’s obviously stupid, because of the escalation issue.
The only rational approach is atomic weapons for every toddler.
Is that why the planet were trialling it with Trump and Kim?
Gemany's 1990 population seems to be variously quoted at something around 78 or 79 million, and the figure for 2023 is given at 84.5 million.
1990 was 33 years ago. Its completely irrelevant. Yes, Germany's population rose between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then. Britain's population didn't between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then too.
What happened in 1990 isn't affecting prices today. Why do you want to bring 33 years ago into it, just to pretend that Germany's population has been growing in recent years? 33 years ago is not recent.
Two decades ago both Germany and Britain had affordable housing. In the past 2 decades, Germany's population has not grown - Britain's has soared but construction has not kept up. That is it.
That is the full story, as much as you want to drag the fall of the Soviet Union, or migration many decades ago into it.
Time to roll out my Big Bang theory. Everything was ticking over perfectly well pre-Big Bang. Doctors, (commercial and merchant) bankers, lawyers, teachers, etc all rubbed along and housing eg in London was sensible.
Then with the advent and influx of zillions of US investment banks which hugely inflated wages in The City and brought in people with money to spend buying houses. This then pushed out the "traditional" professions and/or inflated wages also. The result being that property prices in core London went bonkers and then as people sought out areas adjacent to "nice" areas, those areas were gentrified and property prices went through the roof also.
I remember some friends being super-edgy by buying a house in Leamington Road Villas, London W11 for whatever it was 30-odd years ago. You can now buy a six-bedroom house in the adjacent road for £8.5m. Damn them!
From 1939 to 1986 - the Big Bang - London’s population was in perpetual decline. From nearly 9m to 6m-and-change. Big drops
I moved to London in the early 80s and I can still remember the vast areas of dereliction - from docklands to Kings X, Spitalfields to the south bank, Wapping to Islington. Entire streets in Bloomsbury were virtually slums (I know coz I squatted them in the late 80s)
Then the thatcher revolution turned london around and the city started growing again. It recently overtook its 1939 peak - finally
You really want london to return to the “sensible situation” of the 70s and early 80s?? The endless decline and decay? Absurd
Gemany's 1990 population seems to be variously quoted at something around 78 or 79 million, and the figure for 2023 is given at 84.5 million.
1990 was 33 years ago. Its completely irrelevant. Yes, Germany's population rose between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then. Britain's population didn't between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then too.
What happened in 1990 isn't affecting prices today. Why do you want to bring 33 years ago into it, just to pretend that Germany's population has been growing in recent years? 33 years ago is not recent.
Two decades ago both Germany and Britain had affordable housing. In the past 2 decades, Germany's population has not grown - Britain's has soared but construction has not kept up. That is it.
That is the full story, as much as you want to drag the fall of the Soviet Union, or migration many decades ago into it.
From what I can see online, Germany's population was forecast to drop or stay stable, but hasn't.
I wonder if that's because of the Ukrainian war, and Germany still accepting a lot of Russian and Central Asia Jewish populations. So that maybe could be the reason why it's been actually repeatedly forecast to fall, or stay stable, but instead seems to have risen from about 81 or 82 million 20 years ago, to approaching 85 million now. Even the population predictions from various world websites from last year seem to be wrong, so I wonder whether perhaps the Ukrainian war, and the way in which that might have accelerated Gemany's long-standing policy of accepting post-Soviet Jews, might have been two key factors, there.
Why are you so pig-headed over this? What would you call this if not stable? 🤦♂️ Apart from a brief fall in 2010, subsequently reversed, their population has barely changed all century.
Germany is not Britain!
But again, that graph seems to stop about two years ago, because the current figures are moving towards 85 mill.
Germany seems to have already added another couple of million or so since then. That doesn't look like an unchanging population, to me. I think it might be easier to see what's actually going on in a couple of years, after the Ukraine War.
The graph stops in 2021 which is 17 months ago because that's when accurate data ends. Its also not that long ago.
There may have been some variance since then, but not enough to create a multi-decade pressure on affordability like the UK has.
The UK's population started rising in 1997. It took a few years until 2003 of consistently doing so before pressure really started to significantly affect the housing market - and since then the UK has consistently had growing population and a shortage of construction.
If Germany's population has risen in the past 12 months then that may put them where we were in 1997. If theirs rises consistently for years to come, and their construction fails to keep up, then they too will face an inevitable affordability crisis. But they're not in that position today.
Median German house price is €551,483, in the UK it is only £290,000.
It is only the fact that most Germans live in apartments where the average cost is only €312,411 and indeed most rent that makes it more affordable. UK houses are actually cheaper on average than German houses outside London and the SE
Housing price details The median price of an apartment for sale is GBP 435,585. That means there are as many properties more expensive than GBP 435,585 as cheaper. As for houses for sale, the median price is GBP 663,111.
I think it's the median price of a house on their website - which looks to be at the higher/more expensive end of various markets.
So I think the €551,483 figure isn't right for Germany nationally.
In my experience German properties are larger than British ones, and built to a higher spec, so price comparisons that don't correct for that are probably a bit off. (Germans are richer than we are and so they tend to have better stuff than us across the board).
Continuing the general German theme, I've often found that the difference between Lidl and many lower-end British supermarkets, and on various fresh and non-fresh goods, is quite staggering.
Better quality, and wider range, for generally lower prices. The difference is so stark, and staggeringly easy to achieve for a cheap supermarket, that it's repeatedly struck me as some sort of metaphorical first-hand experience of how the German economy and its service culture must be working in general compared to ours, over the last few years.
I thought one of the main points about Lidl is that their range is not wide. Is this not so?
Gemany's 1990 population seems to be variously quoted at something around 78 or 79 million, and the figure for 2023 is given at 84.5 million.
1990 was 33 years ago. Its completely irrelevant. Yes, Germany's population rose between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then. Britain's population didn't between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then too.
What happened in 1990 isn't affecting prices today. Why do you want to bring 33 years ago into it, just to pretend that Germany's population has been growing in recent years? 33 years ago is not recent.
Two decades ago both Germany and Britain had affordable housing. In the past 2 decades, Germany's population has not grown - Britain's has soared but construction has not kept up. That is it.
That is the full story, as much as you want to drag the fall of the Soviet Union, or migration many decades ago into it.
From what I can see online, Germany's population was forecast to drop or stay stable, but hasn't.
I wonder if that's because of the Ukrainian war, and Germany still accepting a lot of Russian and Central Asia Jewish populations. So that maybe could be the reason why it's been actually repeatedly forecast to fall, or stay stable, but instead seems to have risen from about 81 or 82 million 20 years ago, to approaching 85 million now. Even the population predictions from various world websites from last year seem to be wrong, so I wonder whether perhaps the Ukrainian war, and the way in which that might have accelerated Gemany's long-standing policy of accepting post-Soviet Jews, might have been two key factors, there.
Why are you so pig-headed over this? What would you call this if not stable? 🤦♂️ Apart from a brief fall in 2010, subsequently reversed, their population has barely changed all century.
Germany is not Britain!
But again, that graph seems to stop about two years ago, because the current figures are moving towards 85 mill.
Germany seems to have already added another couple of million or so since then. That doesn't look like an unchanging population, to me. I think it might be easier to see what's actually going on in a couple of years, after the Ukraine War.
The graph stops in 2021 which is 17 months ago because that's when accurate data ends. Its also not that long ago.
There may have been some variance since then, but not enough to create a multi-decade pressure on affordability like the UK has.
The UK's population started rising in 1997. It took a few years until 2003 of consistently doing so before pressure really started to significantly affect the housing market - and since then the UK has consistently had growing population and a shortage of construction.
If Germany's population has risen in the past 12 months then that may put them where we were in 1997. If theirs rises consistently for years to come, and their construction fails to keep up, then they too will face an inevitable affordability crisis. But they're not in that position today.
Median German house price is €551,483, in the UK it is only £290,000.
It is only the fact that most Germans live in apartments where the average cost is only €312,411 and indeed most rent that makes it more affordable. UK houses are actually cheaper on average than German houses outside London and the SE
Housing price details The median price of an apartment for sale is GBP 435,585. That means there are as many properties more expensive than GBP 435,585 as cheaper. As for houses for sale, the median price is GBP 663,111.
I think it's the median price of a house on their website - which looks to be at the higher/more expensive end of various markets.
So I think the €551,483 figure isn't right for Germany nationally.
In my experience German properties are larger than British ones, and built to a higher spec, so price comparisons that don't correct for that are probably a bit off. (Germans are richer than we are and so they tend to have better stuff than us across the board).
Continuing the general German theme, the difference between Lidl and some British supermarkets, on various fresh goods, is quite staggering.
Better quality, and a better range, for lower prices, and the difference is so staggering it's repeatedly struck me as some sort of metaphor for how the German economy and sizes must be working in general , compared to us , and ovet the last few years.
Indeed. A visit to Germany is a sobering experience! They face serious challenges maintaining their position given the disruption in sectors like autos that they are so successful in, but I would not bet against them. The European single market is a massive boon for them, their borders are open with allies on all sides, and they are really good at marrying engineering and commercial imperatives.
Indeed, also.
I'm suddenly remembering Thatcher and Nicholas Ridley's worries about the reunited Germany dominating Europe, announced as a headline one day when I was on holiday in Greece in 1989 ..it worked out that way, but not quite in the way the Eurosceptics imagined.
Gemany's 1990 population seems to be variously quoted at something around 78 or 79 million, and the figure for 2023 is given at 84.5 million.
1990 was 33 years ago. Its completely irrelevant. Yes, Germany's population rose between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then. Britain's population didn't between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then too.
What happened in 1990 isn't affecting prices today. Why do you want to bring 33 years ago into it, just to pretend that Germany's population has been growing in recent years? 33 years ago is not recent.
Two decades ago both Germany and Britain had affordable housing. In the past 2 decades, Germany's population has not grown - Britain's has soared but construction has not kept up. That is it.
That is the full story, as much as you want to drag the fall of the Soviet Union, or migration many decades ago into it.
From what I can see online, Germany's population was forecast to drop or stay stable, but hasn't.
I wonder if that's because of the Ukrainian war, and Germany still accepting a lot of Russian and Central Asia Jewish populations. So that maybe could be the reason why it's been actually repeatedly forecast to fall, or stay stable, but instead seems to have risen from about 81 or 82 million 20 years ago, to approaching 85 million now. Even the population predictions from various world websites from last year seem to be wrong, so I wonder whether perhaps the Ukrainian war, and the way in which that might have accelerated Gemany's long-standing policy of accepting post-Soviet Jews, might have been two key factors, there.
Why are you so pig-headed over this? What would you call this if not stable? 🤦♂️ Apart from a brief fall in 2010, subsequently reversed, their population has barely changed all century.
Germany is not Britain!
But again, that graph seems to stop about two years ago, because the current figures are moving towards 85 mill.
Germany seems to have already added another couple of million or so since then. That doesn't look like an unchanging population, to me. I think it might be easier to see what's actually going on in a couple of years, after the Ukraine War.
The graph stops in 2021 which is 17 months ago because that's when accurate data ends. Its also not that long ago.
There may have been some variance since then, but not enough to create a multi-decade pressure on affordability like the UK has.
The UK's population started rising in 1997. It took a few years until 2003 of consistently doing so before pressure really started to significantly affect the housing market - and since then the UK has consistently had growing population and a shortage of construction.
If Germany's population has risen in the past 12 months then that may put them where we were in 1997. If theirs rises consistently for years to come, and their construction fails to keep up, then they too will face an inevitable affordability crisis. But they're not in that position today.
Median German house price is €551,483, in the UK it is only £290,000.
It is only the fact that most Germans live in apartments where the average cost is only €312,411 and indeed most rent that makes it more affordable. UK houses are actually cheaper on average than German houses outside London and the SE
Housing price details The median price of an apartment for sale is GBP 435,585. That means there are as many properties more expensive than GBP 435,585 as cheaper. As for houses for sale, the median price is GBP 663,111.
I think it's the median price of a house on their website - which looks to be at the higher/more expensive end of various markets.
So I think the €551,483 figure isn't right for Germany nationally.
In my experience German properties are larger than British ones, and built to a higher spec, so price comparisons that don't correct for that are probably a bit off. (Germans are richer than we are and so they tend to have better stuff than us across the board).
Continuing the general German theme, I've often found that the difference between Lidl and many lower-end British supermarkets, and on various fresh and non-fresh goods, is quite staggering.
Better quality, and wider range, for generally lower prices. The difference is so stark, and staggeringly easy to achieve for a cheap supermarket, that it's repeatedly struck me as some sort of metaphorical first-hand experience of how the German economy and its service culture must be working in general compared to ours, over the last few years.
I thought one of the main points about Lidl is that their range is not wide. Is this not so?
That's the point - if you want to maximise savings you only produce 1 size of a product not 18 size variations on which you game price promotions.
On topic, I've just watched all of Sunak's 10-minute interview with Beth Rigby. It is painful. He's obviously been advised (or decided himself) that the route to success is to repeat, and itemise, his government's five priorities as often as possible, regardless of the question being asked. So he does, so much so that one loses the will to live. So, for example, even legitimate questions about the level of legal migration are responded to by 'yes, we'll cut the numbers - but stopping the boats is my priority'... It's really tedious.
It strengthens my view that Sunak is significantly over-rated by many people.
Have you been paying attention to politics these past few years?
Recall how "Get Brexit Done" was the response to anything from new schools and hospitals to, er, Brexit in 2019. Hammering a message home has been seen to have demonstrable success so Rishi is evidently adopting this strategy.
It might work.
Get Brexit Done worked because of the £350m on the bus sign - Get Brexit done meant when it was done the promised Land would exist and everything would be perfect. Heck it's the same approach the SNP used in Scotland everything will be better if we had control of our own destiny (and Westminister is a great tool to point all flaws at even if the issue is 110% due to SNP mismanagement),
Now Brexit has been done there is no similar Message that will have resonance so Rishi has a big problem as he can't point the blame elsewhere.
Gemany's 1990 population seems to be variously quoted at something around 78 or 79 million, and the figure for 2023 is given at 84.5 million.
1990 was 33 years ago. Its completely irrelevant. Yes, Germany's population rose between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then. Britain's population didn't between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then too.
What happened in 1990 isn't affecting prices today. Why do you want to bring 33 years ago into it, just to pretend that Germany's population has been growing in recent years? 33 years ago is not recent.
Two decades ago both Germany and Britain had affordable housing. In the past 2 decades, Germany's population has not grown - Britain's has soared but construction has not kept up. That is it.
That is the full story, as much as you want to drag the fall of the Soviet Union, or migration many decades ago into it.
Time to roll out my Big Bang theory. Everything was ticking over perfectly well pre-Big Bang. Doctors, (commercial and merchant) bankers, lawyers, teachers, etc all rubbed along and housing eg in London was sensible.
Then with the advent and influx of zillions of US investment banks which hugely inflated wages in The City and brought in people with money to spend buying houses. This then pushed out the "traditional" professions and/or inflated wages also. The result being that property prices in core London went bonkers and then as people sought out areas adjacent to "nice" areas, those areas were gentrified and property prices went through the roof also.
I remember some friends being super-edgy by buying a house in Leamington Road Villas, London W11 for whatever it was 30-odd years ago. You can now buy a six-bedroom house in the adjacent road for £8.5m. Damn them!
From 1939 to 1986 - the Big Bang - London’s population was in perpetual decline. From nearly 9m to 6m-and-change. Big drops
I moved to London in the early 80s and I can still remember the vast areas of dereliction - from docklands to Kings X, Spitalfields to the south bank, Wapping to Islington. Entire streets in Bloomsbury were virtually slums (I know coz I squatted them in the late 80s)
Then the thatcher revolution turned london around and the city started growing again. It recently overtook its 1939 peak - finally
You really want london to return to the “sensible situation” of the 70s and early 80s?? The endless decline and decay? Absurd
We are where we are - and please don't bang on again about how dreadful Kings Cross was then; we all know just that it was a shock to out-of-towners. I'm just trying to explain London's property prices. No doubt there were plenty of good things that came at the same time, for one reason or another, but are you saying that paying £8.5m for a house opposite Portobello is sensible or even a good thing?
Remarkable how stable LLG vs RefCon is across pollsters compared with the headline Labour-Tory numbers. Omnisis is another 62 vs 31, very similar to other recent polls that have wildly varying (particularly Labour) scores.
Gemany's 1990 population seems to be variously quoted at something around 78 or 79 million, and the figure for 2023 is given at 84.5 million.
1990 was 33 years ago. Its completely irrelevant. Yes, Germany's population rose between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then. Britain's population didn't between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then too.
What happened in 1990 isn't affecting prices today. Why do you want to bring 33 years ago into it, just to pretend that Germany's population has been growing in recent years? 33 years ago is not recent.
Two decades ago both Germany and Britain had affordable housing. In the past 2 decades, Germany's population has not grown - Britain's has soared but construction has not kept up. That is it.
That is the full story, as much as you want to drag the fall of the Soviet Union, or migration many decades ago into it.
Time to roll out my Big Bang theory. Everything was ticking over perfectly well pre-Big Bang. Doctors, (commercial and merchant) bankers, lawyers, teachers, etc all rubbed along and housing eg in London was sensible.
Then with the advent and influx of zillions of US investment banks which hugely inflated wages in The City and brought in people with money to spend buying houses. This then pushed out the "traditional" professions and/or inflated wages also. The result being that property prices in core London went bonkers and then as people sought out areas adjacent to "nice" areas, those areas were gentrified and property prices went through the roof also.
I remember some friends being super-edgy by buying a house in Leamington Road Villas, London W11 for whatever it was 30-odd years ago. You can now buy a six-bedroom house in the adjacent road for £8.5m. Damn them!
From 1939 to 1986 - the Big Bang - London’s population was in perpetual decline. From nearly 9m to 6m-and-change. Big drops
I moved to London in the early 80s and I can still remember the vast areas of dereliction - from docklands to Kings X, Spitalfields to the south bank, Wapping to Islington. Entire streets in Bloomsbury were virtually slums (I know coz I squatted them in the late 80s)
Then the thatcher revolution turned london around and the city started growing again. It recently overtook its 1939 peak - finally
You really want london to return to the “sensible situation” of the 70s and early 80s?? The endless decline and decay? Absurd
We are where we are - and please don't bang on again about how dreadful Kings Cross was then; we all know just that it was a shock to out-of-towners. I'm just trying to explain London's property prices. No doubt there were plenty of good things that came at the same time, for one reason or another, but are you saying that paying £8.5m for a house opposite Portobello is sensible or even a good thing?
What it boils down to is that London property was relatively cheap in the 1970s because few people found it an attractive place at the time.
Tonight on @wbaltv11: A man with an AR-15 has been showing up for weeks to a school bus drop off for local elementary school students. Parents say their kids are afraid, the man says he’s protesting @GovWesMoore’s new gun control law. You’ll hear from both sides at 5+6pm. https://twitter.com/TollyTaylor/status/1659271827879804928
Meh. Arm the elementary school kids with their own guns to protect them from him.
Its the only civilised thing to do.
I was just thinking this this morning listening to a disturbing feature on knife crime in this country.
"The best defence against a bad boy with a knife is a good boy with a knife".
We never hear such ludicrous sentiments here but apparently it is a problem - boys carrying knives in case they are attacked by boys carrying knives.
It’s obviously stupid, because of the escalation issue.
The only rational approach is atomic weapons for every toddler.
It's US gun lobby culture transposed wholesale into UK knife discourse. Worrying.
Gemany's 1990 population seems to be variously quoted at something around 78 or 79 million, and the figure for 2023 is given at 84.5 million.
1990 was 33 years ago. Its completely irrelevant. Yes, Germany's population rose between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then. Britain's population didn't between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then too.
What happened in 1990 isn't affecting prices today. Why do you want to bring 33 years ago into it, just to pretend that Germany's population has been growing in recent years? 33 years ago is not recent.
Two decades ago both Germany and Britain had affordable housing. In the past 2 decades, Germany's population has not grown - Britain's has soared but construction has not kept up. That is it.
That is the full story, as much as you want to drag the fall of the Soviet Union, or migration many decades ago into it.
Time to roll out my Big Bang theory. Everything was ticking over perfectly well pre-Big Bang. Doctors, (commercial and merchant) bankers, lawyers, teachers, etc all rubbed along and housing eg in London was sensible.
Then with the advent and influx of zillions of US investment banks which hugely inflated wages in The City and brought in people with money to spend buying houses. This then pushed out the "traditional" professions and/or inflated wages also. The result being that property prices in core London went bonkers and then as people sought out areas adjacent to "nice" areas, those areas were gentrified and property prices went through the roof also.
I remember some friends being super-edgy by buying a house in Leamington Road Villas, London W11 for whatever it was 30-odd years ago. You can now buy a six-bedroom house in the adjacent road for £8.5m. Damn them!
From 1939 to 1986 - the Big Bang - London’s population was in perpetual decline. From nearly 9m to 6m-and-change. Big drops
I moved to London in the early 80s and I can still remember the vast areas of dereliction - from docklands to Kings X, Spitalfields to the south bank, Wapping to Islington. Entire streets in Bloomsbury were virtually slums (I know coz I squatted them in the late 80s)
Then the thatcher revolution turned london around and the city started growing again. It recently overtook its 1939 peak - finally
You really want london to return to the “sensible situation” of the 70s and early 80s?? The endless decline and decay? Absurd
I am not sure British domestic policy should be geared to providing nice pieds-a-terre to millionaire citizens of nowhere.
In the 1972 horror film "Death Line", there's a line where homeless people are so unusual it's remarked upon. Now every town has a high street with at least one tramp. Not everything got better for everybody.
I travel widely in Europe and I have never seen this “huge gulf” in quality between cheap German supermarkets and cheap British supermarkets
For a start they are usually the same supermarkets. Lidl and Aldi
Mid range supermarkets are about the same across Western Europe, tho each country will have areas of strength. Eg the bread will be better in France. The ham better in Spain. The wine variety better in the UK
Germany is a more orderly country than the Uk. There is less litter (we really need to sort that out). But it also has infrastructure problems and it generally doesn’t feel significantly richer than the UK (not like, say, Switzerland)
What Germany doesn’t have (that I’ve seen) is intense deprivation like you get in some post industrial British towns, or decayed seaside resorts like Blackpool
But then I’ve NOT travelled widely in post industrial east Germany and maybe it is quite bad there
Gemany's 1990 population seems to be variously quoted at something around 78 or 79 million, and the figure for 2023 is given at 84.5 million.
1990 was 33 years ago. Its completely irrelevant. Yes, Germany's population rose between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then. Britain's population didn't between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then too.
What happened in 1990 isn't affecting prices today. Why do you want to bring 33 years ago into it, just to pretend that Germany's population has been growing in recent years? 33 years ago is not recent.
Two decades ago both Germany and Britain had affordable housing. In the past 2 decades, Germany's population has not grown - Britain's has soared but construction has not kept up. That is it.
That is the full story, as much as you want to drag the fall of the Soviet Union, or migration many decades ago into it.
From what I can see online, Germany's population was forecast to drop or stay stable, but hasn't.
I wonder if that's because of the Ukrainian war, and Germany still accepting a lot of Russian and Central Asia Jewish populations. So that maybe could be the reason why it's been actually repeatedly forecast to fall, or stay stable, but instead seems to have risen from about 81 or 82 million 20 years ago, to approaching 85 million now. Even the population predictions from various world websites from last year seem to be wrong, so I wonder whether perhaps the Ukrainian war, and the way in which that might have accelerated Gemany's long-standing policy of accepting post-Soviet Jews, might have been two key factors, there.
Why are you so pig-headed over this? What would you call this if not stable? 🤦♂️ Apart from a brief fall in 2010, subsequently reversed, their population has barely changed all century.
Germany is not Britain!
But again, that graph seems to stop about two years ago, because the current figures are moving towards 85 mill.
Germany seems to have already added another couple of million or so since then. That doesn't look like an unchanging population, to me. I think it might be easier to see what's actually going on in a couple of years, after the Ukraine War.
The graph stops in 2021 which is 17 months ago because that's when accurate data ends. Its also not that long ago.
There may have been some variance since then, but not enough to create a multi-decade pressure on affordability like the UK has.
The UK's population started rising in 1997. It took a few years until 2003 of consistently doing so before pressure really started to significantly affect the housing market - and since then the UK has consistently had growing population and a shortage of construction.
If Germany's population has risen in the past 12 months then that may put them where we were in 1997. If theirs rises consistently for years to come, and their construction fails to keep up, then they too will face an inevitable affordability crisis. But they're not in that position today.
Median German house price is €551,483, in the UK it is only £290,000.
It is only the fact that most Germans live in apartments where the average cost is only €312,411 and indeed most rent that makes it more affordable. UK houses are actually cheaper on average than German houses outside London and the SE
Housing price details The median price of an apartment for sale is GBP 435,585. That means there are as many properties more expensive than GBP 435,585 as cheaper. As for houses for sale, the median price is GBP 663,111.
I think it's the median price of a house on their website - which looks to be at the higher/more expensive end of various markets.
So I think the €551,483 figure isn't right for Germany nationally.
In my experience German properties are larger than British ones, and built to a higher spec, so price comparisons that don't correct for that are probably a bit off. (Germans are richer than we are and so they tend to have better stuff than us across the board).
Continuing the general German theme, I've often found that the difference between Lidl and many lower-end British supermarkets, and on various fresh and non-fresh goods, is quite staggering.
Better quality, and wider range, for generally lower prices. The difference is so stark, and staggeringly easy to achieve for a cheap supermarket, that it's repeatedly struck me as some sort of metaphorical first-hand experience of how the German economy and its service culture must be working in general compared to ours, over the last few years.
I thought one of the main points about Lidl is that their range is not wide. Is this not so?
Only been in one German non touristy supermarket recently, was either Lidl or Aldi. Mid size with equivalent fresh product range to a Uk superstore, and better quality, but the processed product range was more equivalent to a Tesco express or Sainsburys local, and lower quality.
Tonight on @wbaltv11: A man with an AR-15 has been showing up for weeks to a school bus drop off for local elementary school students. Parents say their kids are afraid, the man says he’s protesting @GovWesMoore’s new gun control law. You’ll hear from both sides at 5+6pm. https://twitter.com/TollyTaylor/status/1659271827879804928
Meh. Arm the elementary school kids with their own guns to protect them from him.
Its the only civilised thing to do.
I was just thinking this this morning listening to a disturbing feature on knife crime in this country.
"The best defence against a bad boy with a knife is a good boy with a knife".
We never hear such ludicrous sentiments here but apparently it is a problem - boys carrying knives in case they are attacked by boys carrying knives.
It’s obviously stupid, because of the escalation issue.
The only rational approach is atomic weapons for every toddler.
It's US gun lobby culture transposed wholesale into UK knife discourse. Worrying.
The knife crime culture in UK cities emerged not from American culture but from the Caribbean.
I travel widely in Europe and I have never seen this “huge gulf” in quality between cheap German supermarkets and cheap British supermarkets
For a start they are usually the same supermarkets. Lidl and Aldi
Mid range supermarkets are about the same across Western Europe, tho each country will have areas of strength. Eg the bread will be better in France. The ham better in Spain. The wine variety better in the UK
Germany is a more orderly country than the Uk. There is less litter (we really need to sort that out). But it also has infrastructure problems and it generally doesn’t feel significantly richer than the UK (not like, say, Switzerland)
What Germany doesn’t have (that I’ve seen) is intense deprivation like you get in some post industrial British towns, or decayed seaside resorts like Blackpool
But then I’ve NOT travelled widely in post industrial east Germany and maybe it is quite bad there
Tonight on @wbaltv11: A man with an AR-15 has been showing up for weeks to a school bus drop off for local elementary school students. Parents say their kids are afraid, the man says he’s protesting @GovWesMoore’s new gun control law. You’ll hear from both sides at 5+6pm. https://twitter.com/TollyTaylor/status/1659271827879804928
Meh. Arm the elementary school kids with their own guns to protect them from him.
Its the only civilised thing to do.
I was just thinking this this morning listening to a disturbing feature on knife crime in this country.
"The best defence against a bad boy with a knife is a good boy with a knife".
We never hear such ludicrous sentiments here but apparently it is a problem - boys carrying knives in case they are attacked by boys carrying knives.
It’s obviously stupid, because of the escalation issue.
The only rational approach is atomic weapons for every toddler.
It's US gun lobby culture transposed wholesale into UK knife discourse. Worrying.
The knife crime culture in UK cities emerged not from American culture but from the Caribbean.
That’s not my point. The discourse: that protection from a dangerous weapon is the possession of more of the same dangerous weapons, is pure US gun lobby logic.
Gemany's 1990 population seems to be variously quoted at something around 78 or 79 million, and the figure for 2023 is given at 84.5 million.
1990 was 33 years ago. Its completely irrelevant. Yes, Germany's population rose between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then. Britain's population didn't between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then too.
What happened in 1990 isn't affecting prices today. Why do you want to bring 33 years ago into it, just to pretend that Germany's population has been growing in recent years? 33 years ago is not recent.
Two decades ago both Germany and Britain had affordable housing. In the past 2 decades, Germany's population has not grown - Britain's has soared but construction has not kept up. That is it.
That is the full story, as much as you want to drag the fall of the Soviet Union, or migration many decades ago into it.
Time to roll out my Big Bang theory. Everything was ticking over perfectly well pre-Big Bang. Doctors, (commercial and merchant) bankers, lawyers, teachers, etc all rubbed along and housing eg in London was sensible.
Then with the advent and influx of zillions of US investment banks which hugely inflated wages in The City and brought in people with money to spend buying houses. This then pushed out the "traditional" professions and/or inflated wages also. The result being that property prices in core London went bonkers and then as people sought out areas adjacent to "nice" areas, those areas were gentrified and property prices went through the roof also.
I remember some friends being super-edgy by buying a house in Leamington Road Villas, London W11 for whatever it was 30-odd years ago. You can now buy a six-bedroom house in the adjacent road for £8.5m. Damn them!
From 1939 to 1986 - the Big Bang - London’s population was in perpetual decline. From nearly 9m to 6m-and-change. Big drops
I moved to London in the early 80s and I can still remember the vast areas of dereliction - from docklands to Kings X, Spitalfields to the south bank, Wapping to Islington. Entire streets in Bloomsbury were virtually slums (I know coz I squatted them in the late 80s)
Then the thatcher revolution turned london around and the city started growing again. It recently overtook its 1939 peak - finally
You really want london to return to the “sensible situation” of the 70s and early 80s?? The endless decline and decay? Absurd
Everyone likes pre-gentrification. In retrospect.
But no-one ever offers to reverse gentrification. Start a an outlaw bike club trafficking automatic weapons and large quantities of drugs, or something.
Sats paper that left children in tears was aimed at older pupils
A Sats reading paper that teachers and parents said was too difficult has been published, revealing that it included a passage from a book aimed at older pupils.
Gemany's 1990 population seems to be variously quoted at something around 78 or 79 million, and the figure for 2023 is given at 84.5 million.
1990 was 33 years ago. Its completely irrelevant. Yes, Germany's population rose between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then. Britain's population didn't between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then too.
What happened in 1990 isn't affecting prices today. Why do you want to bring 33 years ago into it, just to pretend that Germany's population has been growing in recent years? 33 years ago is not recent.
Two decades ago both Germany and Britain had affordable housing. In the past 2 decades, Germany's population has not grown - Britain's has soared but construction has not kept up. That is it.
That is the full story, as much as you want to drag the fall of the Soviet Union, or migration many decades ago into it.
Time to roll out my Big Bang theory. Everything was ticking over perfectly well pre-Big Bang. Doctors, (commercial and merchant) bankers, lawyers, teachers, etc all rubbed along and housing eg in London was sensible.
Then with the advent and influx of zillions of US investment banks which hugely inflated wages in The City and brought in people with money to spend buying houses. This then pushed out the "traditional" professions and/or inflated wages also. The result being that property prices in core London went bonkers and then as people sought out areas adjacent to "nice" areas, those areas were gentrified and property prices went through the roof also.
I remember some friends being super-edgy by buying a house in Leamington Road Villas, London W11 for whatever it was 30-odd years ago. You can now buy a six-bedroom house in the adjacent road for £8.5m. Damn them!
From 1939 to 1986 - the Big Bang - London’s population was in perpetual decline. From nearly 9m to 6m-and-change. Big drops
I moved to London in the early 80s and I can still remember the vast areas of dereliction - from docklands to Kings X, Spitalfields to the south bank, Wapping to Islington. Entire streets in Bloomsbury were virtually slums (I know coz I squatted them in the late 80s)
Then the thatcher revolution turned london around and the city started growing again. It recently overtook its 1939 peak - finally
You really want london to return to the “sensible situation” of the 70s and early 80s?? The endless decline and decay? Absurd
We are where we are - and please don't bang on again about how dreadful Kings Cross was then; we all know just that it was a shock to out-of-towners. I'm just trying to explain London's property prices. No doubt there were plenty of good things that came at the same time, for one reason or another, but are you saying that paying £8.5m for a house opposite Portobello is sensible or even a good thing?
What it boils down to is that London property was relatively cheap in the 1970s because few people found it an attractive place at the time.
But, to reiterate a point from a couple of days ago, that means primarily for investors, rather than visitors or migrants.
New York and London were considered two of the most interesting cities in the world to visit, and arguably live in, for many people, and throughout the 1960's and '70s.
Gemany's 1990 population seems to be variously quoted at something around 78 or 79 million, and the figure for 2023 is given at 84.5 million.
1990 was 33 years ago. Its completely irrelevant. Yes, Germany's population rose between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then. Britain's population didn't between 1990 and 1995. That affected prices then too.
What happened in 1990 isn't affecting prices today. Why do you want to bring 33 years ago into it, just to pretend that Germany's population has been growing in recent years? 33 years ago is not recent.
Two decades ago both Germany and Britain had affordable housing. In the past 2 decades, Germany's population has not grown - Britain's has soared but construction has not kept up. That is it.
That is the full story, as much as you want to drag the fall of the Soviet Union, or migration many decades ago into it.
Time to roll out my Big Bang theory. Everything was ticking over perfectly well pre-Big Bang. Doctors, (commercial and merchant) bankers, lawyers, teachers, etc all rubbed along and housing eg in London was sensible.
Then with the advent and influx of zillions of US investment banks which hugely inflated wages in The City and brought in people with money to spend buying houses. This then pushed out the "traditional" professions and/or inflated wages also. The result being that property prices in core London went bonkers and then as people sought out areas adjacent to "nice" areas, those areas were gentrified and property prices went through the roof also.
I remember some friends being super-edgy by buying a house in Leamington Road Villas, London W11 for whatever it was 30-odd years ago. You can now buy a six-bedroom house in the adjacent road for £8.5m. Damn them!
From 1939 to 1986 - the Big Bang - London’s population was in perpetual decline. From nearly 9m to 6m-and-change. Big drops
I moved to London in the early 80s and I can still remember the vast areas of dereliction - from docklands to Kings X, Spitalfields to the south bank, Wapping to Islington. Entire streets in Bloomsbury were virtually slums (I know coz I squatted them in the late 80s)
Then the thatcher revolution turned london around and the city started growing again. It recently overtook its 1939 peak - finally
You really want london to return to the “sensible situation” of the 70s and early 80s?? The endless decline and decay? Absurd
We are where we are - and please don't bang on again about how dreadful Kings Cross was then; we all know just that it was a shock to out-of-towners. I'm just trying to explain London's property prices. No doubt there were plenty of good things that came at the same time, for one reason or another, but are you saying that paying £8.5m for a house opposite Portobello is sensible or even a good thing?
It’s neither good nor sensible it’s just a thing
You can have a super attractive world city like London Paris or NYC as your capital or you can have a tier 2 city like Berlin
If you want the world city you will get great restaurants, theatre, art, universities, music, conversation, and so on. But you will also get world city property prices. Because a world class urban experience is desired by rich people around, er, the world, meaning really nice housing is outrageously expensive - just as it is in london Paris or nyc
Comments
Sunak does this weird Blair/Ed M tribute act that when you see through it starts to grate very quickly. The frank reality is that he's overseeing 13 years of failure whilst being a bit weird and odd.
This is not the recipe for a win.
He's just a bit weird, if he was sensible he'd lean into that. This Blair tribute act is not helping him.
There may have been some variance since then, but not enough to create a multi-decade pressure on affordability like the UK has.
The UK's population started rising in 1997. It took a few years until 2003 of consistently doing so before pressure really started to significantly affect the housing market - and since then the UK has consistently had growing population and a shortage of construction.
If Germany's population has risen in the past 12 months then that may put them where we were in 1997. If theirs rises consistently for years to come, and their construction fails to keep up, then they too will face an inevitable affordability crisis. But they're not in that position today.
It’s no question. But they asked it, so here’s the answer. 🌹
That is not a good way for the Tories to be seen.
The Conservatives recently lost out in local elections and Beth Rigby asks PM Rishi Sunak how it feels to be "one of life's winners" but to lose.
trib.al/eBCDLk5
📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube
https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1659446058903019522
Strange bloke...
LAB: 47% (-4)
CON: 25% (+1)
LDM: 10% (=)
RFM: 6% (=)
GRN: 5% (+1)
SNP: 3% (=)
Via @Omnisis, 17-18 May.
Changes w/ 11-12 May.
https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1659501211039543301
And the US has a very large number of surplus F16s. If they don't want to sell them to Ukraine, they could supply European NATO partners instead.
Peter Cook once said that the danger for Britain was that we could sink giggling into the sea. Increasingly I fear that we can strike giggling from that phrase, but a lot of Britain's problems are things we have imposed on ourselves.
He has come in at the fag end of a deeply unpopular government who blew up their credibility with voters firstly by taking them for fools over covid lockdown, secondly by installing a PM so unfit for high office that she caused an economic crisis and had to stand down in a matter of weeks, and thirdly by being so irredeemably divided incompetent and out of ideas that nobody truly understands what their party is for anymore.
Most people would struggle with that hand. It’s actually to his credit that he’s actually managed to handle things as well as he has.
https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/norway-finalises-f-16-sale-to-romania
Tonight on @wbaltv11: A man with an AR-15 has been showing up for weeks to a school bus drop off for local elementary school students.
Parents say their kids are afraid, the man says he’s protesting @GovWesMoore’s new gun control law. You’ll hear from both sides at 5+6pm.
https://twitter.com/TollyTaylor/status/1659271827879804928
His wealth is also an issue - it just is.
As shown earlier, a megacity covering the entirety of Norfolk would be perfectly possible whilst maintaining every inch of green belt.
A person with empathy, willing to listen, keen to understand and to put the effort in to understand, can find a way to reach that understanding.
Otherwise you are arguing that it is impossible for anyone to understand anyone else who has had different experiences. That is a counsel of despair.
Whether Sunak is such a person, with such empathy and desire to understand, and to act on that understanding, I do not know, though I have my doubts.
It is possible, though.
It is only the fact that most Germans live in apartments where the average cost is only €312,411 and indeed most rent that makes it more affordable. UK houses are actually cheaper on average than German houses outside London and the SE
https://www.properstar.in/germany/house-price#:~:text=Housing price details,median price is €551,483.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-house-price-index-for-january-2023#:~:text=UK house prices&text=The average UK house price,in Northern Ireland (10.2%).
Housing price details
The median price of an apartment for sale is GBP 435,585. That means there are as many properties more expensive than GBP 435,585 as cheaper. As for houses for sale, the median price is GBP 663,111.
I think it's the median price of a house on their website - which looks to be at the higher/more expensive end of various markets.
So I think the €551,483 figure isn't right for Germany nationally.
The other parties don't seem to have gained that much, so maybe a change in their methodology of likely voters, or Labour turn-out and don't knows, perhaps ? I've also wondered recently whether, from a couple of polls apparently showing more Labour to Lib Dem switching than that, some of Starmer's stances have started to alienate the civil liberties crowd a little.
Yet you oppose it. And Sunak is pandering to people like you, instead of doing what a good Conservative should and encouraging as many people as possible to have the aspiration to have that prosperity and security.
The pauses in this Beth Rigby interview- "How do you feel when you lose?" are very revealing. I don't think they show him to be a bad person, just not ready to be Prime Minister. (Shades of the way that David Cameron's struggles with his son's medical problems helped turn a standard issue chinless wonder into a real man.)
https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1659446058903019522
And, if you're into alternate history, here's a romp though the "right man, wrong moment" view of being Prime Minister;
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/tliad-shuffling-the-deck.317898/
But it wouldn't affect greenbelt.
- Lower trade barriers in 18 months
- Especially on farm, agricultural trade
- Start regular UK-EU joint summits
- Rejoin Dublin refugee agreement
- Sign a UK-EU security pact
https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1659484089454321667
Very sensible, anyone have an issue?
If you as an ideological libertarian want to concrete all over the greenbelt and join Starmer and the 23% who want more housing in the greenbelt that is your affair
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2023/05/17/d5ba5/1
Then with the advent and influx of zillions of US investment banks which hugely inflated wages in The City and brought in people with money to spend buying houses. This then pushed out the "traditional" professions and/or inflated wages also. The result being that property prices in core London went bonkers and then as people sought out areas adjacent to "nice" areas, those areas were gentrified and property prices went through the roof also.
I remember some friends being super-edgy by buying a house in Leamington Road Villas, London W11 for whatever it was 30-odd years ago. You can now buy a six-bedroom house in the adjacent road for £8.5m. Damn them!
Better quality, and wider range, for generally lower prices. The difference is so stark, and staggeringly easy to achieve for a cheap supermarket, that it's repeatedly struck me as some sort of metaphorical first-hand experience of how the German economy and its service culture must be working in general compared to ours, over the last few years.
The population has grown by 20% in a generation. There simply isn't the 'brown belt' to build on to accommodate that.
There's no need to concrete all over the greenbelt. Just a tiny % of it would probably suffice realistically, but simply saying no to anything anywhere is bananas.
Recall how "Get Brexit Done" was the response to anything from new schools and hospitals to, er, Brexit in 2019. Hammering a message home has been seen to have demonstrable success so Rishi is evidently adopting this strategy.
It might work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9p2aOrqLqQ
Curiously though, no swing to Labour matching Mid Staffs in this parliament whereas the Lib Dems exceeded Ribble Valley and Eastbourne with their victories in North Shropshire, Chesham and Tiveton.
Yes, Aldi and Lidl are relatively spartan, only have one version of most products and only sell kayaks for two weeks of the year, but on balance that might be a price worth paying. Less fur coat, more knickers.
Edit: would the police be up for the reduction in their arbitrary, stupid behaviour, required for them to become Street Judges?
Carole Cadwalladr
@carolecadwalla
I would be really grateful if @guardian @ObserverUK & @TEDTalks made a comment on this ruling. Any comment.
It has huge ramifications for UK journalism. And some basic solidarity from the organisations who published the work would go a long way.
Thank you.
https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/1659491627382054914
What does it mean? The price of meat is going to rise. And as we all know, the price of meat is already soaring. Not just meat, products that include meat. And not just imported meat, this is an industry cost which is going to resonate across the whole sector as its all interlinked.
Just thought I'd ask...
https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/1659271091234250752?t=PnNf7ZUwkw1ifOCv5s4WUA&s=19
Never work for a liberal employer, dear boy, they'll sack you on Christmas Eve.
Its the only civilised thing to do.
Now Brexit has been done there is no similar Message that will have resonance so Rishi has a big problem as he can't point the blame elsewhere.
Her Gofundme is stalled at what's looking like a not nearly enough £595,000
I think she'll have to declare bankruptcy - "The family tree" is 317,603 in the Kindle Store bestsellers rank. Can't see her journalist gigs will pay her enough to get assets up to the ~ £2M she needs either.
"The best defence against a bad boy with a knife is a good boy with a knife".
We never hear such ludicrous sentiments here but apparently it is a problem - boys carrying knives in case they are attacked by boys carrying knives.
The only rational approach is atomic weapons for every toddler.
I moved to London in the early 80s and I can still remember the vast areas of dereliction - from docklands to Kings X, Spitalfields to the south bank, Wapping to Islington. Entire streets in Bloomsbury were virtually slums (I know coz I squatted them in the late 80s)
Then the thatcher revolution turned london around and the city started growing again. It recently overtook its 1939 peak - finally
You really want london to return to the “sensible situation” of the 70s and early 80s?? The endless decline and decay? Absurd
I'm suddenly remembering Thatcher and Nicholas Ridley's worries about the reunited Germany dominating Europe, announced as a headline one day when I was on holiday in Greece in 1989 ..it worked out that way, but not quite in the way the Eurosceptics imagined.
In the 1972 horror film "Death Line", there's a line where homeless people are so unusual it's remarked upon. Now every town has a high street with at least one tramp. Not everything got better for everybody.
For a start they are usually the same supermarkets. Lidl and Aldi
Mid range supermarkets are about the same across Western Europe, tho each country will have areas of strength. Eg the bread will be better in France. The ham better in Spain. The wine variety better in the UK
Germany is a more orderly country than the Uk. There is less litter (we really need to sort that out). But it also has infrastructure problems and it generally doesn’t feel significantly richer than the
UK (not like, say, Switzerland)
What Germany doesn’t have (that I’ve seen) is intense deprivation like you get in some post industrial British towns, or decayed seaside resorts like Blackpool
But then I’ve NOT travelled widely in post industrial east Germany and maybe it is quite bad there
No wonder they are healthier.
But no-one ever offers to reverse gentrification. Start a an outlaw bike club trafficking automatic weapons and large quantities of drugs, or something.
A Sats reading paper that teachers and parents said was too difficult has been published, revealing that it included a passage from a book aimed at older pupils.
Nick Gibb, the schools minister, has promised to review the Sats reading paper, which teachers and parents said was so hard that it made some pupils cry.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sats-paper-that-left-children-in-tears-was-aimed-at-older-pupils-xnb6xnbbc (£££)
Oops.
New York and London were considered two of the most interesting cities in the world to visit, and arguably live in, for many people, and throughout the 1960's and '70s.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/19/gcse-history-exam-error-medicine-question-pearson-edexcel/ (£££)
Oops.
You can have a super attractive world city like London Paris or NYC as your capital or you can have a tier 2 city like Berlin
If you want the world city you will get great restaurants, theatre, art, universities, music, conversation, and so on. But you will also get world city property prices. Because a world class urban experience is desired by rich people around, er, the world, meaning really nice housing is outrageously expensive - just as it is in london Paris or nyc