The WH2024 GOP nominee debate barely moves the betting – politicalbetting.com

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The WH2024 GOP nominee debate barely moves the betting – politicalbetting.com

The big political betting news has been the UK betting market reaction to the first Republican presidential debate. As can be seen from the charts it has had very little impact.

Read the full story here

SandyRentool

1st, like Spain in the footy.

Foxy

Second, like Trump

SandyRentool

Third, like the way local elections are held in Metropolitan districts.

Sandpit

Barely moved the betting, apart from the 4 point uptick in Trump’s price in the past 24 hours.

twistedfirestopper3

5th, like the ammendment.

Carnyx

Nigelb said:

Carnyx said:

Nigelb said:

Nigelb said:

Anabobazina said:

We are in danger of focusing on the wrong things re: the lockdown debate.

Yes, it's over and done.

And developments in sequencing and vaccine technology in the last three years will completely rewrite the rules for sensible pandemic response anyway.

And, of course, effective and cheap lateral flow tests.

The previously untested in public use technology is completely validated, and used suitably, ought to be able to make any future lockdown (beyond the first few weeks of a novel pandemic virus) unnecessary.
Assuming we have the infrastructure to produce them.

Just such a shame that the Tories closed the pandemic response centre they opened with a great chorus from the media.

How urgent it is, none of us know - but it wouldn't cost a massive amount of money to put some infrastructure in place.
If there is another pandemic, the same supply constraints for test kits etc will apply. If we don't have our own manufacturing capacity in place, we'll be waiting months again - with all that implies.

The economic cost which might be avoided is definitely massive, as we know.

FPT but an important point you make.

Both research, which is what I had in mind, applied variety, but also production as you say.

The model is the Royal Ordnance Factories and shadow factories of the 1930s. Or the subsidy lorries of the same era, if one wants them doing something useful with a cadre of workers meantime. . Something in existence and easily cranked up when a crisis does happen.

Luckyguy1983

Foxy said:

Second, like Trump

Term?

SandyRentool

BBC: "By the end of 2022, Labour had 407,445 members, down from 432,213 in 2021, and nearly 125,000 down on its recent peak in 2019 when it was led by Jeremy Corbyn."

So the Entryists have become Exitists.

Makes a difference when it comes to internal party elections. Both at national and local level.

twistedfirestopper3

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

Sandpit

I can see Poland, and Polish border guards, but the country still seems to be a million miles away! Seven hours now…

Foxy

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

Which demonstrates that falling property prices ain't a great stimulus to build.

Might be a good time to get renovation work done if the builders are at a loose end.

Luckyguy1983

John Redwood is having a pop (quite rightly) at the Government for basing anything on the OBR's 5 year forecasts when they can't even forecast what they'll be having for dinner that day:

So we learn that UK state borrowing was £11.3 bn less in the first four months of this financial year than the OBR forecast.Spending was up so the main reason for a further large error once again was understating tax revenues. Income tax was up by a massive 13% . The OBR often understates revenue when the economy grows a little.

I renew my question to Ministers. Why do you make the OBR five year forecast of the deficit the key control on your economic choices? As the OBR cannot get within £10 bn for the immediate year why believe the 5 year forecast? If the OBR model regularly understates tax revenue why accept advice to hike tax rates?

The numbers were further distorted by the transfer of £14 bn to the Bank of England to pay losses, taking the total to an astonishing £24 bn in just four months. The Bank’s decision to sell bonds at the low prices it has driven them down to instead of holding them to repayment has added to the misery and inflated government ex Bank borrowing and spending.

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/08/23/more-funny-numbers-from-the-obr/

Carnyx

SandyRentool said:

BBC: "By the end of 2022, Labour had 407,445 members, down from 432,213 in 2021, and nearly 125,000 down on its recent peak in 2019 when it was led by Jeremy Corbyn."

So the Entryists have become Exitists.

Makes a difference when it comes to internal party elections. Both at national and local level.

Too busy voting for the anti-lettuce candidate, I expect.

theProle

FPT

BartholomewRoberts said:

RobD said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

RobD said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

RobD said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

El_Capitano said:

Eabhal said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Eabhal said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

The Dutch have had five decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, continuously building new roads and cycling infrastructure.

We have have had 3 decades of encouraging cycling as a matter of policy, but without bothering to build the roads or accompanying cycling infrastructure that goes with new roads.

Have we caught up with the Dutch? Is cycling as popular today in the UK as it was in the Netherlands in the 00s at a comparable stage of development of cycling as policy? I wouldn't say so.

Building roads & cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands has worked far better than telling people to ride a bike but without building roads.

We aren't going to catch up with the Dutch, unless we actually do what the Dutch are actually doing. Rather than a mythical version of what the Dutch are doing, pretending that they're simply telling people to ride a bike and that's that.

You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have. Indeed, that's precisely what the Dutch did when they ran out of money for new roads.

Happily, councils everywhere have worked this out as the cost-effective way to get more people moving through our towns and cities, and continue to make progress despite the fuss being kicked up.

You just can't face the truth that we would need to remove some space from drivers on current roads to achieve the rates of cycling and cycle safety that the Dutch have.

What are you talking about?

I have said so repeatedly! It's like you're not reading what I've been writing.

On this page alone

Once: More roads, built with cycling infrastructure as standard = safer cycling and better driving. It also allows retrofitting old roads once new roads (with cycling infrastructure) are built to alleviate the traffic which is a double-win for cycling, which is why the Dutch have been doing this for fifty years now.

Twice: Building new roads (with cycling infrastructure) relieves demand on old ones which can then be retrofitted to be low traffic roads with cycling infrastructrure too.

Three times a lady: Converting old roads to local access roads, once new roads are built, like the Dutch do is precisely what I've been recommending for weeks while we've been having this conversation.

I am entirely in favour of converting old roads once new ones are built. I have advocated it. I am not at all against converging old roads and am fully in favour of copying the Dutch and investing in our transportation so it's achievable.

The Dutch unlike us never ran out of money or stopped construction. Which is why their system works.

But we've already built the new roads?

Yeah. I agree with much of what Barty says but since the 1970s (when the Dutch started investing seriously in cycle infrastructure) we have had 50 years of new roads after new roads. Even right now we have a £27bn major roads programme, and that's just Highways England - i.e. not the many new roads being built by local authorities.

The difference is that our new roads have, by and large, not been built with cycling infrastructure.

What new roads?

We've had bugger all new roads as a matter of policy for decades now.

The few new roads we do get now come with cycling provision as standard, we need much, much more of that.

Not so.

There has been major road building all across England in the last decade. Just a few of the many examples that I have done bits of work for.

Lincoln Eastern ring road
A14 project including the new Huntingdon bypass
A46 Dualling from Widmerpool to Newark
A6 to Manchester Airport relief road
Gedling Access Road - which is effectively a Nottingham Eastern bypass
Congleton Link road
Norwich Northern Distributor Road

And being built at the moment

Inverness Trunk Road Link
Silvertown Tunnel
Stubbington bypass
A585 Little Singleton bypass
A120 Little Hadham bypass
Preston Western Distributor Road
Heyhouses Link Road
Wichelstowe Southern Access
Grantham Southern Bypass
Etruria Valley Link Road
North Northallerton Link Road
Newtownards Movilla Road to Donaghadee Road and Bangor Road Link
Larne Distributor (South)
Ballyclare Western Relief Road
M6-M54 Link road

This is by no means an exhaustive list.

Yes minor bypasses and bits and pieces here and there. The A14 one is 12 miles and one of the biggest.

For a country that's added nearly 10 million population in the past two decades, that's pathetically little and barely scratching the surface of what is required.

And each of those typically comes with much cycling development, like the 24 miles of cycle paths to go with the 12 mile A14 project already discussed.

Rubbish. The A46 was 20 miles of new road. The Norwich Northern Distributor Road was 12 miles of new road.

Where do you expect to build brand new roads over any great distance when we already have such a dense road network? These are not 'minor' projects. They are exactly the sort of road building projects that we need to through take traffic away from town and city centres and to upgrade trunk routes. The A1 has been upgraded to motorway standard over much of its length over the past 30 years and that is still ongoing.

You seem to be looking for any excuse to avoid admitting you were wrong about the scale of roadbuilding.

We don't have a dense network. The Netherlands do, they have 36% more road miles per 100km^2 than we do.

We've added roughly ten million to our population. Proportionately that should have been many millions of new homes, and tens of thousands of miles of new roads.

We haven't kept pace in construction in either homes, nor infrastructure. We need both, because we have the people living here.

Yes the limited projects we have had are worthwhile but there should be an order of magnitude more of them.

The argument that a x% increase in population warrants a corresponding x% increase in the length of roads in the country is too simplistic. For starters, it assumes all the roads were at capacity to begin with, which clearly isn’t the case.

Well it generally scales with population density, which is why comparing UK to Netherlands (they have double the road density we do) is unreasonable, but comparing England to Netherlands (they have 36% more road density) seems more reasonable.

A 20% increase in population does roughly equate to a 20% increase in demand. But we've fallen well short of boosting either roads of housing supply by 20% to match the population growth.

Netting for population, our road capacity is going backwards not forwards. Just like our housing capacity.

Again, unless demand was already at 100% of road capacity, an increase in demand doesn’t necessarily require a one-to-one increase in capacity.

Then why does the Netherlands have 36% more road density than England?

Building roads works. Simply cramming more people into the same infrastructure doesn't. Either way, quite patiently I was right and road construction (like housing) has been totally neglected relative to population growth.

We need mass construction of houses, roads and cycle paths, all of the above not either or to handle our population growth.

And as long as we keep getting population growth in the hundreds of thousands per annum, that will continue to remain true.

I don’t know, but it has nothing to do with the point I am making unless their policy is to expand their road capacity at exactly the same rate as their population is increasing.

I was also not saying “ Simply cramming more people into the same infrastructure doesn't [work].”, I was saying your argument early that a 20% increase in population requires a 20% increase in road capacity is too simplistic.

But both traffic and road density does scale with population density.

After decades of neglect of our road network and rampant population growth, comparing England to peer nations, with our peer population density, like the Netherlands and Japan, we come up woefully short in road density. We do not have a dense road network.

And that's despite the fact those nations do better than we do in both cycling and public transport, which just goes to show that both of those are not alternatives to roads. Quite the opposite, building infrastructure makes public transport and cycling easier not harder.

And a big part of the solution to this has to be to stop importing people and increasing the population density - but all the politicans are signed up for the cheap labour ponzi scheme, and humming la-la-la with their fingers in their ears.

BartholomewRoberts

Foxy said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

Which demonstrates that falling property prices ain't a great stimulus to build.

Might be a good time to get renovation work done if the builders are at a loose end.

The barrier to building is planning more than prices, but one feeds the other.

Planning in this country, happening in large developments by few builders, leads to an oligopoly who obviously try to maintain prices as high as possible. If they have consent, but nobody else does, then there's no rush to build unless they're getting the best price.

Separate planning from building. With zonal construction instead of estates built by the same builder you can have homes built individually and that's then on the timeline of whoever wants it built - not the timeline of the builder.

Either way, falling house prices is unambiguously good news. The best time in the housing market, the record high of home ownership, was the 1990s. A move back to that, would be fantastic, but I wouldn't hold my breath without much more construction.

RochdalePioneers

Luckyguy1983 said:

John Redwood is having a pop (quite rightly) at the Government for basing anything on the OBR's 5 year forecasts when they can't even forecast what they'll be having for dinner that day:

So we learn that UK state borrowing was £11.3 bn less in the first four months of this financial year than the OBR forecast.Spending was up so the main reason for a further large error once again was understating tax revenues. Income tax was up by a massive 13% . The OBR often understates revenue when the economy grows a little.

I renew my question to Ministers. Why do you make the OBR five year forecast of the deficit the key control on your economic choices? As the OBR cannot get within £10 bn for the immediate year why believe the 5 year forecast? If the OBR model regularly understates tax revenue why accept advice to hike tax rates?

The numbers were further distorted by the transfer of £14 bn to the Bank of England to pay losses, taking the total to an astonishing £24 bn in just four months. The Bank’s decision to sell bonds at the low prices it has driven them down to instead of holding them to repayment has added to the misery and inflated government ex Bank borrowing and spending.

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/08/23/more-funny-numbers-from-the-obr/

Radical idea - lets invest. Heavily. There are very many things we could invest in which deliver both a direct cash injection into the economy now as people do the work, but in the longer term as well thanks to the economic benefit of the infrastructure.

If we base the investment choice on a positive ROI then as an investment it stands apart from whatever make-believe forecast the OBR want to give. As a fiscally sovereign nation we have the ability to invest for the long term.

Markets get spooked when corrupt old duffers elect a numptie as PM and she promises a bonfire of cash to buy votes.
They get very happy when sovereign's invest in their future long term growth and prosperity. Sovereign wealth and investment funds are a big thing. So invest. Screw the OBR.

Sadly what we will have is "who will pay for that", invest nothing, and then scratch our heads as we sit in a crumbling country getting rapidy poorer.

twistedfirestopper3

BartholomewRoberts said:

Foxy said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

Which demonstrates that falling property prices ain't a great stimulus to build.

Might be a good time to get renovation work done if the builders are at a loose end.

The barrier to building is planning more than prices, but one feeds the other.

Planning in this country, happening in large developments by few builders, leads to an oligopoly who obviously try to maintain prices as high as possible. If they have consent, but nobody else does, then there's no rush to build unless they're getting the best price.

Separate planning from building. With zonal construction instead of estates built by the same builder you can have homes built individually and that's then on the timeline of whoever wants it built - not the timeline of the builder.

Either way, falling house prices is unambiguously good news. The best time in the housing market, the record high of home ownership, was the 1990s. A move back to that, would be fantastic, but I wouldn't hold my breath without much more construction.

The barrier to building is not just planning, but the lack of skilled trades to build them. The government (any government) can throw out any numbers they want. 300k a year, a million a year. Doesn't matter. They don't get built by magic. Or AI.

BartholomewRoberts

RochdalePioneers said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

John Redwood is having a pop (quite rightly) at the Government for basing anything on the OBR's 5 year forecasts when they can't even forecast what they'll be having for dinner that day:

So we learn that UK state borrowing was £11.3 bn less in the first four months of this financial year than the OBR forecast.Spending was up so the main reason for a further large error once again was understating tax revenues. Income tax was up by a massive 13% . The OBR often understates revenue when the economy grows a little.

I renew my question to Ministers. Why do you make the OBR five year forecast of the deficit the key control on your economic choices? As the OBR cannot get within £10 bn for the immediate year why believe the 5 year forecast? If the OBR model regularly understates tax revenue why accept advice to hike tax rates?

The numbers were further distorted by the transfer of £14 bn to the Bank of England to pay losses, taking the total to an astonishing £24 bn in just four months. The Bank’s decision to sell bonds at the low prices it has driven them down to instead of holding them to repayment has added to the misery and inflated government ex Bank borrowing and spending.

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/08/23/more-funny-numbers-from-the-obr/

Radical idea - lets invest. Heavily. There are very many things we could invest in which deliver both a direct cash injection into the economy now as people do the work, but in the longer term as well thanks to the economic benefit of the infrastructure.

If we base the investment choice on a positive ROI then as an investment it stands apart from whatever make-believe forecast the OBR want to give. As a fiscally sovereign nation we have the ability to invest for the long term.

Markets get spooked when corrupt old duffers elect a numptie as PM and she promises a bonfire of cash to buy votes.
They get very happy when sovereign's invest in their future long term growth and prosperity. Sovereign wealth and investment funds are a big thing. So invest. Screw the OBR.

Sadly what we will have is "who will pay for that", invest nothing, and then scratch our heads as we sit in a crumbling country getting rapidy poorer.

I agree with you.

Heck, I was arguing for large scale investment in transport in the last thread, but you seemed against that idea. Was it more a resignation from you that it won't happen, than an objection then?

We need to invest in infrastructure. Transport is a primary one, along with encouraging new towns to be developed, but there are other elements of infrastructure we can invest in too.

Given you now believe we can invest in the long term, do you support the kind of investment in our transportation infrastructure I was advocating for in the last thread?

BartholomewRoberts

twistedfirestopper3 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Foxy said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

Which demonstrates that falling property prices ain't a great stimulus to build.

Might be a good time to get renovation work done if the builders are at a loose end.

The barrier to building is planning more than prices, but one feeds the other.

Planning in this country, happening in large developments by few builders, leads to an oligopoly who obviously try to maintain prices as high as possible. If they have consent, but nobody else does, then there's no rush to build unless they're getting the best price.

Separate planning from building. With zonal construction instead of estates built by the same builder you can have homes built individually and that's then on the timeline of whoever wants it built - not the timeline of the builder.

Either way, falling house prices is unambiguously good news. The best time in the housing market, the record high of home ownership, was the 1990s. A move back to that, would be fantastic, but I wouldn't hold my breath without much more construction.

The barrier to building is not just planning, but the lack of skilled trades to build them. The government (any government) can throw out any numbers they want. 300k a year, a million a year. Doesn't matter. They don't get built by magic. Or AI.

There are a lot of skilled trades in this country, but most skilled tradies won't engage directly in construction because that is controlled by an oligopoly of firms so they end up as sub-contractors to the builders instead of builders themselves.

Get rid of the need for firms like Barratts to control an entire estates development, build houses individually, and then chippys can work directly for consumers in erecting a house rather than being a sub-contractor for Barratts to do so.

HYUFD

Haley I see carefully positioned herself as the most moderate candidate, more anti Trump than Ramaswamy, not as hardline for a nationwide ban on abortion as Pence and harder on Putin over Ukraine than DeSantis and Ramaswamy too. She would have a good chance in the general election but don't think she is conservative enough or MAGA enough for GOP primary voters now

Luckyguy1983

RochdalePioneers said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

John Redwood is having a pop (quite rightly) at the Government for basing anything on the OBR's 5 year forecasts when they can't even forecast what they'll be having for dinner that day:

So we learn that UK state borrowing was £11.3 bn less in the first four months of this financial year than the OBR forecast.Spending was up so the main reason for a further large error once again was understating tax revenues. Income tax was up by a massive 13% . The OBR often understates revenue when the economy grows a little.

I renew my question to Ministers. Why do you make the OBR five year forecast of the deficit the key control on your economic choices? As the OBR cannot get within £10 bn for the immediate year why believe the 5 year forecast? If the OBR model regularly understates tax revenue why accept advice to hike tax rates?

The numbers were further distorted by the transfer of £14 bn to the Bank of England to pay losses, taking the total to an astonishing £24 bn in just four months. The Bank’s decision to sell bonds at the low prices it has driven them down to instead of holding them to repayment has added to the misery and inflated government ex Bank borrowing and spending.

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/08/23/more-funny-numbers-from-the-obr/

Radical idea - lets invest. Heavily. There are very many things we could invest in which deliver both a direct cash injection into the economy now as people do the work, but in the longer term as well thanks to the economic benefit of the infrastructure.

If we base the investment choice on a positive ROI then as an investment it stands apart from whatever make-believe forecast the OBR want to give. As a fiscally sovereign nation we have the ability to invest for the long term.

Markets get spooked when corrupt old duffers elect a numptie as PM and she promises a bonfire of cash to buy votes.
They get very happy when sovereign's invest in their future long term growth and prosperity. Sovereign wealth and investment funds are a big thing. So invest. Screw the OBR.

Sadly what we will have is "who will pay for that", invest nothing, and then scratch our heads as we sit in a crumbling country getting rapidy poorer.

I think it's a little bit of a money-go-round though. We tax and regulate businesses almost out of existence (a lot of it due to Net Zero), then we give them a shiny new suspension bridge or tramway to make up for it.

The State takes more and more - you're a business person, and now you have your own small business. Shouldn't they just get off your f*****g back so you can invest in your own business? Raise the VAT threshold so you can grow your shop for example? Then when businesses are straining to get from Manchester to Liverpool quicker, the case for new infrastructure will be made.

To be honest I wouldn't trust this lot (or the seeming next lot) to make the right calls on large projects, nor the CS or quangocracy to deliver them.

Stark_Dawning

Luckyguy1983 said:

John Redwood is having a pop (quite rightly) at the Government for basing anything on the OBR's 5 year forecasts when they can't even forecast what they'll be having for dinner that day:

So we learn that UK state borrowing was £11.3 bn less in the first four months of this financial year than the OBR forecast.Spending was up so the main reason for a further large error once again was understating tax revenues. Income tax was up by a massive 13% . The OBR often understates revenue when the economy grows a little.

I renew my question to Ministers. Why do you make the OBR five year forecast of the deficit the key control on your economic choices? As the OBR cannot get within £10 bn for the immediate year why believe the 5 year forecast? If the OBR model regularly understates tax revenue why accept advice to hike tax rates?

The numbers were further distorted by the transfer of £14 bn to the Bank of England to pay losses, taking the total to an astonishing £24 bn in just four months. The Bank’s decision to sell bonds at the low prices it has driven them down to instead of holding them to repayment has added to the misery and inflated government ex Bank borrowing and spending.

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/08/23/more-funny-numbers-from-the-obr/

So is Redwood's recommendation that the government should just abandon forecasts and do whatever the hell they like? If not, who does he think should supply the forecasts instead? And what does this mysterious other body know that the OBR doesn't?

RochdalePioneers

BartholomewRoberts said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

John Redwood is having a pop (quite rightly) at the Government for basing anything on the OBR's 5 year forecasts when they can't even forecast what they'll be having for dinner that day:

So we learn that UK state borrowing was £11.3 bn less in the first four months of this financial year than the OBR forecast.Spending was up so the main reason for a further large error once again was understating tax revenues. Income tax was up by a massive 13% . The OBR often understates revenue when the economy grows a little.

I renew my question to Ministers. Why do you make the OBR five year forecast of the deficit the key control on your economic choices? As the OBR cannot get within £10 bn for the immediate year why believe the 5 year forecast? If the OBR model regularly understates tax revenue why accept advice to hike tax rates?

The numbers were further distorted by the transfer of £14 bn to the Bank of England to pay losses, taking the total to an astonishing £24 bn in just four months. The Bank’s decision to sell bonds at the low prices it has driven them down to instead of holding them to repayment has added to the misery and inflated government ex Bank borrowing and spending.

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/08/23/more-funny-numbers-from-the-obr/

Radical idea - lets invest. Heavily. There are very many things we could invest in which deliver both a direct cash injection into the economy now as people do the work, but in the longer term as well thanks to the economic benefit of the infrastructure.

If we base the investment choice on a positive ROI then as an investment it stands apart from whatever make-believe forecast the OBR want to give. As a fiscally sovereign nation we have the ability to invest for the long term.

Markets get spooked when corrupt old duffers elect a numptie as PM and she promises a bonfire of cash to buy votes.
They get very happy when sovereign's invest in their future long term growth and prosperity. Sovereign wealth and investment funds are a big thing. So invest. Screw the OBR.

Sadly what we will have is "who will pay for that", invest nothing, and then scratch our heads as we sit in a crumbling country getting rapidy poorer.

I agree with you.

Heck, I was arguing for large scale investment in transport in the last thread, but you seemed against that idea. Was it more a resignation from you that it won't happen, than an objection then?

We need to invest in infrastructure. Transport is a primary one, along with encouraging new towns to be developed, but there are other elements of infrastructure we can invest in too.

Given you now believe we can invest in the long term, do you support the kind of investment in our transportation infrastructure I was advocating for in the last thread?

I said we should build roads! We just disagree on what is practical to build - you may be happy with fumes and noise impinging on your family's health but most people are not.

The big picture though is that we need connectivity, not mererly roads. So yes we need new motorway links and bypasses and spine roads. We need new railways and a modal shift so that we use the most efficient mode to shift things around. We need fibre broadband and new electricity grid links. And we need new cities. Not your haphazard build houses where they don't fit plan, but actual thought through new communities are they are building in a few places already.

Give me a government which says it will build a million new homes in new cities with all new infrastructure, and make the infrastructure elsewhere actually fit for purpose. A 20 year vision to bring this country kicking and screaming up to the standards of somewhere like Spain. An ocean of money invested with an actual positive benefit from doing so. Of business not just moved around from outside freeports to inside, but actually created and nurtured with resumption of free trade with our biggest markets and subsidies for doing so.

BartholomewRoberts

RochdalePioneers said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

John Redwood is having a pop (quite rightly) at the Government for basing anything on the OBR's 5 year forecasts when they can't even forecast what they'll be having for dinner that day:

So we learn that UK state borrowing was £11.3 bn less in the first four months of this financial year than the OBR forecast.Spending was up so the main reason for a further large error once again was understating tax revenues. Income tax was up by a massive 13% . The OBR often understates revenue when the economy grows a little.

I renew my question to Ministers. Why do you make the OBR five year forecast of the deficit the key control on your economic choices? As the OBR cannot get within £10 bn for the immediate year why believe the 5 year forecast? If the OBR model regularly understates tax revenue why accept advice to hike tax rates?

The numbers were further distorted by the transfer of £14 bn to the Bank of England to pay losses, taking the total to an astonishing £24 bn in just four months. The Bank’s decision to sell bonds at the low prices it has driven them down to instead of holding them to repayment has added to the misery and inflated government ex Bank borrowing and spending.

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/08/23/more-funny-numbers-from-the-obr/

Radical idea - lets invest. Heavily. There are very many things we could invest in which deliver both a direct cash injection into the economy now as people do the work, but in the longer term as well thanks to the economic benefit of the infrastructure.

If we base the investment choice on a positive ROI then as an investment it stands apart from whatever make-believe forecast the OBR want to give. As a fiscally sovereign nation we have the ability to invest for the long term.

Markets get spooked when corrupt old duffers elect a numptie as PM and she promises a bonfire of cash to buy votes.
They get very happy when sovereign's invest in their future long term growth and prosperity. Sovereign wealth and investment funds are a big thing. So invest. Screw the OBR.

Sadly what we will have is "who will pay for that", invest nothing, and then scratch our heads as we sit in a crumbling country getting rapidy poorer.

I agree with you.

Heck, I was arguing for large scale investment in transport in the last thread, but you seemed against that idea. Was it more a resignation from you that it won't happen, than an objection then?

We need to invest in infrastructure. Transport is a primary one, along with encouraging new towns to be developed, but there are other elements of infrastructure we can invest in too.

Given you now believe we can invest in the long term, do you support the kind of investment in our transportation infrastructure I was advocating for in the last thread?

I said we should build roads! We just disagree on what is practical to build - you may be happy with fumes and noise impinging on your family's health but most people are not.

The big picture though is that we need connectivity, not mererly roads. So yes we need new motorway links and bypasses and spine roads. We need new railways and a modal shift so that we use the most efficient mode to shift things around. We need fibre broadband and new electricity grid links. And we need new cities. Not your haphazard build houses where they don't fit plan, but actual thought through new communities are they are building in a few places already.

Give me a government which says it will build a million new homes in new cities with all new infrastructure, and make the infrastructure elsewhere actually fit for purpose. A 20 year vision to bring this country kicking and screaming up to the standards of somewhere like Spain. An ocean of money invested with an actual positive benefit from doing so. Of business not just moved around from outside freeports to inside, but actually created and nurtured with resumption of free trade with our biggest markets and subsidies for doing so.

Since roads don't generate fumes with EVs, the fact people object to that is an excuse, nothing else. If you're planning for 20 years you need to be planning for EVs.

NIMBYs will always find an excuse to object to construction. Tough shit, we just need to do it anyway. If they own the land they'll need to be purchased out to build on it, but if they don't, it's none of their business.

We can't keeping holding this country back on the whim of the lowest common denominator of NIMBYs.

Luckyguy1983

Stark_Dawning said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

John Redwood is having a pop (quite rightly) at the Government for basing anything on the OBR's 5 year forecasts when they can't even forecast what they'll be having for dinner that day:

So we learn that UK state borrowing was £11.3 bn less in the first four months of this financial year than the OBR forecast.Spending was up so the main reason for a further large error once again was understating tax revenues. Income tax was up by a massive 13% . The OBR often understates revenue when the economy grows a little.

I renew my question to Ministers. Why do you make the OBR five year forecast of the deficit the key control on your economic choices? As the OBR cannot get within £10 bn for the immediate year why believe the 5 year forecast? If the OBR model regularly understates tax revenue why accept advice to hike tax rates?

The numbers were further distorted by the transfer of £14 bn to the Bank of England to pay losses, taking the total to an astonishing £24 bn in just four months. The Bank’s decision to sell bonds at the low prices it has driven them down to instead of holding them to repayment has added to the misery and inflated government ex Bank borrowing and spending.

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/08/23/more-funny-numbers-from-the-obr/

So is Redwood's recommendation that the government should just abandon forecasts and do whatever the hell they like? If not, who does he think should supply the forecasts instead? And what does this mysterious other body know that the OBR doesn't?

From reading a few of his posts, his arguments concerning the OBR are that:
-The OBR should change the formulas it uses to make its calculations, as they're usually wildly innacurate, and that the Government should instigate this process if the OBR don't demonstrate a desire to improve their accuracy
-The OBR should be asked to consider a wider range of issues than debt as a percentage of GDP, for instance the growth of the economy

El_Capitano

After this morning's comments I'm now wondering about a cycling holiday in the Netherlands this autumn...

Jim_Miller

Speaking of slavery (as some of you were), I admire the way one man escaped from it:
"SEOUL — A Chinese man who washed up on South Korea’s west coast last week after crossing the Yellow Sea on a water scooter, is thought to be a political dissident who was once imprisoned in China, a South Korean human rights activist said Wednesday."
source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/08/23/chinese-man-korea-jet-ski-kwon-pyong/

Kwon Pyong used about 50 gallons of fuel to make the 200 mile trip. (He's a Chinese citizen, but an ethnic Korean.)

RochdalePioneers

Luckyguy1983 said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

John Redwood is having a pop (quite rightly) at the Government for basing anything on the OBR's 5 year forecasts when they can't even forecast what they'll be having for dinner that day:

So we learn that UK state borrowing was £11.3 bn less in the first four months of this financial year than the OBR forecast.Spending was up so the main reason for a further large error once again was understating tax revenues. Income tax was up by a massive 13% . The OBR often understates revenue when the economy grows a little.

I renew my question to Ministers. Why do you make the OBR five year forecast of the deficit the key control on your economic choices? As the OBR cannot get within £10 bn for the immediate year why believe the 5 year forecast? If the OBR model regularly understates tax revenue why accept advice to hike tax rates?

The numbers were further distorted by the transfer of £14 bn to the Bank of England to pay losses, taking the total to an astonishing £24 bn in just four months. The Bank’s decision to sell bonds at the low prices it has driven them down to instead of holding them to repayment has added to the misery and inflated government ex Bank borrowing and spending.

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/08/23/more-funny-numbers-from-the-obr/

Radical idea - lets invest. Heavily. There are very many things we could invest in which deliver both a direct cash injection into the economy now as people do the work, but in the longer term as well thanks to the economic benefit of the infrastructure.

If we base the investment choice on a positive ROI then as an investment it stands apart from whatever make-believe forecast the OBR want to give. As a fiscally sovereign nation we have the ability to invest for the long term.

Markets get spooked when corrupt old duffers elect a numptie as PM and she promises a bonfire of cash to buy votes.
They get very happy when sovereign's invest in their future long term growth and prosperity. Sovereign wealth and investment funds are a big thing. So invest. Screw the OBR.

Sadly what we will have is "who will pay for that", invest nothing, and then scratch our heads as we sit in a crumbling country getting rapidy poorer.

I think it's a little bit of a money-go-round though. We tax and regulate businesses almost out of existence (a lot of it due to Net Zero), then we give them a shiny new suspension bridge or tramway to make up for it.

The State takes more and more - you're a business person, and now you have your own small business. Shouldn't they just get off your f*****g back so you can invest in your own business? Raise the VAT threshold so you can grow your shop for example? Then when businesses are straining to get from Manchester to Liverpool quicker, the case for new infrastructure will be made.

To be honest I wouldn't trust this lot (or the seeming next lot) to make the right calls on large projects, nor the CS or quangocracy to deliver them.

A lot of business is low tax - Corporation Tax at 19% and staying there for SMEs is a great deal.

I don't trust this lot either, and our political system seems to make it impossible to plan any longer than the current parliament. But what choice do we have for the projects I mention?

The private sector cannot propose, plan and build new roads or railways or fibre broadband. The British obsession with spivism means they would charge £vast for something they build as cheaply as possible, with the only consideration being themselves - the M6 Toll as a prime example.

So we need the state, the power of a sovereign nation with a huge economy. To accept the problems we have and show the leadership to utterly transform our prospects.

My go to example is the industrialisation of Manchester. A vast array of private businesses which could only flourish by utilising the corporation-built centralised power to mechanically drive their machines. Build the infrastructure that needs to be centrally planned and delivered, then subsidise the industries who will use it to flourish.

kinabalu

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

kinabalu

HYUFD said:

Haley I see carefully positioned herself as the most moderate candidate, more anti Trump than Ramaswamy, not as hardline for a nationwide ban on abortion as Pence and harder on Putin over Ukraine than DeSantis and Ramaswamy too. She would have a good chance in the general election but don't think she is conservative enough or MAGA enough for GOP primary voters now

Ramaswamy is incredibly glib.

RochdalePioneers

BartholomewRoberts said:

RochdalePioneers said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

John Redwood is having a pop (quite rightly) at the Government for basing anything on the OBR's 5 year forecasts when they can't even forecast what they'll be having for dinner that day:

So we learn that UK state borrowing was £11.3 bn less in the first four months of this financial year than the OBR forecast.Spending was up so the main reason for a further large error once again was understating tax revenues. Income tax was up by a massive 13% . The OBR often understates revenue when the economy grows a little.

I renew my question to Ministers. Why do you make the OBR five year forecast of the deficit the key control on your economic choices? As the OBR cannot get within £10 bn for the immediate year why believe the 5 year forecast? If the OBR model regularly understates tax revenue why accept advice to hike tax rates?

The numbers were further distorted by the transfer of £14 bn to the Bank of England to pay losses, taking the total to an astonishing £24 bn in just four months. The Bank’s decision to sell bonds at the low prices it has driven them down to instead of holding them to repayment has added to the misery and inflated government ex Bank borrowing and spending.

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/08/23/more-funny-numbers-from-the-obr/

Radical idea - lets invest. Heavily. There are very many things we could invest in which deliver both a direct cash injection into the economy now as people do the work, but in the longer term as well thanks to the economic benefit of the infrastructure.

If we base the investment choice on a positive ROI then as an investment it stands apart from whatever make-believe forecast the OBR want to give. As a fiscally sovereign nation we have the ability to invest for the long term.

Markets get spooked when corrupt old duffers elect a numptie as PM and she promises a bonfire of cash to buy votes.
They get very happy when sovereign's invest in their future long term growth and prosperity. Sovereign wealth and investment funds are a big thing. So invest. Screw the OBR.

Sadly what we will have is "who will pay for that", invest nothing, and then scratch our heads as we sit in a crumbling country getting rapidy poorer.

I agree with you.

Heck, I was arguing for large scale investment in transport in the last thread, but you seemed against that idea. Was it more a resignation from you that it won't happen, than an objection then?

We need to invest in infrastructure. Transport is a primary one, along with encouraging new towns to be developed, but there are other elements of infrastructure we can invest in too.

Given you now believe we can invest in the long term, do you support the kind of investment in our transportation infrastructure I was advocating for in the last thread?

I said we should build roads! We just disagree on what is practical to build - you may be happy with fumes and noise impinging on your family's health but most people are not.

The big picture though is that we need connectivity, not mererly roads. So yes we need new motorway links and bypasses and spine roads. We need new railways and a modal shift so that we use the most efficient mode to shift things around. We need fibre broadband and new electricity grid links. And we need new cities. Not your haphazard build houses where they don't fit plan, but actual thought through new communities are they are building in a few places already.

Give me a government which says it will build a million new homes in new cities with all new infrastructure, and make the infrastructure elsewhere actually fit for purpose. A 20 year vision to bring this country kicking and screaming up to the standards of somewhere like Spain. An ocean of money invested with an actual positive benefit from doing so. Of business not just moved around from outside freeports to inside, but actually created and nurtured with resumption of free trade with our biggest markets and subsidies for doing so.

Since roads don't generate fumes with EVs, the fact people object to that is an excuse, nothing else. If you're planning for 20 years you need to be planning for EVs.

NIMBYs will always find an excuse to object to construction. Tough shit, we just need to do it anyway. If they own the land they'll need to be purchased out to build on it, but if they don't, it's none of their business.

We can't keeping holding this country back on the whim of the lowest common denominator of NIMBYs.

In so many places you just can't build the infrastructure needed for new homes. The A58 into Littleborough is a prime example - there is no room to bypass the road, but they keep building more and more houses on floodplains meaning that everyone suffers. Or cross into Calderdale - simply no room to add more roads.

So the solution isn't build anywhere, its plan where to build. We need to bring towns back to life by densifying. Manchester was rebirn from the mid 90s onwards as apartments brought 10s of thousands of people to live in the city centre. And with it the shops and restaurants and services needed. No need to build new roads to bring them into the urban centre as they are already there.

And build new urban centres. New towns where we can build parkways and cycleways. You say NIMBY, I say people. Nobody in their right mind wants a major road building next to their house. For all the obvious reasons.

Nigel_Foremain

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Nigel_Foremain

SandyRentool said:

BBC: "By the end of 2022, Labour had 407,445 members, down from 432,213 in 2021, and nearly 125,000 down on its recent peak in 2019 when it was led by Jeremy Corbyn."

So the Entryists have become Exitists.

Makes a difference when it comes to internal party elections. Both at national and local level.

Hopefully the same will happen to the Conservatives when all the right wing nutjobs and swiveleyed fruitcakes from UKIP/Brexit Party/BNP leave. Then I might even think about rejoining if Mordaunt is leader.

BartholomewRoberts

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Indeed but for good reason.

A 50% trough would bring prices back in line better with historical standards and more like the much better 90s housing market that saw record numbers owning their own home, but unfortunately a 20% fall is about as good as we can hope for given the chronic shortage of housing.

Nigel_Foremain

Luckyguy1983 said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

John Redwood is having a pop (quite rightly) at the Government for basing anything on the OBR's 5 year forecasts when they can't even forecast what they'll be having for dinner that day:

So we learn that UK state borrowing was £11.3 bn less in the first four months of this financial year than the OBR forecast.Spending was up so the main reason for a further large error once again was understating tax revenues. Income tax was up by a massive 13% . The OBR often understates revenue when the economy grows a little.

I renew my question to Ministers. Why do you make the OBR five year forecast of the deficit the key control on your economic choices? As the OBR cannot get within £10 bn for the immediate year why believe the 5 year forecast? If the OBR model regularly understates tax revenue why accept advice to hike tax rates?

The numbers were further distorted by the transfer of £14 bn to the Bank of England to pay losses, taking the total to an astonishing £24 bn in just four months. The Bank’s decision to sell bonds at the low prices it has driven them down to instead of holding them to repayment has added to the misery and inflated government ex Bank borrowing and spending.

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/08/23/more-funny-numbers-from-the-obr/

Radical idea - lets invest. Heavily. There are very many things we could invest in which deliver both a direct cash injection into the economy now as people do the work, but in the longer term as well thanks to the economic benefit of the infrastructure.

If we base the investment choice on a positive ROI then as an investment it stands apart from whatever make-believe forecast the OBR want to give. As a fiscally sovereign nation we have the ability to invest for the long term.

Markets get spooked when corrupt old duffers elect a numptie as PM and she promises a bonfire of cash to buy votes.
They get very happy when sovereign's invest in their future long term growth and prosperity. Sovereign wealth and investment funds are a big thing. So invest. Screw the OBR.

Sadly what we will have is "who will pay for that", invest nothing, and then scratch our heads as we sit in a crumbling country getting rapidy poorer.

I think it's a little bit of a money-go-round though. We tax and regulate businesses almost out of existence (a lot of it due to Net Zero), then we give them a shiny new suspension bridge or tramway to make up for it.

The State takes more and more - you're a business person, and now you have your own small business. Shouldn't they just get off your f*****g back so you can invest in your own business? Raise the VAT threshold so you can grow your shop for example? Then when businesses are straining to get from Manchester to Liverpool quicker, the case for new infrastructure will be made.

To be honest I wouldn't trust this lot (or the seeming next lot) to make the right calls on large projects, nor the CS or quangocracy to deliver them.

The man in Whitehall rarely knows best. "investment" so often gets slurped up by public sector trade unions. You can see it now: In a few years time Starmer will be saying how much more he has invested in the NHS while doctors will be saying that £250k a year is still too low for their entitled minds.

BartholomewRoberts

Nigel_Foremain said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

John Redwood is having a pop (quite rightly) at the Government for basing anything on the OBR's 5 year forecasts when they can't even forecast what they'll be having for dinner that day:

So we learn that UK state borrowing was £11.3 bn less in the first four months of this financial year than the OBR forecast.Spending was up so the main reason for a further large error once again was understating tax revenues. Income tax was up by a massive 13% . The OBR often understates revenue when the economy grows a little.

I renew my question to Ministers. Why do you make the OBR five year forecast of the deficit the key control on your economic choices? As the OBR cannot get within £10 bn for the immediate year why believe the 5 year forecast? If the OBR model regularly understates tax revenue why accept advice to hike tax rates?

The numbers were further distorted by the transfer of £14 bn to the Bank of England to pay losses, taking the total to an astonishing £24 bn in just four months. The Bank’s decision to sell bonds at the low prices it has driven them down to instead of holding them to repayment has added to the misery and inflated government ex Bank borrowing and spending.

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/08/23/more-funny-numbers-from-the-obr/

Radical idea - lets invest. Heavily. There are very many things we could invest in which deliver both a direct cash injection into the economy now as people do the work, but in the longer term as well thanks to the economic benefit of the infrastructure.

If we base the investment choice on a positive ROI then as an investment it stands apart from whatever make-believe forecast the OBR want to give. As a fiscally sovereign nation we have the ability to invest for the long term.

Markets get spooked when corrupt old duffers elect a numptie as PM and she promises a bonfire of cash to buy votes.
They get very happy when sovereign's invest in their future long term growth and prosperity. Sovereign wealth and investment funds are a big thing. So invest. Screw the OBR.

Sadly what we will have is "who will pay for that", invest nothing, and then scratch our heads as we sit in a crumbling country getting rapidy poorer.

I think it's a little bit of a money-go-round though. We tax and regulate businesses almost out of existence (a lot of it due to Net Zero), then we give them a shiny new suspension bridge or tramway to make up for it.

The State takes more and more - you're a business person, and now you have your own small business. Shouldn't they just get off your f*****g back so you can invest in your own business? Raise the VAT threshold so you can grow your shop for example? Then when businesses are straining to get from Manchester to Liverpool quicker, the case for new infrastructure will be made.

To be honest I wouldn't trust this lot (or the seeming next lot) to make the right calls on large projects, nor the CS or quangocracy to deliver them.

The man in Whitehall rarely knows best. "investment" so often gets slurped up by public sector trade unions. You can see it now: In a few years time Starmer will be saying how much more he has invested in the NHS while doctors will be saying that £250k a year is still too low for their entitled minds.

Yes.

Investment = infrastructure not expenditure.

Build a road, or a bridge, or an airport and after the developers have moved on that road is still there for decades to come.

Pay a salary and that is gone.

kinabalu

twistedfirestopper3 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Foxy said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

Which demonstrates that falling property prices ain't a great stimulus to build.

Might be a good time to get renovation work done if the builders are at a loose end.

The barrier to building is planning more than prices, but one feeds the other.

Planning in this country, happening in large developments by few builders, leads to an oligopoly who obviously try to maintain prices as high as possible. If they have consent, but nobody else does, then there's no rush to build unless they're getting the best price.

Separate planning from building. With zonal construction instead of estates built by the same builder you can have homes built individually and that's then on the timeline of whoever wants it built - not the timeline of the builder.

Either way, falling house prices is unambiguously good news. The best time in the housing market, the record high of home ownership, was the 1990s. A move back to that, would be fantastic, but I wouldn't hold my breath without much more construction.

The barrier to building is not just planning, but the lack of skilled trades to build them. The government (any government) can throw out any numbers they want. 300k a year, a million a year. Doesn't matter. They don't get built by magic. Or AI.

Also falling prices and rising costs is a double whammy that discourages creating new product in the private sector. I think 'build build build' will never be more than a slogan until we fire up the social housing sector. We need to do the opposite of what Mrs Thatcher did. Increase the stock of affordable long term secure rentals where the landlord is the local authority.

Nigel_Foremain

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Indeed but for good reason.

A 50% trough would bring prices back in line better with historical standards and more like the much better 90s housing market that saw record numbers owning their own home, but unfortunately a 20% fall is about as good as we can hope for given the chronic shortage of housing.

Housing is a commodity. It can go up, it can go down. Historical standards mean jack shit. You are just seething with envy about those that can afford more than you, so you hope for misery for many. For all your right wing strutting about Brexit, you are actually an instinctive socialist who envies those that have attained more than you have. Suggestion: Work harder and maybe set up a successful business and then spend less time putting pointless comments on blogs and maybe you can afford a bigger house. Simples.

Pulpstar

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Indeed but for good reason.

A 50% trough would bring prices back in line better with historical standards and more like the much better 90s housing market that saw record numbers owning their own home, but unfortunately a 20% fall is about as good as we can hope for given the chronic shortage of housing.

50% would be catastrophic. How would people remortgage ? Everyone would be on about base +3 or 4 !

williamglenn

The debate confirms DeSantis's backwards momentum.

Chris Christie landed a blow against Ramaswamy, so he may be the one to watch.

Nigel_Foremain

Pulpstar said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Indeed but for good reason.

A 50% trough would bring prices back in line better with historical standards and more like the much better 90s housing market that saw record numbers owning their own home, but unfortunately a 20% fall is about as good as we can hope for given the chronic shortage of housing.

50% would be catastrophic. How would people remortgage ? Everyone would be on about base +3 or 4 !

He doesn't care, in the same way as he didn't care about businesses that were fucked by Brexit and people that died in the pandemic. He is fundamentally a lazy selfish git.

Pulpstar

The betting is moving in on Ramaswamy ! 14 / 15 now on Betfair.

kinabalu

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

I'm not usually. I'm a sunny-side-up unit on the whole. My default mood is neutral to positive. And ok I'm a property bear but I'm also predicting 2 other things that should bring a smile to even the stoniest face - Trump Toast and Labour Landslide.

BartholomewRoberts

Pulpstar said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Indeed but for good reason.

A 50% trough would bring prices back in line better with historical standards and more like the much better 90s housing market that saw record numbers owning their own home, but unfortunately a 20% fall is about as good as we can hope for given the chronic shortage of housing.

50% would be catastrophic. How would people remortgage ? Everyone would be on about base +3 or 4 !

No they wouldn't because then banks would need to foreclose on those debts and write off tens of hundreds of thousands per property.

While negative equity can lead to some cases of hardship, high prices leads to many, many more and worse. As is reflected on the stats if you take the heat and anecdotes out of it.

If the bank is holding a debt worth £200k on an asset worth £100k then it is in the banks interest to come to an arrangement with you rather than to foreclose and write down a massive loss themselves.

Which is why periods of negative equity lead to higher home ownership rates, not lower.

BartholomewRoberts

Nigel_Foremain said:

Pulpstar said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Indeed but for good reason.

A 50% trough would bring prices back in line better with historical standards and more like the much better 90s housing market that saw record numbers owning their own home, but unfortunately a 20% fall is about as good as we can hope for given the chronic shortage of housing.

50% would be catastrophic. How would people remortgage ? Everyone would be on about base +3 or 4 !

He doesn't care, in the same way as he didn't care about businesses that were fucked by Brexit and people that died in the pandemic. He is fundamentally a lazy selfish git.

I care about the people trapped unable to afford a house because of the absurdly high prices today. Which isn't me, I have one.

I couldn't care less if I end up in negative equity. Still better off than renting and it will make houses affordable for those younger and poorer than me. Good for them.

Andy_JS

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Isn't lower house prices exactly what we need right now?

kinabalu

Pulpstar said:

The betting is moving in on Ramaswamy ! 14 / 15 now on Betfair.

Interesting to see that he's the current betting fav for the VP pick.

williamglenn

kinabalu said:

Pulpstar said:

The betting is moving in on Ramaswamy ! 14 / 15 now on Betfair.

Interesting to see that he's the current betting fav for the VP pick.

He's seen by a lot of people as a Trump surrogate who's road-testing different campaign themes.

bondegezou

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

John Redwood is having a pop (quite rightly) at the Government for basing anything on the OBR's 5 year forecasts when they can't even forecast what they'll be having for dinner that day:

So we learn that UK state borrowing was £11.3 bn less in the first four months of this financial year than the OBR forecast.Spending was up so the main reason for a further large error once again was understating tax revenues. Income tax was up by a massive 13% . The OBR often understates revenue when the economy grows a little.

I renew my question to Ministers. Why do you make the OBR five year forecast of the deficit the key control on your economic choices? As the OBR cannot get within £10 bn for the immediate year why believe the 5 year forecast? If the OBR model regularly understates tax revenue why accept advice to hike tax rates?

The numbers were further distorted by the transfer of £14 bn to the Bank of England to pay losses, taking the total to an astonishing £24 bn in just four months. The Bank’s decision to sell bonds at the low prices it has driven them down to instead of holding them to repayment has added to the misery and inflated government ex Bank borrowing and spending.

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/08/23/more-funny-numbers-from-the-obr/

Radical idea - lets invest. Heavily. There are very many things we could invest in which deliver both a direct cash injection into the economy now as people do the work, but in the longer term as well thanks to the economic benefit of the infrastructure.

If we base the investment choice on a positive ROI then as an investment it stands apart from whatever make-believe forecast the OBR want to give. As a fiscally sovereign nation we have the ability to invest for the long term.

Markets get spooked when corrupt old duffers elect a numptie as PM and she promises a bonfire of cash to buy votes.
They get very happy when sovereign's invest in their future long term growth and prosperity. Sovereign wealth and investment funds are a big thing. So invest. Screw the OBR.

Sadly what we will have is "who will pay for that", invest nothing, and then scratch our heads as we sit in a crumbling country getting rapidy poorer.

I think it's a little bit of a money-go-round though. We tax and regulate businesses almost out of existence (a lot of it due to Net Zero), then we give them a shiny new suspension bridge or tramway to make up for it.

The State takes more and more - you're a business person, and now you have your own small business. Shouldn't they just get off your f*****g back so you can invest in your own business? Raise the VAT threshold so you can grow your shop for example? Then when businesses are straining to get from Manchester to Liverpool quicker, the case for new infrastructure will be made.

To be honest I wouldn't trust this lot (or the seeming next lot) to make the right calls on large projects, nor the CS or quangocracy to deliver them.

The man in Whitehall rarely knows best. "investment" so often gets slurped up by public sector trade unions. You can see it now: In a few years time Starmer will be saying how much more he has invested in the NHS while doctors will be saying that £250k a year is still too low for their entitled minds.

Yes.

Investment = infrastructure not expenditure.

Build a road, or a bridge, or an airport and after the developers have moved on that road is still there for decades to come.

Pay a salary and that is gone.

It can be difficult to make distinctions between infrastructure and expenditure. You get a degree of game-playing in the civil surface around this. Of course, to build things, you generally have to pay people's salaries. Hiring people for specific projects and then firing them again loses institutional memory; better to employ people longer term.

Even a road or a bridge has ongoing costs. There are plenty of examples of white elephant developments built in the developing world, but now never used because there was no money for salaries. As we move to talk about more digital technologies -- and we're in a world where it's not just about roads, it's about information superhighways -- there's even more need for ongoing staffing of what is supposedly infrastructure. Indeed, in research in this area, we now talk about "infrastructuring", an idea to capture the ongoing work in IT infrastructure.

"Investment = infrastructure not expenditure" is a nice political buzz phrase. It can give a cod-justification for borrowing. Reality is more complex. There are lots of ways of spending money now to reduce costs in the future.

Peter_the_Punter

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Really? I think he's being a bit of an optimist myself.

Flatlander

FPT, on Flatlands (seeing as I'd better comment):

Pulpstar said:

kjh said:

Tres said:

re Dutch v English road densities and cycling propensity. This can also be explained by geography - the Netherlands is flat, even parts of England that we think of as relatively flat like Essex are far hillier than the Netherlands.

I did a cycling holiday in Norfolk. It's bloody mountainous. Who knew?

I realised I didn't know TRUE "flatness" till I went to the Netherlands. It's more like looking out to sea than any UK landscape certainly those I've seen.

I've done a 75 mile circular bike ride from my house which crossed a single contour line at the end of my road but no others. See username (and avatar).

Unlike the Netherlands you can see hills in the distance though.

Norfolk is mostly chalk and nowhere near flat. I don't know why it got that reputation.

I rather like this map of Britain during the ice age:
https://shefuni.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=fd78b03a74bb477c906c5d4e0ba9abaf

(Zoom in a bit to see the details)

It shows the really flat bits well, as they were mostly a lake...

BartholomewRoberts

Nigel_Foremain said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Indeed but for good reason.

A 50% trough would bring prices back in line better with historical standards and more like the much better 90s housing market that saw record numbers owning their own home, but unfortunately a 20% fall is about as good as we can hope for given the chronic shortage of housing.

Housing is a commodity. It can go up, it can go down. Historical standards mean jack shit. You are just seething with envy about those that can afford more than you, so you hope for misery for many. For all your right wing strutting about Brexit, you are actually an instinctive socialist who envies those that have attained more than you have. Suggestion: Work harder and maybe set up a successful business and then spend less time putting pointless comments on blogs and maybe you can afford a bigger house. Simples.

Lol. Pot calling the kettle black.

Gas is a commodity. A 50% peak to trough fall in gas prices would be celebrated not mourned.

Cost of living coming down is a good thing, not a bad thing. Many electronics cost about 1/10th of what they did decades ago, that is a good thing. If housing costs fell by 90% over the coming decades like electronics have, that would be an unambiguously good thing.

There is no advantage to inflation in housing costs. It is pure negative burden. If anyone is banking on housing "gains" as a form of income then they should take your advice and work instead.

Eabhal

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

John Redwood is having a pop (quite rightly) at the Government for basing anything on the OBR's 5 year forecasts when they can't even forecast what they'll be having for dinner that day:

So we learn that UK state borrowing was £11.3 bn less in the first four months of this financial year than the OBR forecast.Spending was up so the main reason for a further large error once again was understating tax revenues. Income tax was up by a massive 13% . The OBR often understates revenue when the economy grows a little.

I renew my question to Ministers. Why do you make the OBR five year forecast of the deficit the key control on your economic choices? As the OBR cannot get within £10 bn for the immediate year why believe the 5 year forecast? If the OBR model regularly understates tax revenue why accept advice to hike tax rates?

The numbers were further distorted by the transfer of £14 bn to the Bank of England to pay losses, taking the total to an astonishing £24 bn in just four months. The Bank’s decision to sell bonds at the low prices it has driven them down to instead of holding them to repayment has added to the misery and inflated government ex Bank borrowing and spending.

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/08/23/more-funny-numbers-from-the-obr/

Radical idea - lets invest. Heavily. There are very many things we could invest in which deliver both a direct cash injection into the economy now as people do the work, but in the longer term as well thanks to the economic benefit of the infrastructure.

If we base the investment choice on a positive ROI then as an investment it stands apart from whatever make-believe forecast the OBR want to give. As a fiscally sovereign nation we have the ability to invest for the long term.

Markets get spooked when corrupt old duffers elect a numptie as PM and she promises a bonfire of cash to buy votes.
They get very happy when sovereign's invest in their future long term growth and prosperity. Sovereign wealth and investment funds are a big thing. So invest. Screw the OBR.

Sadly what we will have is "who will pay for that", invest nothing, and then scratch our heads as we sit in a crumbling country getting rapidy poorer.

I think it's a little bit of a money-go-round though. We tax and regulate businesses almost out of existence (a lot of it due to Net Zero), then we give them a shiny new suspension bridge or tramway to make up for it.

The State takes more and more - you're a business person, and now you have your own small business. Shouldn't they just get off your f*****g back so you can invest in your own business? Raise the VAT threshold so you can grow your shop for example? Then when businesses are straining to get from Manchester to Liverpool quicker, the case for new infrastructure will be made.

To be honest I wouldn't trust this lot (or the seeming next lot) to make the right calls on large projects, nor the CS or quangocracy to deliver them.

The man in Whitehall rarely knows best. "investment" so often gets slurped up by public sector trade unions. You can see it now: In a few years time Starmer will be saying how much more he has invested in the NHS while doctors will be saying that £250k a year is still too low for their entitled minds.

Yes.

Investment = infrastructure not expenditure.

Build a road, or a bridge, or an airport and after the developers have moved on that road is still there for decades to come.

Pay a salary and that is gone.

If you've ever been walking in the Highlands, you'll have noticed the astounding walls built along the estate boundaries by the navvies. That's infrastructure, but the cost:benefit ratio? They should have had them building more canals.

Your £1 trillion on new roads are the 21st century equivalent of those walls.

TimS

williamglenn said:

The debate confirms DeSantis's backwards momentum.

Chris Christie landed a blow against Ramaswamy, so he may be the one to watch.

I think Chris Christie will rise for a bit but hit a ceiling, and that's ceiling's quite low. He's just not aligned with the modern cultish GOP. He may not fade quite as fast as others either though - a bit like Ted Cruz last time.

Richard_Tyndall

Andy_JS said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Isn't lower house prices exactly what we need right now?

It is but nothing is painless. The last time we had a significant fall in house prices a third of the population with mortgages found themselves in negative equity and so unable to sell. The whole housing market just stopped for a couple of years - which is hardly helpful to those trying to get on the property market.

I have been an advicate of house prices falling in the past - I think that there is something fundamentally objectional about houses being viewed as investments rather than homes for people to live in. But plenty of wiser heads on here who know a lot more about the economics of such than I do things pointed out how falling house prices actually makes the problem worse. So what I suppose I am really hoping for now is 20 years of house prices not going up at all. Same effect but without the shock.

Though I am sure that yet again wiser heads will be along to point out what I have missed in that idea and why it is also not a good thing.

BartholomewRoberts

Eabhal said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

John Redwood is having a pop (quite rightly) at the Government for basing anything on the OBR's 5 year forecasts when they can't even forecast what they'll be having for dinner that day:

So we learn that UK state borrowing was £11.3 bn less in the first four months of this financial year than the OBR forecast.Spending was up so the main reason for a further large error once again was understating tax revenues. Income tax was up by a massive 13% . The OBR often understates revenue when the economy grows a little.

I renew my question to Ministers. Why do you make the OBR five year forecast of the deficit the key control on your economic choices? As the OBR cannot get within £10 bn for the immediate year why believe the 5 year forecast? If the OBR model regularly understates tax revenue why accept advice to hike tax rates?

The numbers were further distorted by the transfer of £14 bn to the Bank of England to pay losses, taking the total to an astonishing £24 bn in just four months. The Bank’s decision to sell bonds at the low prices it has driven them down to instead of holding them to repayment has added to the misery and inflated government ex Bank borrowing and spending.

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/08/23/more-funny-numbers-from-the-obr/

Radical idea - lets invest. Heavily. There are very many things we could invest in which deliver both a direct cash injection into the economy now as people do the work, but in the longer term as well thanks to the economic benefit of the infrastructure.

If we base the investment choice on a positive ROI then as an investment it stands apart from whatever make-believe forecast the OBR want to give. As a fiscally sovereign nation we have the ability to invest for the long term.

Markets get spooked when corrupt old duffers elect a numptie as PM and she promises a bonfire of cash to buy votes.
They get very happy when sovereign's invest in their future long term growth and prosperity. Sovereign wealth and investment funds are a big thing. So invest. Screw the OBR.

Sadly what we will have is "who will pay for that", invest nothing, and then scratch our heads as we sit in a crumbling country getting rapidy poorer.

I think it's a little bit of a money-go-round though. We tax and regulate businesses almost out of existence (a lot of it due to Net Zero), then we give them a shiny new suspension bridge or tramway to make up for it.

The State takes more and more - you're a business person, and now you have your own small business. Shouldn't they just get off your f*****g back so you can invest in your own business? Raise the VAT threshold so you can grow your shop for example? Then when businesses are straining to get from Manchester to Liverpool quicker, the case for new infrastructure will be made.

To be honest I wouldn't trust this lot (or the seeming next lot) to make the right calls on large projects, nor the CS or quangocracy to deliver them.

The man in Whitehall rarely knows best. "investment" so often gets slurped up by public sector trade unions. You can see it now: In a few years time Starmer will be saying how much more he has invested in the NHS while doctors will be saying that £250k a year is still too low for their entitled minds.

Yes.

Investment = infrastructure not expenditure.

Build a road, or a bridge, or an airport and after the developers have moved on that road is still there for decades to come.

Pay a salary and that is gone.

If you've ever been walking in the Highlands, you'll have noticed the astounding walls built along the estate boundaries by the navvies. That's infrastructure, but the cost:benefit ratio? They should have had them building more canals.

Your £1 trillion on new roads are the 21st century equivalent of those walls.

Why when 90% of people's transportation and an even higher percentage of economic transportation happens on the road?

You may wish that wasn't the case, but wishes don't pay the bills.

carnforth

Pints in pubs in Mayfair this afternoon: £5.85, £5.35, £6.05 (so far). Where are people buying these £8 pints of internet legend? Must be fancier establishments, because it can't be fancier areas.

Pulpstar

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Pulpstar said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Indeed but for good reason.

A 50% trough would bring prices back in line better with historical standards and more like the much better 90s housing market that saw record numbers owning their own home, but unfortunately a 20% fall is about as good as we can hope for given the chronic shortage of housing.

50% would be catastrophic. How would people remortgage ? Everyone would be on about base +3 or 4 !

He doesn't care, in the same way as he didn't care about businesses that were fucked by Brexit and people that died in the pandemic. He is fundamentally a lazy selfish git.

I care about the people trapped unable to afford a house because of the absurdly high prices today. Which isn't me, I have one.

I couldn't care less if I end up in negative equity. Still better off than renting and it will make houses affordable for those younger and poorer than me. Good for them.

If you're in negative equity then you won't be able to remortgage, the bank won't forclose on you you'll just roll onto the SVR which tables are here:

https://www.landc.co.uk/mortgages/svr-watch/

7.99 for Nationwide & 8.74 for Halifax/Lloyds the biggest lenders. That's against ~ 5.1x% for best buy 5 years.

So an additional 4 or 5% increase, £4000 to £5000 additional per £100,000 per year. That's ruinous for most people.

BartholomewRoberts

Pulpstar said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Pulpstar said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Indeed but for good reason.

A 50% trough would bring prices back in line better with historical standards and more like the much better 90s housing market that saw record numbers owning their own home, but unfortunately a 20% fall is about as good as we can hope for given the chronic shortage of housing.

50% would be catastrophic. How would people remortgage ? Everyone would be on about base +3 or 4 !

He doesn't care, in the same way as he didn't care about businesses that were fucked by Brexit and people that died in the pandemic. He is fundamentally a lazy selfish git.

I care about the people trapped unable to afford a house because of the absurdly high prices today. Which isn't me, I have one.

I couldn't care less if I end up in negative equity. Still better off than renting and it will make houses affordable for those younger and poorer than me. Good for them.

If you're in negative equity then you won't be able to remortgage, the bank won't forclose on you you'll just roll onto the SVR which tables are here:

https://www.landc.co.uk/mortgages/svr-watch/

7.99 for Nationwide & 8.74 for Halifax/Lloyds the biggest lenders. That's against ~ 5.1x% for best buy 5 years.

So an additional 4 or 5% increase, £4000 to £5000 additional per £100,000 per year. That's ruinous for most people.

8% on my mortgage would still be less than I was paying in rent last year. Which is why rent is ruinous for people and house ownership has fallen in recent decades due to high house prices, but increased in the 1990s due to lower house prices.

Nigelb

Pulpstar said:

The betting is moving in on Ramaswamy ! 14 / 15 now on Betfair.

Time to lay him, then.

TimS

carnforth said:

Pints in pubs in Mayfair this afternoon: £5.85, £5.35, £6.05 (so far). Where are people buying these £8 pints of internet legend? Must be fancier establishments, because it can't be fancier areas.

It's a tribute to the egalitarian nature of London boozers that pints cost roughly the same as that on the Old Kent Road and Whitechapel road (and indeed the Angel Islington).

carnforth

"The European Court of Human Rights is facing calls to re-examine cases involving Jews after its longest-serving judge was exposed for sharing extreme antisemitic content on social media."

https://www.thejc.com/news/news/european-court-judge-who-presided-over-jewish-cases-has-history-of-antisemitism-19mT2i5ytHtfHpvZy9ujJs

Are ECHR judges the best of the best, or are appointees sent there to retire or to get them out of the way of domestic courts?

kinabalu

Andy_JS said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Isn't lower house prices exactly what we need right now?

Yes although we want my 20% not Bart's 50%. In fact what we *really* want is them flat for a few years in absolute terms with inflation doing the heavy lifting to create that negative real terms correction we really need. But markets tend not to play ball like that.

Nigelb

The JDAM ER has a glide range of up to 45 miles.
https://twitter.com/KpsZSU/status/1694618329015599234

Stark_Dawning

carnforth said:

"The European Court of Human Rights is facing calls to re-examine cases involving Jews after its longest-serving judge was exposed for sharing extreme antisemitic content on social media."

https://www.thejc.com/news/news/european-court-judge-who-presided-over-jewish-cases-has-history-of-antisemitism-19mT2i5ytHtfHpvZy9ujJs

Are ECHR judges the best of the best, or are appointees sent there to retire or to get them out of the way of domestic courts?

Wow. His behaviour was so extreme you have to suspect some kind of psychological event.

kinabalu

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

John Redwood is having a pop (quite rightly) at the Government for basing anything on the OBR's 5 year forecasts when they can't even forecast what they'll be having for dinner that day:

So we learn that UK state borrowing was £11.3 bn less in the first four months of this financial year than the OBR forecast.Spending was up so the main reason for a further large error once again was understating tax revenues. Income tax was up by a massive 13% . The OBR often understates revenue when the economy grows a little.

I renew my question to Ministers. Why do you make the OBR five year forecast of the deficit the key control on your economic choices? As the OBR cannot get within £10 bn for the immediate year why believe the 5 year forecast? If the OBR model regularly understates tax revenue why accept advice to hike tax rates?

The numbers were further distorted by the transfer of £14 bn to the Bank of England to pay losses, taking the total to an astonishing £24 bn in just four months. The Bank’s decision to sell bonds at the low prices it has driven them down to instead of holding them to repayment has added to the misery and inflated government ex Bank borrowing and spending.

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/08/23/more-funny-numbers-from-the-obr/

Radical idea - lets invest. Heavily. There are very many things we could invest in which deliver both a direct cash injection into the economy now as people do the work, but in the longer term as well thanks to the economic benefit of the infrastructure.

If we base the investment choice on a positive ROI then as an investment it stands apart from whatever make-believe forecast the OBR want to give. As a fiscally sovereign nation we have the ability to invest for the long term.

Markets get spooked when corrupt old duffers elect a numptie as PM and she promises a bonfire of cash to buy votes.
They get very happy when sovereign's invest in their future long term growth and prosperity. Sovereign wealth and investment funds are a big thing. So invest. Screw the OBR.

Sadly what we will have is "who will pay for that", invest nothing, and then scratch our heads as we sit in a crumbling country getting rapidy poorer.

I think it's a little bit of a money-go-round though. We tax and regulate businesses almost out of existence (a lot of it due to Net Zero), then we give them a shiny new suspension bridge or tramway to make up for it.

The State takes more and more - you're a business person, and now you have your own small business. Shouldn't they just get off your f*****g back so you can invest in your own business? Raise the VAT threshold so you can grow your shop for example? Then when businesses are straining to get from Manchester to Liverpool quicker, the case for new infrastructure will be made.

To be honest I wouldn't trust this lot (or the seeming next lot) to make the right calls on large projects, nor the CS or quangocracy to deliver them.

The man in Whitehall rarely knows best. "investment" so often gets slurped up by public sector trade unions. You can see it now: In a few years time Starmer will be saying how much more he has invested in the NHS while doctors will be saying that £250k a year is still too low for their entitled minds.

Yes.

Investment = infrastructure not expenditure.

Build a road, or a bridge, or an airport and after the developers have moved on that road is still there for decades to come.

Pay a salary and that is gone.

Although a significant element of the cost of such projects will be salaries.

carnforth

Stark_Dawning said:

carnforth said:

"The European Court of Human Rights is facing calls to re-examine cases involving Jews after its longest-serving judge was exposed for sharing extreme antisemitic content on social media."

https://www.thejc.com/news/news/european-court-judge-who-presided-over-jewish-cases-has-history-of-antisemitism-19mT2i5ytHtfHpvZy9ujJs

Are ECHR judges the best of the best, or are appointees sent there to retire or to get them out of the way of domestic courts?

Wow. His behaviour was so extreme you have to suspect some kind of psychological event.

He is retired, so dementia is possible, I suppose.

Eabhal

BartholomewRoberts said:

Eabhal said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

John Redwood is having a pop (quite rightly) at the Government for basing anything on the OBR's 5 year forecasts when they can't even forecast what they'll be having for dinner that day:

So we learn that UK state borrowing was £11.3 bn less in the first four months of this financial year than the OBR forecast.Spending was up so the main reason for a further large error once again was understating tax revenues. Income tax was up by a massive 13% . The OBR often understates revenue when the economy grows a little.

I renew my question to Ministers. Why do you make the OBR five year forecast of the deficit the key control on your economic choices? As the OBR cannot get within £10 bn for the immediate year why believe the 5 year forecast? If the OBR model regularly understates tax revenue why accept advice to hike tax rates?

The numbers were further distorted by the transfer of £14 bn to the Bank of England to pay losses, taking the total to an astonishing £24 bn in just four months. The Bank’s decision to sell bonds at the low prices it has driven them down to instead of holding them to repayment has added to the misery and inflated government ex Bank borrowing and spending.

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/08/23/more-funny-numbers-from-the-obr/

Radical idea - lets invest. Heavily. There are very many things we could invest in which deliver both a direct cash injection into the economy now as people do the work, but in the longer term as well thanks to the economic benefit of the infrastructure.

If we base the investment choice on a positive ROI then as an investment it stands apart from whatever make-believe forecast the OBR want to give. As a fiscally sovereign nation we have the ability to invest for the long term.

Markets get spooked when corrupt old duffers elect a numptie as PM and she promises a bonfire of cash to buy votes.
They get very happy when sovereign's invest in their future long term growth and prosperity. Sovereign wealth and investment funds are a big thing. So invest. Screw the OBR.

Sadly what we will have is "who will pay for that", invest nothing, and then scratch our heads as we sit in a crumbling country getting rapidy poorer.

I think it's a little bit of a money-go-round though. We tax and regulate businesses almost out of existence (a lot of it due to Net Zero), then we give them a shiny new suspension bridge or tramway to make up for it.

The State takes more and more - you're a business person, and now you have your own small business. Shouldn't they just get off your f*****g back so you can invest in your own business? Raise the VAT threshold so you can grow your shop for example? Then when businesses are straining to get from Manchester to Liverpool quicker, the case for new infrastructure will be made.

To be honest I wouldn't trust this lot (or the seeming next lot) to make the right calls on large projects, nor the CS or quangocracy to deliver them.

The man in Whitehall rarely knows best. "investment" so often gets slurped up by public sector trade unions. You can see it now: In a few years time Starmer will be saying how much more he has invested in the NHS while doctors will be saying that £250k a year is still too low for their entitled minds.

Yes.

Investment = infrastructure not expenditure.

Build a road, or a bridge, or an airport and after the developers have moved on that road is still there for decades to come.

Pay a salary and that is gone.

If you've ever been walking in the Highlands, you'll have noticed the astounding walls built along the estate boundaries by the navvies. That's infrastructure, but the cost:benefit ratio? They should have had them building more canals.

Your £1 trillion on new roads are the 21st century equivalent of those walls.

Why when 90% of people's transportation and an even higher percentage of economic transportation happens on the road?

You may wish that wasn't the case, but wishes don't pay the bills.

Actually only 66%. (England and Wales)

Foxy

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Pulpstar said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Indeed but for good reason.

A 50% trough would bring prices back in line better with historical standards and more like the much better 90s housing market that saw record numbers owning their own home, but unfortunately a 20% fall is about as good as we can hope for given the chronic shortage of housing.

50% would be catastrophic. How would people remortgage ? Everyone would be on about base +3 or 4 !

He doesn't care, in the same way as he didn't care about businesses that were fucked by Brexit and people that died in the pandemic. He is fundamentally a lazy selfish git.

I care about the people trapped unable to afford a house because of the absurdly high prices today. Which isn't me, I have one.

I couldn't care less if I end up in negative equity. Still better off than renting and it will make houses affordable for those younger and poorer than me. Good for them.

Those who remember negative equity in the nineties wouldn't be so glib.

What we need isn't so much a house price fall, it is for take home income to increase.

kinabalu

williamglenn said:

kinabalu said:

Pulpstar said:

The betting is moving in on Ramaswamy ! 14 / 15 now on Betfair.

Interesting to see that he's the current betting fav for the VP pick.

He's seen by a lot of people as a Trump surrogate who's road-testing different campaign themes.

His reward being Trump picks him?

Nigelb

kinabalu said:

williamglenn said:

kinabalu said:

Pulpstar said:

The betting is moving in on Ramaswamy ! 14 / 15 now on Betfair.

Interesting to see that he's the current betting fav for the VP pick.

He's seen by a lot of people as a Trump surrogate who's road-testing different campaign themes.

His reward being Trump picks him?

He's also full of shit, so ideally suited as a Trump VP pick.

Ramaswamy + Borgum led the way on this, but everyone last night seemed to agree w GOP talking point that Biden/Dems had crippled US energy production.

'This isn't that complicated, guys,' said the ineffable VR. 'Unlock American energy.'

Yeah. It's not that complicated:
https://twitter.com/JamesFallows/status/1694728443974517185

Carnyx

Flatlander said:

FPT, on Flatlands (seeing as I'd better comment):

Pulpstar said:

kjh said:

Tres said:

re Dutch v English road densities and cycling propensity. This can also be explained by geography - the Netherlands is flat, even parts of England that we think of as relatively flat like Essex are far hillier than the Netherlands.

I did a cycling holiday in Norfolk. It's bloody mountainous. Who knew?

I realised I didn't know TRUE "flatness" till I went to the Netherlands. It's more like looking out to sea than any UK landscape certainly those I've seen.

I've done a 75 mile circular bike ride from my house which crossed a single contour line at the end of my road but no others. See username (and avatar).

Unlike the Netherlands you can see hills in the distance though.

Norfolk is mostly chalk and nowhere near flat. I don't know why it got that reputation.

I rather like this map of Britain during the ice age:
https://shefuni.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=fd78b03a74bb477c906c5d4e0ba9abaf

(Zoom in a bit to see the details)

It shows the really flat bits well, as they were mostly a lake...

Really nice, and bookmarked. I had not seen this before. Hadn't occurred to me that this and that rising ground near my house were actually drumlins! Some omissions, and I was surprised the Meadows in Edinburgh isn't included, but on reflection I assume because *post*glacial.

Luckyguy1983

RochdalePioneers said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

John Redwood is having a pop (quite rightly) at the Government for basing anything on the OBR's 5 year forecasts when they can't even forecast what they'll be having for dinner that day:

So we learn that UK state borrowing was £11.3 bn less in the first four months of this financial year than the OBR forecast.Spending was up so the main reason for a further large error once again was understating tax revenues. Income tax was up by a massive 13% . The OBR often understates revenue when the economy grows a little.

I renew my question to Ministers. Why do you make the OBR five year forecast of the deficit the key control on your economic choices? As the OBR cannot get within £10 bn for the immediate year why believe the 5 year forecast? If the OBR model regularly understates tax revenue why accept advice to hike tax rates?

The numbers were further distorted by the transfer of £14 bn to the Bank of England to pay losses, taking the total to an astonishing £24 bn in just four months. The Bank’s decision to sell bonds at the low prices it has driven them down to instead of holding them to repayment has added to the misery and inflated government ex Bank borrowing and spending.

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/08/23/more-funny-numbers-from-the-obr/

Radical idea - lets invest. Heavily. There are very many things we could invest in which deliver both a direct cash injection into the economy now as people do the work, but in the longer term as well thanks to the economic benefit of the infrastructure.

If we base the investment choice on a positive ROI then as an investment it stands apart from whatever make-believe forecast the OBR want to give. As a fiscally sovereign nation we have the ability to invest for the long term.

Markets get spooked when corrupt old duffers elect a numptie as PM and she promises a bonfire of cash to buy votes.
They get very happy when sovereign's invest in their future long term growth and prosperity. Sovereign wealth and investment funds are a big thing. So invest. Screw the OBR.

Sadly what we will have is "who will pay for that", invest nothing, and then scratch our heads as we sit in a crumbling country getting rapidy poorer.

I think it's a little bit of a money-go-round though. We tax and regulate businesses almost out of existence (a lot of it due to Net Zero), then we give them a shiny new suspension bridge or tramway to make up for it.

The State takes more and more - you're a business person, and now you have your own small business. Shouldn't they just get off your f*****g back so you can invest in your own business? Raise the VAT threshold so you can grow your shop for example? Then when businesses are straining to get from Manchester to Liverpool quicker, the case for new infrastructure will be made.

To be honest I wouldn't trust this lot (or the seeming next lot) to make the right calls on large projects, nor the CS or quangocracy to deliver them.

A lot of business is low tax - Corporation Tax at 19% and staying there for SMEs is a great deal.

I don't trust this lot either, and our political system seems to make it impossible to plan any longer than the current parliament. But what choice do we have for the projects I mention?

The private sector cannot propose, plan and build new roads or railways or fibre broadband. The British obsession with spivism means they would charge £vast for something they build as cheaply as possible, with the only consideration being themselves - the M6 Toll as a prime example.

So we need the state, the power of a sovereign nation with a huge economy. To accept the problems we have and show the leadership to utterly transform our prospects.

My go to example is the industrialisation of Manchester. A vast array of private businesses which could only flourish by utilising the corporation-built centralised power to mechanically drive their machines. Build the infrastructure that needs to be centrally planned and delivered, then subsidise the industries who will use it to flourish.

I can't see any specific projects, as I think these must be in another post. The private sector built the railways, so I don't see why they shouldn't be able to do so again - they'd do a much better job than the public sector.

We need to find a way to make things work without costing the earth in this country. I am afraid the Civil Service mostly need to be bypassed. They're unfit for purpose.

Peter_the_Punter

carnforth said:

Pints in pubs in Mayfair this afternoon: £5.85, £5.35, £6.05 (so far). Where are people buying these £8 pints of internet legend? Must be fancier establishments, because it can't be fancier areas.

Well, Cheltenham Racecourse on racedays, for starters. But then that is run by that well-known band of thieves, The Jockey Club.

kinabalu

Nigelb said:

kinabalu said:

williamglenn said:

kinabalu said:

Pulpstar said:

The betting is moving in on Ramaswamy ! 14 / 15 now on Betfair.

Interesting to see that he's the current betting fav for the VP pick.

He's seen by a lot of people as a Trump surrogate who's road-testing different campaign themes.

His reward being Trump picks him?

He's also full of shit, so ideally suited as a Trump VP pick.

Ramaswamy + Borgum led the way on this, but everyone last night seemed to agree w GOP talking point that Biden/Dems had crippled US energy production.

'This isn't that complicated, guys,' said the ineffable VR. 'Unlock American energy.'

Yeah. It's not that complicated:
https://twitter.com/JamesFallows/status/1694728443974517185

Glib lightweight shit too. I'd give him little chance in Nov should he somehow get the nomination.

Carnyx

Luckyguy1983 said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

John Redwood is having a pop (quite rightly) at the Government for basing anything on the OBR's 5 year forecasts when they can't even forecast what they'll be having for dinner that day:

So we learn that UK state borrowing was £11.3 bn less in the first four months of this financial year than the OBR forecast.Spending was up so the main reason for a further large error once again was understating tax revenues. Income tax was up by a massive 13% . The OBR often understates revenue when the economy grows a little.

I renew my question to Ministers. Why do you make the OBR five year forecast of the deficit the key control on your economic choices? As the OBR cannot get within £10 bn for the immediate year why believe the 5 year forecast? If the OBR model regularly understates tax revenue why accept advice to hike tax rates?

The numbers were further distorted by the transfer of £14 bn to the Bank of England to pay losses, taking the total to an astonishing £24 bn in just four months. The Bank’s decision to sell bonds at the low prices it has driven them down to instead of holding them to repayment has added to the misery and inflated government ex Bank borrowing and spending.

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/08/23/more-funny-numbers-from-the-obr/

Radical idea - lets invest. Heavily. There are very many things we could invest in which deliver both a direct cash injection into the economy now as people do the work, but in the longer term as well thanks to the economic benefit of the infrastructure.

If we base the investment choice on a positive ROI then as an investment it stands apart from whatever make-believe forecast the OBR want to give. As a fiscally sovereign nation we have the ability to invest for the long term.

Markets get spooked when corrupt old duffers elect a numptie as PM and she promises a bonfire of cash to buy votes.
They get very happy when sovereign's invest in their future long term growth and prosperity. Sovereign wealth and investment funds are a big thing. So invest. Screw the OBR.

Sadly what we will have is "who will pay for that", invest nothing, and then scratch our heads as we sit in a crumbling country getting rapidy poorer.

I think it's a little bit of a money-go-round though. We tax and regulate businesses almost out of existence (a lot of it due to Net Zero), then we give them a shiny new suspension bridge or tramway to make up for it.

The State takes more and more - you're a business person, and now you have your own small business. Shouldn't they just get off your f*****g back so you can invest in your own business? Raise the VAT threshold so you can grow your shop for example? Then when businesses are straining to get from Manchester to Liverpool quicker, the case for new infrastructure will be made.

To be honest I wouldn't trust this lot (or the seeming next lot) to make the right calls on large projects, nor the CS or quangocracy to deliver them.

A lot of business is low tax - Corporation Tax at 19% and staying there for SMEs is a great deal.

I don't trust this lot either, and our political system seems to make it impossible to plan any longer than the current parliament. But what choice do we have for the projects I mention?

The private sector cannot propose, plan and build new roads or railways or fibre broadband. The British obsession with spivism means they would charge £vast for something they build as cheaply as possible, with the only consideration being themselves - the M6 Toll as a prime example.

So we need the state, the power of a sovereign nation with a huge economy. To accept the problems we have and show the leadership to utterly transform our prospects.

My go to example is the industrialisation of Manchester. A vast array of private businesses which could only flourish by utilising the corporation-built centralised power to mechanically drive their machines. Build the infrastructure that needs to be centrally planned and delivered, then subsidise the industries who will use it to flourish.

I can't see any specific projects, as I think these must be in another post. The private sector built the railways, so I don't see why they shouldn't be able to do so again - they'd do a much better job than the public sector.

We need to find a way to make things work without costing the earth in this country. I am afraid the Civil Service mostly need to be bypassed. They're unfit for purpose.

Private sector did a bad job of the railways precisely because it was private sector - duplicated, cherrypicking, chaotic, often very poor quality indeed, crashed the economy at least once. Key strategic errors - Brunel broad gauge incompatible with the rest, and so on.

BartholomewRoberts

Eabhal said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Eabhal said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

John Redwood is having a pop (quite rightly) at the Government for basing anything on the OBR's 5 year forecasts when they can't even forecast what they'll be having for dinner that day:

So we learn that UK state borrowing was £11.3 bn less in the first four months of this financial year than the OBR forecast.Spending was up so the main reason for a further large error once again was understating tax revenues. Income tax was up by a massive 13% . The OBR often understates revenue when the economy grows a little.

I renew my question to Ministers. Why do you make the OBR five year forecast of the deficit the key control on your economic choices? As the OBR cannot get within £10 bn for the immediate year why believe the 5 year forecast? If the OBR model regularly understates tax revenue why accept advice to hike tax rates?

The numbers were further distorted by the transfer of £14 bn to the Bank of England to pay losses, taking the total to an astonishing £24 bn in just four months. The Bank’s decision to sell bonds at the low prices it has driven them down to instead of holding them to repayment has added to the misery and inflated government ex Bank borrowing and spending.

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/08/23/more-funny-numbers-from-the-obr/

Radical idea - lets invest. Heavily. There are very many things we could invest in which deliver both a direct cash injection into the economy now as people do the work, but in the longer term as well thanks to the economic benefit of the infrastructure.

If we base the investment choice on a positive ROI then as an investment it stands apart from whatever make-believe forecast the OBR want to give. As a fiscally sovereign nation we have the ability to invest for the long term.

Markets get spooked when corrupt old duffers elect a numptie as PM and she promises a bonfire of cash to buy votes.
They get very happy when sovereign's invest in their future long term growth and prosperity. Sovereign wealth and investment funds are a big thing. So invest. Screw the OBR.

Sadly what we will have is "who will pay for that", invest nothing, and then scratch our heads as we sit in a crumbling country getting rapidy poorer.

I think it's a little bit of a money-go-round though. We tax and regulate businesses almost out of existence (a lot of it due to Net Zero), then we give them a shiny new suspension bridge or tramway to make up for it.

The State takes more and more - you're a business person, and now you have your own small business. Shouldn't they just get off your f*****g back so you can invest in your own business? Raise the VAT threshold so you can grow your shop for example? Then when businesses are straining to get from Manchester to Liverpool quicker, the case for new infrastructure will be made.

To be honest I wouldn't trust this lot (or the seeming next lot) to make the right calls on large projects, nor the CS or quangocracy to deliver them.

The man in Whitehall rarely knows best. "investment" so often gets slurped up by public sector trade unions. You can see it now: In a few years time Starmer will be saying how much more he has invested in the NHS while doctors will be saying that £250k a year is still too low for their entitled minds.

Yes.

Investment = infrastructure not expenditure.

Build a road, or a bridge, or an airport and after the developers have moved on that road is still there for decades to come.

Pay a salary and that is gone.

If you've ever been walking in the Highlands, you'll have noticed the astounding walls built along the estate boundaries by the navvies. That's infrastructure, but the cost:benefit ratio? They should have had them building more canals.

Your £1 trillion on new roads are the 21st century equivalent of those walls.

Why when 90% of people's transportation and an even higher percentage of economic transportation happens on the road?

You may wish that wasn't the case, but wishes don't pay the bills.

Actually only 66%. (England and Wales)

90% of mileage and higher for goods.

Luckyguy1983

Carnyx said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

John Redwood is having a pop (quite rightly) at the Government for basing anything on the OBR's 5 year forecasts when they can't even forecast what they'll be having for dinner that day:

So we learn that UK state borrowing was £11.3 bn less in the first four months of this financial year than the OBR forecast.Spending was up so the main reason for a further large error once again was understating tax revenues. Income tax was up by a massive 13% . The OBR often understates revenue when the economy grows a little.

I renew my question to Ministers. Why do you make the OBR five year forecast of the deficit the key control on your economic choices? As the OBR cannot get within £10 bn for the immediate year why believe the 5 year forecast? If the OBR model regularly understates tax revenue why accept advice to hike tax rates?

The numbers were further distorted by the transfer of £14 bn to the Bank of England to pay losses, taking the total to an astonishing £24 bn in just four months. The Bank’s decision to sell bonds at the low prices it has driven them down to instead of holding them to repayment has added to the misery and inflated government ex Bank borrowing and spending.

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/08/23/more-funny-numbers-from-the-obr/

Radical idea - lets invest. Heavily. There are very many things we could invest in which deliver both a direct cash injection into the economy now as people do the work, but in the longer term as well thanks to the economic benefit of the infrastructure.

If we base the investment choice on a positive ROI then as an investment it stands apart from whatever make-believe forecast the OBR want to give. As a fiscally sovereign nation we have the ability to invest for the long term.

Markets get spooked when corrupt old duffers elect a numptie as PM and she promises a bonfire of cash to buy votes.
They get very happy when sovereign's invest in their future long term growth and prosperity. Sovereign wealth and investment funds are a big thing. So invest. Screw the OBR.

Sadly what we will have is "who will pay for that", invest nothing, and then scratch our heads as we sit in a crumbling country getting rapidy poorer.

I think it's a little bit of a money-go-round though. We tax and regulate businesses almost out of existence (a lot of it due to Net Zero), then we give them a shiny new suspension bridge or tramway to make up for it.

The State takes more and more - you're a business person, and now you have your own small business. Shouldn't they just get off your f*****g back so you can invest in your own business? Raise the VAT threshold so you can grow your shop for example? Then when businesses are straining to get from Manchester to Liverpool quicker, the case for new infrastructure will be made.

To be honest I wouldn't trust this lot (or the seeming next lot) to make the right calls on large projects, nor the CS or quangocracy to deliver them.

A lot of business is low tax - Corporation Tax at 19% and staying there for SMEs is a great deal.

I don't trust this lot either, and our political system seems to make it impossible to plan any longer than the current parliament. But what choice do we have for the projects I mention?

The private sector cannot propose, plan and build new roads or railways or fibre broadband. The British obsession with spivism means they would charge £vast for something they build as cheaply as possible, with the only consideration being themselves - the M6 Toll as a prime example.

So we need the state, the power of a sovereign nation with a huge economy. To accept the problems we have and show the leadership to utterly transform our prospects.

My go to example is the industrialisation of Manchester. A vast array of private businesses which could only flourish by utilising the corporation-built centralised power to mechanically drive their machines. Build the infrastructure that needs to be centrally planned and delivered, then subsidise the industries who will use it to flourish.

I can't see any specific projects, as I think these must be in another post. The private sector built the railways, so I don't see why they shouldn't be able to do so again - they'd do a much better job than the public sector.

We need to find a way to make things work without costing the earth in this country. I am afraid the Civil Service mostly need to be bypassed. They're unfit for purpose.

Private sector did a bad job of the railways precisely because it was private sector - duplicated, cherrypicking, chaotic, often very poor quality indeed, crashed the economy at least once. Key strategic errors - Brunel broad gauge incompatible with the rest, and so on.

I don't agree. Largely they did a fantastic job, built railways where people wanted to go (because they were trying to make money), and I don't see competition within the sector being in any way a bad thing.

Nigelb

kinabalu said:

Nigelb said:

kinabalu said:

williamglenn said:

kinabalu said:

Pulpstar said:

The betting is moving in on Ramaswamy ! 14 / 15 now on Betfair.

Interesting to see that he's the current betting fav for the VP pick.

He's seen by a lot of people as a Trump surrogate who's road-testing different campaign themes.

His reward being Trump picks him?

He's also full of shit, so ideally suited as a Trump VP pick.

Ramaswamy + Borgum led the way on this, but everyone last night seemed to agree w GOP talking point that Biden/Dems had crippled US energy production.

'This isn't that complicated, guys,' said the ineffable VR. 'Unlock American energy.'

Yeah. It's not that complicated:
https://twitter.com/JamesFallows/status/1694728443974517185

Glib lightweight shit too. I'd give him little chance in Nov should he somehow get the nomination.

I've started laying him at these prices.
14/15 for the Presidency is too short, IMO.

Cost free for now, too, given my Trump short.
(VP nominee is a different matter - that could be just about anyone.)

BartholomewRoberts

Foxy said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Pulpstar said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Indeed but for good reason.

A 50% trough would bring prices back in line better with historical standards and more like the much better 90s housing market that saw record numbers owning their own home, but unfortunately a 20% fall is about as good as we can hope for given the chronic shortage of housing.

50% would be catastrophic. How would people remortgage ? Everyone would be on about base +3 or 4 !

He doesn't care, in the same way as he didn't care about businesses that were fucked by Brexit and people that died in the pandemic. He is fundamentally a lazy selfish git.

I care about the people trapped unable to afford a house because of the absurdly high prices today. Which isn't me, I have one.

I couldn't care less if I end up in negative equity. Still better off than renting and it will make houses affordable for those younger and poorer than me. Good for them.

Those who remember negative equity in the nineties wouldn't be so glib.

What we need isn't so much a house price fall, it is for take home income to increase.

90s saw record home ownership gains not losses. Record number of people able to get onto the housing ladder.

What's negative or glib about that?

Malmesbury

Andy_JS said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Isn't lower house prices exactly what we need right now?

Lower house prices are awesome. So long as they are lower prices for other people’s houses. Just not mine.

Just like building infrastructure is awesome. Except when it is next to me.

Carnyx

Luckyguy1983 said:

Carnyx said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

John Redwood is having a pop (quite rightly) at the Government for basing anything on the OBR's 5 year forecasts when they can't even forecast what they'll be having for dinner that day:

So we learn that UK state borrowing was £11.3 bn less in the first four months of this financial year than the OBR forecast.Spending was up so the main reason for a further large error once again was understating tax revenues. Income tax was up by a massive 13% . The OBR often understates revenue when the economy grows a little.

I renew my question to Ministers. Why do you make the OBR five year forecast of the deficit the key control on your economic choices? As the OBR cannot get within £10 bn for the immediate year why believe the 5 year forecast? If the OBR model regularly understates tax revenue why accept advice to hike tax rates?

The numbers were further distorted by the transfer of £14 bn to the Bank of England to pay losses, taking the total to an astonishing £24 bn in just four months. The Bank’s decision to sell bonds at the low prices it has driven them down to instead of holding them to repayment has added to the misery and inflated government ex Bank borrowing and spending.

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/08/23/more-funny-numbers-from-the-obr/

Radical idea - lets invest. Heavily. There are very many things we could invest in which deliver both a direct cash injection into the economy now as people do the work, but in the longer term as well thanks to the economic benefit of the infrastructure.

If we base the investment choice on a positive ROI then as an investment it stands apart from whatever make-believe forecast the OBR want to give. As a fiscally sovereign nation we have the ability to invest for the long term.

Markets get spooked when corrupt old duffers elect a numptie as PM and she promises a bonfire of cash to buy votes.
They get very happy when sovereign's invest in their future long term growth and prosperity. Sovereign wealth and investment funds are a big thing. So invest. Screw the OBR.

Sadly what we will have is "who will pay for that", invest nothing, and then scratch our heads as we sit in a crumbling country getting rapidy poorer.

I think it's a little bit of a money-go-round though. We tax and regulate businesses almost out of existence (a lot of it due to Net Zero), then we give them a shiny new suspension bridge or tramway to make up for it.

The State takes more and more - you're a business person, and now you have your own small business. Shouldn't they just get off your f*****g back so you can invest in your own business? Raise the VAT threshold so you can grow your shop for example? Then when businesses are straining to get from Manchester to Liverpool quicker, the case for new infrastructure will be made.

To be honest I wouldn't trust this lot (or the seeming next lot) to make the right calls on large projects, nor the CS or quangocracy to deliver them.

A lot of business is low tax - Corporation Tax at 19% and staying there for SMEs is a great deal.

I don't trust this lot either, and our political system seems to make it impossible to plan any longer than the current parliament. But what choice do we have for the projects I mention?

The private sector cannot propose, plan and build new roads or railways or fibre broadband. The British obsession with spivism means they would charge £vast for something they build as cheaply as possible, with the only consideration being themselves - the M6 Toll as a prime example.

So we need the state, the power of a sovereign nation with a huge economy. To accept the problems we have and show the leadership to utterly transform our prospects.

My go to example is the industrialisation of Manchester. A vast array of private businesses which could only flourish by utilising the corporation-built centralised power to mechanically drive their machines. Build the infrastructure that needs to be centrally planned and delivered, then subsidise the industries who will use it to flourish.

I can't see any specific projects, as I think these must be in another post. The private sector built the railways, so I don't see why they shouldn't be able to do so again - they'd do a much better job than the public sector.

We need to find a way to make things work without costing the earth in this country. I am afraid the Civil Service mostly need to be bypassed. They're unfit for purpose.

Private sector did a bad job of the railways precisely because it was private sector - duplicated, cherrypicking, chaotic, often very poor quality indeed, crashed the economy at least once. Key strategic errors - Brunel broad gauge incompatible with the rest, and so on.

I don't agree. Largely they did a fantastic job, built railways where people wanted to go (because they were trying to make money), and I don't see competition within the sector being in any way a bad thing.

That's not what the government or the customers of the day felt. They moaned about them exactly as our privatisation fanatics do about BR - but with far, far more justification.

Malmesbury

Foxy said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Pulpstar said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Indeed but for good reason.

A 50% trough would bring prices back in line better with historical standards and more like the much better 90s housing market that saw record numbers owning their own home, but unfortunately a 20% fall is about as good as we can hope for given the chronic shortage of housing.

50% would be catastrophic. How would people remortgage ? Everyone would be on about base +3 or 4 !

He doesn't care, in the same way as he didn't care about businesses that were fucked by Brexit and people that died in the pandemic. He is fundamentally a lazy selfish git.

I care about the people trapped unable to afford a house because of the absurdly high prices today. Which isn't me, I have one.

I couldn't care less if I end up in negative equity. Still better off than renting and it will make houses affordable for those younger and poorer than me. Good for them.

Those who remember negative equity in the nineties wouldn't be so glib.

What we need isn't so much a house price fall, it is for take home income to increase.

Perfect would be house prices to rise below the rate of increase in incomes (if any).

viewcode

For those of you banging on about house prices, the indices listed here will inform you:

https://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/house-prices/

PJH

Foxy said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Pulpstar said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Indeed but for good reason.

A 50% trough would bring prices back in line better with historical standards and more like the much better 90s housing market that saw record numbers owning their own home, but unfortunately a 20% fall is about as good as we can hope for given the chronic shortage of housing.

50% would be catastrophic. How would people remortgage ? Everyone would be on about base +3 or 4 !

He doesn't care, in the same way as he didn't care about businesses that were fucked by Brexit and people that died in the pandemic. He is fundamentally a lazy selfish git.

I care about the people trapped unable to afford a house because of the absurdly high prices today. Which isn't me, I have one.

I couldn't care less if I end up in negative equity. Still better off than renting and it will make houses affordable for those younger and poorer than me. Good for them.

Those who remember negative equity in the nineties wouldn't be so glib.

What we need isn't so much a house price fall, it is for take home income to increase.

There will be some immediate losers, such as those who were first time buyers a few years ago and now can't afford SVR rates and have to be repossessed. I have sympathy for many of those people, but I have costed all my mortgages over the years on what would happen if rates went up a few %.

I have no sympathy for people that the press keep finding with houses bought in 2002 still with several hundred thousand outstanding, i.e. more than the value of the house when bought originally. If you haven't almost paid it off by now then tough.

There will be some people on negative equity who can afford the payments who are unable to move, which is a problem if you want to move location for work.

But a lot of people will be like I was in 1990, with property prices still well out of reach, sitting on my hands waiting for property to fall further. I, and almost all my friends, bought in 1993 once it bottomed out. Where I was at the time there was a fall of about 30%.

I've just looked at the Zoopla valuation of my first flat. I bought it when it was just over double my earnings - it is now at 2.5 times my current earnings, despite multiple promotions since then. (The previous owners had paid over 3.5 times my salary at the time, at the peak of the market - I would estimate based on similar second jobs post Uni now it's valued at 5-6 times salary)

So a long correction to go - though like others I don't think it will dip as far in real terms as in 1990.

viewcode

Malmesbury said:

Foxy said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Pulpstar said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Indeed but for good reason.

A 50% trough would bring prices back in line better with historical standards and more like the much better 90s housing market that saw record numbers owning their own home, but unfortunately a 20% fall is about as good as we can hope for given the chronic shortage of housing.

50% would be catastrophic. How would people remortgage ? Everyone would be on about base +3 or 4 !

He doesn't care, in the same way as he didn't care about businesses that were fucked by Brexit and people that died in the pandemic. He is fundamentally a lazy selfish git.

I care about the people trapped unable to afford a house because of the absurdly high prices today. Which isn't me, I have one.

I couldn't care less if I end up in negative equity. Still better off than renting and it will make houses affordable for those younger and poorer than me. Good for them.

Those who remember negative equity in the nineties wouldn't be so glib.

What we need isn't so much a house price fall, it is for take home income to increase.

Perfect would be house prices to rise below the rate of increase in incomes (if any).

That was the case from end-2009 to mid-2013. People complained. So they bought in Help-To-Buy to inflate house prices. It succeeded.

Nigelb

A reminder of the reliance that can be placed on negotiations with Putin.
https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1694628017568350391

https://twitter.com/Azovsouth/status/1694602425116643825

https://twitter.com/NMukherjee6/status/1694691558308954221

bondegezou

Interesting polling numbers on Pence's actions on 6 Jan: https://twitter.com/kabir_here/status/1694531518109016473

Plenty of Republicans think he acted correctly.

williamglenn

Malmesbury said:

Foxy said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Pulpstar said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Indeed but for good reason.

A 50% trough would bring prices back in line better with historical standards and more like the much better 90s housing market that saw record numbers owning their own home, but unfortunately a 20% fall is about as good as we can hope for given the chronic shortage of housing.

50% would be catastrophic. How would people remortgage ? Everyone would be on about base +3 or 4 !

He doesn't care, in the same way as he didn't care about businesses that were fucked by Brexit and people that died in the pandemic. He is fundamentally a lazy selfish git.

I care about the people trapped unable to afford a house because of the absurdly high prices today. Which isn't me, I have one.

I couldn't care less if I end up in negative equity. Still better off than renting and it will make houses affordable for those younger and poorer than me. Good for them.

Those who remember negative equity in the nineties wouldn't be so glib.

What we need isn't so much a house price fall, it is for take home income to increase.

Perfect would be house prices to rise below the rate of increase in incomes (if any).

There's nothing perfect about a market in which prices never fall.

rcs1000

BartholomewRoberts said:

Foxy said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Pulpstar said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Indeed but for good reason.

A 50% trough would bring prices back in line better with historical standards and more like the much better 90s housing market that saw record numbers owning their own home, but unfortunately a 20% fall is about as good as we can hope for given the chronic shortage of housing.

50% would be catastrophic. How would people remortgage ? Everyone would be on about base +3 or 4 !

He doesn't care, in the same way as he didn't care about businesses that were fucked by Brexit and people that died in the pandemic. He is fundamentally a lazy selfish git.

I care about the people trapped unable to afford a house because of the absurdly high prices today. Which isn't me, I have one.

I couldn't care less if I end up in negative equity. Still better off than renting and it will make houses affordable for those younger and poorer than me. Good for them.

Those who remember negative equity in the nineties wouldn't be so glib.

What we need isn't so much a house price fall, it is for take home income to increase.

90s saw record home ownership gains not losses. Record number of people able to get onto the housing ladder.

What's negative or glib about that?

Ahem.

The 90s saw record home ownership levels, but it did not see a record rise in home ownership.

In the 80s, you sent from 55% to 67%. In the 90s, you went from 67% to around 70%.

BartholomewRoberts

kinabalu said:

Andy_JS said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Isn't lower house prices exactly what we need right now?

Yes although we want my 20% not Bart's 50%. In fact what we *really* want is them flat for a few years in absolute terms with inflation doing the heavy lifting to create that negative real terms correction we really need. But markets tend not to play ball like that.

A 20% fall brings us down to the prices of ... 2020.

Its absolutely nothing. It doesn't even reverse three years of price rises.

Incidentally I bought in December 2022 so right at the peak, so its not like I'm wishing on others something I wouldn't wish on myself. But I don't care if I lose equity or go negative, I have a home of my own, millions of others aren't so fortunate.

The 1990s housing market saw record amounts of people getting onto the property ladder. Its the best the housing market has ever been. That's an objective fact.

Malmesbury

williamglenn said:

Malmesbury said:

Foxy said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Pulpstar said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Indeed but for good reason.

A 50% trough would bring prices back in line better with historical standards and more like the much better 90s housing market that saw record numbers owning their own home, but unfortunately a 20% fall is about as good as we can hope for given the chronic shortage of housing.

50% would be catastrophic. How would people remortgage ? Everyone would be on about base +3 or 4 !

He doesn't care, in the same way as he didn't care about businesses that were fucked by Brexit and people that died in the pandemic. He is fundamentally a lazy selfish git.

I care about the people trapped unable to afford a house because of the absurdly high prices today. Which isn't me, I have one.

I couldn't care less if I end up in negative equity. Still better off than renting and it will make houses affordable for those younger and poorer than me. Good for them.

Those who remember negative equity in the nineties wouldn't be so glib.

What we need isn't so much a house price fall, it is for take home income to increase.

Perfect would be house prices to rise below the rate of increase in incomes (if any).

There's nothing perfect about a market in which prices never fall.

I mean in terms of letting the air out of the housing bubble without negative equity and people running around screaming.

BartholomewRoberts

rcs1000 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Foxy said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Pulpstar said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Indeed but for good reason.

A 50% trough would bring prices back in line better with historical standards and more like the much better 90s housing market that saw record numbers owning their own home, but unfortunately a 20% fall is about as good as we can hope for given the chronic shortage of housing.

50% would be catastrophic. How would people remortgage ? Everyone would be on about base +3 or 4 !

He doesn't care, in the same way as he didn't care about businesses that were fucked by Brexit and people that died in the pandemic. He is fundamentally a lazy selfish git.

I care about the people trapped unable to afford a house because of the absurdly high prices today. Which isn't me, I have one.

I couldn't care less if I end up in negative equity. Still better off than renting and it will make houses affordable for those younger and poorer than me. Good for them.

Those who remember negative equity in the nineties wouldn't be so glib.

What we need isn't so much a house price fall, it is for take home income to increase.

90s saw record home ownership gains not losses. Record number of people able to get onto the housing ladder.

What's negative or glib about that?

Ahem.

The 90s saw record home ownership levels, but it did not see a record rise in home ownership.

In the 80s, you sent from 55% to 67%. In the 90s, you went from 67% to around 70%.

Fantastic pedanticbetting, well done.

*bow*

Yes I should have said it saw record levels in home ownership.

Richard_Tyndall

PJH said:

Foxy said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Pulpstar said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Indeed but for good reason.

A 50% trough would bring prices back in line better with historical standards and more like the much better 90s housing market that saw record numbers owning their own home, but unfortunately a 20% fall is about as good as we can hope for given the chronic shortage of housing.

50% would be catastrophic. How would people remortgage ? Everyone would be on about base +3 or 4 !

He doesn't care, in the same way as he didn't care about businesses that were fucked by Brexit and people that died in the pandemic. He is fundamentally a lazy selfish git.

I care about the people trapped unable to afford a house because of the absurdly high prices today. Which isn't me, I have one.

I couldn't care less if I end up in negative equity. Still better off than renting and it will make houses affordable for those younger and poorer than me. Good for them.

Those who remember negative equity in the nineties wouldn't be so glib.

What we need isn't so much a house price fall, it is for take home income to increase.

There will be some immediate losers, such as those who were first time buyers a few years ago and now can't afford SVR rates and have to be repossessed. I have sympathy for many of those people, but I have costed all my mortgages over the years on what would happen if rates went up a few %.

I have no sympathy for people that the press keep finding with houses bought in 2002 still with several hundred thousand outstanding, i.e. more than the value of the house when bought originally. If you haven't almost paid it off by now then tough.

There will be some people on negative equity who can afford the payments who are unable to move, which is a problem if you want to move location for work.

But a lot of people will be like I was in 1990, with property prices still well out of reach, sitting on my hands waiting for property to fall further. I, and almost all my friends, bought in 1993 once it bottomed out. Where I was at the time there was a fall of about 30%.

I've just looked at the Zoopla valuation of my first flat. I bought it when it was just over double my earnings - it is now at 2.5 times my current earnings, despite multiple promotions since then. (The previous owners had paid over 3.5 times my salary at the time, at the peak of the market - I would estimate based on similar second jobs post Uni now it's valued at 5-6 times salary)

So a long correction to go - though like others I don't think it will dip as far in real terms as in 1990.

You are ignoring the fact that when people move into negative equity the housing market stops working. This is exacly what happened in the early 90s. Anyone who didn't absolutey have to move didn't. And the builders stopped building as no one was willing to buy houses either because they were spooked.

If your house is worth less than you owe on your mortgage then you don't sell. It is that basic. The only way any houses were moved was either by people who were forced to move or by repossesions.

So first time buyers are still screwed.

williamglenn

Malmesbury said:

williamglenn said:

Malmesbury said:

Foxy said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Pulpstar said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Indeed but for good reason.

A 50% trough would bring prices back in line better with historical standards and more like the much better 90s housing market that saw record numbers owning their own home, but unfortunately a 20% fall is about as good as we can hope for given the chronic shortage of housing.

50% would be catastrophic. How would people remortgage ? Everyone would be on about base +3 or 4 !

He doesn't care, in the same way as he didn't care about businesses that were fucked by Brexit and people that died in the pandemic. He is fundamentally a lazy selfish git.

I care about the people trapped unable to afford a house because of the absurdly high prices today. Which isn't me, I have one.

I couldn't care less if I end up in negative equity. Still better off than renting and it will make houses affordable for those younger and poorer than me. Good for them.

Those who remember negative equity in the nineties wouldn't be so glib.

What we need isn't so much a house price fall, it is for take home income to increase.

Perfect would be house prices to rise below the rate of increase in incomes (if any).

There's nothing perfect about a market in which prices never fall.

I mean in terms of letting the air out of the housing bubble without negative equity and people running around screaming.

People would be running around screaming about inflation anyway in your scenario and at the margins it would still mean some people would suffer financially.

BartholomewRoberts

Richard_Tyndall said:

PJH said:

Foxy said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Pulpstar said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Indeed but for good reason.

A 50% trough would bring prices back in line better with historical standards and more like the much better 90s housing market that saw record numbers owning their own home, but unfortunately a 20% fall is about as good as we can hope for given the chronic shortage of housing.

50% would be catastrophic. How would people remortgage ? Everyone would be on about base +3 or 4 !

He doesn't care, in the same way as he didn't care about businesses that were fucked by Brexit and people that died in the pandemic. He is fundamentally a lazy selfish git.

I care about the people trapped unable to afford a house because of the absurdly high prices today. Which isn't me, I have one.

I couldn't care less if I end up in negative equity. Still better off than renting and it will make houses affordable for those younger and poorer than me. Good for them.

Those who remember negative equity in the nineties wouldn't be so glib.

What we need isn't so much a house price fall, it is for take home income to increase.

There will be some immediate losers, such as those who were first time buyers a few years ago and now can't afford SVR rates and have to be repossessed. I have sympathy for many of those people, but I have costed all my mortgages over the years on what would happen if rates went up a few %.

I have no sympathy for people that the press keep finding with houses bought in 2002 still with several hundred thousand outstanding, i.e. more than the value of the house when bought originally. If you haven't almost paid it off by now then tough.

There will be some people on negative equity who can afford the payments who are unable to move, which is a problem if you want to move location for work.

But a lot of people will be like I was in 1990, with property prices still well out of reach, sitting on my hands waiting for property to fall further. I, and almost all my friends, bought in 1993 once it bottomed out. Where I was at the time there was a fall of about 30%.

I've just looked at the Zoopla valuation of my first flat. I bought it when it was just over double my earnings - it is now at 2.5 times my current earnings, despite multiple promotions since then. (The previous owners had paid over 3.5 times my salary at the time, at the peak of the market - I would estimate based on similar second jobs post Uni now it's valued at 5-6 times salary)

So a long correction to go - though like others I don't think it will dip as far in real terms as in 1990.

You are ignoring the fact that when people move into negative equity the housing market stops working. This is exacly what happened in the early 90s. Anyone who didn't absolutey have to move didn't. And the builders stopped building as no one was willing to buy houses either because they were spooked.

If your house is worth less than you owe on your mortgage then you don't sell. It is that basic. The only way any houses were moved was either by people who were forced to move or by repossesions.

So first time buyers are still screwed.

But the facts show that first time buyers were able to buy in the 1990s.

And people who are using equity gains from house price rises to flip or get extra houses can't outbid first time buyers with their equity gains when the price falls, so first time buyers gain market share - as happened in the 1990s.

In every objective measurement the 1990s were better for first time buyers than anything that's happened since.

rcs1000

BartholomewRoberts said:

rcs1000 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Foxy said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Pulpstar said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Indeed but for good reason.

A 50% trough would bring prices back in line better with historical standards and more like the much better 90s housing market that saw record numbers owning their own home, but unfortunately a 20% fall is about as good as we can hope for given the chronic shortage of housing.

50% would be catastrophic. How would people remortgage ? Everyone would be on about base +3 or 4 !

He doesn't care, in the same way as he didn't care about businesses that were fucked by Brexit and people that died in the pandemic. He is fundamentally a lazy selfish git.

I care about the people trapped unable to afford a house because of the absurdly high prices today. Which isn't me, I have one.

I couldn't care less if I end up in negative equity. Still better off than renting and it will make houses affordable for those younger and poorer than me. Good for them.

Those who remember negative equity in the nineties wouldn't be so glib.

What we need isn't so much a house price fall, it is for take home income to increase.

90s saw record home ownership gains not losses. Record number of people able to get onto the housing ladder.

What's negative or glib about that?

Ahem.

The 90s saw record home ownership levels, but it did not see a record rise in home ownership.

In the 80s, you sent from 55% to 67%. In the 90s, you went from 67% to around 70%.

Fantastic pedanticbetting, well done.

*bow*

Yes I should have said it saw record levels in home ownership.

Your exact words were that the "90s saw record home ownership gains".

Sorry to be a pedant.

BartholomewRoberts

rcs1000 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

rcs1000 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Foxy said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Pulpstar said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Indeed but for good reason.

A 50% trough would bring prices back in line better with historical standards and more like the much better 90s housing market that saw record numbers owning their own home, but unfortunately a 20% fall is about as good as we can hope for given the chronic shortage of housing.

50% would be catastrophic. How would people remortgage ? Everyone would be on about base +3 or 4 !

He doesn't care, in the same way as he didn't care about businesses that were fucked by Brexit and people that died in the pandemic. He is fundamentally a lazy selfish git.

I care about the people trapped unable to afford a house because of the absurdly high prices today. Which isn't me, I have one.

I couldn't care less if I end up in negative equity. Still better off than renting and it will make houses affordable for those younger and poorer than me. Good for them.

Those who remember negative equity in the nineties wouldn't be so glib.

What we need isn't so much a house price fall, it is for take home income to increase.

90s saw record home ownership gains not losses. Record number of people able to get onto the housing ladder.

What's negative or glib about that?

Ahem.

The 90s saw record home ownership levels, but it did not see a record rise in home ownership.

In the 80s, you sent from 55% to 67%. In the 90s, you went from 67% to around 70%.

Fantastic pedanticbetting, well done.

*bow*

Yes I should have said it saw record levels in home ownership.

Your exact words were that the "90s saw record home ownership gains".

Sorry to be a pedant.

I know, which is why I bowed before your pedantry.

This is pedanticbetting.com so absolutely such shouldn't slide. The 1990s saw record home ownership levels.

The 1990s saw the lowest levels on record unable to have their own home.

Better?

Malmesbury

williamglenn said:

Malmesbury said:

williamglenn said:

Malmesbury said:

Foxy said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

Pulpstar said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

kinabalu said:

twistedfirestopper3 said:

Just had coffee with an old mate. He's a proper time served chippy who has a great reputation and sub contracts out to the big local builders. The site he's on now has just got rid of most of its subs, including him ( he actually offered to go, he's well off enough to retire and was going to get off the tools next year anyway). The building firm are scaling back all their sites as they see a drastic drop in the number of buyers looming.
We've just made an offer on a house at 15% below the "Offers in excess of" price. The estate agent wasn't happy to take it to the seller, but the house has been on RightMove for ages, along with about half a million others! We're in no rush...

I'm sticking with my prediction. Property down 20% peak to trough in absolute terms.

You are such a gloom merchant

Indeed but for good reason.

A 50% trough would bring prices back in line better with historical standards and more like the much better 90s housing market that saw record numbers owning their own home, but unfortunately a 20% fall is about as good as we can hope for given the chronic shortage of housing.

50% would be catastrophic. How would people remortgage ? Everyone would be on about base +3 or 4 !

He doesn't care, in the same way as he didn't care about businesses that were fucked by Brexit and people that died in the pandemic. He is fundamentally a lazy selfish git.

I care about the people trapped unable to afford a house because of the absurdly high prices today. Which isn't me, I have one.

I couldn't care less if I end up in negative equity. Still better off than renting and it will make houses affordable for those younger and poorer than me. Good for them.

Those who remember negative equity in the nineties wouldn't be so glib.

What we need isn't so much a house price fall, it is for take home income to increase.

Perfect would be house prices to rise below the rate of increase in incomes (if any).

There's nothing perfect about a market in which prices never fall.

I mean in terms of letting the air out of the housing bubble without negative equity and people running around screaming.

People would be running around screaming about inflation anyway in your scenario and at the margins it would still mean some people would suffer financially.

Who would be suffering financially, if their house price goes up slowly or not at all?

CorrectHorseBat

The stock market went down by 20% last year. Why should elderly home owners be protected when young people have their costs jacked up?