Quick gig report for Sunil and TSE. Depeche Mode's set at the 02 was very similar to that in Budapest (I can't swear there were no differences, but I didn't notice any). However, the stage set is much better indoors than outdoors - the lighting at the 02 was quite magnificent, with effects that simply didn't work as well in Budapest. "Barrel Of A Gun", which is a song I've never been that struck on, stood out in this respect.
It was a great concert (again). I'm struck each time at how strong both Dave Gahan's and Martin Gore's voices are. For me, a lot of the new album holds up very well in comparison with the earlier material. "Goodbye" and "Soothe My Soul" in particular stand out. If Depeche Mode carry on touring - and I wonder whether this might be intended to be their last tour, given how much they return to their origins with this set list - they could well become staples.
I'm pretty certain that the dogs in the visual backdrop for "Precious" were filmed in Budapest about 400m from my flat there, and that my other half and I walked past as they were doing the filming in April.
Thanks antifrank, look forward to tonight, will look out for those dogs on the projection. Hope to give my own review when I get back!
Osborne’s sub-prime mortgage mistake When will they ever learn? Last week, in a Budget which can be praised for many of its pro-business measures, sat a poison pill which the more you look at it, the more toxic it appears.
I can't find the bit about where these loans are to people without jobs or don't have a 5% deposit.
Subprime or non-conforming issuance in the UK is roughly 8% of the £1.25 trillion outstanding mortgage debt or around £100 billion. So George Osborne’s big idea is to basically increase subprime issuance from around 8% of total lending to around 17%. That figure is pretty close to where the US market got to in 2006.
I get your Ronaldo related contingency example - but I don't follow the original logic of WHill: wouldn't that potentially make every accumulator a related contingency?
What's special about this one?
What special about this one is that the horse winning the first race means the price on him winning the second race must be wrong...ie a horse winning the guineas cannot really be 16/1 to win the derby anymore.
In a normal acca, if you or I were to back four horse to win for instance, and the first three came in, that would have no bearing on the likelihood of the fourth one copping.
Winning the Guineas does not have any impact on winning the Derby.
All winning the Guineas means is that he is a better horse than WmHill thought. It's not a related contingency - just highlights a mistake they made.
Winning the Guineas does not have any impact on winning the Derby.
Oh dear.
Off you toddle to William Hill and try to get a double on a team to win the Bundesliga and the Champions League while arguing the first has no impact on the second
With a football team I can see that it might have an impact via morale. Do horses really benefit statistically from one win in terms of future performance.
I'm not sayingthe bookies *won't* take it into account. I'm saying that it's illogical. But ultimately odds are about commercial pricing to generate a return for shareholders rather than anything else*
We can expect UKIP's share in opinion polls to fall back as the GE approaches, partly because of the impending real choice, and partly because of greater scrutiny and the inevitable risk of a misstep by UKIP over two years. At the moment it's a free kick to tell a pollster you'll vote UKIP, or to vote UKIP in a local election. It won't be a free kick in 2015, and that will (as always under FPTP) focus minds on the actual choice before voters.
The big question is whether that fallback in UKIP's support will be symmetrical. Will voters drift back to their 'home' parties in the same proportions as they drifted away from them? Or will there be a differenttial swingback because of the different motives of those who in 2010 voted Con, Lab or LD, but who now are telling pollsters they'll vote UKIP?
It's a very hard question to assess, but one which is crucial to guessing the likely outcome in 2015. Certainly it must be worrying to Labour that they are not picking up the mid-term protest votes which they might expect. As for the Conservatives, they are certainly rattled but they should have the hope that, on any rational basis, UKIP supporters who actuallly want to make a difference with their vote have a strong incentive to vote Tory, since anything else takes the country further towards everything they claim to be against. On the most central UKIP-related issue of all, an EU referendum, this could not be clearer.
Of course, voters aren't always rational, but we should watch out for signs in the polling which give us early clues as to how this is going to break.
The 125% loan deal ends at 2000 GMT The troubled Northern Rock bank is to stop offering its "Together" combined mortgage and loan deal.
The flagship offer from the bank will be closed from 2000 GMT.
The deal lets customers borrow up to 125% of the value of their homes and has been criticised for encouraging people to take on large debts."
"The Northern Rock's half-year accounts, published last year, suggested that about 24% of its 800,000 mortgage holders had taken out a Together mortgage."
"Typically lasting for two years, the popular deal allowed a home owner to have a 95% mortgage, with a further unsecured loan of up to 30% of the property's value"
"More than 12,000 Northern Rock customers handed 125 per cent mortgages have fallen behind with their monthly payments, figures showed yesterday, as the full scale of the bank's disastrous lending was disclosed."
You wouldn't know your sub prime from a filleted rump.
I get your Ronaldo related contingency example - but I don't follow the original logic of WHill: wouldn't that potentially make every accumulator a related contingency?
What's special about this one?
What special about this one is that the horse winning the first race means the price on him winning the second race must be wrong...ie a horse winning the guineas cannot really be 16/1 to win the derby anymore.
In a normal acca, if you or I were to back four horse to win for instance, and the first three came in, that would have no bearing on the likelihood of the fourth one copping.
Winning the Guineas does not have any impact on winning the Derby.
All winning the Guineas means is that he is a better horse than WmHill thought. It's not a related contingency - just highlights a mistake they made.
Winning the Guineas does not have any impact on winning the Derby.
Oh dear.
Off you toddle to William Hill and try to get a double on a team to win the Bundesliga and the Champions League while arguing the first has no impact on the second
With a football team I can see that it might have an impact via morale. Do horses really benefit statistically from one win in terms of future performance.
I'm not sayingthe bookies *won't* take it into account. I'm saying that it's illogical. But ultimately odds are about commercial pricing to generate a return for shareholders rather than anything else*
(*I have an indirect interest in Wm Hill shares)
If the horse is better than the bookie thought it was - as evidenced by winning the first race - then it will be more likely to win the second race too. Hence the two contingencies are related, and you can't multiply your winnings by combining the two bets.
William Hill messed up in accepting the bet in the first place, and in not noticing that they had messed up until far too late to back out of the bet without looking shifty. I guess that comes from cutting down on knowledgeable people in their business and relying on computers.
Osborne’s sub-prime mortgage mistake When will they ever learn? Last week, in a Budget which can be praised for many of its pro-business measures, sat a poison pill which the more you look at it, the more toxic it appears.
I can't find the bit about where these loans are to people without jobs or don't have a 5% deposit.
Subprime or non-conforming issuance in the UK is roughly 8% of the £1.25 trillion outstanding mortgage debt or around £100 billion. So George Osborne’s big idea is to basically increase subprime issuance from around 8% of total lending to around 17%. That figure is pretty close to where the US market got to in 2006.
I realise you want George Osborne to set the terms of the mortgage market with taxpayer subsidies to redefine subprime as "whatever George says it is"
You are equating people who can't get a loan now to those who could in 2007 ?
Seriously ?
In 2007 a friend of mine was dealing with a divorce. His client had £2.4m of loans secured on buy to let properties and an earned income of £40K a year. Of course the properties generated incomes by way of rent when let but he had obtained all his mortgages by self certification of his income.
I think it is fair to say that we are unlikley to get back into that scenario anytime soon.
The article that Tim refers to is truly bizarre. It assumes all of the loans in which the government are to be involved will be "subprime or non-conforming issuance". No basis at all is given for that assumption. The vast majority of those who benefit will have good, documented incomes but insufficient capital for the deposit. That is not sub-prime on any sensible definition of the word.
OT But this made me instantly think Ewwww. I don't have milk in my tea of any kind, but cow's milk doesn't provoke the same reaction in me at all. The idea of anyone but a baby human drinking human breast milk just feels wrong.
"The television presenter and singer told how her father used to enjoy his tea with a dash of breast milk – and she has now continued the Klass family tradition.
She has even offered her own milk to family and friends, she said.
"Come on, it's normal," she said. "I made everyone try mine. It tastes just like those probiotic yogurt drinks. Sweet – not as sweet as condensed milk.
"I grew up knowing that he did that so it's not weird to me. I sound like a happy-clappy hippy. Oh well, now you know. We're that kind of family."
IIRC, there was an attempt to open up an ice cream shop selling breast-milk based ice cream (in Covent Garden) a couple of years ago. Health & Safety issues got them down...
I found my reaction to the story really visceral. In the same way that most of us react to the idea of weaned children still breast-feeding. The idea of putting it in tea or making ice cream in preference to say cow's milk - and one making me recoil and the other not is quite a mental/logical puzzle - given cow's milk is clearly meant for baby cows not baby humans. Be interesting to know what causes it.
We can expect UKIP's share in opinion polls to fall back as the GE approaches, partly because of the impending real choice, and partly because of greater scrutiny and the inevitable risk of a misstep by UKIP over two years. At the moment it's a free kick to tell a pollster you'll vote UKIP, or to vote UKIP in a local election. It won't be a free kick in 2015, and that will (as always under FPTP) focus minds on the actual choice before voters.
The big question is whether that fallback in UKIP's support will be symmetrical. Will voters drift back to their 'home' parties in the same proportions as they drifted away from them? Or will there be a differenttial swingback because of the different motives of those who in 2010 voted Con, Lab or LD, but who now are telling pollsters they'll vote UKIP?
It's a very hard question to assess, but one which is crucial to guessing the likely outcome in 2015. Certainly it must be worrying to Labour that they are not picking up the mid-term protest votes which they might expect. As for the Conservatives, they are certainly rattled but they should have the hope that, on any rational basis, UKIP supporters who actuallly want to make a difference with their vote have a strong incentive to vote Tory, since anything else takes the country further towards everything they claim to be against. On the most central UKIP-related issue of all, an EU referendum, this could not be clearer.
Of course, voters aren't always rational, but we should watch out for signs in the polling which give us early clues as to how this is going to break.
I think that's a fair analysis from a Tory viewpoint - Labour is having to do without the midterm protest vote, and is just sitting on the ex-LibDem vote which came over in a flying leap pretty much the day after the coalition was formed. Fortunately that seems very solid - even more so than the traditional Labour vote, in fact. Some of the latter is vulnerable to UKIP, though arguably more so in the core Labour areas than the suburban marginals.
The snag about Richard's analysis is that UKIP is only superficially about a referendum (and anyway most people don't really believe that Cameron would actually call one unless there's a real treaty to vote on). UKIP is really about stuffing the traditional political class, and I'm not sure that any of us have a direct answer to that. However, it will probably decline in importance in the perceived marginal seats, where "get the Tories out" and "stop Labour" will become more salient in voters' minds as they get bombarded by the rival machines in those seats.
I think the Spectator is spectacularly missing the point. It is far better to have a slowdown now, when most of the world is recovering, rather than in the 2008-2010 period.
So tim - it's patently obvious that "subprime 2013" as you and these media thrushes are shrilly squawking about is a bazillion miles away from a high % of mortgages that the Labour government allowed to happen and 100 bazillion miles away from the worst end of the subprime market that happened in the Uk under Labour.
Some might say that you have been trying to spin up a storm - in a cold cup of tea - whilst forgetting that Labour rubbed it's hands at the fake GDP growth from the Hurricane Sandy of the mid noughties.
Facts are that mortage payback is exceeding lending - still - 5 years after the crash.
Hardly the time to panic about a few 95% mortgages to selected lenders.
This is the ridiculous immigration system that exists for Canadians and Americans eligible and wanting to come to the UK:
I went to drop off my four-inch-thick application earlier this week on the 25th floor of a tower block attached to the biggest mall in downtown Toronto. This is not the British High Commission but a US company called ‘World Bridge’ which specialises in faceless bureaucracy. The young woman who fingerprinted and photographed me explained how the system works.
‘We’re not allowed to give you any advice here,’ she said, ‘and we don’t have any influence over the outcome of your application. After you leave here we’re not supposed to see you again and if you’re rejected it has nothing to do with us.’
Is it possible, I wondered politely, to actually speak it someone who decides? I was hoping to explain to someone, in person, about my baby son and his medical treatment and our forced separation. I needed to explain how his dad, who works long hours at a newspaper, is now also a single father on evenings and weekends, and for who knows how long? And how I’d never spent a night — or even more than a couple of hours — apart from my son until now. I thought if I could do this it might help speed things up. The young woman smiled sympathetically and shook her head. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘you can only speak to me.’
‘And you have absolutely no power or influence whatsoever?’
People need to wake up and realise a good immigration policy is one that turns down the low-skilled or those that don't want to integrate, but can efficiently entice the more capable ones that want to fit in. Having Americans and Canadians, some of the people in the world that are the highest skilled and are highly culturally similar to us, have to deal with this appalling system is very wrong.
Just been catching up with Warehouse13 - what a load of cobblers that's turned into by S4. I've endured most of S4 over the BH and its morphed from novel sci-fi drama with a dash of comedy into something aimed at the teenage market with main characters that act like they're 16yrs old not in their late 20-50s.
I'm amazed a series can nose -dive so quickly. S1/2 were really rather good, S3 hmm - S4 is getting fastforwarded as mostly unwatchable. The obligatory 'lets do one set in 1940/shot in B&W with gumshoe characters' had me reaching for the Off button in seconds.
Am about start on Supernatural...
PS has Hannibal been cancelled? I haven't bothered after Epi 3 but haven't heard much about it at all despite a lot of launch publicity.
So tim - it's patently obvious that "subprime 2013" as you and these media thrushes are shrilly squawking about is a bazillion miles away from a high % of mortgages that the Labour government allowed to happen and 100 bazillion miles away from the worst end of the subprime market that happened in the Uk under Labour.
Some might say that you have been trying to spin up a storm - in a cold cup of tea - whilst forgetting that Labour rubbed it's hands at the fake GDP growth from the Hurricane Sandy of the mid noughties.
Facts are that mortage payback is exceeding lending - still - 5 years after the crash.
Hardly the time to panic about a few 95% mortgages to selected lenders.
The scheme hasn't started yet. But your delight in rents rising 10-20 times income and the subsequent rise in housing benefit is a delight
Subsidise that Buy To Let, let the market reign. LOL
Glad you are admitting that it is not sub prime lending - again.
Where's our favourite inept Tory spinner @AveryLP when you need him?
He was all over some obscure CBI press release yesterday. Did he post this one from this morning?
Retail sales fell at their fastest rate in more than a year in May, according to the CBI’s latest monthly Distributive Trades Survey. The survey of 69 retailing firms saw the steepest fall in annual sales since January last year – showing growth in retail activity has weakened persistently during 2013. Overall sales volumes remained below average for the time of year and orders fell faster than at any point since November 2011.
Really interesting thread. I had not appreciated just how much ground Labour was losing, probably because of the Yougov nonsense.
UKIP supporters rightly feel pretty chuffed on this thread but they should be careful what they wish for. The polling makes it clear that they are having some success in winning votes from Labour but the risk from their point of view is that they start to even out their support in a way that is consistent with the seat analyses which show them getting no seats even at the very high teens. Under FPTP they would do much better if their support was concentrated and they were doing more damage to one of the main parties than the other.
I think their success is still largely NOTA. UKIP does not seem to me to have any credible platform or policies (in fairness nor does HM's Loyal Opposition), rather a set of prejudices and slogans. Given the inevitable disillusionment with politics that has accompanied the gradual return to the real world from Brown's fantasy grotto with 5 years of falling living standards so far this has got them a long way but there must be a limit and we may now be seeing it.
Can UKIP move to the next level? I doubt it because it is a lot easier to be against, well almost everything, than to be for things. Ask Ed. They have a chance but they should not underestimate how hard this will be with some supporters being lost along the way.
Oh dear has CCHQ not updated their anti UKIP propaganda? As anyone with any common sense at all would realise the use of election projections which use UNS is made obsolete by the arrival of a party on the scene who for the first time are polling significant vote shares. The model simply just cannopt cater for it becuase it has no previous data to work on. Sea changes in voter behaviour within areas like we are currently seeing cannot be coped with by such models.
Furthermore, In case some people had their heads in the sand throughout the whole of the county council election period it is clear that UKIP support is concentrated along the Eastern Coastal region with a few concentrations around local issues (such as HS2) elsewhere. As a result the pollster Survation theorised that if such vote shares were returned at a general election UKIP would have won 10 or so constituencies and thats not including those where potentially they would be in a two or thrree way marginal fight (e.g. there are three potential marginal fights in Kent alone on top of the three seats where they are arguably ahead)
Now it could be UKIP do fallback and have a relatively poor election. On the other hand given the poor state of the major parties all of whom seem to be generally held in disdain by the electorate and the fact that there are clear centres of support for UKIP now that they can breakthrough and win some seats/ How many they can win rrally depends on how good or bad the politics of each of the parties between now and the election. If the major parties performances continue to be as poor as they have been so far then UKIP within the limitations of their situation (they will not win a large number of seats) should do very well.
I get your Ronaldo related contingency example - but I don't follow the original logic of WHill: wouldn't that potentially make every accumulator a related contingency?
What's special about this one?
What special about this one is that the horse winning the first race means the price on him winning the second race must be wrong...ie a horse winning the guineas cannot really be 16/1 to win the derby anymore.
In a normal acca, if you or I were to back four horse to win for instance, and the first three came in, that would have no bearing on the likelihood of the fourth one copping.
Winning the Guineas does not have any impact on winning the Derby.
All winning the Guineas means is that he is a better horse than WmHill thought. It's not a related contingency - just highlights a mistake they made.
Winning the Guineas does not have any impact on winning the Derby.
Oh dear.
Off you toddle to William Hill and try to get a double on a team to win the Bundesliga and the Champions League while arguing the first has no impact on the second
With a football team I can see that it might have an impact via morale. Do horses really benefit statistically from one win in terms of future performance.
I'm not sayingthe bookies *won't* take it into account. I'm saying that it's illogical. But ultimately odds are about commercial pricing to generate a return for shareholders rather than anything else*
(*I have an indirect interest in Wm Hill shares)
If the horse is better than the bookie thought it was - as evidenced by winning the first race - then it will be more likely to win the second race too. Hence the two contingencies are related, and you can't multiply your winnings by combining the two bets.
And that's what I'm struggling with.
All the first race has done is surfaced a mistake that the bookie made. Nothing fundamental has changed - just the punter was right and the bookie wrong. Effectively in calling this a related contigency, the bookie is arguing that it gets to reset prices at will,
Why do you assume that an increase in demand will not be met with an increase in supply? I think it is very likely indeed that this policy will encourage housebuilders to restart the sort of speculative building they have been avoiding since 2008. We have agreed in the past that that would be a good thing for the economy now and also in the long term in meeting a need that is not being met at the moment.
If all this policy does is increase the price of the existing housing stock it will have helped a relatively small number of people but it will not have been a good use of resources. If it encourages builders to build it will be very worthwhile for all of us.
In either scenario the risk to the taxpayer is small. If no new houses are built a reduction in house prices resulting in losses on default is very unlikely. If lots of new houses are built it will take a long time for the unmet demand to be fulfilled and for there to be a general reduction in house prices. At best the rate of increase is likely to be reduced. The addition of new build should also take some of the pressure off the to let market and reduce the upward pressure on HB.
This policy delivers much of what you were arguing for before the budget. I suspect your opposition now is more politically than economically motivated.
It is noticeable that the collapse precipitated by Northern Rock was not one of "casino bankers" with big bonuses, but plain old high street retail banking being run by idiots.
Do not loan money to people who cannot pay it back!
Osbornes scheme is one not dissimilar to the small deposit insurance that I took out on my first house in 1992. I could not raise more than 5% of the deposit required, so had to pay a stiff supplement to bridge to a 20% deposit required. This was after the price crash of 1990 so a rather nervous housing market.
The 125% loan deal ends at 2000 GMT The troubled Northern Rock bank is to stop offering its "Together" combined mortgage and loan deal.
The flagship offer from the bank will be closed from 2000 GMT.
The deal lets customers borrow up to 125% of the value of their homes and has been criticised for encouraging people to take on large debts."
"The Northern Rock's half-year accounts, published last year, suggested that about 24% of its 800,000 mortgage holders had taken out a Together mortgage."
"Typically lasting for two years, the popular deal allowed a home owner to have a 95% mortgage, with a further unsecured loan of up to 30% of the property's value"
"More than 12,000 Northern Rock customers handed 125 per cent mortgages have fallen behind with their monthly payments, figures showed yesterday, as the full scale of the bank's disastrous lending was disclosed."
You wouldn't know your sub prime from a filleted rump.
" if he threatens to “retaliate” against its introduction by pushing through a mansion tax, he will not only destroy his own credibility, he will destroy the credibility of the whole concept of coalition government. And without the prospect of a coalition, Nick Clegg and his party are nothing."
It seems that a significant number of Labour supporters are switching to UKIP.
Perhaps these former Labour supporters are just very anti Conservative and feel that UKIP are more agresssively anti Conservative than Labour are.
Plenty of people are strongly anti Conservative, including some ex Lib Dems who resented going into coalition with the Conservatives and resigned party membership. My suggestion is that such people will cast the most anti Conservative vote, which some media coverage suggests is UKIP.
Who knows where they will go, they might stay at home, but Dave is a net drag on the Tory ticket when it comes to winning them over. I was a bit surprised by those figures but they tie in to this pensioner distaste for Cameron.
I think that is another way of saying what I'm saying, namely that the motives of UKIP supporters who are ex-Labour or ex-LD voters are different to those of ex-Tory voters. The figures you quote might simply reflect a wish by the ex-Tory voters to push Cameron rightwards (loosely speaking). They don't care about Miliband because that isn't what they are focusing on at the moment, and in any case by Labour standards he seems fairly innocuous. To the extent that they don't get their way in pushing Cameron rightwards, will they throw their toys out of the pram and help elect an even less amenable PM? Clearly some will, but many won't.
In a way that is the easy bit - the harder bit is assessing the likely behaviour of the ex-Labour and ex-LD voters who currently say they support UKIP.
Really interesting thread. I had not appreciated just how much ground Labour was losing, probably because of the Yougov nonsense.
UKIP supporters rightly feel pretty chuffed on this thread but they should be careful what they wish for. The polling makes it clear that they are having some success in winning votes from Labour but the risk from their point of view is that they start to even out their support in a way that is consistent with the seat analyses which show them getting no seats even at the very high teens. Under FPTP they would do much better if their support was concentrated and they were doing more damage to one of the main parties than the other.
I think their success is still largely NOTA. UKIP does not seem to me to have any credible platform or policies (in fairness nor does HM's Loyal Opposition), rather a set of prejudices and slogans. Given the inevitable disillusionment with politics that has accompanied the gradual return to the real world from Brown's fantasy grotto with 5 years of falling living standards so far this has got them a long way but there must be a limit and we may now be seeing it.
Can UKIP move to the next level? I doubt it because it is a lot easier to be against, well almost everything, than to be for things. Ask Ed. They have a chance but they should not underestimate how hard this will be with some supporters being lost along the way.
Oh dear has CCHQ not updated their anti UKIP propaganda? As anyone with any common sense at all would realise the use of election projections which use UNS is made obsolete by the arrival of a party on the scene who for the first time are polling significant vote shares. The model simply just cannopt cater for it becuase it has no previous data to work on. Sea changes in voter behaviour within areas like we are currently seeing cannot be coped with by such models.
Furthermore, In case some people had their heads in the sand throughout the whole of the county council election period it is clear that UKIP support is concentrated along the Eastern Coastal region with a few concentrations around local issues (such as HS2) elsewhere. As a result the pollster Survation theorised that if such vote shares were returned at a general election UKIP would have won 10 or so constituencies and thats not including those where potentially they would be in a two or thrree way marginal fight (e.g. there are three potential marginal fights in Kent alone on top of the three seats where they are arguably ahead)
Now it could be UKIP do fallback and have a relatively poor election. On the other hand given the poor state of the major parties all of whom seem to be generally held in disdain by the electorate and the fact that there are clear centres of support for UKIP now that they can breakthrough and win some seats/ How many they can win rrally depends on how good or bad the politics of each of the parties between now and the election. If the major parties performances continue to be as poor as they have been so far then UKIP within the limitations of their situation (they will not win a large number of seats) should do very well.
Not sure I understand the reference to CCHQ, I am not a member of the Conservative party, but I actually agree with almost all of that. The locals did point to areas of concentration of UKIP support which give them a chance of seats. The point I was making is that the current polling shows that UKIP is spreading its support from disillusioned tories to disillusioned Labour supporters, particularly amongst the WWC. That is very likely to increase votes but not seats.
As a former member of the SDP I would warn you that a new party with limited resources can spread their efforts too far and fall well short of what that support should earn. That is all I was saying.
I get your Ronaldo related contingency example - but I don't follow the original logic of WHill: wouldn't that potentially make every accumulator a related contingency?
What's special about this one?
What special about this one is that the horse winning the first race means the price on him winning the second race must be wrong...ie a horse winning the guineas cannot really be 16/1 to win the derby anymore.
In a normal acca, if you or I were to back four horse to win for instance, and the first three came in, that would have no bearing on the likelihood of the fourth one copping.
Winning the Guineas does not have any impact on winning the Derby.
All winning the Guineas means is that he is a better horse than WmHill thought. It's not a related contingency - just highlights a mistake they made.
Winning the Guineas does not have any impact on winning the Derby.
Oh dear.
Off you toddle to William Hill and try to get a double on a team to win the Bundesliga and the Champions League while arguing the first has no impact on the second
With a football team I can see that it might have an impact via morale. Do horses really benefit statistically from one win in terms of future performance.
I'm not sayingthe bookies *won't* take it into account. I'm saying that it's illogical. But ultimately odds are about commercial pricing to generate a return for shareholders rather than anything else*
(*I have an indirect interest in Wm Hill shares)
If the horse is better than the bookie thought it was - as evidenced by winning the first race - then it will be more likely to win the second race too. Hence the two contingencies are related, and you can't multiply your winnings by combining the two bets.
And that's what I'm struggling with.
All the first race has done is surfaced a mistake that the bookie made. Nothing fundamental has changed - just the punter was right and the bookie wrong. Effectively in calling this a related contigency, the bookie is arguing that it gets to reset prices at will,
If he had placed separate bets at the original prices he would still be benefiting from the mistake the bookie had made, and revealed by the first race, and the bookie would not be changing the terms of the second bet. So the bookie is not changing prices at will.
This is purely about it being an accumulator bet. For an accumulator bet the events have to be independent.
You could think of it as for each part of the accumulator to be value, the bookie has to make separate mistakes in the pricing of the odds.
With this accumulator the bookie has made only one mistake, on the quality of this particular horse. Whereas, with an accumulator involving different horses, there would be two separate mistakes with two separate horses.
In a sense you are right, I'm in favour of massive state leveraged investment in the new build supply side of the housing market. to reduce benefit spending, and exert downward pressure on rents and inflation
George has just used the money for demand side extended it away from new build into buy to let and remortgaging to increase benefit spending and exert upward pressure on rents and inflation.
With his history it's no surprise he got it totally wrong.
By "supply side" I take it you mean that the government should do the building in the public sector? There is an argument for some of that, particularly when the government can borrow so cheaply, but the deficit is just too high. Perhaps if we had gone into this after several years of surplus that would have been an option...
The more traditional meaning of "supply side" would be the steps the government has taken to remove obstructions in the market such as over tight planning restrictions, NIMBYism and of course the supply of credit. That is what Osborne is doing and it will add a tiny fraction to the deficit that public sector building would. He is thus hoping to get a very large bang for some pretty small bucks.
And the cheapest and quickest way of getting more stock onto the market would be to slash VAT on repairs and improvements. But that's Balls' idea so Osborne won't do it.
Balls seems to have forgotten about that idea, instead he's pushing a cut in the main VAT rate, which is a ludicrously expensive way of gettting a tiny smidgen of extra growth and which disproprtionately favours imports.
If I was Nick Clegg I would shoot myself be very concerned that 30% of the band of brothers still hanging in there still seem to have no confidence that he would be any use and that we need Cameron here just in case the police investigation with the perpetrators in custody throws up something significant.
Why do you assume that an increase in demand will not be met with an increase in supply? I think it is very likely indeed that this policy will encourage housebuilders to restart the sort of speculative building they have been avoiding since 2008.
Why would housebuilders build enough houses that it reduced the price of houses?
They would only do this if they were convinced that if they did not build houses their competitors would, and so house prices would be going down anyway.
Since housebuilders have collectively reduced house-building so that a restriction in supply has helped to keep prices from falling, we can conclude that there is not an effective market in house-building.
Without an effective market in house-building increasing demand for buying houses is only going to increase prices.
We have to tackle the issue of why there is not an effective market for housebuilding. Some people will claim this is because of restrictive planning laws. Other people will point to the large landbanks owned by the major development companies.
Both of these plausible explanations will enable a small number of builders to dominate the market, and make it difficult for new entrants to the market to compete. There may be other reasons, of course.
The government can do one of two things. It can reform the market to make it easier for new entrants to compete with the established players, therefore increasing supply and reducing prices.
Or it can decide that it needs to step in as a competitor of last resort, and commission the building of houses directly. It might do this if it believed that reforming the market alone would take too long to have a beneficial effect.
Instead it has chosen to put more money into the mortgage market so that the value of swing voter's houses will rise, in the hope that they will vote Conservative in thanks.
It's interesting that from 1993-1997 the economy in general was doing pretty well, but house prices didn't start to rise again until about 1997. Perhaps Osborne has concluded that house price inflation wins elections rather more than sober stewardship of the economy in general.
By "supply side" I take it you mean that the government should do the building in the public sector?
No, a mix.
And the cheapest and quickest way of getting more stock onto the market would be to slash VAT on repairs and improvements. But that's Balls' idea so Osborne won't do it.
As for the planning changes, what difference have they actually made? Last i heard the idiots were mired in supersized conservatories
In fairness cutting VAT on repairs and especially improvements actually struck me as a good idea, certainly much better than a general cut in VAT which was a waste of money.
Housebuilders are currently sitting on very high numbers of current consents for housebuilding. This means that they can act fast if they are given the incentive to do so. I would hope we would see evidence of that by the autumn.
Why do you assume that an increase in demand will not be met with an increase in supply? I think it is very likely indeed that this policy will encourage housebuilders to restart the sort of speculative building they have been avoiding since 2008.
Why would housebuilders build enough houses that it reduced the price of houses?
They would only do this if they were convinced that if they did not build houses their competitors would, and so house prices would be going down anyway.
Since housebuilders have collectively reduced house-building so that a restriction in supply has helped to keep prices from falling, we can conclude that there is not an effective market in house-building.
Without an effective market in house-building increasing demand for buying houses is only going to increase prices.
We have to tackle the issue of why there is not an effective market for housebuilding. Some people will claim this is because of restrictive planning laws. Other people will point to the large landbanks owned by the major development companies.
Both of these plausible explanations will enable a small number of builders to dominate the market, and make it difficult for new entrants to the market to compete. There may be other reasons, of course.
The government can do one of two things. It can reform the market to make it easier for new entrants to compete with the established players, therefore increasing supply and reducing prices.
Or it can decide that it needs to step in as a competitor of last resort, and commission the building of houses directly. It might do this if it believed that reforming the market alone would take too long to have a beneficial effect.
Instead it has chosen to put more money into the mortgage market so that the value of swing voter's houses will rise, in the hope that they will vote Conservative in thanks.
It's interesting that from 1993-1997 the economy in general was doing pretty well, but house prices didn't start to rise again until about 1997. Perhaps Osborne has concluded that house price inflation wins elections rather more than sober stewardship of the economy in general.
This is basic economics. We have had 5 years now of low levels of private housebuilding. During that time our population has continued to grow and family disintegration has continued creating a greater demand for individual housing units. This unmet demand will take a long time to meet. So house prices will not be reduced by new build for a considerable time. It is certainly not something for builders sitting on land with planning consent right now to worry about. What they build will be long sold before the market is saturated.
The biggest restraint on demand is the lack of credit. This is what Osborne is seeking to address at the margins in the hope that by doing so confidence in the housing market will increase releasing more credit for all.
There are issues about large builder sitting on very large land banks and it may be that some government intervention is called for there if these large builders continue to sit on their hands.
I get your Ronaldo related contingency example - but I don't follow the original logic of WHill: wouldn't that potentially make every accumulator a related contingency?
What's special about this one?
What special about this one is that the horse winning the first race means the price on him winning the second race must be wrong...ie a horse winning the guineas cannot really be 16/1 to win the derby anymore.
In a normal acca, if you or I were to back four horse to win for instance, and the first three came in, that would have no bearing on the likelihood of the fourth one copping.
Winning the Guineas does not have any impact on winning the Derby.
All winning the Guineas means is that he is a better horse than WmHill thought. It's not a related contingency - just highlights a mistake they made.
Winning the Guineas does not have any impact on winning the Derby.
Oh dear.
Off you toddle to William Hill and try to get a double on a team to win the Bundesliga and the Champions League while arguing the first has no impact on the second
With a football team I can see that it might have an impact via morale. Do horses really benefit statistically from one win in terms of future performance.
I'm not sayingthe bookies *won't* take it into account. I'm saying that it's illogical. But ultimately odds are about commercial pricing to generate a return for shareholders rather than anything else*
(*I have an indirect interest in Wm Hill shares)
If the horse is better than the bookie thought it was - as evidenced by winning the first race - then it will be more likely to win the second race too. Hence the two contingencies are related, and you can't multiply your winnings by combining the two bets.
William Hill messed up in accepting the bet in the first place, and in not noticing that they had messed up until far too late to back out of the bet without looking shifty. I guess that comes from cutting down on knowledgeable people in their business and relying on computers.
Regarding housing as the solution to all economic woes. The trouble is you can only do so much of it..
The replacement rate is every 70-100 years. So the multiplier is very poor. It is a one off victory. The investment should be in replaceable products so that we get continual return business. Ironically that is why financial services are so good - each month we all shlep out money for insurance, mortgage etc etc. The trouble is that industry generates low value added jobs.
Germany, for all its success, has this problem with cars as an economic staple, where the life expectancy of the product is getting longer and longer, but at least you are talking about 5 years before you buy a new one. And at least people are buying new, where as with houses it is largely a "used" market.
We are searching a sector with high value add and high repeat purchase. Ideas on a postcard to G Osborne 11 Downing Street, cc V Cable, J Wheatley.
In a further irony, the Housing Minister after whom I take my moniker (Labour Govt 1924) was the only success in that government - and he made his name by sorting out house building - council houses though
In a sense you are right, I'm in favour of massive state leveraged investment in the new build supply side of the housing market. to reduce benefit spending, and exert downward pressure on rents and inflation
George has just used the money for demand side extended it away from new build into buy to let and remortgaging to increase benefit spending and exert upward pressure on rents and inflation.
With his history it's no surprise he got it totally wrong.
More bunkum, tim. And for the umpteenth time...
Eligibility for The 'Help to Buy' Mortgage Guarantee Scheme
The scheme is designed to help creditworthy households struggling to save for the high mortgage deposits required by lenders in the current environment. For this reason, a mortgage eligible for a guarantee under the scheme will need to:
• be a residential mortgage, and not buy-to-let;
• be taken out by an individual or individuals rather than an incorporated company;
• be on a property in the UK with purchase value of £600,000 or less;
• have a loan-to-value of between 80 per cent and 95 per cent;
• be originated between the dates specified by the scheme;
• be a repayment mortgage, and not interest-only; and
• meet certain minimum requirements in terms of the assessment of the borrower’s ability to pay the mortgage, for example a loan-to-income and credit score test.
Note particularly that the scheme iexpressly excludes buy-to-let purchases.
Note too that loans will only be provided to borrowers who meet normal credit risk criteria: i.e. these are not 'sub-prime loans'.
Regarding housing as the solution to all economic woes. The trouble is you can only do so much of it..
The replacement rate is every 70-100 years. So the multiplier is very poor. It is a one off victory. The investment should be in replaceable products so that we get continual return business. Ironically that is why financial services are so good - each month we all shlep out money for insurance, mortgage etc etc. The trouble is that industry generates low value added jobs.
Germany, for all its success, has this problem with cars as an economic staple, where the life expectancy of the product is getting longer and longer, but at least you are talking about 5 years before you buy a new one. And at least people are buying new, where as with houses it is largely a "used" market.
We are searching a sector with high value add and high repeat purchase. Ideas on a postcard to G Osborne 11 Downing Street, cc V Cable, J Wheatley.
In a further irony, the Housing Minister after whom I take my moniker (Labour Govt 1924) was the only success in that government - and he made his name by sorting out house building - council houses though
We can invest in new right wing parties of political protest, John.
A new one seems to pop up every five years or so and then disappear into the annals of psephological history.
Where's our favourite inept Tory spinner @AveryLP when you need him?
He was all over some obscure CBI press release yesterday. Did he post this one from this morning?
Retail sales fell at their fastest rate in more than a year in May, according to the CBI’s latest monthly Distributive Trades Survey. The survey of 69 retailing firms saw the steepest fall in annual sales since January last year – showing growth in retail activity has weakened persistently during 2013. Overall sales volumes remained below average for the time of year and orders fell faster than at any point since November 2011.
Surprising figures so soon in the recovery cycle, but it does look like Osborne is managing to achieve his goal of moving the economy away from demand driven consumption dependency.
Regarding housing as the solution to all economic woes. The trouble is you can only do so much of it..
The replacement rate is every 70-100 years. So the multiplier is very poor. It is a one off victory. The investment should be in replaceable products so that we get continual return business. Ironically that is why financial services are so good - each month we all shlep out money for insurance, mortgage etc etc. The trouble is that industry generates low value added jobs.
Germany, for all its success, has this problem with cars as an economic staple, where the life expectancy of the product is getting longer and longer, but at least you are talking about 5 years before you buy a new one. And at least people are buying new, where as with houses it is largely a "used" market.
We are searching a sector with high value add and high repeat purchase. Ideas on a postcard to G Osborne 11 Downing Street, cc V Cable, J Wheatley.
In a further irony, the Housing Minister after whom I take my moniker (Labour Govt 1924) was the only success in that government - and he made his name by sorting out house building - council houses though
We can invest in new right wing parties of political protest, John.
A new one seems to pop up every five years or so and then disappear into the annals of psephological history.
Another outright lie! When was the last time a RIGHT wing party started polling 20% of votes. The Greens perhaps, or the SDP - great right wing parties. Puerile nonsense.
The article outlines why Osborne appointed him. This stood out.
Canadians are allowed to borrow against their pension and life policies to fund deposits on houses. Even credit cards can be used to finance downpayments.
Comments
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/statistics/Pages/hew/2012/dec/default.aspx
Don't look at 2005- 2008 - those figures for the time under Gordon Brown must be wrong.
Seriously ?
I'm not sayingthe bookies *won't* take it into account. I'm saying that it's illogical. But ultimately odds are about commercial pricing to generate a return for shareholders rather than anything else*
(*I have an indirect interest in Wm Hill shares)
We can expect UKIP's share in opinion polls to fall back as the GE approaches, partly because of the impending real choice, and partly because of greater scrutiny and the inevitable risk of a misstep by UKIP over two years. At the moment it's a free kick to tell a pollster you'll vote UKIP, or to vote UKIP in a local election. It won't be a free kick in 2015, and that will (as always under FPTP) focus minds on the actual choice before voters.
The big question is whether that fallback in UKIP's support will be symmetrical. Will voters drift back to their 'home' parties in the same proportions as they drifted away from them? Or will there be a differenttial swingback because of the different motives of those who in 2010 voted Con, Lab or LD, but who now are telling pollsters they'll vote UKIP?
It's a very hard question to assess, but one which is crucial to guessing the likely outcome in 2015. Certainly it must be worrying to Labour that they are not picking up the mid-term protest votes which they might expect. As for the Conservatives, they are certainly rattled but they should have the hope that, on any rational basis, UKIP supporters who actuallly want to make a difference with their vote have a strong incentive to vote Tory, since anything else takes the country further towards everything they claim to be against. On the most central UKIP-related issue of all, an EU referendum, this could not be clearer.
Of course, voters aren't always rational, but we should watch out for signs in the polling which give us early clues as to how this is going to break.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7256903.stm
"Northern Rock ends 125% mortgage
The 125% loan deal ends at 2000 GMT
The troubled Northern Rock bank is to stop offering its "Together" combined mortgage and loan deal.
The flagship offer from the bank will be closed from 2000 GMT.
The deal lets customers borrow up to 125% of the value of their homes and has been criticised for encouraging people to take on large debts."
"The Northern Rock's half-year accounts, published last year, suggested that about 24% of its 800,000 mortgage holders had taken out a Together mortgage."
"Typically lasting for two years, the popular deal allowed a home owner to have a 95% mortgage, with a further unsecured loan of up to 30% of the property's value"
2009 - post Brown fall out.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/borrowing/mortgages/5973130/More-than-12000-Northern-Rock-125pc-mortgage-borrowers-in-arrears.html
"More than 12,000 Northern Rock customers handed 125 per cent mortgages have fallen behind with their monthly payments, figures showed yesterday, as the full scale of the bank's disastrous lending was disclosed."
You wouldn't know your sub prime from a filleted rump.
William Hill messed up in accepting the bet in the first place, and in not noticing that they had messed up until far too late to back out of the bet without looking shifty. I guess that comes from cutting down on knowledgeable people in their business and relying on computers.
I think it is fair to say that we are unlikley to get back into that scenario anytime soon.
The article that Tim refers to is truly bizarre. It assumes all of the loans in which the government are to be involved will be "subprime or non-conforming issuance". No basis at all is given for that assumption. The vast majority of those who benefit will have good, documented incomes but insufficient capital for the deposit. That is not sub-prime on any sensible definition of the word.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8915931/why-mark-carneys-canadian-success-story-may-be-about-to-fall-apart/
The snag about Richard's analysis is that UKIP is only superficially about a referendum (and anyway most people don't really believe that Cameron would actually call one unless there's a real treaty to vote on). UKIP is really about stuffing the traditional political class, and I'm not sure that any of us have a direct answer to that. However, it will probably decline in importance in the perceived marginal seats, where "get the Tories out" and "stop Labour" will become more salient in voters' minds as they get bombarded by the rival machines in those seats.
Some might say that you have been trying to spin up a storm - in a cold cup of tea - whilst forgetting that Labour rubbed it's hands at the fake GDP growth from the Hurricane Sandy of the mid noughties.
Facts are that mortage payback is exceeding lending - still - 5 years after the crash.
Hardly the time to panic about a few 95% mortgages to selected lenders.
I went to drop off my four-inch-thick application earlier this week on the 25th floor of a tower block attached to the biggest mall in downtown Toronto. This is not the British High Commission but a US company called ‘World Bridge’ which specialises in faceless bureaucracy. The young woman who fingerprinted and photographed me explained how the system works.
‘We’re not allowed to give you any advice here,’ she said, ‘and we don’t have any influence over the outcome of your application. After you leave here we’re not supposed to see you again and if you’re rejected it has nothing to do with us.’
Is it possible, I wondered politely, to actually speak it someone who decides? I was hoping to explain to someone, in person, about my baby son and his medical treatment and our forced separation. I needed to explain how his dad, who works long hours at a newspaper, is now also a single father on evenings and weekends, and for who knows how long? And how I’d never spent a night — or even more than a couple of hours — apart from my son until now. I thought if I could do this it might help speed things up. The young woman smiled sympathetically and shook her head. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘you can only speak to me.’
‘And you have absolutely no power or influence whatsoever?’
‘That’s right.’
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8895331/fortress-britain/
People need to wake up and realise a good immigration policy is one that turns down the low-skilled or those that don't want to integrate, but can efficiently entice the more capable ones that want to fit in. Having Americans and Canadians, some of the people in the world that are the highest skilled and are highly culturally similar to us, have to deal with this appalling system is very wrong.
Just been catching up with Warehouse13 - what a load of cobblers that's turned into by S4. I've endured most of S4 over the BH and its morphed from novel sci-fi drama with a dash of comedy into something aimed at the teenage market with main characters that act like they're 16yrs old not in their late 20-50s.
I'm amazed a series can nose -dive so quickly. S1/2 were really rather good, S3 hmm - S4 is getting fastforwarded as mostly unwatchable. The obligatory 'lets do one set in 1940/shot in B&W with gumshoe characters' had me reaching for the Off button in seconds.
Am about start on Supernatural...
PS has Hannibal been cancelled? I haven't bothered after Epi 3 but haven't heard much about it at all despite a lot of launch publicity.
Cheers.
He was all over some obscure CBI press release yesterday. Did he post this one from this morning? http://www.cbi.org.uk/media-centre/press-releases/2013/05/retail-sales-fall-at-their-fastest-rate-for-13-months-cbi/
Furthermore, In case some people had their heads in the sand throughout the whole of the county council election period it is clear that UKIP support is concentrated along the Eastern Coastal region with a few concentrations around local issues (such as HS2) elsewhere. As a result the pollster Survation theorised that if such vote shares were returned at a general election UKIP would have won 10 or so constituencies and thats not including those where potentially they would be in a two or thrree way marginal fight (e.g. there are three potential marginal fights in Kent alone on top of the three seats where they are arguably ahead)
Now it could be UKIP do fallback and have a relatively poor election. On the other hand given the poor state of the major parties all of whom seem to be generally held in disdain by the electorate and the fact that there are clear centres of support for UKIP now that they can breakthrough and win some seats/ How many they can win rrally depends on how good or bad the politics of each of the parties between now and the election. If the major parties performances continue to be as poor as they have been so far then UKIP within the limitations of their situation (they will not win a large number of seats) should do very well.
All the first race has done is surfaced a mistake that the bookie made. Nothing fundamental has changed - just the punter was right and the bookie wrong. Effectively in calling this a related contigency, the bookie is arguing that it gets to reset prices at will,
Why do you assume that an increase in demand will not be met with an increase in supply? I think it is very likely indeed that this policy will encourage housebuilders to restart the sort of speculative building they have been avoiding since 2008. We have agreed in the past that that would be a good thing for the economy now and also in the long term in meeting a need that is not being met at the moment.
If all this policy does is increase the price of the existing housing stock it will have helped a relatively small number of people but it will not have been a good use of resources. If it encourages builders to build it will be very worthwhile for all of us.
In either scenario the risk to the taxpayer is small. If no new houses are built a reduction in house prices resulting in losses on default is very unlikely. If lots of new houses are built it will take a long time for the unmet demand to be fulfilled and for there to be a general reduction in house prices. At best the rate of increase is likely to be reduced. The addition of new build should also take some of the pressure off the to let market and reduce the upward pressure on HB.
This policy delivers much of what you were arguing for before the budget. I suspect your opposition now is more politically than economically motivated.
http://survation.com/2013/05/ukip-won-in-8-westminster-constituencies-last-thursday/
Do not loan money to people who cannot pay it back!
Osbornes scheme is one not dissimilar to the small deposit insurance that I took out on my first house in 1992. I could not raise more than 5% of the deposit required, so had to pay a stiff supplement to bridge to a 20% deposit required. This was after the price crash of 1990 so a rather nervous housing market.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100219104/the-lib-dems-are-playing-games-with-anti-terror-laws-they-need-to-act-like-statesmen-not-highwaymen/
" if he threatens to “retaliate” against its introduction by pushing through a mansion tax, he will not only destroy his own credibility, he will destroy the credibility of the whole concept of coalition government. And without the prospect of a coalition, Nick Clegg and his party are nothing."
Perhaps these former Labour supporters are just very anti Conservative and feel that UKIP are more agresssively anti Conservative than Labour are.
Plenty of people are strongly anti Conservative, including some ex Lib Dems who resented going into coalition with the Conservatives and resigned party membership. My suggestion is that such people will cast the most anti Conservative vote, which some media coverage suggests is UKIP.
In a way that is the easy bit - the harder bit is assessing the likely behaviour of the ex-Labour and ex-LD voters who currently say they support UKIP.
As a former member of the SDP I would warn you that a new party with limited resources can spread their efforts too far and fall well short of what that support should earn. That is all I was saying.
I didn't realise you were a Paulista on the inflation issue.
This is purely about it being an accumulator bet. For an accumulator bet the events have to be independent.
You could think of it as for each part of the accumulator to be value, the bookie has to make separate mistakes in the pricing of the odds.
With this accumulator the bookie has made only one mistake, on the quality of this particular horse. Whereas, with an accumulator involving different horses, there would be two separate mistakes with two separate horses.
@DPJHodges: RT @WillHeaven: .@YouGov poll shows majority of voters approve of Cameron's Ibiza holiday http://bit.ly/1axZ8oQ
Oh
The more traditional meaning of "supply side" would be the steps the government has taken to remove obstructions in the market such as over tight planning restrictions, NIMBYism and of course the supply of credit. That is what Osborne is doing and it will add a tiny fraction to the deficit that public sector building would. He is thus hoping to get a very large bang for some pretty small bucks.
The graphs sort of fit with anecdote. Two of my brothers who were labour voters but socially more conservative have switched to UKIP.
At the moment, UKIP are filling a gap for some tribal Labour voters.
I expect some to switch back before the GE, but once they are out of the habit of voting Labour, some will just abstain
would shoot myselfbe very concerned that 30% of the band of brothers still hanging in there still seem to have no confidence that he would be any use and that we need Cameron here just in case the police investigation with the perpetrators in custody throws up something significant.They would only do this if they were convinced that if they did not build houses their competitors would, and so house prices would be going down anyway.
Since housebuilders have collectively reduced house-building so that a restriction in supply has helped to keep prices from falling, we can conclude that there is not an effective market in house-building.
Without an effective market in house-building increasing demand for buying houses is only going to increase prices.
We have to tackle the issue of why there is not an effective market for housebuilding. Some people will claim this is because of restrictive planning laws. Other people will point to the large landbanks owned by the major development companies.
Both of these plausible explanations will enable a small number of builders to dominate the market, and make it difficult for new entrants to the market to compete. There may be other reasons, of course.
The government can do one of two things. It can reform the market to make it easier for new entrants to compete with the established players, therefore increasing supply and reducing prices.
Or it can decide that it needs to step in as a competitor of last resort, and commission the building of houses directly. It might do this if it believed that reforming the market alone would take too long to have a beneficial effect.
Instead it has chosen to put more money into the mortgage market so that the value of swing voter's houses will rise, in the hope that they will vote Conservative in thanks.
It's interesting that from 1993-1997 the economy in general was doing pretty well, but house prices didn't start to rise again until about 1997. Perhaps Osborne has concluded that house price inflation wins elections rather more than sober stewardship of the economy in general.
Housebuilders are currently sitting on very high numbers of current consents for housebuilding. This means that they can act fast if they are given the incentive to do so. I would hope we would see evidence of that by the autumn.
BTW Here's what the government have done on planning - it's quite a lot:
http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN06418.pdf
The biggest restraint on demand is the lack of credit. This is what Osborne is seeking to address at the margins in the hope that by doing so confidence in the housing market will increase releasing more credit for all.
There are issues about large builder sitting on very large land banks and it may be that some government intervention is called for there if these large builders continue to sit on their hands.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/rep-bachmann-will-not-run-in-2014/2013/05/29/eba51652-c840-11e2-8da7-d274bc611a47_story.html?hpid=z2
The replacement rate is every 70-100 years. So the multiplier is very poor. It is a one off victory. The investment should be in replaceable products so that we get continual return business. Ironically that is why financial services are so good - each month we all shlep out money for insurance, mortgage etc etc. The trouble is that industry generates low value added jobs.
Germany, for all its success, has this problem with cars as an economic staple, where the life expectancy of the product is getting longer and longer, but at least you are talking about 5 years before you buy a new one. And at least people are buying new, where as with houses it is largely a "used" market.
We are searching a sector with high value add and high repeat purchase. Ideas on a postcard to G Osborne 11 Downing Street, cc V Cable, J Wheatley.
In a further irony, the Housing Minister after whom I take my moniker (Labour Govt 1924) was the only success in that government - and he made his name by sorting out house building - council houses though
Eligibility for The 'Help to Buy' Mortgage Guarantee Scheme
The scheme is designed to help creditworthy households struggling to save for the high mortgage deposits required by lenders in the current environment. For this reason, a mortgage eligible for a guarantee under the scheme will need to:
• be a residential mortgage, and not buy-to-let;
• be taken out by an individual or individuals rather than an incorporated company;
• be on a property in the UK with purchase value of £600,000 or less;
• have a loan-to-value of between 80 per cent and 95 per cent;
• be originated between the dates specified by the scheme;
• be a repayment mortgage, and not interest-only; and
• meet certain minimum requirements in terms of the assessment of the borrower’s ability to pay the mortgage, for example a loan-to-income and credit score test.
Note particularly that the scheme iexpressly excludes buy-to-let purchases.
Note too that loans will only be provided to borrowers who meet normal credit risk criteria: i.e. these are not 'sub-prime loans'.
A new one seems to pop up every five years or so and then disappear into the annals of psephological history.
I'm here, Ben.
Surprising figures so soon in the recovery cycle, but it does look like Osborne is managing to achieve his goal of moving the economy away from demand driven consumption dependency.
The Greens perhaps, or the SDP - great right wing parties. Puerile nonsense.
Canadians are allowed to borrow against their pension and life policies to fund deposits on houses. Even credit cards can be used to finance downpayments.