In the medium term a large fall in house prices wouldn't be a bad thing. The problem is the getting there. I suspect today's 30-somethings could be facing a difficult few years or more.
We need higher inflation combined with stable house prices so that prices fall in real terms, but not in nominal terms. That's the most painless way for young people to get on the housing ladder without old people being trapped in negative equity.
The banks get screwed a bit, but they've had a good crisis.
Hence you need to reduce house prices over time by basically keeping them as flat as possible in nominal terms while wages increase. You can’t just cut prices because that will destroy the banking sector.
House prices fell in the 1990s without destroying the banking sector.
Hence you need to reduce house prices over time by basically keeping them as flat as possible in nominal terms while wages increase. You can’t just cut prices because that will destroy the banking sector.
House prices fell in the 1990s without destroying the banking sector.
The negative equity that didn't resolve itself until the latter 90s was pretty miserable though, and the 12% interest rate on my first mortgage.
Fox jr has just bought (with his partner) a terraced house in fashionable Clarendon Park for £200 000, so nearly 5 times what I paid for a near identical house in 1992 when I moved to Leicester. The price is quite inflated, but his mortgage payments are more affordable as a percentage of income than mine were those decades ago.
Yes, he has student loan repayments, but I was paying 25% income tax, and with a much lower personal allowance, so tax is pretty much a wash too.
Out of idle curiousity is the mortgage term the same? Yet, another trick being played on this generation is offering them 30-35 year mortgages instead of 20-25 years to move as much of the debt away from the current low interest rates, and make expensive houses seem more affordable.
If I earn a decent salary and I pay my taxes, to me it seems illogical I have to wait until I'm 39 to buy a house. It seems reasonable in my 20s I should be able to afford one but I cannot, without parental help. That is not in any way a fair or reasonable situation to be in.
My point about 10 years was that the Tories have been in power since 2010 and have not resolved this issue. Saying it's dropped down to 39 isn't at all helpful to people who are in my position and stuck renting (literally throwing money down the drain) and can't afford to buy. That's indefensible.
I was simply explaining why we don't vote Tory. And no amount of condescending, or saying "just wait a bit longer" is going to change that fact. You've had 10 years, you haven't resolved it.
Anyway, I can see as usual this debate is completely circular so I'm going to leave it there.
The real issue is house prices. This was caused by asset price inflation resulting from the decision to print money after the 2008 crash. This was compounded Dee by the decision to restrict mortgage lending to a 5.5x multiple.
The Tory government made some progress in controlling the deficit but until they can sterilise the debt (ie sell the debt on the BoE balance sheet to third party investors and cancel the proceeds) then that’s not going to change.
Hence you need to reduce house prices over time by basically keeping them as flat as possible in nominal terms while wages increase. You can’t just cut prices because that will destroy the banking sector.
Fundamentally it’s a mess. But it’s unreasonable to expect the government to “solve it”. There are no good options and it is going to take time to unwind the fundamental damage down in the 2000s. The West was living beyond our means in a big way and we are still paying the price
House price inflation didn't happen post-2008
House price inflation happened before it. In 1997 the average UK house price was about £50,000 - by 2008 it was over £180,000. That is the problem.
New Labour screwed the young and we're still paying the price. That's what happens when Labour get in office.
House price inflation happened before it. In 1997 the average UK house price was about £50,000 - by 2008 it was over £180,000. That is the problem.
New Labour screwed the young and we're still paying the price. That's what happens when Labour get in office.
The Conservatives gave us New Labour by screwing the middle-aged by encouraging them to buy houses and then wrenching interest rates up to 15% to protect their disastrous mistake of taking the pound into the ERM.
Old Labour gave us the Town and Country Planning Act, which prevents housing supply responding to demand.
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
Well said, the posters who say London's problems should just be ignored are making an offensive mistake. Its impacting several million people, financially, emotionally and mentally.
If I earn a decent salary and I pay my taxes, to me it seems illogical I have to wait until I'm 39 to buy a house. It seems reasonable in my 20s I should be able to afford one but I cannot, without parental help. That is not in any way a fair or reasonable situation to be in.
My point about 10 years was that the Tories have been in power since 2010 and have not resolved this issue. Saying it's dropped down to 39 isn't at all helpful to people who are in my position and stuck renting (literally throwing money down the drain) and can't afford to buy. That's indefensible.
I was simply explaining why we don't vote Tory. And no amount of condescending, or saying "just wait a bit longer" is going to change that fact. You've had 10 years, you haven't resolved it.
It’s kind of sobering that I bought a house at pretty much the average age. I thought I’d left it incredibly late at the time!
My parents bought their first house when my father was 27. It’s this disparity that really rankles for many I think - being lectured by an older generation who got to buy in their twenties that you should "just wait and save, like we did" when for the current generation this means twenty years of scrimping and saving is just feels condescending, if not insulting to many.
Help to buy et al were always more about bailing out the housing industry (oh and creating good headlines of course) than about actually helping young people buy houses. If they were actually designed to help people then help to buy loans would be available regardless of whether you were buying a new-build property.
Economics circumstances that are mostly out of the government’s control are partially why it is increasingly difficult for young people to buy houses - low interest rates drive up the cost of fixed assets, and banks require the security of a deposit in order to make mortgages financially viable. As the cost of the asset goes up, so does the size of deposit required. It’s hard to see what any government can do about this directly - mass house building is about the only thing that will make any difference but UK governments have been averse to this for decades, perhaps seeing it is against the interests of their older property-owning voters.
Young people deserve sympathy & understanding of their difficult circumstances, which their parents did not experience. Not patronising stories about pulling themselves up by their own-bootstraps.
Completely agree and thanks for listening and not condescending me.
Also just got back from a very sunny week in Dorset with my partner and we got engaged too
Congratulations!
But Kamala Harris not markedly increasing Biden's lead is unsurprising. There cannot be too many Americans who hate Biden and were planning to vote for Trump but have now switched their allegiance because Kamala Harris has a nice smile.
Everyone laughed when Dan Quayle misspelled potato(e). No-one changed their vote.
Thanks.
Yes I agree Harris was picked more on the basis of being a potential POTUS if needed and being a safe pair of hands rather than on the basis she would pick up many new voters
I was told last week that she was the third choice.
Klobuchar was first, but then Minnesota happened (that’s what my source said but I don’t know what they were referring to)
Whitman was second but she turned it down. Partly to focus on Covid, but also because she thought that she would get all sorts of shit tipped on her by BLM because she is white & it would damage her long term political career
Kamala was third choice and made at quite short notice (hence the focus of Beau’s relationship with her - Biden didn’t have a compelling argument to make as you why he wanted her as his VP.
Who knows whether it’s true or not (my source isn’t in Biden’s inner circle) but it’s plausible at least
Hence you need to reduce house prices over time by basically keeping them as flat as possible in nominal terms while wages increase. You can’t just cut prices because that will destroy the banking sector.
House prices fell in the 1990s without destroying the banking sector.
The negative equity that didn't resolve itself until the latter 90s was pretty miserable though, and the 12% interest rate on my first mortgage.
Fox jr has just bought (with his partner) a terraced house in fashionable Clarendon Park for £200 000, so nearly 5 times what I paid for a near identical house in 1992 when I moved to Leicester. The price is quite inflated, but his mortgage payments are more affordable as a percentage of income than mine were those decades ago.
Yes, he has student loan repayments, but I was paying 25% income tax, and with a much lower personal allowance, so tax is pretty much a wash too.
Out of idle curiousity is the mortgage term the same? Yet, another trick being played on this generation is offering them 30-35 year mortgages instead of 20-25 years to move as much of the debt away from the current low interest rates, and make expensive houses seem more affordable.
I didn't ask.
His repayments are less than he currently pays in rent (a half share of £700 PCM).
It is an identical house to the one he was born in 26 years ago, which has a strange yet comforting circularity.
Also just got back from a very sunny week in Dorset with my partner and we got engaged too
Congratulations!
But Kamala Harris not markedly increasing Biden's lead is unsurprising. There cannot be too many Americans who hate Biden and were planning to vote for Trump but have now switched their allegiance because Kamala Harris has a nice smile.
Everyone laughed when Dan Quayle misspelled potato(e). No-one changed their vote.
Didn't they? The Quayle potato incident was on 15th June 1992 (so the election campaign Bush Snr lost, not the 1988 one that he won).
It's hard to unpick the polls as the bigger news at that time was Perot mania. But at that time the two party match-up had Bush ahead of Clinton, and it was the Democrat campaign that was in real trouble.
Conventions were earlier that year, so this was only a month before the Democratic one... a convention that gave them the biggest bounce on record, with the announcement of Al Gore as VP candidate a particularly popular "heavyweight" pick, contrasting both with Quayle, who'd always been weak but was increasingly a laughing stock, and the more folksy Clinton.
As I say, with so much going on, it's hard to say whether Quayle's gaffe in itself changed a lot of votes - but it was certainly part of the wheels coming off the GOP campaign over the summer of 1992.
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
At the risk of being thought brutal, that suggests that buying a house isn't exactly top priority. If it is, one moves somewhere and perhaps spends one - two years of weekends improving it, and makes new friends.
Looking around, there are houses (not flats) within 30-60 minutes' rail commute of London main stations in the £200-£250k range, and that is without following the traditional route of doer uppers and auction or repossession purchases.
I checked places like Luton and Wellingborough.
That is a far less painful route onto the housing ladder than followed by many people over the last 50 years.
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
so house prices trebled under new labour but you think its the tories problem to resolve?
Hence you need to reduce house prices over time by basically keeping them as flat as possible in nominal terms while wages increase. You can’t just cut prices because that will destroy the banking sector.
House prices fell in the 1990s without destroying the banking sector.
Banks were less exposed than they are today
Whilst true, isnt control of banking sector lending ultimately a political choice made by the govt and BoE?
To give the govt a "get out of jail card", saying it will destroy the banking sector if they take action, when it is govt policies that have created that risk, is extremely generous imo.
Agree with previous posters that this is a problem built up over two decades so both parties to blame, although only one can redress it now. To be fair in the last 3 years the govt has taken some decisions in the right direction, against some of their traditional vested interests. Not enough, but some, which is better than nothing!
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
so house prices trebled under new labour but you think its the tories problem to resolve?
No doubt the next piece of condescending advice will be "just move".
£144,000 will buy you nothing in the proximity of London.
I'm a Northerner, I can't speak about London. I have no intention of speaking about London.
But yes Londoners should commute is the general idea isn't it? Not that it is my area of expertise, so I am not speaking about London. But Londoners also earn more wages so should be able to save more than £100 a month hopefully.
For a couple if they could save £250 a month for five years between them that would provide the deposit of a £360,000 house.
Do you know how much commuting costs?
I feel like you're talking out of your rear.
A quick google tells me that the average house price in London is £435,000.
The average house price in Grantham - which is 1 hr 15 minutes from Kings Cross - is £176,000.
A season ticket for Grantham to London varies from just under £8000 to just under £9000 depending on which service you use.
On that basis you could commute for a decade - spending £90,000 on season tickets - and still be better of by almost £180,000.
Commuting all week into London on crappy trains is absolutely ghastly, though FWIW I think you'd be quite unlucky in future if you were forced to keep doing that, anyway. The railway station car park here in the middle commuter belt (about 45 mins from Kings Cross) used to be practically full with, at a guess, about 300 cars every weekday. Nowadays they get about two dozen.
For most workers who used to go to offices in London, the days of having to shell out £5,000+ for a season ticket are over for good. In the medium term, those that do have to keep going in will be travelling part-time only, and many of them will probably be allowed to work flexible hours to avoid peak fares (if, indeed, the whole concept of peak fares, and milking those forced to pay them, even survives the fallout from the WFH revolution.)
Add to that the fact that the railways are going to have to be nationalised, which will apply a lot more direct pressure on ministers rather than the hated franchise operators to control fare inflation, and average commuting costs should tumble.
Hence you need to reduce house prices over time by basically keeping them as flat as possible in nominal terms while wages increase. You can’t just cut prices because that will destroy the banking sector.
House prices fell in the 1990s without destroying the banking sector.
Banks were less exposed than they are today
Whilst true, isnt control of banking sector lending ultimately a political choice made by the govt and BoE?
To give the govt a "get out of jail card", saying it will destroy the banking sector if they take action, when it is govt policies that have created that risk, is extremely generous imo.
Agree with previous posters that this is a problem built up over two decades so both parties to blame, although only one can redress it now. To be fair in the last 3 years the govt has taken some decisions in the right direction, against some of their traditional vested interests. Not enough, but some, which is better than nothing!
Which 2 decades are these - 1990s and 2000s, presumably?
If I earn a decent salary and I pay my taxes, to me it seems illogical I have to wait until I'm 39 to buy a house. It seems reasonable in my 20s I should be able to afford one but I cannot, without parental help. That is not in any way a fair or reasonable situation to be in.
My point about 10 years was that the Tories have been in power since 2010 and have not resolved this issue. Saying it's dropped down to 39 isn't at all helpful to people who are in my position and stuck renting (literally throwing money down the drain) and can't afford to buy. That's indefensible.
I was simply explaining why we don't vote Tory. And no amount of condescending, or saying "just wait a bit longer" is going to change that fact. You've had 10 years, you haven't resolved it.
Anyway, I can see as usual this debate is completely circular so I'm going to leave it there.
The real issue is house prices. This was caused by asset price inflation resulting from the decision to print money after the 2008 crash. This was compounded Dee by the decision to restrict mortgage lending to a 5.5x multiple.
The Tory government made some progress in controlling the deficit but until they can sterilise the debt (ie sell the debt on the BoE balance sheet to third party investors and cancel the proceeds) then that’s not going to change.
Hence you need to reduce house prices over time by basically keeping them as flat as possible in nominal terms while wages increase. You can’t just cut prices because that will destroy the banking sector.
Fundamentally it’s a mess. But it’s unreasonable to expect the government to “solve it”. There are no good options and it is going to take time to unwind the fundamental damage down in the 2000s. The West was living beyond our means in a big way and we are still paying the price
House price inflation didn't happen post-2008
House price inflation happened before it. In 1997 the average UK house price was about £50,000 - by 2008 it was over £180,000. That is the problem.
New Labour screwed the young and we're still paying the price. That's what happens when Labour get in office.
The index I’ve just pulled had 1989 = 100.
It was roughly 300 in 2007 and 400 in 2019.
So we are both right 😄
In that case the prices in 2007 were 300% of the rate they were in 1989 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 6.3% per annum which is unsustainable.
Whereas in 2019 the prices were 133% of the rate they were in 2017 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 2.3% per annum.
Also just got back from a very sunny week in Dorset with my partner and we got engaged too
Congratulations!
But Kamala Harris not markedly increasing Biden's lead is unsurprising. There cannot be too many Americans who hate Biden and were planning to vote for Trump but have now switched their allegiance because Kamala Harris has a nice smile.
Everyone laughed when Dan Quayle misspelled potato(e). No-one changed their vote.
Thanks.
Yes I agree Harris was picked more on the basis of being a potential POTUS if needed and being a safe pair of hands rather than on the basis she would pick up many new voters
I was told last week that she was the third choice.
Klobuchar was first, but then Minnesota happened (that’s what my source said but I don’t know what they were referring to)
Whitman was second but she turned it down. Partly to focus on Covid, but also because she thought that she would get all sorts of shit tipped on her by BLM because she is white & it would damage her long term political career
Kamala was third choice and made at quite short notice (hence the focus of Beau’s relationship with her - Biden didn’t have a compelling argument to make as you why he wanted her as his VP.
Who knows whether it’s true or not (my source isn’t in Biden’s inner circle) but it’s plausible at least
Floyd was Minnesota.
Kamala is a good choice. Impossible to make out that she is a crazy defunder of the police, though no doubt that is what Trump will push.
The walls are closing in on Trump. He doesn't have long to turn it around, and I don't think he has it in him, just a core vote strategy that motivates Dem voter turnout. Less than 200 EV IMO.
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
At the risk of being thought brutal, that suggests that buying a house isn't exactly top priority. If it is, one moves somewhere and perhaps spends one - two years of weekends improving it, and makes new friends.
Looking around, there are houses (not flats) within 30-60 minutes' rail commute of London main stations in the £200-£250k range, and that is without following the traditional route of doer uppers and auction or repossession purchases.
I checked places like Luton and Wellingborough.
That is a far less painful route onto the housing ladder than followed by many people over the last 50 years.
My point was that I don't see why I should have to do that, that's all. I think I should be able to afford to live in, or outside London, where my friends and family are. That doesn't seem too much to ask for me.
I get what you're saying and if I was really desperate I would probably do it.
As I said, luckily I am in the privileged position of not needing to worry so much, I earn a decent salary and I have parental support if I ever fell on hard times. A lot of people do not.
For now I am continuing to rent - which feels like I am throwing money down the drain but that is the reality in terms of renting. Luckily I have other sources of income that more than cover it.
Hence you need to reduce house prices over time by basically keeping them as flat as possible in nominal terms while wages increase. You can’t just cut prices because that will destroy the banking sector.
House prices fell in the 1990s without destroying the banking sector.
Banks were less exposed than they are today
Whilst true, isnt control of banking sector lending ultimately a political choice made by the govt and BoE?
To give the govt a "get out of jail card", saying it will destroy the banking sector if they take action, when it is govt policies that have created that risk, is extremely generous imo.
Agree with previous posters that this is a problem built up over two decades so both parties to blame, although only one can redress it now. To be fair in the last 3 years the govt has taken some decisions in the right direction, against some of their traditional vested interests. Not enough, but some, which is better than nothing!
It’s not a get out of jail card.
It’s saying that the necessary outcome (a 20-30% one time decline in house prices followed by moderate growth) isn’t viable as a one-time move. So you need to let the change happen over time.
Hence you need to reduce house prices over time by basically keeping them as flat as possible in nominal terms while wages increase. You can’t just cut prices because that will destroy the banking sector.
House prices fell in the 1990s without destroying the banking sector.
Banks were less exposed than they are today
Whilst true, isnt control of banking sector lending ultimately a political choice made by the govt and BoE?
To give the govt a "get out of jail card", saying it will destroy the banking sector if they take action, when it is govt policies that have created that risk, is extremely generous imo.
Agree with previous posters that this is a problem built up over two decades so both parties to blame, although only one can redress it now. To be fair in the last 3 years the govt has taken some decisions in the right direction, against some of their traditional vested interests. Not enough, but some, which is better than nothing!
Which 2 decades are these - 1990s and 2000s, presumably?
House prices in the year 2000 were not a problem imo. By 2004 they had started to become an issue, only time they were clear value to buy since was for a couple of years after the GFC until the govt "help" came along to distort the market further.
Also just got back from a very sunny week in Dorset with my partner and we got engaged too
Congratulations!
But Kamala Harris not markedly increasing Biden's lead is unsurprising. There cannot be too many Americans who hate Biden and were planning to vote for Trump but have now switched their allegiance because Kamala Harris has a nice smile.
Everyone laughed when Dan Quayle misspelled potato(e). No-one changed their vote.
Thanks.
Yes I agree Harris was picked more on the basis of being a potential POTUS if needed and being a safe pair of hands rather than on the basis she would pick up many new voters
Sister Kamala helps Uncle Joe electorally in several ways.
Clearly she will encourage Black voter turnout, almost certainly higher than 2016. This could prove critical in many battle grounds, for example Florida, Michigan, North Carolina & Pennsylvania, also emerging battle grounds Georgia & Ohio.
Think she will also help with Asian American voters AND with immigrants & first-generation Americans - she truly is one of them.
PLUS she appeals to many women, esp, college-educated women. When she was at her apogee in the nomination campaign, after nearly knocking off Biden's block in that one debate, enthusiasm among Democratic women was palpable. Predict that this is impacting even progressives inclined to criticize her as insufficiently progressive, esp on law & order issues.
This last item is also a plus. It may seem to fly in the face of BLM, but will reassure MANY moderates & swing voters - and as EDay approaches will be harder and harder for BLM voter to NOT vote for THE first major party ticket with a Black noiminee.
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
so house prices trebled under new labour but you think its the tories problem to resolve?
Have a lovely evening!
Ah no answer so you hide behind pretending to not talking to me because i retaliated when you accused me of something I hadn't done and I described what you are?
chuckles isn't going to work as i will keep responding to your inanities and people will soon see its because you have no answers apart from spend lots of taxpayer money for no gain
No doubt the next piece of condescending advice will be "just move".
£144,000 will buy you nothing in the proximity of London.
I'm a Northerner, I can't speak about London. I have no intention of speaking about London.
But yes Londoners should commute is the general idea isn't it? Not that it is my area of expertise, so I am not speaking about London. But Londoners also earn more wages so should be able to save more than £100 a month hopefully.
For a couple if they could save £250 a month for five years between them that would provide the deposit of a £360,000 house.
Do you know how much commuting costs?
I feel like you're talking out of your rear.
A quick google tells me that the average house price in London is £435,000.
The average house price in Grantham - which is 1 hr 15 minutes from Kings Cross - is £176,000.
A season ticket for Grantham to London varies from just under £8000 to just under £9000 depending on which service you use.
On that basis you could commute for a decade - spending £90,000 on season tickets - and still be better of by almost £180,000.
Commuting all week into London on crappy trains is absolutely ghastly, though FWIW I think you'd be quite unlucky in future if you were forced to keep doing that, anyway. The railway station car park here in the middle commuter belt (about 45 mins from Kings Cross) used to be practically full with, at a guess, about 300 cars every weekday. Nowadays they get about two dozen.
For most workers who used to go to offices in London, the days of having to shell out £5,000+ for a season ticket are over for good. In the medium term, those that do have to keep going in will be travelling part-time only, and many of them will probably be allowed to work flexible hours to avoid peak fares (if, indeed, the whole concept of peak fares, and milking those forced to pay them, even survives the fallout from the WFH revolution.)
Add to that the fact that the railways are going to have to be nationalised, which will apply a lot more direct pressure on ministers rather than the hated franchise operators to control fare inflation, and average commuting costs should tumble.
The railways are about to have a very bad decade.
Quite likely, yes. Although the operational model will be different, we're effectively going to be winding the clock back to British Rail - and now, just as in the 70s and 80s, it'll be somewhere close to the back of the queue for public investment.
Any extra money thrown at the trains will probably go on bribing the remaining commuters with fare capping, now that they'll blame the Prime Minister directly if they don't get what they want.
These pictures of Minsk make it look quite agreeable. Certainly better than brutalist Bucharest under Ceaușescu. And the people seem well clothed and well fed. Why are they all so angry?
Maybe because the incumbent President rigged the election, which the opposition won, and then beat-up young people who protested against it and paraded their bruised bodies on national television?
No doubt the next piece of condescending advice will be "just move".
£144,000 will buy you nothing in the proximity of London.
I'm a Northerner, I can't speak about London. I have no intention of speaking about London.
But yes Londoners should commute is the general idea isn't it? Not that it is my area of expertise, so I am not speaking about London. But Londoners also earn more wages so should be able to save more than £100 a month hopefully.
For a couple if they could save £250 a month for five years between them that would provide the deposit of a £360,000 house.
Do you know how much commuting costs?
I feel like you're talking out of your rear.
A quick google tells me that the average house price in London is £435,000.
The average house price in Grantham - which is 1 hr 15 minutes from Kings Cross - is £176,000.
A season ticket for Grantham to London varies from just under £8000 to just under £9000 depending on which service you use.
On that basis you could commute for a decade - spending £90,000 on season tickets - and still be better of by almost £180,000.
Commuting all week into London on crappy trains is absolutely ghastly, though FWIW I think you'd be quite unlucky in future if you were forced to keep doing that, anyway. The railway station car park here in the middle commuter belt (about 45 mins from Kings Cross) used to be practically full with, at a guess, about 300 cars every weekday. Nowadays they get about two dozen.
For most workers who used to go to offices in London, the days of having to shell out £5,000+ for a season ticket are over for good. In the medium term, those that do have to keep going in will be travelling part-time only, and many of them will probably be allowed to work flexible hours to avoid peak fares (if, indeed, the whole concept of peak fares, and milking those forced to pay them, even survives the fallout from the WFH revolution.)
Add to that the fact that the railways are going to have to be nationalised, which will apply a lot more direct pressure on ministers rather than the hated franchise operators to control fare inflation, and average commuting costs should tumble.
The railways are about to have a very bad decade.
Quite likely, yes. Although the operational model will be different, we're effectively going to be winding the clock back to British Rail - and now, just as in the 70s and 80s, it'll be somewhere close to the back of the queue for public investment.
Any extra money thrown at the trains will probably go on bribing the remaining commuters with fare capping, now that they'll blame the Prime Minister directly if they don't get what they want.
We'll get the same problems we did with the nationalised railways then, too.
It means worse service frequencies, older and dirtier rolling stock and very limited investment or network expansion.
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
At the risk of being thought brutal, that suggests that buying a house isn't exactly top priority. If it is, one moves somewhere and perhaps spends one - two years of weekends improving it, and makes new friends.
Looking around, there are houses (not flats) within 30-60 minutes' rail commute of London main stations in the £200-£250k range, and that is without following the traditional route of doer uppers and auction or repossession purchases.
I checked places like Luton and Wellingborough.
That is a far less painful route onto the housing ladder than followed by many people over the last 50 years.
My point was that I don't see why I should have to do that, that's all. I think I should be able to afford to live in, or outside London, where my friends and family are. That doesn't seem too much to ask for me.
I get what you're saying and if I was really desperate I would probably do it.
As I said, luckily I am in the privileged position of not needing to worry so much, I earn a decent salary and I have parental support if I ever fell on hard times. A lot of people do not.
For now I am continuing to rent - which feels like I am throwing money down the drain but that is the reality in terms of renting. Luckily I have other sources of income that more than cover it.
You don't have to do anything, you can choose. You have free will.
If you want to live in one of the most congested and popular cities in the world then and socialise there then you can but its going to be difficult to buy a home there.
If you want to settle down with a family elsewhere and commute and socialise less then that is your choice too.
London is its own kettle of fish and I'd rather not prejudge London's issues not being from there myself. But its your choice what you want to do. The idea that everyone can move from everywhere in the country into London and buy a piece of it is unlikely to be sustainable for long though.
Outside of London though the situation now is better than it was a decade ago. This is what I said at the start of this conversation. I said at the start that up north where I am the situation is getting better and that is why I think the Tories are doing better in the North - and not just Corbyn and Brexit. Whereas in London its difficult and that is why the Tories are going backwards in London.
What the solution is to London I don't know. If COVID leads to a hollowing out of London then that might help.
These pictures of Minsk make it look quite agreeable. Certainly better than brutalist Bucharest under Ceaușescu. And the people seem well clothed and well fed. Why are they all so angry?
Maybe because the incumbent President rigged the election, which the opposition won, and then beat-up young people who protested against it and paraded their bruised bodies on national television?
It does make you wonder how he thought that would work, the days when you could use thuggery without being found out on the international stage are long gone
For some reason that reminds me of Poe's story "The Cask of Amontillado". It's a story of probably what some of us would like to do, in our mind's eye.
If I earn a decent salary and I pay my taxes, to me it seems illogical I have to wait until I'm 39 to buy a house. It seems reasonable in my 20s I should be able to afford one but I cannot, without parental help. That is not in any way a fair or reasonable situation to be in.
My point about 10 years was that the Tories have been in power since 2010 and have not resolved this issue. Saying it's dropped down to 39 isn't at all helpful to people who are in my position and stuck renting (literally throwing money down the drain) and can't afford to buy. That's indefensible.
I was simply explaining why we don't vote Tory. And no amount of condescending, or saying "just wait a bit longer" is going to change that fact. You've had 10 years, you haven't resolved it.
Anyway, I can see as usual this debate is completely circular so I'm going to leave it there.
The real issue is house prices. This was caused by asset price inflation resulting from the decision to print money after the 2008 crash. This was compounded Dee by the decision to restrict mortgage lending to a 5.5x multiple.
The Tory government made some progress in controlling the deficit but until they can sterilise the debt (ie sell the debt on the BoE balance sheet to third party investors and cancel the proceeds) then that’s not going to change.
Hence you need to reduce house prices over time by basically keeping them as flat as possible in nominal terms while wages increase. You can’t just cut prices because that will destroy the banking sector.
Fundamentally it’s a mess. But it’s unreasonable to expect the government to “solve it”. There are no good options and it is going to take time to unwind the fundamental damage down in the 2000s. The West was living beyond our means in a big way and we are still paying the price
House price inflation didn't happen post-2008
House price inflation happened before it. In 1997 the average UK house price was about £50,000 - by 2008 it was over £180,000. That is the problem.
New Labour screwed the young and we're still paying the price. That's what happens when Labour get in office.
The index I’ve just pulled had 1989 = 100.
It was roughly 300 in 2007 and 400 in 2019.
So we are both right 😄
In that case the prices in 2007 were 300% of the rate they were in 1989 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 6.3% per annum which is unsustainable.
Whereas in 2019 the prices were 133% of the rate they were in 2017 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 2.3% per annum.
Yes, but mortgage rates are a quarter of what I was paying 3 decades ago, hence the affordability of mortgages remains good.
Getting mortgage rates back to 5-6% and normal interest rates on savings is the other way of making house prices come down. Indeed probably more effective than building, as there isn't a very good correlation between building rates and prices, as @rcs1000 has pointed out in the past.
For some reason that reminds me of Poe's story "The Cask of Amontillado". It's a story of probably what some of us would like to do, in our mind's eye.
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
so house prices trebled under new labour but you think its the tories problem to resolve?
Have a lovely evening!
Ah no answer so you hide behind pretending to not talking to me because i retaliated when you accused me of something I hadn't done and I described what you are?
chuckles isn't going to work as i will keep responding to your inanities and people will soon see its because you have no answers apart from spend lots of taxpayer money for no gain
Thanks for the kind words, I hope you continue to have a wonderful evening! Talk soon buddy!
Also just got back from a very sunny week in Dorset with my partner and we got engaged too
Congratulations!
But Kamala Harris not markedly increasing Biden's lead is unsurprising. There cannot be too many Americans who hate Biden and were planning to vote for Trump but have now switched their allegiance because Kamala Harris has a nice smile.
Everyone laughed when Dan Quayle misspelled potato(e). No-one changed their vote.
Thanks.
Yes I agree Harris was picked more on the basis of being a potential POTUS if needed and being a safe pair of hands rather than on the basis she would pick up many new voters
I was told last week that she was the third choice.
Klobuchar was first, but then Minnesota happened (that’s what my source said but I don’t know what they were referring to)
Whitman was second but she turned it down. Partly to focus on Covid, but also because she thought that she would get all sorts of shit tipped on her by BLM because she is white & it would damage her long term political career
Kamala was third choice and made at quite short notice (hence the focus of Beau’s relationship with her - Biden didn’t have a compelling argument to make as you why he wanted her as his VP.
Who knows whether it’s true or not (my source isn’t in Biden’s inner circle) but it’s plausible at least
"Minnesota happened" = killing of George Floyd.
Which indeed scuppered whatever chance Sen. Klobuchar had this year. However, that was MONTHS before Biden made his final decision.
Part of VP consideration / vetting / selection is that potential picks go up and down and (sometimes) back up as the process proceeds.
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
so house prices trebled under new labour but you think its the tories problem to resolve?
The issue for London house prices is that -
1) The population of London was (and is) growing rapidly 2) It is deliberate and long term policy, by all parties, to prevent house building on the scale of the population growth of London.
There are 3 answers that I can think of -
1) Stop the population of London growing. 2) Let the village of the green belt expand and merge to form new suburbs. 3) Super fast public transport to very large new satellite towns.
3) is less popular at the moment... 2) Is against the modern Religion Of The Environment* :
*As opposed to actually doing things that preserve the actual... environment. The religious stuff version is on a par with getting your instructions from spontaneous combusting shrubbery.
The virus is roaring back into life even in countries which thought they had nailed it, from New Zealand to Germany to Japan.
Ireland has stopped being smug about Britain. They're now worse off than us. America is as screwed as leftwing Mexico or as rightwing Brazil.
Poland, India, Spain, Croatia, South Africa, France, Chile, Malta, Melbourne, it doesn't matter what you do or where you are.
Every single government in the world, in the face of Covid-19, is "wanking into the void". No one knows what to do. No one.
As I pointed out the other night, France (which, of course, has a population approximately the same size as that of the UK) now has five times as many Covid patients in hospital and in intensive care as Britain does - and, in proportionate terms, formerly smug Ireland's new daily caseload was almost as high as France's was yesterday, although I don't know about their other indicators.
So, you're essentially correct. Until we have a better idea of what works and what doesn't in terms of balancing getting society moving with controlling this disease, then we are all still guessing - save for the Kiwis, who are remote enough and have few enough cases to repeat their previous trick and eliminate the illness, and other similar, relatively geographically isolated nations that connect with the rest of the globe only by air and sea.
Fat chance of that in any country like ours which, yes, is an island, but also relies so much on the to-ing and fro-ing of truckers for its trade and supply lines.
Also just got back from a very sunny week in Dorset with my partner and we got engaged too
Congratulations!
But Kamala Harris not markedly increasing Biden's lead is unsurprising. There cannot be too many Americans who hate Biden and were planning to vote for Trump but have now switched their allegiance because Kamala Harris has a nice smile.
Everyone laughed when Dan Quayle misspelled potato(e). No-one changed their vote.
Thanks.
Yes I agree Harris was picked more on the basis of being a potential POTUS if needed and being a safe pair of hands rather than on the basis she would pick up many new voters
I was told last week that she was the third choice.
Klobuchar was first, but then Minnesota happened (that’s what my source said but I don’t know what they were referring to)
Whitman was second but she turned it down. Partly to focus on Covid, but also because she thought that she would get all sorts of shit tipped on her by BLM because she is white & it would damage her long term political career
Kamala was third choice and made at quite short notice (hence the focus of Beau’s relationship with her - Biden didn’t have a compelling argument to make as you why he wanted her as his VP.
Who knows whether it’s true or not (my source isn’t in Biden’s inner circle) but it’s plausible at least
"Minnesota happened" = killing of George Floyd.
Which indeed scuppered whatever chance Sen. Klobuchar had this year. However, that was MONTHS before Biden made his final decision.
Part of VP consideration / vetting / selection is that potential picks go up and down and (sometimes) back up as the process proceeds.
Whitman turned it down because it would effect her long term political career? Hmmm. Colour me sceptical.
Being veep to a guy who is 77? That's not a career move?
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
so house prices trebled under new labour but you think its the tories problem to resolve?
The issue for London house prices is that -
1) The population of London was (and is) growing rapidly 2) It is deliberate and long term policy, by all parties, to prevent house building on the scale of the population growth of London.
There are 3 answers that I can think of -
1) Stop the population of London growing. 2) Let the village of the green belt expand and merge to form new suburbs. 3) Super fast public transport to very large new satellite towns.
3) is less popular at the moment... 2) Is against the modern Religion Of The Environment* :
*As opposed to actually doing things that preserve the actual... environment. The religious stuff version is on a par with getting your instructions from spontaneous combusting shrubbery.
Your analysis is missing the financial speculation on the housing market encouraged by successive govts, creating a feedback loop where most people in the country believe prices only ever go up. Combined with a shocking understanding of other forms of investment and saving and govt money printing on a scale never seen before, it is not surprising that house prices have become a dangerous bubble.
If I earn a decent salary and I pay my taxes, to me it seems illogical I have to wait until I'm 39 to buy a house. It seems reasonable in my 20s I should be able to afford one but I cannot, without parental help. That is not in any way a fair or reasonable situation to be in.
My point about 10 years was that the Tories have been in power since 2010 and have not resolved this issue. Saying it's dropped down to 39 isn't at all helpful to people who are in my position and stuck renting (literally throwing money down the drain) and can't afford to buy. That's indefensible.
I was simply explaining why we don't vote Tory. And no amount of condescending, or saying "just wait a bit longer" is going to change that fact. You've had 10 years, you haven't resolved it.
Anyway, I can see as usual this debate is completely circular so I'm going to leave it there.
The real issue is house prices. This was caused by asset price inflation resulting from the decision to print money after the 2008 crash. This was compounded Dee by the decision to restrict mortgage lending to a 5.5x multiple.
The Tory government made some progress in controlling the deficit but until they can sterilise the debt (ie sell the debt on the BoE balance sheet to third party investors and cancel the proceeds) then that’s not going to change.
Hence you need to reduce house prices over time by basically keeping them as flat as possible in nominal terms while wages increase. You can’t just cut prices because that will destroy the banking sector.
Fundamentally it’s a mess. But it’s unreasonable to expect the government to “solve it”. There are no good options and it is going to take time to unwind the fundamental damage down in the 2000s. The West was living beyond our means in a big way and we are still paying the price
House price inflation didn't happen post-2008
House price inflation happened before it. In 1997 the average UK house price was about £50,000 - by 2008 it was over £180,000. That is the problem.
New Labour screwed the young and we're still paying the price. That's what happens when Labour get in office.
The index I’ve just pulled had 1989 = 100.
It was roughly 300 in 2007 and 400 in 2019.
So we are both right 😄
In that case the prices in 2007 were 300% of the rate they were in 1989 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 6.3% per annum which is unsustainable.
Whereas in 2019 the prices were 133% of the rate they were in 2017 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 2.3% per annum.
Yes, but mortgage rates are a quarter of what I was paying 3 decades ago, hence the affordability of mortgages remains good.
Getting mortgage rates back to 5-6% and normal interest rates on savings is the other way of making house prices come down. Indeed probably more effective than building, as there isn't a very good correlation between building rates and prices, as @rcs1000 has pointed out in the past.
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
so house prices trebled under new labour but you think its the tories problem to resolve?
The issue for London house prices is that -
1) The population of London was (and is) growing rapidly 2) It is deliberate and long term policy, by all parties, to prevent house building on the scale of the population growth of London.
There are 3 answers that I can think of -
1) Stop the population of London growing. 2) Let the village of the green belt expand and merge to form new suburbs. 3) Super fast public transport to very large new satellite towns.
3) is less popular at the moment... 2) Is against the modern Religion Of The Environment* :
*As opposed to actually doing things that preserve the actual... environment. The religious stuff version is on a par with getting your instructions from spontaneous combusting shrubbery.
I don't disagree with any of your points I was merely pointing out to oik that the house price problems started under labour and wondered why he felt it was the tories problems to sort out labour incompetence.
Hopefully now we are all wfh the population of london will start to dwindle and perhaps house prices will come down. Indeed I hope a lot of town centre property gets changed to residential and preserves the green belt too. No doubt though some will complain that their artisanal avocado on toast place is no longer viable without everyone going to the office.
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
so house prices trebled under new labour but you think its the tories problem to resolve?
The issue for London house prices is that -
1) The population of London was (and is) growing rapidly 2) It is deliberate and long term policy, by all parties, to prevent house building on the scale of the population growth of London.
There are 3 answers that I can think of -
1) Stop the population of London growing. 2) Let the village of the green belt expand and merge to form new suburbs. 3) Super fast public transport to very large new satellite towns.
3) is less popular at the moment... 2) Is against the modern Religion Of The Environment* :
*As opposed to actually doing things that preserve the actual... environment. The religious stuff version is on a par with getting your instructions from spontaneous combusting shrubbery.
Your analysis is missing the financial speculation on the housing market encouraged by successive govts, creating a feedback loop where most people in the country believe prices only ever go up. Combined with a shocking understanding of other forms of investment and saving and govt money printing on a scale never seen before, it is not surprising that house prices have become a dangerous bubble.
That only really began under gordon brown who massively deregulated buy to let and also allowed property to be part of pensions
The virus is roaring back into life even in countries which thought they had nailed it, from New Zealand to Germany to Japan.
Ireland has stopped being smug about Britain. They're now worse off than us. America is as screwed as leftwing Mexico or as rightwing Brazil.
Poland, India, Spain, Croatia, South Africa, France, Chile, Malta, Melbourne, it doesn't matter what you do or where you are.
Every single government in the world, in the face of Covid-19, is "wanking into the void". No one knows what to do. No one.
As I pointed out the other night, France (which, of course, has a population approximately the same size as that of the UK) now has five times as many Covid patients in hospital and in intensive care as Britain does - and, in proportionate terms, formerly smug Ireland's new daily caseload was almost as high as France's was yesterday, although I don't know about their other indicators.
So, you're essentially correct. Until we have a better idea of what works and what doesn't in terms of balancing getting society moving with controlling this disease, then we are all still guessing - save for the Kiwis, who are remote enough and have few enough cases to repeat their previous trick and eliminate the illness, and other similar, relatively geographically isolated nations that connect with the rest of the globe only by air and sea.
Fat chance of that in any country like ours which, yes, is an island, but also relies so much on the to-ing and fro-ing of truckers for its trade and supply lines.
I don't think even the Kiwis can do it, without sealing off their economy entirely and hermetically, for a year or so, which means an economic collapse of about 30%. Or More.
The virus is here, and it is everywhere, and it is not going away soon, and its funny little viral face laughs at our national political debates.
These pictures of Minsk make it look quite agreeable. Certainly better than brutalist Bucharest under Ceaușescu. And the people seem well clothed and well fed. Why are they all so angry?
Maybe because the incumbent President rigged the election, which the opposition won, and then beat-up young people who protested against it and paraded their bruised bodies on national television?
It does make you wonder how he thought that would work, the days when you could use thuggery without being found out on the international stage are long gone
Same with China and the Uighurs too.
Thing is ..our capacity to face it down has been diminished too. If push came to shove I don't think we'd be able of willing to do anything about it (except economic) and they know that too.
Possibly a very aggressive cyber crippling could do some serious damage without mass casualties but and the end of the day winning wars boils down to getting boots on the ground.
Ultimately it's about using force to stop nasty people.
These pictures of Minsk make it look quite agreeable. Certainly better than brutalist Bucharest under Ceaușescu. And the people seem well clothed and well fed. Why are they all so angry?
Maybe because the incumbent President rigged the election, which the opposition won, and then beat-up young people who protested against it and paraded their bruised bodies on national television?
It does make you wonder how he thought that would work, the days when you could use thuggery without being found out on the international stage are long gone
Same with China and the Uighurs too.
Thing is ..our capacity to face it down has been diminished too. If push came to shove I don't think we'd be able of willing to do anything about it (except economic) and they know that too.
Possibly a very aggressive cyber crippling could do some serious damage without mass casualties but and the end of the day winning wars boils down to getting boots on the ground.
Ultimately it's about using force to stop nasty people.
China and the uighars is different they dont really have any issues if we cut them off, belarus would
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
so house prices trebled under new labour but you think its the tories problem to resolve?
The issue for London house prices is that -
1) The population of London was (and is) growing rapidly 2) It is deliberate and long term policy, by all parties, to prevent house building on the scale of the population growth of London.
There are 3 answers that I can think of -
1) Stop the population of London growing. 2) Let the village of the green belt expand and merge to form new suburbs. 3) Super fast public transport to very large new satellite towns.
3) is less popular at the moment... 2) Is against the modern Religion Of The Environment* :
*As opposed to actually doing things that preserve the actual... environment. The religious stuff version is on a par with getting your instructions from spontaneous combusting shrubbery.
Your analysis is missing the financial speculation on the housing market encouraged by successive govts, creating a feedback loop where most people in the country believe prices only ever go up. Combined with a shocking understanding of other forms of investment and saving and govt money printing on a scale never seen before, it is not surprising that house prices have become a dangerous bubble.
Of course you could restrict London to smaller people
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
so house prices trebled under new labour but you think its the tories problem to resolve?
The issue for London house prices is that -
1) The population of London was (and is) growing rapidly 2) It is deliberate and long term policy, by all parties, to prevent house building on the scale of the population growth of London.
There are 3 answers that I can think of -
1) Stop the population of London growing. 2) Let the village of the green belt expand and merge to form new suburbs. 3) Super fast public transport to very large new satellite towns.
3) is less popular at the moment... 2) Is against the modern Religion Of The Environment* :
*As opposed to actually doing things that preserve the actual... environment. The religious stuff version is on a par with getting your instructions from spontaneous combusting shrubbery.
The best solution is, in fact, probably (1), aided by a policy of bolting new development onto existing towns all over the country. If, thanks to the WFH revolution, we can incentivize people to move out of London to nicer and more affordable locations, at a rate equal to or exceeding the rate at which new arrivals come and natural growth occurs, then the demand for property in London ought to decline and prices should, at the very least, stop growing as a result.
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
so house prices trebled under new labour but you think its the tories problem to resolve?
The issue for London house prices is that -
1) The population of London was (and is) growing rapidly 2) It is deliberate and long term policy, by all parties, to prevent house building on the scale of the population growth of London.
There are 3 answers that I can think of -
1) Stop the population of London growing. 2) Let the village of the green belt expand and merge to form new suburbs. 3) Super fast public transport to very large new satellite towns.
3) is less popular at the moment... 2) Is against the modern Religion Of The Environment* :
*As opposed to actually doing things that preserve the actual... environment. The religious stuff version is on a par with getting your instructions from spontaneous combusting shrubbery.
Your analysis is missing the financial speculation on the housing market encouraged by successive govts, creating a feedback loop where most people in the country believe prices only ever go up. Combined with a shocking understanding of other forms of investment and saving and govt money printing on a scale never seen before, it is not surprising that house prices have become a dangerous bubble.
But it hasn't. House prices have plateaued since the GFC. Supply and demand are the ultimate determination.
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
so house prices trebled under new labour but you think its the tories problem to resolve?
The issue for London house prices is that -
1) The population of London was (and is) growing rapidly 2) It is deliberate and long term policy, by all parties, to prevent house building on the scale of the population growth of London.
There are 3 answers that I can think of -
1) Stop the population of London growing. 2) Let the village of the green belt expand and merge to form new suburbs. 3) Super fast public transport to very large new satellite towns.
3) is less popular at the moment... 2) Is against the modern Religion Of The Environment* :
*As opposed to actually doing things that preserve the actual... environment. The religious stuff version is on a par with getting your instructions from spontaneous combusting shrubbery.
From the thirties to the Sixties there was an explicit policy of building New Towns to move out Londoners en mass. I quite recommend this documentary on the rise and decline of one example (Basildon). As well as the town itself, it is very revealing of the changes in working class culture and aspiration over the post war period.
These pictures of Minsk make it look quite agreeable. Certainly better than brutalist Bucharest under Ceaușescu. And the people seem well clothed and well fed. Why are they all so angry?
Maybe because the incumbent President rigged the election, which the opposition won, and then beat-up young people who protested against it and paraded their bruised bodies on national television?
It does make you wonder how he thought that would work, the days when you could use thuggery without being found out on the international stage are long gone
Virus seems to be one of the main reasons. They had had it bad and the President has been a twat about it in the Trump style.
Thus,
"The last remaining part of the social contract between Belarusians and Lukashenko – limited freedoms in exchange for security – has been irreparably broken."
Also a refusal to implement market reforms. Russian subsidy has been keeping the country doing well for many years but sounds like that has been increasingly up and down.
Also just got back from a very sunny week in Dorset with my partner and we got engaged too
Congratulations!
But Kamala Harris not markedly increasing Biden's lead is unsurprising. There cannot be too many Americans who hate Biden and were planning to vote for Trump but have now switched their allegiance because Kamala Harris has a nice smile.
Everyone laughed when Dan Quayle misspelled potato(e). No-one changed their vote.
Thanks.
Yes I agree Harris was picked more on the basis of being a potential POTUS if needed and being a safe pair of hands rather than on the basis she would pick up many new voters
I was told last week that she was the third choice.
Klobuchar was first, but then Minnesota happened (that’s what my source said but I don’t know what they were referring to)
Whitman was second but she turned it down. Partly to focus on Covid, but also because she thought that she would get all sorts of shit tipped on her by BLM because she is white & it would damage her long term political career
Kamala was third choice and made at quite short notice (hence the focus of Beau’s relationship with her - Biden didn’t have a compelling argument to make as you why he wanted her as his VP.
Who knows whether it’s true or not (my source isn’t in Biden’s inner circle) but it’s plausible at least
"Minnesota happened" = killing of George Floyd.
Which indeed scuppered whatever chance Sen. Klobuchar had this year. However, that was MONTHS before Biden made his final decision.
Part of VP consideration / vetting / selection is that potential picks go up and down and (sometimes) back up as the process proceeds.
With Klobuchar, I'd not been in the least surprised if, as well as fitting the profile less well post-BLM, vetting threw up problems.
It is common knowledge that Klobuchar can be quite robust and isn't the easiest person to work with by any means. I'd not be at all surprised if there were some Priti Patel type incidents, and one or two NDAs floating about.
She ruled herself out fairly earlier, and it has the feeling of someone taking her aside and saying it'd be better for her if she wasn't even a leading contender coming up to decision day.
These pictures of Minsk make it look quite agreeable. Certainly better than brutalist Bucharest under Ceaușescu. And the people seem well clothed and well fed. Why are they all so angry?
Maybe because the incumbent President rigged the election, which the opposition won, and then beat-up young people who protested against it and paraded their bruised bodies on national television?
It does make you wonder how he thought that would work, the days when you could use thuggery without being found out on the international stage are long gone
Same with China and the Uighurs too.
Thing is ..our capacity to face it down has been diminished too. If push came to shove I don't think we'd be able of willing to do anything about it (except economic) and they know that too.
Possibly a very aggressive cyber crippling could do some serious damage without mass casualties but and the end of the day winning wars boils down to getting boots on the ground.
Ultimately it's about using force to stop nasty people.
China and the uighars is different they dont really have any issues if we cut them off, belarus would
Maybe the Uighars actually deserved all this? Otherwise surely all the Muslim countries would be wildly complaining to China, yet they aren't? They get very angry when westerners do a bad cartoon, yet they are silent when China puts 1m Muslims in a concentration camp and sterilises the women.
It mystifies me. I guess therefore, and taking my lead from Riyadh, Tehran and Cairo, that the Uighurs did something wrong, and China is justified.
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
so house prices trebled under new labour but you think its the tories problem to resolve?
The issue for London house prices is that -
1) The population of London was (and is) growing rapidly 2) It is deliberate and long term policy, by all parties, to prevent house building on the scale of the population growth of London.
There are 3 answers that I can think of -
1) Stop the population of London growing. 2) Let the village of the green belt expand and merge to form new suburbs. 3) Super fast public transport to very large new satellite towns.
3) is less popular at the moment... 2) Is against the modern Religion Of The Environment* :
*As opposed to actually doing things that preserve the actual... environment. The religious stuff version is on a par with getting your instructions from spontaneous combusting shrubbery.
Your analysis is missing the financial speculation on the housing market encouraged by successive govts, creating a feedback loop where most people in the country believe prices only ever go up. Combined with a shocking understanding of other forms of investment and saving and govt money printing on a scale never seen before, it is not surprising that house prices have become a dangerous bubble.
That only really began under gordon brown who massively deregulated buy to let and also allowed property to be part of pensions
Yes it began under new Labour and has been followed by the Tories who added on the vast QE (Labour would probably have done similar). AIUI QE for the first couple of years after the crash was necessary but should have been tapered off far more quickly. Both parties are to blame on this one, and no party has really demonstrated an understanding of the problems and presented good solutions.
Whether that is from incompetence or fear of upsetting voters I dont know.
These pictures of Minsk make it look quite agreeable. Certainly better than brutalist Bucharest under Ceaușescu. And the people seem well clothed and well fed. Why are they all so angry?
Maybe because the incumbent President rigged the election, which the opposition won, and then beat-up young people who protested against it and paraded their bruised bodies on national television?
It does make you wonder how he thought that would work, the days when you could use thuggery without being found out on the international stage are long gone
Virus seems to be one of the main reasons. They had had it bad and the President has been a twat about it in the Trump style.
Thus,
"The last remaining part of the social contract between Belarusians and Lukashenko – limited freedoms in exchange for security – has been irreparably broken."
Also a refusal to implement market reforms. Russian subsidy has been keeping the country doing well for many years but sounds like that has been increasingly up and down.
I wasn't disputing the reasons just why he thought he could browbeat the country it has been a long time since that has worked in small countries
These pictures of Minsk make it look quite agreeable. Certainly better than brutalist Bucharest under Ceaușescu. And the people seem well clothed and well fed. Why are they all so angry?
Maybe because the incumbent President rigged the election, which the opposition won, and then beat-up young people who protested against it and paraded their bruised bodies on national television?
It does make you wonder how he thought that would work, the days when you could use thuggery without being found out on the international stage are long gone
Same with China and the Uighurs too.
Thing is ..our capacity to face it down has been diminished too. If push came to shove I don't think we'd be able of willing to do anything about it (except economic) and they know that too.
Possibly a very aggressive cyber crippling could do some serious damage without mass casualties but and the end of the day winning wars boils down to getting boots on the ground.
Ultimately it's about using force to stop nasty people.
China and the uighars is different they dont really have any issues if we cut them off, belarus would
Maybe the Uighars actually deserved all this? Otherwise surely all the Muslim countries would be wildly complaining to China, yet they aren't? They get very angry when westerners do a bad cartoon, yet they are silent when China puts 1m Muslims in a concentration camp and sterilises the women.
It mystifies me. I guess therefore, and taking my lead from Riyadh, Tehran and Cairo, that the Uighurs did something wrong, and China is justified.
I would guess its more that those places know the west gives a shit when whinged at whereas china is more likely to just stick two fingers up and double down
These pictures of Minsk make it look quite agreeable. Certainly better than brutalist Bucharest under Ceaușescu. And the people seem well clothed and well fed. Why are they all so angry?
Maybe because the incumbent President rigged the election, which the opposition won, and then beat-up young people who protested against it and paraded their bruised bodies on national television?
It does make you wonder how he thought that would work, the days when you could use thuggery without being found out on the international stage are long gone
Virus seems to be one of the main reasons. They had had it bad and the President has been a twat about it in the Trump style.
Thus,
"The last remaining part of the social contract between Belarusians and Lukashenko – limited freedoms in exchange for security – has been irreparably broken."
Also a refusal to implement market reforms. Russian subsidy has been keeping the country doing well for many years but sounds like that has been increasingly up and down.
I wasn't disputing the reasons just why he thought he could browbeat the country it has been a long time since that has worked in small countries
Sorry, it was meant as response to "Why are they all so angry?" which was further down the thread.
If I earn a decent salary and I pay my taxes, to me it seems illogical I have to wait until I'm 39 to buy a house. It seems reasonable in my 20s I should be able to afford one but I cannot, without parental help. That is not in any way a fair or reasonable situation to be in.
My point about 10 years was that the Tories have been in power since 2010 and have not resolved this issue. Saying it's dropped down to 39 isn't at all helpful to people who are in my position and stuck renting (literally throwing money down the drain) and can't afford to buy. That's indefensible.
I was simply explaining why we don't vote Tory. And no amount of condescending, or saying "just wait a bit longer" is going to change that fact. You've had 10 years, you haven't resolved it.
Anyway, I can see as usual this debate is completely circular so I'm going to leave it there.
The real issue is house prices. This was caused by asset price inflation resulting from the decision to print money after the 2008 crash. This was compounded Dee by the decision to restrict mortgage lending to a 5.5x multiple.
The Tory government made some progress in controlling the deficit but until they can sterilise the debt (ie sell the debt on the BoE balance sheet to third party investors and cancel the proceeds) then that’s not going to change.
Hence you need to reduce house prices over time by basically keeping them as flat as possible in nominal terms while wages increase. You can’t just cut prices because that will destroy the banking sector.
Fundamentally it’s a mess. But it’s unreasonable to expect the government to “solve it”. There are no good options and it is going to take time to unwind the fundamental damage down in the 2000s. The West was living beyond our means in a big way and we are still paying the price
House price inflation didn't happen post-2008
House price inflation happened before it. In 1997 the average UK house price was about £50,000 - by 2008 it was over £180,000. That is the problem.
New Labour screwed the young and we're still paying the price. That's what happens when Labour get in office.
The index I’ve just pulled had 1989 = 100.
It was roughly 300 in 2007 and 400 in 2019.
So we are both right 😄
In that case the prices in 2007 were 300% of the rate they were in 1989 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 6.3% per annum which is unsustainable.
Whereas in 2019 the prices were 133% of the rate they were in 2017 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 2.3% per annum.
Yes, but mortgage rates are a quarter of what I was paying 3 decades ago, hence the affordability of mortgages remains good.
Getting mortgage rates back to 5-6% and normal interest rates on savings is the other way of making house prices come down. Indeed probably more effective than building, as there isn't a very good correlation between building rates and prices, as @rcs1000 has pointed out in the past.
In the short term or long term?
In the long term there is a major correlation.
The reason for the poor correlation between building rates and prices, is that it has been many decades since building has even got *close* to the population increase.
Increasing mortgage rates, rent control etc. won't provide more housing - they might reduce the cost (maybe) for those who are lucky enough to get a house.
If I earn a decent salary and I pay my taxes, to me it seems illogical I have to wait until I'm 39 to buy a house. It seems reasonable in my 20s I should be able to afford one but I cannot, without parental help. That is not in any way a fair or reasonable situation to be in.
My point about 10 years was that the Tories have been in power since 2010 and have not resolved this issue. Saying it's dropped down to 39 isn't at all helpful to people who are in my position and stuck renting (literally throwing money down the drain) and can't afford to buy. That's indefensible.
I was simply explaining why we don't vote Tory. And no amount of condescending, or saying "just wait a bit longer" is going to change that fact. You've had 10 years, you haven't resolved it.
Anyway, I can see as usual this debate is completely circular so I'm going to leave it there.
The real issue is house prices. This was caused by asset price inflation resulting from the decision to print money after the 2008 crash. This was compounded Dee by the decision to restrict mortgage lending to a 5.5x multiple.
The Tory government made some progress in controlling the deficit but until they can sterilise the debt (ie sell the debt on the BoE balance sheet to third party investors and cancel the proceeds) then that’s not going to change.
Hence you need to reduce house prices over time by basically keeping them as flat as possible in nominal terms while wages increase. You can’t just cut prices because that will destroy the banking sector.
Fundamentally it’s a mess. But it’s unreasonable to expect the government to “solve it”. There are no good options and it is going to take time to unwind the fundamental damage down in the 2000s. The West was living beyond our means in a big way and we are still paying the price
House price inflation didn't happen post-2008
House price inflation happened before it. In 1997 the average UK house price was about £50,000 - by 2008 it was over £180,000. That is the problem.
New Labour screwed the young and we're still paying the price. That's what happens when Labour get in office.
The index I’ve just pulled had 1989 = 100.
It was roughly 300 in 2007 and 400 in 2019.
So we are both right 😄
In that case the prices in 2007 were 300% of the rate they were in 1989 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 6.3% per annum which is unsustainable.
Whereas in 2019 the prices were 133% of the rate they were in 2017 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 2.3% per annum.
Yes, but mortgage rates are a quarter of what I was paying 3 decades ago, hence the affordability of mortgages remains good.
Getting mortgage rates back to 5-6% and normal interest rates on savings is the other way of making house prices come down. Indeed probably more effective than building, as there isn't a very good correlation between building rates and prices, as @rcs1000 has pointed out in the past.
In the short term or long term?
In the long term there is a major correlation.
The reason for the poor correlation between building rates and prices, is that it has been many decades since building has even got *close* to the population increase.
Increasing mortgage rates, rent control etc. won't provide more housing - they might reduce the cost (maybe) for those who are lucky enough to get a house.
and the main one whinging he cant buy a house wants to massively increase the population by in his words "massively increasing the number of refugees we take" I wonder where those refugees will choose to try and live, prior experience tells us london/
If I earn a decent salary and I pay my taxes, to me it seems illogical I have to wait until I'm 39 to buy a house. It seems reasonable in my 20s I should be able to afford one but I cannot, without parental help. That is not in any way a fair or reasonable situation to be in.
My point about 10 years was that the Tories have been in power since 2010 and have not resolved this issue. Saying it's dropped down to 39 isn't at all helpful to people who are in my position and stuck renting (literally throwing money down the drain) and can't afford to buy. That's indefensible.
I was simply explaining why we don't vote Tory. And no amount of condescending, or saying "just wait a bit longer" is going to change that fact. You've had 10 years, you haven't resolved it.
Anyway, I can see as usual this debate is completely circular so I'm going to leave it there.
The real issue is house prices. This was caused by asset price inflation resulting from the decision to print money after the 2008 crash. This was compounded Dee by the decision to restrict mortgage lending to a 5.5x multiple.
The Tory government made some progress in controlling the deficit but until they can sterilise the debt (ie sell the debt on the BoE balance sheet to third party investors and cancel the proceeds) then that’s not going to change.
Hence you need to reduce house prices over time by basically keeping them as flat as possible in nominal terms while wages increase. You can’t just cut prices because that will destroy the banking sector.
Fundamentally it’s a mess. But it’s unreasonable to expect the government to “solve it”. There are no good options and it is going to take time to unwind the fundamental damage down in the 2000s. The West was living beyond our means in a big way and we are still paying the price
House price inflation didn't happen post-2008
House price inflation happened before it. In 1997 the average UK house price was about £50,000 - by 2008 it was over £180,000. That is the problem.
New Labour screwed the young and we're still paying the price. That's what happens when Labour get in office.
The index I’ve just pulled had 1989 = 100.
It was roughly 300 in 2007 and 400 in 2019.
So we are both right 😄
In that case the prices in 2007 were 300% of the rate they were in 1989 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 6.3% per annum which is unsustainable.
Whereas in 2019 the prices were 133% of the rate they were in 2017 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 2.3% per annum.
Yes, but mortgage rates are a quarter of what I was paying 3 decades ago, hence the affordability of mortgages remains good.
Getting mortgage rates back to 5-6% and normal interest rates on savings is the other way of making house prices come down. Indeed probably more effective than building, as there isn't a very good correlation between building rates and prices, as @rcs1000 has pointed out in the past.
In the short term or long term?
In the long term there is a major correlation.
The reason for the poor correlation between building rates and prices, is that it has been many decades since building has even got *close* to the population increase.
Increasing mortgage rates, rent control etc. won't provide more housing - they might reduce the cost (maybe) for those who are lucky enough to get a house.
and the main one whinging he cant buy a house wants to massively increase the population by in his words "massively increasing the number of refugees we take" I wonder where those refugees will choose to try and live, prior experience tells us london/
Superb post yet again, your contributions are unrivalled in their intelligence and relevance
These pictures of Minsk make it look quite agreeable. Certainly better than brutalist Bucharest under Ceaușescu. And the people seem well clothed and well fed. Why are they all so angry?
Maybe because the incumbent President rigged the election, which the opposition won, and then beat-up young people who protested against it and paraded their bruised bodies on national television?
It does make you wonder how he thought that would work, the days when you could use thuggery without being found out on the international stage are long gone
Virus seems to be one of the main reasons. They had had it bad and the President has been a twat about it in the Trump style.
Thus,
"The last remaining part of the social contract between Belarusians and Lukashenko – limited freedoms in exchange for security – has been irreparably broken."
Also a refusal to implement market reforms. Russian subsidy has been keeping the country doing well for many years but sounds like that has been increasingly up and down.
I wasn't disputing the reasons just why he thought he could browbeat the country it has been a long time since that has worked in small countries
He's been doing it for a quarter of a century and, although he's in some difficulty just now, he has a reasonable chance of getting past this bump in the road.
The fundamental issue for Belarus is that it is so tied to the apron of Mother Russia that anything else is going to involve incredibly painful dislocation. Far worse than Ukraine, a good proportion of which had a reasonably advanced, diverse economy. So much of the Belarussian economy is hopelessly outdated and entirely dependent on the indulgence of Moscow.
So overturning it and weathering the inevitable storm is a course a 20-something Belarussian can contemplate, but it's absolutely terrifying for those in their 40s and 50s plus.
If I earn a decent salary and I pay my taxes, to me it seems illogical I have to wait until I'm 39 to buy a house. It seems reasonable in my 20s I should be able to afford one but I cannot, without parental help. That is not in any way a fair or reasonable situation to be in.
My point about 10 years was that the Tories have been in power since 2010 and have not resolved this issue. Saying it's dropped down to 39 isn't at all helpful to people who are in my position and stuck renting (literally throwing money down the drain) and can't afford to buy. That's indefensible.
I was simply explaining why we don't vote Tory. And no amount of condescending, or saying "just wait a bit longer" is going to change that fact. You've had 10 years, you haven't resolved it.
Anyway, I can see as usual this debate is completely circular so I'm going to leave it there.
The real issue is house prices. This was caused by asset price inflation resulting from the decision to print money after the 2008 crash. This was compounded Dee by the decision to restrict mortgage lending to a 5.5x multiple.
The Tory government made some progress in controlling the deficit but until they can sterilise the debt (ie sell the debt on the BoE balance sheet to third party investors and cancel the proceeds) then that’s not going to change.
Hence you need to reduce house prices over time by basically keeping them as flat as possible in nominal terms while wages increase. You can’t just cut prices because that will destroy the banking sector.
Fundamentally it’s a mess. But it’s unreasonable to expect the government to “solve it”. There are no good options and it is going to take time to unwind the fundamental damage down in the 2000s. The West was living beyond our means in a big way and we are still paying the price
House price inflation didn't happen post-2008
House price inflation happened before it. In 1997 the average UK house price was about £50,000 - by 2008 it was over £180,000. That is the problem.
New Labour screwed the young and we're still paying the price. That's what happens when Labour get in office.
The index I’ve just pulled had 1989 = 100.
It was roughly 300 in 2007 and 400 in 2019.
So we are both right 😄
In that case the prices in 2007 were 300% of the rate they were in 1989 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 6.3% per annum which is unsustainable.
Whereas in 2019 the prices were 133% of the rate they were in 2017 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 2.3% per annum.
Yes, but mortgage rates are a quarter of what I was paying 3 decades ago, hence the affordability of mortgages remains good.
Getting mortgage rates back to 5-6% and normal interest rates on savings is the other way of making house prices come down. Indeed probably more effective than building, as there isn't a very good correlation between building rates and prices, as @rcs1000 has pointed out in the past.
In the short term or long term?
In the long term there is a major correlation.
The reason for the poor correlation between building rates and prices, is that it has been many decades since building has even got *close* to the population increase.
Increasing mortgage rates, rent control etc. won't provide more housing - they might reduce the cost (maybe) for those who are lucky enough to get a house.
Increasing mortgage rates would impact prices, but as affordability would go down the net effect on ownership rates would be small.
I reckon that people spend as much as they can afford on buying a house, moving upscale if prices reduce, so that they spend in the region of 40% of income on housing costs.
The Oxford and Moderna vaccines have now been in Phase 3 for about three weeks now, and thousands of people will have received doses of each.
The very first preliminary data will start appearing in the next few weeks, as (at the very least) people in the control group will find themselves getting CV-19.
Oxford has the slight advantage as far as early testing goes because their vaccine is being trialled in countries with higher incidences of CV-19, while Moderna is mostly being tested in the US.
Nevertheless, we may well get some encouraging news sooner rather than later. (Albeit we may also get negative news!)
Hmm, do you know whether they are unblinding the CV-19 positives as they go along? It may weaken the power of the statistical test if they make it sequential. And even if they peek themselves, they may well not make interim results public... especially if unpromising.
Also surely positives from the first 2-4 weeks after inoculation have to be treated differently, as antibodies take a while to be produced?
For both reasons I'm expecting to have to wait a while to hear anything, sadly.
If I earn a decent salary and I pay my taxes, to me it seems illogical I have to wait until I'm 39 to buy a house. It seems reasonable in my 20s I should be able to afford one but I cannot, without parental help. That is not in any way a fair or reasonable situation to be in.
My point about 10 years was that the Tories have been in power since 2010 and have not resolved this issue. Saying it's dropped down to 39 isn't at all helpful to people who are in my position and stuck renting (literally throwing money down the drain) and can't afford to buy. That's indefensible.
I was simply explaining why we don't vote Tory. And no amount of condescending, or saying "just wait a bit longer" is going to change that fact. You've had 10 years, you haven't resolved it.
Anyway, I can see as usual this debate is completely circular so I'm going to leave it there.
The real issue is house prices. This was caused by asset price inflation resulting from the decision to print money after the 2008 crash. This was compounded Dee by the decision to restrict mortgage lending to a 5.5x multiple.
The Tory government made some progress in controlling the deficit but until they can sterilise the debt (ie sell the debt on the BoE balance sheet to third party investors and cancel the proceeds) then that’s not going to change.
Hence you need to reduce house prices over time by basically keeping them as flat as possible in nominal terms while wages increase. You can’t just cut prices because that will destroy the banking sector.
Fundamentally it’s a mess. But it’s unreasonable to expect the government to “solve it”. There are no good options and it is going to take time to unwind the fundamental damage down in the 2000s. The West was living beyond our means in a big way and we are still paying the price
House price inflation didn't happen post-2008
House price inflation happened before it. In 1997 the average UK house price was about £50,000 - by 2008 it was over £180,000. That is the problem.
New Labour screwed the young and we're still paying the price. That's what happens when Labour get in office.
The index I’ve just pulled had 1989 = 100.
It was roughly 300 in 2007 and 400 in 2019.
So we are both right 😄
In that case the prices in 2007 were 300% of the rate they were in 1989 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 6.3% per annum which is unsustainable.
Whereas in 2019 the prices were 133% of the rate they were in 2017 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 2.3% per annum.
Yes, but mortgage rates are a quarter of what I was paying 3 decades ago, hence the affordability of mortgages remains good.
Getting mortgage rates back to 5-6% and normal interest rates on savings is the other way of making house prices come down. Indeed probably more effective than building, as there isn't a very good correlation between building rates and prices, as @rcs1000 has pointed out in the past.
In the short term or long term?
In the long term there is a major correlation.
The reason for the poor correlation between building rates and prices, is that it has been many decades since building has even got *close* to the population increase.
Increasing mortgage rates, rent control etc. won't provide more housing - they might reduce the cost (maybe) for those who are lucky enough to get a house.
and the main one whinging he cant buy a house wants to massively increase the population by in his words "massively increasing the number of refugees we take" I wonder where those refugees will choose to try and live, prior experience tells us london/
Superb post yet again, your contributions are unrivalled in their intelligence and relevance
Continue to not reply in anyway shape or form with anything intelligent. Sadly for you cant deplatform me here so I get to put my side and you just respond with platitudes. I don't mind in the least as people just assume you have no real reply.
Which did you object to? Me saying you were whinging about prices in London... a look down the thread shows you were doing that.
Me saying you wanted us to massively increase the number of refugees....again your own words show you have said that.
Me saying the majority of refugess would gravitate to london when all evidence suggests it/
But you keep on saying nice post and not dealing with the content. We have already shown tonight you were the aggressor not me so....
If I earn a decent salary and I pay my taxes, to me it seems illogical I have to wait until I'm 39 to buy a house. It seems reasonable in my 20s I should be able to afford one but I cannot, without parental help. That is not in any way a fair or reasonable situation to be in.
My point about 10 years was that the Tories have been in power since 2010 and have not resolved this issue. Saying it's dropped down to 39 isn't at all helpful to people who are in my position and stuck renting (literally throwing money down the drain) and can't afford to buy. That's indefensible.
I was simply explaining why we don't vote Tory. And no amount of condescending, or saying "just wait a bit longer" is going to change that fact. You've had 10 years, you haven't resolved it.
Anyway, I can see as usual this debate is completely circular so I'm going to leave it there.
The real issue is house prices. This was caused by asset price inflation resulting from the decision to print money after the 2008 crash. This was compounded Dee by the decision to restrict mortgage lending to a 5.5x multiple.
The Tory government made some progress in controlling the deficit but until they can sterilise the debt (ie sell the debt on the BoE balance sheet to third party investors and cancel the proceeds) then that’s not going to change.
Hence you need to reduce house prices over time by basically keeping them as flat as possible in nominal terms while wages increase. You can’t just cut prices because that will destroy the banking sector.
Fundamentally it’s a mess. But it’s unreasonable to expect the government to “solve it”. There are no good options and it is going to take time to unwind the fundamental damage down in the 2000s. The West was living beyond our means in a big way and we are still paying the price
House price inflation didn't happen post-2008
House price inflation happened before it. In 1997 the average UK house price was about £50,000 - by 2008 it was over £180,000. That is the problem.
New Labour screwed the young and we're still paying the price. That's what happens when Labour get in office.
The index I’ve just pulled had 1989 = 100.
It was roughly 300 in 2007 and 400 in 2019.
So we are both right 😄
In that case the prices in 2007 were 300% of the rate they were in 1989 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 6.3% per annum which is unsustainable.
Whereas in 2019 the prices were 133% of the rate they were in 2017 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 2.3% per annum.
Yes, but mortgage rates are a quarter of what I was paying 3 decades ago, hence the affordability of mortgages remains good.
Getting mortgage rates back to 5-6% and normal interest rates on savings is the other way of making house prices come down. Indeed probably more effective than building, as there isn't a very good correlation between building rates and prices, as @rcs1000 has pointed out in the past.
In the short term or long term?
In the long term there is a major correlation.
The reason for the poor correlation between building rates and prices, is that it has been many decades since building has even got *close* to the population increase.
Increasing mortgage rates, rent control etc. won't provide more housing - they might reduce the cost (maybe) for those who are lucky enough to get a house.
and the main one whinging he cant buy a house wants to massively increase the population by in his words "massively increasing the number of refugees we take" I wonder where those refugees will choose to try and live, prior experience tells us london/
Superb post yet again, your contributions are unrivalled in their intelligence and relevance
Continue to not reply in anyway shape or form with anything intelligent. Sadly for you cant deplatform me here so I get to put my side and you just respond with platitudes. I don't mind in the least as people just assume you have no real reply.
Which did you object to? Me saying you were whinging about prices in London... a look down the thread shows you were doing that.
Me saying you wanted us to massively increase the number of refugees....again your own words show you have said that.
Me saying the majority of refugess would gravitate to london when all evidence suggests it/
But you keep on saying nice post and not dealing with the content. We have already shown tonight you were the aggressor not me so....
What a fantastic post! 10/10 for brilliant and coherent posting. A pleasure.
These pictures of Minsk make it look quite agreeable. Certainly better than brutalist Bucharest under Ceaușescu. And the people seem well clothed and well fed. Why are they all so angry?
Maybe because the incumbent President rigged the election, which the opposition won, and then beat-up young people who protested against it and paraded their bruised bodies on national television?
It does make you wonder how he thought that would work, the days when you could use thuggery without being found out on the international stage are long gone
Virus seems to be one of the main reasons. They had had it bad and the President has been a twat about it in the Trump style.
Thus,
"The last remaining part of the social contract between Belarusians and Lukashenko – limited freedoms in exchange for security – has been irreparably broken."
Also a refusal to implement market reforms. Russian subsidy has been keeping the country doing well for many years but sounds like that has been increasingly up and down.
I wasn't disputing the reasons just why he thought he could browbeat the country it has been a long time since that has worked in small countries
He's been doing it for a quarter of a century and, although he's in some difficulty just now, he has a reasonable chance of getting past this bump in the road.
The fundamental issue for Belarus is that it is so tied to the apron of Mother Russia that anything else is going to involve incredibly painful dislocation. Far worse than Ukraine, a good proportion of which had a reasonably advanced, diverse economy. So much of the Belarussian economy is hopelessly outdated and entirely dependent on the indulgence of Moscow.
So overturning it and weathering the inevitable storm is a course a 20-something Belarussian can contemplate, but it's absolutely terrifying for those in their 40s and 50s plus.
It depends on which horse Putin wants to back. Backing a losing dictator hurts him more than endorsing and anointing an opponent.
No doubt the next piece of condescending advice will be "just move".
£144,000 will buy you nothing in the proximity of London.
I'm a Northerner, I can't speak about London. I have no intention of speaking about London.
But yes Londoners should commute is the general idea isn't it? Not that it is my area of expertise, so I am not speaking about London. But Londoners also earn more wages so should be able to save more than £100 a month hopefully.
For a couple if they could save £250 a month for five years between them that would provide the deposit of a £360,000 house.
Do you know how much commuting costs?
I feel like you're talking out of your rear.
A quick google tells me that the average house price in London is £435,000.
The average house price in Grantham - which is 1 hr 15 minutes from Kings Cross - is £176,000.
A season ticket for Grantham to London varies from just under £8000 to just under £9000 depending on which service you use.
On that basis you could commute for a decade - spending £90,000 on season tickets - and still be better of by almost £180,000.
Commuting all week into London on crappy trains is absolutely ghastly, though FWIW I think you'd be quite unlucky in future if you were forced to keep doing that, anyway. The railway station car park here in the middle commuter belt (about 45 mins from Kings Cross) used to be practically full with, at a guess, about 300 cars every weekday. Nowadays they get about two dozen.
For most workers who used to go to offices in London, the days of having to shell out £5,000+ for a season ticket are over for good. In the medium term, those that do have to keep going in will be travelling part-time only, and many of them will probably be allowed to work flexible hours to avoid peak fares (if, indeed, the whole concept of peak fares, and milking those forced to pay them, even survives the fallout from the WFH revolution.)
Add to that the fact that the railways are going to have to be nationalised, which will apply a lot more direct pressure on ministers rather than the hated franchise operators to control fare inflation, and average commuting costs should tumble.
The railways are about to have a very bad decade.
Quite likely, yes. Although the operational model will be different, we're effectively going to be winding the clock back to British Rail - and now, just as in the 70s and 80s, it'll be somewhere close to the back of the queue for public investment.
Any extra money thrown at the trains will probably go on bribing the remaining commuters with fare capping, now that they'll blame the Prime Minister directly if they don't get what they want.
We'll get the same problems we did with the nationalised railways then, too.
It means worse service frequencies, older and dirtier rolling stock and very limited investment or network expansion.
On the contrary. MY memories of R were of a much more humane network which actually did things like trying to make sure that trains connected with each other. Privatization was vastly morse expensive for very limited benefit. And the destructuon of any reserve capacity was one of the ways in which profit was created, to the eternal disbenefit of the traveller.
Comments
The banks get screwed a bit, but they've had a good crisis.
https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1295082527623991296
It was roughly 300 in 2007 and 400 in 2019.
So we are both right 😄
Old Labour gave us the Town and Country Planning Act, which prevents housing supply responding to demand.
No party has clean hands.
https://twitter.com/alexmassie/status/1295052907386228737
Did you provide opinion polling evidence to convince your fiancee to say yes?
Klobuchar was first, but then Minnesota happened (that’s what my source said but I don’t know what they were referring to)
Whitman was second but she turned it down. Partly to focus on Covid, but also because she thought that she would get all sorts of shit tipped on her by BLM because she is white & it would damage her long term political career
Kamala was third choice and made at quite short notice (hence the focus of Beau’s relationship with her - Biden didn’t have a compelling argument to make as you why he wanted her as his VP.
Who knows whether it’s true or not (my source isn’t in Biden’s inner circle) but it’s plausible at least
His repayments are less than he currently pays in rent (a half share of £700 PCM).
It is an identical house to the one he was born in 26 years ago, which has a strange yet comforting circularity.
It's hard to unpick the polls as the bigger news at that time was Perot mania. But at that time the two party match-up had Bush ahead of Clinton, and it was the Democrat campaign that was in real trouble.
Conventions were earlier that year, so this was only a month before the Democratic one... a convention that gave them the biggest bounce on record, with the announcement of Al Gore as VP candidate a particularly popular "heavyweight" pick, contrasting both with Quayle, who'd always been weak but was increasingly a laughing stock, and the more folksy Clinton.
As I say, with so much going on, it's hard to say whether Quayle's gaffe in itself changed a lot of votes - but it was certainly part of the wheels coming off the GOP campaign over the summer of 1992.
Looking around, there are houses (not flats) within 30-60 minutes' rail commute of London main stations in the £200-£250k range, and that is without following the traditional route of doer uppers and auction or repossession purchases.
I checked places like Luton and Wellingborough.
That is a far less painful route onto the housing ladder than followed by many people over the last 50 years.
To give the govt a "get out of jail card", saying it will destroy the banking sector if they take action, when it is govt policies that have created that risk, is extremely generous imo.
Agree with previous posters that this is a problem built up over two decades so both parties to blame, although only one can redress it now. To be fair in the last 3 years the govt has taken some decisions in the right direction, against some of their traditional vested interests. Not enough, but some, which is better than nothing!
Whereas in 2019 the prices were 133% of the rate they were in 2017 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 2.3% per annum.
Kamala is a good choice. Impossible to make out that she is a crazy defunder of the police, though no doubt that is what Trump will push.
The walls are closing in on Trump. He doesn't have long to turn it around, and I don't think he has it in him, just a core vote strategy that motivates Dem voter turnout. Less than 200 EV IMO.
My sell on Trump sub-200 ECVs is looking increasingly interesting.
I get what you're saying and if I was really desperate I would probably do it.
As I said, luckily I am in the privileged position of not needing to worry so much, I earn a decent salary and I have parental support if I ever fell on hard times. A lot of people do not.
For now I am continuing to rent - which feels like I am throwing money down the drain but that is the reality in terms of renting. Luckily I have other sources of income that more than cover it.
It’s saying that the necessary outcome (a 20-30% one time decline in house prices followed by moderate growth) isn’t viable as a one-time move. So you need to let the change happen over time.
Government is the art of the possible
The virus is roaring back into life even in countries which thought they had nailed it, from New Zealand to Germany to Japan.
Ireland has stopped being smug about Britain. They're now worse off than us. America is as screwed as leftwing Mexico or as rightwing Brazil.
Poland, India, Spain, Croatia, South Africa, France, Chile, Malta, Melbourne, it doesn't matter what you do or where you are.
Every single government in the world, in the face of Covid-19, is "wanking into the void". No one knows what to do. No one.
Clearly she will encourage Black voter turnout, almost certainly higher than 2016. This could prove critical in many battle grounds, for example Florida, Michigan, North Carolina & Pennsylvania, also emerging battle grounds Georgia & Ohio.
Think she will also help with Asian American voters AND with immigrants & first-generation Americans - she truly is one of them.
PLUS she appeals to many women, esp, college-educated women. When she was at her apogee in the nomination campaign, after nearly knocking off Biden's block in that one debate, enthusiasm among Democratic women was palpable. Predict that this is impacting even progressives inclined to criticize her as insufficiently progressive, esp on law & order issues.
This last item is also a plus. It may seem to fly in the face of BLM, but will reassure MANY moderates & swing voters - and as EDay approaches will be harder and harder for BLM voter to NOT vote for THE first major party ticket with a Black noiminee.
chuckles isn't going to work as i will keep responding to your inanities and people will soon see its because you have no answers apart from spend lots of taxpayer money for no gain
Any extra money thrown at the trains will probably go on bribing the remaining commuters with fare capping, now that they'll blame the Prime Minister directly if they don't get what they want.
It means worse service frequencies, older and dirtier rolling stock and very limited investment or network expansion.
If you want to live in one of the most congested and popular cities in the world then and socialise there then you can but its going to be difficult to buy a home there.
If you want to settle down with a family elsewhere and commute and socialise less then that is your choice too.
London is its own kettle of fish and I'd rather not prejudge London's issues not being from there myself. But its your choice what you want to do. The idea that everyone can move from everywhere in the country into London and buy a piece of it is unlikely to be sustainable for long though.
Outside of London though the situation now is better than it was a decade ago. This is what I said at the start of this conversation. I said at the start that up north where I am the situation is getting better and that is why I think the Tories are doing better in the North - and not just Corbyn and Brexit. Whereas in London its difficult and that is why the Tories are going backwards in London.
What the solution is to London I don't know. If COVID leads to a hollowing out of London then that might help.
For some reason that reminds me of Poe's story "The Cask of Amontillado".
It's a story of probably what some of us would like to do, in our mind's eye.
Getting mortgage rates back to 5-6% and normal interest rates on savings is the other way of making house prices come down. Indeed probably more effective than building, as there isn't a very good correlation between building rates and prices, as @rcs1000 has pointed out in the past.
What a GREAT title for someone's autobiography! "Minnesota happened" = killing of George Floyd.
Which indeed scuppered whatever chance Sen. Klobuchar had this year. However, that was MONTHS before Biden made his final decision.
Part of VP consideration / vetting / selection is that potential picks go up and down and (sometimes) back up as the process proceeds.
1) The population of London was (and is) growing rapidly
2) It is deliberate and long term policy, by all parties, to prevent house building on the scale of the population growth of London.
There are 3 answers that I can think of -
1) Stop the population of London growing.
2) Let the village of the green belt expand and merge to form new suburbs.
3) Super fast public transport to very large new satellite towns.
3) is less popular at the moment...
2) Is against the modern Religion Of The Environment*
:
*As opposed to actually doing things that preserve the actual... environment. The religious stuff version is on a par with getting your instructions from spontaneous combusting shrubbery.
So, you're essentially correct. Until we have a better idea of what works and what doesn't in terms of balancing getting society moving with controlling this disease, then we are all still guessing - save for the Kiwis, who are remote enough and have few enough cases to repeat their previous trick and eliminate the illness, and other similar, relatively geographically isolated nations that connect with the rest of the globe only by air and sea.
Fat chance of that in any country like ours which, yes, is an island, but also relies so much on the to-ing and fro-ing of truckers for its trade and supply lines.
You may not need to worry, my partner normally votes Liberal Democrat though she did vote Tory last year to keep Corbyn out
Being veep to a guy who is 77? That's not a career move?
In the long term there is a major correlation.
Hopefully now we are all wfh the population of london will start to dwindle and perhaps house prices will come down. Indeed I hope a lot of town centre property gets changed to residential and preserves the green belt too. No doubt though some will complain that their artisanal avocado on toast place is no longer viable without everyone going to the office.
The virus is here, and it is everywhere, and it is not going away soon, and its funny little viral face laughs at our national political debates.
Thing is ..our capacity to face it down has been diminished too. If push came to shove I don't think we'd be able of willing to do anything about it (except economic) and they know that too.
Possibly a very aggressive cyber crippling could do some serious damage without mass casualties but and the end of the day winning wars boils down to getting boots on the ground.
Ultimately it's about using force to stop nasty people.
https://twitter.com/foxinsoxuk/status/1295090430594490370?s=09
Virus seems to be one of the main reasons. They had had it bad and the President has been a twat about it in the Trump style.
Thus,
"The last remaining part of the social contract between Belarusians and Lukashenko – limited freedoms in exchange for security – has been irreparably broken."
Also a refusal to implement market reforms. Russian subsidy has been keeping the country doing well for many years but sounds like that has been increasingly up and down.
It is common knowledge that Klobuchar can be quite robust and isn't the easiest person to work with by any means. I'd not be at all surprised if there were some Priti Patel type incidents, and one or two NDAs floating about.
She ruled herself out fairly earlier, and it has the feeling of someone taking her aside and saying it'd be better for her if she wasn't even a leading contender coming up to decision day.
It mystifies me. I guess therefore, and taking my lead from Riyadh, Tehran and Cairo, that the Uighurs did something wrong, and China is justified.
Whether that is from incompetence or fear of upsetting voters I dont know.
Increasing mortgage rates, rent control etc. won't provide more housing - they might reduce the cost (maybe) for those who are lucky enough to get a house.
The fundamental issue for Belarus is that it is so tied to the apron of Mother Russia that anything else is going to involve incredibly painful dislocation. Far worse than Ukraine, a good proportion of which had a reasonably advanced, diverse economy. So much of the Belarussian economy is hopelessly outdated and entirely dependent on the indulgence of Moscow.
So overturning it and weathering the inevitable storm is a course a 20-something Belarussian can contemplate, but it's absolutely terrifying for those in their 40s and 50s plus.
I reckon that people spend as much as they can afford on buying a house, moving upscale if prices reduce, so that they spend in the region of 40% of income on housing costs.
Also surely positives from the first 2-4 weeks after inoculation have to be treated differently, as antibodies take a while to be produced?
For both reasons I'm expecting to have to wait a while to hear anything, sadly.
--AS
Which did you object to? Me saying you were whinging about prices in London... a look down the thread shows you were doing that.
Me saying you wanted us to massively increase the number of refugees....again your own words show you have said that.
Me saying the majority of refugess would gravitate to london when all evidence suggests it/
But you keep on saying nice post and not dealing with the content. We have already shown tonight you were the aggressor not me so....
Those who spaff into the abyss...”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19751695