It's all a bit Bonfire of the Vanities. Safe to attack 'perpetuators', with no one willing to back them up for transgressions that are orders of magnitude lower than in other areas with more 'complicated' issues.
In totally unrelated news:
“It’s too soon to say what exactly the long-term impact of the current debate is going to have, but it’s likely to contribute to the huge changes in young male sexuality that have been happening for over a decade - without most people paying them much attention.
If the joy of sex is disappearing for young men, so too for a lot of them, is the point of sex. Russell, 18, says bleakly: “In my Dad’s day, you probably pursued sex if you’re straight to find a serious girlfriend you eventually might marry and have kids with. We can’t think like that. We don’t have the means to move out, let alone start a grown-up life. It makes it all – dating, sex, finding The One – all seem a bit pointless.”
It will be interesting to see if this eventually feeds through into marriage and births stats.
... or maybe we'll finally build enough houses for the young as well as the old, which would be my preference.
Or make the landlords sell up so that young people are having their lives leeched away by the parasites.
They'll sell up quickly enough if we build enough houses so that prices stagnate or fall.
Anyway, some rental is desirable.
More housing is not the totality of the solution, but it’s sure as hell a prerequisite.
A large amount of the asset price inflation of the last decade and half, is the direct result of interest rates being on the floor.
Yes, there were three causes which came together:
- constrained supply - growing population - very low interest rates.
None of them were fatal by themselves, but together they have destroyed the prospects of a whole generation of young people.
Don't forget below-inflation wage rises.
If wages had kept up with inflation it would be less of a problem.
I don't think so - given constrained supply, house prices are set over the long run by incomes divided by interest rates, so prices would just have risen more.
But they haven't risen in real terms since 2010.
You're right they haven't. House earning ratios rose before 2010 and who was in charge then? 🥀
Mr. Cookie, I noted at the time that hardline pro-EU MPs voting alongside hardline anti-EU MPs was dumb.
Just seems bizarre we ended up where we did given how pro-EU the Commons was.
It was inevitable - the pro-EU MPs voted to block pretty much everything to do with Brexit. Because they wouldn't vote for anything Brexity. But they refused to vote *against* Brexit.
So the only possible progress was the hardest possible Brexit (one way ratchet), while the Remainer Parliment hung on and "hoped for something to turn up".
It's all a bit Bonfire of the Vanities. Safe to attack 'perpetuators', with no one willing to back them up for transgressions that are orders of magnitude lower than in other areas with more 'complicated' issues.
In totally unrelated news:
“It’s too soon to say what exactly the long-term impact of the current debate is going to have, but it’s likely to contribute to the huge changes in young male sexuality that have been happening for over a decade - without most people paying them much attention.
If the joy of sex is disappearing for young men, so too for a lot of them, is the point of sex. Russell, 18, says bleakly: “In my Dad’s day, you probably pursued sex if you’re straight to find a serious girlfriend you eventually might marry and have kids with. We can’t think like that. We don’t have the means to move out, let alone start a grown-up life. It makes it all – dating, sex, finding The One – all seem a bit pointless.”
It will be interesting to see if this eventually feeds through into marriage and births stats.
... or maybe we'll finally build enough houses for the young as well as the old, which would be my preference.
Or make the landlords sell up so that young people are having their lives leeched away by the parasites.
They'll sell up quickly enough if we build enough houses so that prices stagnate or fall.
Anyway, some rental is desirable.
More housing is not the totality of the solution, but it’s sure as hell a prerequisite.
A large amount of the asset price inflation of the last decade and half, is the direct result of interest rates being on the floor.
Yes, there were three causes which came together:
- constrained supply - growing population - very low interest rates.
None of them were fatal by themselves, but together they have destroyed the prospects of a whole generation of young people.
Don't forget below-inflation wage rises.
If wages had kept up with inflation it would be less of a problem.
I don't think so - given constrained supply, house prices are set over the long run by incomes divided by interest rates, so prices would just have risen more.
But they haven't risen in real terms since 2010.
What haven't? House prices? Incomes? Or interest rates?
It's all a bit Bonfire of the Vanities. Safe to attack 'perpetuators', with no one willing to back them up for transgressions that are orders of magnitude lower than in other areas with more 'complicated' issues.
In totally unrelated news:
“It’s too soon to say what exactly the long-term impact of the current debate is going to have, but it’s likely to contribute to the huge changes in young male sexuality that have been happening for over a decade - without most people paying them much attention.
If the joy of sex is disappearing for young men, so too for a lot of them, is the point of sex. Russell, 18, says bleakly: “In my Dad’s day, you probably pursued sex if you’re straight to find a serious girlfriend you eventually might marry and have kids with. We can’t think like that. We don’t have the means to move out, let alone start a grown-up life. It makes it all – dating, sex, finding The One – all seem a bit pointless.”
It will be interesting to see if this eventually feeds through into marriage and births stats.
... or maybe we'll finally build enough houses for the young as well as the old, which would be my preference.
Or make the landlords sell up so that young people are having their lives leeched away by the parasites.
Oh dear, I suspect I've started that argument again!
I tend to agree with Max on this. Perhaps it is about supply of housing, but I honestly can't see it being fixed if it might lead to a fall in house prices.
To all of those on here praising Brown for "saving the world", fine. But what's happened since has been an unmitigated disaster and all politicians from all political parties as well as the media have contributed to it.
The house price rise happened before not since though. It happened on Brown's tenure.
The point is that prices really ought to have fallen considerably off the back of 2008. They haven't.
Prices did fall after the global financial crisis but have since resumed their climb.
They didn't fall around Woking!
The SE is over saturated with demand. It would take something seismic to really knock house prices here.
Something seismic, like huge numbers of white-collar employees no longer commuting daily to central London?
Except realistically a majority will still be required to commute to central London some of the time and therefore will still need to live within commuting range.
Yes, that’s the big unknown. Will companies allow enough time away from the office that a daily commute isn’t required.
If I had to work two days a week in London, for example, I could live two hours away by train (that’s as far as Manchester, Leeds or Bath), buy one return train ticket and spend one night a week in a cheap London hotel.
Expect plenty of office space to be repurposed as cheap no-frills hotels in the City of London, that’s a great business model for someone.
If I need to be in the office three days a week, that’s the worst of all worlds as I’m still buying a full season ticket so need to live much closer to London.
If it’s one week a month, I can live pretty much anywhere.
The way of structuring season tickets will surely change to some sort of carnet system - i.e. you can travel more cheaply if you commit to travelling a certain number of times per year. The quid pro quo of this for the public transport industry will be that there are financial inducements to spread passengers out. It will be a right bloody nuisance for the operators if everyone chooses to work from home on Fridays and Mondays.
It reminded me of Sherlock Holmes, they removed every other possible option leaving the incredibly unlikely one (which they also didn't want) to go ahead.
It's all a bit Bonfire of the Vanities. Safe to attack 'perpetuators', with no one willing to back them up for transgressions that are orders of magnitude lower than in other areas with more 'complicated' issues.
In totally unrelated news:
“It’s too soon to say what exactly the long-term impact of the current debate is going to have, but it’s likely to contribute to the huge changes in young male sexuality that have been happening for over a decade - without most people paying them much attention.
If the joy of sex is disappearing for young men, so too for a lot of them, is the point of sex. Russell, 18, says bleakly: “In my Dad’s day, you probably pursued sex if you’re straight to find a serious girlfriend you eventually might marry and have kids with. We can’t think like that. We don’t have the means to move out, let alone start a grown-up life. It makes it all – dating, sex, finding The One – all seem a bit pointless.”
It will be interesting to see if this eventually feeds through into marriage and births stats.
... or maybe we'll finally build enough houses for the young as well as the old, which would be my preference.
Or make the landlords sell up so that young people are having their lives leeched away by the parasites.
Oh dear, I suspect I've started that argument again!
I tend to agree with Max on this. Perhaps it is about supply of housing, but I honestly can't see it being fixed if it might lead to a fall in house prices.
To all of those on here praising Brown for "saving the world", fine. But what's happened since has been an unmitigated disaster and all politicians from all political parties as well as the media have contributed to it.
The house price rise happened before not since though. It happened on Brown's tenure.
The point is that prices really ought to have fallen considerably off the back of 2008. They haven't.
Prices did fall after the global financial crisis but have since resumed their climb.
They didn't fall around Woking!
The SE is over saturated with demand. It would take something seismic to really knock house prices here.
Something seismic, like huge numbers of white-collar employees no longer commuting daily to central London?
They still live in the south-east region.
The reason housing is so unaffordable is because the population of the country has increased by 10 million over the last 20 years. In the 70s, 80s and early 90s it hardly increased at all.
Only if their company does stupid crap like say 2 days in the office....all the downsides of commuting with none of the upsides of working from home.
As I noted last night a lot of us didnt move to the south east because we wanted to live here. We moved as it was the only place to find work and have wanted to move out of it ever since but were trapped here. The more people moved here the more companies moved here so they could recruit so the more moved here to work etc. Its a vicious cycle and hopefully going to start breaking down now.
Thankfully I can finally move out of the south east and I won't shed a single tear for it
I used to think Theresa May was the worst Prime Minister of my lifetime. On reflection, it's clearly David Cameron. No PM has inflicted more long-term damage on the UK more casually. May was desperately poor, but she was dealing with Cameron's mess. Johnson is busily causing more harm, of course, but he is part of the Cameron legacy, too.
Cameron did manage to achieve some things though -> .7%, gay marriage, rise in minimum wage... Theresa May's govt was a couple of years wasted?
In her defence, it was difficult for it to be anything but when trying to run a minority government. She deserves some credit for even managing to tread water, given the circumstances. Of course, her biggest failing by far was turning a small majority into a minority! She ran an absolutely terrible election campaign, and all other failures stem from that one big failure.
So mix of (mostly) vaccines and people having had it.
Certainly doesn't jibe with the idea that 30% of the population has had it. On those figures more like 10%.
The two are not mutually exclusive, though - you can have been infected and, for most people, later, been vaccinated (from a quick skim, the report doesn't differentiate, just looks at any antibodies?)
It's all a bit Bonfire of the Vanities. Safe to attack 'perpetuators', with no one willing to back them up for transgressions that are orders of magnitude lower than in other areas with more 'complicated' issues.
In totally unrelated news:
“It’s too soon to say what exactly the long-term impact of the current debate is going to have, but it’s likely to contribute to the huge changes in young male sexuality that have been happening for over a decade - without most people paying them much attention.
If the joy of sex is disappearing for young men, so too for a lot of them, is the point of sex. Russell, 18, says bleakly: “In my Dad’s day, you probably pursued sex if you’re straight to find a serious girlfriend you eventually might marry and have kids with. We can’t think like that. We don’t have the means to move out, let alone start a grown-up life. It makes it all – dating, sex, finding The One – all seem a bit pointless.”
It will be interesting to see if this eventually feeds through into marriage and births stats.
... or maybe we'll finally build enough houses for the young as well as the old, which would be my preference.
Or make the landlords sell up so that young people are having their lives leeched away by the parasites.
Oh dear, I suspect I've started that argument again!
I tend to agree with Max on this. Perhaps it is about supply of housing, but I honestly can't see it being fixed if it might lead to a fall in house prices.
To all of those on here praising Brown for "saving the world", fine. But what's happened since has been an unmitigated disaster and all politicians from all political parties as well as the media have contributed to it.
The house price rise happened before not since though. It happened on Brown's tenure.
The point is that prices really ought to have fallen considerably off the back of 2008. They haven't.
Prices did fall after the global financial crisis but have since resumed their climb.
They didn't fall around Woking!
The SE is over saturated with demand. It would take something seismic to really knock house prices here.
Something seismic, like huge numbers of white-collar employees no longer commuting daily to central London?
Except realistically a majority will still be required to commute to central London some of the time and therefore will still need to live within commuting range.
Yes, that’s the big unknown. Will companies allow enough time away from the office that a daily commute isn’t required.
If I had to work two days a week in London, for example, I could live two hours away by train (that’s as far as Manchester, Leeds or Bath), buy one return train ticket and spend one night a week in a cheap London hotel.
Expect plenty of office space to be repurposed as cheap no-frills hotels in the City of London, that’s a great business model for someone.
If I need to be in the office three days a week, that’s the worst of all worlds as I’m still buying a full season ticket so need to live much closer to London.
If it’s one week a month, I can live pretty much anywhere.
The way of structuring season tickets will surely change to some sort of carnet system - i.e. you can travel more cheaply if you commit to travelling a certain number of times per year. The quid pro quo of this for the public transport industry will be that there are financial inducements to spread passengers out. It will be a right bloody nuisance for the operators if everyone chooses to work from home on Fridays and Mondays.
AIUI the rail operators, containing as much inertia and unionisation as they do, have rejected out of hand any reform of the season ticket system.
I suspect they’ll change their minds over time, but they want to see how working patterns actually change first. Of course, the rail fare structure is a huge part of people’s decision-making process where to locate themselves in the first place.
Wonder what happens to "London" salary weighting if everyone is working from home 3 days a week and living in Cumbria.
My team retained London salaries when we moved out of London.
Colleague in another organisation has agreed with his employer that he will now work from home all bar 3 days a month - this has allowed him to sell his small London place for a much larger place way outside the commuter belt.
Hi, read that essay you sent me. A cut above most critiques of woke, I must say. Although it does rather bundle up lots of things under the umbrella.
Strikes me that Joe Biden might be a good President for the US to have right now in terms of the detox the author cries out for - focusing the Dems more on the knitting.
An interesting read anyway. And long like you said. Took ages because I'm a slow reader. Upshot being no posts from me on here this morning. So that's a win/win all round.
Hi, read that essay you sent me. A cut above most critiques of woke, I must say. Although it does rather bundle up lots of things under the umbrella.
Strikes me that Joe Biden might be a good President for the US to have right now in terms of the detox the author cries out for - focusing the Dems more on the knitting.
An interesting read anyway. And long like you said. Took ages because I'm a slow reader. Upshot being no posts from me on here this morning. So that's a win/win all round.
It's all a bit Bonfire of the Vanities. Safe to attack 'perpetuators', with no one willing to back them up for transgressions that are orders of magnitude lower than in other areas with more 'complicated' issues.
In totally unrelated news:
“It’s too soon to say what exactly the long-term impact of the current debate is going to have, but it’s likely to contribute to the huge changes in young male sexuality that have been happening for over a decade - without most people paying them much attention.
If the joy of sex is disappearing for young men, so too for a lot of them, is the point of sex. Russell, 18, says bleakly: “In my Dad’s day, you probably pursued sex if you’re straight to find a serious girlfriend you eventually might marry and have kids with. We can’t think like that. We don’t have the means to move out, let alone start a grown-up life. It makes it all – dating, sex, finding The One – all seem a bit pointless.”
It will be interesting to see if this eventually feeds through into marriage and births stats.
There is more than facts at work here. The finding of 'the one' is a worthwhile project at any age and to be heartily commended. In my small factory town I see it all around me, I am pleased to say. Yes the challenges are great, but probably not as great as they were for a young man aged 18-25 in 1940. Youth is not sustained by certainties, and never was, it is sustained by hope.
It's all a bit Bonfire of the Vanities. Safe to attack 'perpetuators', with no one willing to back them up for transgressions that are orders of magnitude lower than in other areas with more 'complicated' issues.
In totally unrelated news:
“It’s too soon to say what exactly the long-term impact of the current debate is going to have, but it’s likely to contribute to the huge changes in young male sexuality that have been happening for over a decade - without most people paying them much attention.
If the joy of sex is disappearing for young men, so too for a lot of them, is the point of sex. Russell, 18, says bleakly: “In my Dad’s day, you probably pursued sex if you’re straight to find a serious girlfriend you eventually might marry and have kids with. We can’t think like that. We don’t have the means to move out, let alone start a grown-up life. It makes it all – dating, sex, finding The One – all seem a bit pointless.”
It will be interesting to see if this eventually feeds through into marriage and births stats.
... or maybe we'll finally build enough houses for the young as well as the old, which would be my preference.
Or make the landlords sell up so that young people are having their lives leeched away by the parasites.
They'll sell up quickly enough if we build enough houses so that prices stagnate or fall.
Anyway, some rental is desirable.
More housing is not the totality of the solution, but it’s sure as hell a prerequisite.
A large amount of the asset price inflation of the last decade and half, is the direct result of interest rates being on the floor.
Yes, there were three causes which came together:
- constrained supply - growing population - very low interest rates.
None of them were fatal by themselves, but together they have destroyed the prospects of a whole generation of young people.
Don't forget below-inflation wage rises.
If wages had kept up with inflation it would be less of a problem.
I don't think so - given constrained supply, house prices are set over the long run by incomes divided by interest rates, so prices would just have risen more.
But they haven't risen in real terms since 2010.
What haven't? House prices? Incomes? Or interest rates?
House prices.
And my point is that if wages had risen more than they did, house prices would have risen more than they did, so wage rises, while desirable in themselves, would have done nothing to make houses more affordable in a world of growing population, constrained supply and low interest rates.
One thing I've been mulling over is whether there will be a "push back" after COVID. In service industries where client contact and client engagement is important, everyone knows video calls are crap for building rapport. Therefore will there be a push back in terms of more in-person meetings to overcompensate for 1.5 years of video calls? The benefit of a city's critical mass is that people can meet each other easily.
It's all a bit Bonfire of the Vanities. Safe to attack 'perpetuators', with no one willing to back them up for transgressions that are orders of magnitude lower than in other areas with more 'complicated' issues.
In totally unrelated news:
“It’s too soon to say what exactly the long-term impact of the current debate is going to have, but it’s likely to contribute to the huge changes in young male sexuality that have been happening for over a decade - without most people paying them much attention.
If the joy of sex is disappearing for young men, so too for a lot of them, is the point of sex. Russell, 18, says bleakly: “In my Dad’s day, you probably pursued sex if you’re straight to find a serious girlfriend you eventually might marry and have kids with. We can’t think like that. We don’t have the means to move out, let alone start a grown-up life. It makes it all – dating, sex, finding The One – all seem a bit pointless.”
It will be interesting to see if this eventually feeds through into marriage and births stats.
... or maybe we'll finally build enough houses for the young as well as the old, which would be my preference.
Or make the landlords sell up so that young people are having their lives leeched away by the parasites.
They'll sell up quickly enough if we build enough houses so that prices stagnate or fall.
Anyway, some rental is desirable.
More housing is not the totality of the solution, but it’s sure as hell a prerequisite.
A large amount of the asset price inflation of the last decade and half, is the direct result of interest rates being on the floor.
Except that house/earning ratio hit a peak when base rate was nearly 6%.
Massive population growth combined with minimal house building is what destroyed supply and demand, not interest rates.
Mr. Cookie, I noted at the time that hardline pro-EU MPs voting alongside hardline anti-EU MPs was dumb.
Just seems bizarre we ended up where we did given how pro-EU the Commons was.
It was inevitable - the pro-EU MPs voted to block pretty much everything to do with Brexit. Because they wouldn't vote for anything Brexity. But they refused to vote *against* Brexit.
So the only possible progress was the hardest possible Brexit (one way ratchet), while the Remainer Parliment hung on and "hoped for something to turn up".
"Remainer Parliament".
Yes, the swine. Voting themselves in like that. What cheek.
It's all a bit Bonfire of the Vanities. Safe to attack 'perpetuators', with no one willing to back them up for transgressions that are orders of magnitude lower than in other areas with more 'complicated' issues.
In totally unrelated news:
“It’s too soon to say what exactly the long-term impact of the current debate is going to have, but it’s likely to contribute to the huge changes in young male sexuality that have been happening for over a decade - without most people paying them much attention.
If the joy of sex is disappearing for young men, so too for a lot of them, is the point of sex. Russell, 18, says bleakly: “In my Dad’s day, you probably pursued sex if you’re straight to find a serious girlfriend you eventually might marry and have kids with. We can’t think like that. We don’t have the means to move out, let alone start a grown-up life. It makes it all – dating, sex, finding The One – all seem a bit pointless.”
It will be interesting to see if this eventually feeds through into marriage and births stats.
... or maybe we'll finally build enough houses for the young as well as the old, which would be my preference.
Or make the landlords sell up so that young people are having their lives leeched away by the parasites.
They'll sell up quickly enough if we build enough houses so that prices stagnate or fall.
Anyway, some rental is desirable.
More housing is not the totality of the solution, but it’s sure as hell a prerequisite.
A large amount of the asset price inflation of the last decade and half, is the direct result of interest rates being on the floor.
Yes, there were three causes which came together:
- constrained supply - growing population - very low interest rates.
None of them were fatal by themselves, but together they have destroyed the prospects of a whole generation of young people.
Don't forget below-inflation wage rises.
If wages had kept up with inflation it would be less of a problem.
I don't think so - given constrained supply, house prices are set over the long run by incomes divided by interest rates, so prices would just have risen more.
But they haven't risen in real terms since 2010.
What haven't? House prices? Incomes? Or interest rates?
House prices.
Really? I'm surprised by that. In five years, our house has gone up by 40% (not just valuations - what we bought it for compared to what we've been offered for it two weeks ago). Inflation would have put it up 13% over that time, so real terms increase of 25% or so. We've also spent maybe towards 10% of the purchase price on improvements in the meantime, but that still doesn't get close to what we were just offered.
Now, house price rises might be lumpy, but unless our house is exceptional in some way (or we got a real bargain or our potential buyers are daft) then there must be other places that have lost a chunk of real terms value?
It's all a bit Bonfire of the Vanities. Safe to attack 'perpetuators', with no one willing to back them up for transgressions that are orders of magnitude lower than in other areas with more 'complicated' issues.
In totally unrelated news:
“It’s too soon to say what exactly the long-term impact of the current debate is going to have, but it’s likely to contribute to the huge changes in young male sexuality that have been happening for over a decade - without most people paying them much attention.
If the joy of sex is disappearing for young men, so too for a lot of them, is the point of sex. Russell, 18, says bleakly: “In my Dad’s day, you probably pursued sex if you’re straight to find a serious girlfriend you eventually might marry and have kids with. We can’t think like that. We don’t have the means to move out, let alone start a grown-up life. It makes it all – dating, sex, finding The One – all seem a bit pointless.”
It will be interesting to see if this eventually feeds through into marriage and births stats.
... or maybe we'll finally build enough houses for the young as well as the old, which would be my preference.
Or make the landlords sell up so that young people are having their lives leeched away by the parasites.
They'll sell up quickly enough if we build enough houses so that prices stagnate or fall.
Anyway, some rental is desirable.
More housing is not the totality of the solution, but it’s sure as hell a prerequisite.
A large amount of the asset price inflation of the last decade and half, is the direct result of interest rates being on the floor.
Yes, there were three causes which came together:
- constrained supply - growing population - very low interest rates.
None of them were fatal by themselves, but together they have destroyed the prospects of a whole generation of young people.
Don't forget below-inflation wage rises.
If wages had kept up with inflation it would be less of a problem.
I don't think so - given constrained supply, house prices are set over the long run by incomes divided by interest rates, so prices would just have risen more.
But they haven't risen in real terms since 2010.
What haven't? House prices? Incomes? Or interest rates?
House prices.
And my point is that if wages had risen more than they did, house prices would have risen more than they did, so wage rises, while desirable in themselves, would have done nothing to make houses more affordable in a world of growing population, constrained supply and low interest rates.
Fair enough, you might be right. I don't really know enough about this to say either way!
It's all a bit Bonfire of the Vanities. Safe to attack 'perpetuators', with no one willing to back them up for transgressions that are orders of magnitude lower than in other areas with more 'complicated' issues.
In totally unrelated news:
“It’s too soon to say what exactly the long-term impact of the current debate is going to have, but it’s likely to contribute to the huge changes in young male sexuality that have been happening for over a decade - without most people paying them much attention.
If the joy of sex is disappearing for young men, so too for a lot of them, is the point of sex. Russell, 18, says bleakly: “In my Dad’s day, you probably pursued sex if you’re straight to find a serious girlfriend you eventually might marry and have kids with. We can’t think like that. We don’t have the means to move out, let alone start a grown-up life. It makes it all – dating, sex, finding The One – all seem a bit pointless.”
It will be interesting to see if this eventually feeds through into marriage and births stats.
... or maybe we'll finally build enough houses for the young as well as the old, which would be my preference.
Or make the landlords sell up so that young people are having their lives leeched away by the parasites.
They'll sell up quickly enough if we build enough houses so that prices stagnate or fall.
Anyway, some rental is desirable.
More housing is not the totality of the solution, but it’s sure as hell a prerequisite.
A large amount of the asset price inflation of the last decade and half, is the direct result of interest rates being on the floor.
Except that house/earning ratio hit a peak when base rate was nearly 6%.
Massive population growth combined with minimal house building is what destroyed supply and demand, not interest rates.
So if interest rates went to 6% overnight, you don't think that would make any difference to house prices today?
It's all a bit Bonfire of the Vanities. Safe to attack 'perpetuators', with no one willing to back them up for transgressions that are orders of magnitude lower than in other areas with more 'complicated' issues.
In totally unrelated news:
“It’s too soon to say what exactly the long-term impact of the current debate is going to have, but it’s likely to contribute to the huge changes in young male sexuality that have been happening for over a decade - without most people paying them much attention.
If the joy of sex is disappearing for young men, so too for a lot of them, is the point of sex. Russell, 18, says bleakly: “In my Dad’s day, you probably pursued sex if you’re straight to find a serious girlfriend you eventually might marry and have kids with. We can’t think like that. We don’t have the means to move out, let alone start a grown-up life. It makes it all – dating, sex, finding The One – all seem a bit pointless.”
It will be interesting to see if this eventually feeds through into marriage and births stats.
Anyone remember pursuing sex at 18 to find a serious girlfriend to marry and have kids with? Was I unusually shallow as an 18 year old?
It's all a bit Bonfire of the Vanities. Safe to attack 'perpetuators', with no one willing to back them up for transgressions that are orders of magnitude lower than in other areas with more 'complicated' issues.
In totally unrelated news:
“It’s too soon to say what exactly the long-term impact of the current debate is going to have, but it’s likely to contribute to the huge changes in young male sexuality that have been happening for over a decade - without most people paying them much attention.
If the joy of sex is disappearing for young men, so too for a lot of them, is the point of sex. Russell, 18, says bleakly: “In my Dad’s day, you probably pursued sex if you’re straight to find a serious girlfriend you eventually might marry and have kids with. We can’t think like that. We don’t have the means to move out, let alone start a grown-up life. It makes it all – dating, sex, finding The One – all seem a bit pointless.”
It will be interesting to see if this eventually feeds through into marriage and births stats.
... or maybe we'll finally build enough houses for the young as well as the old, which would be my preference.
Or make the landlords sell up so that young people are having their lives leeched away by the parasites.
They'll sell up quickly enough if we build enough houses so that prices stagnate or fall.
Anyway, some rental is desirable.
More housing is not the totality of the solution, but it’s sure as hell a prerequisite.
A large amount of the asset price inflation of the last decade and half, is the direct result of interest rates being on the floor.
Except that house/earning ratio hit a peak when base rate was nearly 6%.
Massive population growth combined with minimal house building is what destroyed supply and demand, not interest rates.
There’s a lot of regional variation in the p/e numbers, I suspect.
You’re of course correct on population growth. I still find it amazing how many people are in favour of both higher immigration and lower house prices, but also object to more building.
It's all a bit Bonfire of the Vanities. Safe to attack 'perpetuators', with no one willing to back them up for transgressions that are orders of magnitude lower than in other areas with more 'complicated' issues.
In totally unrelated news:
“It’s too soon to say what exactly the long-term impact of the current debate is going to have, but it’s likely to contribute to the huge changes in young male sexuality that have been happening for over a decade - without most people paying them much attention.
If the joy of sex is disappearing for young men, so too for a lot of them, is the point of sex. Russell, 18, says bleakly: “In my Dad’s day, you probably pursued sex if you’re straight to find a serious girlfriend you eventually might marry and have kids with. We can’t think like that. We don’t have the means to move out, let alone start a grown-up life. It makes it all – dating, sex, finding The One – all seem a bit pointless.”
It will be interesting to see if this eventually feeds through into marriage and births stats.
... or maybe we'll finally build enough houses for the young as well as the old, which would be my preference.
Or make the landlords sell up so that young people are having their lives leeched away by the parasites.
They'll sell up quickly enough if we build enough houses so that prices stagnate or fall.
Anyway, some rental is desirable.
More housing is not the totality of the solution, but it’s sure as hell a prerequisite.
A large amount of the asset price inflation of the last decade and half, is the direct result of interest rates being on the floor.
Except that house/earning ratio hit a peak when base rate was nearly 6%.
Massive population growth combined with minimal house building is what destroyed supply and demand, not interest rates.
There’s a lot of regional variation in the p/e numbers, I suspect.
You’re of course correct on population growth. I still find it amazing how many people are in favour of both higher immigration and lower house prices, but also object to more building.
NIMBYism is endemic.
In the local Facebook group for the area (circa 30k members), on every post about development there's a barrage of comments like "Urrg, more houses 🙄". It takes all my being to stop myself arguing back.
I DID vote for Brexit. To leave the European Union. What we have decided to do afterwards - leaving the EEA and CU - is the disaster. Yes, knowing what I now know about the rank stupidity of the Tories I would have voted to remain. But leaving the EU has not caused this disaster, just the political decisions made by the government afterwards.
Oh cut the crap.
Johnson literally said during the referendum he would leave the Single Market and leave the Customs Union. That was the entire point of Brexit, to take back control. Just what did you think you were voting to take back control over if we remained in both the Single Market and Customs Union? Just what did you think we were leaving? And don't say the EU, practically what did you think was meant to change when you voted?
You've swapped over to the Lib Dems and whether by coincidence or not have swapped away from supporting Brexit and you react now with the zeal of the convert. I probably do the same, the other direction, though I at least converted before I voted.
You're rewriting history as usual. There was no "clear" Brexit manifesto that everybody voted for. That has always been known.
But it doesn't matter. We've left now. It's over. We can criticise or praise the current settlement on its own merits. The 2016 referendum was nearly 5 years ago and is largely irrelevant.
Actually there were promises made during the referendum: leaving the Single Market, taking back control of laws, money, borders, courts.
That's been done now. Yes it was nearly five years ago, though the 2019 Tory manifesto promises for what Brexit meant were largely the same ones that were made in 2016.
Which makes Rochdale's sudden Lib Dem Europhilia ring hollow. Nothing major has happened in the end that wasn't promised during the referendum at the end of which he voted Leave.
@RochdalePioneers adoption of Europhilia and turning against Brexit seems to have coincided more with him abandoning Labour and joining the Liberal Democrats than it does anything to do with Brexit itself.
The Brexit referendum was neither based around political parties, nor could it be instrumental in forming a House of Commons nor a government. It stood alone. None of the promises could be reliably cashed on either side. A Scottish referendum would be the same.
All Brexit did was determine the 'sovereignty' issue. All the rest of it was and is a matter for parliament, government and subsequent elections.
We all know when voting, for Leave or Remain, that its future meaning was in the hands of the future.
Some Remain voters held the belief that the EU is not an emerging state; some believed that it was. Voting Remain, if it had won, would not have controlled that future. Same with voting Brexit.
It's all a bit Bonfire of the Vanities. Safe to attack 'perpetuators', with no one willing to back them up for transgressions that are orders of magnitude lower than in other areas with more 'complicated' issues.
In totally unrelated news:
“It’s too soon to say what exactly the long-term impact of the current debate is going to have, but it’s likely to contribute to the huge changes in young male sexuality that have been happening for over a decade - without most people paying them much attention.
If the joy of sex is disappearing for young men, so too for a lot of them, is the point of sex. Russell, 18, says bleakly: “In my Dad’s day, you probably pursued sex if you’re straight to find a serious girlfriend you eventually might marry and have kids with. We can’t think like that. We don’t have the means to move out, let alone start a grown-up life. It makes it all – dating, sex, finding The One – all seem a bit pointless.”
It will be interesting to see if this eventually feeds through into marriage and births stats.
... or maybe we'll finally build enough houses for the young as well as the old, which would be my preference.
Or make the landlords sell up so that young people are having their lives leeched away by the parasites.
They'll sell up quickly enough if we build enough houses so that prices stagnate or fall.
Anyway, some rental is desirable.
More housing is not the totality of the solution, but it’s sure as hell a prerequisite.
A large amount of the asset price inflation of the last decade and half, is the direct result of interest rates being on the floor.
Except that house/earning ratio hit a peak when base rate was nearly 6%.
Massive population growth combined with minimal house building is what destroyed supply and demand, not interest rates.
There’s a lot of regional variation in the p/e numbers, I suspect.
You’re of course correct on population growth. I still find it amazing how many people are in favour of both higher immigration and lower house prices, but also object to more building.
NIMBYism is endemic.
In the local Facebook group for the area (circa 30k members), on every post about development there's a barrage of comments like "Urrg, more houses 🙄". It takes all my being to stop myself arguing back.
People need to start arguing back. Arguing back, and standing for election to the bodies where the decisions are made.
There is a nascent #YIMBY campaign in London, but it appears mainly to exist on Twitter - which of course, will change nothing.
It's all a bit Bonfire of the Vanities. Safe to attack 'perpetuators', with no one willing to back them up for transgressions that are orders of magnitude lower than in other areas with more 'complicated' issues.
In totally unrelated news:
“It’s too soon to say what exactly the long-term impact of the current debate is going to have, but it’s likely to contribute to the huge changes in young male sexuality that have been happening for over a decade - without most people paying them much attention.
If the joy of sex is disappearing for young men, so too for a lot of them, is the point of sex. Russell, 18, says bleakly: “In my Dad’s day, you probably pursued sex if you’re straight to find a serious girlfriend you eventually might marry and have kids with. We can’t think like that. We don’t have the means to move out, let alone start a grown-up life. It makes it all – dating, sex, finding The One – all seem a bit pointless.”
It will be interesting to see if this eventually feeds through into marriage and births stats.
... or maybe we'll finally build enough houses for the young as well as the old, which would be my preference.
Or make the landlords sell up so that young people are having their lives leeched away by the parasites.
They'll sell up quickly enough if we build enough houses so that prices stagnate or fall.
Anyway, some rental is desirable.
More housing is not the totality of the solution, but it’s sure as hell a prerequisite.
A large amount of the asset price inflation of the last decade and half, is the direct result of interest rates being on the floor.
Yes, there were three causes which came together:
- constrained supply - growing population - very low interest rates.
None of them were fatal by themselves, but together they have destroyed the prospects of a whole generation of young people.
We also have low property taxation for higher value properties and are extraordinarily open to foreign criminals investors
It's all a bit Bonfire of the Vanities. Safe to attack 'perpetuators', with no one willing to back them up for transgressions that are orders of magnitude lower than in other areas with more 'complicated' issues.
In totally unrelated news:
“It’s too soon to say what exactly the long-term impact of the current debate is going to have, but it’s likely to contribute to the huge changes in young male sexuality that have been happening for over a decade - without most people paying them much attention.
If the joy of sex is disappearing for young men, so too for a lot of them, is the point of sex. Russell, 18, says bleakly: “In my Dad’s day, you probably pursued sex if you’re straight to find a serious girlfriend you eventually might marry and have kids with. We can’t think like that. We don’t have the means to move out, let alone start a grown-up life. It makes it all – dating, sex, finding The One – all seem a bit pointless.”
It will be interesting to see if this eventually feeds through into marriage and births stats.
... or maybe we'll finally build enough houses for the young as well as the old, which would be my preference.
Or make the landlords sell up so that young people are having their lives leeched away by the parasites.
They'll sell up quickly enough if we build enough houses so that prices stagnate or fall.
Anyway, some rental is desirable.
More housing is not the totality of the solution, but it’s sure as hell a prerequisite.
A large amount of the asset price inflation of the last decade and half, is the direct result of interest rates being on the floor.
Except that house/earning ratio hit a peak when base rate was nearly 6%.
Massive population growth combined with minimal house building is what destroyed supply and demand, not interest rates.
There’s a lot of regional variation in the p/e numbers, I suspect.
You’re of course correct on population growth. I still find it amazing how many people are in favour of both higher immigration and lower house prices, but also object to more building.
NIMBYism is endemic.
In the local Facebook group for the area (circa 30k members), on every post about development there's a barrage of comments like "Urrg, more houses 🙄". It takes all my being to stop myself arguing back.
People need to start arguing back. Arguing back, and standing for election to the bodies where the decisions are made.
There is a nascent #YIMBY campaign in London, but it appears mainly to exist on Twitter - which of course, will change nothing.
Absolutely! If you want anything to change you need to make your case.
Otherwise the selfish NIMBYs are the only ones doing so.
The only solutions to house prices is house construction, or population decline.
The former is much better but NIMBYism is a problem.
The south-east is already overpopulated and covered with housing estates.
Indeed. One of the advantages of living in an area like mine is that they can't build in my back yard because they already have!
What's more appalling is that Woking Borough Council have actually knocked down post-war council houses to replace them with new houses that are smaller and closer together. Thanks to Maggie, they can't do that to us.
It's all a bit Bonfire of the Vanities. Safe to attack 'perpetuators', with no one willing to back them up for transgressions that are orders of magnitude lower than in other areas with more 'complicated' issues.
In totally unrelated news:
“It’s too soon to say what exactly the long-term impact of the current debate is going to have, but it’s likely to contribute to the huge changes in young male sexuality that have been happening for over a decade - without most people paying them much attention.
If the joy of sex is disappearing for young men, so too for a lot of them, is the point of sex. Russell, 18, says bleakly: “In my Dad’s day, you probably pursued sex if you’re straight to find a serious girlfriend you eventually might marry and have kids with. We can’t think like that. We don’t have the means to move out, let alone start a grown-up life. It makes it all – dating, sex, finding The One – all seem a bit pointless.”
It will be interesting to see if this eventually feeds through into marriage and births stats.
... or maybe we'll finally build enough houses for the young as well as the old, which would be my preference.
Or make the landlords sell up so that young people are having their lives leeched away by the parasites.
They'll sell up quickly enough if we build enough houses so that prices stagnate or fall.
Anyway, some rental is desirable.
More housing is not the totality of the solution, but it’s sure as hell a prerequisite.
A large amount of the asset price inflation of the last decade and half, is the direct result of interest rates being on the floor.
Except that house/earning ratio hit a peak when base rate was nearly 6%.
Massive population growth combined with minimal house building is what destroyed supply and demand, not interest rates.
There’s a lot of regional variation in the p/e numbers, I suspect.
You’re of course correct on population growth. I still find it amazing how many people are in favour of both higher immigration and lower house prices, but also object to more building.
NIMBYism is endemic.
In the local Facebook group for the area (circa 30k members), on every post about development there's a barrage of comments like "Urrg, more houses 🙄". It takes all my being to stop myself arguing back.
People need to start arguing back. Arguing back, and standing for election to the bodies where the decisions are made.
There is a nascent #YIMBY campaign in London, but it appears mainly to exist on Twitter - which of course, will change nothing.
Unfortunately it will be no good for my employment prospects if I start getting into arguments on social media.
COVID deaths of people aged 80-plus fall by 90% since second-wave peak
Deaths involving COVID-19 among people aged 80 and over have now fallen by 90% since the second-wave peak, according to the Office for National Statistics.
A total of 536 COVID-19 deaths in the 80 and over age group occurred in England and Wales in the week ending 12 March, down from 5,349 deaths in the week ending 22 January.
Deaths for those aged 75-79 dropped 88% in the same period, compared with falls of 87% for those aged 70-74 and 83% for both those aged 65-69 and 60-64.
Deaths that occurred in the most recent week of reporting - the week to 19 March - are still being registered.
The only solutions to house prices is house construction, or population decline.
The former is much better but NIMBYism is a problem.
The south-east is already overpopulated and covered with housing estates.
Surrey has more land devoted to golf courses than houses (not including gardens).
There’s at least one golf course in Berkshire, which I know well from my youth, that was sold off a few years ago and is now slowly turning into houses.
They should be scrapping all the entertainment content on BBC1. In my view anything that is easily commercially viable (e.g. Strictly) should not be made or shown on BBC. I used to watch a lot of BBC4 when they still regularly made good historical programmes. Unfortunately now they rarely do. If I had more time then I would get a subscription to History Hit.
'Japan is dangerous, not a safe place at all' for Tokyo Olympics to go ahead, says medical expert
"It is best to not hold the Olympics given the considerable risks," Dr Norio Sugaya, an infectious diseases expert at Keiyu Hospital in Yokohama, has told The Associated Press.
"The risks are high in Japan. Japan is dangerous, not a safe place at all."
He said vaccinating 50-70% of the general public should be "a prerequisite" to safely hold the Games, a highly unlikely scenario given the slow vaccine rollout in Japan.
Fewer than 1% of the population has been vaccinated so far, and all are medical professionals. Most of the general public is not expected to be vaccinated by the time the Olympics open on 23 July.
"Tens of thousands of foreigners are going to be entering the country, including mass media, in a short period of time," Mr Sugaya said, adding: "The challenges are going to be enormous."
All that poll shows is that people don’t have a clue about history.
Actual ranking is as follows:
1. Churchill 2. Thatcher 3. Attlee 4. Macmillan 5. Blair 6. Wilson 7. Heath 8. Major 9. Brown 10. Callaghan 11. May 12. Douglas-Home 13. Johnson 14. Eden
Cameron?
Off the scale, perhaps, but in which election?
Bugger. I knew I’d missed one. Between Wilson and Heath.
Not a bad ranking, except Cameron should be higher, Attlee lower (he screwed up a hell of a lot, not least India), and Brown second or third from last..
Detectorists is the best comedy I’ve watched in years. Is BBC4 the one that has themed music nights on Friday? I think I agree that it is their best channel
It's all a bit Bonfire of the Vanities. Safe to attack 'perpetuators', with no one willing to back them up for transgressions that are orders of magnitude lower than in other areas with more 'complicated' issues.
In totally unrelated news:
“It’s too soon to say what exactly the long-term impact of the current debate is going to have, but it’s likely to contribute to the huge changes in young male sexuality that have been happening for over a decade - without most people paying them much attention.
If the joy of sex is disappearing for young men, so too for a lot of them, is the point of sex. Russell, 18, says bleakly: “In my Dad’s day, you probably pursued sex if you’re straight to find a serious girlfriend you eventually might marry and have kids with. We can’t think like that. We don’t have the means to move out, let alone start a grown-up life. It makes it all – dating, sex, finding The One – all seem a bit pointless.”
It will be interesting to see if this eventually feeds through into marriage and births stats.
... or maybe we'll finally build enough houses for the young as well as the old, which would be my preference.
Or make the landlords sell up so that young people are having their lives leeched away by the parasites.
They'll sell up quickly enough if we build enough houses so that prices stagnate or fall.
Anyway, some rental is desirable.
More housing is not the totality of the solution, but it’s sure as hell a prerequisite.
A large amount of the asset price inflation of the last decade and half, is the direct result of interest rates being on the floor.
Except that house/earning ratio hit a peak when base rate was nearly 6%.
Massive population growth combined with minimal house building is what destroyed supply and demand, not interest rates.
So if interest rates went to 6% overnight, you don't think that would make any difference to house prices today?
It wouldn't make houses any more affordable, no.
Base rate falling from 6% to virtually 0% hasn't increased house price ratios, so why would the reverse help?
Hi, read that essay you sent me. A cut above most critiques of woke, I must say. Although it does rather bundle up lots of things under the umbrella.
Strikes me that Joe Biden might be a good President for the US to have right now in terms of the detox the author cries out for - focusing the Dems more on the knitting.
An interesting read anyway. And long like you said. Took ages because I'm a slow reader. Upshot being no posts from me on here this morning. So that's a win/win all round.
It's written from a centre/left perspective and has weight because it's offered in good faith. Woke-bashing from the right is imo usually hyperbolic and shallow - you get a strong whiff of the old established privileges being defended via confected outrage about academic standards and freedom of speech.
It's all a bit Bonfire of the Vanities. Safe to attack 'perpetuators', with no one willing to back them up for transgressions that are orders of magnitude lower than in other areas with more 'complicated' issues.
In totally unrelated news:
“It’s too soon to say what exactly the long-term impact of the current debate is going to have, but it’s likely to contribute to the huge changes in young male sexuality that have been happening for over a decade - without most people paying them much attention.
If the joy of sex is disappearing for young men, so too for a lot of them, is the point of sex. Russell, 18, says bleakly: “In my Dad’s day, you probably pursued sex if you’re straight to find a serious girlfriend you eventually might marry and have kids with. We can’t think like that. We don’t have the means to move out, let alone start a grown-up life. It makes it all – dating, sex, finding The One – all seem a bit pointless.”
It will be interesting to see if this eventually feeds through into marriage and births stats.
Anyone remember pursuing sex at 18 to find a serious girlfriend to marry and have kids with? Was I unusually shallow as an 18 year old?
Some did, and it did happen, but IIRC rarely. Serious relationships at 18 or so more often ended with a broken heart. For a while, anyway!
It's all a bit Bonfire of the Vanities. Safe to attack 'perpetuators', with no one willing to back them up for transgressions that are orders of magnitude lower than in other areas with more 'complicated' issues.
In totally unrelated news:
“It’s too soon to say what exactly the long-term impact of the current debate is going to have, but it’s likely to contribute to the huge changes in young male sexuality that have been happening for over a decade - without most people paying them much attention.
If the joy of sex is disappearing for young men, so too for a lot of them, is the point of sex. Russell, 18, says bleakly: “In my Dad’s day, you probably pursued sex if you’re straight to find a serious girlfriend you eventually might marry and have kids with. We can’t think like that. We don’t have the means to move out, let alone start a grown-up life. It makes it all – dating, sex, finding The One – all seem a bit pointless.”
It will be interesting to see if this eventually feeds through into marriage and births stats.
... or maybe we'll finally build enough houses for the young as well as the old, which would be my preference.
Or make the landlords sell up so that young people are having their lives leeched away by the parasites.
They'll sell up quickly enough if we build enough houses so that prices stagnate or fall.
Anyway, some rental is desirable.
More housing is not the totality of the solution, but it’s sure as hell a prerequisite.
A large amount of the asset price inflation of the last decade and half, is the direct result of interest rates being on the floor.
Except that house/earning ratio hit a peak when base rate was nearly 6%.
Massive population growth combined with minimal house building is what destroyed supply and demand, not interest rates.
So if interest rates went to 6% overnight, you don't think that would make any difference to house prices today?
It wouldn't make houses any more affordable, no.
Base rate falling from 6% to virtually 0% hasn't increased house price ratios, so why would the reverse help?
It stopped them from falling. That's the point.
We all know that interest rates can't rise because it would cause a not inconsiderable number of current mortgage holders to default. Can't have that, can we? So future generations get fucked.
It's all a bit Bonfire of the Vanities. Safe to attack 'perpetuators', with no one willing to back them up for transgressions that are orders of magnitude lower than in other areas with more 'complicated' issues.
In totally unrelated news:
“It’s too soon to say what exactly the long-term impact of the current debate is going to have, but it’s likely to contribute to the huge changes in young male sexuality that have been happening for over a decade - without most people paying them much attention.
If the joy of sex is disappearing for young men, so too for a lot of them, is the point of sex. Russell, 18, says bleakly: “In my Dad’s day, you probably pursued sex if you’re straight to find a serious girlfriend you eventually might marry and have kids with. We can’t think like that. We don’t have the means to move out, let alone start a grown-up life. It makes it all – dating, sex, finding The One – all seem a bit pointless.”
It will be interesting to see if this eventually feeds through into marriage and births stats.
... or maybe we'll finally build enough houses for the young as well as the old, which would be my preference.
Or make the landlords sell up so that young people are having their lives leeched away by the parasites.
Oh dear, I suspect I've started that argument again!
I tend to agree with Max on this. Perhaps it is about supply of housing, but I honestly can't see it being fixed if it might lead to a fall in house prices.
To all of those on here praising Brown for "saving the world", fine. But what's happened since has been an unmitigated disaster and all politicians from all political parties as well as the media have contributed to it.
The house price rise happened before not since though. It happened on Brown's tenure.
The point is that prices really ought to have fallen considerably off the back of 2008. They haven't.
Prices did fall after the global financial crisis but have since resumed their climb.
They didn't fall around Woking!
The SE is over saturated with demand. It would take something seismic to really knock house prices here.
Something seismic, like huge numbers of white-collar employees no longer commuting daily to central London?
Except realistically a majority will still be required to commute to central London some of the time and therefore will still need to live within commuting range.
Yes, that’s the big unknown. Will companies allow enough time away from the office that a daily commute isn’t required.
If I had to work two days a week in London, for example, I could live two hours away by train (that’s as far as Manchester, Leeds or Bath), buy one return train ticket and spend one night a week in a cheap London hotel.
Expect plenty of office space to be repurposed as cheap no-frills hotels in the City of London, that’s a great business model for someone.
If I need to be in the office three days a week, that’s the worst of all worlds as I’m still buying a full season ticket so need to live much closer to London.
If it’s one week a month, I can live pretty much anywhere.
There will be some interesting actions about what "rights" you have to live distant from work.
When it snowed here a couple of years ago the schools closed because it was the *teachers* who could not get in, as too many were living eg over the border in slightly hilly bit of Derbyshire.
Of course also the interesting case of BA staff living in the Caribbean and commuting in to Heathrow on jockey-seats on flights.
It's all a bit Bonfire of the Vanities. Safe to attack 'perpetuators', with no one willing to back them up for transgressions that are orders of magnitude lower than in other areas with more 'complicated' issues.
In totally unrelated news:
“It’s too soon to say what exactly the long-term impact of the current debate is going to have, but it’s likely to contribute to the huge changes in young male sexuality that have been happening for over a decade - without most people paying them much attention.
If the joy of sex is disappearing for young men, so too for a lot of them, is the point of sex. Russell, 18, says bleakly: “In my Dad’s day, you probably pursued sex if you’re straight to find a serious girlfriend you eventually might marry and have kids with. We can’t think like that. We don’t have the means to move out, let alone start a grown-up life. It makes it all – dating, sex, finding The One – all seem a bit pointless.”
It will be interesting to see if this eventually feeds through into marriage and births stats.
... or maybe we'll finally build enough houses for the young as well as the old, which would be my preference.
Or make the landlords sell up so that young people are having their lives leeched away by the parasites.
They'll sell up quickly enough if we build enough houses so that prices stagnate or fall.
Anyway, some rental is desirable.
More housing is not the totality of the solution, but it’s sure as hell a prerequisite.
A large amount of the asset price inflation of the last decade and half, is the direct result of interest rates being on the floor.
Except that house/earning ratio hit a peak when base rate was nearly 6%.
Massive population growth combined with minimal house building is what destroyed supply and demand, not interest rates.
There’s a lot of regional variation in the p/e numbers, I suspect.
You’re of course correct on population growth. I still find it amazing how many people are in favour of both higher immigration and lower house prices, but also object to more building.
NIMBYism is endemic.
In the local Facebook group for the area (circa 30k members), on every post about development there's a barrage of comments like "Urrg, more houses 🙄". It takes all my being to stop myself arguing back.
On @Sandpit 's comment, I have a facebook friend who has exactly two themes upon which he posts: that we should be more sympathetic to immigrants, and that we should be building fewer houses.
'Japan is dangerous, not a safe place at all' for Tokyo Olympics to go ahead, says medical expert
"It is best to not hold the Olympics given the considerable risks," Dr Norio Sugaya, an infectious diseases expert at Keiyu Hospital in Yokohama, has told The Associated Press.
"The risks are high in Japan. Japan is dangerous, not a safe place at all."
He said vaccinating 50-70% of the general public should be "a prerequisite" to safely hold the Games, a highly unlikely scenario given the slow vaccine rollout in Japan.
Fewer than 1% of the population has been vaccinated so far, and all are medical professionals. Most of the general public is not expected to be vaccinated by the time the Olympics open on 23 July.
"Tens of thousands of foreigners are going to be entering the country, including mass media, in a short period of time," Mr Sugaya said, adding: "The challenges are going to be enormous."
Could they run the Olympics with empty stadia? I suppose so but jeez, that would be a disappointment.
It's all a bit Bonfire of the Vanities. Safe to attack 'perpetuators', with no one willing to back them up for transgressions that are orders of magnitude lower than in other areas with more 'complicated' issues.
In totally unrelated news:
“It’s too soon to say what exactly the long-term impact of the current debate is going to have, but it’s likely to contribute to the huge changes in young male sexuality that have been happening for over a decade - without most people paying them much attention.
If the joy of sex is disappearing for young men, so too for a lot of them, is the point of sex. Russell, 18, says bleakly: “In my Dad’s day, you probably pursued sex if you’re straight to find a serious girlfriend you eventually might marry and have kids with. We can’t think like that. We don’t have the means to move out, let alone start a grown-up life. It makes it all – dating, sex, finding The One – all seem a bit pointless.”
It will be interesting to see if this eventually feeds through into marriage and births stats.
Anyone remember pursuing sex at 18 to find a serious girlfriend to marry and have kids with? Was I unusually shallow as an 18 year old?
Some did, and it did happen, but IIRC rarely. Serious relationships at 18 or so more often ended with a broken heart. For a while, anyway!
Our serious relationship started at 18 and now we are only three years away from our diamond wedding anniversary
It's all a bit Bonfire of the Vanities. Safe to attack 'perpetuators', with no one willing to back them up for transgressions that are orders of magnitude lower than in other areas with more 'complicated' issues.
In totally unrelated news:
“It’s too soon to say what exactly the long-term impact of the current debate is going to have, but it’s likely to contribute to the huge changes in young male sexuality that have been happening for over a decade - without most people paying them much attention.
If the joy of sex is disappearing for young men, so too for a lot of them, is the point of sex. Russell, 18, says bleakly: “In my Dad’s day, you probably pursued sex if you’re straight to find a serious girlfriend you eventually might marry and have kids with. We can’t think like that. We don’t have the means to move out, let alone start a grown-up life. It makes it all – dating, sex, finding The One – all seem a bit pointless.”
It will be interesting to see if this eventually feeds through into marriage and births stats.
... or maybe we'll finally build enough houses for the young as well as the old, which would be my preference.
Or make the landlords sell up so that young people are having their lives leeched away by the parasites.
They'll sell up quickly enough if we build enough houses so that prices stagnate or fall.
Anyway, some rental is desirable.
More housing is not the totality of the solution, but it’s sure as hell a prerequisite.
A large amount of the asset price inflation of the last decade and half, is the direct result of interest rates being on the floor.
Yes, there were three causes which came together:
- constrained supply - growing population - very low interest rates.
None of them were fatal by themselves, but together they have destroyed the prospects of a whole generation of young people.
We also have low property taxation for higher value properties and are extraordinarily open to foreign criminals investors
Plus the ratchet effect of calculating mortgages based on 2 salaries for couples plus higher salary multiples.
Arguments about how to chop up England are micro level debates - we need strategic level planning first. What kind of UK is sustainable in the 21st Century? With Scotland, Norniron, Wales and now chunks of England increasingly restless, its obvious that we need to rethink the monolith that is this "united" kingdom.
LibDem policy is federalism. A position I have believed in for decades. Devolve to the nations as much power as possible, leaving state-wide competence only in things like national defence and federal infrastructure.
You solve the issue of "England will be too big and dominate the others" by devolving most powers away from the federal level. What England chooses to do with its own affairs won't affect the other nations that much if enough power is devolved to them.
Frankly I would much much rather have no union than a divided england. That is the problem you have with the region plans and I doubt I am the only one that thinks that way.
Do you think Germany is "divided"? Or the USA? Or Austria?
Do you think government from Westminster is making a good job of transport policy in Greater Manchester or the West Midlands? Do you think it is running a forward-thinking development and training policy in the North-East? Do you think it's making a good job of housing anywhere?
I have no doubt you're not the only one who thinks that way. But you are wrong.
The only solutions to house prices is house construction, or population decline.
The former is much better but NIMBYism is a problem.
Or Pigou Taxes.
There are plenty of ideas for dealing with London.
My favourites are opening up some of the scruffier bits of Greenbelt with a Planning Windfall Tax, and making one of the low rise Council Estates into a Barbican-on-the-River, but larger and higher density.
Those two will easily handle 50 years of growth, that is if it hasn't slowed down this time.
It's all a bit Bonfire of the Vanities. Safe to attack 'perpetuators', with no one willing to back them up for transgressions that are orders of magnitude lower than in other areas with more 'complicated' issues.
In totally unrelated news:
“It’s too soon to say what exactly the long-term impact of the current debate is going to have, but it’s likely to contribute to the huge changes in young male sexuality that have been happening for over a decade - without most people paying them much attention.
If the joy of sex is disappearing for young men, so too for a lot of them, is the point of sex. Russell, 18, says bleakly: “In my Dad’s day, you probably pursued sex if you’re straight to find a serious girlfriend you eventually might marry and have kids with. We can’t think like that. We don’t have the means to move out, let alone start a grown-up life. It makes it all – dating, sex, finding The One – all seem a bit pointless.”
It will be interesting to see if this eventually feeds through into marriage and births stats.
Anyone remember pursuing sex at 18 to find a serious girlfriend to marry and have kids with? Was I unusually shallow as an 18 year old?
Some did, and it did happen, but IIRC rarely. Serious relationships at 18 or so more often ended with a broken heart. For a while, anyway!
Our serious relationship started at 18 and now we are only three years away from our diamond wedding anniversary
Congratulations Mr (&Mrs) G. As I said it did for some; we have friends in a similar situation, and our daughter's did. However neither of our son's settled down until their 30's.
In our case hers did, but I was somewhat older. And our 'diamond' is next year.
Hi, read that essay you sent me. A cut above most critiques of woke, I must say. Although it does rather bundle up lots of things under the umbrella.
Strikes me that Joe Biden might be a good President for the US to have right now in terms of the detox the author cries out for - focusing the Dems more on the knitting.
An interesting read anyway. And long like you said. Took ages because I'm a slow reader. Upshot being no posts from me on here this morning. So that's a win/win all round.
Without having read the essay, I agree entirely with your second para - the single best thing about Joe B, in my view, is that he is not highly partisan in the culture wars. Obviously he is doing woke things and he is in a woke party - but in the culture wars the symbolism is more important, and he manages to place himself above the fray. Let's just hope he's up to a full term (or two).
I’ve been reading the thread on this with interest. On my bookshelf is “The Prime Minister” by Peter Hennessey and he attempts to give a ranking of post war PMs at that point (2000 - too early to assess Blair). Rather than a straight 1-11 ranking he categorises them as follows
Top Flight – Attlee, Thatcher System Shifters – Heath, Blair Seasoned copers – Churchill, Callaghan Promise Unfulfilled – MacMillan, Wilson Overwhelmed – Major Catastrophic – Eden
He suggests that Churchill would move into the Top Flight for his wartime leadership. He didn’t place Douglas-Home because he wasn’t in office for long enough.
My own view of this is Attlee is far ahead of Thatcher, she was far too divisive a figure to be in the top flight and against her successes (Falklands, economic reforms, European Single Market) there are too many debits (Uncaring response to economic reforms and recessions, her own divisive nature, poll tax). I would move her into the ‘System Shifters’ category.
I think Blair moves into the ‘Promise Unfulfilled’ category if assessed for his full term, 1st term was competent but a bit timid, then Iraq lost him all credibility and he struggled thereafter. Otherwise I agree with the others even if it puts Heath a bit high – but I can’t think where else to put him and he had the one Big Achievement that not many others can claim even if he was defective in other ways.
So what of the PMs since Blair? I put both Brown and May in the ‘Overwhelmed’ category, both having to clear up somebody else’s mess and personally lacking the qualities of a good PM anyway.
Cameron is difficult. As Coalition PM I thought he was very competent, apart from the knee-jerk Tory response to economic difficulties being the wrong one in hindsight, there were a lot of positive achievements and a different direction, which overall feels like he belongs in the ‘System Shifter’ category. Unfortunately for his reputation the LD implosion in 2015 allowed him the chance to reveal himself as a chancer without a plan for Brexit that clearly puts him in the ‘Catastrophic’ camp, 2 PMs later we still haven’t even started dealing with the consequences. Ultimately where you place him depends on how you weight the two. Maybe he has to go in the list twice.
And Johnson? Time will tell but I suspect he will, like Cameron, be either a ‘System Shifter’ or ‘Catastrophic’ just ahead of Eden. I suspect the latter (which is where I put him now) as unless the Covid response goes well from now on and he quits early, the contradictions inherent in his Brexit deal will do for him.
Common factor in the ‘Catastrophic’ category? All went to the same school.
Arguments about how to chop up England are micro level debates - we need strategic level planning first. What kind of UK is sustainable in the 21st Century? With Scotland, Norniron, Wales and now chunks of England increasingly restless, its obvious that we need to rethink the monolith that is this "united" kingdom.
LibDem policy is federalism. A position I have believed in for decades. Devolve to the nations as much power as possible, leaving state-wide competence only in things like national defence and federal infrastructure.
You solve the issue of "England will be too big and dominate the others" by devolving most powers away from the federal level. What England chooses to do with its own affairs won't affect the other nations that much if enough power is devolved to them.
Frankly I would much much rather have no union than a divided england. That is the problem you have with the region plans and I doubt I am the only one that thinks that way.
Do you think Germany is "divided"? Or the USA? Or Austria?
Do you think government from Westminster is making a good job of transport policy in Greater Manchester or the West Midlands? Do you think it is running a forward-thinking development and training policy in the North-East? Do you think it's making a good job of housing anywhere?
I have no doubt you're not the only one who thinks that way. But you are wrong.
Why should I care whether germany the us or austria is divided. Simple fact is when ever regions have been proposed and people given a vote on it they have been rejected.
I don't get this whole other countries do it this way so you should like it attitude. If other countries decide hopping is better than walking I wouldn't argue we should do it because other countries do.
Simple fact of the matter is that its mostly only the electoral reform minded that suggest regions and for the rest of us its less popular than av
And no I don't think national government is making a good fist of those things. However I do not believe for a minute regional governments are going to be any better
A reasonable conclusion, given that the Patsy Stevenson claim around "I was arrested for just standing there" has been debunked, and the method of arrest etc seemed to be in line with normal practice for rumbustious demonstrations.
And at the same time, bringing back BBC3 as a full channel, one that nobody ever watched or watches.
I don't think they really have a clue what they are doing. Just see Tim Divie infront of the select committee the other week, he states first the BBC isn't here to compete with Netflix, but then also says the BBC needs to expand in places like the US. Who does he think he will be competing against in the US?
One thing that I didn't realise until recently, BBC is now 100% owner of UKTV. So they now have joint ownership of Britbox and 100% of the likes of Dave and yet they are farting making BBC4 into a repeats channel (when even oldies use iPlayer) and saying oh no we could never reform the BBC to carry adverts...
"Berlin state hospitals reportedly halt AstraZeneca vaccinations of women under 55
Berlin's state hospital groups Charite and Vivantes have stopped giving women under the age of 55 shots of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine, German newspaper Tagesspiegel has reported on its website, citing a spokeswoman for the hospitals."
Arguments about how to chop up England are micro level debates - we need strategic level planning first. What kind of UK is sustainable in the 21st Century? With Scotland, Norniron, Wales and now chunks of England increasingly restless, its obvious that we need to rethink the monolith that is this "united" kingdom.
LibDem policy is federalism. A position I have believed in for decades. Devolve to the nations as much power as possible, leaving state-wide competence only in things like national defence and federal infrastructure.
You solve the issue of "England will be too big and dominate the others" by devolving most powers away from the federal level. What England chooses to do with its own affairs won't affect the other nations that much if enough power is devolved to them.
Frankly I would much much rather have no union than a divided england. That is the problem you have with the region plans and I doubt I am the only one that thinks that way.
Do you think Germany is "divided"? Or the USA? Or Austria?
Do you think government from Westminster is making a good job of transport policy in Greater Manchester or the West Midlands? Do you think it is running a forward-thinking development and training policy in the North-East? Do you think it's making a good job of housing anywhere?
I have no doubt you're not the only one who thinks that way. But you are wrong.
Germany isn't divided, but they deliberately broke up Prussia. Two problems with devolving directly to reasons will be (a) stupid top-down imposed regions that in many case locals don't identify with and (b) what happens to strategic services like roads and railways that are devolved to Scotland and Wales? There needs to be some English level of government for functions such as motorways.
I’ve been reading the thread on this with interest. On my bookshelf is “The Prime Minister” by Peter Hennessey and he attempts to give a ranking of post war PMs at that point (2000 - too early to assess Blair). Rather than a straight 1-11 ranking he categorises them as follows
Top Flight – Attlee, Thatcher System Shifters – Heath, Blair Seasoned copers – Churchill, Callaghan Promise Unfulfilled – MacMillan, Wilson Overwhelmed – Major Catastrophic – Eden
He suggests that Churchill would move into the Top Flight for his wartime leadership. He didn’t place Douglas-Home because he wasn’t in office for long enough.
My own view of this is Attlee is far ahead of Thatcher, she was far too divisive a figure to be in the top flight and against her successes (Falklands, economic reforms, European Single Market) there are too many debits (Uncaring response to economic reforms and recessions, her own divisive nature, poll tax). I would move her into the ‘System Shifters’ category.
I think Blair moves into the ‘Promise Unfulfilled’ category if assessed for his full term, 1st term was competent but a bit timid, then Iraq lost him all credibility and he struggled thereafter. Otherwise I agree with the others even if it puts Heath a bit high – but I can’t think where else to put him and he had the one Big Achievement that not many others can claim even if he was defective in other ways.
So what of the PMs since Blair? I put both Brown and May in the ‘Overwhelmed’ category, both having to clear up somebody else’s mess and personally lacking the qualities of a good PM anyway.
Cameron is difficult. As Coalition PM I thought he was very competent, apart from the knee-jerk Tory response to economic difficulties being the wrong one in hindsight, there were a lot of positive achievements and a different direction, which overall feels like he belongs in the ‘System Shifter’ category. Unfortunately for his reputation the LD implosion in 2015 allowed him the chance to reveal himself as a chancer without a plan for Brexit that clearly puts him in the ‘Catastrophic’ camp, 2 PMs later we still haven’t even started dealing with the consequences. Ultimately where you place him depends on how you weight the two. Maybe he has to go in the list twice.
And Johnson? Time will tell but I suspect he will, like Cameron, be either a ‘System Shifter’ or ‘Catastrophic’ just ahead of Eden. I suspect the latter (which is where I put him now) as unless the Covid response goes well from now on and he quits early, the contradictions inherent in his Brexit deal will do for him.
Common factor in the ‘Catastrophic’ category? All went to the same school.
Somewhat negating the last comment, there is perhaps an argument that both Brown and Eden, as heirs presumptive, were kept waiting too long.
I used to think Theresa May was the worst Prime Minister of my lifetime. On reflection, it's clearly David Cameron. No PM has inflicted more long-term damage on the UK more casually. May was desperately poor, but she was dealing with Cameron's mess. Johnson is busily causing more harm, of course, but he is part of the Cameron legacy, too.
Cameron did manage to achieve some things though -> .7%, gay marriage, rise in minimum wage... Theresa May's govt was a couple of years wasted?
The idea that Cameron was a terrible PM astounds me. People forget the situation he took over from in 2010. He managed to create an incentive for people to work from the years of ludicrous state handouts from New Labour which gave a perverse incentive to not work and he kept a lid on unemployment when all the "experts" thought it would run out of control.
Compare him to Callaghan in 76-79.
He was an excellent PM, one of the best since the war. But he gets blamed, irrationally, by both sides of the toxic Brexit wars. The Remainers blame him, in a spectacular logical somersault, for the fact that the electorate didn't listen to him and voted against what he was arguing for (with remarkably little support from opposition parties). Meanwhile the Leavers blame him for being sensible about Brexit. It's a funny old world, as the great lady said, and being blamed for being right is one of the most common manifestations of that.
None of that, though, should have the slightest bearing on the question of how good a PM he was. That is a completely different question.
Hi, read that essay you sent me. A cut above most critiques of woke, I must say. Although it does rather bundle up lots of things under the umbrella.
Strikes me that Joe Biden might be a good President for the US to have right now in terms of the detox the author cries out for - focusing the Dems more on the knitting.
An interesting read anyway. And long like you said. Took ages because I'm a slow reader. Upshot being no posts from me on here this morning. So that's a win/win all round.
Without having read the essay, I agree entirely with your second para - the single best thing about Joe B, in my view, is that he is not highly partisan in the culture wars. Obviously he is doing woke things and he is in a woke party - but in the culture wars the symbolism is more important, and he manages to place himself above the fray. Let's just hope he's up to a full term (or two).
I would say that he is actually trying to fix things, without the whole "culture" mess.
So, federal voting reform, police qualified immunity removal etc etc.
The only solutions to house prices is house construction, or population decline.
The former is much better but NIMBYism is a problem.
The south-east is already overpopulated and covered with housing estates.
Unless you can convince people to move away, it needs more housing estates.
People need somewhere to live, it's as simple as that.
People don't need to be convinced to move away. There is an awful lot of people in the south east that hate living here. People need to be able to move away and that means being able to take jobs with them.
I don't get why so many people think we live here because we want to. A hell of a lot of us live here because we have absolutely no choice if we want to have a job.
I DID vote for Brexit. To leave the European Union. What we have decided to do afterwards - leaving the EEA and CU - is the disaster. Yes, knowing what I now know about the rank stupidity of the Tories I would have voted to remain. But leaving the EU has not caused this disaster, just the political decisions made by the government afterwards.
Oh cut the crap.
Johnson literally said during the referendum he would leave the Single Market and leave the Customs Union. That was the entire point of Brexit, to take back control. Just what did you think you were voting to take back control over if we remained in both the Single Market and Customs Union? Just what did you think we were leaving? And don't say the EU, practically what did you think was meant to change when you voted?
You've swapped over to the Lib Dems and whether by coincidence or not have swapped away from supporting Brexit and you react now with the zeal of the convert. I probably do the same, the other direction, though I at least converted before I voted.
You're rewriting history as usual. There was no "clear" Brexit manifesto that everybody voted for. That has always been known.
But it doesn't matter. We've left now. It's over. We can criticise or praise the current settlement on its own merits. The 2016 referendum was nearly 5 years ago and is largely irrelevant.
Actually there were promises made during the referendum: leaving the Single Market, taking back control of laws, money, borders, courts.
That's been done now. Yes it was nearly five years ago, though the 2019 Tory manifesto promises for what Brexit meant were largely the same ones that were made in 2016.
Which makes Rochdale's sudden Lib Dem Europhilia ring hollow. Nothing major has happened in the end that wasn't promised during the referendum at the end of which he voted Leave.
@RochdalePioneers adoption of Europhilia and turning against Brexit seems to have coincided more with him abandoning Labour and joining the Liberal Democrats than it does anything to do with Brexit itself.
Hardly - I became a #remainernow during the 2017 parliament. With Dr Paul Williams we did a now infamous "Brexitometer" survey on several high streets. Paul - as the people of Hartlepool are now experiencing - is about as passionate a pro-European as they come. Far more than I was. He was my colleague and my friend when I quit Labour.
It's all a bit Bonfire of the Vanities. Safe to attack 'perpetuators', with no one willing to back them up for transgressions that are orders of magnitude lower than in other areas with more 'complicated' issues.
In totally unrelated news:
“It’s too soon to say what exactly the long-term impact of the current debate is going to have, but it’s likely to contribute to the huge changes in young male sexuality that have been happening for over a decade - without most people paying them much attention.
If the joy of sex is disappearing for young men, so too for a lot of them, is the point of sex. Russell, 18, says bleakly: “In my Dad’s day, you probably pursued sex if you’re straight to find a serious girlfriend you eventually might marry and have kids with. We can’t think like that. We don’t have the means to move out, let alone start a grown-up life. It makes it all – dating, sex, finding The One – all seem a bit pointless.”
It will be interesting to see if this eventually feeds through into marriage and births stats.
... or maybe we'll finally build enough houses for the young as well as the old, which would be my preference.
Or make the landlords sell up so that young people are having their lives leeched away by the parasites.
They'll sell up quickly enough if we build enough houses so that prices stagnate or fall.
Anyway, some rental is desirable.
More housing is not the totality of the solution, but it’s sure as hell a prerequisite.
A large amount of the asset price inflation of the last decade and half, is the direct result of interest rates being on the floor.
Except that house/earning ratio hit a peak when base rate was nearly 6%.
Massive population growth combined with minimal house building is what destroyed supply and demand, not interest rates.
So if interest rates went to 6% overnight, you don't think that would make any difference to house prices today?
It wouldn't make houses any more affordable, no.
Base rate falling from 6% to virtually 0% hasn't increased house price ratios, so why would the reverse help?
It stopped them from falling. That's the point.
We all know that interest rates can't rise because it would cause a not inconsiderable number of current mortgage holders to default. Can't have that, can we? So future generations get fucked.
Prices don't fall. They haven't for a century, not by any significant amount. A bit that fucks those who end in negative equity, but not significantly.
Keynes described how prices are sticky downwards nearly a century ago yet that's meant to be an alien concept now?
Besides why would they have fallen? After 2010 wages haven't fallen, we weren't in recession, so what would have caused them to fall in a way we have never seen in serious terms in the history of economics.
The only solutions to house prices is house construction, or population decline.
The former is much better but NIMBYism is a problem.
The south-east is already overpopulated and covered with housing estates.
Unless you can convince people to move away, it needs more housing estates.
People need somewhere to live, it's as simple as that.
Some bright spark has apparently suggested that, just north of Witham, Essex, there is both space and demand for a new town of 5000. No workplaces, apparently. Just houses.
It's all a bit Bonfire of the Vanities. Safe to attack 'perpetuators', with no one willing to back them up for transgressions that are orders of magnitude lower than in other areas with more 'complicated' issues.
In totally unrelated news:
“It’s too soon to say what exactly the long-term impact of the current debate is going to have, but it’s likely to contribute to the huge changes in young male sexuality that have been happening for over a decade - without most people paying them much attention.
If the joy of sex is disappearing for young men, so too for a lot of them, is the point of sex. Russell, 18, says bleakly: “In my Dad’s day, you probably pursued sex if you’re straight to find a serious girlfriend you eventually might marry and have kids with. We can’t think like that. We don’t have the means to move out, let alone start a grown-up life. It makes it all – dating, sex, finding The One – all seem a bit pointless.”
It will be interesting to see if this eventually feeds through into marriage and births stats.
... or maybe we'll finally build enough houses for the young as well as the old, which would be my preference.
Or make the landlords sell up so that young people are having their lives leeched away by the parasites.
They'll sell up quickly enough if we build enough houses so that prices stagnate or fall.
Anyway, some rental is desirable.
More housing is not the totality of the solution, but it’s sure as hell a prerequisite.
A large amount of the asset price inflation of the last decade and half, is the direct result of interest rates being on the floor.
Except that house/earning ratio hit a peak when base rate was nearly 6%.
Massive population growth combined with minimal house building is what destroyed supply and demand, not interest rates.
So if interest rates went to 6% overnight, you don't think that would make any difference to house prices today?
It wouldn't make houses any more affordable, no.
Base rate falling from 6% to virtually 0% hasn't increased house price ratios, so why would the reverse help?
It stopped them from falling. That's the point.
We all know that interest rates can't rise because it would cause a not inconsiderable number of current mortgage holders to default. Can't have that, can we? So future generations get fucked.
Prices don't fall. They haven't for a century, not by any significant amount. A bit that fucks those who end in negative equity, but not significantly.
Keynes described how prices are sticky downwards nearly a century ago yet that's meant to be an alien concept now?
Besides why would they have fallen? After 2010 wages haven't fallen, we weren't in recession, so what would have caused them to fall in a way we have never seen in serious terms in the history of economics.
Because what kept them high before the crash was the prospect of them going up even more. That was what led to Northern Rock going bust.
And they did actually collapse in Northern Ireland:
A word in support of David Cameron. Yes he was a posh oik who acted in a cavalier fashion. At least he was competent. Shagger is the same inbreed of posh oik acting in a cavalier fashion, but is incompetent.
As for Gordon Brown, he absolutely was a poor leader. What he got right was the management of the global financial crash. When put on the spot the decisions made - refusing to sanction the takeover of Lehman by Barclays, bailing out RBS that October day in 2008, the need for immediate stimulus investments to keep cash flowing - were all critical for the future of the UK.
Ask any of the world leaders of the time about him, and they sing his praises. Yet in the UK he is hated because the Tory lie that he bankrupted the country stuck (helped by that cretin Byrne with his comedy note). Brown was useless at everything else, but in that time of crisis he was peerless.
I think Brown's tragedy was that he wanted to be PM all his life, yet when he reached the top he had no idea what to do next. He'd climbed his everest, but there was no vision for what to do next.
There might be a more subtle problem Brown faced, which was that Blair had centralised a lot of power to Number 10, which under Brown and at a time of global crisis became overwhelmed. Routine government was increasingly paralysed because Number 10 had more important concerns. Cameron handed decisions back (and arguably fell into the opposite trap of not knowing what his ministers were doing).
Boris (and Gove and Cummings) did not learn from Brown's failures and repeated them: centralising power and overwhelming the centre. Boris's recent success in fighting the pandemic are due to hiving off responsibility for PPE and vaccine procurement and for vaccination.
Obama's memoirs which I'm just finishing bear out what Rochdale says - he sees Brown as the main ally in the crisis, and notes with regret that he was replaced soon afterwards by Cameron, about whom he's polite but unenthusiastic.
My perception in Parliament was that decision-making came down to the most senior Minister who was actually interested. If the PM was involved, nobody else's opinion mattered. If he wasn't interested, then it came down to the Sec of State, etc. Even junior Ministers could accomplish something if they were lucky enough that none of their bosses were interested in their issue. Brown was entirely focused on the financial crisis - probably rightly so. Blair took a casual interest in all sorts of things, from juvenile delinquency to (not quite banning) fox-hunting - his quick mind enabled him to grasp an issue quickly, but he overestimated the extent to which his involvement was really helpful.
Obamas's memoirs are a good read - quite introspective and by no means self-important - they give the impression of an intelligent man doing his best but always aware of the possibility that he's got something wrong. Among foreign leaders, he rates Merkel highly but unusually in an otherwise generous book is almost derisive about Sarkozy. He likes Medvedev but Putin reminds him of a Chicago ward boss - tough and competent but ruthlessly focused on what he personally wants, and otherwise indifferent to cooperation or other people's opinions.
'Japan is dangerous, not a safe place at all' for Tokyo Olympics to go ahead, says medical expert
"It is best to not hold the Olympics given the considerable risks," Dr Norio Sugaya, an infectious diseases expert at Keiyu Hospital in Yokohama, has told The Associated Press.
"The risks are high in Japan. Japan is dangerous, not a safe place at all."
He said vaccinating 50-70% of the general public should be "a prerequisite" to safely hold the Games, a highly unlikely scenario given the slow vaccine rollout in Japan.
Fewer than 1% of the population has been vaccinated so far, and all are medical professionals. Most of the general public is not expected to be vaccinated by the time the Olympics open on 23 July.
"Tens of thousands of foreigners are going to be entering the country, including mass media, in a short period of time," Mr Sugaya said, adding: "The challenges are going to be enormous."
Holding the Olympics with spectators is batshit crazy. If - and its a big if - they vaccinate all athletes, trainers, teams etc then perhaps a smaller-scale TV only event could happen.
It's all a bit Bonfire of the Vanities. Safe to attack 'perpetuators', with no one willing to back them up for transgressions that are orders of magnitude lower than in other areas with more 'complicated' issues.
In totally unrelated news:
“It’s too soon to say what exactly the long-term impact of the current debate is going to have, but it’s likely to contribute to the huge changes in young male sexuality that have been happening for over a decade - without most people paying them much attention.
If the joy of sex is disappearing for young men, so too for a lot of them, is the point of sex. Russell, 18, says bleakly: “In my Dad’s day, you probably pursued sex if you’re straight to find a serious girlfriend you eventually might marry and have kids with. We can’t think like that. We don’t have the means to move out, let alone start a grown-up life. It makes it all – dating, sex, finding The One – all seem a bit pointless.”
It will be interesting to see if this eventually feeds through into marriage and births stats.
Anyone remember pursuing sex at 18 to find a serious girlfriend to marry and have kids with? Was I unusually shallow as an 18 year old?
Current young generation are rather more puritannical in some of their values, such as less drinking etc.
Hi, read that essay you sent me. A cut above most critiques of woke, I must say. Although it does rather bundle up lots of things under the umbrella.
Strikes me that Joe Biden might be a good President for the US to have right now in terms of the detox the author cries out for - focusing the Dems more on the knitting.
An interesting read anyway. And long like you said. Took ages because I'm a slow reader. Upshot being no posts from me on here this morning. So that's a win/win all round.
Without having read the essay, I agree entirely with your second para - the single best thing about Joe B, in my view, is that he is not highly partisan in the culture wars. Obviously he is doing woke things and he is in a woke party - but in the culture wars the symbolism is more important, and he manages to place himself above the fray. Let's just hope he's up to a full term (or two).
Yes, Uncle Joe the conciliator. He could be just what's needed. Doing woke things as in not neglecting that aspect - which no Dem politician can or imo should - but focused far more on bread and butter issues which cut across the divide. I hope it works out.
It's all a bit Bonfire of the Vanities. Safe to attack 'perpetuators', with no one willing to back them up for transgressions that are orders of magnitude lower than in other areas with more 'complicated' issues.
In totally unrelated news:
“It’s too soon to say what exactly the long-term impact of the current debate is going to have, but it’s likely to contribute to the huge changes in young male sexuality that have been happening for over a decade - without most people paying them much attention.
If the joy of sex is disappearing for young men, so too for a lot of them, is the point of sex. Russell, 18, says bleakly: “In my Dad’s day, you probably pursued sex if you’re straight to find a serious girlfriend you eventually might marry and have kids with. We can’t think like that. We don’t have the means to move out, let alone start a grown-up life. It makes it all – dating, sex, finding The One – all seem a bit pointless.”
It will be interesting to see if this eventually feeds through into marriage and births stats.
Anyone remember pursuing sex at 18 to find a serious girlfriend to marry and have kids with? Was I unusually shallow as an 18 year old?
A reasonable conclusion, given that the Patsy Stevenson claim around "I was arrested for just standing there" has been debunked, and the method of arrest etc seemed to be in line with normal practice for rumbustious demonstrations.
Good. Time to move on.
Im delighted the police actions have been vindicated. There was a lot of substandard journalism that evening as people piled on the police based upon the partisan social media propaganda of various activists.
'Japan is dangerous, not a safe place at all' for Tokyo Olympics to go ahead, says medical expert
"It is best to not hold the Olympics given the considerable risks," Dr Norio Sugaya, an infectious diseases expert at Keiyu Hospital in Yokohama, has told The Associated Press.
"The risks are high in Japan. Japan is dangerous, not a safe place at all."
He said vaccinating 50-70% of the general public should be "a prerequisite" to safely hold the Games, a highly unlikely scenario given the slow vaccine rollout in Japan.
Fewer than 1% of the population has been vaccinated so far, and all are medical professionals. Most of the general public is not expected to be vaccinated by the time the Olympics open on 23 July.
"Tens of thousands of foreigners are going to be entering the country, including mass media, in a short period of time," Mr Sugaya said, adding: "The challenges are going to be enormous."
Holding the Olympics with spectators is batshit crazy. If - and its a big if - they vaccinate all athletes, trainers, teams etc then perhaps a smaller-scale TV only event could happen.
But this is the IOC. They want their money.
Sadly it’s difficult to see any positive outcomes from here, they’re simply out of time and are unwilling to postpone the Games again.
There is also the not insignificant matter of the qualifying tournaments in the participant nations, the athletes unable to train for months and the sheer number of people who would congregate in Tokyo.
'Japan is dangerous, not a safe place at all' for Tokyo Olympics to go ahead, says medical expert
"It is best to not hold the Olympics given the considerable risks," Dr Norio Sugaya, an infectious diseases expert at Keiyu Hospital in Yokohama, has told The Associated Press.
"The risks are high in Japan. Japan is dangerous, not a safe place at all."
He said vaccinating 50-70% of the general public should be "a prerequisite" to safely hold the Games, a highly unlikely scenario given the slow vaccine rollout in Japan.
Fewer than 1% of the population has been vaccinated so far, and all are medical professionals. Most of the general public is not expected to be vaccinated by the time the Olympics open on 23 July.
"Tens of thousands of foreigners are going to be entering the country, including mass media, in a short period of time," Mr Sugaya said, adding: "The challenges are going to be enormous."
Holding the Olympics with spectators is batshit crazy. If - and its a big if - they vaccinate all athletes, trainers, teams etc then perhaps a smaller-scale TV only event could happen.
In order to give clarity to ticket holders living overseas and to enable them to adjust their travel plans at this stage, the parties on the Japanese side have come to the conclusion that they will not be able to enter into Japan at the time of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Whether or not they allow Japanese ticket holders to attend in some capacity remains to be seen. But it looks like some in Japan are getting nervous about letting the athletes in.
Comments
So the only possible progress was the hardest possible Brexit (one way ratchet), while the Remainer Parliment hung on and "hoped for something to turn up".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-56572452
It reminded me of Sherlock Holmes, they removed every other possible option leaving the incredibly unlikely one (which they also didn't want) to go ahead.
....
As I noted last night a lot of us didnt move to the south east because we wanted to live here. We moved as it was the only place to find work and have wanted to move out of it ever since but were trapped here. The more people moved here the more companies moved here so they could recruit so the more moved here to work etc. Its a vicious cycle and hopefully going to start breaking down now.
Thankfully I can finally move out of the south east and I won't shed a single tear for it
Of course, her biggest failing by far was turning a small majority into a minority! She ran an absolutely terrible election campaign, and all other failures stem from that one big failure.
I suspect they’ll change their minds over time, but they want to see how working patterns actually change first. Of course, the rail fare structure is a huge part of people’s decision-making process where to locate themselves in the first place.
Colleague in another organisation has agreed with his employer that he will now work from home all bar 3 days a month - this has allowed him to sell his small London place for a much larger place way outside the commuter belt.
Strikes me that Joe Biden might be a good President for the US to have right now in terms of the detox the author cries out for - focusing the Dems more on the knitting.
An interesting read anyway. And long like you said. Took ages because I'm a slow reader. Upshot being no posts from me on here this morning. So that's a win/win all round.
https://twitter.com/DevanSinha/status/1376829079996002305
Massive population growth combined with minimal house building is what destroyed supply and demand, not interest rates.
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1376825042034683904?s=19
Yes, the swine. Voting themselves in like that. What cheek.
The former is much better but NIMBYism is a problem.
Now, house price rises might be lumpy, but unless our house is exceptional in some way (or we got a real bargain or our potential buyers are daft) then there must be other places that have lost a chunk of real terms value?
You’re of course correct on population growth. I still find it amazing how many people are in favour of both higher immigration and lower house prices, but also object to more building.
Not that our government hasn't done very well on vaccines, but the contrast is stark.
(Red) Ed leads (Grey) Sir Keir at this stage of their leaderships in Gross Positives. Sir Keir leads in net terms.
Ed led Cameron at this stage whilst Sir Keir trails Boris
In the local Facebook group for the area (circa 30k members), on every post about development there's a barrage of comments like "Urrg, more houses 🙄". It takes all my being to stop myself arguing back.
https://twitter.com/BristOliver/status/1376823072104267776
All Brexit did was determine the 'sovereignty' issue. All the rest of it was and is a matter for parliament, government and subsequent elections.
We all know when voting, for Leave or Remain, that its future meaning was in the hands of the future.
Some Remain voters held the belief that the EU is not an emerging state; some believed that it was. Voting Remain, if it had won, would not have controlled that future. Same with voting Brexit.
There is a nascent #YIMBY campaign in London, but it appears mainly to exist on Twitter - which of course, will change nothing.
Otherwise the selfish NIMBYs are the only ones doing so.
https://twitter.com/shattenstone/status/1376651981784297472
What's more appalling is that Woking Borough Council have actually knocked down post-war council houses to replace them with new houses that are smaller and closer together. Thanks to Maggie, they can't do that to us.
Deaths involving COVID-19 among people aged 80 and over have now fallen by 90% since the second-wave peak, according to the Office for National Statistics.
A total of 536 COVID-19 deaths in the 80 and over age group occurred in England and Wales in the week ending 12 March, down from 5,349 deaths in the week ending 22 January.
Deaths for those aged 75-79 dropped 88% in the same period, compared with falls of 87% for those aged 70-74 and 83% for both those aged 65-69 and 60-64.
Deaths that occurred in the most recent week of reporting - the week to 19 March - are still being registered.
"It is best to not hold the Olympics given the considerable risks," Dr Norio Sugaya, an infectious diseases expert at Keiyu Hospital in Yokohama, has told The Associated Press.
"The risks are high in Japan. Japan is dangerous, not a safe place at all."
He said vaccinating 50-70% of the general public should be "a prerequisite" to safely hold the Games, a highly unlikely scenario given the slow vaccine rollout in Japan.
Fewer than 1% of the population has been vaccinated so far, and all are medical professionals. Most of the general public is not expected to be vaccinated by the time the Olympics open on 23 July.
"Tens of thousands of foreigners are going to be entering the country, including mass media, in a short period of time," Mr Sugaya said, adding: "The challenges are going to be enormous."
Abolish it and bring in the Proportional Property Tax to make speculation on London property slightly less profitable.
https://twitter.com/easypoliticsUK/status/1376806266601930757/photo/1
Base rate falling from 6% to virtually 0% hasn't increased house price ratios, so why would the reverse help?
It's written from a centre/left perspective and has weight because it's offered in good faith. Woke-bashing from the right is imo usually hyperbolic and shallow - you get a strong whiff of the old established privileges being defended via confected outrage about academic standards and freedom of speech.
We all know that interest rates can't rise because it would cause a not inconsiderable number of current mortgage holders to default. Can't have that, can we? So future generations get fucked.
Worth a thread, or too positive?
When it snowed here a couple of years ago the schools closed because it was the *teachers* who could not get in, as too many were living eg over the border in slightly hilly bit of Derbyshire.
Of course also the interesting case of BA staff living in the Caribbean and commuting in to Heathrow on jockey-seats on flights.
TONIGHT’S OPINIUM POLL SEES CON LEAD DOWN 4% AND JOHNSON’S APPROVAL DOWN 6%
27/3/2021
The vaccine bounce seems to be almost over
Do you think government from Westminster is making a good job of transport policy in Greater Manchester or the West Midlands? Do you think it is running a forward-thinking development and training policy in the North-East? Do you think it's making a good job of housing anywhere?
I have no doubt you're not the only one who thinks that way. But you are wrong.
There are plenty of ideas for dealing with London.
My favourites are opening up some of the scruffier bits of Greenbelt with a Planning Windfall Tax, and making one of the low rise Council Estates into a Barbican-on-the-River, but larger and higher density.
Those two will easily handle 50 years of growth, that is if it hasn't slowed down this time.
In our case hers did, but I was somewhat older. And our 'diamond' is next year.
Obviously he is doing woke things and he is in a woke party - but in the culture wars the symbolism is more important, and he manages to place himself above the fray.
Let's just hope he's up to a full term (or two).
Top Flight – Attlee, Thatcher
System Shifters – Heath, Blair
Seasoned copers – Churchill, Callaghan
Promise Unfulfilled – MacMillan, Wilson
Overwhelmed – Major
Catastrophic – Eden
He suggests that Churchill would move into the Top Flight for his wartime leadership. He didn’t place Douglas-Home because he wasn’t in office for long enough.
My own view of this is Attlee is far ahead of Thatcher, she was far too divisive a figure to be in the top flight and against her successes (Falklands, economic reforms, European Single Market) there are too many debits (Uncaring response to economic reforms and recessions, her own divisive nature, poll tax). I would move her into the ‘System Shifters’ category.
I think Blair moves into the ‘Promise Unfulfilled’ category if assessed for his full term, 1st term was competent but a bit timid, then Iraq lost him all credibility and he struggled thereafter.
Otherwise I agree with the others even if it puts Heath a bit high – but I can’t think where else to put him and he had the one Big Achievement that not many others can claim even if he was defective in other ways.
So what of the PMs since Blair? I put both Brown and May in the ‘Overwhelmed’ category, both having to clear up somebody else’s mess and personally lacking the qualities of a good PM anyway.
Cameron is difficult. As Coalition PM I thought he was very competent, apart from the knee-jerk Tory response to economic difficulties being the wrong one in hindsight, there were a lot of positive achievements and a different direction, which overall feels like he belongs in the ‘System Shifter’ category. Unfortunately for his reputation the LD implosion in 2015 allowed him the chance to reveal himself as a chancer without a plan for Brexit that clearly puts him in the ‘Catastrophic’ camp, 2 PMs later we still haven’t even started dealing with the consequences. Ultimately where you place him depends on how you weight the two. Maybe he has to go in the list twice.
And Johnson? Time will tell but I suspect he will, like Cameron, be either a ‘System Shifter’ or ‘Catastrophic’ just ahead of Eden. I suspect the latter (which is where I put him now) as unless the Covid response goes well from now on and he quits early, the contradictions inherent in his Brexit deal will do for him.
Common factor in the ‘Catastrophic’ category? All went to the same school.
Many of these issues are related. Vaccines have slashed the caseload ensuring those who need it get the best healthcare available.
Vaccines are THE long term solution to coronavirus (it's remarkable that isn't even higher IMO).
Vaccines reduce the number of people who catch Covid.
Etc
I don't get this whole other countries do it this way so you should like it attitude. If other countries decide hopping is better than walking I wouldn't argue we should do it because other countries do.
Simple fact of the matter is that its mostly only the electoral reform minded that suggest regions and for the rest of us its less popular than av
And no I don't think national government is making a good fist of those things. However I do not believe for a minute regional governments are going to be any better
Good. Time to move on.
I don't think they really have a clue what they are doing. Just see Tim Divie infront of the select committee the other week, he states first the BBC isn't here to compete with Netflix, but then also says the BBC needs to expand in places like the US. Who does he think he will be competing against in the US?
One thing that I didn't realise until recently, BBC is now 100% owner of UKTV. So they now have joint ownership of Britbox and 100% of the likes of Dave and yet they are farting making BBC4 into a repeats channel (when even oldies use iPlayer) and saying oh no we could never reform the BBC to carry adverts...
Berlin's state hospital groups Charite and Vivantes have stopped giving women under the age of 55 shots of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine, German newspaper Tagesspiegel has reported on its website, citing a spokeswoman for the hospitals."
https://news.sky.com/story/covid-news-live-latest-uk-coronavirus-updates-as-lockdown-is-eased-12259839
People need somewhere to live, it's as simple as that.
None of that, though, should have the slightest bearing on the question of how good a PM he was. That is a completely different question.
So, federal voting reform, police qualified immunity removal etc etc.
I don't get why so many people think we live here because we want to. A hell of a lot of us live here because we have absolutely no choice if we want to have a job.
Keynes described how prices are sticky downwards nearly a century ago yet that's meant to be an alien concept now?
Besides why would they have fallen? After 2010 wages haven't fallen, we weren't in recession, so what would have caused them to fall in a way we have never seen in serious terms in the history of economics.
No workplaces, apparently. Just houses.
And they did actually collapse in Northern Ireland:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-15757932
My perception in Parliament was that decision-making came down to the most senior Minister who was actually interested. If the PM was involved, nobody else's opinion mattered. If he wasn't interested, then it came down to the Sec of State, etc. Even junior Ministers could accomplish something if they were lucky enough that none of their bosses were interested in their issue. Brown was entirely focused on the financial crisis - probably rightly so. Blair took a casual interest in all sorts of things, from juvenile delinquency to (not quite banning) fox-hunting - his quick mind enabled him to grasp an issue quickly, but he overestimated the extent to which his involvement was really helpful.
Obamas's memoirs are a good read - quite introspective and by no means self-important - they give the impression of an intelligent man doing his best but always aware of the possibility that he's got something wrong. Among foreign leaders, he rates Merkel highly but unusually in an otherwise generous book is almost derisive about Sarkozy. He likes Medvedev but Putin reminds him of a Chicago ward boss - tough and competent but ruthlessly focused on what he personally wants, and otherwise indifferent to cooperation or other people's opinions.
But this is the IOC. They want their money.
@BritainElects
Westminster voting intention:
CON: 42% (-1)
LAB: 32% (-2)
LDEM: 8% (+3)
GRN: 7% (-)
REFUK: 3% (-)
via @YouGov
, 25 - 26 Mar
Chgs. w/ 19 Mar
And the third poll on the trot since Saturday's suggestion that the vaccine bounce was over, sees another lead increase for Boris.....
So I would not be surprised at anything.
There is also the not insignificant matter of the qualifying tournaments in the participant nations, the athletes unable to train for months and the sheer number of people who would congregate in Tokyo.
In order to give clarity to ticket holders living overseas and to enable them to adjust their travel plans at this stage, the parties on the Japanese side have come to the conclusion that they will not be able to enter into Japan at the time of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Whether or not they allow Japanese ticket holders to attend in some capacity remains to be seen. But it looks like some in Japan are getting nervous about letting the athletes in.