I agree, it’s completely insane / ridiculous. But the problem is inflation caused currency debasement not the housing market itself. Your solution is like putting a plaster on a gun shot wound. You need a much better solution
There are plenty of things that I'm sure that you and us lefties on here disagree about (and which I disagree with the true lefties about, too). They just feel incredibly insignificant given all the bad craziness, and "democracy good, unrestrained predation on the general public bad" is a pretty big tent politically. Hopefully in a few years all of this will be sorted and we can have knives-out pitched battles over regulatory minutiae or something.
Im not missing anything. I 100% agree with everything you said. What I am saying is, before people complain about taxes etc. we should complain much harder about 1) currency debasement 2) how the tax we currently pay is being spent. I agree with every word in your post. Currently it’s an absolute disgrace. I just think that sound money and fair economics is the answer, not socialism.
We're all waiting for the great leap forward. For me it would be electoral reform with tactical voting hopefully playing a big part in the upcoming election diminishing the main parties roles and influence.
You’re right about educating people on finance and this is something that Martin Lewis went to the government about, as he wants it in the school curriculum. The government response was that there weren’t any books for the teachers to work from, which effectively means **** off, imo. Martin Lewis wrote a book and presented it to the education secretary and was told that it needed to be printed so he organised for a publisher to print it, only to be told that HE had to print it himself, for some reason I forget. Martin Lewis paid, I believe, £500,000 from his charity to publish the book. There is a video on YouTube where Lewis is explaining this to the select committee. The government does not want people to understand finance for fear of being caught out more often by their gimmicks.
What I don't really understand is how inflation is bad, but not when we're talking about house prices. Surely house price inflation is a bad thing, not a sign of economic growth? I absolutely see why home owners are pleased that their little semi is suddenly worth £1/2m, but it's produced the rental nightmare we have today, the struggle for people to enter the housing market as a buyer and is ultimately unsustainable because people cannot afford to keep paying more for something that has not intrinsically gained any value at all.
This disaster has its roots in Thatcher's right to buy policy and councils being prevented from reinvesting in new housing stock.
I have said before that at some point in the future a government will have to make a decision to flood the country with new housing and face the wrath of current owners, as a glut of housing will probably devalue their properties. I also believe remember, as a child walking to school, the prefabricated houses that were thrown up after the war. Prefabricated housing, these days, has reached a standard that, in some cases, is as good or better than traditional housing, but can be erected much quicker. I think labour needs to go after the building companies that have stockpiled building plots, with building permits already granted and give them an ultimatum - build within X number of years or they will be subject to a Compulsory Purchase Order, or have the building permits rescinded, devaluing the land.
I have to say that there are moments when I absolutely loving reading stuff on this forum and find it fascinating to read the comments made by people on a wide range of topics where they are far more knowledgeble than me. There are several points made over the last 24 hours which fascinate me. I wonder how many people caight "The Media Show" on Radio 4 this week which looked at the demise of Murdoch's Tv channel and also sought to second guess the future fate o GB News ? It was fascinating as GB News is acutally something of a succes story when it comes to audience figures where it is alleged that it has stolen alot audience who previously had been listeners to Radio 4 itself but whe felt that they could not longer subscribe to the national broadcaster's liberal views . Wha fascinated me was that it is losing so much money and it's owner's projection to have broke even by this point now looks unlikely even in the long run. There was a suggestion too that it maye eventualy have to relocate to being on line as non-internet news services sre predicted to cease to have much relevance in future as people increasingly access their news on their mobiles. The Radio 4 programme was suggesting that GB News' future on television is far from certain. What was also fascinating was that the number of complaints being levied against GB News is now quite considerable and the guess on Radio 4 were speculating that the TV station will ultimately not be able to survive the crisis. I came away with the conclusion that UK News have upped the quality of their product since it's laughable launch yet this is unlikely to gurantee it'sfuture. The speculation is that is will soon suffer the same fate at Murdoch's channel. I think that this is a good thing since GB News seems to be pushing our extremist propaganda without any concern about the truth.
Totally. Put renters at the mercy of private landlords with no rent controls and not much alternative to private rentals. It also put much more energy into the idea that you would somehow 'make money' just by owning a house. And we're back to inflation and watered down currency
I make that 3 x fascinating, 1 x fascinated and 1 x fascinate in a single post... That might be a record Ian
Lol! Should have re-read it before posting! The other point I wanted to make was about pensions. I have been trying to pull my pensions tgether overthe last two years and have to say that I have been surprised by how difficult some pension companies are at giving you access to what is rightfully your money. Two of my pensions turned out to be particularly difficult. One expected me to explain how intended to re-invest the money (i.e. types of industries. green credentials, risks, etc, etc) and still expected me to complete a questionaire which wss too difficult for most normal people to understand. This was regardless of the fact that I had given them the financial report I had commissioned which demonstrated that my private pension would out perform theirs. It took me the best part of a year to resolve this and an intense 3 mont period where they imposed artifical deadlines which would have required me to go back to square 1. In a ntshell, they were obstructive. Another pension prvider (my largest pot) lost my details and spent 6 months denying that I had a company pension and argued than my £7k pot was the main pension (after 7 years' services!! ) and not my AVCs. This was eventually resolved even though I had 3 telephone conversations where I was accused of lying about having had a pension with them. From my experience, I can see why people rely on a state pension because I am of the opinion that privte pension companies will try to make it difficult for you to get access. I was really surprised by their determination to make this as difficult as possible, For what it is worth, I do not feel that a state pension is practical for everyone in the long term and strongly believe that access to the state pension should be set at a particular level so that the rich cannot get access to money than poorer people genuinely need. I think pensions should be on a sliding scale so this effectively re-distributes the money from the wealthy who have no need of the money to those who struggle to survive. The reduction of NI contributions this week staggered me. Most of us will not notice the lack of income but will notice the lack of services!
I'm pretty sure it's deliberately obstructive - I guess they hope people will give up. Some people will always need the state to provide a pension - even more than ever in the current period of austerity and squeeze. The problem with means testing it at any point in the near future and taking it away from millions of people who thought they were going to receive it will make the WASPI thing look like a slight hassle. I understand it's unaffordable in its current state, but who's to say we shouldn't make the pot bigger to pay those pensions and indeed make those payments more generous? Universal income has long been touted as a necessity at some point, so the pension aspect of it could be applied to that scheme. And anybody who says that people will just have to work harder or save harder will quickly find that there's a crowd of people outside who'd like to have a quiet word, because that's what desperate people do when they're left to starve. It would certainly be a way of redistributing the wealth and we all know that there is more than enough money out there to achieve this, it just needs to be liberated from the hands of the ultra wealthy corporations and individuals who are currently stealing it from under our very feet.
Though mainly working in the NHS I did have a couple of spells in the private sector, with small pension pots due. One company (now owned by those nice Sun people flogging guilt funerals on tv) just deny the existence of my contributions, no I didn't keep my pay slips from 22yrs ago. The other "paid up" reluctantly after the type of obstruction you describe. I paid in just over £3000, after 15yrs of their 'management' the pot stood around £1900. I got a cheque for £56, the rest was due in fees for managing the account. Sods.
Greensaint I cleared all my pensions bar the one who denied my existance (it is final salary and will out perform my personal pension) and the pension with my current employer. It is disturbing to see that I am not the only person who has experienced this. I would challenge that fees for the pot where £56 was recovered. I had a similar thing with my ISA in an international bank about 10 years ago where I challneged the fact that they said my investment had gone down in the early 2010's because of the state of the economy but that it also meant tey could buy more shares on my behalf at a cheaper price. Within a month they came back to me to advise that the account had been mismanaged and I got £10k compensation and free consultancy because my life savings had not earned anywhere as near as I had been advised. I can see the argument about having no sympathy with people who do not prepare for retirement. However, the crux of the matter is that this does not guarantee a decent return as this will only happen if the people managing your money know what they are doing. This is not always the case - albeit my bank was quick to rectify the situation when their error became apparent. Not so with the pension companies, unfortunately who believe the fault is with you and not them. If I was in your shoes, I would contest the fact that you have invested £3000 and received less money! It should not have gone down and certainly not by the figuresyou have been given. The pension companies unfortunately assume we are all idiots,
