Should the government "cap" house values?
Poll: Should the government "cap" house values?
Total Members Polled: 333
Discussion
bosscerbera said:
The collusion between the government and banks to create this mess is disgusting. Enabling/creating all this debt made the economy look good for Brown, and all his ilk are interested in is looking good in the media and staying in power. They have no morals, no consideration of the common good.
Hit - nail - head.They are the people who had the capacity to understand the situation and the power to do something about it. They failed utterly and completely.
Ozzie Osmond said:
bosscerbera said:
The collusion between the government and banks to create this mess is disgusting. Enabling/creating all this debt made the economy look good for Brown, and all his ilk are interested in is looking good in the media and staying in power. They have no morals, no consideration of the common good.
Hit - nail - head.They are the people who had the capacity to understand the situation and the power to do something about it. They failed utterly and completely.
One of them (Adair Turner I think) admitted that the FSA had been focussed entirely on the wrong thing in terms of banking regualtion for a number of years......
Hector Sants, chief exec of the FSA still has a job. How?
Fittster said:
speedy_thrills said:
Fittster said:
Where is the evidence there was ever a shortage of supply?
The demand increased with the availability of cheap money but supply did not, therefore there was a lack of supply which drive prices up.Does that make sense?
"The Empty Homes Agency estimates there are 840,000 empty homes in Britain, almost 4% of the total housing stock.The National Land Use figures indicate that a further 420,000 homes could be established in disused commercial properties in England, including former pubs and space above shops. So that’s 1.26 million extra homes. And a Halifax survey published in December 2007 found that 288,763 private homes in England in April 2006 had been empty for at least six months – equivalent to 1.6% of all privately owned houses. It hardly all adds up to a picture of a major shortage.
Indeed, even the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) puts the number of empty houses in Britain at around 700,000."
The conventional wisdom is there is/was a housing shortage but maybe its not so clear cut. Prices have dropped a lot over the last 12 months but this is nothing to do with an increase in supply, so maybe there isn't really a shortage.
Someone from an action group was outraged that half of the houses on the Ferrier Estate in Greenwich were empty, while conveniently ignoring the fact that it is going to be raised to the ground withing the next year.
There are empty houses oop north, to go with the empty wallets and empty pages of situations vacant in the local paper.
Very few people leave houses empty for the sake of it and most would be sold or rented if it were possible.
Baby Huey said:
Fittster said:
speedy_thrills said:
Fittster said:
Where is the evidence there was ever a shortage of supply?
The demand increased with the availability of cheap money but supply did not, therefore there was a lack of supply which drive prices up.Does that make sense?
"The Empty Homes Agency estimates there are 840,000 empty homes in Britain, almost 4% of the total housing stock.The National Land Use figures indicate that a further 420,000 homes could be established in disused commercial properties in England, including former pubs and space above shops. So that’s 1.26 million extra homes. And a Halifax survey published in December 2007 found that 288,763 private homes in England in April 2006 had been empty for at least six months – equivalent to 1.6% of all privately owned houses. It hardly all adds up to a picture of a major shortage.
Indeed, even the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) puts the number of empty houses in Britain at around 700,000."
The conventional wisdom is there is/was a housing shortage but maybe its not so clear cut. Prices have dropped a lot over the last 12 months but this is nothing to do with an increase in supply, so maybe there isn't really a shortage.
Someone from an action group was outraged that half of the houses on the Ferrier Estate in Greenwich were empty, while conveniently ignoring the fact that it is going to be raised to the ground withing the next year.
There are empty houses oop north, to go with the empty wallets and empty pages of situations vacant in the local paper.
Very few people leave houses empty for the sake of it and most would be sold or rented if it were possible.
Ozzie Osmond said:
Good find!Found this on the same channel... http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=aCQREoAmsu0
scotal said:
Ozzie Osmond said:
bosscerbera said:
The collusion between the government and banks to create this mess is disgusting. Enabling/creating all this debt made the economy look good for Brown, and all his ilk are interested in is looking good in the media and staying in power. They have no morals, no consideration of the common good.
Hit - nail - head.They are the people who had the capacity to understand the situation and the power to do something about it. They failed utterly and completely.
One of them (Adair Turner I think) admitted that the FSA had been focussed entirely on the wrong thing in terms of banking regualtion for a number of years......
Hector Sants, chief exec of the FSA still has a job. How?
The thing is the monetary system is fundamentally flawed. Unless you're prepared to question the very basis of the monetary system all you can do is meddle with the effects and never get close to the cause. The FSA is a waste of space, what difference does it make who works there?
Britain's "wealth" is based on house prices and borrowing against those house prices. The private sector represents a minority of the population. That minority produces very little in the way of tangible products (manufacturing) or materials (natural resources). I'm not sure how we get manufacturing back or increase output of any natural resources. Centuries ago with a much smaller population Britain got wealthier by colonizing other places - it ended up 'owning' much more than that which existed within its own shores. All that's gone.
All we're left with - to trade with other nations - is "British expertise". And how "expert" is it really given our appalling education regime? For sure, core British culture tends to throw up the odd genius but under the piss'n'wind of service companies' "brand values" there isn't really much of substance. And the population is too big for what's actually here.
We don't even own our own energy/utilities anymore (France, Germany, America own our utilities). Energy security - our ability to maintain supply of energy - is perilous. Putin doesn't need a nuclear weapon to f
k Britain, he's got gas. (LOL at "Putin's got gas...") But he won't "gas" us with it - he can hold us to ransom with it. We've got some coal but we've signed up to treaties that we'll close the power stations that use it. When the banks came to grinding a halt, DEBT should have been addressed by cutting it. But who'd dare do something like that? I mean, seriously, given the erroneous basis upon which the lending was issued, force a colossal write-off across the banks.
The idiots decided, instead, to make MORE debt and ENCOURAGE even more debt because for the past years increasing debt has made the economy "look good" (allegedly ....don't look too hard eh?). What we're left with is people holding assets worth less than their debt - the population and the country are insolvent and getting more insolvent by the day.
Ozzie Osmond said:
The script about children's spending is particularly pertinent.The scandal of student debt is part of the "expand the economy with debt" programme. The borrow for the sake of your future proposition with liberal use of the word "invest" amongst the rhetoric and hyperbole is risible.
It's another example of further inflating a bust situation. House prices should have stalled when conventional lending no longer enabled people to afford houses. Extending income multiples for mortgages and lending to 125% of property values postponed and dramatically worsened the situation. We're there now... with more debt taken on on our behalf to "fix it". The government is behaving like some kind of demented WAG who falls into arrears on the mortgage, starts paying that with a credit card, then starts paying off the credit card paying the mortgage with another credit ...and carries on shopping anyway.
On top of this, a new group of debtors was created: students, lots of them. Sold the pup of "degrees for all" this lot have made a great contribution to the Brown economy by racking up more debt before they even start work than most of their parents hold in a whole wallet full of credit cards. They're conditioned to the notion that "debt" is "investment in a future". They'll be great little borrowers... their "future" is never going to arrive. Oh, hang on... they could by a house with an 8x income 125% mortgage AND repay their student loans... And why not have a credit card with that too? The future will take care of it... Brown "understands"...
A government (is there any hope it will be the next one?) needs to accept that Britain is so catastrophically indebted that the economy is totally f
ked. It's all very well colluding in the perpetuation of the status quo but now, surely, of all times, somebody has to realise that the game's up and it's time to do something radical.bosscerbera said:
Ozzie Osmond said:
The script about children's spending is particularly pertinent.The scandal of student debt is part of the "expand the economy with debt" programme. The borrow for the sake of your future proposition with liberal use of the word "invest" amongst the rhetoric and hyperbole is risible.
It's another example of further inflating a bust situation. House prices should have stalled when conventional lending no longer enabled people to afford houses. Extending income multiples for mortgages and lending to 125% of property values postponed and dramatically worsened the situation. We're there now... with more debt taken on on our behalf to "fix it". The government is behaving like some kind of demented WAG who falls into arrears on the mortgage, starts paying that with a credit card, then starts paying off the credit card paying the mortgage with another credit ...and carries on shopping anyway.
On top of this, a new group of debtors was created: students, lots of them. Sold the pup of "degrees for all" this lot have made a great contribution to the Brown economy by racking up more debt before they even start work than most of their parents hold in a whole wallet full of credit cards. They're conditioned to the notion that "debt" is "investment in a future". They'll be great little borrowers... their "future" is never going to arrive. Oh, hang on... they could by a house with an 8x income 125% mortgage AND repay their student loans... And why not have a credit card with that too? The future will take care of it... Brown "understands"...
A government (is there any hope it will be the next one?) needs to accept that Britain is so catastrophically indebted that the economy is totally f
ked. It's all very well colluding in the perpetuation of the status quo but now, surely, of all times, somebody has to realise that the game's up and it's time to do something radical.Kieran XJR said:
Out of interest, what do you think the government should have done as an alternative to bailing out the banks with more borrowing?
Two wrongs don't make a right and adding more debt (government bailout) and encouraging more debt (interest rate cuts, cajoling banks to lend, telling lies about Britain being in good shape...) is exactly like the "WAG example" in my earlier post - head up fundament, carry on borrowin'n'spendin'.The problem is the debt. Debts should have been universally cut ie slashing ALL borrowings, a forced correction on the banks.
The reality is that most mortgages were loaned on houses worth fundamentally less than their true values. The banks' actions inflated the values of the houses to the banks' advantage. As for credit card debt, the banks have been charging obscene rates on these for years, ditto a lot of unsecured loans. People who've got hardcore, solidified debt on credit cards will have paid the bulk of what they borrowed back in interest/minimum payments over a number of years and in the current conditions are unlikely to clear the "stuck" balances.
Money creation with fractional reserve banking literally creates money from nothing - it becomes "real" when it's repaid.
An awful lot of people and companies are going to go bust in the current climate which will, in any case, cause pretty substantial write-downs for banks. The fear of the extent of these defaults (rather than the reality of them because the extent is not actually known) is what triggered the credit crunch. Banks won't go bust by writing down 50% of their outstanding loans. Indeed to do so would improve the ratio between currency held on deposit and loans.
If any bank DID go bust as a result of this, so what? Another organisation would pick up the pieces, people still need basic banking services, the sector would recover. Suitably chastised by the experience of having its loan business halved by government, I doubt we'd see a repeat of such wanton lending for several generations.
The most important element of a savage debt cut is that the only sector it wallops is banking - and banking was the cause of the problem. And it would be one blessing of there now being so few banks - banks might like to think about the pros/cons of being a small number of huge targets. Every other sector/individual would be stimulated by the debt reduction. The balance sheets of companies would improve, people's individual gearing would improve and there would be a real chance that the population - also traumatised by recent events - will be disinclined to waste the opportunity afforded it. I don't see people thinking "great, now half my credit card's empty, I'll piss it up the wall all over again".
Just to add.... the move the government made has punished the population and rewarded the banks. It's the wrong way round.
Cutting debts by half would give people a fighting chance of repaying the rest by themselves and from thereon in, perhaps even switching mentality to saving rather than borrowing. Bank reserves would therefore increase. Furthermore, saving your own money for a rainy day (or retirement) is a damned sight better than buggering about with pensions.
Cutting debts by half would give people a fighting chance of repaying the rest by themselves and from thereon in, perhaps even switching mentality to saving rather than borrowing. Bank reserves would therefore increase. Furthermore, saving your own money for a rainy day (or retirement) is a damned sight better than buggering about with pensions.
bosscerbera said:
Just to add.... the move the government made has punished the population and rewarded the banks. It's the wrong way round.
Cutting debts by half would give people a fighting chance of repaying the rest by themselves and from thereon in, perhaps even switching mentality to saving rather than borrowing. Bank reserves would therefore increase. Furthermore, saving your own money for a rainy day (or retirement) is a damned sight better than buggering about with pensions.
I think it's all linked personally. This country owes £1.5 trillion in personal debt. Add that to £1.0 trillion for the unsecured cost of public sector pension liabilities, good knows how much for off-the-books PFI, oh and the National Debt and what have you got? Cutting debts by half would give people a fighting chance of repaying the rest by themselves and from thereon in, perhaps even switching mentality to saving rather than borrowing. Bank reserves would therefore increase. Furthermore, saving your own money for a rainy day (or retirement) is a damned sight better than buggering about with pensions.
Trouble, that's what.
Andy Zarse said:
bosscerbera said:
Just to add.... the move the government made has punished the population and rewarded the banks. It's the wrong way round.
Cutting debts by half would give people a fighting chance of repaying the rest by themselves and from thereon in, perhaps even switching mentality to saving rather than borrowing. Bank reserves would therefore increase. Furthermore, saving your own money for a rainy day (or retirement) is a damned sight better than buggering about with pensions.
I think it's all linked personally. This country owes £1.5 trillion in personal debt. Add that to £1.0 trillion for the unsecured cost of public sector pension liabilities, good knows how much for off-the-books PFI, oh and the National Debt and what have you got? Cutting debts by half would give people a fighting chance of repaying the rest by themselves and from thereon in, perhaps even switching mentality to saving rather than borrowing. Bank reserves would therefore increase. Furthermore, saving your own money for a rainy day (or retirement) is a damned sight better than buggering about with pensions.
Trouble, that's what.
Banks are granted a unique right/privilege to multiply money. They've gone too far. Brown going further with them is ridiculous, but no surprise there, he is ridiculous and I look forward to the shoe-ing history will give the chubber-tongued twerp. The money needs "un-multiplying" - it would strengthen the currency by endowing the population with a lot of spending/investing/saving power.
Yep, pensions are an issue. There's a need to 'fess up to them not coming good - which is another reason why unhooking the population from debt (more specifically from BANKS) gives people a fighting chance of making some provision for themselves.
coyft said:
NoelWatson said:
They might as well confiscate all savings and wipe out all debts and be done with it. That's the end game.Gassing Station | Homes, Gardens and DIY | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff