Well done Harriet Harman

[stumuzz]

Eh? Are we speaking the same language. The introduction of Housing Benefit was, if not a government policy, then what?

It was legislation, a reaction to increasing housing costs. Again, what should have been done to those who were earning and borrowing more than those producing the goods and shoveing up the price of housing?

A policy is something you ( the gov') wish to happen. I am asserting the HB bill was a reaction.

I think there must have been a policy before the legislation was enacted! And it was a sugar-pill at the time of the great council house sell-off rather than a reaction to any non-government policy induced house price rise!

So, you agree house prices were rising, so legislation was needed to deal with it? Therefore the HB bill could not have been a policy Ab initio?

[AndySir]

Another fact check Stumuzz. Housing benefit transferred to local authorities in 1982 when house prices were rising at 2%. In 1983 the rise in house prices was over 10% and it didn't dip below that again until the recession of 91.

[biffvernon]

Hey, AndySir, don't let facts get in the way of right wing rhetoric.

[UndercoverElephant]

Come on Stumuzz, it's a fair question after that nasty attack- are you a landlord or aren't you?

He owns about 18 houses, IIRC.

[Little John]

Come on Stumuzz, it's a fair question after that nasty attack- are you a landlord or aren't you?

He owns about 18 houses, IIRC.

Sounds about right

[JohnB]

I'm not sure there's anything wrong with being a private landlord. It's the way you treat you tenants that's important.

[biffvernon]

I'm not sure there's anything wrong with being a private landlord. It's the way you treat you tenants that's important.

And being honest about the hidden subsidy that Housing Benefit brings.

[nexus]

Come on Stumuzz, it's a fair question after that nasty attack- are you a landlord or aren't you?

He owns about 18 houses, IIRC.

Sounds about right

Wow..............

That amount of vested interest takes his comments to a whole new level.

[nexus]

I'm not sure there's anything wrong with being a private landlord. It's the way you treat you tenants that's important.

Yes- there's a big difference between a landlord who lives onsite or maybe nearby and rents out a room or two in their house or a house that they inherited and who is a decent, fair landlord and someone who has a property portfolio of a number of buy to let properties and who is mainly concerned about the return on their investment and whose actions have pushed property prices up for everyone- renters and buyers alike. They have fueled an unsustainable property boom and priced many people out of the market.

What makes me laugh though is how they consider it work- everyone needs to live somewhere and these parasites have made a killing for doing next to nothing on the back of that.

The latest bunch to jump on this gravy train are estate agents who have seen revenue falling and are now exploiting the private rented sector with massive fees for some background and credit checks and a pro forma contract- tenants can be charged around £400 for this!

[stumuzz]

Now that you all have decided it's easier not to address the causes of high housing costs and for biff to believe it was some form of clandestine gov' policy to transfer wealth from taxation to private landlords, I'll try again.

Over,the last twenty years we the workers of Britain, have produced less and less as a country. We have paid ourselves vastly more than the people (Chinese) who have produced the the stuff we consumed.

In addition, to becoming more ignorant (have a look at the (PISA) tables, our trading partners have educated themselves far better.

The Money paid as salaries and the borrowings of the people in work bought more cars, took more holidays and made the cost of housing rise

In short, we as workers(UK PLC) have had it all.

Now, the difficult bit for you all. What was the gov' to do with housing costs rising so quickly, because we paid ourselves too much and borrowed even more. Refuse to house the poor? Or we under an obligation to house the poor by taking some of the huge taxes the city generated and stamp duty generated i.e. a redistribution of wealth.

Try to answer the question without the usual leftie rants.

[stumuzz]

And being honest about the hidden subsidy that Housing Benefit brings.

Ah! changed the word policy to subsidy

Good use of linguistics there Biff, like it, like it.

[AndySir]

Now that you all have decided it's easier not to address the causes of high housing costs and for biff to believe it was some form of clandestine gov' policy to transfer wealth from taxation to private landlords, I'll try again.

Over,the last twenty years we the workers of Britain, have produced less and less as a country. We have paid ourselves vastly more than the people (Chinese) who have produced the the stuff we consumed.

In addition, to becoming more ignorant (have a look at the (PISA) tables, our trading partners have educated themselves far better.

The Money paid as salaries and the borrowings of the people in work bought more cars, took more holidays and made the cost of housing rise

In short, we as workers(UK PLC) have had it all.

Now, the difficult bit for you all. What was the gov' to do with housing costs rising so quickly, because we paid ourselves too much and borrowed even more. Refuse to house the poor? Or we under an obligation to house the poor by taking some of the huge taxes the city generated and stamp duty generated i.e. a redistribution of wealth.

Try to answer the question without the usual leftie rants.

Looks like everyone on here likes to ignore facts when they're inconvenient. This is wages as a percentage of GDP for the last fifty years (if I can get the image to work)





So wages went down in relation to productivity, not the other way around.

[frank_begbie]

On the selling of council houses.

Thatcher introduced 'fair rents' (a big increase in other words), to make it more attractive for the tenants to buy, plus the massive discount you received for the number of years you had lived there.
They wouldn't have sold in the numbers they did otherwise.

I liken it to when CDs first came on the market.

What did the shops do? They increased the price of tapes and vinyl LPs to make CDs a more attractive purchase.

An old trick but they still use it.

[stumuzz]

So wages went down in relation to productivity, not the other way around.

I will try to dig out where I have read this and to see were I have misinterpreted it.

Won't be 'till this evening 'thou. Stupid work.

[AndySir]

So wages went down in relation to productivity, not the other way around.

I will try to dig out where I have read this and to see were I have misinterpreted it.

Won't be 'till this evening 'thou. Stupid work.

Probably manufacturing product wage (the ratio of workers wages to productivity) which has been fairly consistently >1 since the 1960s. Same is not true for economy as a whole.

I know a lot of people here present the decline of British manufacturing as a problem, but really we've just moved up the value chain into design. A lot of British engineering now is fab-less (we make the designs and then send them to China to be ripped-off/manufactured). The short description is yes, all our products are built by Chinese factories but they don't have anything to build without British/German/American engineering.