Tories lost the 2019 election among working age adults

Soldato
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BTL also tends to remove the bottom rung of the housing ladder so exacerbates the issues for younger or lower paid people.
Bang on. The prime target properties for BTL are the same properties first time buyers are after.

Honestly, the more you comprehend the mechanisms here, the more you recognise just how immoral it is to allow, encourage, or participate in landlording.
 
Man of Honour
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Yes it does.

More demand in the buying market pushes prices up: I'm sure you won't dispute this.

Renting is a substitute good vs buying: higher buying prices mean the rental market can sustain higher prices.

It's simple stuff, but you've got to join the dots.

No, it doesn't.

Relative accommodation costs for an area (which covers both renting and buying accommodation) is a function of supply and demand in that area.

The exact mix of renting versus buying in the area is irrelevant to the relative cost. All buy to let does is move property from the purchase market to the rental market. It has no effect on the wider accommodation costs, which are demand driven (which is why you don't see areas with high purchase prices but cheap rents, or low purchase prices but expensive rents).

You're confusing the cause and the observed effects, or deliberately misrepresenting it to validate your irrational hatred.
 
Soldato
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Relative accommodation costs for an area (which covers both renting and buying accommodation) is a function of supply and demand in that area.
Yes. Let's apply supply and demand theory.

Demand for rentals is increased by fewer properties available to buy (because BTL has caused supply to fall)

Supply for rentals is also increased, because more BTLs are in the market.

So far, so neutral.

BUT, in supply and demand, your demand curve shifts when the supply or price of a substitute changes.

Higher property prices cause the rent demand curve to shift upwards.

Hence. Higher rent prices AND higher purchase prices.

I promise you this is correct theory.
 
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Yes. Let's apply supply and demand theory.

Demand for rentals is increased by fewer properties available to buy (because BTL has caused supply to fall)

Supply for rentals is also increased, because more BTLs are in the market.

So far, so neutral.

BUT, in supply and demand, your demand curve shifts when the supply or price of a substitute changes.

Higher property prices cause the rent demand curve to shift upwards.

Hence. Higher rent prices AND higher purchase prices.

I promise you this is correct theory.

All of which is driven by a fundamental supply shortfall versus demand of general accommodation (whether to purchase or rent), not by the existence of buy to let, which has been my point all along.

You are blaming landlords for a general shortage of properties because you have an irrational hatred. The logic is exactly the same as that employed by your common or garden racist or misogynist, reframing a general issue to place blame instead on a specific group that you already hold an irrational hatred of.
 
Soldato
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All of which is driven by a fundamental supply shortfall versus demand of general accommodation
No it's not. The same effect would be so if there were as many properties as there were people who wanted to live in them. Increasing BTL would still push up both property price AND rental price because of the above effect of substitute goods on supply and demand.

But Landlording has been insidiously worsening the issue. And it feeds itself: the more landlording there is, the higher the rewards for all landlords. And the bigger voting bloc they become. And the bigger the vested interests of our MP Landlords (near 20% of the HoC are landlords).

Which all ties in to the problem highlighted in this thread: is a government with a mandate only from the old going to serve the needs of the younger, poorer generations, or are they going to serve their older, wealthier voters?
 
Caporegime
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No it's not. The same effect would be so if there were as many properties as there were people who wanted to live in them. Increasing BTL would still push up both property price AND rental price because of the above effect of substitute goods on supply and demand.

But Landlording has been insidiously worsening the issue. And it feeds itself: the more landlording there is, the higher the rewards for all landlords. And the bigger voting bloc they become. And the bigger the vested interests of our MP Landlords (near 20% of the HoC are landlords).

Which all ties in to the problem highlighted in this thread: is a government with a mandate only from the old going to serve the needs of the younger, poorer generations, or are they going to serve their older, wealthier voters?
The question is how long can this go on before things basically fall apart. The situation for the young is getting worse all the time. Private rental is increasing; home ownership is decreasing; the cost to the taxpayer of subsidising rents paid to private landlords is increasing. The young are thoroughly disillusioned and many do not want to be part of this crooked system, which exists solely to benefit the wealthy.

Many look at today's society and think, "There's no future for me here. I don't want to live all my life a slave in a job I hate and then die, because I won't even be able to retire the way things are going."

Our FPTP system ensures perpetual Tory rule, and we all know what their priorities are. Not those of the common man, that's for sure.

The whole game is rigged, and this country seemingly is yearning for a return to the Victorian era. All the while, economists warning of the perils of a growing wealth divide, and just about everyone talking about how unsustainable our current trajectory really is.

Going to be fun watching the whole thing unravel.
 
Soldato
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You are blaming landlords for a general shortage of properties because you have an irrational hatred. The logic is exactly the same as that employed by your common or garden racist or misogynist, reframing a general issue to place blame instead on a specific group that you already hold an irrational hatred of.
Also, what's this emotional nonsense?

I just used your preferred theory (Supply and Demand, which you introduced to the discussion) to explain how Landlording pushes up prices for both rent and buy. How's that irrational?!
 
Soldato
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The question is how long can this go on before things basically fall apart. The situation for the young is getting worse all the time. Private rental is increasing; home ownership is decreasing; the cost to the taxpayer of subsidising rents paid to private landlords is increasing. The young are thoroughly disillusioned and many do not want to be part of this crooked system, which exists solely to benefit the wealthy.

Many look at today's society and think, "There's no future for me here. I don't want to live all my life a slave in a job I hate and then die, because I won't even be able to retire the way things are going."

Our FPTP system ensures perpetual Tory rule, and we all know what their priorities are. Not those of the common man, that's for sure.

The whole game is rigged, and this country seemingly is yearning for a return to the Victorian era. All the while, economists warning of the perils of a growing wealth divide, and just about everyone talking about how unsustainable our current trajectory really is.

Going to be fun watching the whole thing unravel.

There's only so much abuse a subset of society will take silently, there comes a point where they will lash out, either politically and sometimes unfortunately violently. This has happened again and again in history and will happen again if the current trends continue. It's so shortsighted of our politicians and institutions to assume the UK is immune.

Some western countries like the UK are almost at that stage, they've made a conscious decision to stop caring about the young and instead bribe the old and wealthy to win elections. When the average house appreciates by more than the average wage in one year (i.e. a house sitting somewhere doing nothing adds more wealth than a person working full time), it's the land owner class that is being rewarded and the value of an honest work has been reduced to paying rent to landowner masters so that they allow us to exist. We've returned to feudalism.
 
Soldato
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question is how long can this go on before things basically fall apart. The situation for the young is getting worse all the time. Private rental is increasing; home ownership is decreasing; the cost to the taxpayer of subsidising rents paid to private landlords is increasing. The young are thoroughly disillusioned and many do not want to be part of this crooked system, which exists solely to benefit the wealthy.
I'll give some slightly melodramatic thoughts on that :D

The Millenial Spring (as I've just decided to call it) saw Corbyn here and Bernie in the US come pretty close to upending the orthodoxy we've followed since WW2.

It germinated in the 2008 crash (which was capitalism at its most clearly failing, at a time when that generation was most affected) and grew throughout the student protests and Occupy movements of the following years.

The old order (older people with vested interests, including the full force of capitalist-controlled media) managed to subdue the uprising, and so the Millenial Spring failed.

But it's hard to see how we're not in the dying years of The West. China is due to become the biggest economy in the world, and the US is barely holding its democratic institutions together in a functioning fashion. Wealth is pooling with a handful of Billionaires (see Russian Oligarchs for a similar tale of failed governmental institution).
 
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The problem isn't the amount of tax. I'd gladly pay more tax for a better society. And as you say, we're by far not the highest taxed people in Europe.

The problem is that under the current govt, there is no trust that your tax won't find it's way to Boris's mates, or simply be used to subsidise the already wealthy (corporations or individuals).

If the tax was spent to benefit society as a whole (and no, "trickle-down" economics is not the answer) then there would be more incentive to pay it. Well, for some of us, anyhow.

There is also the "I'm alright, Jack" mentality and "society is a pyramid, don't be at the bottom" mentality of the many of the general populace to overcome. There has to be a much more enlightened attitude towards our fellow man.
Absolutely. The system seems fundamentally broken to be paying in so much tax yet everything is broken or not functioning properly.
 
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The housing market is a mess. I do agree they need to restrict buy to let somehow. At least with tax.

I'm lucky/unlucky that I live north of Manchester. Housing is getting more expensive but obviously not like the South yet. My house cost 60k. I would like to move to Manchester but it is getting more expensive.

I think if you live near London you have to work in London and also have a decent job otherwise move somewhere cheaper.

Wages are atleast higher in the south and there are more jobs so you can only complain so much. In that respect living down south is easy mode

People keep voting Conservative which means funding is always lacking in the North. I am not supprised it's only the rich and property/ land owners that vote for them. And ofcourse brainwashed plebs that read the express. They have screwed every section of society over recently with tax rises for the low end earners and mid end earners and uc cuts for the poor, inflation and energy prices.

You don't see this issue in China for example where high speed rail spans the entire country and economic development is spreading to the west of the country.
 
Soldato
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The housing market is a mess. I do agree they need to restrict buy to let somehow. At least with tax.

I'm lucky/unlucky that I live north of Manchester. Housing is getting more expensive but obviously not like the South yet. My house cost 60k. I would like to move to Manchester but it is getting more expensive.

I think if you live near London you have to work in London and also have a decent job otherwise move somewhere cheaper.

Wages are atleast higher in the south and there are more jobs so you can only complain so much. In that respect living down south is easy mode

People keep voting Conservative which means funding is always lacking in the North. I am not supprised it's only the rich and property/ land owners that vote for them. And ofcourse brainwashed plebs that read the express. They have screwed every section of society over recently with tax rises for the low end earners and mid end earners and uc cuts for the poor, inflation and energy prices.

You don't see this issue in China for example where high speed rail spans the entire country and economic development is spreading to the west of the country.

This is all true, but I wouldn't romanticise China in general, given that their disparity is much worse than ours and the high speed rail projects actually made it worse, and their high speed rail projects themselves in particular, as it's increasingly apparent that the whole thing has been a complete economic failure. It's part of the debt trap disaster that China is experiencing right now and is generally covered extensively by the press.
 
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This is all true, but I wouldn't romanticise China in general, given that their disparity is much worse than ours and the high speed rail projects actually made it worse, and their high speed rail projects themselves in particular, as it's increasingly apparent that the whole thing has been a complete economic failure. It's part of the debt trap disaster that China is experiencing right now and is generally covered extensively by the press.

I though the debt trap was about lending other countries money. China has lots of money. They can afford to build high speed rail.

I am not saying china is perfect. I wouldn't want to live there but it shows that some things are better done by the government. You need public sector funding in the North as well as private sector investment. The money will be made back and in not even that longer a time.
 
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On China, an interesting point made by the oracle of African football, Mark Gleeson, on the world football phone-in this week. The Chinese have constructed and maintained the stadiums being used in the ACN this month in exchange for 100,000 visa's for Chinese citizens to settle in these very naturally resourceful African countries.

I wonder what the long term thinking is for doing that...
 
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I though the debt trap was about lending other countries money. China has lots of money. They can afford to build high speed rail.

That's a different debt trap (aka debt trap diplomacy) which is as you say about lending other countries money doing unviable projects then China coming in and take them hostage.

China's industries have been largely financed by debt, this is especially true of real estate and high speed rail. Neither of which are actually producing revenues anywhere near the levels required to meet loan repayment targets, so they are issuing new much higher interest debt to pay back old debts and this is coming to point of complete collapse. This is because vast majority of those lines made no economic sense whatsoever and some even ended up having the exact opposite effect in terms of economic development and increased revenues for provincial governments. This is unlike their tech or manufacturing industries for example, which were financed by debt in similar ways but ended up being overwhelmingly successful and profitable.

State-owned Chinese Railway has $850 billion in debt and estimates say provincial governments also owe a ton (they don't say how much) for the same projects as they are competing with each other for business, and this is increasing by billions per month due to unprofitability of the projects. The entire profits of these high speed rails are less than a quarter of the interest on their debts. The only reason the entire thing hasn't collapsed yet is because China's RDF (railway development fund) is liquidating assets in order to not default on the debts. There are discussion about closing down some lines entirely.

They've basically did to their own industries what they do to other countries with their debt traps and there's no easy way out of this.

I am not saying china is perfect. I wouldn't want to live there but it shows that some things are better done by the government. You need public sector funding in the North as well as private sector investment. The money will be made back and in not even that longer a time.

I agree. I support nationalising all rail (hell, I even support funding them through taxes and making them free or incredibly cheap at the point of service like the NHS). We need to massively invest and improve our railways, just not the way China did theirs because it will bankrupt us as we're nowhere near as rich :D
 
Soldato
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This is all true, but I wouldn't romanticise China in general, given that their disparity is much worse than ours and the high speed rail projects actually made it worse, and their high speed rail projects themselves in particular, as it's increasingly apparent that the whole thing has been a complete economic failure. It's part of the debt trap disaster that China is experiencing right now and is generally covered extensively by the press.
China had 750million people living in absolute poverty in 1990. Their transformation is utterly remarkable (about 5 million in absolute poverty now), and we should be wary of downplaying where they are today, given how rapidly they're evolving.
 
Soldato
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China had 750million people living in absolute poverty in 1990. Their transformation is utterly remarkable (about 5 million in absolute poverty now), and we should be wary of downplaying where they are today, given how rapidly they're evolving.

Totally. We should see the whole picture of their development and growth. Some dismiss it entirely, some completely romanticise it. Both are wrong.
 
Soldato
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Bang on. The prime target properties for BTL are the same properties first time buyers are after.

Honestly, the more you comprehend the mechanisms here, the more you recognise just how immoral it is to allow, encourage, or participate in landlording.

I predict within a couple of decades property related businesses, will make up at least 30-40% of GDP. Its getting well out of control. Ask the question, how do the brits make money when they not selling a imported product, we rent houses to each other.
 
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