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Actually you said mortgage/rent. Kind rules out any other option, doesn't it.
But yes, the basic point is correct, hence why I rent and haven't bought. I am lucky though because I married into a miner's family and we got Govt housing help in this mining village many moons ago.
So now everyone should be able to buy/rent in the neighbourhood of their dreams? I wish I could! I live in the fucking valleys mate, I know what it's like to live somewhere rough when you don't want too!
Exactly mate, those jobs are available all round the country so unfortunately if life is that much of a struggle then move.
My point of buying was in direct reference to Aladins post mate.
And is the rent there £465 pcm?
Think about it, you are talking about the lowest rate in the worst neighbourhoods there
So, there shouldn't be any nurses living in the south east? Do you think that people living here have no health needs?
Lots of jobs have been agglomerating in the south east for the last 20 or so years, hence high property prices...
Unless you propose people should you resign themselves to live in absolute shitholes, or perhaps simply in bedsits.
While your mortage taking up 75% of your income is by no means a desirable or healthy situation people do have a right to try to acquire a decent home they can call their own in an area where their lives, families and jobs are based on.
Do you pay in? Government pays my contributions for me
The rent here in my exact neighbourhood for a 2bed terrace I would imagine around £380 per month, move about 3 miles down the road and it's about £450+...
Fair point, but those peoples familes come first!
So the only way to have something to show for your life is own a property? Why should you own a property, you act like you have a right to it?
Don't get me wrong, I think you should, but it's not the way world works is it mate? If you can't afford you can't have it ? That's not being nasty..
Yes, they have a right to try, but if it goes wrong because they took on too much it's their own fault - that's not nasty is it?
I want to move areas because I don't want my son schooling here in the valleys, not secondary school at least.
To move into a decent area, I will have to buy a smaller (MUCH smaller) house, and my mortgage will increase by at least 50%, probably more.. but it's a risk, and if I went upto 75% mortgage, I know it's a HIGH risk which would probably fail so it's my fault .. right ?
Which is why I'm still here, even though we both hate it, because we are saving and skrimping to get by and trying to get better jobs so we can move, not just expecting it as our "right".
We are even thinking of selling up and renting down in the area we want which is a backwards move but it's the price to pay.. see what I'm saying?
And I get a very similar set of benefits to you, also for mental health reasons... BUT the OP implied that people were getting "most of their bills" paid by the authority AND their benefits which isn't really true (or at least not as I understand it to have been meant).
I'm sure you are aware that statistically speaking schizophrenics actually commit fewer violent crimes than the general population
I reckon the whole way jobseekers works probably needs overhauling, but if I was going to cut taxes, it wouldn't be my first area to cut spending.
I don't think this is right at all.
40% of your hard earned (never mind the National Insurance) being taken is quite high enough, thank-you very much!
Why the hell should somebody be taxed at 70% for earnings over £100k...?
To be honest I think the title was just a way to make the idea look more appealing to the majority when really it's just another rant about people on benefits.
Actually, to raise a few points:
1. The houses you have linked to are way outside London. London prices, well, you'll be lucky to get a 2 bedroom flat for under £200k in anywhere half decent now.
2. £30k where you are. £50k in London? From experience, no chance. The difference in wages is rarely if ever anywhere even halfway close to that. Wages are NOT in line with living costs at all.
3. When it comes to total expenditure, I agree with you (kind of) - 75% of your income on living costs is a bad situation to be in, but it's just not a choice for some people. Your argument changes from renting and buying to just buying so is a bit limp. Simply put - a bank wouldn't lend you to buy if that is how much it was going to cost you.
Just to give you some examples:
A GARAGE for sale in Balham: http://www.foxtons.co.uk/search?order_by=price+asc&search_form=map&per_page=10&search_type=SS&property_id=196035&submit_type=search
I saw another garage a few down from that on the list going for £130k...
A studio flat:
http://www.foxtons.co.uk/search?order_by=price+asc&search_form=map&per_page=10&search_type=SS&property_id=370128&submit_type=search
Sure, you will get the odd 2 bed for half decent money, but almost every single one is for a percentage share in the property. You still have to pay rent on the remainder etc.
For example: http://www.foxtons.co.uk/search?order_by=price+asc&search_form=map&per_page=10&search_type=SS&submit_type=search&property_id=530100&resource=street_map
Looks good at £130k, but that's for a 30% share, the location is bollocks unless you work in Canary Wharf or the City. Anything cheap (or rather, what Londoners would class as cheap) in London is going to have some serious catches to it.
If you have a family, you're in big trouble.
One of my cousins (works as some form of venture capitalist) and his fiance now just rent. They both sold their places (and so have plenty of cash in the bank (think in the hundreds of thousands) and now just rent as the prices in London are so bad that the extra money they would have spent on interest on their mortgage is just better off being placed in their own accounts.
Sure, I'm living in a pretty prime location, but I pay just short of £2k/month for a 2 bedroom apartment. This is quite a cheap one too, for here.
You're gonna be lucky to get a 2 bed apartment to rent for much less than £1000 a month, then you have all your bills etc on top. Anywhere half decent, you're looking at £1200+ just for the rent.
Living out in the valleys as Cheese On Toast does... well, you just don't have a clue about the rest of the country, really, cost-wise.
an economist just worked out higher home ownership increases unemployment due to lack of mobility of labour
Actually it was a question designed to start a debate.
eta - Also I'd like to add my point was there should be a cut back in taxation spending across the board, starting with the most wasteful tax spending. Lets simplify it down immensely.
If as a country it starts spending £1m tax revenue when previously it had spent nothing, you might be able to build a small hospital or something. Seeing as there would be a shortage of hospitals et al, this would pay back for itself in terms of the countrys gain, by much more than £1m, lets say £20m.
Then you spend £2m, which yields back £10m. Then £4m, which yields back £8m. And so on, until you reach a point where you're spending money that is being wasted and going on resurfacing roads that don't need resurfacing, or launching new schemes which aren't really going to help - and you need to step back and think is it better if we stop spending tax here and give it back to the taxpayer, as they will definately be able to spend it on something they will benefit from. (well, perhaps not in the case of alcohol / cigarrettes - but it's about economic welfare in general).
I was using the example that some people earn more benefits by looking for a job than the income they would get if they had a job. So some of the money provided to them is not giving back to the economy - it's actually providing less incentive to find a job since they're better off - yet is still costing a significant amount of money that would definately go a long way to help people individually.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_policy
It's not about being prejudiced and seeing everyone as scroungers. It's about seeing the weak points in the economy and thinking how best to sort them out. At the minute, all the major political parties are advocating more tax, whilst government spending is going up, but what is the real benefit you see?
Well we're talking about south east England aren't we, not London, and the parts of South East England which are most expensive are because people commute into London..
Right, so your experience no, but mine is yes? I am not plucking figures out of the air, I am using real examples and there are plenty more! I can actually link to example jobs if you want? For example a helpdesk analyst here gets approx 15K but in London 30-35K is achieveable, both these rates are even paid in my company!
Actually no, the argument isn't limp and didn't change, the argument is the same, if 75% of your income goes on rent/mortgage and you go into that situation blindly, its your own fault, if thats the case theres no choice then move..
Really? Well that would be the wonder of the subprime market known as self certified wouldn't it? :rolleyes:
I think the problem with circs where a person has little or no financial incentive to come off benefits isn't because they're too high, it's more because the minimum wage is too low. The disparity between rich and poor incomes is outrageous, outlandish, infuriating, ridiculous- you see where I'm going with that one? lol
If the minimum wage was increased significantly I think we'd see companies employing less staff in an effort to keep prices down. We're already in a climate where spending is cooling off - people are starting to realise that 'things can only get better' isn't always true, with house price inflation (or growth, as the speculators like to call it) is cooling off and in the next few years I expect incomes to come inline as per standard inflation so they're more affordable.
This means lots of people are going to be worse off and not wanting to spend money, if McDonalds takings are down they're going to close down places, and people are going to lose their jobs. That's extreme, I don't think it will actually come to that - but I do expect a pressure to downsize / not to expand. With the labour pools increasing, that means less jobs per person, which again means more people receiving benefits... you see where I'm going with this? The UK economy is in danger of becoming uncompetitive because we're not being 'ruthless' enough. This doesn't mean hanging out people to dry if they're ill or out of work, it means cutting back on unneccessary spends.
As I've pointed out, from my own experience, those 'in the middle' are often as in need of aid as those at the bottom, yet much more goes towards the bottom end of the scale. But should we be cutting uneccessary bloat out of the NHS?
The government has gone spending mad for the past few years because we've been booming and tax revenue has been up. That's going to cool down and the state of play is we've still got a big bill to foot. So taxation will go up (which is why all the major parties are advocating tax increases) or else we will end up broke as a country. Or we can try to cut back on our unneccessary spending, possibly by being more frugal with benefits or otherwise.
Yeah, especially in small companies. One way around this would be to keep the cost to the company the same and top it up from the gov. To get a bit more moolah in the kitty to do it, make sure company directors don't pay themselves minimum wage and then collect the rest of their money at lower tax through dividends and similar and there'd be plenty plenty more money for benefits and to top up minimum wage. It distresses me that most every person on low incomes pay their full tax and NI- taken at source so not really much way around it, whilst the people who can more afford to pay taxes have lots of ways to get around paying the straight income tax amount on what they actually receive- makes me sigh.
But if you increase peoples wages by the government chipping in money, you'll have to take some of that away in tax, so it ends up just being a shuffle of funds rather than a real increase in income.
Only an idiot is unable to get a part time summer job. Someone who can't get a summer job is either unwilling or hasn't looked hard enough.
Yes, it's a catch all statement but unfortunately it's true. There's work out there for everyone, just a lot of people are unwilling to be seen to work in places like mcdonalds or Asda. Money is money at the end of the day, and the £250 a week you'd get from Asda is a lot better than the £59 you get on I.S.
£250 a week from Asda might be optimistic
Just to play devils advocate, a lot of people aren't better off working. If someone is on minimum wage, and working full time (say 37 hours a week), that is £204 a week. After tax, that's around £160. As a working person, you would then have to pay full rent and council tax, plus travel to and from work, plus prescriptions.
I mean personally I would rather work, but it's not always that simple.
And summer jobs aren't that easy to get, it depends where you live.
Thank you very much for that. I'm unable to get a job this doesn't make me an 'idiot'.:rolleyes: