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at least blag believes ...his choices have a chance of working?
Er, but I'm not arguing for free market capitalism - as I keep saying that there needs to be some sort of state interference.
However, whilst I don't think it works well I think it works better than what the economic system Blagsta advocates.
Dear MrG and Teh Gerbil, when you see a post which you don't understand it or it does not suit your fancy you can walk away quietly. You don't need to advertise your ignorance so loudly!
Oops, I forgot the level of my audience!
and I presume this is an easy way to vent out your frustrations! Intelligence does not come without an effort!
May God Bless us all,
Unes
What's the point in that?
What would you call people rioting and being killed over water privatisation in Bolivia then? A roaring success?
Yes, this is also my point. Free market policies are damaging to people.
You think most people in London can afford to buy? :eek: What planet are you living on? Or do you just hang out with posh people? The housing problem was very much caused by RTB. There is very little social housing left, its very very difficult to get housed. If you think otherwise, you're welcome to come down to my office and explain to my clients where they're going wrong.
Yes, government intereference in pushing neo-liberal policy.
I don't think you even know what I advocate.
Privatisation has nothing to do with the free market, it's a collectivist/socialist scheme, state maintained.
Interfering with the free market is damaging to people. You don't have a "free market" policy, btw, the free market is what naturally occurs. You can only use state violence and coercion to subvert it.
Saying that the free market is akin to privatisation is like using the term "anarchy" to refer to people rioting and looting.
if that doesnt signify theres a huge gap in wealth, i dont know what does
the block on building council housing is the worst thing imo
i dont mind people being able to buy council housing, it should of been done so you couldnt sell on until after 5 years of buying it, and the money councils got, should of went back into building more amenities and housing
No - but then my point is that you can't judge capitalism solely by its failures, but also by its success.
So is socialism. You need a mixture of both.
I'm living on planet Earth - in London. And I hang out with people who mainly work in the public sector and certainly aren't on massive salaries (though many of us are on quite good). If only the very rich could afford housing the housing market would collapse as there wouldn't be enough people able to afford them and house prices would fall. Basic economics. The housing shortage isn't caused by RTB - with or without RTB there would be the same number of houses - people didn't just buy their homes, dismantle them brick by brick and take them somewhere else. The housing shortage is caused by there being too much demand and not enough supply. RTB is irrelevant.
yeh and the private developers only build for the middle class now.... and they purposely avoid building enough housing to increase profits
Oh yes, that's the contradictions of capitalism. Its provided lots of great things - at what cost though?
Explain?
Very few people I know can afford to buy - me and my partner certainly can't, not unless we get keyworker status or we wait until our parents die. We both work in the public sector. Hardly anyone I know owns in London - and I know a lot of people. The shortage in social housing was caused by RTB and its consequences and the other things I just mentioned. Unless you can explain to me why there is far less social housing than there used to be?
Thus a single developer would be better to build more housing to maximise profits, unless their was collusion between the developers, which if course is illegal........
Yeah I think it would too, if you suddenly imposed it upon people who had been used to being told what to do. You'd have to shift to it through a series of changes. (a la Marx, but in the other direction) I quite agree that the sudden removal of the bulk of the state has been a disaster in Russia, because you have on the one hand a class of people used to being told what to do and generally secure in their places suddenly left to fend for themselves. On the other, the usual parasites well used to exploiting those around them, paranoid as fuck and more than willing to use violence.
No one would know what anarchism would be like, because it wouldn't be my anarchism, and it wouldn't be your anarchism, it would just be anarchism. I just think it would resemble a free market a lot more than anything else.
Move?
There may be less social housing, but there is more housing. There's also a lot more people wanting to live in London and its environs. That is what is causing the problem - not lack of social housing.
look at the North - where there are many places where people don't want to live. There's been a decline in the amount of social housing there as well, but because demand for housing (generally) doesn't exceed supply - more people can afford to buy.
So you're telling me that there is affordable housing in London? Errr...OK. Why so many people on the streets then? And thousands more in temporary accomodation?
Which just goes to illustrate how capitalist economics can't provide housing really.
The lack of affordable houisng has nothing to do with RTB. Now there is an argument that more should have been put into creating new social housing, but thats an argument over using the reciepts from RTB, rather than against RTB as a whole.
Now for the third time the crux of the problem (which has nothing to do with RTB) is that too many people want to live in London when there's too few houses.
And Rough Sleeping has nothing to do with lack of housing, the majority of rough sleepers have other problems with drugs, alcohol, mental illness - not that they can't find a house.
I think it illustrtates more that in a democracy people move around and that trying to get the right amount of housing in the right place is pretty complex. Unless Anarchism can predict the future as well as all the other marvellous things you claim for it I suspect that it would face similar problems
So the fact that social housing has been sold off and is no longer social housing has nothing to do with the current lack of social housing? Errrr...
Nope. If you have money, finding accomodation isn't a problem.
You know what the biggest problem I have with my clients (you seem to forget that its actually my job to work with people with these sort of problems)? Yep - affordable housing. There isn't any.
No, it illustrates that something as fundamental as housing can't be left to the mercy of market forces which only care about making money.
Or if you are willing to live somewhere cheap.
Theres plenty. If people are too witless to move location fuck em.
Theres nothing wrong with market forces. Look to me like they help teach common sense and respnsibility, not traits that go down very well with some people but there you go.
More or less. Of course by market forces I mean everyone being responsible for themsleves as much as possible, making mutual voluntary decisions about their lives and taking the consequences of them when they fuck up.
You are talking about the feudalistic, socialist type shit that normally goes by that name.
Doesn't matter. As long as you all do what you are told you can hold whatever opinion you like. This is the real benefit of democracy to a criminal class like those pretending to represent "the people", it lets you get your whining off your chest before, during and after you do what your told.
Well I hope you give them better advice than you demonstrate on here. And for the record I spent four years working on various aspects of social housing - including looking properly at what the issues were and how you can solve them.
And that means what exactly?
Working for who? In what capacity? What conclusions did you come to? If you really think that RTB didn't diminish social housing stocks then I wonder what the hell you were doing.
You talk absolute bollocks here - and your entire opinions are based on a misguided political ideology with no attempt to engage with the real world.
What was then Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions (though since I moved on from housing its become Office of the Deputy Prime Minister).
Though I can see why you're confused as I never stated that social housing stocks weren't diminished by RTB. However it made no difference to overall housing stock.
Mr and Mrs Smith are allocated social housing. They don't exercise RTB, but have tenure for life - that house is still out of the housing market. They do exercise RTB and continue to live in the house - that house is still out of the housing market. However the difference is that when all the little Smiths leave home under RTB Mr and Mrs Smith are more likely to sell their house - knowing they can get a nice bungalow by the seaside with the proceeds, rather than continue to live their under social housing rather than go into the lottery of social housing again.
Mr and Mrs Smith have also had a solid investment rather than just paying money into the council coffers.
Coming from you, I'll take that as a compliment, Mr Queen & Country.
I guess you don't have an ideology, right? :rolleyes:
That'll explain it then eh? You think that they're actually interested in providing housing for poor people? That they don't have a political ideology to push? Are you really that dense?
I haven't claimed it has, brainiac. I'm talking about the lack of social housing and affordable housing.
Or they move and its back in the social housing stock. Or they die and its back in etc.
Yes, I'm not arguing it hasn't been good for some people. What it has done is to contribute 20 years down the line to the lack of social housing. I don't know anyone who disputes that. Apart from you. Especially not anyone working in the social care field.
http://england.shelter.org.uk/policy/policy-962.cfm