What change do you suggest with regards the planning act? And what outcomes would you anticipate?
I’m skeptical about the idea that developers are clamoring to meet the huge demand for houses.
Ultimately there is a finite demand for homes. If your objective is to make the maximum profit, do you a) limit the rate at which you meet that demand, thereby keeping the price of homes elevated, so maximising the profitability and extending the sustainability of your revenue, or b) increase supply, thereby reducing the value of your product, and so achieving a greater amount of profit in the short term but less total profit in the long run - ?
Developers are mad keen to build, because it turns a field worth £10k per acre for agriculture, into one worth £250-500k per acre with houses on it. I don’t think I agree that there’s really a finite demand for homes -many people will always want bigger homes, and for many people size of home is a determining factor in whether to have a bigger family / migrate to the UK. Developers are not some amorphous evil cabal, its usually a guy who owns options on a few fields and wants to build houses on them to make money. S/He’s not interested in what development happens elsewhere - they want to get a return on their investment, maybe buy another field if they’re successful. Don’t forget that a £250k return on a £10k field is still pretty blinking good (and, indeed, a significant part of the problem to begin with…)
I wasn’t calling you a racist, I was saying your “Econ 101” comment is about as cliche as the other comment. “It’s simple economics” or “It’s economics 101” is an easy way to immediately know that you’re talking to somebody who has no idea what they’re talking about and is just spouting bumper sticker slogans.
Yes, though it pains me, often local homeowners are the most opposed to any kind of constructive, meaningful change.
I currently live in a community that is somewhat dominated by retired people (sold their city house in the bubble, moved to the exurbs and bought a nice little house with a tidy cushion). Any attempt to build the commercial capacity of the community, or even just add to the population and stem the decline in school enrolment is met with ferocity - as fierce as packs of seniors with nothing but time and a patch to defend can be. It cost the last mayor his job, the current one is struggling as well. I’d love to see more families move into town, but it is an uphill battle (for the next 10-15 years, at which point the boomers will be moving back to the cities after the bubble pops and demanding my taxes go up to pay for their health care).
No its not some mysterious label. It refers to “free-market” (read: cronyism run rampant) policies of zero regulation, privatization of public assets, low taxes on wealth and high incomes, “free” trade based on multinational corporate dominance, and no restrictions on capital flows between nations and market sectors. And don’t be confused just because Reagan and Thatcher were neoliberals and so are Clinton and Obama. The one thing that binds all our contemporary politicians is their subservience to monied interests and “free market” solutions. Clinton gutted welfare and Obama has overseen the largest transfer of money from the poor and middle classes to the wealthy in the history of the world.
And don’t confuse “liberal” with “neoliberal”. The first is generally used as a reference to social freedom, the second to economic “freedom”. Of course economic freedom for the wealthy generally means debt-slavery, monopoly control and poverty-based “freedom” for the rest of us. So no, neoliberal is not a “double contradiction in terms”, whatever that means.
So you are saying Cory is mis-using the term? I didn’t think I was confused about laissez faire economics until I read what you wrote. Here is a neat summary from the article that explains how Britain got to this point and I see nothing but intervention rather than free market: “First, the government sold people homes it owned at a huge discount. Then it allowed the original buyers to keep the profit when they sold those homes to a private landlord at market price. Then the government artificially raised market rents by choking off supply – by making it impossible for councils to replace the sold-off houses. Then it paid those artificially high rents to the same private landlords in the form of housing benefit – many times higher than the housing benefit it would have paid had the houses remained in council hands.”
And now here’s the approach to the solution. Again, where is laissez faire?
" The coalition’s two most explicit interventions in the housing market have been to restrict supply and raise prices: the first when it cut, by two thirds, the grant given to housing associations to build new homes, and the second with its mocking parody of Right to Buy, ‘Help to Buy’, offering already well-off people cheap loans to overbid for overpriced houses they couldn’t otherwise afford."
No, Cory is using it correctly. The confusion is in the difference between rhetoric and action. The neoliberals (and neoconservatives) espouse free market and laissez-faire style economics. In action they generally tend to monkey the works to favour the rich. Maybe neo-feudalism would be a better term.
We all know that what they espouse is typically not what they do. But why do you perpetuate the confusion? If you truly know the difference, then leave lassez faire out of it.
Which is more or less what’s been happening (except that no one actually provides the bus), and including those with middle class jobs, too (or at least what used to be middle class jobs) - I know people taking on enormous commutes so they can both own a home and work in the Bay Area.
So f***ing tired of articles about the UK and UK socio-politics being hijacked and turned into a discussion of US politics, US political terminology and problems that are specific to the US. The terms Neo-liberal, Neo-conservative, and so on mean very, very little in terms of UK (and the devolved areas) politics and are not even vaguely relevant here.
TFA is not about the USA. If you haven’t got anything useful to say about the UK housing market and TFA then perhaps you should get your coat.
