Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/06/16/fiscal-prudence.html
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Stories like this never change much, a different cast of characters but the plot is always the same…the rich get richer and the poor think someday it will be their turn. It really is boring.
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Help to Buy was always intended as a subsidy for property developers, rather than to help new homebuyers. That was clear from the start, when money was only available if people bought newly built houses, which tend to be overpriced anyway.
Successive UK governments have done everything within their power to keep housing prices unsustainably high, pouring the nation’s credit into bidding up bricks and mortar rather than investing in the productive economy, all to maintain a generational windfall for the swing voter and the landlord class at the expense of expense of literally everyone else.
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Want the people to be able to purchase a home?
Then control housing prices! Don´t give incentives, discounts or whatever… LIMIT THE DAMNED PRICES.
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I think the MPs name is Peter Bone, not Boone - the only references to a Peter Boone MP I can find relate to this story, one of which says he’s MP for Wellingborough, which is Peter Bone’s constituency.
Not that that changes the sentiment of the piece.
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It’s important to know, though, as having an MP’s correct name allows you to look up their voting profile on TheyWorkForYou, which in this case is bleakly informative (spoiler: he’s quite the shithead, even for a Tory).
Of course, maintaining toxically high house prices is a priority for all Tories, and much of the Labour MP class. Millions of people are now exposed to that bubble, and it will ruin almost as many voters by bursting as it is currently ruining by making housing unaffordable. Some people are even in both positions at once. It’s a massive Thatcherite success story!
Still, deliberately inflating that bubble with public money is some next-level, end-stage Tory bullshit.
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Fucking shitweasel isn’t he? I feel dirty looking at his work. Awful awful man.
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Indeed. This is why the informal name for “help to buy” was “help to gouge” among so many pundits and bloggers.
But considering the majority of Tory MPs make their money primarily from real estate (rentals and sales), it’s all very self serving to both the MPs and their donors.
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How many taxpayer-subsidized homes are sitting empty right now because they were purchased solely as investment vehicles?
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There are active disincentives against doing a study on that right now. So we don’t know and won’t know.
But if you travel through wealthy areas of london (such as South Kensington), only about 1/4 of all lights are on in the evenings, no matter the time of year.
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Do an audit using drones with thermal imaging cameras? (If it was fair to audit the Occupy tents, it should be fair to do the same to the 1%, right?)
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Hey, they’re playing in their sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-basements and turned the lights off to save energy.
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Shouldn’t that be ”63 %actually DIDN’T need it”?
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I’ve seen similar programs elsewhere
the government gives you a loan for 20% of the value of the house? promoter rises prices 20%
In the end they are ALWAYS covert subsidies to the building companies and the banks that finance the scam that is the house market
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