Separate Moan Thread About The Election

People seem to be under an impression that there is a cohesive 'system'. There isn't. There's no repeatability or consistency, just shuffling of jobs to achieve isolated goals and normally not the core aim.

 

I agree on some of your points, however it doesn't all fall to wages.

We moved into this house (rented) 13 years ago. Our landlady purchased the house a matter of a couple of weeks before we moved in, for £250k; the value of this house is now at least £550k. It is not a big house either - quite the reverse in fact, it is a small, two bed semi. In reality, it is too small for us now, not least as our daughter is 21 this year, but we are stuck here as finding something more suitable is wholly out of our price range.

Nobody's wages have kept pace with house prices - hell, most wages have barely kept pace with the rise in council tax and food price rises, that is before we get to the sudden leap in utility and fuel costs. The company I work for has posted a huge loss for the past few years - a lot of restructuring is being done along with contract revision etc, but we are yet to see zero let alone profit - so where, exactly, would the money come from to pay higher wages? For clarity, we contract as a provider of public transport, so if we are able to hike wages by charging more, then the public purse is the one that ultimately would take the hit here, to the tune of many millions.

There are those (and I will put this a little more delicately than perhaps it has been put so far) that make a 'career' out of the benefits system. There is actually a spur of my own family that is exactly in this position - had a kid at 18 whilst living with mum, got a council flat, had another two kids to get a house... got a 3-bed terrace; had even more kids with a view to getting a bigger house and then it backfired because there were no houses available. Roll on some years and there is six kids (two of which are now young adults actually) and two parents living in a very cramped mid-terrace house and ALL of them are on one benefit or another. I can think of at least three other families that I know of that are near on identical - have either never worked, or if they have worked it has been short-lived.

For me, one of the biggest things we need to resolve is a very simple one - housing. If housing is affordable (and I mean genuinely affordable and not the current definition) and is also of good standard and not solely rabbit-hutches in the sky, then people would be better off in terms of mental health, physical health and would also have some disposable income to spend thus supporting the economy. Part of that is ensuring that utilities/fuel/energy/food is also in sufficient supply at an affordable level.

Yet here we are, spending many billions on train sets (HS2 being only one) and spaffing money around like it is confetti on various other things and nobody is willing to grasp the nettle and sort out the bare basics in this country.

 

It is simple in a lot of respects - it is the law of percentages. A 10% increase on a £20k wage is £2k; that same 10% increase on the rental cost of business premises (let's say £1,000,000 per year means a rise of £100k); so the rise at the top is disproportionate to the bottom.

 

It is, partly, yes. The housing problem goes back to what I mentioned earlier though - lack of supply. Let's be honest, what we really need is a mass housebuilding program on a scale not seen since the 50's & 60's - but, no politician/party is going to suggest that because they fear it will cause a crash in house prices (it likely would), so the spiral continues... for now. We are, pretty much, at the point where folks cannot get on the ladder at the bottom therefore those further up cannot sell. Prices are so high, folks are (rightly) being super-choosy because they know once they buy it, they are stuck with it. My neighbours across the road are selling and have had a load of viewings - their house is immaculate by the way - but folks are not biting because the kitchen is too small, or the garden is too small, or the layout doesn't suit etc etc. At £650k for a three bed semi, I don't blame them for being choosy to be honest.

Part of the problem is also the massive deposit and hurdles that banks put in the way - folks are expected to raise 10% deposit (at least) and then pass the bank's affordability hurdles. Yet on the other hand, folks can rent privately paying mortgage money and more with far fewer hurdles - and they can do so for many years (decades even) yet their rent payment record means squat when it comes to the bank assessing if they can afford a mortgage.

 

I don't disagree and in fact, I've just said as much in my last post (sorry, I didn't read through first); there would be a wider effect if correction was made, no doubt, but then who would really suffer there? If someone had bought their home to live in as a forever home, then it dropping in value wouldn't matter as such - as long as they could afford the mortgage repayments. The only downside would be if they came to sell, then they would be scuppered. If it was purely for the sake of re-mortgages then that could be handled with some legislation that means banks have to mortgage on the value owed and not the property value, for existing homeowners. They'd be screwed for moving until they paid the mortgage off though.