How far will house prices fall? [Volume 3]
Discussion
MycroftWard said:
If you don't believe there's been a transfer of wealth from poor to rich over the past several decades then your ignoring the facts.
What timescale are you talking about? Read about The Great Depression or before that if you want a description of 'poor'. I can't think of a time in history when you could get a home provided FOC, benefits towards your living expenditure (including Sky TV, 5" smartphone, tobacoo & booze) and yet still moan about having it hard. It's only in the last 50 years that expectations have soared upwards. It's a statistical fact that 50% of people will always be below average.fido said:
MycroftWard said:
If you don't believe there's been a transfer of wealth from poor to rich over the past several decades then your ignoring the facts.
What timescale are you talking about? Read about The Great Depression or before that if you want a description of 'poor'. I can't think of a time in history when you could get a home provided FOC, benefits towards your living expenditure (including Sky TV, 5" smartphone, tobacoo & booze) and yet still moan about having it hard. It's only in the last 50 years that expectations have soared upwards. It's a statistical fact that 50% of people will always be below average.fido said:
It's a statistical fact that 50% of people will always be below average.
actually 50% will be below the median, more than 50% will be below the average. Median income is rather lower than average income due to the long tail at the top which skews the average 
While Bill Gates stays at a hotel - the average guest may be a millionaire - even if he is the only millionaire.
alfaman said:
fido said:
It's a statistical fact that 50% of people will always be below average.
actually 50% will be below the median, more than 50% will be below the average. Median income is rather lower than average income due to the long tail at the top which skews the average While Bill Gates stays at a hotel - the average guest may be a millionaire - even if he is the only millionaire.
alfaman said:
fido said:
It's a statistical fact that 50% of people will always be below average.
actually 50% will be below the median, more than 50% will be below the average. Median income is rather lower than average income due to the long tail at the top which skews the average While Bill Gates stays at a hotel - the average guest may be a millionaire - even if he is the only millionaire.
fido said:
MycroftWard said:
If you don't believe there's been a transfer of wealth from poor to rich over the past several decades then your ignoring the facts.
What timescale are you talking about? Read about The Great Depression or before that if you want a description of 'poor'. I can't think of a time in history when you could get a home provided FOC, benefits towards your living expenditure (including Sky TV, 5" smartphone, tobacoo & booze) and yet still moan about having it hard. It's only in the last 50 years that expectations have soared upwards. It's a statistical fact that 50% of people will always be below average.
Are you saying we ought to accept the fact the capitalism (since the early eighties) should be making 90% of the population relatively worse off?
Yes, capitalism is great and has brought us progress and more consumer goods, but what good is that if no one can afford to buy them? If wages are forced too high through lack of workers that's bad, capitalist won't be able to afford to pay them. If wages are forced too low via an abundance of workers, that's also bad, not enough punter can afford to buy the produce.
Edited by MycroftWard on Thursday 4th October 13:32
MycroftWard said:
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Prices inflate more or less with total growth in money supply, which I'm not advocating. There's enough money out there already.MycroftWard said:
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Prices inflate more or less with total growth in money supply, which I'm not advocating. There's enough money out there already.Money is just a means of exchanging goods and services. no matter how much you level it, you can only bring your worth up to the value of one person. people become wealthy by taking a thin slice from a larger groups efforts (normally for creating and building the companies/jobs that keep the economy going). Also as they spend their wealth on stuff, the wealth just recirculates back to workers in the form of jobs to produce the stuff they want to by.
If you push more money into the system, the value if it decreases, as you are not actually creating any growth.
MycroftWard said:
Are you saying we ought to accept the fact the capitalism (since the early eighties) should be making 90% of the population relatively worse off?
That's an interesting graph - so when Britain was an industrial disaster (ala 1970s) the top 1% earnt the least (relatively)! Was this around the same time that the 'bad' wealthy people left the UK? Think you've reaffirmed my thoughts. I'm saying that those who are clever or successful enough to be wealthy in the first place should be able to dispose of a large proportion of their income as they wish All this "free market" rubbish. The housing market isn't a free market. Its tighly controlled. You can build a wind farm/commerical building/resevoir in the middle of the country and spoil it forever but for gods sake dont build any houses.
If we take bread as an example and apply the same principle as housing you wouldn't be able to make bread in the south of the country at all. You would only be able to buy bread from a select number of outlets all of whom would keep the supply of bread to a minimum. Bread prices would rise by about 10% each and every year and banks would happily lend you 100% on an interest only basis (until you died) to buy bread.
All the bread makers would have brought up all the ingrediants required to make bread and would keep it in a safe place away from consumers (search debeers+diamonds for further info).
Government departments/lobbyists for the bread industry would do their utmost to ensure that no-one other than breadmakers could make bread. The government would offer subsidies to the general public to buy the bread (15% which wouldn't need to be repaid for another 5 years). Breadmakers would increase the price of bread by 15% shortly after.
Over time loaves would become smaller and smaller and all the time more expensive. Unfortunately a wave of immigrants was also very interested in buying their own bread. This only fuelled more demand.
Only people that had bought bread before the year 2000 would be happy. There bread would now be worth between 5 and 10 times the price they paid for it. Unfortunately their children and their grandchildren couldn't afford bread and their only hope was waiting for their parents to pass the family bread down the chain.
People that had bought bread before the year 2000 were very vocal in opposing any changes to the current production/cost and location of bread making facilities. There would be a lot of TV programmes about buying and selling bread and making the size of your bread bigger by affixing smaller loaves to it.
In the meantime MP's would offer to increase the supply of bread through some vague policy paid for by some other vague tax. As long as you voted for them.
Talents individuals would move to other countries that offered much better opportunities and a less regulated supply of bread.
Nobody would actually do anything about the supply of bread but there would be lots of focus groups and schemes for first time buyers paid for out of taxes when the simplest method would be to get on and make more loaves of bread (preferably not by the monoploist breadmakers).
If we take bread as an example and apply the same principle as housing you wouldn't be able to make bread in the south of the country at all. You would only be able to buy bread from a select number of outlets all of whom would keep the supply of bread to a minimum. Bread prices would rise by about 10% each and every year and banks would happily lend you 100% on an interest only basis (until you died) to buy bread.
All the bread makers would have brought up all the ingrediants required to make bread and would keep it in a safe place away from consumers (search debeers+diamonds for further info).
Government departments/lobbyists for the bread industry would do their utmost to ensure that no-one other than breadmakers could make bread. The government would offer subsidies to the general public to buy the bread (15% which wouldn't need to be repaid for another 5 years). Breadmakers would increase the price of bread by 15% shortly after.
Over time loaves would become smaller and smaller and all the time more expensive. Unfortunately a wave of immigrants was also very interested in buying their own bread. This only fuelled more demand.
Only people that had bought bread before the year 2000 would be happy. There bread would now be worth between 5 and 10 times the price they paid for it. Unfortunately their children and their grandchildren couldn't afford bread and their only hope was waiting for their parents to pass the family bread down the chain.
People that had bought bread before the year 2000 were very vocal in opposing any changes to the current production/cost and location of bread making facilities. There would be a lot of TV programmes about buying and selling bread and making the size of your bread bigger by affixing smaller loaves to it.
In the meantime MP's would offer to increase the supply of bread through some vague policy paid for by some other vague tax. As long as you voted for them.
Talents individuals would move to other countries that offered much better opportunities and a less regulated supply of bread.
Nobody would actually do anything about the supply of bread but there would be lots of focus groups and schemes for first time buyers paid for out of taxes when the simplest method would be to get on and make more loaves of bread (preferably not by the monoploist breadmakers).
Dracoro said:
MycroftWard said:
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Prices inflate more or less with total growth in money supply, which I'm not advocating. There's enough money out there already.fido said:
MycroftWard said:
Are you saying we ought to accept the fact the capitalism (since the early eighties) should be making 90% of the population relatively worse off?
That's an interesting graph - so when Britain was an industrial disaster (ala 1970s) the top 1% earnt the least (relatively)! Was this around the same time that the 'bad' wealthy people left the UK? Think you've reaffirmed my thoughts. I'm saying that those who are clever or successful enough to be wealthy in the first place should be able to dispose of a large proportion of their income as they wish What was great about capitalism was that it was spreading wealth throughout society, generally improving the human condition.
Edited by MycroftWard on Thursday 4th October 13:59
MycroftWard said:
fido said:
MycroftWard said:
Are you saying we ought to accept the fact the capitalism (since the early eighties) should be making 90% of the population relatively worse off?
That's an interesting graph - so when Britain was an industrial disaster (ala 1970s) the top 1% earnt the least (relatively)! Was this around the same time that the 'bad' wealthy people left the UK? Think you've reaffirmed my thoughts. I'm saying that those who are clever or successful enough to be wealthy in the first place should be able to dispose of a large proportion of their income as they wish What was great about capitalism was that it was spreading wealth throughout society, generally improving the human condition.
Edited by MycroftWard on Thursday 4th October 13:59
BigBen said:
MycroftWard said:
fido said:
MycroftWard said:
Are you saying we ought to accept the fact the capitalism (since the early eighties) should be making 90% of the population relatively worse off?
That's an interesting graph - so when Britain was an industrial disaster (ala 1970s) the top 1% earnt the least (relatively)! Was this around the same time that the 'bad' wealthy people left the UK? Think you've reaffirmed my thoughts. I'm saying that those who are clever or successful enough to be wealthy in the first place should be able to dispose of a large proportion of their income as they wish What was great about capitalism was that it was spreading wealth throughout society, generally improving the human condition.
Edited by MycroftWard on Thursday 4th October 13:59
The top 1% (income) ought in general to be more capable of increasing their wealth or what are they doing in the top 1%? If somehow they didn't get there on merit and their place isn't warranted, then it will almost certainly be insecure, liable to lapse, and then be taken up by a more suitable occupant.
The mess politicians will make if they try to engineer equality of outcome, as opposed to equality of opportunity, is...partly visible in Labour's 13 year national trainwreck, when their redistributive credentials eventually emerged as usual - as a result, virtually every measure of poverty increased and only the top 1% benefitted. A sorry blend of irony and incompetence.
turbobloke said:
The mess politicians will make if they try to engineer equality of outcome, as opposed to equality of opportunity, is...partly visible in Labour's 13 year national trainwreck, when their redistributive credentials eventually emerged as usual - as a result, virtually every measure of poverty increased and only the top 1% benefitted. A sorry blend of irony and incompetence.
Brilliantly succinct 
That's because the bosses and shareholders are going to take the hit in order to redistribute the wealth
Sticking with the methapor - the price of bread has gone up and consumers are struggling to pay the price for what they do buy, which in order to achieve they borrow more from the bread-bosses (plus interest). Double win if you're a bread-boss
Sticking with the methapor - the price of bread has gone up and consumers are struggling to pay the price for what they do buy, which in order to achieve they borrow more from the bread-bosses (plus interest). Double win if you're a bread-boss
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