I was listening to BBC Radio 4 while waking this morning (Amazon's Alexa is fantastic!) and heard some sort of panel discussion with someone opining that building more houses is not a way to bring down house prices, but taxing higher value homes is a great way to do so.
So nothing much has changed on the left in UK politics then.
Whoever said that was spot on.
Remove the artificial demand for housing and land by taxing it, then the housing crisis affecting young people goes away.
Unfortunately, it gets replaced by a banking crisis and a pensions/savings crisis for those who have been using property to store their wealth.
How can you have an 'artificial demand' for housing? There is huge pent up demand and has been for years. You need to build, not tax. How many million more people are in the UK now than there were 20 years ago? Has the housing stock increased by at least the amount needed to cope with that?
My last house in the UK cost me 150k pounds to buy, and sold almost 7 years later for 390k pounds (in 2005). And that was in rural Yorkshire. With the profit from that sale we were able to pay cash for a 4 bedroom and a 5 bedroom house in the suburbs of one of the fastest growing cities in the US.
There is clearly a housing supply problem in the UK of major proportions. Taxing won't fix it. Building will.
Out of interest, how much total annual property tax (as a % of the purchase price) do you pay where you are in the US? And how much tax would your children (assuming you had them) have to pay to inherit your "family home" ?
Property tax here is not a straight percentage of purchase price. On a house value of about $265k, I paid $3,100 in property tax this year. Home owners over 65 in Georgia don't pay school taxes, which is about 60% of property tax.
Inheritance tax is on the size of the whole estate, not just the home.
FPT Russia was able to step into a vacuum because nobody else was prepared to get involved. Had America stepped in to turn against Assad then Russia would have been unable to do what they did. I agree that Russia is willing to use its military muscle which is what I described as their aggressive self-confidence. As China steps forward then Russia's room for to act like that will shrink.
I think this is spot on.
I think we also need to remember that Russia's economy is almost completely dependent on energy exports. It's Saudi Arabia without the Islam, with a bigger military, and with massively worse demographics.
As solar continues to get cheaper, as new sources of natural gas come on stream, and as the rest of the world discovers the US secret of fracking, energy prices will continue to be pressured.
All the military might in the world cannot overcome economics and demographics. Russia's decline may be slow, but it is probably inexorable.
Which might well make Russia more dangerous in the meantime.
Perhaps those in the Kremlin might not be as willing to accept decline as they were in 1989 to 1991.
It seems to me that Russia has a massive problem in defending its eastern border. In the end, it couldn't possibly deal with a hostile China.
As Napoleon and Hitler discovered invading Russia is never a good idea, especially in winter
It is more about demographics than politics though. China desperately needs the land and Russia has no use for most of it. It would be a totally different type of conflict.
I was listening to BBC Radio 4 while waking this morning (Amazon's Alexa is fantastic!) and heard some sort of panel discussion with someone opining that building more houses is not a way to bring down house prices, but taxing higher value homes is a great way to do so.
So nothing much has changed on the left in UK politics then.
Whoever said that was spot on.
Remove the artificial demand for housing and land by taxing it, then the housing crisis affecting young people goes away.
Unfortunately, it gets replaced by a banking crisis and a pensions/savings crisis for those who have been using property to store their wealth.
How can you have an 'artificial demand' for housing? There is huge pent up demand and has been for years. You need to build, not tax. How many million more people are in the UK now than there were 20 years ago? Has the housing stock increased by at least the amount needed to cope with that?
My last house in the UK cost me 150k pounds to buy, and sold almost 7 years later for 390k pounds (in 2005). And that was in rural Yorkshire. With the profit from that sale we were able to pay cash for a 4 bedroom and a 5 bedroom house in the suburbs of one of the fastest growing cities in the US.
There is clearly a housing supply problem in the UK of major proportions. Taxing won't fix it. Building will.
More housing is needed, but the crisis in affordability is more a consequence of finance than of building, or lack of it.
"Pent up demand" is in any case a dubious concept, since 'demand' irrespective of price is a nonsensical concept in economics. By the same token there is 'pent up demand' for all sort of 'expensive' things, if only they were available at affordable prices.
On topic, these numbers tell me that a new general election would be very close.
The Conservatives should clearly win against Jeremy Corbyn, however, but in my view they should focus on the 30-45 year old age bracket, because I very much doubt they'll ever makes serious inroads into the under 30s, particularly whilst Corbyn (the Messiah) is leader.
I was listening to BBC Radio 4 while waking this morning (Amazon's Alexa is fantastic!) and heard some sort of panel discussion with someone opining that building more houses is not a way to bring down house prices, but taxing higher value homes is a great way to do so.
So nothing much has changed on the left in UK politics then.
Whoever said that was spot on.
Remove the artificial demand for housing and land by taxing it, then the housing crisis affecting young people goes away.
Unfortunately, it gets replaced by a banking crisis and a pensions/savings crisis for those who have been using property to store their wealth.
How can you have an 'artificial demand' for housing? There is huge pent up demand and has been for years. You need to build, not tax. How many million more people are in the UK now than there were 20 years ago? Has the housing stock increased by at least the amount needed to cope with that?
My last house in the UK cost me 150k pounds to buy, and sold almost 7 years later for 390k pounds (in 2005). And that was in rural Yorkshire. With the profit from that sale we were able to pay cash for a 4 bedroom and a 5 bedroom house in the suburbs of one of the fastest growing cities in the US.
There is clearly a housing supply problem in the UK of major proportions. Taxing won't fix it. Building will.
Yup. +1
Building won't even touch the problem, never mind fix it, until the rate of increase in population of the UK slows rapidly.
Yes, it is ending free movement and replacing it with a points system via Brexit and building more affordable housing which will resolve the issue of housing supply, certainly a wealth tax is not the solution.
That will help reduce the rate of increase of the population, but you still need to supply housing for those already here.
I know there are issues with green belt and not wanting to lose it, and there are pollution issues on some brown field sites, but there needs to be some solution to the supply problem.
The problem is how to provide and fund the infrastructure to go with new housebuilding. It is not exclusively a question of just releasing land for development.
I was listening to BBC Radio 4 while waking this morning (Amazon's Alexa is fantastic!) and heard some sort of panel discussion with someone opining that building more houses is not a way to bring down house prices, but taxing higher value homes is a great way to do so.
So nothing much has changed on the left in UK politics then.
Whoever said that was spot on.
Remove the artificial demand for housing and land by taxing it, then the housing crisis affecting young people goes away.
Unfortunately, it gets replaced by a banking crisis and a pensions/savings crisis for those who have been using property to store their wealth.
How can you have an 'artificial demand' for housing? There is huge pent up demand and has been for years. You need to build, not tax. How many million more people are in the UK now than there were 20 years ago? Has the housing stock increased by at least the amount needed to cope with that?
My last house in the UK cost me 150k pounds to buy, and sold almost 7 years later for 390k pounds (in 2005). And that was in rural Yorkshire. With the profit from that sale we were able to pay cash for a 4 bedroom and a 5 bedroom house in the suburbs of one of the fastest growing cities in the US.
There is clearly a housing supply problem in the UK of major proportions. Taxing won't fix it. Building will.
I was listening to BBC Radio 4 while waking this morning (Amazon's Alexa is fantastic!) and heard some sort of panel discussion with someone opining that building more houses is not a way to bring down house prices, but taxing higher value homes is a great way to do so.
So nothing much has changed on the left in UK politics then.
Whoever said that was spot on.
Remove the artificial demand for housing and land by taxing it, then the housing crisis affecting young people goes away.
Unfortunately, it gets replaced by a banking crisis and a pensions/savings crisis for those who have been using property to store their wealth.
How can you have an 'artificial demand' for housing? There is huge pent up demand and has been for years. You need to build, not tax. How many million more people are in the UK now than there were 20 years ago? Has the housing stock increased by at least the amount needed to cope with that?
My last house in the UK cost me 150k pounds to buy, and sold almost 7 years later for 390k pounds (in 2005). And that was in rural Yorkshire. With the profit from that sale we were able to pay cash for a 4 bedroom and a 5 bedroom house in the suburbs of one of the fastest growing cities in the US.
There is clearly a housing supply problem in the UK of major proportions. Taxing won't fix it. Building will.
Might be worth around 500k now. Up north the housing market hasn't done a collosal amount in the last few years. I think 2007 was a ratio peak up where I am
FPT Russia was able to step into a vacuum because nobody else was prepared to get involved. Had America stepped in to turn against Assad then Russia would have been unable to do what they did. I agree that Russia is willing to use its military muscle which is what I described as their aggressive self-confidence. As China steps forward then Russia's room for to act like that will shrink.
I think this is spot on.
I think we also need to remember that Russia's economy is almost completely dependent on energy exports. It's Saudi Arabia without the Islam, with a bigger military, and with massively worse demographics.
As solar continues to get cheaper, as new sources of natural gas come on stream, and as the rest of the world discovers the US secret of fracking, energy prices will continue to be pressured.
All the military might in the world cannot overcome economics and demographics. Russia's decline may be slow, but it is probably inexorable.
Which might well make Russia more dangerous in the meantime.
Perhaps those in the Kremlin might not be as willing to accept decline as they were in 1989 to 1991.
It seems to me that Russia has a massive problem in defending its eastern border. In the end, it couldn't possibly deal with a hostile China.
As Napoleon and Hitler discovered invading Russia is never a good idea, especially in winter
It is more about demographics than politics though. China desperately needs the land and Russia has no use for most of it. It would be a totally different type of conflict.
China's population is also declining and there is no way Putin will let China have substantial parts of Russia. As both have sizeable militaries and are nuclear weapons states China is also unlikely to do anything to force the issue.
On topic, these numbers tell me that a new general election would be very close.
The Conservatives should clearly win against Jeremy Corbyn, however, but in my view they should focus on the 30-45 year old age bracket, because I very much doubt they'll ever makes serious inroads into the under 30s, particularly whilst Corbyn (the Messiah) is leader.
Agreed, there are a lot of 30-50 year old people who are open to our ideas, but I don't think Theresa is the right leader to bring them into our camp. I don't know who is, but I know it's not Theresa.
I was listening to BBC Radio 4 while waking this morning (Amazon's Alexa is fantastic!) and heard some sort of panel discussion with someone opining that building more houses is not a way to bring down house prices, but taxing higher value homes is a great way to do so.
So nothing much has changed on the left in UK politics then.
Whoever said that was spot on.
Remove the artificial demand for housing and land by taxing it, then the housing crisis affecting young people goes away.
Unfortunately, it gets replaced by a banking crisis and a pensions/savings crisis for those who have been using property to store their wealth.
How can you have an 'artificial demand' for housing? There is huge pent up demand and has been for years. You need to build, not tax. How many million more people are in the UK now than there were 20 years ago? Has the housing stock increased by at least the amount needed to cope with that?
My last house in the UK cost me 150k pounds to buy, and sold almost 7 years later for 390k pounds (in 2005). And that was in rural Yorkshire. With the profit from that sale we were able to pay cash for a 4 bedroom and a 5 bedroom house in the suburbs of one of the fastest growing cities in the US.
There is clearly a housing supply problem in the UK of major proportions. Taxing won't fix it. Building will.
On topic, these numbers tell me that a new general election would be very close.
The Conservatives should clearly win against Jeremy Corbyn, however, but in my view they should focus on the 30-45 year old age bracket, because I very much doubt they'll ever makes serious inroads into the under 30s, particularly whilst Corbyn (the Messiah) is leader.
On topic, these numbers tell me that a new general election would be very close.
The Conservatives should clearly win against Jeremy Corbyn, however, but in my view they should focus on the 30-45 year old age bracket, because I very much doubt they'll ever makes serious inroads into the under 30s, particularly whilst Corbyn (the Messiah) is leader.
Another election would probably be inconclusive. Whilst the tories are in a mess over Brexit, they will struggle to appeal to the 30-45 age bracket. Particularly Remainers. If Labour seem to have a better plan on Brexit, they will do well in the election. I think it is most unlikely that any votes will be swayed by the 26-30 railcard. The stamp duty changes will help the tories with some younger voters, but I suspect that the idea of buying a house is so far fetched for many people that they will prefer the more radical change offered by Corbyn.
I was listening to BBC Radio 4 while waking this morning (Amazon's Alexa is fantastic!) and heard some sort of panel discussion with someone opining that building more houses is not a way to bring down house prices, but taxing higher value homes is a great way to do so.
So nothing much has changed on the left in UK politics then.
Whoever said that was spot on.
Remove the artificial demand for housing and land by taxing it, then the housing crisis affecting young people goes away.
Unfortunately, it gets replaced by a banking crisis and a pensions/savings crisis for those who have been using property to store their wealth.
How can you have an 'artificial demand' for housing? There is huge pent up demand and has been for years. You need to build, not tax. How many million more people are in the UK now than there were 20 years ago? Has the housing stock increased by at least the amount needed to cope with that?
My last house in the UK cost me 150k pounds to buy, and sold almost 7 years later for 390k pounds (in 2005). And that was in rural Yorkshire. With the profit from that sale we were able to pay cash for a 4 bedroom and a 5 bedroom house in the suburbs of one of the fastest growing cities in the US.
There is clearly a housing supply problem in the UK of major proportions. Taxing won't fix it. Building will.
I was listening to BBC Radio 4 while waking this morning (Amazon's Alexa is fantastic!) and heard some sort of panel discussion with someone opining that building more houses is not a way to bring down house prices, but taxing higher value homes is a great way to do so.
So nothing much has changed on the left in UK politics then.
Whoever said that was spot on.
Remove the artificial demand for housing and land by taxing it, then the housing crisis affecting young people goes away.
Unfortunately, it gets replaced by a banking crisis and a pensions/savings crisis for those who have been using property to store their wealth.
How can you have an 'artificial demand' for housing? There is huge pent up demand and has been for years. You need to build, not tax. How many million more people are in the UK now than there were 20 years ago? Has the housing stock increased by at least the amount needed to cope with that?
My last house in the UK cost me 150k pounds to buy, and sold almost 7 years later for 390k pounds (in 2005). And that was in rural Yorkshire. With the profit from that sale we were able to pay cash for a 4 bedroom and a 5 bedroom house in the suburbs of one of the fastest growing cities in the US.
There is clearly a housing supply problem in the UK of major proportions. Taxing won't fix it. Building will.
Out of interest, how much total annual property tax (as a % of the purchase price) do you pay where you are in the US? And how much tax would your children (assuming you had them) have to pay to inherit your "family home" ?
Is it the norm anywhere in the developed world to heavily tax estates containing an above average though still relatively modest property?
Take an estate with a house worth say £400k (and no other assets).
I'd like to see a table of the inheritance tax payable on such an estate in every EU country, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
I would be surprised if there was a huge amount of tax payable in any of those countries. A modest amount maybe, but not an amount large enough to prompt people to downsize.
FPT Russia was able to step into a vacuum because nobody else was prepared to get involved. Had America stepped in to turn against Assad then Russia would have been unable to do what they did. I agree that Russia is willing to use its military muscle which is what I described as their aggressive self-confidence. As China steps forward then Russia's room for to act like that will shrink.
I think this is spot on.
I think we also need to remember that Russia's economy is almost completely dependent on energy exports. It's Saudi Arabia without the Islam, with a bigger military, and with massively worse demographics.
As solar continues to get cheaper, as new sources of natural gas come on stream, and as the rest of the world discovers the US secret of fracking, energy prices will continue to be pressured.
All the military might in the world cannot overcome economics and demographics. Russia's decline may be slow, but it is probably inexorable.
We still have a paranoia about Russia and its influence, like it's still Stalin's days in the 1940s, because it's a bit closer to home than China, and we think we understand it better.
In reality, its a shrunken power driven by bravado, criminality and a willingness to play what few cards it has, including relative local military mass and a residual nuclear stockpile funded by fossil fuel sales, but is otherwise a shadow of its former self.
I was listening to BBC Radio 4 while waking this morning (Amazon's Alexa is fantastic!) and heard some sort of panel discussion with someone opining that building more houses is not a way to bring down house prices, but taxing higher value homes is a great way to do so.
So nothing much has changed on the left in UK politics then.
Whoever said that was spot on.
Remove the artificial demand for housing and land by taxing it, then the housing crisis affecting young people goes away.
Unfortunately, it gets replaced by a banking crisis and a pensions/savings crisis for those who have been using property to store their wealth.
How can you have an 'artificial demand' for housing? There is huge pent up demand and has been for years. You need to build, not tax. How many million more people are in the UK now than there were 20 years ago? Has the housing stock increased by at least the amount needed to cope with that?
My last house in the UK cost me 150k pounds to buy, and sold almost 7 years later for 390k pounds (in 2005). And that was in rural Yorkshire. With the profit from that sale we were able to pay cash for a 4 bedroom and a 5 bedroom house in the suburbs of one of the fastest growing cities in the US.
There is clearly a housing supply problem in the UK of major proportions. Taxing won't fix it. Building will.
Out of interest, how much total annual property tax (as a % of the purchase price) do you pay where you are in the US? And how much tax would your children (assuming you had them) have to pay to inherit your "family home" ?
Is it the norm anywhere in the developed world to tax estates containing an above average though still relatively modest property?
Take an estate with a house worth say £400k (and no other assets).
I'd like to see a table of the inheritance tax payable on such an estate in every EU country, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
I would be surprised if there was a huge amount of tax payable in any of those countries. A modest amount maybe, but not an amount large enough to prompt people to downsize.
Most countries have lower thresholds for inheritance tax than we do, but much lower rates.
Off the top of my head, Ireland, Belgium and Germany are 30%, the Netherlands and Greece 20%, Finland and Denmark are in the teens, while Iceland, Switzerland and others 10% or a little below.
I was listening to BBC Radio 4 while waking this morning (Amazon's Alexa is fantastic!) and heard some sort of panel discussion with someone opining that building more houses is not a way to bring down house prices, but taxing higher value homes is a great way to do so.
So nothing much has changed on the left in UK politics then.
Whoever said that was spot on.
Remove the artificial demand for housing and land by taxing it, then the housing crisis affecting young people goes away.
Unfortunately, it gets replaced by a banking crisis and a pensions/savings crisis for those who have been using property to store their wealth.
How can you have an 'artificial demand' for housing? There is huge pent up demand and has been for years. You need to build, not tax. How many million more people are in the UK now than there were 20 years ago? Has the housing stock increased by at least the amount needed to cope with that?
My last house in the UK cost me 150k pounds to buy, and sold almost 7 years later for 390k pounds (in 2005). And that was in rural Yorkshire. With the profit from that sale we were able to pay cash for a 4 bedroom and a 5 bedroom house in the suburbs of one of the fastest growing cities in the US.
There is clearly a housing supply problem in the UK of major proportions. Taxing won't fix it. Building will.
On topic, these numbers tell me that a new general election would be very close.
The Conservatives should clearly win against Jeremy Corbyn, however, but in my view they should focus on the 30-45 year old age bracket, because I very much doubt they'll ever makes serious inroads into the under 30s, particularly whilst Corbyn (the Messiah) is leader.
Another election would probably be inconclusive. Whilst the tories are in a mess over Brexit, they will struggle to appeal to the 30-45 age bracket. Particularly Remainers. If Labour seem to have a better plan on Brexit, they will do well in the election. I think it is most unlikely that any votes will be swayed by the 26-30 railcard. The stamp duty changes will help the tories with some younger voters, but I suspect that the idea of buying a house is so far fetched for many people that they will prefer the more radical change offered by Corbyn.
I agree that the stamp duty changes will have little impact on the Corbynistas, who are largely angry because getting anywhere near the size of deposit required will still be out of reach to them.
I think it will have an effect on the margins, turning slightly more people in their late 20s and early 30s into homeowners and perhaps pushing them in a more Conservative direction.
However I think the really big effect will be on those aged 40-60 who have adult or near adult kids who will see this as "ah, finally, the Conservatives are doing something to help my kids get on the ladder (without crashing the value of my own home)"
I was listening to BBC Radio 4 while waking this morning (Amazon's Alexa is fantastic!) and heard some sort of panel discussion with someone opining that building more houses is not a way to bring down house prices, but taxing higher value homes is a great way to do so.
So nothing much has changed on the left in UK politics then.
Whoever said that was spot on.
Remove the artificial demand for housing and land by taxing it, then the housing crisis affecting young people goes away.
Unfortunately, it gets replaced by a banking crisis and a pensions/savings crisis for those who have been using property to store their wealth.
How can you have an 'artificial demand' for housing? There is huge pent up demand and has been for years. You need to build, not tax. How many million more people are in the UK now than there were 20 years ago? Has the housing stock increased by at least the amount needed to cope with that?
My last house in the UK cost me 150k pounds to buy, and sold almost 7 years later for 390k pounds (in 2005). And that was in rural Yorkshire. With the profit from that sale we were able to pay cash for a 4 bedroom and a 5 bedroom house in the suburbs of one of the fastest growing cities in the US.
There is clearly a housing supply problem in the UK of major proportions. Taxing won't fix it. Building will.
Liberals have always been keener on taxing income than wealth, the Tories prefer to keep taxes low for both, Labour, certainly Corbyn Labour, tend to want to increase taxes on both to pay for higher spending.
The key finding is that although most people think that the Tories are mismanaging the economy -rightly -they also -rightly -think that Corbyn and his clowns would do worse. No opposition party has ever come to power without having double digit leads in the polls and without being ahead on economic trust. Once again, all is pointing to the bubble of Corbynista hubris popping loudly next time there is a general election exit poll.
I certainly think the Corbyn overall majority or even landslide the Corbynistas are hoping for is highly unlikely to be the projection when the next general election exit poll comes.
However Corbyn could still end up PM of a minority government if he has enough support from the SNP and/or the LDs in terms of confidence and supply to get Labour over the 326 seats needed for a majority in Parliament even if the Tories end up the largest party.
But I believe there will be a Tory majority in 2022.
That's perfectly possible, and no more implausible than a Corbyn win was this year about 8 months ago.
I was listening to BBC Radio 4 while waking this morning (Amazon's Alexa is fantastic!) and heard some sort of panel discussion with someone opining that building more houses is not a way to bring down house prices, but taxing higher value homes is a great way to do so.
So nothing much has changed on the left in UK politics then.
Whoever said that was spot on.
Remove the artificial demand for housing and land by taxing it, then the housing crisis affecting young people goes away.
Unfortunately, it gets replaced by a banking crisis and a pensions/savings crisis for those who have been using property to store their wealth.
How can you have an 'artificial demand' for housing? There is huge pent up demand and has been for years. You need to build, not tax. How many million more people are in the UK now than there were 20 years ago? Has the housing stock increased by at least the amount needed to cope with that?
My last house in the UK cost me 150k pounds to buy, and sold almost 7 years later for 390k pounds (in 2005). And that was in rural Yorkshire. With the profit from that sale we were able to pay cash for a 4 bedroom and a 5 bedroom house in the suburbs of one of the fastest growing cities in the US.
There is clearly a housing supply problem in the UK of major proportions. Taxing won't fix it. Building will.
"Artificial demand" = primarily IHT exemption. For the everyman without an accountant, there's no better/simpler "family home" ?
Is it the norm anywhere in the developed world to tax estates containing an above average though still relatively modest property?
Take an estate with a house worth say £400k (and no other assets).
I'd like to see a table of the inheritance tax payable on such an estate in every EU country, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
I would be surprised if there was a huge amount of tax payable in any of those countries. A modest amount maybe, but not an amount large enough to prompt people to downsize.
Most countries have lower thresholds for inheritance tax than we do, but much lower rates.
Off the top of my head, Ireland, Belgium and Germany are 30%, the Netherlands and Greece 20%, Finland and Denmark are in the teens, while Iceland, Switzerland and others 10% or a little below.
Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, Portugal and Luxembourg have abolished inheritance or estates tax altogether.
FPT Russia was able to step into a vacuum because nobody else was prepared to get involved. Had America stepped in to turn against Assad then Russia would have been unable to do what they did. I agree that Russia is willing to use its military muscle which is what I described as their aggressive self-confidence. As China steps forward then Russia's room for to act like that will shrink.
I think this is spot on.
I think we also need to remember that Russia's economy is almost completely dependent on energy exports. It's Saudi Arabia without the Islam, with a bigger military, and with massively worse demographics.
As solar continues to get cheaper, as new sources of natural gas come on stream, and as the rest of the world discovers the US secret of fracking, energy prices will continue to be pressured.
All the military might in the world cannot overcome economics and demographics. Russia's decline may be slow, but it is probably inexorable.
Which might well make Russia more dangerous in the meantime.
Perhaps those in the Kremlin might not be as willing to accept decline as they were in 1989 to 1991.
It seems to me that Russia has a massive problem in defending its eastern border. In the end, it couldn't possibly deal with a hostile China.
As Napoleon and Hitler discovered invading Russia is never a good idea, especially in winter
Barbarossa began on June 22nd.
Then by December 1941 weather conditions grounded the Luftwaffe and blizzards blinded and froze German forces and the Nazis lost the Battle for Moscow.
If you invade Russia you have to conquer the country by the end of Autumn, an almost impossible task.
In a country the size of Russia and China, you can only do it with very large land armies, with exceptionally good logistical tails, and the tacit/active cooperation of the locals, otherwise they either get swallowed up, or simply dominate the immediate locality, and nothing else.
FPT Russia was able to step into a vacuum because nobody else was prepared to get involved. Had America stepped in to turn against Assad then Russia would have been unable to do what they did. I agree that Russia is willing to use its military muscle which is what I described as their aggressive self-confidence. As China steps forward then Russia's room for to act like that will shrink.
I think this is spot on.
I think we also need to remember that Russia's economy is almost completely dependent on energy exports. It's Saudi Arabia without the Islam, with a bigger military, and with massively worse demographics.
As solar continues to get cheaper, as new sources of natural gas come on stream, and as the rest of the world discovers the US secret of fracking, energy prices will continue to be pressured.
All the military might in the world cannot overcome economics and demographics. Russia's decline may be slow, but it is probably inexorable.
Which might well make Russia more dangerous in the meantime.
Perhaps those in the Kremlin might not be as willing to accept decline as they were in 1989 to 1991.
It seems to me that Russia has a massive problem in defending its eastern border. In the end, it couldn't possibly deal with a hostile China.
As Napoleon and Hitler discovered invading Russia is never a good idea, especially in winter
Barbarossa began on June 22nd.
Then by December 1941 weather conditions grounded the Luftwaffe and blizzards blinded and froze German forces and the Nazis lost the Battle for Moscow.
If you invade Russia you have to conquer the country by the end of Autumn, an almost impossible task.
In a country the size of Russia and China, you can only do it with very large land armies, with exceptionally good logistical tails, and the tacit/active cooperation of the locals, otherwise they either get swallowed up, or simply dominate the immediate locality, and nothing else.
Yes, so it is basically a hypothetical discussion only.
I was listening to BBC Radio 4 while waking this morning (Amazon's Alexa is fantastic!) and heard some sort of panel discussion with someone opining that building more houses is not a way to bring down house prices, but taxing higher value homes is a great way to do so.
So nothing much has changed on the left in UK politics then.
Whoever said that was spot on.
Remove the artificial demand for housing and land by taxing it, then the housing crisis affecting young people goes away.
Unfortunately, it gets replaced by a banking crisis and a pensions/savings crisis for those who have been using property to store their wealth.
How can you have an 'artificial demand' for housing? There is huge pent up demand and has been for years. You need to build, not tax. How many million more people are in the UK now than there were 20 years ago? Has the housing stock increased by at least the amount needed to cope with that?
My last house in the UK cost me 150k pounds to buy, and sold almost 7 years later for 390k pounds (in 2005). And that was in rural Yorkshire. With the profit from that sale we were able to pay cash for a 4 bedroom and a 5 bedroom house in the suburbs of one of the fastest growing cities in the US.
There is clearly a housing supply problem in the UK of major proportions. Taxing won't fix it. Building will.
Out of interest, how much total annual property tax (as a % of the purchase price) do you pay where you are in the US? And how much tax would your children (assuming you had them) have to pay to inherit your "family home" ?
Is it the norm anywhere in the developed world to tax estates containing an above average though still relatively modest property?
Take an estate with a house worth say £400k (and no other assets).
I'd like to see a table of the inheritance tax payable on such an estate in every EU country, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
I would be surprised if there was a huge amount of tax payable in any of those countries. A modest amount maybe, but not an amount large enough to prompt people to downsize.
Most countries have lower thresholds for inheritance tax than we do, but much lower rates.
Off the top of my head, Ireland, Belgium and Germany are 30%, the Netherlands and Greece 20%, Finland and Denmark are in the teens, while Iceland, Switzerland and others 10% or a little below.
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
On topic, these numbers tell me that a new general election would be very close.
The Conservatives should clearly win against Jeremy Corbyn, however, but in my view they should focus on the 30-45 year old age bracket, because I very much doubt they'll ever makes serious inroads into the under 30s, particularly whilst Corbyn (the Messiah) is leader.
He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy.
We were talking on the previous thread about trashing the UK armed forces, and surrendering the UK security council seat.
I think Corbyn would do both those things, as well as devastate the economy.
It's like Russians voting for Barbarossa. F*cking insane.
On topic, these numbers tell me that a new general election would be very close.
The Conservatives should clearly win against Jeremy Corbyn, however, but in my view they should focus on the 30-45 year old age bracket, because I very much doubt they'll ever makes serious inroads into the under 30s, particularly whilst Corbyn (the Messiah) is leader.
Agreed, there are a lot of 30-50 year old people who are open to our ideas, but I don't think Theresa is the right leader to bring them into our camp. I don't know who is, but I know it's not Theresa.
Yup. I think that's fair.
I was well aware of May's policies not turning on the youth vote; but I didn't expect it to lead them to the opposition as much as it did.
Hunt? I pondered his name at a doo last night and no-one objected....
On topic, these numbers tell me that a new general election would be very close.
The Conservatives should clearly win against Jeremy Corbyn, however, but in my view they should focus on the 30-45 year old age bracket, because I very much doubt they'll ever makes serious inroads into the under 30s, particularly whilst Corbyn (the Messiah) is leader.
Agreed, there are a lot of 30-50 year old people who are open to our ideas, but I don't think Theresa is the right leader to bring them into our camp. I don't know who is, but I know it's not Theresa.
Yet Theresa now looks much stronger than 6 weeks ago. Things can change so quickly.
She might even last beyond 2019 now.
Let's say Brexit goes ok. There is no recession. We transition to a good enough trading relationship with the EU, she banks a few populist wins post-Brexit with quick trade deals, blue passports, new immigration rules, and the economy recovers due to The Certainty, the new houses are in place, plus a new leader takes over 6 months out to GE2022.
FPT Russia was able to step into a vacuum because nobody else was prepared to get involved. Had America stepped in to turn against Assad then Russia would have been unable to do what they did. I agree that Russia is willing to use its military muscle which is what I described as their aggressive self-confidence. As China steps forward then Russia's room for to act like that will shrink.
I think this is spot on.
I think we also need to remember that Russia's economy is almost completely dependent on energy exports. It's Saudi Arabia without the Islam, with a bigger military, and with massively worse demographics.
As solar continues to get cheaper, as new sources of natural gas come on stream, and as the rest of the world discovers the US secret of fracking, energy prices will continue to be pressured.
All the military might in the world cannot overcome economics and demographics. Russia's decline may be slow, but it is probably inexorable.
Which might well make Russia more dangerous in the meantime.
Perhaps those in the Kremlin might not be as willing to accept decline as they were in 1989 to 1991.
It seems to me that Russia has a massive problem in defending its eastern border. In the end, it couldn't possibly deal with a hostile China.
As Napoleon and Hitler discovered invading Russia is never a good idea, especially in winter
Barbarossa began on June 22nd.
Then by December 1941 weather conditions grounded the Luftwaffe and blizzards blinded and froze German forces and the Nazis lost the Battle for Moscow.
If you invade Russia you have to conquer the country by the end of Autumn, an almost impossible task.
In a country the size of Russia and China, you can only do it with very large land armies, with exceptionally good logistical tails, and the tacit/active cooperation of the locals, otherwise they either get swallowed up, or simply dominate the immediate locality, and nothing else.
Yes, so it is basically a hypothetical discussion only.
Unless you are the Mongols. But they are somewhat "hardline".
On topic, these numbers tell me that a new general election would be very close.
The Conservatives should clearly win against Jeremy Corbyn, however, but in my view they should focus on the 30-45 year old age bracket, because I very much doubt they'll ever makes serious inroads into the under 30s, particularly whilst Corbyn (the Messiah) is leader.
Another election would probably be inconclusive. Whilst the tories are in a mess over Brexit, they will struggle to appeal to the 30-45 age bracket. Particularly Remainers. If Labour seem to have a better plan on Brexit, they will do well in the election. I think it is most unlikely that any votes will be swayed by the 26-30 railcard. The stamp duty changes will help the tories with some younger voters, but I suspect that the idea of buying a house is so far fetched for many people that they will prefer the more radical change offered by Corbyn.
I agree that the stamp duty changes will have little impact on the Corbynistas, who are largely angry because getting anywhere near the size of deposit required will still be out of reach to them.
I think it will have an effect on the margins, turning slightly more people in their late 20s and early 30s into homeowners and perhaps pushing them in a more Conservative direction.
However I think the really big effect will be on those aged 40-60 who have adult or near adult kids who will see this as "ah, finally, the Conservatives are doing something to help my kids get on the ladder (without crashing the value of my own home)"
I think you are right, but aren't they the wrong people for the cons to be targetting? Surely they would probably have voted conservative anyway, and the tories have been reaching out to these people forever with similar initiatives (Help to buy etc).
Plus, if the economic malaise of Brexit leads to a reduction in house prices, these people are going to be alienated anyway. If their main asset has lost 50k of its value, whats a saving of £2k in stamp duty costs associated with their kids property purchase?
I can't help take the view that this seems like an attempt to reach out to the young, but is going to be nowhere near enough to change anything.
Fianna Fáil have published a post-Brexit plan for Irish reunifation that involves maintaining the block grant from the UK for a period. Varadkar is as good as the UK can hope for.
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
Here in the US, annual property taxes can be enormous. In Texas, you pay 1.9% a year on average and New York is 1.6%. (New Jersey tops the list at 2.4% while Utah is just 0.7%).
But let's say you own a home worth $500,000. That's $12,500/year in property taxes in New Jersey. If you're an income of $30,000/year, you're not staying in that half million dollar house.
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
FPT Russia was able to step into a vacuum because nobody else was prepared to get involved. Had America stepped in to turn against Assad then Russia would have been unable to do what they did. I agree that Russia is willing to use its military muscle which is what I described as their aggressive self-confidence. As China steps forward then Russia's room for to act like that will shrink.
I think this is spot on.
I think we also need to remember that Russia's economy is almost completely dependent on energy exports. It's Saudi Arabia without the Islam, with a bigger military, and with massively worse demographics.
As solar continues to get cheaper, as new sources of natural gas come on stream, and as the rest of the world discovers the US secret of fracking, energy prices will continue to be pressured.
All the military might in the world cannot overcome economics and demographics. Russia's decline may be slow, but it is probably inexorable.
Which might well make Russia more dangerous in the meantime.
Perhaps those in the Kremlin might not be as willing to accept decline as they were in 1989 to 1991.
It seems to me that Russia has a massive problem in defending its eastern border. In the end, it couldn't possibly deal with a hostile China.
As Napoleon and Hitler discovered invading Russia is never a good idea, especially in winter
It is more about demographics than politics though. China desperately needs the land and Russia has no use for most of it. It would be a totally different type of conflict.
Indeed. Many hitherto deserted Russian farms in the East are now owned and run by Chinese. This is happening already. Seems to be a win-win. No need for coonflict.
On topic, these numbers tell me that a new general election would be very close.
The Conservatives should clearly win against Jeremy Corbyn, however, but in my view they should focus on the 30-45 year old age bracket, because I very much doubt they'll ever makes serious inroads into the under 30s, particularly whilst Corbyn (the Messiah) is leader.
He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy.
We were talking on the previous thread about trashing the UK armed forces, and surrendering the UK security council seat.
I think Corbyn would do both those things, as well as devastate the economy.
It's like Russians voting for Barbarossa. F*cking insane.
Corbyn would not get surrendering the UK Security Council seat through Parliament, even in the unlikely event he gets a majority many if not most Labour MPs would vote against it.
At least provided there is no Momentum inspired purge of Labour MPs before the next general election.
On topic, these numbers tell me that a new general election would be very close.
The Conservatives should clearly win against Jeremy Corbyn, however, but in my view they should focus on the 30-45 year old age bracket, because I very much doubt they'll ever makes serious inroads into the under 30s, particularly whilst Corbyn (the Messiah) is leader.
Agreed, there are a lot of 30-50 year old people who are open to our ideas, but I don't think Theresa is the right leader to bring them into our camp. I don't know who is, but I know it's not Theresa.
Yet Theresa now looks much stronger than 6 weeks ago. Things can change so quickly.
She might even last beyond 2019 now.
Let's say Brexit goes ok. There is no recession. We transition to a good enough trading relationship with the EU, she banks a few populist wins post-Brexit with quick trade deals, blue passports, new immigration rules, and the economy recovers due to The Certainty, the new houses are in place, plus a new leader takes over 6 months out to GE2022.
Corbyn certainly wouldn't be a slam-dunk.
Or Brexit could go wonderfully but she could get slammed with a typical cyclical recession in 2020.
Fianna Fáil have published a post-Brexit plan for Irish reunifation that involves maintaining the block grant from the UK for a period. Varadkar is as good as the UK can hope for.
Indeed. Expecting better relations with a Fianna Fail govt. than we get from a Fine Gael led one is a delusion.
On topic, these numbers tell me that a new general election would be very close.
The Conservatives should clearly win against Jeremy Corbyn, however, but in my view they should focus on the 30-45 year old age bracket, because I very much doubt they'll ever makes serious inroads into the under 30s, particularly whilst Corbyn (the Messiah) is leader.
Another election would probably be inconclusive. Whilst the tories are in a mess over Brexit, they will struggle to appeal to the 30-45 age bracket. Particularly Remainers. If Labour seem to have a better plan on Brexit, they will do well in the election. I think it is most unlikely that any votes will be swayed by the 26-30 railcard. The stamp duty changes will help the tories with some younger voters, but I suspect that the idea of buying a house is so far fetched for many people that they will prefer the more radical change offered by Corbyn.
The stamp duty thing won't help a jot. It's already got a fairly bad press in the media that us young'uns actually read - and it does nothing to change the narrative about who the Tories are 'for'. Brexit, or more specifically the way It's being pursued, has done that. I have friends who have been able to buy and many are more anti-Tory than I am. And I'm a Labour member, albeit one with a low opinion of St. Jez. They thank their lucky stars and own hard work and get angry at the general situation for screwing less fortunate contemporaries.
It's what Cameron, although flawed, understood profoundly in terms of symbolism. As we've seen with the animal stuff, people will believe an awful lot of you if it confirms their views and disregard the rest. Without fundamental change, or a Labour clusterfuck (not unimaginable) gobs aren't going to get those votes. For the same reason British jobs for British workers did naff all for Gordon Brown.
On topic, these numbers tell me that a new general election would be very close.
The Conservatives should clearly win against Jeremy Corbyn, however, but in my view they should focus on the 30-45 year old age bracket, because I very much doubt they'll ever makes serious inroads into the under 30s, particularly whilst Corbyn (the Messiah) is leader.
He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy.
We were talking on the previous thread about trashing the UK armed forces, and surrendering the UK security council seat.
I think Corbyn would do both those things, as well as devastate the economy.
It's like Russians voting for Barbarossa. F*cking insane.
It might be F*cking insane idea, but people will still vote for it. Lets give the £xxx million to our NHS instead!
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
Here in the US, annual property taxes can be enormous. In Texas, you pay 1.9% a year on average and New York is 1.6%. (New Jersey tops the list at 2.4% while Utah is just 0.7%).
But let's say you own a home worth $500,000. That's $12,500/year in property taxes in New Jersey. If you're an income of $30,000/year, you're not staying in that half million dollar house.
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
On topic, these numbers tell me that a new general election would be very close.
The Conservatives should clearly win against Jeremy Corbyn, however, but in my view they should focus on the 30-45 year old age bracket, because I very much doubt they'll ever makes serious inroads into the under 30s, particularly whilst Corbyn (the Messiah) is leader.
He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy.
We were talking on the previous thread about trashing the UK armed forces, and surrendering the UK security council seat.
I think Corbyn would do both those things, as well as devastate the economy.
It's like Russians voting for Barbarossa. F*cking insane.
It might be F*cking insane idea, but people will still vote for it. Lets give the £xxx million to our NHS instead!
The people who would vote for that are voting for Labour already yet still not one poll has Labour even close to an overall majority.
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
Here in the US, annual property taxes can be enormous. In Texas, you pay 1.9% a year on average and New York is 1.6%. (New Jersey tops the list at 2.4% while Utah is just 0.7%).
But let's say you own a home worth $500,000. That's $12,500/year in property taxes in New Jersey. If you're an income of $30,000/year, you're not staying in that half million dollar house.
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
Who determines the value of a house?
Thats a good question. I assume it isn't the open market value.
On topic, these numbers tell me that a new general election would be very close.
The Conservatives should clearly win against Jeremy Corbyn, however, but in my view they should focus on the 30-45 year old age bracket, because I very much doubt they'll ever makes serious inroads into the under 30s, particularly whilst Corbyn (the Messiah) is leader.
He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy.
We were talking on the previous thread about trashing the UK armed forces, and surrendering the UK security council seat.
I think Corbyn would do both those things, as well as devastate the economy.
It's like Russians voting for Barbarossa. F*cking insane.
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
Here in the US, annual property taxes can be enormous. In Texas, you pay 1.9% a year on average and New York is 1.6%. (New Jersey tops the list at 2.4% while Utah is just 0.7%).
But let's say you own a home worth $500,000. That's $12,500/year in property taxes in New Jersey. If you're an income of $30,000/year, you're not staying in that half million dollar house.
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
People couldn't care less about what's most economically efficient at a macro level, or not, or what happens in other countries.
They want the Government to keep its hands off their home.
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
Here in the US, annual property taxes can be enormous. In Texas, you pay 1.9% a year on average and New York is 1.6%. (New Jersey tops the list at 2.4% while Utah is just 0.7%).
But let's say you own a home worth $500,000. That's $12,500/year in property taxes in New Jersey. If you're an income of $30,000/year, you're not staying in that half million dollar house.
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
Council tax is allocated by band based on the value of the property, it is just the bands are not adjusted frequently enough.
On topic, these numbers tell me that a new general election would be very close.
The Conservatives should clearly win against Jeremy Corbyn, however, but in my view they should focus on the 30-45 year old age bracket, because I very much doubt they'll ever makes serious inroads into the under 30s, particularly whilst Corbyn (the Messiah) is leader.
Agreed, there are a lot of 30-50 year old people who are open to our ideas, but I don't think Theresa is the right leader to bring them into our camp. I don't know who is, but I know it's not Theresa.
Yet Theresa now looks much stronger than 6 weeks ago. Things can change so quickly.
She might even last beyond 2019 now.
Let's say Brexit goes ok. There is no recession. We transition to a good enough trading relationship with the EU, she banks a few populist wins post-Brexit with quick trade deals, blue passports, new immigration rules, and the economy recovers due to The Certainty, the new houses are in place, plus a new leader takes over 6 months out to GE2022.
Corbyn certainly wouldn't be a slam-dunk.
Or Brexit could go wonderfully but she could get slammed with a typical cyclical recession in 2020.
Events, dear boy.
Indeed so. Or, that might not happen.
Brexit was supposed to (at best) lead to stagnation, or a mild recession. Instead the latest OBR forecasts show growth continuing throughout, and we have the lowest unemployment in over 40 years.
I'm not making predictions - those who do turn out to either look like geniuses or idiots, and largely by fluke - but I am saying it could quite credibly happen.
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
Here in the US, annual property taxes can be enormous. In Texas, you pay 1.9% a year on average and New York is 1.6%. (New Jersey tops the list at 2.4% while Utah is just 0.7%).
But let's say you own a home worth $500,000. That's $12,500/year in property taxes in New Jersey. If you're an income of $30,000/year, you're not staying in that half million dollar house.
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
Who determines the value of a house?
Thats a good question. I assume it isn't the open market value.
I'm definitely up for some creative thinking about this stuff. I actually quite like the idea of all estates being subject to IHT, but starting with very low rates and increasing a bit like stamp duty.
The problem as I see it is this. Everyone's crying out for lower house prices, but do they really want that? Let's say property prices fell 20% overnight. Would that be welcomed? I don't think so. This is the real problem.
On topic, these numbers tell me that a new general election would be very close.
The Conservatives should clearly win against Jeremy Corbyn, however, but in my view they should focus on the 30-45 year old age bracket, because I very much doubt they'll ever makes serious inroads into the under 30s, particularly whilst Corbyn (the Messiah) is leader.
He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy.
We were talking on the previous thread about trashing the UK armed forces, and surrendering the UK security council seat.
I think Corbyn would do both those things, as well as devastate the economy.
It's like Russians voting for Barbarossa. F*cking insane.
Corbyn would not get surrendering the UK Security Council seat through Parliament, even in the unlikely event he gets a majority many if not most Labour MPs would vote against it.
At least provided there is no Momentum inspired purge of Labour MPs before the next general election.
Would he be required to get the consent of Parliament for that, or an Act of Parliament through?
I'm not so sure. Crown prerogative powers are extensive (and, yes, I do get the irony).
On topic, these numbers tell me that a new general election would be very close.
The Conservatives should clearly win against Jeremy Corbyn, however, but in my view they should focus on the 30-45 year old age bracket, because I very much doubt they'll ever makes serious inroads into the under 30s, particularly whilst Corbyn (the Messiah) is leader.
He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy.
We were talking on the previous thread about trashing the UK armed forces, and surrendering the UK security council seat.
I think Corbyn would do both those things, as well as devastate the economy.
It's like Russians voting for Barbarossa. F*cking insane.
It might be F*cking insane idea, but people will still vote for it. Lets give the £xxx million to our NHS instead!
The people who would vote for that are voting for Labour already yet still not one poll has Labour even close to an overall majority.
I think that given the option of scrapping most of our armed forces and diplomatic activity around the world in favour of free stuff, a lot of people would probably vote for it.
People would also vote for protectionism over free trade.
Its probably best to not give them the option, but under Corbyn's leadership of the labour party, anything is possible.
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
Here in the US, annual property taxes can be enormous. In Texas, you pay 1.9% a year on average and New York is 1.6%. (New Jersey tops the list at 2.4% while Utah is just 0.7%).
But let's say you own a home worth $500,000. That's $12,500/year in property taxes in New Jersey. If you're an income of $30,000/year, you're not staying in that half million dollar house.
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
Suspect it would need a Labour government to do anything about that. The uproar from the wealthy would be quite something.
Edit - from memory John McDonnell is part of the Labour land group.
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
Here in the US, annual property taxes can be enormous. In Texas, you pay 1.9% a year on average and New York is 1.6%. (New Jersey tops the list at 2.4% while Utah is just 0.7%).
But let's say you own a home worth $500,000. That's $12,500/year in property taxes in New Jersey. If you're an income of $30,000/year, you're not staying in that half million dollar house.
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
People couldn't care less about what's most economically efficient at a macro level, or not, or what happens in other countries.
They want the Government to keep its hands off their home.
What is needed are slowly rising interest rates. The amount banks are prepared to lend is slightly crackers right now as a multiple because the debt is cheap. Since we're supply constrained (YMMV) if you don't stretch yourself, someone else will. And mortgage repayments right now are actually historically lowish if you look at average values.. hence high prices
On topic, these numbers tell me that a new general election would be very close.
The Conservatives should clearly win against Jeremy Corbyn, however, but in my view they should focus on the 30-45 year old age bracket, because I very much doubt they'll ever makes serious inroads into the under 30s, particularly whilst Corbyn (the Messiah) is leader.
He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy.
We were talking on the previous thread about trashing the UK armed forces, and surrendering the UK security council seat.
I think Corbyn would do both those things, as well as devastate the economy.
It's like Russians voting for Barbarossa. F*cking insane.
Corbyn would not get surrendering the UK Security Council seat through Parliament, even in the unlikely event he gets a majority many if not most Labour MPs would vote against it.
At least provided there is no Momentum inspired purge of Labour MPs before the next general election.
Would he be required to get the consent of Parliament for that, or an Act of Parliament through?
I'm not so sure. Crown prerogative powers are extensive (and, yes, I do get the irony).
Of course he would, the royal prerogative only applies in foreign affairs to future actions, eg the declaration of war and making of treaties, it cannot be used retrospectively to end membership of something the UK is already a member of without Parliamentary approval.
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
Here in the US, annual property taxes can be enormous. In Texas, you pay 1.9% a year on average and New York is 1.6%. (New Jersey tops the list at 2.4% while Utah is just 0.7%).
But let's say you own a home worth $500,000. That's $12,500/year in property taxes in New Jersey. If you're an income of $30,000/year, you're not staying in that half million dollar house.
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
Suspect it would need a Labour government to do anything about that. The uproar from the wealthy would be quite something.
Edit - from memory John McDonnell is part of the Labour land group.
That level of property tax suddenly being introduced could crash the market overnight
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
Here in the US, annual property taxes can be enormous. In Texas, you pay 1.9% a year on average and New York is 1.6%. (New Jersey tops the list at 2.4% while Utah is just 0.7%).
But let's say you own a home worth $500,000. That's $12,500/year in property taxes in New Jersey. If you're an income of $30,000/year, you're not staying in that half million dollar house.
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
Suspect it would need a Labour government to do anything about that. The uproar from the wealthy would be quite something.
Edit - from memory John McDonnell is part of the Labour land group.
That level of property tax suddenly being introduced could crash the market overnight
Plus the poll rating of the said Labour government.
On topic, these numbers tell me that a new general election would be very close.
The Conservatives should clearly win against Jeremy Corbyn, however, but in my view they should focus on the 30-45 year old age bracket, because I very much doubt they'll ever makes serious inroads into the under 30s, particularly whilst Corbyn (the Messiah) is leader.
He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy.
We were talking on the previous thread about trashing the UK armed forces, and surrendering the UK security council seat.
I think Corbyn would do both those things, as well as devastate the economy.
It's like Russians voting for Barbarossa. F*cking insane.
Politics so far has been sane?
A predictable response, drawing the usual false (and obsessive) parallel between Corbyn and Brexit that Remainers feel they must.
Brexit is a perfectly credible and sane option to exercise on the basis that the political/economic status quo of our relationship with the EU was not working for us, and was not fit for the UK in the 21st Century. It covers a whole range of options, but the UK national interest would clearly be based on a close relationship with the EU in energy, transport and security, with customs/free trade in goods for complex supply chains of older goods in cars/aerospace, but much greater flexibility for us in regulating and pushing for liberalising services at a global level, particularly in gene editing, pharmaceuticals, artificial/machine intelligence, new tech start-ups, education, media and financial/consulting services.
So there is nothing intrinsically "insane" about it. It is risky only in its execution.
Corbyn is like a human Skynet who has become self aware.
On topic, these numbers tell me that a new general election would be very close.
The Conservatives should clearly win against Jeremy Corbyn, however, but in my view they should focus on the 30-45 year old age bracket, because I very much doubt they'll ever makes serious inroads into the under 30s, particularly whilst Corbyn (the Messiah) is leader.
He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy.
We were talking on the previous thread about trashing the UK armed forces, and surrendering the UK security council seat.
I think Corbyn would do both those things, as well as devastate the economy.
It's like Russians voting for Barbarossa. F*cking insane.
Corbyn would not get surrendering the UK Security Council seat through Parliament, even in the unlikely event he gets a majority many if not most Labour MPs would vote against it.
At least provided there is no Momentum inspired purge of Labour MPs before the next general election.
Would he be required to get the consent of Parliament for that, or an Act of Parliament through?
I'm not so sure. Crown prerogative powers are extensive (and, yes, I do get the irony).
Of course he would, the royal prerogative only applies in foreign affairs to future actions, eg the declaration of war and making of treaties, it cannot be used retrospectively to end membership of something the UK is already a member of without Parliamentary approval.
On topic, these numbers tell me that a new general election would be very close.
The Conservatives should clearly win against Jeremy Corbyn, however, but in my view they should focus on the 30-45 year old age bracket, because I very much doubt they'll ever makes serious inroads into the under 30s, particularly whilst Corbyn (the Messiah) is leader.
He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy.
We were talking on the previous thread about trashing the UK armed forces, and surrendering the UK security council seat.
I think Corbyn would do both those things, as well as devastate the economy.
It's like Russians voting for Barbarossa. F*cking insane.
It might be F*cking insane idea, but people will still vote for it. Lets give the £xxx million to our NHS instead!
The people who would vote for that are voting for Labour already yet still not one poll has Labour even close to an overall majority.
I think that given the option of scrapping most of our armed forces and diplomatic activity around the world in favour of free stuff, a lot of people would probably vote for it.
People would also vote for protectionism over free trade.
Its probably best to not give them the option, but under Corbyn's leadership of the labour party, anything is possible.
A lot of people who are already almost all voting for Corbyn anyway. That does not even mean a majority of Labour MPs in Parliament would vote for it let alone Parliament as a whole.
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
Here in the US, annual property taxes can be enormous. In Texas, you pay 1.9% a year on average and New York is 1.6%. (New Jersey tops the list at 2.4% while Utah is just 0.7%).
But let's say you own a home worth $500,000. That's $12,500/year in property taxes in New Jersey. If you're an income of $30,000/year, you're not staying in that half million dollar house.
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
Suspect it would need a Labour government to do anything about that. The uproar from the wealthy would be quite something.
Edit - from memory John McDonnell is part of the Labour land group.
That level of property tax suddenly being introduced could crash the market overnight
I was listening to BBC Radio 4 while waking this morning (Amazon's Alexa is fantastic!) and heard some sort of panel discussion with someone opining that building more houses is not a way to bring down house prices, but taxing higher value homes is a great way to do so.
So nothing much has changed on the left in UK politics then.
Whoever said that was spot on.
Remove the artificial demand for housing and land by taxing it, then the housing crisis affecting young people goes away.
Unfortunately, the housing crisis gets replaced by a banking crisis and a pensions/savings crisis for those who have been using property to store their wealth.
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
Here in the US, annual property taxes can be enormous. In Texas, you pay 1.9% a year on average and New York is 1.6%. (New Jersey tops the list at 2.4% while Utah is just 0.7%).
But let's say you own a home worth $500,000. That's $12,500/year in property taxes in New Jersey. If you're an income of $30,000/year, you're not staying in that half million dollar house.
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
People couldn't care less about what's most economically efficient at a macro level, or not, or what happens in other countries.
They want the Government to keep its hands off their home.
What is needed are slowly rising interest rates. The amount banks are prepared to lend is slightly crackers right now as a multiple because the debt is cheap. Since we're supply constrained (YMMV) if you don't stretch yourself, someone else will. And mortgage repayments right now are actually historically lowish if you look at average values.. hence high prices
On topic, these numbers tell me that a new general election would be very close.
The Conservatives should clearly win against Jeremy Corbyn, however, but in my view they should focus on the 30-45 year old age bracket, because I very much doubt they'll ever makes serious inroads into the under 30s, particularly whilst Corbyn (the Messiah) is leader.
He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy.
We were talking on the previous thread about trashing the UK armed forces, and surrendering the UK security council seat.
I think Corbyn would do both those things, as well as devastate the economy.
It's like Russians voting for Barbarossa. F*cking insane.
Corbyn would not get surrendering the UK Security Council seat through Parliament, even in the unlikely event he gets a majority many if not most Labour MPs would vote against it.
At least provided there is no Momentum inspired purge of Labour MPs before the next general election.
Would he be required to get the consent of Parliament for that, or an Act of Parliament through?
I'm not so sure. Crown prerogative powers are extensive (and, yes, I do get the irony).
Of course he would, the royal prerogative only applies in foreign affairs to future actions, eg the declaration of war and making of treaties, it cannot be used retrospectively to end membership of something the UK is already a member of without Parliamentary approval.
Plus UK membership of the UN (and the UN Security Council) was ratified by Parliament and the royal prerogative cannot overrule an existing Act of Parliament. Parliament alone can repeal its previous legislation.
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
Here in the US, annual property taxes can be enormous. In Texas, you pay 1.9% a year on average and New York is 1.6%. (New Jersey tops the list at 2.4% while Utah is just 0.7%).
But let's say you own a home worth $500,000. That's $12,500/year in property taxes in New Jersey. If you're an income of $30,000/year, you're not staying in that half million dollar house.
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
Suspect it would need a Labour government to do anything about that. The uproar from the wealthy would be quite something.
Edit - from memory John McDonnell is part of the Labour land group.
Perhaps you should refresh your memory as to the reaction of Labour MPs and Labour Peers (e.g. Lady Bakewell) when the LibDems suggested a Mansion Tax.
Prime Minister Corbyn would struggle to get such a proposal through Parliament because too many Labour MPs (mindful of reaction in their constituencies) would vote against it,
On topic, these numbers tell me that a new general election would be very close.
The Conservatives should clearly win against Jeremy Corbyn, however, but in my view they should focus on the 30-45 year old age bracket, because I very much doubt they'll ever makes serious inroads into the under 30s, particularly whilst Corbyn (the Messiah) is leader.
He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy.
We were talking on the previous thread about trashing the UK armed forces, and surrendering the UK security council seat.
I think Corbyn would do both those things, as well as devastate the economy.
It's like Russians voting for Barbarossa. F*cking insane.
Corbyn would not get surrendering the UK Security Council seat through Parliament, even in the unlikely event he gets a majority many if not most Labour MPs would vote against it.
At least provided there is no Momentum inspired purge of Labour MPs before the next general election.
Would he be required to get the consent of Parliament for that, or an Act of Parliament through?
I'm not so sure. Crown prerogative powers are extensive (and, yes, I do get the irony).
If it was up to Labour party members, most of them would probably cut defence spending, if not the abandonment of our seat on the UN security council (although theose positions are mutually unsustainable). However, there are also a lot of unionised jobs in defence.
Ultimately these factors will guide Labour party policy on this issue. There are also a rump of moderate MP's who, whilst gradually diminishing over time, could be very obstructive.
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
Here in the US, annual property taxes can be enormous. In Texas, you pay 1.9% a year on average and New York is 1.6%. (New Jersey tops the list at 2.4% while Utah is just 0.7%).
But let's say you own a home worth $500,000. That's $12,500/year in property taxes in New Jersey. If you're an income of $30,000/year, you're not staying in that half million dollar house.
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
Suspect it would need a Labour government to do anything about that. The uproar from the wealthy would be quite something.
Edit - from memory John McDonnell is part of the Labour land group.
Perhaps you should refresh your memory as to the reaction of Labour MPs and Labour Peers (e.g. Lady Bakewell) when the LibDems suggested a Mansion Tax.
Prime Minister Corbyn would struggle to get such a proposal through Parliament because too many Labour MPs (mindful of reaction in their constituencies) would vote against it,
There were certainly plenty of wealthy voters in Hampstead and Islington who were appalled at the prospect of a wealth tax.
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
Here in the US, annual property taxes can be enormous. In Texas, you pay 1.9% a year on average and New York is 1.6%. (New Jersey tops the list at 2.4% while Utah is just 0.7%).
But let's say you own a home worth $500,000. That's $12,500/year in property taxes in New Jersey. If you're an income of $30,000/year, you're not staying in that half million dollar house.
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
Suspect it would need a Labour government to do anything about that. The uproar from the wealthy would be quite something.
Edit - from memory John McDonnell is part of the Labour land group.
That level of property tax suddenly being introduced could crash the market overnight
I was listening to BBC Radio 4 while waking this morning (Amazon's Alexa is fantastic!) and heard some sort of panel discussion with someone opining that building more houses is not a way to bring down house prices, but taxing higher value homes is a great way to do so.
So nothing much has changed on the left in UK politics then.
Whoever said that was spot on.
Remove the artificial demand for housing and land by taxing it, then the housing crisis affecting young people goes away.
Unfortunately, the housing crisis gets replaced by a banking crisis and a pensions/savings crisis for those who have been using property to store their wealth.
The tory client vote would be up in arms.
Yeah, how dare people save for their future. When you raid pensions and keep interest rates at 0.5% for nearly a decade, is it any wonder people looking at property as a safe haven?
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
Here in the US, annual property taxes can be enormous. In Texas, you pay 1.9% a year on average and New York is 1.6%. (New Jersey tops the list at 2.4% while Utah is just 0.7%).
But let's say you own a home worth $500,000. That's $12,500/year in property taxes in New Jersey. If you're an income of $30,000/year, you're not staying in that half million dollar house.
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
Suspect it would need a Labour government to do anything about that. The uproar from the wealthy would be quite something.
Edit - from memory John McDonnell is part of the Labour land group.
That level of property tax suddenly being introduced could crash the market overnight
I was listening to BBC Radio 4 while waking this morning (Amazon's Alexa is fantastic!) and heard some sort of panel discussion with someone opining that building more houses is not a way to bring down house prices, but taxing higher value homes is a great way to do so.
So nothing much has changed on the left in UK politics then.
Whoever said that was spot on.
Remove the artificial demand for housing and land by taxing it, then the housing crisis affecting young people goes away.
Unfortunately, the housing crisis gets replaced by a banking crisis and a pensions/savings crisis for those who have been using property to store their wealth.
The tory client vote would be up in arms.
Yeah, how dare people save for their future. When you raid pensions and keep interest rates at 0.5% for nearly a decade, is it any wonder people looking at property as a safe haven?
Or inheritance tax is the most unpopular tax there is
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
Here in the US, annual property taxes can be enormous. In Texas, you pay 1.9% a year on average and New York is 1.6%. (New Jersey tops the list at 2.4% while Utah is just 0.7%).
But let's say you own a home worth $500,000. That's $12,500/year in property taxes in New Jersey. If you're an income of $30,000/year, you're not staying in that half million dollar house.
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
Who determines the value of a house?
Thats a good question. I assume it isn't the open market value.
I'm definitely up for some creative thinking about this stuff. I actually quite like the idea of all estates being subject to IHT, but starting with very low rates and increasing a bit like stamp duty.
The problem as I see it is this. Everyone's crying out for lower house prices, but do they really want that? Let's say property prices fell 20% overnight. Would that be welcomed? I don't think so. This is the real problem.
I agree that it is unlikely that a government would enact a policy that results in a 20% fall in house prices. It is something that would only happen as a result of circumstances outside the governments control.
Council tax is allocated by band based on the value of the property, it is just the bands are not adjusted frequently enough.
The valuations are the problem. We are still working with the 1991 bands. Successive Governments have been too scared of the electoral response to amend the bands and seek fresh valuations.
We therefore have the ludicrous position a house costing £350,000 pays the same Council Tax in an authority as one worth £3.5 million while the house that was value £350,000 in 1991 is probably worth double that if not more now.
This is why those arguing for LVT have a point. Which matters - the value of the property or the value of the land on which it sits ?
Again, we have the unholy alliance of Governments and house builders keeping land prices (and therefore house prices) high. Government wants to sell off its own surplus estate - by keeping planning laws tight and the supply of land tighter, it gets the best price for any land it does make available.
Housing is a multi-layered issue - successive Governments have intentionally exacerbated the situation for their own political ends.
On topic, these numbers tell me that a new general election would be very close.
The Conservatives should clearly win against Jeremy Corbyn, however, but in my view they should focus on the 30-45 year old age bracket, because I very much doubt they'll ever makes serious inroads into the under 30s, particularly whilst Corbyn (the Messiah) is leader.
He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy.
We were talking on the previous thread about trashing the UK armed forces, and surrendering the UK security council seat.
I think Corbyn would do both those things, as well as devastate the economy.
It's like Russians voting for Barbarossa. F*cking insane.
Corbyn would not get surrendering the UK Security Council seat through Parliament, even in the unlikely event he gets a majority many if not most Labour MPs would vote against it.
At least provided there is no Momentum inspired purge of Labour MPs before the next general election.
Would he be required to get the consent of Parliament for that, or an Act of Parliament through?
I'm not so sure. Crown prerogative powers are extensive (and, yes, I do get the irony).
Of course he would, the royal prerogative only applies in foreign affairs to future actions, eg the declaration of war and making of treaties, it cannot be used retrospectively to end membership of something the UK is already a member of without Parliamentary approval.
Plus UK membership of the UN (and the UN Security Council) was ratified by Parliament and the royal prerogative cannot overrule an existing Act of Parliament. Parliament alone can repeal its previous legislation.
I presume you mean the United Nations Act 1946.
Whilst that does allow The Crown to implement United Nations Security Council Resolutions without the official approval of Parliament, I can't see that it sets our permanent membership of the security council in statute.
Perhaps it might be open to legal challenge if it were, though, but by then it might be too late.
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
Here in the US, annual property taxes can be enormous. In Texas, you pay 1.9% a year on average and New York is 1.6%. (New Jersey tops the list at 2.4% while Utah is just 0.7%).
But let's say you own a home worth $500,000. That's $12,500/year in property taxes in New Jersey. If you're an income of $30,000/year, you're not staying in that half million dollar house.
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
People couldn't care less about what's most economically efficient at a macro level, or not, or what happens in other countries.
They want the Government to keep its hands off their home.
What is needed are slowly rising interest rates. The amount banks are prepared to lend is slightly crackers right now as a multiple because the debt is cheap. Since we're supply constrained (YMMV) if you don't stretch yourself, someone else will. And mortgage repayments right now are actually historically lowish if you look at average values.. hence high prices
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
Here in the US, annual property taxes can be enormous. In Texas, you pay 1.9% a year on average and New York is 1.6%. (New Jersey tops the list at 2.4% while Utah is just 0.7%).
But let's say you own a home worth $500,000. That's $12,500/year in property taxes in New Jersey. If you're an income of $30,000/year, you're not staying in that half million dollar house.
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
Suspect it would need a Labour government to do anything about that. The uproar from the wealthy would be quite something.
Edit - from memory John McDonnell is part of the Labour land group.
Perhaps you should refresh your memory as to the reaction of Labour MPs and Labour Peers (e.g. Lady Bakewell) when the LibDems suggested a Mansion Tax.
Prime Minister Corbyn would struggle to get such a proposal through Parliament because too many Labour MPs (mindful of reaction in their constituencies) would vote against it,
There were certainly plenty of wealthy voters in Hampstead and Islington who were appalled at the prospect of a wealth tax.
My recollection is that almost all London Labour MPs were against the Mansion Tax, whether they represented Peckham or Hampstead.
London is going to be well represented in the PLP if Corbyn wins.
There will plenty of losers in London -- and losers in the TV and print media -- and we’ll hear a lot from them.
It will make the outcries about the pasty tax and the granny tax look minuscule.
Council tax is allocated by band based on the value of the property, it is just the bands are not adjusted frequently enough.
The valuations are the problem. We are still working with the 1991 bands. Successive Governments have been too scared of the electoral response to amend the bands and seek fresh valuations.
We therefore have the ludicrous position a house costing £350,000 pays the same Council Tax in an authority as one worth £3.5 million while the house that was value £350,000 in 1991 is probably worth double that if not more now.
This is why those arguing for LVT have a point. Which matters - the value of the property or the value of the land on which it sits ?
Again, we have the unholy alliance of Governments and house builders keeping land prices (and therefore house prices) high. Government wants to sell off its own surplus estate - by keeping planning laws tight and the supply of land tighter, it gets the best price for any land it does make available.
Housing is a multi-layered issue - successive Governments have intentionally exacerbated the situation for their own political ends.
Government expanding building of affordable housing as it is moving towards and a readjustment of council tax bands eg with a new band for properties over £1 million would be sensible.
On topic, these numbers tell me that a new general election would be very close.
The Conservatives should clearly win against Jeremy Corbyn, however, but in my view they should focus on the 30-45 year old age bracket, because I very much doubt they'll ever makes serious inroads into the under 30s, particularly whilst Corbyn (the Messiah) is leader.
He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy.
We were talking on the previous thread about trashing the UK armed forces, and surrendering the UK security council seat.
I think Corbyn would do both those things, as well as devastate the economy.
It's like Russians voting for Barbarossa. F*cking insane.
It might be F*cking insane idea, but people will still vote for it. Lets give the £xxx million to our NHS instead!
The people who would vote for that are voting for Labour already yet still not one poll has Labour even close to an overall majority.
I think that given the option of scrapping most of our armed forces and diplomatic activity around the world in favour of free stuff, a lot of people would probably vote for it.
People would also vote for protectionism over free trade.
Its probably best to not give them the option, but under Corbyn's leadership of the labour party, anything is possible.
A lot of people who are already almost all voting for Corbyn anyway. That does not even mean a majority of Labour MPs in Parliament would vote for it let alone Parliament as a whole.
The panic about foreign aid spending is almost entirely a right wing phenomenon. Spending on foreign aid and foreign wars are - to many people - almost indistinguishable.
On topic, these numbers tell me that a new general election would be very close.
The Conservatives should clearly win against Jeremy Corbyn, however, but in my view they should focus on the 30-45 year old age bracket, because I very much doubt they'll ever makes serious inroads into the under 30s, particularly whilst Corbyn (the Messiah) is leader.
Agreed, there are a lot of 30-50 year old people who are open to our ideas, but I don't think Theresa is the right leader to bring them into our camp. I don't know who is, but I know it's not Theresa.
Yet Theresa now looks much stronger than 6 weeks ago. Things can change so quickly.
She might even last beyond 2019 now.
Let's say Brexit goes ok. There is no recession. We transition to a good enough trading relationship with the EU, she banks a few populist wins post-Brexit with quick trade deals, blue passports, new immigration rules, and the economy recovers due to The Certainty, the new houses are in place, plus a new leader takes over 6 months out to GE2022.
Corbyn certainly wouldn't be a slam-dunk.
Or Brexit could go wonderfully but she could get slammed with a typical cyclical recession in 2020.
Events, dear boy.
Indeed so. Or, that might not happen.
Brexit was supposed to (at best) lead to stagnation, or a mild recession. Instead the latest OBR forecasts show growth continuing throughout, and we have the lowest unemployment in over 40 years.
I'm not making predictions - those who do turn out to either look like geniuses or idiots, and largely by fluke - but I am saying it could quite credibly happen.
The latest forecasts literally show stagnation. Growth below inflation, and wage growth worse. That's not entirely to do with Brexit, but it is a bit, as it has increased inflation and uncertainty and is consuming government time and resources. Unemployment is low because self employment is now at a record high, and that has everything to do with technology. The worrying thing, whether Tory or Labour is that we're addressing old issues rather than real ones.
Council tax is allocated by band based on the value of the property, it is just the bands are not adjusted frequently enough.
The valuations are the problem. We are still working with the 1991 bands. Successive Governments have been too scared of the electoral response to amend the bands and seek fresh valuations.
We therefore have the ludicrous position a house costing £350,000 pays the same Council Tax in an authority as one worth £3.5 million while the house that was value £350,000 in 1991 is probably worth double that if not more now.
This is why those arguing for LVT have a point. Which matters - the value of the property or the value of the land on which it sits ?
Again, we have the unholy alliance of Governments and house builders keeping land prices (and therefore house prices) high. Government wants to sell off its own surplus estate - by keeping planning laws tight and the supply of land tighter, it gets the best price for any land it does make available.
Housing is a multi-layered issue - successive Governments have intentionally exacerbated the situation for their own political ends.
The trouble is we are not the USA, nor any other, and are not starting from year zero. So it's all rather academic, and ignores the social and the political.
The first grandparents forced out of their 4-bedroom family home due to a quadrupling of council tax/LVT would cause a national storm. And there would be thousands of others.
Far better to incentivise better use of spare bedrooms, granny annexes, and other occupancy tools, as the Government has already started to dabble with.
Government expanding building of affordable housing as it is moving towards and a readjustment of council tax bands eg with a new band for properties over £1 million would be sensible.
That needs to go much further in London and other areas to cover houses up to a value of £5 million.
I agree house building is happening - again, certainly in London - but the problem is whether the infrastructural improvements are being provided as well.
Build 5,000 new houses for 12,500 people but you need the services as well.
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
Here in the US, annual property taxes can be enormous. In Texas, you pay 1.9% a year on average and New York is 1.6%. (New Jersey tops the list at 2.4% while Utah is just 0.7%).
But let's say you own a home worth $500,000. That's $12,500/year in property taxes in New Jersey. If you're an income of $30,000/year, you're not staying in that half million dollar house.
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
People couldn't care less about what's most economically efficient at a macro level, or not, or what happens in other countries.
They want the Government to keep its hands off their home.
What is needed are slowly rising interest rates. The amount banks are prepared to lend is slightly crackers right now as a multiple because the debt is cheap. Since we're supply constrained (YMMV) if you don't stretch yourself, someone else will. And mortgage repayments right now are actually historically lowish if you look at average values.. hence high prices
Flip it on it's head: the amount of (e.g. pensions) money under management swishing around the system looking for a safe haven is crackers; it's no wonder interest rates are so slow. They could easily remain below 2% for a long, long time. This could be the new normal.
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
Here in the US, annual property taxes can be enormous. In Texas, you pay 1.9% a year on average and New York is 1.6%. (New Jersey tops the list at 2.4% while Utah is just 0.7%).
But let's say you own a home worth $500,000. That's $12,500/year in property taxes in New Jersey. If you're an income of $30,000/year, you're not staying in that half million dollar house.
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
Suspect it would need a Labour government to do anything about that. The uproar from the wealthy would be quite something.
Edit - from memory John McDonnell is part of the Labour land group.
Perhaps you should refresh your memory as to the reaction of Labour MPs and Labour Peers (e.g. Lady Bakewell) when the LibDems suggested a Mansion Tax.
Prime Minister Corbyn would struggle to get such a proposal through Parliament because too many Labour MPs (mindful of reaction in their constituencies) would vote against it,
There were certainly plenty of wealthy voters in Hampstead and Islington who were appalled at the prospect of a wealth tax.
My recollection is that almost all London Labour MPs were against the Mansion Tax, whether they represented Peckham or Hampstead.
London is going to be well represented in the PLP if Corbyn wins.
There will plenty of losers in London -- and losers in the TV and print media -- and we’ll hear a lot from them.
It will make the outcries about the pasty tax and the granny tax look minuscule.
Indeed the AVERAGE London house price is now close to £500 000, UK wide it is just over £200 000, a wealth tax would overwhelmingly be targeted at London and London is now the area with the highest Labour voteshare in the UK.
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
Here in the US, annual property taxes can be enormous. In Texas, you pay 1.9% a year on average and New York is 1.6%. (New Jersey tops the list at 2.4% while Utah is just 0.7%).
But let's say you own a home worth $500,000. That's $12,500/year in property taxes in New Jersey. If you're an income of $30,000/year, you're not staying in that half million dollar house.
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
Who determines the value of a house?
Thats a good question. I assume it isn't the open market value.
I'm definitely up for some creative thinking about this stuff. I actually quite like the idea of all estates being subject to IHT, but starting with very low rates and increasing a bit like stamp duty.
The problem as I see it is this. Everyone's crying out for lower house prices, but do they really want that? Let's say property prices fell 20% overnight. Would that be welcomed? I don't think so. This is the real problem.
There is a clear parallel between our attitude to the housing market and America's dysfunctional relationship with guns.
The American Dream, of course, is based around the mythos of rugged individualism, interwoven with a creation story about shrugging off oppression and armed resistance to tyranny. Hence the obsession with guns.
In Britain, of course, we have had a series of gradual, mostly bloodless revolutions that have taken us from feudalism, with the kings and the lords in their castles, towards a slow emancipation of the middle and working classes, strongly supported by classical liberalism. We say "an Englishman's home is his castle" for a reason - we each see ourselves as feudal lords within our own domains, however small they may be.
You can no more ask an Englishman to surrender his home than you can an American his guns. Of course, there will be those on the liberal/left spectrum who decry these obsessions as unjust, but they are - and always will be - imprinted on the national psyche.
To tax and take an Englishman's home away from him would be to lay bare the illusion that he enjoys personal sovereignty - without it, the state has license to encroach on every aspect of his life, just as the American fears the state will encroach on his if the right to bear arms is taken away.
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
Here in the US, annual property taxes can be enormous. In Texas, you pay 1.9% a year on average and New York is 1.6%. (New Jersey tops the list at 2.4% while Utah is just 0.7%).
But let's say you own a home worth $500,000. That's $12,500/year in property taxes in New Jersey. If you're an income of $30,000/year, you're not staying in that half million dollar house.
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
Suspect it would need a Labour government to do anything about that. The uproar from the wealthy would be quite something.
Edit - from memory John McDonnell is part of the Labour land group.
That level of property tax suddenly being introduced could crash the market overnight
I was listening to BBC Radio 4 while waking this morning (Amazon's Alexa is fantastic!) and heard some sort of panel discussion with someone opining that building more houses is not a way to bring down house prices, but taxing higher value homes is a great way to do so.
So nothing much has changed on the left in UK politics then.
Whoever said that was spot on.
Remove the artificial demand for housing and land by taxing it, then the housing crisis affecting young people goes away.
Unfortunately, the housing crisis gets replaced by a banking crisis and a pensions/savings crisis for those who have been using property to store their wealth.
The tory client vote would be up in arms.
Yeah, how dare people save for their future. When you raid pensions and keep interest rates at 0.5% for nearly a decade, is it any wonder people looking at property as a safe haven?
What many middle-aged and older people are doing wrt;property is economically rational. The system as it is set up encourages their property-hoarding behavior.
The problem is the electoral system and planning system has provided a feedback loop that - combined with the current global economic conditions - has created a hopeless situation for young people.
Government expanding building of affordable housing as it is moving towards and a readjustment of council tax bands eg with a new band for properties over £1 million would be sensible.
That needs to go much further in London and other areas to cover houses up to a value of £5 million.
I agree house building is happening - again, certainly in London - but the problem is whether the infrastructural improvements are being provided as well.
Build 5,000 new houses for 12,500 people but you need the services as well.
Yes infrastructure has to be available or expanded alongside.
On topic, these numbers tell me that a new general election would be very close.
The Conservatives should clearly win against Jeremy Corbyn, however, but in my view they should focus on the 30-45 year old age bracket, because I very much doubt they'll ever makes serious inroads into the under 30s, particularly whilst Corbyn (the Messiah) is leader.
He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy.
We were talking on the previous thread about trashing the UK armed forces, and surrendering the UK security council seat.
I think Corbyn would do both those things, as well as devastate the economy.
It's like Russians voting for Barbarossa. F*cking insane.
It might be F*cking insane idea, but people will still vote for it. Lets give the £xxx million to our NHS instead!
The people who would vote for that are voting for Labour already yet still not one poll has Labour even close to an overall majority.
I think that given the option of scrapping most of our armed forces and diplomatic activity around the world in favour of free stuff, a lot of people would probably vote for it.
People would also vote for protectionism over free trade.
Its probably best to not give them the option, but under Corbyn's leadership of the labour party, anything is possible.
A lot of people who are already almost all voting for Corbyn anyway. That does not even mean a majority of Labour MPs in Parliament would vote for it let alone Parliament as a whole.
The panic about foreign aid spending is almost entirely a right wing phenomenon. Spending on foreign aid and foreign wars are - to many people - almost indistinguishable.
Every poll has shown public opposition to ringfencing overseas aid spending, by contrast polls showed support for bombing ISIS for example.
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
Here in the US, annual property taxes can be enormous. In Texas, you pay 1.9% a year on average and New York is 1.6%. (New Jersey tops the list at 2.4% while Utah is just 0.7%).
But let's say you own a home worth $500,000. That's $12,500/year in property taxes in New Jersey. If you're an income of $30,000/year, you're not staying in that half million dollar house.
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
Who determines the value of a house?
Thats a good question. I assume it isn't the open market value.
I'm definitely up for some creative thinking about this stuff. I actually quite like the idea of all estates being subject to IHT, but starting with very low rates and increasing a bit like stamp duty.
The problem as I see it is this. Everyone's crying out for lower house prices, but do they really want that? Let's say property prices fell 20% overnight. Would that be welcomed? I don't think so. This is the real problem.
There is a clear parallel between our attitude to the housing market and America's dysfunctional relationship with guns.
The American Dream, of course, is based around the mythos of rugged individualism, interwoven with a creation story about shrugging off oppression and armed resistance to tyranny. Hence the obsession with guns.
In Britain, of course, we have had a series of gradual, mostly bloodless revolutions that have taken us from feudalism, with the kings and the lords in their castles, towards a slow emancipation of the middle and working classes, strongly supported by classical liberalism. We say "an Englishman's home is his castle" for a reason - we each see ourselves as feudal lords within our own domains, however small they may be.
You can no more ask an Englishman to surrender his home than you can an American his guns. Of course, there will be those on the liberal/left spectrum who decry these obsessions as unjust, but they are - and always will be - imprinted on the national psyche.
To tax and take an Englishman's home away from him would be to lay bare the illusion that he enjoys personal sovereignty - without it, the state has license to encroach on every aspect of his life, just as the American fears the state will encroach on his if the right to bear arms is taken away.
On topic, these numbers tell me that a new general election would be very close.
The Conservatives should clearly win against Jeremy Corbyn, however, but in my view they should focus on the 30-45 year old age bracket, because I very much doubt they'll ever makes serious inroads into the under 30s, particularly whilst Corbyn (the Messiah) is leader.
Agreed, there are a lot of 30-50 year old people who are open to our ideas, but I don't think Theresa is the right leader to bring them into our camp. I don't know who is, but I know it's not Theresa.
Yet Theresa now looks much stronger than 6 weeks ago. Things can change so quickly.
Corbyn certainly wouldn't be a slam-dunk.
Or Brexit could go wonderfully but she could get slammed with a typical cyclical recession in 2020.
Events, dear boy.
Indeed so. Or, that might not happen.
Brexit was supposed to (at best) lead to stagnation, or a mild recession. Instead the latest OBR forecasts show growth continuing throughout, and we have the lowest unemployment in over 40 years.
I'm not making predictions - those who do turn out to either look like geniuses or idiots, and largely by fluke - but I am saying it could quite credibly happen.
The latest forecasts literally show stagnation. Growth below inflation, and wage growth worse. That's not entirely to do with Brexit, but it is a bit, as it has increased inflation and uncertainty and is consuming government time and resources. Unemployment is low because self employment is now at a record high, and that has everything to do with technology. The worrying thing, whether Tory or Labour is that we're addressing old issues rather than real ones.
They show growth continuing through to 2022 and beyond, just at 1.5-1.8% pa rather than 2.0-2.5 pa. And we'll see whether those bear out or not. As far as I can tell, the OBR simply takes the midpoint of the latest trends every 6 months, and just extrapolates.
But, you can't argue that Brexit will cause mass unemployment as soon as it's voted for/triggered one year and then, when it doesn't, say "yebbut, that only didn't happen because.. Technology." That was the counter-argument from Brexiteers at the time to the Remainers point that voting for/or triggering Brexit would be an immediate driver of unemployment as a reason not to do it. And it has been shown to be false.
So it undermines other (possibly more valid) arguments.
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
Here in the US, annual property taxes can be enormous. In Texas, you pay 1.9% a year on average and New York is 1.6%. (New Jersey tops the list at 2.4% while Utah is just 0.7%).
But let's say you own a home worth $500,000. That's $12,500/year in property taxes in New Jersey. If you're an income of $30,000/year, you're not staying in that half million dollar house.
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
Suspect it would need a Labour government to do anything about that. The uproar from the wealthy would be quite something.
Edit - from memory John McDonnell is part of the Labour land group.
Perhaps you should refresh your memory as to the reaction of Labour MPs and Labour Peers (e.g. Lady Bakewell) when the LibDems suggested a Mansion Tax.
Prime Minister Corbyn would struggle to get such a proposal through Parliament because too many Labour MPs (mindful of reaction in their constituencies) would vote against it,
There were certainly plenty of wealthy voters in Hampstead and Islington who were appalled at the prospect of a wealth tax.
My recollection is that almost all London Labour MPs were against the Mansion Tax, whether they represented Peckham or Hampstead.
London is going to be well represented in the PLP if Corbyn wins.
There will plenty of losers in London -- and losers in the TV and print media -- and we’ll hear a lot from them.
It will make the outcries about the pasty tax and the granny tax look minuscule.
Indeed the AVERAGE London house price is now close to £500 000, UK wide it is just over £200 000, a wealth tax would overwhelmingly be targeted at London and London is now the area with the highest Labour voteshare in the UK.
London needs different rules, because its market operates on global level, not a national one.
Indeed the AVERAGE London house price is now close to £500 000, UK wide it is just over £200 000, a wealth tax would overwhelmingly be targeted at London and London is now the area with the highest Labour voteshare in the UK.
Precisely. The 2.5 per cent tax that RCS suggests based on the US would result in an annual bill of £ 12,500.
There will be plenty of people (predominantly elderly) forced out of their homes because they don’t have that kind of cash available annually.
Of course, the tax is working in exactly the way RCS envisages. It is ensuring efficient allocation of a scarce resources. It is freeing up property that is probably being occupied by the elderly and not longer productive (like Lady Bakewell).
It is just the newspapers and media will be full of the human cost to the detriment of whichever political party introduces it.
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
...
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
Suspect it would need a Labour government to do anything about that. The uproar from the wealthy would be quite something.
Edit - from memory John McDonnell is part of the Labour land group.
That level of property tax suddenly being introduced could crash the market overnight
I was listening to BBC Radio 4 while waking this morning (Amazon's Alexa is fantastic!) and heard some sort of panel discussion with someone opining that building more houses is not a way to bring down house prices, but taxing higher value homes is a great way to do so.
So nothing much has changed on the left in UK politics then.
Whoever said that was spot on.
Remove the artificial demand for housing and land by taxing it, then the housing crisis affecting young people goes away.
Unfortunately, the housing crisis gets replaced by a banking crisis and a pensions/savings crisis for those who have been using property to store their wealth.
The tory client vote would be up in arms.
Yeah, how dare people save for their future. When you raid pensions and keep interest rates at 0.5% for nearly a decade, is it any wonder people looking at property as a safe haven?
What many middle-aged and older people are doing wrt;property is economically rational. The system as it is set up encourages their property-hoarding behavior.
The problem is the electoral system and planning system has provided a feedback loop that - combined with the current global economic conditions - has created a hopeless situation for young people.
Only hopeless in London, most of my local mates (many of whom are only on the avg wage or just above) have houses in their 20s. They often live with parents to save for a deposit.
Just like my folks did.
I have a lot of sympathy for the position of youths growing up in London, but you're extrapolating too far.
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
Here in the US, annual property taxes can be enormous. In Texas, you pay 1.9% a year on average and New York is 1.6%. (New Jersey tops the list at 2.4% while Utah is just 0.7%).
But .
Who determines the value of a house?
Thats a good question. I assume it isn't the open market value.
I'm definitely up for some creative thinking about this stuff. I actually quite like the idea of all estates being subject to IHT, but starting with very low rates and increasing a bit like stamp duty.
The problem as I see it is this. Everyone's crying out for lower house prices, but do they really want that? Let's say property prices fell 20% overnight. Would that be welcomed? I don't think so. This is the real problem.
There is a clear parallel between our attitude to the housing market and America's dysfunctional relationship with guns.
The American Dream, of course, is based around the mythos of rugged individualism, interwoven with a creation story about shrugging off oppression and armed resistance to tyranny. Hence the obsession with guns.
In Britain, of course, we have had a series of gradual, mostly bloodless revolutions that have taken us from feudalism, with the kings and the lords in their castles, towards a slow emancipation of the middle and working classes, strongly supported by classical liberalism. We say "an Englishman's home is his castle" for a reason - we each see ourselves as feudal lords within our own domains, however small they may be.
You can no more ask an Englishman to surrender his home than you can an American his guns. Of course, there will be those on the liberal/left spectrum who decry these obsessions as unjust, but they are - and always will be - imprinted on the national psyche.
To tax and take an Englishman's home away from him would be to lay bare the illusion that he enjoys personal sovereignty - without it, the state has license to encroach on every aspect of his life, just as the American fears the state will encroach on his if the right to bear arms is taken away.
There are three very important rules for British politicians to understand:
(1) You don't touch British people's houses, (2) You do not touch the houses of the British people, and; (3) British people's houses you do not touch.
There are further important rules of course, which I won't bother boring you with here, but those are the most important ones.
Council tax is allocated by band based on the value of the property, it is just the bands are not adjusted frequently enough.
The valuations are the problem. We are still working with the 1991 bands. Successive Governments have been too scared of the electoral response to amend the bands and seek fresh valuations.
We therefore have the ludicrous position a house costing £350,000 pays the same Council Tax in an authority as one worth £3.5 million while the house that was value £350,000 in 1991 is probably worth double that if not more now.
This is why those arguing for LVT have a point. Which matters - the value of the property or the value of the land on which it sits ?
Again, we have the unholy alliance of Governments and house builders keeping land prices (and therefore house prices) high. Government wants to sell off its own surplus estate - by keeping planning laws tight and the supply of land tighter, it gets the best price for any land it does make available.
Housing is a multi-layered issue - successive Governments have intentionally exacerbated the situation for their own political ends.
I don't think people in expensive houses should pay more Council tax, which is the implication of your comment. The main reason is that people in these expensive houses are unlikely to use any of the services provided by the Council that are funded by Council tax.
But also, if someone lives in a house and it goes up in value, why should they be taxed out of the house? One of my friends parents bought a four bedroom terraced house in a now fashionable part of London the early 1980's for a negligible amount of money. They still live there leading basic lives, there is still no electricity in the kitchen, and my friend and his brother still live with them as they cannot afford to buy their own properties in London. The house is now worth over a million pounds, but that is a hypothetical value. They don't want to move anywhere, and, to pick up on a point made earlier, the resource is being used efficiently. It would be totally immoral to try and tax them out of the property.
What is surely legitimate, on the other hand, is to tax the unearned increase in financial value attributed to the property because of its location. Inheritance tax must surely be the best way of doing that.
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
Here in the US, annual property taxes can be enormous. In Texas, you pay 1.9% a year on average and New York is 1.6%. (New Jersey tops the list at 2.4% while Utah is just 0.7%).
But let's say you own a home worth $500,000. That's $12,500/year in property taxes in New Jersey. If you're an income of $30,000/year, you're not staying in that half million dollar house.
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
Suspect it would need a Labour government to do anything about that. The uproar from the wealthy would be quite something.
Edit - from memory John McDonnell is part of the Labour land group.
Perhaps you should refresh your memory as to the reaction of Labour MPs and Labour Peers (e.g. Lady Bakewell) when the LibDems suggested a Mansion Tax.
Prime Minister Corbyn would struggle to get such a proposal through Parliament because too many Labour MPs (mindful of reaction in their constituencies) would vote against it,
There were certainly plenty of wealthy voters in Hampstead and Islington who were appalled at the prospect of a wealth tax.
My recollection is that almost all London Labour MPs were against the Mansion Tax, whether they represented Peckham or Hampstead.
London is going to be well represented in the PLP if Corbyn wins.
There will plenty of losers in London -- and losers in the TV and print media -- and we’ll hear a lot from them.
It will make the outcries about the pasty tax and the granny tax look minuscule.
Indeed the AVERAGE London house price is now close to £500 000, UK wide it is just over £200 000, a wealth tax would overwhelmingly be targeted at London and London is now the area with the highest Labour voteshare in the UK.
London needs different rules, because its market operates on global level, not a national one.
This is exactly the conclusion I always get to when chewing the fat about London property. It needs different rules.
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
...
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
Suspect it would need a Labour government to do anything about that. The uproar from the wealthy would be quite something.
Edit - from memory John McDonnell is part of the Labour land group.
That level of property tax suddenly being introduced could crash the market overnight
I was listening to BBC Radio 4 while waking this morning (Amazon's Alexa is fantastic!) and heard some sort of panel discussion with someone opining that building more houses is not a way to bring down house prices, but taxing higher value homes is a great way to do so.
So nothing much has changed on the left in UK politics then.
Whoever said that was spot on.
Remove the artificial demand for housing and land by taxing it, then the housing crisis affecting young people goes away.
Unfortunately, the housing crisis gets replaced by a banking crisis and a pensions/savings crisis for those who have been using property to store their wealth.
The tory client vote would be up in arms.
Yeah, how dare people save for their future. When you raid pensions and keep interest rates at 0.5% for nearly a decade, is it any wonder people looking at property as a safe haven?
What many .
Only hopeless in London, most of my local mates (many of whom are only on the avg wage or just above) have houses in their 20s. They often live with parents to save for a deposit.
Just like my folks did.
I have a lot of sympathy for the position of youths growing up in London, but you're extrapolating too far.
Yes, unless you are an investment banker or corporate lawyer or tech entrepreneur forget buying in inner London. Move out to the suburbs or Home Counties if you want to buy or even further afield.
London needs different rules, because its market operates on global level, not a national one.
Yet again, it is worth emphasising that there is no a problem with property prices in most of the country. Wales, Scotland the North, most of the Midlands have plenty of avoidable homes.
The problem is in London & the South East. That is EXACTLY where the tax needs to bite.
Council tax is allocated by band based on the value of the property, it is just the bands are not adjusted frequently enough.
The valuations are the problem. We are still working with the 1991 bands. Successive Governments have been too scared of the electoral response to amend the bands and seek fresh valuations.
We therefore have the ludicrous position a house costing £350,000 pays the same Council Tax in an authority as one worth £3.5 million while the house that was value £350,000 in 1991 is probably worth double that if not more now.
This is why those arguing for LVT have a point. Which matters - the value of the property or the value of the land on which it sits ?
Again, we have the unholy alliance of Governments and house builders keeping land prices (and therefore house prices) high. Government wants to sell off its own surplus estate - by keeping planning laws tight and the supply of land tighter, it gets the best price for any land it does make available.
Housing is a multi-layered issue - successive Governments have intentionally exacerbated the situation for their own political ends.
I don't think people in expensive houses should pay more Council tax, which is the implication of your comment. The main reason is that people in these expensive houses are unlikely to use any of the services provided by the Council that are funded by Council tax.
But also, if someone lives in a house and it goes up in value, why should they be taxed out of the house? One of my friends parents bought a four bedroom terraced house in a now fashionable part of London the early 1980's for a negligible amount of money. They still live there leading basic lives, there is still no electricity in the kitchen, and my friend and his brother still live with them as they cannot afford to buy their own properties in London. The house is now worth over a million pounds, but that is a hypothetical value. They don't want to move anywhere, and, to pick up on a point made earlier, the resource is being used efficiently. It would be totally immoral to try and tax them out of the property.
What is surely legitimate, on the other hand, is to tax the unearned increase in financial value attributed to the property because of its location. Inheritance tax must surely be the best way of doing that.
Inheritance tax still applies over a million pounds, even with the couples allowance
Indeed the AVERAGE London house price is now close to £500 000, UK wide it is just over £200 000, a wealth tax would overwhelmingly be targeted at London and London is now the area with the highest Labour voteshare in the UK.
Precisely. The 2.5 per cent tax that RCS suggests based on the US would result in an annual bill of £ 12,500.
There will be plenty of people (predominantly elderly) forced out of their homes because they don’t have that kind of cash available annually.
Of course, the tax is working in exactly the way RCS envisages. It is ensuring efficient allocation of a scarce resources. It is freeing up property that is probably being occupied by the elderly and not longer productive (like Lady Bakewell).
It is just the newspapers and media will be full of the human cost to the detriment of whichever political party introduces it.
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
Here in the US, annual property taxes can be enormous. In Texas, you pay 1.9% a year on average and New York is 1.6%. (New Jersey tops the list at 2.4% while Utah is just 0.7%).
But let's say you own a home worth $500,000. That's $12,500/year in property taxes in New Jersey. If you're an income of $30,000/year, you're not staying in that half million dollar house.
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
Suspect it would need a Labour government to do anything about that. The uproar from the wealthy would be quite something.
Edit - from memory John McDonnell is part of the Labour land group.
Perhaps you should refresh your memory as to the reaction of Labour MPs and Labour Peers (e.g. Lady Bakewell) when the LibDems suggested a Mansion Tax.
Prime Minister Corbyn would struggle to get such a proposal through Parliament because too many Labour MPs (mindful of reaction in their constituencies) would vote against it,
There were certainly plenty of wealthy voters in Hampstead and Islington who were appalled at the prospect of a wealth tax.
My recollection is that almost all London Labour MPs were against the Mansion Tax, whether they represented Peckham or Hampstead.
London is going to be well represented in the PLP if Corbyn wins.
There will plenty of losers in London -- and losers in the TV and print media -- and we’ll hear a lot from them.
It will make the outcries about the pasty tax and the granny tax look minuscule.
Indeed the AVERAGE London house price is now close to £500 000, UK wide it is just over £200 000, a wealth tax would overwhelmingly be targeted at London and London is now the area with the highest Labour voteshare in the UK.
London needs different rules, because its market operates on global level, not a national one.
Yes, London is now competing with New York, Los Angeles, Paris and Shanghai for property investment not Birmingham and Sheffield.
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
.
Who determines the value of a house?
Thats a good question. I assume it isn't the open market value.
I'm definitely up for some creative thinking about this stuff. I actually quite like the idea of all estates being subject to IHT, but starting with very low rates and increasing a bit like stamp duty.
The problem as I see it is this. Everyone's crying out for lower house prices, but do they really want that? Let's say property prices fell 20% overnight. Would that be welcomed? I don't think so. This is the real problem.
There is a clear parallel between our attitude to the housing market and America's dysfunctional relationship with guns.
The American Dream, of course, is based around the mythos of rugged individualism, interwoven with a creation story about shrugging off oppression and armed resistance to tyranny. Hence the obsession with guns.
In Britain, of course, we have had a series of gradual, mostly bloodless revolutions that have taken us from feudalism, with the kings and the lords in their castles, towards a slow emancipation of the middle and working classes, strongly supported by classical liberalism. We say "an Englishman's home is his castle" for a reason - we each see ourselves as feudal lords within our own domains, however small they may be.
You can no more ask an Englishman to surrender his home than you can an American his guns. Of course, there will be those on the liberal/left spectrum who decry these obsessions as unjust, but they are - and always will be - imprinted on the national psyche.
To tax and take an Englishman's home away from him would be to lay bare the illusion that he enjoys personal sovereignty - without it, the state has license to encroach on every aspect of his life, just as the American fears the state will encroach on his if the right to bear arms is taken away.
Good post. One of your best so far. Although the existence of compulsory purchase laws (which have survived largely uncontroversially) possibly contradicts your conclusions.
The political issue in the UK is that it can rob some families of their family homes, and worries the rest - way below the threshold - that they might one day end up in the same position.
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
Here in the US, annual property taxes can be enormous. In Texas, you pay 1.9% a year on average and New York is 1.6%. (New Jersey tops the list at 2.4% while Utah is just 0.7%).
But let's say you own a home worth $500,000. That's $12,500/year in property taxes in New Jersey. If you're an income of $30,000/year, you're not staying in that half million dollar house.
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
Suspect it would need a Labour government to do anything about that. The uproar from the wealthy would be quite something.
Edit - from memory John McDonnell is part of the Labour land group.
Perhaps you should refresh your memory as to the reaction of Labour MPs and Labour Peers (e.g. Lady Bakewell) when the LibDems suggested a Mansion Tax.
Prime Minister Corbyn would struggle to get such a proposal through Parliament because too many Labour MPs (mindful of reaction in their constituencies) would vote against it,
There were certainly plenty of wealthy voters in Hampstead and Islington who were appalled at the prospect of a wealth tax.
My recollection is that almost all London Labour MPs were against the Mansion Tax, whether they represented Peckham or Hampstead.
London is going to be well represented in the PLP if Corbyn wins.
There will plenty of losers in London -- and losers in the TV and print media -- and we’ll hear a lot from them.
It will make the outcries about the pasty tax and the granny tax look minuscule.
Indeed the AVERAGE London house price is now close to £500 000, UK wide it is just over £200 000, a wealth tax would overwhelmingly be targeted at London and London is now the area with the highest Labour voteshare in the UK.
London needs different rules, because its market operates on global level, not a national one.
Yes, London is now competing with New York, Los Angeles, Paris and Shanghai for investment not Birmingham and Sheffield.
Don't forget that anything relating to the London market also has a knock on effect to the whole of the south east.
Comments
Inheritance tax is on the size of the whole estate, not just the home.
"Pent up demand" is in any case a dubious concept, since 'demand' irrespective of price is a nonsensical concept in economics. By the same token there is 'pent up demand' for all sort of 'expensive' things, if only they were available at affordable prices.
The Conservatives should clearly win against Jeremy Corbyn, however, but in my view they should focus on the 30-45 year old age bracket, because I very much doubt they'll ever makes serious inroads into the under 30s, particularly whilst Corbyn (the Messiah) is leader.
Whilst the tories are in a mess over Brexit, they will struggle to appeal to the 30-45 age bracket. Particularly Remainers. If Labour seem to have a better plan on Brexit, they will do well in the election.
I think it is most unlikely that any votes will be swayed by the 26-30 railcard. The stamp duty changes will help the tories with some younger voters, but I suspect that the idea of buying a house is so far fetched for many people that they will prefer the more radical change offered by Corbyn.
Take an estate with a house worth say £400k (and no other assets).
I'd like to see a table of the inheritance tax payable on such an estate in every EU country, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
I would be surprised if there was a huge amount of tax payable in any of those countries. A modest amount maybe, but not an amount large enough to prompt people to downsize.
In reality, its a shrunken power driven by bravado, criminality and a willingness to play what few cards it has, including relative local military mass and a residual nuclear stockpile funded by fossil fuel sales, but is otherwise a shadow of its former self.
Off the top of my head, Ireland, Belgium and Germany are 30%, the Netherlands and Greece 20%, Finland and Denmark are in the teens, while Iceland, Switzerland and others 10% or a little below.
In 2017, they had the more radical, redistributive manifesto;
http://election2017.ifs.org.uk/article/income-tax-and-benefits-the-liberal-democrats-and-labour-compared
I think it will have an effect on the margins, turning slightly more people in their late 20s and early 30s into homeowners and perhaps pushing them in a more Conservative direction.
However I think the really big effect will be on those aged 40-60 who have adult or near adult kids who will see this as "ah, finally, the Conservatives are doing something to help my kids get on the ladder (without crashing the value of my own home)"
In the UK, it's houses. Always houses. Never touch people's homes.
I think Corbyn would do both those things, as well as devastate the economy.
It's like Russians voting for Barbarossa. F*cking insane.
https://twitter.com/reutersworld/status/934488992535457792
I was well aware of May's policies not turning on the youth vote; but I didn't expect it to lead them to the opposition as much as it did.
Hunt? I pondered his name at a doo last night and no-one objected....
She might even last beyond 2019 now.
Let's say Brexit goes ok. There is no recession. We transition to a good enough trading relationship with the EU, she banks a few populist wins post-Brexit with quick trade deals, blue passports, new immigration rules, and the economy recovers due to The Certainty, the new houses are in place, plus a new leader takes over 6 months out to GE2022.
Corbyn certainly wouldn't be a slam-dunk.
Plus, if the economic malaise of Brexit leads to a reduction in house prices, these people are going to be alienated anyway. If their main asset has lost 50k of its value, whats a saving of £2k in stamp duty costs associated with their kids property purchase?
I can't help take the view that this seems like an attempt to reach out to the young, but is going to be nowhere near enough to change anything.
But let's say you own a home worth $500,000. That's $12,500/year in property taxes in New Jersey. If you're an income of $30,000/year, you're not staying in that half million dollar house.
Our current system seems designed to discourage the efficient allocation of a scarce resource (land and housing). That's economically dumb.
No need for coonflict.
At least provided there is no Momentum inspired purge of Labour MPs before the next general election.
Events, dear boy.
It's what Cameron, although flawed, understood profoundly in terms of symbolism. As we've seen with the animal stuff, people will believe an awful lot of you if it confirms their views and disregard the rest. Without fundamental change, or a Labour clusterfuck (not unimaginable) gobs aren't going to get those votes. For the same reason British jobs for British workers did naff all for Gordon Brown.
They want the Government to keep its hands off their home.
Brexit was supposed to (at best) lead to stagnation, or a mild recession. Instead the latest OBR forecasts show growth continuing throughout, and we have the lowest unemployment in over 40 years.
I'm not making predictions - those who do turn out to either look like geniuses or idiots, and largely by fluke - but I am saying it could quite credibly happen.
The problem as I see it is this. Everyone's crying out for lower house prices, but do they really want that? Let's say property prices fell 20% overnight. Would that be welcomed? I don't think so. This is the real problem.
I'm not so sure. Crown prerogative powers are extensive (and, yes, I do get the irony).
People would also vote for protectionism over free trade.
Its probably best to not give them the option, but under Corbyn's leadership of the labour party, anything is possible.
The uproar from the wealthy would be quite something.
Edit - from memory John McDonnell is part of the Labour land group.
Brexit is a perfectly credible and sane option to exercise on the basis that the political/economic status quo of our relationship with the EU was not working for us, and was not fit for the UK in the 21st Century. It covers a whole range of options, but the UK national interest would clearly be based on a close relationship with the EU in energy, transport and security, with customs/free trade in goods for complex supply chains of older goods in cars/aerospace, but much greater flexibility for us in regulating and pushing for liberalising services at a global level, particularly in gene editing, pharmaceuticals, artificial/machine intelligence, new tech start-ups, education, media and financial/consulting services.
So there is nothing intrinsically "insane" about it. It is risky only in its execution.
Corbyn is like a human Skynet who has become self aware.
Plus UK membership of the UN (and the UN Security Council) was ratified by Parliament and the royal prerogative cannot overrule an existing Act of Parliament. Parliament alone can repeal its previous legislation.
https://tinyurl.com/ycdymvqu
Prime Minister Corbyn would struggle to get such a proposal through Parliament because too many Labour MPs (mindful of reaction in their constituencies) would vote against it,
Ultimately these factors will guide Labour party policy on this issue. There are also a rump of moderate MP's who, whilst gradually diminishing over time, could be very obstructive.
We therefore have the ludicrous position a house costing £350,000 pays the same Council Tax in an authority as one worth £3.5 million while the house that was value £350,000 in 1991 is probably worth double that if not more now.
This is why those arguing for LVT have a point. Which matters - the value of the property or the value of the land on which it sits ?
Again, we have the unholy alliance of Governments and house builders keeping land prices (and therefore house prices) high. Government wants to sell off its own surplus estate - by keeping planning laws tight and the supply of land tighter, it gets the best price for any land it does make available.
Housing is a multi-layered issue - successive Governments have intentionally exacerbated the situation for their own political ends.
Whilst that does allow The Crown to implement United Nations Security Council Resolutions without the official approval of Parliament, I can't see that it sets our permanent membership of the security council in statute.
Perhaps it might be open to legal challenge if it were, though, but by then it might be too late.
London is going to be well represented in the PLP if Corbyn wins.
There will plenty of losers in London -- and losers in the TV and print media -- and we’ll hear a lot from them.
It will make the outcries about the pasty tax and the granny tax look minuscule.
The first grandparents forced out of their 4-bedroom family home due to a quadrupling of council tax/LVT would cause a national storm. And there would be thousands of others.
Far better to incentivise better use of spare bedrooms, granny annexes, and other occupancy tools, as the Government has already started to dabble with.
I agree house building is happening - again, certainly in London - but the problem is whether the infrastructural improvements are being provided as well.
Build 5,000 new houses for 12,500 people but you need the services as well.
The American Dream, of course, is based around the mythos of rugged individualism, interwoven with a creation story about shrugging off oppression and armed resistance to tyranny. Hence the obsession with guns.
In Britain, of course, we have had a series of gradual, mostly bloodless revolutions that have taken us from feudalism, with the kings and the lords in their castles, towards a slow emancipation of the middle and working classes, strongly supported by classical liberalism. We say "an Englishman's home is his castle" for a reason - we each see ourselves as feudal lords within our own domains, however small they may be.
You can no more ask an Englishman to surrender his home than you can an American his guns. Of course, there will be those on the liberal/left spectrum who decry these obsessions as unjust, but they are - and always will be - imprinted on the national psyche.
To tax and take an Englishman's home away from him would be to lay bare the illusion that he enjoys personal sovereignty - without it, the state has license to encroach on every aspect of his life, just as the American fears the state will encroach on his if the right to bear arms is taken away.
The problem is the electoral system and planning system has provided a feedback loop that - combined with the current global economic conditions - has created a hopeless situation for young people.
There's some truth to that.
But, you can't argue that Brexit will cause mass unemployment as soon as it's voted for/triggered one year and then, when it doesn't, say "yebbut, that only didn't happen because.. Technology." That was the counter-argument from Brexiteers at the time to the Remainers point that voting for/or triggering Brexit would be an immediate driver of unemployment as a reason not to do it. And it has been shown to be false.
So it undermines other (possibly more valid) arguments.
There will be plenty of people (predominantly elderly) forced out of their homes because they don’t have that kind of cash available annually.
Of course, the tax is working in exactly the way RCS envisages. It is ensuring efficient allocation of a scarce resources. It is freeing up property that is probably being occupied by the elderly and not longer productive (like Lady Bakewell).
It is just the newspapers and media will be full of the human cost to the detriment of whichever political party introduces it.
Just like my folks did.
I have a lot of sympathy for the position of youths growing up in London, but you're extrapolating too far.
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/lifestyle/why-is-it-so-hard-to-buy-a-flat-in-a-cool-area-of-this-incredibly-expensive-city-20171115139131
(1) You don't touch British people's houses,
(2) You do not touch the houses of the British people, and;
(3) British people's houses you do not touch.
There are further important rules of course, which I won't bother boring you with here, but those are the most important ones.
But also, if someone lives in a house and it goes up in value, why should they be taxed out of the house? One of my friends parents bought a four bedroom terraced house in a now fashionable part of London the early 1980's for a negligible amount of money. They still live there leading basic lives, there is still no electricity in the kitchen, and my friend and his brother still live with them as they cannot afford to buy their own properties in London. The house is now worth over a million pounds, but that is a hypothetical value. They don't want to move anywhere, and, to pick up on a point made earlier, the resource is being used efficiently. It would be totally immoral to try and tax them out of the property.
What is surely legitimate, on the other hand, is to tax the unearned increase in financial value attributed to the property because of its location. Inheritance tax must surely be the best way of doing that.
The problem is in London & the South East. That is EXACTLY where the tax needs to bite.
http://www.rcg1.com/nevada-by-the-numbers-blog/property-tax-statistics/