Horrific Fire Engulfs London Apartment Tower

[cronus]

My humble and small inexpensive home would be a mansion compared to these subsidized shanties in one of the world's most expensive markets.

On the bright side...the water doesn't contain so much lead here.

[Alan B]

..and except that there are millions of government built and subsided houses - 'council houses' that are of perfectly decent quality - built mostly by Labour governments in the 50s and 60s.

And they were built to a better standard. I used to live in a 1950s council house - solid brick dividing walls between the houses. None of this 'cardboard' crap where you can hear next-door 'sneeze' that you get with some of the 'modern' for sale houses.
I now live in a 1930s semi with solid brick between the houses up to the roof.

[pErvinalia]

So, these were socialized, subsidized by the government, public housing then, correct?

Do I really need to explain why this happened?

Because neoliberal governments don't give a shit about poor and disadvantaged people.

[pErvinalia]

No, many of the rents were subsidised, the block was managed by a private firm, but yeah, we all know why it happened - In the pursuit of profit tenants living in a potential death trap was considered an affordable risk.

Well, that's what you get for living in a government subsidized building.

You didn't expect quality, did you?

Not under a system run by the likes of your ilk. But a system run by social democrats would be a lot better.

[Scot Dutchy]

As far as Collector is concerned hutches would be good enough for them.

[Svartalf]

and why not? those lower classes sorts breed like rabbits.

[Scot Dutchy]

To some European eyes modern British houses are as big as hutches.

British homes are the smallest in Europe, study finds

British families are living in some of the most cramped conditions in Europe with more than half of homes falling short of minimum modern space standards, new research has found.

The study found the UK has the smallest homes by floor space area of any European country with the average new build property covered just 76sq m compared with almost double that amount of 137sq m in Denmark.
....
Floor space in the average British property is just 85 sq m compared with 77 sq m in Greece, 88 sq m in Ireland and 98 sq m in the Netherlands

[Brian Peacock]

So, the answer to my question is yes, then?

No. Have you actually read the replies?

It sounds like the incentives are in the wrong place and this is why things like this happen.

The landlords really don't have much incentive to maintain properties as they should since there is so much government funding.

If property isn't maintained the way it should, people will move out and the landlord runs the risk of not getting that revenue. When the government is paying, tenants don't have that leverage of moving out like they would if they were paying their own way.

Well this is what you get when you have a property party in power feathering their own nest with deregulation and marketplace manipulation via the statute book. Rents are high, and have been rising by around 6% pa for the last 6 years, because there's a severe housing shortage. The basic capitalist driver of purchaser choice cannot be applied efficiently in a market with a resource shortage that has been rigged in favour of the lazy landlord. People don't move out because there's nowhere to move to. Poor people find it difficult move not just because of a lack of affordable stock but also because fees and advances can amount to the equivalent of 3 months rent. The government has forbidden local authorities from borrowing to build new housing stock while also obliging them to sell stock over 50 years old on the open market. Many landlords, large and small, actually specialise in buying up stock and leaving it empty because in a market with a severe resource shortage even an empty property is still going to increase in net worth at a higher rate than almost any other kind secure investment - and of course there's no compliance or other costs associated with renting - and this house-hoarding is happening right across the market from the cheap end of the spectrum to the very high end. Of course, this contributes to further shortages and drives up rental and purchase prices. So you can see that blaming the fire on rent subsidies is really quite wide of the mark here.

[pErvinalia]

It sounds like the incentives are in the wrong place and this is why things like this happen.

This is just spectacularly stupid. Where does he think the incentives lie in less regulated capitalism? They lie in cutting expenses as much as possible. To think that the free market would not see towers burning down is spectacularly naive.

[Rum]

Councils all over the UK are now in such a panic that they are more or less evicting people in order to deal with the very small risk of another fire. This is causing massive disruption to tenants and says more about the paranoia of the housing officials than any concern they may have for the occupants. A well organised rolling program would do the job rather better.

[Collector1337]

It sounds like the incentives are in the wrong place and this is why things like this happen.

This is just spectacularly stupid. Where does he think the incentives lie in less regulated capitalism? They lie in cutting expenses as much as possible. To think that the free market would not see towers burning down is spectacularly naive.

HA! That is spectacularly stupid.

How can landlords make money if their building burns down?

[Hermit]

How can landlords make money if their building burns down?

They can't. But then they don't really expect the building to burn down, and the odds are that they won't. At this stage Grenfell Tower is the only one out of several hundred that did. Small fires in others were easily contained. At worst the landlords are playing the odds: "If the building doesn't burn down within three decades I will have got a good ROI and then some. Why should I care what happens to the tenants?"

[Alan B]

It's a landlords 'fingers crossed' game.

I wonder if any of the Tory MP landlords who rejected Corbyn's amendment to the housing bill last year are involved?

[Scot Dutchy]

Would they worry Alan. I mean who bloody cares? The bloody chattering classes: "What do they expect? Luxury apartments?".

[pErvinalia]

It sounds like the incentives are in the wrong place and this is why things like this happen.

This is just spectacularly stupid. Where does he think the incentives lie in less regulated capitalism? They lie in cutting expenses as much as possible. To think that the free market would not see towers burning down is spectacularly naive.

HA! That is spectacularly stupid.

How can landlords make money if their building burns down?

You are kidding, right? Capitalism is almost solely concerned with the short term. That's why we can't deal with climate change.