Socialists to the elderly: It's our nest-egg, not yours!

[Seth]

I'm with Seth on this one, based on pure self interest...

I can understand that, but with more and more richer older people and less and less tax payers its obviously not sustainable

Only if the government has to fund welfare entitlement programs for those old people.

Cut off the entitlement payments and force people to provide for their own dotage, and it's perfectly sustainable.

Thanks for pointing out the fundamental flaw in socialist ideology and welfare planning.

Here's another solution: Have more kids, who grow up to be future taxpayers.

Of course another aspect of selfish socialists is that they don't want to share the wealth with anyone, including their own children, so they don't have children so that they can wallow in their wealth and squander it without worrying about the next generation.

I say that if you don't have at least two children per couple, you shouldn't be allowed to receive ANY entitlement payments at all, because you have failed to create the persons who will support you when you get old.

[Seth]

...incredibly overpriced housing mainly due to middle class people implementing planning permissions rules to stop anyone else building anything in the 'green' belt.

Yes, get rid of those pesky green belts. We want uninterrupted conurbations. It's so cosy.

Yes lets have rich people live in little villages free of black people while everyone else lives in dreamworld of even being able to buy a 1 bedroom for less than 8 times their wages.

It's not so much the green belt I despise its the peope who live in them, its what bulldozers were invented for

And there it is, in clear and uncertain terms, pure, unadulterated Marxist class-and-race-based hatred and selfishness.

I told you so.

[Ian]

Of course another aspect of selfish socialists is that they don't want to share the wealth with anyone, including their own children, so they don't have children so that they can wallow in their wealth and squander it without worrying about the next generation.

I say that if you don't have at least two children per couple, you shouldn't be allowed to receive ANY entitlement payments at all, because you have failed to create the persons who will support you when you get old.

I don't know what culture you're talking about or that you think can adapt to this sort of thinking, but it isn't a western one.

[Audley Strange]

...incredibly overpriced housing mainly due to middle class people implementing planning permissions rules to stop anyone else building anything in the 'green' belt.

Yes, get rid of those pesky green belts. We want uninterrupted conurbations. It's so cosy.

Yes lets have rich people live in little villages free of black people while everyone else lives in dreamworld of even being able to buy a 1 bedroom for less than 8 times their wages.

It's not so much the green belt I despise its the peope who live in them, its what bulldozers were invented for

I could say the same about the greedy entitled underclass scum in the inner cities, it's what zyklon b was invented for. Dumb statements are fun!

[MrJonno]

Actually Zyklonb b was a pesticide invented for the countryside, but the control of what is built on land should either be decided by the owner or the country as a whole. What is shouldnt be decided by is 'local democracy' or 'states rights' which is just code for bigotry

[Audley Strange]

Actually Zyklonb b was a pesticide invented for the countryside, but the control of what is built on land should either be decided by the owner or the country as a whole. What is shouldnt be decided by is 'local democracy' or 'states rights' which is just code for bigotry

Seems more like a code word for aesthetics to me.

[Robert_S]

Actually Zyklonb b was a pesticide invented for the countryside, but the control of what is built on land should either be decided by the owner or the country as a whole. What is shouldnt be decided by is 'local democracy' or 'states rights' which is just code for bigotry

"States rights" has been used bigots to promote the local bigotry. But should the bigotry be national (say for instance marijuana legalization) then states rights have a whole new connotation.

[MrJonno]

If 50 or 300 million people are arses there isnt much you can do about it, but if the country needs new houses or an airport I don't see what the point is in asking a few hundred local people in the area where it is be built what they think as the answer is pretty obvious. In the cases of new houses tough no one has a right to determine who their neighbour is, if an airport is going to go through there house or introduce too much noise pollution then they can be compensated but in no scenario should they get a veto on it being built or not

[Seth]

If 50 or 300 million people are arses there isnt much you can do about it, but if the country needs new houses or an airport I don't see what the point is in asking a few hundred local people in the area where it is be built what they think as the answer is pretty obvious. In the cases of new houses tough no one has a right to determine who their neighbour is, if an airport is going to go through there house or introduce too much noise pollution then they can be compensated but in no scenario should they get a veto on it being built or not

Er, that's already how it works. It's called "eminent domain." In the US, the government may exercise eminent domain over any land it deems necessary for furthering a public use. The sole requirements are that the forcible acquisition be for "public use" and that "just compensation" is paid to the owner.

Unfortunately, our Supreme Court has badly misinterpreted the Fifth Amendment's proscription "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation" by defining "use" as "benefit," something not intended by the authors or ratifiers of the Constitution.

At the time the Constitution was written, the term "use" was quite specific and was intended to allow the government to acquire private property for parks, roads, public buildings and other actual occupations and uses by the public. But this restrictive authority was illegally broadened by the courts over the years to mean "public benefit," which is a vague and subjective term, rather than "use" which is very specific. This culminated in the Kelo ruling, which authorized a city to seize a group of small homes by force and transfer the land to a developer who promised to build a mall and office space that would enhance city tax revenues. Then the developer went bust, and the homeowners ended up being forced out of their homes for no reason. This so outraged voters in many states that they demanded action by their state legislatures.

As a result, we have governments seizing private property, paying a nominal "just compensation" for the value of the land as it's being used (for example, seizing farmland and paying the value as ag land) only to turn around and give it to a developer for that bargain price in order to "increase tax revenues" by putting the land to a "higher and better use."

This is unconscionable because without the intervention of the government, the developer would have to buy the land from the owner based not on what it was being used for before, but based on its market value for the proposed use, in this case as commercial property. This drastically increases the basic land costs to the developer, so what they do is go to the city and get the city to determine that the land is "blighted" because it's not developed and is "underperforming" from the sales-tax perspective, at which point the city forcibly acquires the land under eminent domain, pays the ag value, sells it to the developer at the ag value rather than forcing the developer to negotiate with the landowner itself to establish a fair-market price for the anticipated use. This cheats the landowner out of his "just compensation."

It got so bad in Colorado that the state passed a law prohibiting the practice of declaring unimproved and agricultural lands "blighted" and it also made it illegal for a government to buy property only to turn it around and sell it to another private agency, which was a way of forcing someone to sell when they didn't want to purely for private benefit.

In short, MrJonno, you're simply wrong again. Local landowners do not necessarily have veto powers over government projects like airports, highways and other "public uses." But they do, and should, have veto powers over PRIVATE development that they don't want to see in their community. If they, as a community, choose NOT TO SELL THEIR LAND to some private developer, that's perfectly appropriate and democratic, because it's their land and nobody other than government should be allowed to force them off their land against their will for private benefit.

[Thinking Aloud]

It's called "eminent domain."

Over here it's called "compulsory purchase" and is used for roads, railways, airports, etc.

[Seth]

It's called "eminent domain."

Over here it's called "compulsory purchase" and is used for roads, railways, airports, etc.

But it's based on the same ancient legal principle that the King has the right to serve the needs of the people by using "his" lands as he sees fit. The difference between the UK and the US is that it was explicitly stated that any such seizure (which was often done under the King's Law) must be justly compensated, something kings did not always (or even often) do.

[MrJonno]

It's extremely difficult at the moment for the British government to force anyone of their land for infrastructure projects. Typically building review can take 20-30 years!! and in same cases 100's of millions of pounds! which I believe the current government is looking at reviewing. I never said anyone who owns land should be forced to sell to a private buyer I said that they shouldnt get a veto on what happens on the land they don't own that happens to be in the area which is what hapepns at the moment through the green belt

[Cunt]

What do you think of letting people assess their own property? I read a fantasy once where folks were able to do that, and if someone came and made the property owner an offer for the assessed value, that owner would have to accept, or re-assess and pay a few years of back taxes.

[Seth]

It's extremely difficult at the moment for the British government to force anyone of their land for infrastructure projects. Typically building review can take 20-30 years!! and in same cases 100's of millions of pounds! which I believe the current government is looking at reviewing. I never said anyone who owns land should be forced to sell to a private buyer I said that they shouldnt get a veto on what happens on the land they don't own that happens to be in the area which is what hapepns at the moment through the green belt

Ah, well, thanks for clarifying. But, why shouldn't local residents have a say. They don't have a "veto" anywhere in the law so far as I know, but they do have a right to petition their government for redress of grievances and try to convince those making the decision that the project should not proceed. What's wrong with that? It's democracy in action.

[Seth]

What do you think of letting people assess their own property? I read a fantasy once where folks were able to do that, and if someone came and made the property owner an offer for the assessed value, that owner would have to accept, or re-assess and pay a few years of back taxes.

I like that idea. Of course, I'd prefer that there be NO property tax, since a property tax means that you never actually own your property, but are merely renting it from the government. Taxes should be raised based on consumption or income, not on ownership.