Are you rich or poor?

[Cunt]

I found some more data, but I can't maths worth a boobless calculator.

USA had tax freedom day WAY earlier...must be fucking nice.April 12, 2011 if the random source from the internet is to be believed.

So for you mathheads, where the fuck is my rich/poor line?!?!

[Rum]

I used to be loaded, then they made me redundant. Now I am rich in dogs and house keeping!

[JimC]

We must apply the eye of the needle test...

[MrJonno]

Lot of Brits earn relatively little but live in houses that no one including themselves could dream of buying these days so rich or poor is quite complex

[Seth]

Lot of Brits earn relatively little but live in houses that no one including themselves could dream of buying these days so rich or poor is quite complex

So what? They made good decisions when they were young, and worked hard to buy those houses so that they would be secure in their old age and not have to live in a public-housing flat. That takes the pressure off the public housing authorities, who don't have to provide them with a home at public expense.

That they may still get public benefits to pay for their everyday expenses like food and medical care is a feature of socialism.

Are you now dissing socialism?

No, you're just whining like a petulant child who doesn't have toys that are as nice as some other kid's, and you're demanding that someone take his toys away just because you don't think it's fair that he has nicer stuff than you do.

Well, if you are a lazy, layabout dependent-class welfare leech, you don't get nice things or nice houses. Sucks to be you I guess, but that's just how it is.

Your lack of industriousness and poor work ethic don't justify taking other people's stuff just because you're jealous and envious of them.

[MrJonno]

Welfare goes to those who need its never been about deserving. If someone has large amount capital then they do not need unless we implement a wealth tax like they do in Switzerland where they tot up everything you own (worldwide) and you pay a % of it each year in taxes

[Audley Strange]

Lot of Brits earn relatively little but live in houses that no one including themselves could dream of buying these days so rich or poor is quite complex

So what? They made good decisions when they were young, and worked hard to buy those houses so that they would be secure in their old age and not have to live in a public-housing flat. That takes the pressure off the public housing authorities, who don't have to provide them with a home at public expense.
[/quote]

This is what myself and the Good Lady Strange did. We worked our arses off in our 20's and 30's, were broke every month but still managed to make all our mortgage payments, paid our bills and never starved.

That they may still get public benefits to pay for their everyday expenses like food and medical care is a feature of socialism.

We got fuck all help from the state. The thing is we managed to have the brains to live at our means.

No, you're just whining like a petulant child who doesn't have toys that are as nice as some other kid's, and you're demanding that someone take his toys away just because you don't think it's fair that he has nicer stuff than you do.

It does rather sound like someone couldn't get a mortgage doesn't it?

Well, if you are a lazy, layabout dependent-class welfare leech, you don't get nice things or nice houses. Sucks to be you I guess, but that's just how it is.
Your lack of industriousness and poor work ethic don't justify taking other people's stuff just because you're jealous and envious of them.

Hear Hear.

[MrJonno]

Sounds like someone who has done their utmost to stop anyone buying a house themselves. The green belt is a middle class abomination designed by the rich to oppress the poor. Nothing wrong with having a few trees but that should never get in the way of ensuring that people actually have somewhere to live.

As for freeing up public housing what public housing would that be?.

Not sure about class war but there is going to be a serious generation one, between the baby boomers who basically had it easy with jobs for life and cheap housing versus permanately indebted young people without a hope in hell of ever getting their own home and temporary employment as best

[Rum]

Sounds like someone who has done their utmost to stop anyone buying a house themselves. The green belt is a middle class abomination designed by the rich to oppress the poor. Nothing wrong with having a few trees but that should never get in the way of ensuring that people actually have somewhere to live.

As for freeing up public housing what public housing would that be?.

Not sure about class war but there is going to be a serious generation one, between the baby boomers who basically had it easy with jobs for life and cheap housing versus permanately indebted young people without a hope in hell of ever getting their own home and temporary employment as best

There are green belts around most of our big cities. The market takes care of house prices - that's one thing I will agree with Seth on, and inevitably therefore houses cost more in nicer areas. But without the green belts the whole of England from Birmingham to Brighton would be one sprawling urban and suburban horror.

[Audley Strange]

And what about us who are not young people or baby boomers? Do we get a pass in your generational war fantasy?

Mind you, there is a point there, perhaps another big global murder festival is needed, in the aftermath I'm sure the Governments would appreciate their effort enough that those who came back alive would get some kind of social recompense for themselves and their children, and there would be plenty of houses to go round after what was left of society finished rebuilding. It does seem we have a massive surfeit of brats who think the world owes them a living.

[MrJonno]

There are green belts around most of our big cities. The market takes care of house prices - that's one thing I will agree with Seth on, and inevitably therefore houses cost more in nicer areas. But without the green belts the whole of England from Birmingham to Brighton would be one sprawling urban and suburban horror.

Thats the point with green belt making 90% artificially unavaliable there is no free market in housing. This isnt the US or Australia which effectively have unlimited land we simply can't afford that luxury.

Maybe there woudl be a 'sprawling urban and suburban horror' but that to me is far less scary than average house prices being 8 times average wages which they are in many parts of the country. I have no problem with have green areas but they should be the exception not the norm. We need farming to supply 2000-2500 calories today with maybe a small reserve of basic foods only, anything else we can import from countries they actually have a land resource

[Seth]

There are green belts around most of our big cities. The market takes care of house prices - that's one thing I will agree with Seth on, and inevitably therefore houses cost more in nicer areas. But without the green belts the whole of England from Birmingham to Brighton would be one sprawling urban and suburban horror.

Thats the point with green belt making 90% artificially unavaliable there is no free market in housing.

Sure there is. You must distinguish between "free market" and "cheap." Nothing requires a free-market commodity be cheap, or widely available.

The decision to create green belts merely enhances the value of what remains, as is the case with any scarce commodity.

Building green belts is a thorny proposition because you are quite right that doing so usually prices the lower classes out. Boulder, Colorado is a prime example of this effect. Over the last four decades, the city and Boulder County have acquired more than 140,000 acres of land, mostly outside the urban zones, as public open space. This program has been strongly supported by the citizens, who have only once turned down a new tax for open space purchase.

But the unintended consequence of all this "green" urban planning is a natural exclusion of low-income housing, to the extent that the City had to institute a program of buying and then deed-restricting houses in Boulder exclusively for lower income residents. Another unintended (or perhaps intended) consequence is that the people who work in the service industry, like shop employees, janitors, teachers and other middle-income or low-income workers who cannot afford to live in Boulder must commute from cheaper outlying communities, which causes rush-hour traffic jams into and out of Boulder.

So, Rum makes a valid point, and so do you. It's a conundrum that most big cities face. How do you make a city "livable" and attractive to business, which is the economic heart of any city and the reason for its continued existence, without 'gentrifying' the community to the point where the unintended consequences of making the city a beautiful place to live make it difficult to actually do business there. It's a difficult balancing act at best. Nobody wants to live next to a working class slum, not even the working class workers who live there. They live there because they have to.

This isnt the US or Australia which effectively have unlimited land we simply can't afford that luxury.

Nor can you afford to turn the greater London metropolitan area into one giant working-class slum, because if you do, in a vain attempt to "level the playing field," the heart of the city, which is the business and industry that creates the wealth to keep the city running, will abandon the city for more attractive environs.

You might want to learn the lesson of Detroit in that regard. Once the Big Three moved out, Detroit became, and remains, a festering cesspool of low-income slum-resident dependent class criminality and decay where you can buy a house for literally a hundred bucks, if you dare to live there.

Maybe there woudl be a 'sprawling urban and suburban horror' but that to me is far less scary than average house prices being 8 times average wages which they are in many parts of the country. I have no problem with have green areas but they should be the exception not the norm.

Your problem is that you have fallen for the socialist/progressive fallacy that everybody ought to own their own home. That's simply not going to happen, and not just for economic reasons. Historically, owning an urban home is the exception, and it's a product of the 1950s and Progressive propaganda. Problem is that most people in low or middle-income jobs, which are the majority of jobs out there in all times, simply cannot afford to own their own home and they must, perforce, be renters. And renting has its advantages, particularly when the labor markets physically shift from place to place. Owning a home means you're tied to that specific community basically for your whole life, whereas a renter can pick up and move to where the jobs are at need.

It's far better for society for its people to be more, rather than less mobile because it allows business and industry to locate where the products or services are needed or available and easily attract a workforce that isn't tied down by mortgage payments.

We need farming to supply 2000-2500 calories today with maybe a small reserve of basic foods only, anything else we can import from countries they actually have a land resource

That'll NEVER happen in the UK, not without a massive die-off, and I'm talking millions and millions of people starving to death. That's why corporate large-scale farming in the US is eliminating the family farm. The economies of scale dictate that land be monoculture farmed with great efficiency, because if we don't, people around the world begin to starve very quickly.

The UK long ago exceeded its agricultural carrying capacity and its population is now utterly dependent on foreign imports merely to survive.

Your ideal is a nonsense utopian one that can only be achieved through epic-scale famine and death.

[Cunt]

So, Seth...are you interested in going partners on some hundred-dollar houses in Detroit?

[MrJonno]

The housing market in the UK is very different to that of the US.

For a start in most cases renting is more expensive than a mortgage , you need a deposit and a mortgage so anyone without rich parents is going to have to rent. As they can't afford the private sector rent they are going have to get housing benefit of the government which then goes to the private sector landlord (which is neither capitalism or socialism just shit).

Public sector housing has been rapidly disappearing under succesive right wing governments here so thats not an option. No what you basically have people who own houses preventing people who don't from buidling them thats basically a cartel. Its quite interesting that you say your state has moved into public housing which is a bit left wing these days for the UK

You're not going to get a Detriot in the UK as thats just a luxury of a country with unlimited land,

There is no right in the UK to buy a house but there is a legal obligation for government to ensure everyone is housed . We have people falling through the net who are classed as intentionally homeless which is unfortunate but we do our best




As for farming the UK is easily self sufficient in food we have stock piles of food that doesnt get eaten and farmers paid large amounts of money not to grow anything (as in the US). Even in the WW2 while under seige there was never even approaching a shortage of food (it can be argued that the diet was so good in the 1940's that more lives were saved from people not dropping dead of heart attacks & cancer than were killed in combat). You may have heard the concept of rationing I know its a bit socialist when a country is under seige to make sure no one starves but hey there you go

[Seth]

So, Seth...are you interested in going partners on some hundred-dollar houses in Detroit?

You can't get me within 10 miles of Detroit without an up-armored Hummer and a couple of machine guns, so no thanks.

Besides, a hundred bucks is still overpriced in Detroit. They would need to pay ME about $50,000 per just to take it off their hands.