alexw

I just lurk nowadays but just to let you know. Corbyn called out the gov on the property bubble in his maiden conference speech - "Britain’s balance of payment deficit £100 billion last year. Loading our economy and every one of us with unsustainable debt for the future. And the shocks in world markets this summer have shown what a dangerous and fragile state the world economy is in. And how ill prepared the Tories have left us to face another crisis. It hasn’t been growing exports and a stronger manufacturing sector that have underpinned the feeble economic recovery. It’s house price inflation, asset inflation, more private debt. Unbalanced. Unsustainable. Dangerous. The real risk to economic and family security. To people who have had to stretch to take on mortgages. To people who have only kept their families afloat through relying on their credit cards, and payday loans. Fearful of how they will cope with a rise in interest rates. It’s not acceptable."

Oh boy. You really don't understand economics do you? I've read a lot of your posts recently on this thread, and it seems you are posting only based on ideology not on any fundamental understanding. What do you think happens to gov spending as a proportion of GDP if you destroy 25% of the real economy? That's right it goes up. If the private sector substantially shrinks as it has in greece then the relative size of the government sector must by consequence go up. Moreover all those people made unemployed by austerity economics are now not producing anything to earn an income, and need governmental support to survive. Given that unemployment is 25% government expenditure on these individuals will collectively be substantial. Thus is you look back to 2008 you will find that gov spending as a proportion of GDP was ~50% and about 8% lower than now. So the irony is that everything you propose for greece is doing the exact opposite of what you want as an end result. Austerity economics is and has been an absolute failure. It will never ever work. Not here. Not greece. Nowhere. Bleeding the patient some more because the current level of blood loss hasn't caused the patient to revive is an absurd economic doctrine, based on ideology not on what will work. Though given your ideological fanaticism I doubt you will ever be able to admit that.

??? The green party want to build a LOT of new homes. £50Bn a year on bringing old housing up to standard and new housing - http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/28/green-infrastructure-initiative-for-jobs If half of that goes on new homes and each house costs ~£100K to build then we are talking about an additional 250K houses per year.

You are missing the point. The reason they come here is because of the differential between the UK and elsewhere in terms of income, living standards, etc. If their living standards rise so they are more similar to ours then they simply won't come over. At least not in appreciable numbers. So at that point we won't need immigration controls.

There was a poll done recently by lord ashcroft which asked "If candidates from the following parties were standing in your constituency and had a chance of winning, how likely would you be to vote for them?" The greens came third after lab/con. They came above UKIP. https://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/11/20/greens-would-soar-if-voters-thought-they-could-win/ If people start voting for them they will steamroller. My own vote will be for the greens. I am pretty anti-immigration but nimbyism is a way greater problem in regards to housing (2/3 of housing demand comes from internal changes), and UKIP are nimbyism on steroids. Many of their other policies chime well with me too, such as LVT, full reserve banking, and 5 year tenancies. I also hear they are about the most democratic party out there which I like. Their policies are all voted through by their general membership.

+1000. Not many understand that. That QE is (or should be) only a means to paper over the cracks and keep the system together while the imbalances are tackled. The problem is even the politicians that want QE are acting like QE is the solution. It's not and never will be.

Spot on. If every boomer (or the majority) was open to building more housing, caring about the young's futures, and willing to make some modest sacrifice, etc, then the young would not have an issue with boomers. But the truth is the exact opposite. This anecdote from another thread sums it up. "....... I stood up and mentioned that as someone local with a young family, the housing would be very helpful to those of us yet to have our own property within the local area... I kid you not, they all turned round and looked at me like scum with a look of total disdain."

Yeah except the boomers never gave a toss about the younger demographics. Tell me the last time you saw a boomer led campaign group going out and campaigning for housing to be built, instead of protecting their dog ******** grounds? Oh and when the boomers were in their late 20's and getting the housing built for themselves doens't count.

+1 Exactly the same where i live. I had an extremely bad case of the stomach cramps last year spewing my guts up, so I went to see the doctor. The waiting room was full and 80% or so were pensioners. The rest were parents with children except for me and maybe one other. I was also visiting an elderly relative in hospital a few months ago. Every single bed I could see was filled with a pensioner. I don't know where greg gets the idea from that it's younger folk needing the healthcare. It's plain nonsense. I suspect he's trying to divert "blame".

By implementing some type of tariff system against those nations with whom we are running large persistent long-term trade deficits. This is completely allowable under WTO rules. Thus we are able to force rebalancing without a crushing self-defeating depression, such as the piigs are forced to endure, as a means to rebalance their trade deficits. Of course this goes against everything the neo-liberal project stands for, which is why no mainstream party will countenance it. But on the plus side it would mightly piss off the merchantalist germans, and wreck the economic model the Germans have based their economy on. Particularly so if the piigs say enough us enough and follow suit.

The generation before you walked everywhere, had no holidays, and darned their clothes when they started to fall apart. Why didn't you do that? Or were you too "good" to make do like that? Seems like you felt entitled alright - entitled to the goods and services common to that time. Just like young people today should be entitled to the goods and services common to this day and age. That includes consumer goods, cheap holidays, and yes houses. Or are you so arrogant as to believe to these should be only the preserve of boomers like yourself?

Sorry. How stupid of me. We all know paying people more demoralizes the workforce. You must be jumping for joy with regards to how much wages have fall over the past 8 years, just like the rest of us, because we all *know* paying us more makes us unhappy.

Except this is nonsense from everything we know about economics. We also know its true from the example of Germany. Until very recently it had no minimum wage - the result was the largest low paid sector in all of europe. For that very reason Germany has just introduced a minimum wage.

Cobblers. In essence you are saying before the minimum wage employers paid more than they needed to for employees. Since when have employers been charities?

Apparently vice chancellor level.