Sour Mash

Not really being received too well by anyone with a clue - nicely broken down here (along with info on a massive scam in the US revolving around issuing bonds based on income from property taxes).

Rubbish - they're not making any more land you know! You can't go wrong with bricks and mortar! So, regular plebs can forget about affordability with the big investors hoovering up any decent stock and extracting every last penny that they can from it. You will own nothing and be happy.

.. what do you expect from 'Britain's Portland' 😆

For anyone who thinks they can vote their way out of this mess, a good summary of the mechanics of 'government' in the UK:

Judging by the responses you've given in this thread, you're being deliberately obtuse.

No one is saying that rural areas don't attract welfare spending. The issue I brought up is that total spending is higher in urban areas due to higher population density, higher housing costs, pockets of concentrated deprivation and social care needs. Bringing rural areas into the grasp of the city councils is a handy way to get more tax money without a commensurate increase in spending. ie. It's net positive for their finances, at the expense of rural taxpayers having to pay more. Given that the overall numbers massively favour those living in the city, the people living in the rural areas get very little say. I also pointed out that authoritarians like to make zones of governmental control as large/encompass as many people as they possibly can - what you consider to be large is not relevant to the argument. Clearly, pulling in outlying areas fits with the concept of bringing more people under the same bureaucracy and diluting their voting power.

Ironically, zero interviews would have been better - same result but no need to prepare for them and put yourself through the interrogation. I know in some professions in the US (especially tech) it's not unknown now to go through multiple interviews with practical problem solving exercises and even take-home assignments (many suspect that they are being used to do work for free). Then to be binned off after the third interview on some specious excuse. Some horrendous examples out there and things will get worse as the balance swings massively back towards capital from labour. Despite a wealth of experience and arguably better work ethics (on average), the main prejudice against older people will be salary expectations and also expectations of overall working conditions. ie. If you can find younger people that actually want to work, they will put up with a lot more crap for a lot less money.

C'mon now, you can't have private citizens holding large amounts of asset wealth that ought to be properly managed by the big guys or owned by the very rich. My prediction is that they'll eventually make privately owning your own house outright more and more difficult too - higher rates, maybe even property taxes (though that might make the masses wake up). Lots of regulations (to save the climate, no doubt) that will have to be implemented at a high cost to the owner. Not to worry though - a nice big international investment organisation will be along with an offer to buy your house (cheap) and rent it back to you at a price which should enable them to recoup the purchase price they paid, before you die.

This is the big brain solution. Enjoyers of the perma-benefits lifestyle (and economic migrants) are often decried as thick but they are just correctly playing a stupid system designed to bleed productive people dry.

With that level of crazy rent, capital formation is going to be a very tough proposition for the typical person. Full speed ahead to the globalist utopia - you will own nothing and (supposedly) be happy. My arse.

Sounds like a power and cash grab, to make more people from outside cities subsidise things like crazy levels of spending on welfare which will typically be concentrated in urban areas. Authoritarians always love to centralise power as much as possible into central government, or failing that at least move it from smaller entities into large conglomerated blocks where a small number of technocrats and bureaucrats can control as many resources as possible.

Talking to his Globalist masters in the City of London, most likely. There's a war to keep stirring and a flood of immigrants to keep moving, you know.

This isn't a situation you can vote your way out of. It's going to ultimately get EXTREMELY nasty on the streets, all around Europe. Something which those driving the steady destruction of values, society, community, family and the nation state probably think they are prepared for and can handle smoothly (I have my doubts, they are idiots). Best thing the average pleb can hope to do is be prepared for civil unrest and societal level disruption and longer term try to preserve your wealth. Millions of unprepared people with a couple of days food in the house and completely dependent on the grid being up are going to be absolutely f-ed and out looking for resources for themselves, making the situation even more dangerous and chaotic. That's probably why the authorities are trying to shepherd us towards war - dodges dealing with the consequences of a collapsing system and gets lots of the people who might be inclined to turn against them, off on a battlefield somewhere giving their lives to protect that failed system.

Its irrelevant - Reform are just a refurbished version of the washed-up Tories, 100% willing to play their role in the system to replace the burning trainwreck that is the old Conservative Party. Farage the Mirage wants to be PM and he'll do what he's told in order to be allowed to hold office. The public will initially be elated that they got rid of the bad old parties for something new but after a few years will become disenchanted as the same crap keeps happening over and over again, because nothing really changed. By then, there will be a '100% new and improved' Labour party to vote for (or maybe a replacement for them too).

People are very complacent when things are going well - why speak out and risk losing your cushy job or place in the system? Or even, why think for yourself in the first place .. everything is just peachy, no need to know how the sausage is made. But now things are increasingly going off the rails in all aspects of society/life and we are seeing visible declines in living standards and quality of life, people are a lot more inclined to ask questions about exactly WTF is going on. Despite heavy censorship, the Internet is still reasonably open enough for any who are prepared to do a little digging, to find the answers. Once the economy really goes to hell and unemployment soars, you'll see a lot of people with 'nothing to lose' who are really likely to go to town. Of course, even then maybe about 1/3 of the people will just never get it and are 100% prepared to abrogate responsibility for their own lives to The Powers That Be and believe any narrative that they are fed by 'authoritative' sources.