Greater Fool

They don't play by the same rules as workplace pension schemes with individual cash pots, the LGPS etc. rely on setting a very high employer contribution, without ongoing taxpayer based contributions the outgoings would very quickly exceed income.

That's no cheap trailer.

Indeed, that's why I believe we will end up having a lot more US style trailer parks, there just won't be the quantity of permanent social housing available.

I think you overestimate what local councils will be able to do for people. The migrant crisis doesn't seem to be going anywhere for instance, how can local councils simply create social housing on demand?

That won't happen there is way too much demand for social housing already, they should just allow a lot more American style trailer parks for people to live in semi-permanently out in the sticks rather than building permanent properties. Who would want to live in a 1 bed council flat anyways?

I can remember watching a thing on TV where a private light aircraft pilot spotted a couple living in a cabin in some woods. The rotten sod took it upon himself to report them to the local council and a clipboard wielding official was promptly dispatched to force them into a "proper dwelling". They protested that they didn't want to live in a horrible council flat but they were legally forced out.

Stimmy Cheques?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-26/u-k-banks-prepared-for-negative-rates-in-case-recovery-crumbles They are "close" according to this.

If there was a government funding crisis the BOE would just QE rather than vote a negative rate.

Have the banks got their IT systems ready for a negative rate? If it's anything like Y2K is will take them a few years to make all the necessary changes and with less urgency. Is it even clear how the banks would operate a negative rate, and how to mitigate the panic if banks could simply help themselves to money in accounts. I can remember the law society bricking it because with a negative rate banks could in theory take money out of client deposit accounts when the money wasn't the solicitors' in the first place.

Stories like this featuring the "you go girl" strong independent woman lead the reader on, at the end they often reveal they are buying the place with a good earning "partner" or "boyfriend", so not actually buying it all on their own after all then.

Pretty standard, that's the corporate world for you. In IT companies it's common for there to be more chiefs than Indians, managers of various descriptions who couldn't write a simple "Hello World" program in charge and earning a lot more than the techies. It's a case of "If your face fits". Reminds me of the film Office Space and the "I have people skills" interview.

Of course the money from the employer has already been taxed, all money is taxed multiple times as it flows through the economy that's tax works, eventually it all passes though the government. In this case the employer has had income from it's customers, the customer's income will have have been taxed, also the business has to pay corproration tax. It's simply impossible for there not have not been multiple points of taxation on the same quality of money as it is transferred around.

No of course not, we are talking about large sums of cash here. I was just pointing out that the tax laws are inconsistent in that income from paid employment is taxed heavily, but income from large amounts of gifted cash whether regular or one offs is not treated the same way. Another example is if I am "gifted" a bonus from my paid employment that would be taxed at 40% but from a relative it would be not subject to any tax. I really don't see how the source of the income should determine how it is taxed.

The recipient of the gifted cash isn't paying tax on the unearned income. The source of the income being a relative or paid employment shouldn't matter, it would be taxed the same if tax laws were consistent.

Has the flood of Hong Kongers started yet to bolster demand?

Posh areas aren't representative of the whole country through.

A lot of the damage will be "paid for" with inflation. So there is more public debt, inflation, QE, HPI, tax increases, shortages, more resources diverted to the NHS and away from productive economic activity, NHS holding the country to ransom, the death of city centres, WFH, everything moving online, increasingly sedentary lifestyles, the list is endless.

The demand for schools places is increasing not decreasing, it you want to see who is having the children walk by a school in the morning.

Self inflicting £100s of billions or even trillions worth of economic damage on the economy because the local NHS hospitals wouldn't be able to cope with the potential numbers of unhealthy people and over 70s in the ICU wards will go down as one of the biggest mistakes in history. The after effects of this will continue for years to come. We are looking at 2024 or 2025 before things are back to "normal" if they ever are. Just in time the for the "net zero" agenda madness to kick in, with the price of energy and ICE cars going through the roof as the panic sets in before the 2030 ban on the sale of new fossil fueled vehicles, boilers etc.

What about all the properties long term rented out on an informal basis, no way the landlord is going to registered.

Narrow it down to a few miles radius, it's a simple database query, assuming property ownership details are in a database. Seems to be too difficult for the elites in the HMRC to work out how to do though.

Do panic you mean.

It's not that easy to raise a lot of money just targeting the "rich". First of all there aren't that many really rich people around, secondly where is the dividing line between the masses and the rich, what is being rich, having 1+ million in a cash bank account, 7 BTLs etc. etc? That's why they love increasing taxes on employment income, it's very easy to do.

I don't know what the problem is with Council Tax on high band properties, a few more above inflation % rises and throw in a few more "one off" increases for social care and 1 million+ houses will be paying 5k a year.