bartelbe

The assumption that many make is that runaway house price inflation in the UK is the norm, they expect prices to go up 5-10% a year like clockwork forever, whatever the fundamentals. Whereas in reality, the price of houses can go down, just like any other market.

I think naive people like yourself I have no idea how much damage people faking and taking the piss are doing to the benefit system. I use to be like you, thinking it was all a Daily Mail myth. Then I ended up unemployed and working a series of crap jobs and talked to people about this. The people they were complaining about were their neighbours, people in their local and sometimes their own family. Sure the likes of the Daily Mail amplify the problem for their own ends but they couldn't do it unless it was actually happening. Hell I know a family in which fibromyalgia has spread like wildfire. Generation after generation have it. They must be extremely unlucky and it is cynical of me to suspect that benefits have anything to do with it.

Ah yes, Long Covid, the disease which people who have never had Covid have managed to catch. Nothing to do with benefits I am sure.

It is called a dead cat bounce, it is not unusual when a market crashes. Prices go down, people who think the bubble can't fail think there is suddenly a bargain and prices rally. Until market fundamentals reassert themselves and the bubble continues to go bang. The housing bubble was sustained by low interest rates and QE money looking for a home. Yet somehow people here think that you can take that away and the bubble will continue to inflate.

I mean the problem with that response, is last time I was asked for evidence that there was any benefit fraud at all. Apparently, I was told, it was incredibly rare. Yet now we have found that there 6.5bn pounds worth. So maybe I am being cynical in suspecting that the rise in very easy to fake conditions might have something to do with people trying to claim benefits illegally. Still perhaps you're right, everybody is honest, there are no cheats and we can all celebrate how wonderful and trustworthy humanity is by going out to watch the flyby by the RAFs squadron of flying pigs. Then I will hear you tell me that bankers aren't overpaid f**kwits that sell products they don't understand and politicians really deserve their expenses. I am massive cynic but in my defence I hold everyone in equal contempt.

Yeah but that kind of thing doesn't fit with a WFH civil service. Whereas checking things online does.

The problem is, those who have benefited from house price inflation think it is free money, with no costs to anyone else. In reality it is anything but. Those inflation gains have priced an entire generation out of the housing market or burdened them with crippling debts. Maintaining the bubble isn't an option which is pain free, it just hits a different group of people.

Shockingly many of these conditions are ones don't show symptoms you can check with scans or tests. It is almost as if people are looking for conditions which are easy to fake.

I saw this story as well, I wonder what all those who attacked me for bringing up benefit fraud here before are going to say? Apparently, according to them. benefit fraud was a myth, yet it is now estimated that 6.5bn pounds was paid out fraudulently in 2021-22. Got to love peoples ingenuity though. Living aboard and need to pretend you're not? Just grab Photoshop and mock up an image.

That isn't just property owners, look at the bankers and the rich. Before the 2008 crashed they justified tax evasion by saying they took massive risks, therefore deserved their reward. They were wealth creators. When it turned out they were wealth destroyers, they demanded and got a massive taxpayer funded bailout. Funded from the very pot they refused to pay into. Property owners fought tooth and nail against their gains being taxed during the bubble years, they shouldn't get to draw out of the taxpayer pot they refused to pay into now.

Keeping a few statues, not taking the knee and keeping some old street names seems like a small price to pay to win an election.

The level of entitlement here is staggering. As other have said, none of these home owners were volunteering to hand over their unearnt profits from house price increases to the government. So why are they outrage that they don't get a bailout for their losses? As for complaints that the banks shouldn't have given them these loans they can no longer afford. Can you imagine how much they would have whined if the banks had refused, at the height of Sunaks bubble, to lend them the money?

The problem isn't voting in person, electoral fraud is coming via postal votes. So if the Tories really cared about fraud they would either ban postal votes or tightened the rules around them. They haven't because the new rules are about vote rigging. Older Tory voters are more likely to use postal votes, so they won't be touched.

Ah yes, the old cash buyers get out. Explain how house prices are even going to be sustained under you cash buyers only system? Remember for houses to retain their value they have to go up at the rate of inflation, which is 10% at the moment. You seriously think that can happen when no-one can get mortgages to pay bubble prices anymore? Where is the new money to keep house price inflation coming from, if there are no cheap mortgages? How will chains work, if anyone who needs a mortgage won't be able to borrow enough to afford current prices, let alone increases?

I agree with that, Liz, Cheese Disgrace, Truss showed that the markets aren't going to tolerate Britain going it alone with some multi-billion pound scheme. I am sure the government would love to bail out home owners to win the next election but I doubt the markets would allow them to borrowed the 10's of billions they would need to do it.

That is not how markets work, Estate Agents and vendors don't get to set prices. In fact in the housing market neither do buyers. The price is effectively set by lenders and what they are willing to lend. The truth, which many even here are in denial about. Is when base rate are at 3.5% and inflation is outrunning average wage settlements, the amounts lenders are willing to lend is going down. You can ask what you like for house, if your potential buyer can't get a mortgage to pay that amount, you're wasting you time.

I suppose you could argue that the Tories are using voter ID to gerrymander the election to favour older home owners, over younger renters. For example, 60+ oyster card can be used as ID to vote but not 18+ student oyster card. Is this because the Torie are corrupt and election rigging scum? You decide.

It is not a false dichotomy, it is a choice you have to make in the real world. Higher population means more pressure on the environment. Now you might think that is a fair trade off to have a more open immigration policy but to imply that such a policy would have no impact on the environment is absurd.

Oh dear, you really don't do yourself any favours do you? A non-sense argument followed by a childish insult. For a start the definition of racism has nothing to do with police shootings in America. Oh and for your information, the US police shot 374 white people in 2022. Where any of them old and have red faces? Your delightful description of elderly white people? Who knows. Your argument gets even more absurd when applied to the UK, where the number of people killed by police shootings in 2022 was 3. You see you have to work really hard to be shot by the UK police, they don't carry guns. Alas this is what happens when ill informed people import the American culture war to a completely different country. One of the more ridiculous sights was Black Lives Matters protestors shouting don't shoot at British police officers, none of whom had a gun.

You can have wildlife or you can have population growth, you can't have both at the same time. More room for wildlife means less intensive farming or less land used for farming. You can't do that when you are adding millions to the population every decade.

They are hoping to do what they did after 2008 and start the bubbles going again. Bailey and the Bank of England are desperate to avoid rate increases. The problem for them, is the credit card is maxed out, the bubble economy is finished.

Sums up my frustration, I don't want closed borders because that would be absurd. What I want is an immigration policy of some kind, not a free for all. MSI and those of similar views never give any details, they dodge questions. Even if MSI wants open borders, he still needs to tell us how many immigrants he expects. Local councils plan their services based on demographic projections, so they would need to know the impact of MSI preferred immigration policy. Keeping such details secret is not an option. What is even more absurd about MSI, is he/her is using a racist and ageist slur, while claiming that those those that oppose his/her position are racist.

Keeping trying to convince yourself of that racist.

Oh so you're OK with racial slurs as long as they are targeted at older black and asian people? Thought not, so what is the difference when they are targeted at white people?

People used to try and rationalise racist slurs of the past in the same way. The blunt truth, which you and MSI don't want to face, is your bigotry is seen as acceptable, so you get away with it. That doesn't mean it isn't bigotry.