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We'll All Need This Kind Of Help Soon


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HOLA441

I'll never understand the utter stupidity of this govt.

http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/53045.html

Home sweet home, thanks to taxpayers

TOM GORDON, Scottish Political Correspondent December 23 2005

An Edinburgh family have become the first people in Scotland to buy their first home with the help of taxpayers' money.

Stuart McKenzie and Carina Stewart, who had been living with their five-year-old son at a relative's house for a year, were able to split the cost of the property with a publicly-funded housing association.

The deal was the first arranged under the Scottish Executive's new Homestake scheme, which is designed to help first-time buyers on low incomes get on to the property ladder.

Mr McKenzie and Ms Stewart organised a mortgage for 62% of the £138,000 purchase price, and the Link Group housing association put up the remainder using a specific executive grant.

The couple, who yesterday showed the house to Malcolm Chisholm, the minister for communities and housing, intend to acquire the other 38% of the property in instalments.

So-called "split-equity" schemes also operate in England. However, Homestake is different in the way it targets first-time buyers on low incomes and, in an initial pilot in the over-heated Lothians, allows them to buy on the open market rather than limiting them to social housing.

To qualify, single people must be earning no more than £19,700 and families no more than £25,100, and must be able to arrange 60% to 80% of the cost of a fixed price property.

When a Homestake property is sold, the different owners split the proceeds according to their equity holding.

Ms Stewart, 28, a pensions administrator who is expecting a second child in the spring, said the scheme had been "a saviour" for them.

She said: "Six months ago we couldn't have believed that by Christmas we would have our own home and have moved in. We were living with my dad in a one-bedroom flat.

"With only me working there was no way we could afford prices in Edinburgh. The market in Edinburgh is ridiculous, especially for ordinary working-class people like us.

"I know a lot of people moving out because they can't afford it. We were thinking about moving to Fife."

The average house price in the capital is now around £190,000, or seven times the average wage.

Mr McKenzie, 33, a carpet fitter to trade, said the mood of their son, Ciaran, had improved markedly since they moved into their two-bedroomed house in Bonnyhaugh last week.

"The one-bedroom place was very cramped," he said. "The wee man was getting very agitated and he could not really play, and we were at each other's throats constantly. But there's been a big change in him since we moved in."

He said that the stability of the new home had also allowed him to see more of his two teenage children from a previous relationship.

Alan Hume, an administrator for the Link Group which arranged the purchase, said 55 other applicants were looking for homes to buy through Homestake in Edinburgh.

He said that, though principally aimed at first-time buyers, the scheme was also open to older people, the disabled, and homeowners whose houses were to be demolished.

Mr Chisholm said: "This scheme has been specifically set up to help people who want to buy their first home but can't get a foot on the property ladder…Within three years, we aim to be helping around 1000 new buyers each year through Homestake alone.

"Homestake is part of our £1.2bn investment... to provide an additional 21,500 affordable homes – nearly 5000 of these are for low-cost home ownership."

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HOLA442
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HOLA443

Schemes like this are not going to work in my opinion. Either they will just tinker at the edges, only apply to a few people, in which case the effect will just be lost in the noise. Or they will take in a lot of people, in which case house prices will just rise further, and then either the scheme will become useless again, or the amount of help given will have to rise, which will mean tax rises, which will mean other people who would have been able to afford houses will not be able to. All these schemes can do is redistribute so that in the end you have families working doing real jobs making real money and having to pay punitive tax but unable to afford to buy a house, and others doing make-work public sector jobs and receiving this help and buying houses. Such a situation can never persist, because once people see it happening on any scale, they will simply vote for a different government which does not allow such redistribution.

In my opinion, these schemes are nothing other than old fashioned socialist wealth envy, targetted against real wealth producers, and benefiting those who are unable to generate wealth. Whatever one believes about the rights and wrongs of such socialist ideas, they have very very rarely survived for long in any country on earth, and quite frankly they won't survive for long in the UK. If the Labour government rolls them in in a big way, they will be leaving office very soon, and the whole thing will be scrapped. A more likely scenario IMHO is that they will actually apply to very few people, and so will make no real impact, while at the same time gaining a few more votes for the government by appearing to be helping the poor.

Either way, they won't have much prolonged impact.

Edited by Levy process
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HOLA444
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HOLA445

A friend of mine is a nurse and she was one of the first people to buy on a shared ownership scheme. Fine in principle but the paperwork and beaurocracy was a nightmare! She almost pulled out. Sure all government schemes now and in the future will be similar.

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HOLA446
Why on earth are they expecting a 2nd child when they don't have room for the first one in their shared one bedroomed flat ?

Irresponsible people.

how dare they live ???

more like irresponsible government not providing social housing despite being 50% general taxation.

Edited by right_freds_dead
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HOLA447
Schemes like this are not going to work in my opinion.

Agreed (if by "work" you mean propping up the groaning housing market).

families working doing real jobs making real money and having to pay punitive tax but unable to afford to buy a house, and others doing make-work public sector jobs and receiving this help and buying houses.

This is where your post falls down. The ingrained prejudice on this forum that puts private sector jobs on a pedestal and smears ALL public sector jobs with the same blackened brush is perverse in my opinion. Which adds more value to the economy, an NHS doctor who invents a new operation to cure blindess or a private sector street cleaner? Of course, the doctor. People who were disabled and unable to contribute to the economy are enabled, allowing more growth etc. Similarly workers cannot work if they are sick/diseased, public sector doctors remedy this. Sure, there are SOME non-jobs in the public sector, but writing them all off is woefully misguided.

In my opinion, these schemes are nothing other than old fashioned socialist wealth envy

Rubbish. The government has two options when faced with the situation of exorbitant housing costs making it hard to recruit staff for key public services:

1) Build new housing (which is the better option) or subsidise (which is the worst option) housing for public services staff,

2) Import thousands of immigrants who will not protest at housing conditions as they are much worse in their country of origin

Either way people like you will complain.

A more likely scenario IMHO is that they will actually apply to very few people, and so will make no real impact, while at the same time gaining a few more votes for the government by appearing to be helping the poor.

Either way, they won't have much prolonged impact.

Agreed. Though they may take a few people out of the renting pool, thus decreasing private sector rental demand.

Edited by IPOD
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HOLA448

1) Build new housing (which is the better option) or subsidise (which is the worst option) housing for public services staff,

2) Import thousands of immigrants who will not protest at housing conditions as they are much worse in their country of origin

3) Provide some social housing that can be rented cheaply but provides security.

You should not be forcing people to buy because of insecurity or need (regardless of the fact that house prices are also at the peak of the cycle at the moment).

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HOLA449
You should not be forcing people to buy because of insecurity or need (regardless of the fact that house prices are also at the peak of the cycle at the moment).

what ? you mean not building any new council homes in 20 years AND making the HAs fight and bid for the same scrap brownfield land as the mainline developers isnt a good idea ?

perhaps we'd better vote in a labour government to sort it out.

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HOLA4410

Agreed (if by "work" you mean propping up the groaning housing market).

This is where your post falls down. The ingrained prejudice on this forum that puts private sector jobs on a pedestal and smears ALL public sector jobs with the same blackened brush is perverse in my opinion. Which adds more value to the economy, an NHS doctor who invents a new operation to cure blindess or a private sector street cleaner? Of course, the doctor. People who were disabled and unable to contribute to the economy are enabled, allowing more growth etc. Similarly workers cannot work if they are sick/diseased, public sector doctors remedy this. Sure, there are SOME non-jobs in the public sector, but writing them all off is woefully misguided.

Yes, but as you point out, not every public sector worker is a doctor - or a nurse, fireman, policeman, bin man etc.

This government has created a new army of public servants whose job descriptions beggar belief - and you know it. Reading the Guardian's public sector jobs section over the last two years makes me see red every time.

Don't try and turn the argument round so that everyone on here is against the recruitment of useful public sector workers. People are against the employment of people at our expense to 'monitor social inclusion policies' and all the other target setters and monitors of polictically correct nonsense.

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HOLA4411

Can anyone explain what kind of property constitutes a fixed price property?

"To qualify, single people must be earning no more than £19,700 and families no more than £25,100, and must be able to arrange 60% to 80% of the cost of a fixed price property."

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HOLA4412

"This is where your post falls down. The ingrained prejudice on this forum that puts private sector jobs on a pedestal and smears ALL public sector jobs with the same blackened brush is perverse in my opinion. Which adds more value to the economy, an NHS doctor who invents a new operation to cure blindess or a private sector street cleaner? Of course, the doctor. People who were disabled and unable to contribute to the economy are enabled, allowing more growth etc. Similarly workers cannot work if they are sick/diseased, public sector doctors remedy this. Sure, there are SOME non-jobs in the public sector, but writing them all off is woefully misguided."

Off topic but...

An NHS doctor is far more likely to invent a new operation during his "private practice" work.

Think the massive growth in the number of public sector workers and the enormous burden it places on the private sector to pay their pensions and benefits from taxation is a very real and valid complaint.

It is a little disingenuous to compare a private sector street cleaner with an NHS doctor. Why not compare a doctor in private practice - removing patients who would otherwise clog up an overstretched system/paying his tax/making his own pension provision etc - for a more accurate picture?

The Fox.

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HOLA4413

This is where your post falls down. The ingrained prejudice on this forum that puts private sector jobs on a pedestal and smears ALL public sector jobs with the same blackened brush is perverse in my opinion. Which adds more value to the economy, an NHS doctor who invents a new operation to cure blindess or a private sector street cleaner? Of course, the doctor. People who were disabled and unable to contribute to the economy are enabled, allowing more growth etc. Similarly workers cannot work if they are sick/diseased, public sector doctors remedy this. Sure, there are SOME non-jobs in the public sector, but writing them all off is woefully misguided.

This is where your post falls down too. I didn't imply that all public sector jobs are make-work. I just mentioned the transfer of wealth between private sector workers who generate tax wealth to those who do not. Of course some public sector jobs create wealth. That's why I would support the ending of the public sector, because a lot of valuable jobs done within it would receive better pay (e.g. doctors, teachers, other NHS staff etc), while a lot of paper-shuffling would end.

Things that create wealth would receive the best pay in a market driven economy. Things that don't would not. That is how the tax system and public sector pay distorts everything. Doctors and nurses that provide truely valuable services have to put up with poor pay and people thinking that they have a right to their services "free", and some patients getting very rude when they don't think they are gettting their "rights". While at the same time armies of paper pushers are employed to move money back and forth to no real purpose, and to waste some other money on things that nobody would pay for if they had not had the tax effectively stolen out of their wage packet with threat of legal action.

If something is worth a lot, people will pay voluntarily. If not, they won't. It's as simple as that. If they wouldn't pay voluntarily, why should you or anybody else know better, and take their money from them?

Rubbish. The government has two options when faced with the situation of exorbitant housing costs making it hard to recruit staff for key public services:

1) Build new housing (which is the better option) or subsidise (which is the worst option) housing for public services staff,

2) Import thousands of immigrants who will not protest at housing conditions as they are much worse in their country of origin

Either way people like you will complain.

I would absolutely not complain if more housing was built. That is exactly what I want to happen. I would certainly not complain about house building.

Edited by Levy process
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HOLA4414

In my opinion, these schemes are nothing other than old fashioned socialist wealth envy, targetted against real wealth producers, and benefiting those who are unable to generate wealth. Whatever one believes about the rights and wrongs of such socialist ideas, they have very very rarely survived for long in any country on earth, and quite frankly they won't survive for long in the UK. If the Labour government rolls them in in a big way, they will be leaving office very soon, and the whole thing will be scrapped. A more likely scenario IMHO is that they will actually apply to very few people, and so will make no real impact, while at the same time gaining a few more votes for the government by appearing to be helping the poor.

Either way, they won't have much prolonged impact.

I would like a greater emphasis on redistribution, and punish the market if necessary in order to provide the basics of life, food, heating, water, shelter for everybody. However, I think you're right, you cant target the wealth producing parts of the economy in order to engineer or shape the market to provide these basics. It cant be done in a sustainable model. Social housing must be operated from within the public sector, and if that means govt involvement in house building, so be it.

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HOLA4415

I would like a greater emphasis on redistribution, and punish the market if necessary in order to provide the basics of life, food, heating, water, shelter for everybody. However, I think you're right, you cant target the wealth producing parts of the economy in order to engineer or shape the market to provide these basics. It cant be done in a sustainable model. Social housing must be operated from within the public sector, and if that means govt involvement in house building, so be it.

Well, if you want to punish the market, you'll have to find a way of doing it by not punishing the private sector much, otherwise get ready for massive drops in revenue and standard of living as the private sector packs it in.

I would agree that a certain amount of social housing has to be provided by the government. But it has to be provided by BUILDING MORE, not by mucking around with what is already there.

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HOLA4416

Well, if you want to punish the market, you'll have to find a way of doing it by not punishing the private sector much, otherwise get ready for massive drops in revenue and standard of living as the private sector packs it in.

I would agree that a certain amount of social housing has to be provided by the government. But it has to be provided by BUILDING MORE, not by mucking around with what is already there.

Houseprices will run up, because this is an investor driven market, who can see the effects of the extra capital injection of such schemes, neutralising a lot of the benefit by the time many people buy.

Investors are first in the queue, ordinary people behind.

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HOLA4417

"This is where your post falls down. The ingrained prejudice on this forum that puts private sector jobs on a pedestal and smears ALL public sector jobs with the same blackened brush is perverse in my opinion. Which adds more value to the economy, an NHS doctor who invents a new operation to cure blindess or a private sector street cleaner? Of course, the doctor. People who were disabled and unable to contribute to the economy are enabled, allowing more growth etc. Similarly workers cannot work if they are sick/diseased, public sector doctors remedy this. Sure, there are SOME non-jobs in the public sector, but writing them all off is woefully misguided."

This really scares me about peoples' views of the relative merits of jobs. As a rule, the jobs which are low paid and low esteem are move essential to the health of the population than highly paid high esteem jobs. When sewerage systems were built cholora was erradicated, but ever since sewerage workers have had to go down into tunnels full of poo to maintain them. Anybody seen pictures from the winter of discontent when the rubbish was piled high in the streets because the bin men went on strike. It was party time for rats, and rats spread disease.

The people who provide sanitation, and that includes street cleaners, do more for the health of the nation than all the medical staff. For the majority of people, they rarely see a doctor from one year to the next. Without the mess you create being cleared for you, the chances are you would be dead before you reach the age of 10.

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HOLA4418

Houseprices will run up, because this is an investor driven market, who can see the effects of the extra capital injection of such schemes, neutralising a lot of the benefit by the time many people buy.

Investors are first in the queue, ordinary people behind.

Could be good for people with a first house maybe, because these schemes will inject money in at the bottom of the market. So in percentage terms, the boost will be best for those with FTB homes. The person owning a first home will see a rise in value, which will feed through to the second time homes, but not as a percentage of the second house price, instead as a percentage of the first. The same amount will be passed up the chain, but by the time it reaches the top end of the market, in precentage terms it will be trivial. So perhaps the new winners will be those with a first time buyer house, who will simply have the value of their house rise by exactly the amount the second house has gone up (ie see no net change in their circumstances). The losers will be private sector workers generating the tax revenue for the scheme, but who cannot use the scheme and have no property of their own.

By the way, on a slightly different topic, namely your signature piece about the Romans and 1000 years of tennant slavery. One of the key differences between then and now is that now in this country at least, we have elections in which all adults can participate. I think that is the key difference, and the one which makes your implied analogy - forgive me - simply rubbish.

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HOLA4419
The people who provide sanitation, and that includes street cleaners, do more for the health of the nation than all the medical staff.

Indeed. Very little of the increase in average lifespan over the last century or two is due to doctors treating illness: the vast majority is due to avoiding that illness in the first place. Probably the greatest benefit of hospital care for average lifespan is that few women die while having kids these days, which is probably the main reason why their lifespan has increased so much.

Doctors are vastly over-rated, IMHO. Like William Burroughs, I tend to feel that you're more likely to remain healthy by avoiding doctors than by handing your life over to them.

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HOLA4420
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HOLA4421

Well, if you want to punish the market, you'll have to find a way of doing it by not punishing the private sector much, otherwise get ready for massive drops in revenue and standard of living as the private sector packs it in.

I would agree that a certain amount of social housing has to be provided by the government. But it has to be provided by BUILDING MORE, not by mucking around with what is already there.

BTL should be punished until it is unviable, if it does not provide housing in line with the ethos of proper housing for all. I dont think we need more housing, there is no shortage of housing in the UK, just a shortage of affordable housing,

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HOLA4422

fixed price property is relevant to Scotland where many properties are sold with "offers over" (although contrary to what Phil and Kirstie say, 20% over the asking price isn't the norm - well it wasn't until idiots like them started quoting it to English buyers heading north!).

So you can only get help if the property price is fixed - you can't make a (legally binding) offer above that price and then go back to the Executive to fund the part-purchase.

To me these schemes say this. Can't afford a house? Don't worry, borrow as much as you possibly can. Still can't buy a house? Don't worry. Another taxpayer will help you out with the difference - maybe even a potential FTBer who themselves can't afford a house.

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HOLA4423

Why on earth are they expecting a 2nd child when they don't have room for the first one in their shared one bedroomed flat ?

Irresponsible people.

I know. Shock Horror. A couple of people having 2 children. Is'nt it illegal, we can get people for the economy from abroad. It seems to me that these people just have children to try and escape the work place, they are a liabillity for the rest of us and it should be stopped.

They should save up for thier children instead of expecting us to pick up the tab.

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HOLA4424

Doctors are vastly over-rated, IMHO. Like William Burroughs, I tend to feel that you're more likely to remain healthy by avoiding doctors than by handing your life over to them.

There speaks a man who has never been ill.

Believe me, when you do need life saving treatment, and those who administer it, you'll bite your ungrateful tongue.

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HOLA4425

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