Realistbear Posted December 29, 2005 Share Posted December 29, 2005 http://uk.news.yahoo.com/29122005/140/kenn...overty-gap.html "He added that tens of thousands of people are living in overcrowded housing and there are now half a million fewer social homes than when Labour came to power. He said: "The Prime Minister has made it a speciality to trot out statistics about how life in this country is improving." But you have to hand it to Gordon and his SIPP U-turn. A nice way to unload thousands of would-be BTLs onto the market at knock down prices! Maybe its time to merge the Purple Shirt brigade with the Nu Tories? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2005 Posted December 29, 2005 Share Posted December 29, 2005 http://uk.news.yahoo.com/29122005/140/kenn...overty-gap.html "He added that tens of thousands of people are living in overcrowded housing and there are now half a million fewer social homes than when Labour came to power. He said: "The Prime Minister has made it a speciality to trot out statistics about how life in this country is improving." But you have to hand it to Gordon and his SIPP U-turn. A nice way to unload thousands of would-be BTLs onto the market at knock down prices! Maybe its time to merge the Purple Shirt brigade with the Nu Tories? Good on Charles Kennedy - it's about time these issues were put firmly on the poltical agenda. New Labour have had the biggest party ever over the last few years - trouble is they forgot to invite any one who didn't already own a home when they came to power. I hope they have the biggest hangover ever. It is about time all those who didn't get an invite, and stayed sobre during the economic merry making have their turn - bring on the crash. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Viterbi Posted December 29, 2005 Share Posted December 29, 2005 It's all empty words from a career politician. The crux of the issue is what is Kennedy and his Glib-Dems going to do about the problem? Considering the Lib-Dems have always been a party firmly committed to a laissez faire free market economy, then it doesn't take a genius to realise that the Lib-Dem's solution is to sit back and do nothing in the hope that things will automatically correct themselves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadJock Posted December 29, 2005 Share Posted December 29, 2005 It's all empty words from a career politician. The crux of the issue is what is Kennedy and his Glib-Dems going to do about the problem? Considering the Lib-Dems have always been a party firmly committed to a laissez faire free market economy, then it doesn't take a genius to realise that the Lib-Dem's solution is to sit back and do nothing in the hope that things will automatically correct themselves. Sitting back and doing nothing, then things will correct themselves. Prices will return (and possibly overshoot) the long term trends. It's governmental and institutional manipulation of the system that exacerbates and lengthens this artificial boom. The government desire to keep consumer spending high through MEW'd cash, financial insitutions who are, in the short term, making money from selling loans to people that would never have qualified under standards imposed 10 years ago, construction companies paying money to politicians to keep the new build boom going - all these things are 'distorting' the market. Imposition of strict lending standards, prosecution of fraud and price manipulation, a less complicit media etc would have eliminated the last year of excess of the bubble and made the return to the norm 'soft' as opposed to the hard landing we're going to have. I don't believe anything GB did would have avoided the bubble entirely, since this is a global liquidity bubble and despite being the 4th or 5th largest economy, Britain can't buck the global trend completely. What he did do, though, was to play along and this has made things worse than they could have been. It's VIs that are doing what they can to prevent things correcting themselves. If the Lib-Dems simply 'did nothing' and let market forces do their thing, that would be a vast improvement over the situation today (not that the press would report it as such). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stillill Posted December 30, 2005 Share Posted December 30, 2005 construction companies paying money to politicians to keep the new build boom going - all these things are 'distorting' the market. Hi MadJock, what's this about? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadJock Posted December 30, 2005 Share Posted December 30, 2005 Hi MadJock, what's this about? As with all political systems, companies 'donate' to UK politicians and parties, and of course expect nothing in return. Except lucrative PFI contracts, govt building contracts, planning permission etc - all of which use public generated debt (usually pushed off to future generations) to push money into private hands and thus excacerbate a bubble. Speaking to friends of mine in politics in Europe, Britain is notorious for construction/housing/concrete/tarmac companies having strong influence on the UK govt. Private Eye typically has some story every other issue on this. I'll see if I can dig up some stories online on this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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