Electricity: non political/political

[Pure]

flags, fife and drums, etc.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

And when you're down and out, it doesn't take much to bereft you of the rational will to climb out of it. Anything from textbook mental illness, to drug and alcohol abuse, to clinical depression, to social anxiety, can keep people from seeking out the aid they could in theory get.

Liar, I think that is all true, but there's one more thing: Ya gotta wanna do it. All the aid and goodwill in the world won't help someone who refuses it. I don't mean to be simplistic about that, either - I understand it can get very complicated, and that's even without getting into the root causes and all that. But, the fact remains, you just can't escape it. It may be unfair that the responsibility ultimately is on the individual, but it's true nonetheless.

In some cases, unless as a society we decide we're going to use coercion, individuals will refuse the aid and will live on the street.

Question: How much sleep am I supposed to lose over that? Bad things happen all over the world, every day . . .

 

[kendo1]

Ami, your post 123 was priceless.

Thanks.

 

[ishtat]

.

I was born a bastard and will always be a bastard.

amicus...

I just knew that if I lived long enough you would say something I could agree with

Bastard of course in the Australian sense

 

[Pure]

An item relevant to the thread topic.

P: Today's paper announced that the Province of Ontario would extend the life of its several coal-powered electricity generating plants from 2007 [current target date] to 2114.

There are several nuclear plants. But some need major repair and updating. And of course the question of building new ones has arisen. But I think the extension above shows that Ontarians are ambivalent about nuclear power, and that, as the debate continues and no new plants are built, alternatives have to be found. One issue is safety, and the other is disposal of waste generated.

Contrary to Roxanne, this is a problem that is yet to be solved. Here are a couple papers in the ongoing debate

-----
http://www.aip.org/fyi/2005/118.html
Hearings Demonstrate Little Enthusiasm for Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing

----
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_securi...lutonium-from-nuclear-reactor-spent-fuel.html

Nuclear Reprocessing: Dangerous, Dirty, and Expensive--
Why Extracting Plutonium from Spent Nuclear Reactor Fuel Is a Bad Idea
-----

P: Of course burning coal to make electricity releases lots of carbon-containing products into the air, not to say, other particles (soot) and gases (sulphuric acid, iirc). In short, even a 'clean' emission is going to produce 'green house gases.' Further: Obviously coal supplies are limited, or at least those of good quality coal; and low quality coal produces even more or worse byproducts. So coal fired generating plants are far from ideal, but safe, reasonable, feasible alternatives have not come to the attention of the Ontario government.

 

[oggbashan]

Employment locations

Locally we have a problem in attracting employers.

1. We are too far from the M25, the London orbital motorway, which is a significant factor in placing employment.
2. We are not a deprived area that attracts grants from the Government and the European Community although we have two such areas next to us. (We do have pockets of deprivation, but overall our area is not deprived.)
3. We are not an area designated for employment/housing growth although we are next to one.

Those three factors make it very difficult to attract new investment so a large proportion of our workforce have to commute significant distances to get work that pays sufficiently to improve the family's income. The cost of commuting is so high that it can be a delicate balance between a low paid local job and a slightly higher paid job at a distance. Unskilled workers have a real problem. The sort of work they can get is insufficient for the available local workforce. The cost of commuting is too much for an unskilled worker to afford.

The only exception is work on maintenance of the London underground. The nearest point for such work is over 50 miles away. Minibuses shuttle employees from our town to London every night for hard physical work in demanding conditions. The pay is good but the worker has to be very fit and willing to work during the late night and early mornings. By age 35, most are beginning to feel that the work is too demanding.

It can be very disheartening to seek work and be unable to find it, yet that is the reality for many of our young men. They don't want to live on handouts from the state yet there isn't work for them except at a distance that they can't afford to travel. They can't move to the work because they can't afford the housing costs closer to London.

If I were still working in London, I would have to earn about 6 or 7,000 pounds, say 12 to 14,000 dollars, MORE than I could be paid locally just to pay the costs of daily travel. There are possibilities of such jobs for skilled and qualified people but not for untrained people.

Location can be a deterrent to finding work even for the motivated.

Og

PS. The Pine Ridge location is far worse in these terms than my location.

 

[SimonBrooke]

House price speculation

Locally we have a problem in attracting employers.

I'm not certain from context whether you mean 'employers' or 'employees'.

1. We are too far from the M25, the London orbital motorway, which is a significant factor in placing employment.
2. We are not a deprived area that attracts grants from the Government and the European Community although we have two such areas next to us. (We do have pockets of deprivation, but overall our area is not deprived.)
3. We are not an area designated for employment/housing growth although we are next to one.

Those three factors make it very difficult to attract new investment so a large proportion of our workforce have to commute significant distances to get work that pays sufficiently to improve the family's income. The cost of commuting is so high that it can be a delicate balance between a low paid local job and a slightly higher paid job at a distance. Unskilled workers have a real problem. The sort of work they can get is insufficient for the available local workforce. The cost of commuting is too much for an unskilled worker to afford.

What proportion of your workforce do office jobs? What proportion of them could telecommute? Employers in the UK make far too little use of telecommuting - many office workers would work equally effectively or even more effectively from home of from a telecommuting centre local to their home where they could rent 'hot desks' by the day. This decouples work from location, and means people don't have to commute into hugely congested cities nearly so often. You may need a face to face team meeting once a fortnight, but do you really need more? In future, will we be able to afford more?

Of course, this doesn't work for people who get their hands dirty. Either we have to pay those people more, or we have to find housing for them where they need it which costs less.

If I were still working in London, I would have to earn about 6 or 7,000 pounds, say 12 to 14,000 dollars, MORE than I could be paid locally just to pay the costs of daily travel. There are possibilities of such jobs for skilled and qualified people but not for untrained people.

Location can be a deterrent to finding work even for the motivated.

This whole issue is about the ridiculously inflated British housing market, which in turn is caused by the fact that politicians have chosen to subsidise house price speculation. People can't live near their jobs, because the cost of housing is so high that their jobs don't pay enough to allow them to buy a house.

This isn't just a London problem. I live in an area which is categorised as 'remote rural'. It has the lowest average wages in the whole United Kingdom. But it is also categorised as a 'National Scenic Area'. People retiring from the cities move here, and they buy houses; and because they've got money from selling houses in the cities and are used to the prices of houses in the cities, they are prepared to pay prices that the local economy can't hope to bear.

So we're in the ridiculous situation that the average wage locally is £12,000 and the average house price locally is £200,000. Yes, those figures don't add up. No person who depends on working locally for their income can now afford to buy a house; which is all very well for those of us whose houses are bought and paid for, but no good at all for the rising generation. Which means, sooner or later, no teachers in the schools, no postmen, no tradesmen.

This is mad. It isn't sustainable. Sooner or later the British housing market has to crash - and frankly the sooner the better.

 

[Pure]

what often happens in these situations is that the 'locals' are left with the jobs like cleaning the houses of the well to do, being nannies, etc.

 

[SimonBrooke]

But where do they live?

what often happens in these situations is that the 'locals' are left with the jobs like cleaning the houses of the well to do, being nannies, etc.

What really happens is that there are no locals left at all except the very old, and there's no-one to clean houses or work as nannies. I think there are four houses left in this street - out of sixty odd - which are still inhabited by people of working age (that includes my house). Five are inhabited by people who were born in the village - they're all over eighty. The rest are inhabited by retired incomers, or else are holiday homes which are empty forty-five weeks of the year.

This can't go on. It isn't sustainable.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Locally we have a problem in attracting employers.

1. We are too far from the M25, the London orbital motorway, which is a significant factor in placing employment.
2. We are not a deprived area that attracts grants from the Government and the European Community although we have two such areas next to us. (We do have pockets of deprivation, but overall our area is not deprived.)
3. We are not an area designated for employment/housing growth although we are next to one.

Those three factors make it very difficult to attract new investment so a large proportion of our workforce have to commute significant distances to get work that pays sufficiently to improve the family's income. The cost of commuting is so high that it can be a delicate balance between a low paid local job and a slightly higher paid job at a distance. Unskilled workers have a real problem. The sort of work they can get is insufficient for the available local workforce. The cost of commuting is too much for an unskilled worker to afford.

The only exception is work on maintenance of the London underground. The nearest point for such work is over 50 miles away. Minibuses shuttle employees from our town to London every night for hard physical work in demanding conditions. The pay is good but the worker has to be very fit and willing to work during the late night and early mornings. By age 35, most are beginning to feel that the work is too demanding.

It can be very disheartening to seek work and be unable to find it, yet that is the reality for many of our young men. They don't want to live on handouts from the state yet there isn't work for them except at a distance that they can't afford to travel. They can't move to the work because they can't afford the housing costs closer to London.

If I were still working in London, I would have to earn about 6 or 7,000 pounds, say 12 to 14,000 dollars, MORE than I could be paid locally just to pay the costs of daily travel. There are possibilities of such jobs for skilled and qualified people but not for untrained people.

Location can be a deterrent to finding work even for the motivated.

Og

PS. The Pine Ridge location is far worse in these terms than my location.

Sounds like the problem there is not so much location per se as statist intervention in the freedom and choices of families and businesses.

 

[cantdog]

Sounds like the problem there is not so much location per se as statist intervention in the freedom and choices of families and businesses.

No. It sounds like housing costs are too much near London, and commuting is dear. I'm afraid you got distracted by his designated areas at the beginning.

 

[amicus]

...and then there is this...

A little adventure in musing about things here, if you will tolerate my indulgence.

There is much about contemporary America that I do not approve, however, in the absence of others, I usually find myself defending the United States and the premises upon which it was founded and grew.

In general, the leftward tendency for over a century now, gives me great concern that those basic principles in our founding documents can never be salvaged; it troubles me, and for most of my public career I lashed out against the increasingly ‘Statist’ direction this country, my country was embarked upon.

I have discovered, the hard way, perhaps the only way, that a lifetime accumulation of categorized information and conclusions becomes more difficult to communicate with clarity with each passing day.

I find that on this forum a lot. Especially in the terms of very basic ideas and self-evident observations that I always thought most intelligent, rational people quickly assimilated.

I thought not to respond to the last several posts on this thread until Roxanne made her last comment which, of course, hit the nail squarely on the head, but which also will be rejected and misunderstood out of hand by all the ‘usual suspects’ and wannable’s.

An so, old friend, at your inspiration, one more time into the ‘breach’, in what is most likely a lost cause, nonetheless…

Way back when humans had only stone tools to work with, to hunt, to butcher meat, to cut firewood and build with, I suspect stone tool-making was commonly practiced by all who could gain the skill.

As with all things, some individuals became better tool makers than others; not because they were socially accepted or approved, but because in fact and in reality they simply made a more efficient tool than others. And, as with all things, people chose the better tool over the lesser one, makes sense to me.

I can even visualize when most tribal members realized that, they scampered to find trade goods or services to exchange to acquire the ‘better’ tool.

I can even speculate that as numbers increased and ‘good’ tool makers associated with each other that they may have even traded techniques and quarry sites, if the price was right. And if the price could not be agreed upon, human nature, in the way of threats, theft, violence and murder no doubt took place as they artisans and craftsmen maneuvered for social position and the Chief’s daughter’s hand.

Bear with me please, although for the astute, you are already leaps and bounds ahead of my narrative here.

Let us also speculate that as time passed, and it always does, that status equalized itself and stone tool makers became an integral and respected portion of a tribal, stone-age society.

Now, let’s talk hundreds and eventually thousands of years in human development and include peripheral progress in other areas of endeavor, but those must wait for another ramble.

Somewhere a hot campfire, built perhaps in the lee of a rocky ledge, on stone, with stones surrounding the fire, was made super-hot by wind funneling across the fire and lo and behold one of the rocks didn’t just crack in the heat, it melted!

That probably happened hundreds of times until someone with a mind like Roxanne’s perceived the phenomena and a light bulb went off, comic style, over her pretty little curly head. Eureka! Metal was discovered!

Needless to say, but let me say it anyway, over a small period of time, stone tool makers found themselves unemployed, alas, alack woe is me.

Now, if the association of stone tool workers was strong enough, like a guild or a union and were ruthless in protecting their rice bowl, they hung that metal tool maker by his heels over the same hot fire.

But, sighs…you really cannot stop human progress and metal implements became like sliced bread, everybody wants some.

The same thing happened to carriage and harness makers when the ’horseless’ buggy came into fashion and the same happened to typewriter manufacturers when the computer keyboard and word processing appeared.

Given just a sliver of freedom, human innovation creates change for the better, in all directions at varying speeds.

Humans specialize as societies grow and expand; those who excel at some things focus on that single skill and trade for other needs. Pretty fundamental stuff, I know.

Human society also discovers that it requires priests and doctors and teachers, to begin with and then later, administrators to oversee and create an ’overview’ of the entire gathering. Again, fundamental, not real hard to see.

Now, back to the thread and the last few posts.

Administrators, politicians who are elected, appointed and ascend as if by magic to positions of power, are always limited and restricted to the amount of that ’power’ they can wield and exercise at any given time.

Their actions are supposed to reflect the desire of the entire community to act on behalf of and to the benefit of society at large.

The situation that Ogbashan describes in England, has occurred thousands and thousands of times around the globe as conditions change, natural resources, minerals, timber, are exhausted and enterprise moves to a more productive area.

When people are left relatively free to adjust to those natural changes, they somehow manage, looking after their own self interest, to survive, recover and prosper again.

But now enter government, acting for the ‘good’ of the people, seeing the need for employment in an area that has been exhausted of available natural wealth, proceeds to ‘meet’ those needs but ignores the underlying cause. Thus the ‘Statists’, those government officials, no doubt sincere in their desire to fulfill their functions and ‘help’, actually begin to exacerbate the dilemma by prolonging it without a future.

Such is the case in America, with the looming energy crisis, which was my initial focus on this thread. To satisfy a portion of our society devoted to preserving wildlife and a pristine environment, government has acted to slow and limit and then forbid development of badly needed resources. Some think it was and is a sincere effort, I do not. To sacrifice human freedom and comfort for spotted owls, migrating salmon and sperm whales is not sufficient justification to lower the standard of living of a single person.

As I said before, if Americans want an answer to the energy crisis, then they should get the hell out of the way of those who produce and create energy. As Roxanne intimated, if the Brit’s want housing and employment opportunities, repeal the laws that control land and development in those rural areas.

I guarantee, you do that, you also reduce to a minimum the confiscatory taxation of business enterprise, I guarantee the free market place with create a cornucopia for you in short order.

Amicus…

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

No. It sounds like housing costs are too much near London, and commuting is dear. I'm afraid you got distracted by his designated areas at the beginning.

O-Kaay - And why is housing dear in London? Aren't high prices a market signal that goes to builders, the content of which is, "Hey, demand is strong -you can make a lotta money by building here!" Which they reliably do, thereby increasing supply and bringing down prices. Unless something short-circuits the process, like regulations prohibiting new construction in various ways. (Last I looked there weren't a ton of high rise apartment buildings in London, so it's not a matter of insufficient space - there's a whole bunch of unused air there.)

 

[Kandi]

O-Kaay - And why is housing dear in London? Aren't high prices a market signal that goes to builders, the content of which is, "Hey, demand is strong -you can make a lotta money by building here!" Which they reliably do, thereby increasing supply and bringing down prices. Unless something short-circuits the process, like regulations prohibiting new construction in various ways. (Last I looked there weren't a ton of high rise apartment buildings in London, so it's not a matter of insufficient space - there's a whole bunch of unused air there.)

Unchecked development does NOT solve all the ills of the world, and seldom does it result (except in the theoretical minds of the unusual suspects) in any real bringing down of prices. What it always brings is new demand for services, better roads, more schools, increased police presence to deal with the increased crime, higher taxes to pay for said services, etc. This almost always results in higher housing costs for everyone.

 

[Liar]

O-Kaay - And why is housing dear in London? Aren't high prices a market signal that goes to builders, the content of which is, "Hey, demand is strong -you can make a lotta money by building here!" Which they reliably do, thereby increasing supply and bringing down prices. Unless something short-circuits the process, like regulations prohibiting new construction in various ways. (Last I looked there weren't a ton of high rise apartment buildings in London, so it's not a matter of insufficient space - there's a whole bunch of unused air there.)

Let me give you an example from elsewhere. My hometown Stockholm. The demand for inner city apartments is sky high, and thus the prices have gone the way of space shuttles. Up until it's hard to breathe.

So woowee, we build upwards, estate owners and contractors thought. And started to do. At ridiculous cost, because groundwork was never designed for the weight of high rise buildings, half the city is standing on pretty much a bog, and the free space (where fresh high houses could be built) were one of the things that kept the value of the existing estate up. In areas close to the new modern highrise (a moderate term here, 10 floors instead of 5) houses, the market value went down. Not because the high demand was met by more apartments. But because the deand was for the old apartments. What people wanted was not the proximity to the city centre. What they wanted was the feeling of living in the "old town". A feeling that went away. And sales of newly built homes as well as the old ones stagnated.

The solution? Builders, abandoned the idea, turned the apartemtns into office space, and started buying up land in sattelite areas. Old industry lots, obsolete airports, et al. And there they built "old town" replicas. New hoods with the style and street layout of a classic European inner city (there are even artists hired to design "worn" looks for walls, benches, and so on), separated by the "mothership" Stockholm by thin strips of park and/or office complexes, and connected to it with direct lines of various public transportations. Cheaper than building upwards, and much easier to sell.

The key there is transportation. A proximity, not in distance, but in time and ease to the city centre. Thankfully, we're pretty good at that kind of infra structure here. And we have the space to keep on building low for many years to come. I don't know if London has that luxury, but I guess they have part of the same problem. It's not just about that people want to move to London. It's also about the people already there, who wants to live in London. Both affect the value vs cost of transforming the city.

So, in conclusion. Housing in the inner city is rare because those in the inner city, estate owners, landlords, residents, businesses even, wants it that way. it gives it an exclusivity that apparently has a higher value than expansion.

 

[amicus]

Apples and Oranges, Liar, or perhaps you just cannot see the forest for the trees.

Builders and contractors in Sweden and most of the other European social democracies have no say or over where or what they build. The do some with government funds, taxation, and under government auspices down to even the style of the plumbing facilities.

Quite the same thing happens here when Federal Grants enable local governments to use tax money and the power of emminent domain, to violate property rights of individuals, condemn a failing 'old town' area, and rebuild, according 'government standards' and fair wage (meaning high union wage) practices which end up leaving the 'old town' area too expensive for mom & pops to surivive anyway. So you end up with public service buildings and bureaucratic agencies taking over the old town area and the long term owners move elsewhere.

The upshot of my commentary is the same as always: only the free unfettered market can effectively meet new and changing demands. Government interference only acts to meet the demands of the 'socially conscious' who have an agenda all there own, quite apart from what 'people' may really want.

Then, they, like the millions in Soviet Concrete Block housing, adapt, adopt and suffer and wonder why they built a concrete wall to keep them from running enmasse to a more free society.

You lose again.

amicus...

 

[SimonBrooke]

Roxanne's right, you know

No. It sounds like housing costs are too much near London, and commuting is dear. I'm afraid you got distracted by his designated areas at the beginning.

Painful though it is to admit it, Roxanne actually is correct here. I know it sounds ridiculous, but even American right wingers can be right sometimes. If we didn't have so much political interference in the housing market, and if there was a decent level of tax on the value of property, people would stop this silly speculative spiral of house prices.

Of course, places where more people want to live - places near cities, near infrastructure, scenic places - can reasonably be expected to be more expensive than places where people don't want to live. But at present I could buy four FARMS within easy commuting distance of Ontario for the value of this house, and that's ridiculous.

 

[SimonBrooke]

The Great Wen

O-Kaay - And why is housing dear in London? Aren't high prices a market signal that goes to builders, the content of which is, "Hey, demand is strong -you can make a lotta money by building here!"

You clearly haven't been to London. Try Google Earth. Builders are building new homes near London... on salt marsh, flood plains, land below high tide level, grossly toxic brownfield sites and so on. Why? Because every other square inch has already been built on.

I know people who commute three hundred miles every day to work there, because it's cheaper to commute that far than to buy a house in London. But, of course, that's also because house price speculation has pushed UK house prices far above their 'natural' market value, like tulips in Holland in the seventeenth century.

 

[SimonBrooke]

Stockholm isn't London

Let me give you an example from elsewhere. My hometown Stockholm. The demand for inner city apartments is sky high, and thus the prices have gone the way of space shuttles. Up until it's hard to breathe.

What people wanted was not the proximity to the city centre. What they wanted was the feeling of living in the "old town". A feeling that went away. And sales of newly built homes as well as the old ones stagnated.

The solution? Builders, abandoned the idea, turned the apartemtns into office space, and started buying up land in sattelite areas. Old industry lots, obsolete airports, et al. And there they built "old town" replicas.

Yes, but they started with a big advantage. Stockholm is a gorgeous city - it's my favourite city anywhere. London pretty much always was a shit tip, and it's a much worse shit tip now than it was a thousand years ago. Stockholm harbour is just such a glorious asset to any city.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

O-Kaay - And why is housing dear in London? Aren't high prices a market signal that goes to builders, the content of which is, "Hey, demand is strong -you can make a lotta money by building here!" Which they reliably do, thereby increasing supply and bringing down prices. Unless something short-circuits the process, like regulations prohibiting new construction in various ways. (Last I looked there weren't a ton of high rise apartment buildings in London, so it's not a matter of insufficient space - there's a whole bunch of unused air there.)

None of the responses to this have engaged the real point - high rise apartment buildings. More specifically, their relative absense. I'm just guessing here, but I'm going to venture that not many exist because silly Prince Geekster and his central planning friends (and their predecessors) have prohibited them. Neonlyte could probably give an authoritative and definitive statement on this.



PS. Simon, please stop referring to me as a "right winger." I'm a libertarian. I know that to many this may seem to be the same thing, and also I admit that I sometimes refer to my friends on the other side of these debates as members of "the left," but it is a fact that "right winger" is generally used as a synonym for "fundamentalist Christian nut job" or "Republican," and I am neither.

 

[Liar]

Apples and Oranges, Liar, or perhaps you just cannot see the forest for the trees.

Builders and contractors in Sweden and most of the other European social democracies have no say or over where or what they build. The do some with government funds, taxation, and under government auspices down to even the style of the plumbing facilities.

Quite the same thing happens here when Federal Grants enable local governments to use tax money and the power of emminent domain, to violate property rights of individuals, condemn a failing 'old town' area, and rebuild, according 'government standards' and fair wage (meaning high union wage) practices which end up leaving the 'old town' area too expensive for mom & pops to surivive anyway. So you end up with public service buildings and bureaucratic agencies taking over the old town area and the long term owners move elsewhere.

The upshot of my commentary is the same as always: only the free unfettered market can effectively meet new and changing demands. Government interference only acts to meet the demands of the 'socially conscious' who have an agenda all there own, quite apart from what 'people' may really want.

Then, they, like the millions in Soviet Concrete Block housing, adapt, adopt and suffer and wonder why they built a concrete wall to keep them from running enmasse to a more free society.

You lose again.

amicus...

Ami, au contraire to what your prejudice against and ignorance of the local political situation here make you believe, the procedure I described was pretty much a market dictated deal from square one to the finish line.

Yes, being a place where the government and buerocrats often sticks it's nose where IMO it doesn't belong (Don't have a heart attack. Yes, I'm a small guvment guy.), there was an OPTION for the city council to go in and regulate the initiative. An option that it didn't choose to excersize. They just said "Ok, we need X thousand more homes. You guys have a plan? Ok, go."

So, the first move, the dumbass one to raise the roofs of inner city houses, or to tear down and buld higher, was an idea and initiative from market players. And the subsequent, more sucessful move of outer city "islands", was the market players learning their lession and getting it right.

Not everything has to be read with the "everything left of complete Lassie Ferry is SATAN" goggles, buddy. It might come as a shock to you, but some of us doesn't always loook at the world and see dichotomies. I'm more of a pragmatics kinda guy, and this was about why just raising the inner city might not be the optimal solution from a market point of view.

 

[oggbashan]

High Rise

High Rise apartments are built in London and have been since the 1960s.

The price of high rise apartments close to central London is incredible yet most people don't want to live in them. The demand is for houses with gardens.

Market forces have pushed the price of London housing very high. Part of it is due to the restriction on land for building. A proportion is caused by successive governments' policy that does not allow housing to be built on parkland and in the Green Belt around London but there just isn't the land around London anyway. What is now being developed is floodplain that is at risk from rising sea levels.

Building high in London has always been expensive because of what is underneath London - the geology isn't that stable unlike Manhattan's rock. The foundations have to be sunk deep - and underneath are the underground trains, the sewers, the service tunnels - the substructure of London is nearly as complex as the streets above.

Market forces are bringing people to London and SE England. The demand for housing pushes up the price. The average price of a house in Inner London is now one million pounds.

The public transport system struggles to manage the commuters each day and is close to its absolute capacity in some parts of London. The travellers pay the cost in frequent fare increases that have to be earned and the tax paid on the earnings.

It is a vicious circle. Back in the 1970s government tried to influence employers to relocate out of London. The effort produced a few moves, mainly to the London periphery and to towns that are now commuter towns. The employment that can operate at a distance now does - it has been outsourced to India.

There is no easy political solution. If the government really released sufficient land to drop house prices it would lose the next election because all the houseowners would have seen their major asset devalued. As it is, the government is happily taxing every house sale and getting more and more tax money as houses increase in value. All governments are addicted to taxes that increase year on year with no effort on their part.

What might work in other countries doesn't necessarily travel.

Og

 

[amicus]

My oft sited, 'predjudice and ignorance' of all things, including your local conditions, is not sufficient to reject reasoning and rationality, Liar, regardless of what you think.

There is an example, in Ayn Rand's Fountainhead, of governmental agencies turning building projects over to private enterprise in an attempt to 'bail them' out of market conditions the bureacrats created themselves.

Of course, the book was written over a half century ago and surely those relative and subjective and transitional values you workship, dictate that nothing that old could possibly be relevant, especially as it dares speak of absolute values.

There is another implication in your post which I will not go back to and point out, but refer to, as your superior attitude in that you have no absolutes, proudly proclaimed you do not accept such ancient concepts as good/bad. right/wrong, and lacking any ethical or moral foundation, basically claim that anyone who dares enunciate such things, is categorically a fool and surely misguided.

Well, my subjectivist friend, nothing in your little world will ever make any sense to you as you float in space between definitions.

History tells me that your country was invaded, occupied and brutalized by both the Germans and the Russians in the mid 20th century. Do you not think those traumatic events may have influenced your thinking?

It should have been educational to see the results of two totalitarian nations nearby and should should have inspired Europeans in general to shy away from similar mistakes in the future.

You are correct in a way; there is much I do not understand about contemporary European mentalities and aspirations. Perhaps a generation or two more must come and go before the human spirit that played such a great roll in Dutch and Viking History, will rise again.

see how dumb I am?


amicus..

 

[amicus]

Dear Ogbashan, I sometimes feel chagrined at confronting you. Your writing voice is sincere and your arguments sound and on your home grounds, I surely cannot refute your assertions.

I can even agree that some things, 'don't travel well', how you put it I think. But human dignity and values, being universal and absolute, do travel quite well, thank you.

I ask you to consider with open eyes the existence of the 'magic islands' of Dubai, paradise arising in the midst of desert terrain. Also that of Singapore, the truly Asian Hub of trade in the world; and Japan, where they built an entire island in the middle of a bay to hold a new airport (talk about no Manhattan type base rock)

My point being, in general, that humanity can overcome the greatest obstacles if allowed the natural freedom they are endowed with to flourish.

I do not and cannot know the solution to the English housing and employment problems, it is not necessary that I do, as the specific answers will be discovered by those most qualified to seek them...if and only if you set them, and the market forces free to discover just what they might be.

Og, it is a wider arena than either or us will ever participate in, but understanding the forces at work may someday be helpful to someone. At least I hope so.

ami

(edited to add: Ogbashan...following the introductory 'Dear' as I did not want you to misunderstand and I have no idea how I failed to type it in to begin with, chuckles)

 

[oggbashan]

Housing Prices in London

One factor that is significant in London house prices is foreign investment either for residence or for rental.

Middle Eastern oil revenues have purchased many high quality houses in London since the 1950s. Japanese investment has been significant and London still has some specialist Japanese realtors. Now it is Russian money and the large earnings from the financial sector in London that are pushing up the value of the best, and dragging the rest of the housing market behind it.

The ordinary guy is priced out of the housing market. Now financial institutions are considering offering loans of five times joint annual earnings. How do you repay that?

Og