"They are politicians!" – the Politics thread

Topic

Sponsored by General Martok, (Lord Vetinari declined to be involved) here’s the thread for covering political goings on.

Replies

Anonymous wrote:

That’s surprising. Housing is a legal right in the UK? Was this done under a tories government? It’s my experience here in the Netherlands at least that the right wing is not stingier on things like welfare than the left is.

*Technically* yes, as The Housing of the Working Classes Act 1890 was introduced under a Conservative Prime Minister. Social housing was devolved to local authorities, who were given the powers to buy land and finance house building.
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In more recent times, Thatcher’s Conservative government enacted legislation that forced local authorities to sell off their housing stock at reduced rates, and made it illegal for them to buy or build new ones with the proceeds. The position now is that a local authority still has a legal “duty of care” to house everybody who cannot house themselves, but they no longer have the property to house them in. There are literally cases of councils putting up families in hotels–at exorbitant cost, naturally–because the law says they must put them somewhere and there are no other options.
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Completely coincidentally, there has been a huge rise in the number private landlords in recent decades, and average private rents have increased far faster than average wages. (Anecdotally, private landlords have always been Tory voters. I’m sure that’s also a complete coincidence.)

DavidM wrote:

Anecdotally, private landlords have always been Tory voters

I’ll point out before Gar does that he’s a private landlord, but I suspect he’s not a Tory voter

DavidM wrote:

I suspect he’s not a Tory voter

See, we already have one exception!

I think this is an issue where a socialist solution probably works best. People owning huge areas of land is not a good idea, the government should have the leading role in allocating land and determining the proper use for it.

It really annoyed me in the 2015 election when Labour proposed a tax on people owning multiple properties – which would have “encouraged” people to stop hoarding housing for themselves – and then somehow let it morph into a “mansion tax” on all large properties, which got demolished in the media and London. I think the first would have been a much more sensible and defensible policy.

I don’t actually think the Labour housing policies have been very clever. Blair, I think, began putting the financial squeeze on private landlords, which on the face of it seems like a good socialist ideal, but in reality has just made the smaller landlords stop renting, letting the big corporate landlords take up the slack — which isn’t a very good socialist ideal.
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The idea of stopping landlords hoarding housing again sounds like a good one in theory. But as prices rise, landlords buying “off plan” are an important part of what keeps the market afloat, and I think less landlords are doing that, which is therefore contributing to the slow rate of new builds. And as many people literally can’t buy in the current economic climate, reducing the country’s stock of rental properties isn’t a good idea.
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And what should be the backstop to these problems — council housing — is still broken. I think the Labour policy shouldn’t be to tinker with private letting but to fix social housing *first*, and then look at private letting.

Andrew wrote:

Over the past five years or so there have been efforts to restrict foreign investment in property; portrayed by some as racist but it’s really just sensible social policy.

Yes. It’s not racist and it is sensible policy.
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The problem is seen there, here and in the UK. Foreign investors particularly from China and Russia use property as a safe haven, they don’t necessarily trust their governments so can use countries that allow full foreign ownership to plant assets in case anything goes wrong.
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That is really disruptive because it breaks the principle of supply and demand, it disconnects from local wages. They don’t care if they make rental money, they are just using them as a big safety deposit box.
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Malaysia is one of those countries without restriction and the north side of Penang is filled with RM5million (around a million quid) luxury apartments that are empty. The local developers stop building for the local market and low and mid cost housing because feeding the empty apartments is far more lucrative. In London there was a story a year or so back of mansions bought by Russians that are left completely unattended and slowly falling apart, they have no interest in them other than the value of the land.

DavidM wrote:

I’ll point out before Gar does that he’s a private landlord, but I suspect he’s not a Tory voter

You may be correct there.
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The thing to note is the difference between people who may rent out a place and the big operators. After various taxes and expenses I earn around £2500 a year from renting out a flat I own with mortgage paid off. It’s nice passive income but it’s far from a lot of money.
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To make the average annual wage from letting places I’d need to own 10 properties. To be a top rate tax payer from that income (i.e. considered rich) I’d need 50 of them. That would mean a serious business with huge bank loans to make the purchases. This level of operation is where you see the squeezing of tenants and horrible behaviour. I can’t afford to do that, I have to value my tenant because if he buggers off it’s a lot of work and months without rent to replace him.

Everyone have their big tub of popcorn and litre of Coke ready?

Tuesday
9 a.m.: Jennifer Williams, aide to Vice President Mike Pence, and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, director for European Affairs at the National Security Council, will go before the House Intelligence Committee. They will be the first people to testify who were on the July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

2:30 p.m.: Ambassador Kurt Volker, former envoy to Ukraine, and Tim Morrison, White House aide with the NSC, will testify before the House Intelligence Committee. Volker and Gordon Sondland, ambassador to the European Union, have previously testified in a closed door meeting with the committee with details supporting Democrats’ claim that Trump tried to execute a shadow foreign policy with Ukraine.

I dont know Jerry.

Fox news told me that this impeachment is boring and I shouldnt watch it

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50473792

It’s all a show.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/alexwickham/tory-candidate-tenants-tent-field
A Tory Candidate Says Problem Tenants Should Be Forced To Live In Tents In A Field
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A Conservative candidate in a key marginal has said he would force problem tenants to live in tents in a field if he wins the seat.

Lee Anderson is hoping to overturn a tiny Labour majority of just 441 in Ashfield in Nottinghamshire. The constituency is one of the Tories’ key target seats.

In a video posted to his campaign Facebook page on Sunday, Anderson told voters of his plan to evict “nuisance tenants” that have been bothering residents in the area.

“People say to me, ‘but they’ve got to live somewhere’. That’s right, so my plan would be, and again this is just my own personal opinion, is that these people who have to live somewhere, let’s have them in a tent, in the middle of a field.

“Six o’clock every morning, let’s have them up, let’s have them in the field, picking potatoes or any other seasonal vegetables, back in the tent, cold shower, lights out, six o’clock, same again the next day. That would be my solution.”

“nuisance tenants” definitely feels like a euphemism for something else.

<hr>
Unrelated, my local Lib Dem candidate has got in on the bullshit Lib Dem chart nonsense by tweeting this:

Even if Borough elections (even this one where Labour didn’t field candidates in about half the wards) were even comparable to general elections, that still doesn’t put them ahead.

Well, tonight’s debate between Corbyn and Johnson is proving as un-illuminating as you’d expect. Just the same old lines being rehearsed really.

(And the most awkward handshake you’ve ever seen.)

You’ve just described the UK planning system.

A large part of the problem is that the politicians decided leaving housing to the market was the best solution and have done that for the last 3-4 decades.

The other problem is no one makes money out of affordable housing and the current model, where private sales subsidise the cost of affordable combined with government grant, is going to collapse at some point too.

But, as soon as you start improving supply to meet demand, if only fractionally, you start messing with house prices and all the “money” people think they have in their property. Now, my view is that, unless you can sell it for whatever figure you have in your head, it’s not real money, it’s imaginary, but if your mortgage is based on that value, then it is a very real and very serious matter if someone starts mucking around with house prices or they reduce. Those who bought when the price was higher get whacked with negative equity, where their mortgage is more than the property is deemed to be worth.

All of this is why it hasn’t been solved and why it’ll remain difficult to do so. Not that it’ll stop politicians advocating simplistic, bullshit “solutions”.

Socialism looks good on paper, but in 99% of cases the practice causes as many problems as it’s trying to solve

First, agree on a definition of ‘socialism’.

Right, I’ll be back in a month because it’ll take ages.

Government control over a resource or public sector or strict, uniform, and universal governmental regulations over all those that control that resource or a public sector. The resource must be something everyone requires, and the impact must be felt by citizens upon use.

Dave wrote:

Well, tonight’s debate between Corbyn and Johnson is proving as un-illuminating as you’d expect. Just the same old lines being rehearsed really.

(And the most awkward handshake you’ve ever seen.)

I didn’t watch it and I don’t think I will even check out edited “highlights”.
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Neither is a world class figure, but they’ve been in the limelight long enough that I know I agree with Corbyn’s general intentions and disagree with Johnson’s. I don’t need a debate to tell me that.
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I will have to keep an eye on my local polls though, to see where my vote will do the most good.

Anonymous wrote:

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Apparently this Wayne Bayley guy who’s looking to talk to UKIP is also a Scientologist. So he’s well-versed in being the victim of scams

Scientology is just ISIS that bribed their way into not being terrorists.

Oh wait, one more big difference: ISIS is an extremist split off from a legitimate religion. All Scientologists are, by definition, extremists

Anonymous wrote:

Socialism looks good on paper, but in 99% of cases the practice causes as many problems as it’s trying to solve

I think the problems we’ve been discussing have been caused by quite the opposite: adherence to strict free market ideology.
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When there was a ready supply of social housing provided by local councils in the UK homelessness was almost non-existent. It has continued to increase since Thatcher decided to sell them off and remove government from the sector.
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Britain and Sweden have followed a path of deregulated, independently owned ‘free schools’ and it has sent their attainment results tumbling, Finland which moved to a centralised model with no private education is towards the top in every subject.
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I’d be interested in actual examples of these 99% of cases.

The pragmatic approach is the best rather than a ideological. Clearly the housing situation is a problem, and I think it is necessary to come up with government mandated solutions. That could be called socialist, but that is what works best.

On another note, the Zwarte Piet situation in the Netherlands is getting pretty insane. A man was arrested today for threatening to blow himself up over this. Fucking idiots.

Anonymous wrote:

The pragmatic approach is the best rather than a ideological.

I couldn’t agree more and history and the world show us continual examples where one works better than the other in particular instances and yet this ideological obsession, as shown by Kalman, gets in the way. In both directions of course we know the system of turning everything over to government ownership collapsed in on itself and failed.

During the TV debate last night, the Tory party press office twitter account rebranded itself as a fact-checking organisation “FactCheckUK”.

It then put out spin as though it was a legit fact-checker. Staggeringly dishonest and yet still a new low for this government.

What are people going to do if they don’t like it, not vote for them?

garjones wrote:

In both directions of course we know the system of turning everything over to government ownership collapsed in on itself and failed.

Yep I think the solution lies somwhere in the middle. I believe this is true for politics in general, a moderate approach is probably best.

Of course what is moderate will differ from one person to the other and many “moderate”parties are still awful but I think that is the state of politics at the moment. I do like that in the Netherlands the center left and center right are in an alliance.

Say what?

My issue is that socialism is very idealistic- there tends to be an assumption that the people in charge will be without bias, but everyone has bias, and thus one person’s bias can lead to inequality of distribution. The uniform aspect quickly untangles. There’s no difference to free market, when all is said and done- in fact, it might be more baked into the system

The problem often is a misunderstanding of what socialism means. There are areas where it is universal because the alternative doesn’t work. For example public schools (in the American sense) instead of a market driven approach of fee paying only. Police, armed forces, railways, libraries.

In western democracies we all have a mix of the two. The existence of social housing has never prevented a wealthy person buying or building a mansion if they want. The absence of it though has driven severe issues of ability to afford a place to live which is what we were discussing. Universal healthcare debate in the US confuses me when I’ve recently heard about people wanting to retain their private insurance option. The UK has probably the most socialist health system of the G20 countries but you can still have private insurance if you want. You can go to a Harley Street doctor, pay through the nose and be treated like a king if you can and want to.

So to say 99% of socialist ideas fail is complete nonsense.  If your house catches fire tomorrow you’ll call a government service and they’ll put it out for you with no bill to pay, that works very well.

 

 

A problem with isms is that there are thousands of version. Everybody has a different idea, it’s all ideology and abstractions and projections about what will happen in the future if so and so is implemented that often don’t work out. You can attack one version of socialism but that doesn’t mean it is all bad.

garjones wrote:

I remember Moore being fairly vocal in his support of Corbyn last time too, (although not going so far as to say that he’d vote that time).

I can’t disagree with what he says.

I find it interesting that Gar brought up police as an example, when here in America they’re suffering from the same problem I outlined……and those who protest are likely to be socialist voters in other issues

Do you think a private police force where you pay to call them out would be less biased?

Do you think private entities don’t often have inherent bias? Are the CEOs of America all wonderfully aligned to gender and ethnic demographics? Do they all come from a wonderful cross-section of schools that reflect their society?

 

You’re ignoring my point, and making a straw man out of me. My point was that wasn’t the best example. In general, it’s not ethnic or racial minorities. It probably isn’t conscious bias. I’m more concerned that unconscious bias will lead to the system not working for people who were against it, that the system would give them less out of spite or feelings that if they didn’t want it, they don’t deserve it, both of which are hypocrisy

So you’re inventing a reason not to like it that is only back up by your baseless fears basically.

Well, one only has to look at systems where all resources and sectors are socialized- for them it’s not even unconscious bias- they admit it and bake it into the system, to the point where dissenters have no rights at all. I’m not saying it’s the same thing, but forgive me for suspecting that less extreme systems would have unconscious bias. The open oppression has to have a root somewhere

Provide one example where the bias is admitted. Then explain how that’s different from a capitalist system where there’s tons of biases and discrimination.

Anonymous wrote:

You’re ignoring my point, and making a straw man out of me.

Not at all. If as you state a socialist concept automatically leads to inherent bias in 99% of case then it’s perfectly fair to ask how a free market option would make it better, those are the two available.

While the police services have problems can you really say they are caused specifically by their funding model? Could there be a reason why nobody in the world uses a free market police system of either private insurance or pay per incident? It’s easy to put out a rhetorical comment that the police are have inherent biases now and don’t run perfectly but when you launch with an ideological statement that a socialist model creates that then it is perfectly reasonable for me to ask back how you see your capitalistic free market option for policing improving it.

As I said with Arjan overall I am pragmatic on these matters and if there is a more effective model within that so I’m all ears for how that would work.

 

But Kalman, you yourelf said a bias is present witha free market system as well.

 

Bias is ingrained in humans to an extent. So there will be some of that even in a system which is “socialist”. The fact is many systems, like the police force etc. run on principles that can be called socialist. If you want to change all that for a free market system you’re actually the biggest revolutionary. Do you want to have to buy military insurance so your house doesn’t get bombed by Russia? Or do you want a military that is committed to protecting everyone?

 

I think the arithmetic is simple. There are some things we decide as a society we don’t want people to be without for lack of financial means. Those are things like police protection and healthcare, for instance. Society contributes collectively to a money pool by paying taxes so everybody can have those things. (The US does for medicare, if I’m correct.)

However, very little of what we consider socialist in our societies is in any way real socialism. Public services are not socialist. Nationalizing some industries or even “socialized medicine” is not really socialist. Welfare is not socialist. It all operates with capitalist principles and financing  behind it.

western democracies are not well designed for socialism and the historic examples of actual socialism: the Soviet Union, PRC, DPRK and so on, don’t leave a good impression. Even 20th century fascism used real socialist principles. Mussolini- the most lnfluentual of his fascist peers – was a Marxist most of his life before replacing class struggle with nationalism in his idea of socialism.

 

the main problem is that western or American ideas of liberty require a weak state. One that cannot infringe on individual rights. While socialism necessarily or often emphasizes the collective over any individual and that tends to expand the power of the state.

That’s why I think the current system kinda keeps things in balance. A striving for “purity” often ends up hurting a lot of people. There’s always something that makes you impure and which can bring the crusaders on your neck. I think this is quite evident in popular culture.

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Anonymous wrote:

I’m more concerned that unconscious bias will lead to the system not working for people who were against it, that the system would give them less out of spite

It wouldn’t be spite if it’s an unconscious bias.</p>
 

Look, if you want to come out against affirmative action, which is what it really feels like you’re skirting around in your talk of “socialism” being biased against certain people, then just do it already instead of talking vaguely about all the many socialist systems supposedly discriminating against people that you can’t name.

The thing is that most of the people who are down on socialism don’t realize that everything they fear socialism will bring is already completely present in our democratic capitalist societies today. It isn’t socialism that gets an oil pipeline running through your county or town. Homeowners Associations (or maybe they call them Planning Councils in the UK) that tell you if you can build a shed behind your house or make you take down Christmas Decorations if you put them up too early – those aren’t socialist organizations. Labor unions are generally not socialist organizations – those that were are quickly shut down and replaced with those that promote the interests of private capital.

This isn’t to say that real socialism would not be just as bad – I certainly would not want to be a citizen in China or North Korea today or any of the Stalinist-style states of the Cold War – but that it doesn’t exist in our culture and, despite that, often it’s used as a scapegoat for failures in democratic capitalism.

Things like affirmative action mentioned above – which has had mixed results, but probably more positive than negative – is designed to get more people to buy into the system, not to overturn it. Increasing opportunities is judged against a persons ability to contribute to capital – either one’s own or someone else’s (usually, it will be the latter). A true socialist would be opposed to these programs that seek to bring more prosperity to marginalized groups because the dissatisfaction of those groups is what socialism would need to overturn the system.

What does overturning the system mean though? When would you say something is really socialist? The succesful countries Bernie Sanders wants to emulate are to a large degree run according to a capitalist market model except with socialist measures like free healthcare, public education, public utilities etc.

 

 

Overturning the system is the elimination of private property or private financial interests. That’s the nutshell version of socialism. Minor ownership and trade of goods but the production of those goods, housing, employment, energy, education and medical treatment and the essential nature of people’s lives, livelihoods and lifestyles are governed and by a representative for collective interests that essentially hold all significant property and resources on behalf of the entire population.

Not that that would lead to a beneficial culture – or ever has historically done so – but none of those social programs like nationalized “free” healthcare or guaranteed minimum income or wage levels is “socialist” or even accurately described as “democratic socialism.” Like you point out, it still essentially serves a capitalist system. The benefit of increased public payment and services is a capitalist one. If the state provides housing or housing assistance, covers medical costs, education grants, what it’s achieving is a low cost economy where the cost of living is lower than competitive economies. So you can pay people less to do the same work as your competitors and thus achieve a competitive advantage. The owners of the profit generating elements of that economy can pay their people less to be more productive – or with government assistance, buy or sell raw materials for lower prices – attracting more business and investment. The money paying for that social system is still being generated by capitalism, and, absurdly, capitalists will still try to undermine it – sometimes for short term advantages – but often simply out of irrational ideological fear that it’s “socialism (gasp!)”

 

Like when F.D.R. – a wealthy man whose family fortune was generated by land and industrial holdings (a.k.a pure capitalism) – came up with the New Deal. It wasn’t bringing socialism to the United States. Instead, it was fighting the real threat of socialist and communist growing during the Depression.

Anonymous wrote:

Overturning the system is the elimination of private property or private financial interests. That’s the nutshell version of socialism. Minor ownership and trade of goods but the production of those goods, housing, employment, energy, education and medical treatment and the essential nature of people’s lives, livelihoods and lifestyles are governed and by a representative for collective interests that essentially hold all significant property and resources on behalf of the entire population. Not that that would lead to a beneficial culture – or ever has historically done so – but none of those social programs like nationalized “free” healthcare or guaranteed minimum income or wage levels is “socialist” or even accurately described as “democratic socialism.” Like you point out, it still essentially serves a capitalist system. The benefit of increased public payment and services is a capitalist one. If the state provides housing or housing assistance, covers medical costs, education grants, what it’s achieving is a low cost economy where the cost of living is lower than competitive economies. So you can pay people less to do the same work as your competitors and thus achieve a competitive advantage. The owners of the profit generating elements of that economy can pay their people less to be more productive attracting more business and investment. The money paying for that social system is still being generated by capitalism, and, absurdly, capitalists will still try to undermine it – sometimes for short term advantages – but often simply out of irrational ideological fear that it’s “socialism (gasp!)”

 

OK but isn’t that just another definition of socialism? I don’t think this is what socialist parties here in Europe are after. Except a couple of tankies and confused stone throwers maybe.

 

The best approach is I think to do what works. Emulate that, and make incremental change. I don’t think radical change like what you describe will lead to anything positive.

Anonymous wrote:

However, very little of what we consider socialist in our societies is in any way real socialism

This is a very American reading of what socialism means though (i.e. Communism). It’s not an interpretation understood or used in Western Europe where it has long meant what you say it isn’t – collective government run systems within a capitalist framework. I grew up in area where 90% of people would brand themselves ‘socialist’ and voted for parties with that branding with no desire for a Soviet Union model at any time.

These differences of definition lie on the other side too with an increasing use of ‘capitalism’ not to mean having two shoe shops on the high street but only the extreme of large corporations replacing the state and crushing the proletariat.

The truth is both those definitions are valid and can be taken right out of the dictionary, but with any words we have to understand them within their context. Language is fluid and when AOC or Jeremy Corbyn brand themselves and their policies ‘socialist’ they are doing it within that Western European reading of it which is the only one I knew growing up.

I don’t use ‘capitalism’ in that reading either as I find it more useful to have wider options, so the extreme belief in free markets over all I would label ‘neoliberal/conservative’ or maybe ‘Friedmanite’. If both can socialist and capitalist can only mean the extremes then we have a restricted ability to debate what actually exists.

 

 

Oh my God…Biden in the debate. No words.

Yeah he just sounded old during the debate. It was kind of sad at times.

https://www.axios.com/netanyahu-indicted-for-bribery-fraud-breach-of-trust-7d1453b4-69ad-446d-921f-878870d0b755.html

rory wrote:

Yeah he just sounded old during the debate. It was kind of sad at times.

 

That gaffe was bad. I am not gonna repeat it here but it’s all over the web. Fuck, I would be afraid to show my face after that.

Is that the Kamala Harris one?

It is excruciating when she was stood next to him.

 

I have seen some people in the past talk about the label ‘African-American’ and whether it applies to Harris – who is of part-Jamaican and part-Tamil Indian descent – despite her identifying as ‘black’.

I’m not close enough to the culture in the US to know whether that nuance tends to be acknowledged or ignored – whether ‘African-American’ is now essentially synonymous with black American – but I did wonder whether Biden’ s thinking had been along those lines.

There was also the domestic violence/punching gaffe, which was really bad too.

Honestly, it was more the fact that he was constantly stumbling and meandering in his answers that made him look bad.

It is ironic that Trump is being impeached for trying to get the Ukrainians to smear Biden around the same time Biden is doing fine ruining his campaign without any external influence.

 

Still, I haven’t seen any candidates yet who could actually win the next election or really accomplish anything if they did. I think the Democratic Party is much more focused on the elections after this next one.

They’re really not. There are no up and comers waiting it out until 2024.

I don’t have much hope the US government will not be awful anytime soon. Under  someone like Biden, or say Buttigieg I think there’s a good chance they will be pushed into war in either Syria or by bombing Iran. (That said Western Europe follows the regime change agenda pretty well.)

 

But fuck Trump for getting out of the Iran deal, letting the war in Yemen continue and recognizing the Israeli settlements.

Still, until America gets out of the weapons dealing business, we’re going to do little to stem violent conflicts around the globe.

 

Right now, it feels like we’re all working for the United States of Armament, Inc. And the next president is really its CEO before anything else.

Speaking of Socialism, the military is practically a nationalized industry operating a bit like a cooperative or builder’s association for the benefit of billion-dollar weapons makers.

 

I’m not confused about the difference between socialism and communism. However, as I understand it, the latter includes universal socialism, with all resources and sectors, even if that’s not the whole thing. The way I see history, it is implementing that part when communists turn totalitarian. That makes me wonder if the problem is the socialist aspect of communism

It’s not.

rory wrote:

It’s not.

That’s your read on things. Am I allowed to be suspicious?

My friends bought me this book for my birthday

 

https://www.amazon.com/Empire-Democracy-Remaking-West-Since/dp/1451684967

 

It is 800 pages or so.

I look forward to schooling you all in about three months once i’ve read it.

(by “You all” I mean “Kalman”, by “Look forward” I mean “Quietly Dreading” and by “Schooling” I mean a vague attempt at communicating ideas that ive probably misremembered and even then only half-understood intersped with my own complete imagined political concepts.)

 

Anonymous wrote:

I’m not confused about the difference between socialism and communism. However, as I understand it, the latter includes universal socialism, with all resources and sectors, even if that’s not the whole thing. The way I see history, it is implementing that part when communists turn totalitarian. That makes me wonder if the problem is the socialist aspect of communism

Socialism as Johnny described it is the very definition of totalitarian. A system where the state controls all resources and all facets of life. It’s a total nightmare. But that’s not socialism as the “democratic socialists” want to have it. They say they want to emulate Sweden and Norway, both of those countries have a higher number of billionaires per capita than the US has.

 

Here in the Netherlands “socialist” politicians who step out of politics often get a cushy position on the board of financial institutes. These people are not so averse to making a bit of cash.

Anonymous wrote:

rory wrote:

It’s not.

That’s your read on things. Am I allowed to be suspicious?

Try reading up on communist regimes first.

Anonymous wrote:

A system where the state controls all resources and all facets of life.

It’s always a matter of degree isn’t it. We accept some rules, and some edicts that say “this particular sphere of life is under government control” but not others. It differs from nation to nation and person to person (people claim our “compulsory voting” is impinging on freedom, for example).

A more relevant comparison for “socialism” would be libertarianism. The latter taken to its extreme is as close to absolute freedom as possible, but if you spend more than 5 minutes thinking about such a world you realise it’d be pretty hellish. The closest states we have to it are brutal, lawless “republics” where all but the 0.0001% are miserable.

It’s often what’s missed, the ideologies behind libertarianism and communism are extremely optimistic and idealist. If they worked as in theory they would deliver an utopian situation.

What has been seen in practice though is human nature means they don’t work on a large scale. Democracy essentially collapses when the try.

Funnily enough they can tend to on a micro scale where everyone buys in. The Israeli kibbtuz settlements basically operate under the ideas that Lenin used in the setup of the Soviet Union and seem to work okay. There have been attempts at fully libertarian societies that mainly work because they are collectives of already very rich people.

For a nation though you really have to opt for something in the middle and the debate in politics largely is moving the dial slightly back and forth. So the US does have free healthcare in the form of Medicare, it just doesn’t cover everyone. Sweden introduced and expanded the ‘free school’ movement where they removed schools from government control which is more libertarian overall than the US. The UK has the most government control over healthcare of any non-communist country but it is also the only one in the G20 that has complete private ownership of the water supply. So which one is the furthest left or right or socialist or libertarian can depend a lot on which area you are looking at.

 

 

 

 

Tonight’s episode of Question Time featuring Corbyn, Swinson, Sturgeon and Johnson has been far more interesting and illuminating than the previous head-to-head debate.

The solo public Q&A format (half an hour each) has allowed them to actually dig into some detail and interrogate the leaders in a way that goes beyond what has been achieved in the tit-for-tat of the adversarial debates.

More of these shows should adopt this format.

(My daughter made me laugh though with her description of Johnson: “he looks like he’s been asleep on a train with his head in a trashbag”.)

Dave wrote:

(My daughter made me laugh though with her description of Johnson: “he looks like he’s been asleep on a train with his head in a trashbag”.)

She’s not wrong, though.

garjones wrote:

Is that the Kamala Harris one?

It is excruciating when she was stood next to him.

 

I meant the “punching” one. They will meme the hell out of that if he’s the nominee.

I was out of the country earlier in the week so I missed this Channel 4 News interview with Gove.

More interviews should take a lead from this kind of focused and unflinching scrutiny.

Anonymous wrote:

Still, I haven’t seen any candidates yet who could actually win the next election or really accomplish anything if they did.

You just wait until President Warren rearranges the global financial sector. You just wait.

.

Whoever comes out on top, I think Biden’s been done for a while. You just get the feeling that the winds have changed on him, that nobody really likes him and that being the least common denominator just isn’t enough when your charisma only reaches the older sections of the demographic anymore.

Aw that’s a shame.

I’ve been trying to find out for a couple of weeks now if my reclusive MP is doing any hustings with his opponents. I resorted to asking the local paper and even they had no concrete idea. They have now posted a list of all the ones in the county though. The other constituencies are having anywhere between 2 and 5 hustings/debates, at large, central venues. My constituency is getting one in a village church on the outskirts.

My friend and I are going to go, try and ask some difficult questions.

Yeah, Biden had a rally for Obama and him in 2012 in a place that’s majority African-American, and said something that wouldn’t go over if his President hadn’t been African-American. He’s almost like a Democrat version of W, the way he puts his foot in his mouth sometimes.

Despite his record before VP, Biden is still likely the leading candidate by a large percentage among black democrat voters. Bill Clinton is probably the only white politician who’s more popular.

Biden is like Trump or GW in the fashion that his supporter’s connection to him is more emotional and therefore more forgiving as long as he doesn’t directly hurt their feelings.

I’d be up for a Biden-Trump match up. Bonus if they make them fight in single combat.

My point wasn’t so much about Black Voters, more an example of how he puts his foot in his mouth. He said something, that from any other White politician, except Bill Clinton, would have gotten the person in trouble.

We will reform the private rental sector with a Help to Rent scheme, giving all first-time renters under 30 tenancy deposit loans to help get into the market #BrighterFuture https://t.co/J4XWaoFlfw

— Jo Swinson (@joswinson) November 22, 2019

A loan to rent. A LOAN to RENT. A LOAN TO RENT. A. LOAN. TO. RENT. https://t.co/tLFfOypoKB

— Gav Maclean (@gavmaclean) November 24, 2019

Jesus it’s getting harder and harder to countenance even tactically voting Lib Dem. Their big idea for the housing market is to give people loans just so they can rent places?

I don’t think it’s as crazy as it first appears. A security deposit and rent downpayment can be a big hurdle to trying to rent if you’re young or on a low wage, and lots of people in those brackets may prefer to rent rather than saddle themselves with a mortgage in an uncertain financial future. Say, young people trying to get out of their parents’ house and into the first flat of their own, or graduates not yet sure where they want to permanently settle.

I don’t think it’s going to fix the housing problem all by itself (you need other policies to, e.g. ensure the rental stock exists), but it’s not really a bad policy.

DavidM wrote:

I don’t think it’s as crazy as it first appears. A security deposit and rent downpayment can be a big hurdle to trying to rent if you’re young or on a low wage, and lots of people in those brackets may prefer to rent rather than saddle themselves with a mortgage in an uncertain financial future. Say, young people trying to get out of their parents’ house and into the first flat of their own, or graduates not yet sure where they want to permanently settle.

I don’t think it’s going to fix the housing problem all by itself (you need other policies to, e.g. ensure the rental stock exists), but it’s not really a bad policy.

But you can only get this once. If you’re a graduate not sure you want to settle down in a certain place, why would you tie yourself down with a loan that will stay with you possibly longer than the accommodation, which won’t help you if you want to move again (or get turfed out by your landlord), and will be on top of the large student loans you’ll be repaying (thanks in part to the Lib Dems)?

I get the potential appeal of renting rather than buying, but a large portion of the problems in the housing market are due to the broken renting system. Letting people get into debt just to become part of that is a salt-covered plaster over a gaping flesh wound. It’s all the financial responsibility of having a mortgage, while still having to pay rent and not own a home.

The Lib Dems watched The Thick of it and thought Adam and Fergus were really cool.

Martin Smith wrote:

We will reform the private rental sector with a Help to Rent scheme, giving all first-time renters under 30 tenancy deposit loans to help get into the market #BrighterFuture https://t.co/J4XWaoFlfw

— Jo Swinson (@joswinson) November 22, 2019

A loan to rent. A LOAN to RENT. A LOAN TO RENT. A. LOAN. TO. RENT. https://t.co/tLFfOypoKB

— Gav Maclean (@gavmaclean) November 24, 2019

Jesus it’s getting harder and harder to countenance even tactically voting Lib Dem. Their big idea for the housing market is to give people loans just so they can rent places?

Jesus fucking Christ, they have no shame.

DavidM wrote:

don’t think it’s as crazy as it first appears. A security deposit and rent downpayment can be a big hurdle to trying to rent if you’re young or on a low wage, and lots of people in those brackets may prefer to rent rather than saddle themselves with a mortgage in an uncertain financial future. Say, young people trying to get out of their parents’ house and into the first flat of their own, or graduates not yet sure where they want to permanently settle. I don’t think it’s going to fix the housing problem all by itself (you need other policies to, e.g. ensure the rental stock exists), but it’s not really a bad policy.

I have questions over the practical impact.

Residential Tenancy laws in Australia are under heavy scrutinisation at the moment, because the rental industry favours landlords and it’s usual for real estates to reclaim rental bonds by referencing minor damage that arguably is classed as fair wear and tear.  We have a very, very active jurisdiction dedicated to resolving these disputes between tenants and landlords and it is usually the tenants that win. But, because the onus is on the tenants to be the applicant (disputing the bond claim) and to pay the application fee, the landlord and the real estate really lose nothing over trying to claim the bond unreasonably, excepting the time and stress dealing with the upset tenant (who is not their money-maker, it’s in their interest to please the landlord).

I expect a loan scheme would facilitate a rise in unfair claims, by virtue of the idea that “it’s not the tenant’s money” – this may also result in tenant’s being forced to owe the government for loans they expected to be able to pay, but because of the nature of the industry they cannot. This would probably be 0% interest, but still. On free market principles, it would also encourage a price-fixing of the bond rather than a set amount of weekly rent.  I’m sure there are laws codifying this, but if there are not it’s another danger to be aware of.

If the rental bond claim dispute industry is anything like Australia, the whole thing will add an unexpected, and frankly unmanageable burden.

Unless your residential leasing laws are very, very fair (which I doubt because ours are derived from yours) I do not think this is a good idea.  I also think, for many young people the burden of actually having to pay their own money as security is a good thing.  It’s generally bad financial advice to have to get a loan for security for anything, and with very good reason (housing market and business loans notwithstanding, but even then those industries are, clearly, problematic).

It’s not an evil policy but it’s a poor one and offers no key solutions. For graduates it’s basically dumping more debt onto more debt and as with the tuition fee stuff you’ll probably find administrating the whole loans and collection scheme costs more than if they just doled out the cash.

This is happening in my neighbourhood:

Birmingham anti-LGBT school protests: judge makes ban permanent

 

Related:

 

Ex-Labour MP to run as independent after being dropped over LGBT row

Godsiff has some nasty views so I’m glad he’s out, but I hope he doesn’t split the Labour vote. This is a constituency very near to me.

Support to pay current rent levels supports current levels themselves, and facilitates their continued increase.

What’s needed is a policy that cools the property market down. A massive increase in council housing would go a long way towards doing that. If council properties become widely available again, and cheaper, than the market, they will undercut that market and force prices down, or at least to slow down.

Spot on Steve.

This is the issue stemming back to the Blair years where however well intentioned the use of housing benefit to support renters of private housing just drove the prices up. There’s every chance if you provide deposit money via loan or grant then the deposits become 4,5 or 6 months rather than 3.

The answer is building council houses.

I was also getting at this for the record. I even said “free market principles”.

I should get bare minimum 1 vote-up for being at least 80% as smart as Steve.

garjones wrote:

This is the issue stemming back to the Blair years where however well intentioned the use of housing benefit to support renters of private housing just drove the prices up. There’s every chance if you provide deposit money via loan or grant then the deposits become 4,5 or 6 months rather than 3.

Deposits are currently legally capped at five weeks’ rent, and nobody as far as I know has suggested changing that.

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/housing/renting-privately/private-renting/how-much-it-costs-to-rent/

SteveUK wrote:

Support to pay current rent levels supports current levels themselves, and facilitates their continued increase.

Rents are currently rising more slowly than income, and until very recently were rising more slowly than inflation (which is why there was widespread derision from landlords when Labour recently said they would cap rent increases at the level of inflation: “Oh, so you want us to put them *up* ? ” ).

https://www.zoopla.co.uk/discover/property-news/rents-rise-at-just-half-the-level-of-earnings/#sQlpcW4QsQkpF5yR.97

Steves point is nevertheless correct.

The question over how, and whether increases in the housing market rental (and purchase prices) should reflect or be influenced by inflation is an interesting one.  But, ulitmately, inflation for goods and services, and increases in residential costs are, and should be, different because they reflect different aspects of the cost of living, and varying levels of necessity.

The whole question of what should or shouldn’t rise at the rate of inflation is interesting. Everything is intrinsically linked to everything else, so why shouldn’t everything rise at the same rate?

Looked at simplistically: the landlord still has to eat, his food bill is rising at the rate of inflation, so his income needs to rise at the same rate, and his income is the rent he charges. The landlord has to pay tradesmen to repair the property. The tradesman has to eat. His food bill is rising… etc. The landlord has to pay his accountant to deal with all this. The accountant has to eat…

In theory, when any single element in the system rises in price, every other element should rise by the same amount because everybody who buys the original item needs to earn that much more money, and the knock-on effect moves to people who buy their items, and so on throughout the system. Inflation should always apply absolutely equally to everything.

Which is just another way of saying, there should never be any inflation

Deposits are currently legally capped at five weeks’ rent, and nobody as far as I know has suggested changing that.

That’s a deposit, your own CAB link says the advance rent is variable and mentions no cap.

DavidM wrote:

The whole question of what should or shouldn’t rise at the rate of inflation is interesting. Everything is intrinsically linked to everything else, so why shouldn’t everything rise at the same rate?

Sorry David, but this is just not correct.  Think microeconomics not macroecomics.  Inflation is goods and services specific, if it weren’t, we’d be fucked.  I think you’re conflating indexation with inflation.

DavidM wrote:

The whole question of what should or shouldn’t rise at the rate of inflation is interesting. Everything is intrinsically linked to everything else, so why shouldn’t everything rise at the same rate?

Looked at simplistically: the landlord still has to eat, his food bill is rising at the rate of inflation, so his income needs to rise at the same rate, and his income is the rent he charges. The landlord has to pay tradesmen to repair the property. The tradesman has to eat. His food bill is rising… etc. The landlord has to pay his accountant to deal with all this. The accountant has to eat…

In theory, when any single element in the system rises in price, every other element should rise by the same amount because everybody who buys the original item needs to earn that much more money, and the knock-on effect moves to people who buy their items, and so on throughout the system. Inflation should always apply absolutely equally to everything.

Which is just another way of saying, there should never be any inflation

2 points on this, very few private landlords rely on their rental income. I did the maths a bit earlier in the thread but to get enough money to earn an average UK wage as a landlord you’d need a minimum 10 properties and at that point it is a serious business with heavy loans unless you are already a multi-millionaire.

Inflation v housing costs can be a very deceptive area. Housing costs tend to go up in bursts while inflation is a slow gradual increase. Typically rent levels may change at 3-5 year intervals while salary increases are usually annual so any snapshot briefer than 3 years is going to look like landlords are taking a hit. If you look over a decade or more the cost of housing has outstripped inflation and inflation adjusted earnings significantly.

 

Anonymous wrote:

Inflation is goods and services specific

I don’t understand why this should be. There is no reason why the cost of cleaning birdshit off your office windows should rise any faster or slower than the cost of cleaning a virus off your PC Windows. Those jobs next year will both require the same number of people spending the same amount of time and using the same tools as they did this year. So where is the justification for your window cleaners putting their price up 5% next year while your Windows cleaners put their prices up by 8%? It makes no sense.

DavidM wrote:

So where is the justification for your window cleaners putting their price up 5% next year while your Windows cleaners put their prices up by 8%? It makes no sense.

You are putting the cart before the horse here. Inflation is defined by how much people increase prices or not, not people defining their increases by the inflation rate. The inflation rate is reactive, not a guide.

So window cleaners may put their prices up more because the cost of soap went up and the cost of soap may go up because a typhoon in a tropical area has wiped out palm and coconut trees that are used to make it. The Windows cleaner has faced no such increase in his costs so doesn’t raise his prices, in fact there could be 10 new tech support teams opened in his town that week so to remain competitive he may even reduce his prices.

 

 

Yes, the idea that every good or service is operating in exactly the same economic environment is obviously nonsense.

It’s a false equivalency.

Housing market demands are affected by a number of factors including stamp duty, foreign investors, company owned properties, capital gains, second-hand sales, inheritance etc.  The list is, in truth, very very complicated and there are too many factors for my poor brain to be able to accentuate here.  Nonetheless, it should not be a stretch to understand that the housing market prices are complicated.

Does the UK have a GST (Goods and services tax?) if it does, do you know if it’s attached to Property Prices? It’s very likely not, unless it’s a new supply. Do you know why? If you can answer this question that is the answer to your question.

Indexation, that magic rate, is what both your GDP (ultimately, subject to inputs from other markets) and inflation is derived from but it doesn’t apply to certain markets. Markets are individual forces.  They’re not part of the same pool. A rising tide does not lift all boats.  They’re susceptible to their own internal competitions, shareholder demands, regulations and endless other factors.

Your idea that because a landlord eats food (which is subject to inflation under CPI – consumer price index), and the tradesperson eats food, and they have an income which is subject to indexation, and therefore if those costs are subject to a specific rise then the housing market should automatically reflect this is s a gross oversimplification.

It ignores a multitude of market forces, including international and corporate market forces, and there’s not really a clear or succinct way I can explain this, to be honest.  Perhaps someone else would like to take up the baton.

Suffice to say, even though I can’t clearly or glibly state why this is not correct, I’m sure there are no shortage of youtube videos or articles which explain different market forces and these economic ideas in ways better than I ever could, and I encourage you to investigate should you be curious.

But, ultimately, you’re in a big wrong-nado, you  wrongy mcwrongpants from wrongsville

 

I do appreciate everybody’s answers, and the effort put into trying to explain it :)

 

Nevertheless, I think the whole system is silly. Market forces is silly. There is no logic to it and no clear benefit to the world. If you were trying to design an economic system from scratch, you wouldn’t even consider one as silly as the one we appear to have.