I frequently agree with ideas expressed on New Geography but certainly not Ian Abley's article There is no "Free Market" Housing Solution Home Price IndexHome Price Index On 24 November 2009 the Housing Minister John Healey confirmed that Britain will be the first country in the world to require zero carbon homes as a matter of law from 2016. Britain is the world leader in green ideology. All of the newly built British housing will have much better insulated walls, windows, roofs and floors. The clear aim of the government is to keep reducing the energy consumption of all new homes to be measured in kilowatt-hours per square metre of floor area per year. The commitment to "zero carbon" allows government to appear virtuous in its legislation for the new build sector. This suits the financial markets as well, since it guarantees house price inflation by making it difficult to meet the demographic demand for homes. Environmentalism offers more and more reasons not to build. Green thinking ensures that house price inflation can be sustained through a bubble, and projected beyond the bursting of that period of financialisation into the next. .... The market is not capable of being a "free market". Capitalism is a system of control by political and commercial elites, and their professional employees. British capitalists tend to be less interested in industry, which is held to have caused Climate Change, and more interested in finance these days. Missing The Free Market BoatMissing The Free Market Boat Ian Abley misses the boat. I would agree that "there is no free market". However, it is foolish to say "there is no free market solution". The solution is there, the problem is government pandering for social and political goals interferes with the solution. Common Sense vs. Green Thinking This is not a "space issue" or a "green issue". That bubbles eventually pop is both a mathematical certainty and common sense. Temporarily, credit bubbles, green policies, and ownership societies can prop up home prices. However, once consumer attitudes change, there is nothing government can do to prop up prices of homes or anything else, short of causing hyperinflation. .... I find it amazing that anyone can watch the US housing bubble bust wide open, yet propose "Green thinking ensures that house price inflation can be sustained through a bubble, and projected beyond the bursting of that period of financialisation into the next". .... Common Sense vs. Green Thinking This is not a "space issue" or a "green issue". That bubbles eventually pop is both a mathematical certainty and common sense. Temporarily, credit bubbles, green policies, and ownership societies can prop up home prices. However, once consumer attitudes change, there is nothing government can do to prop up prices of homes or anything else, short of causing hyperinflation. Once attitudes change, if "zero carbon" or other government nonsense makes homes cost more than people are willing to pay, all economic homebuilding activity will simply cease! .... In this sense, the free market cannot and will not be defeated. How long it takes for the bubble to blow up in the UK, Australia, and Canada is at this point the only question. I find it amazing that anyone can watch the US housing bubble bust wide open, yet propose "Green thinking ensures that house price inflation can be sustained through a bubble, and projected beyond the bursting of that period of financialisation into the next".
Home Price IndexHome Price Index
On 24 November 2009 the Housing Minister John Healey confirmed that Britain will be the first country in the world to require zero carbon homes as a matter of law from 2016. Britain is the world leader in green ideology. All of the newly built British housing will have much better insulated walls, windows, roofs and floors. The clear aim of the government is to keep reducing the energy consumption of all new homes to be measured in kilowatt-hours per square metre of floor area per year. The commitment to "zero carbon" allows government to appear virtuous in its legislation for the new build sector. This suits the financial markets as well, since it guarantees house price inflation by making it difficult to meet the demographic demand for homes. Environmentalism offers more and more reasons not to build. Green thinking ensures that house price inflation can be sustained through a bubble, and projected beyond the bursting of that period of financialisation into the next. .... The market is not capable of being a "free market". Capitalism is a system of control by political and commercial elites, and their professional employees. British capitalists tend to be less interested in industry, which is held to have caused Climate Change, and more interested in finance these days.
All of the newly built British housing will have much better insulated walls, windows, roofs and floors. The clear aim of the government is to keep reducing the energy consumption of all new homes to be measured in kilowatt-hours per square metre of floor area per year.
The commitment to "zero carbon" allows government to appear virtuous in its legislation for the new build sector.
This suits the financial markets as well, since it guarantees house price inflation by making it difficult to meet the demographic demand for homes. Environmentalism offers more and more reasons not to build. Green thinking ensures that house price inflation can be sustained through a bubble, and projected beyond the bursting of that period of financialisation into the next.
....
The market is not capable of being a "free market". Capitalism is a system of control by political and commercial elites, and their professional employees. British capitalists tend to be less interested in industry, which is held to have caused Climate Change, and more interested in finance these days.
Missing The Free Market BoatMissing The Free Market Boat Ian Abley misses the boat. I would agree that "there is no free market". However, it is foolish to say "there is no free market solution". The solution is there, the problem is government pandering for social and political goals interferes with the solution.
Common Sense vs. Green Thinking
This is not a "space issue" or a "green issue". That bubbles eventually pop is both a mathematical certainty and common sense. Temporarily, credit bubbles, green policies, and ownership societies can prop up home prices. However, once consumer attitudes change, there is nothing government can do to prop up prices of homes or anything else, short of causing hyperinflation.
I find it amazing that anyone can watch the US housing bubble bust wide open, yet propose "Green thinking ensures that house price inflation can be sustained through a bubble, and projected beyond the bursting of that period of financialisation into the next".
This is not a "space issue" or a "green issue". That bubbles eventually pop is both a mathematical certainty and common sense. Temporarily, credit bubbles, green policies, and ownership societies can prop up home prices. However, once consumer attitudes change, there is nothing government can do to prop up prices of homes or anything else, short of causing hyperinflation. Once attitudes change, if "zero carbon" or other government nonsense makes homes cost more than people are willing to pay, all economic homebuilding activity will simply cease!
In this sense, the free market cannot and will not be defeated. How long it takes for the bubble to blow up in the UK, Australia, and Canada is at this point the only question. I find it amazing that anyone can watch the US housing bubble bust wide open, yet propose "Green thinking ensures that house price inflation can be sustained through a bubble, and projected beyond the bursting of that period of financialisation into the next".
It would appear that Ian Abley would like to attribute problems with housing shortages to attempts to deal with climate change. A typical Neo-Classical Economics ploy: frame the issue as one of a choice of two equally unpalatable choices. Different arrangements surely could result in more affordable "green" housing, even if it had to entail "planning", a choice NCE would not like to contemplate. As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
Median income is £22k.
What has happened is that people are renting, sharing, or both. Or they're not leaving home at all. We have an entire generation of people under thirty who have almost no prospect at all of owning a house - especially in London.
you are the media you consume.
Also a lot of property was bought on "buy to let" mortgages (pay off interest only) which catastrophically distorted the market.Plus people are beggaring themselves to get on the housing ladder. keep to the Fen Causeway
Welcome to the club. See this and that. En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
