Friday night gear change

This is a prime example of the thinking that says "Great song so far, but we have to pad it out to about three minutes". The song itself is indeed great for the first minute and a half, grinds to a natural halt during a delightful percussion section (at which stage it should have been faded out) , stops completely ... and then starts again with just percussion/vocals (see also "Living on a prayer") before the band comes back in, at which stage Messrs Chinn and Chapman think "Shit! We haven't even got two minutes' worth" so for the next minute and a half there are four (count them) gear changes, each sounding more strained that the previous one:

Watermelons

Photo emailed to me by M.

Luke 15:7*

This week's "sinner that repenteth" might well be Paul Hudson, who wrote the infamous Whatever happened to global warming? article a month ago and who has now waded into the leaked climate-change-fraud-email debate on his BBC 'blog.

OK, I'd worry about his claim that "action is needed to be taken from the world's biggest polluters to cut carbon dioxide emissions", but this will all only unravel one thread at a time**

* King James Bible: "I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance."

** Leg Iron used this analogy a few days ago and I've finally got round to nicking it.

More bollocks

The Metro follows up yesterday's bollocks-related stories with this:

The [police] officer has compiled a report into the use of mephedrone across the Durham force area and part of his research has focused on online forums.

The report states: 'A large number of contributors state how addictive mephedrone is and they are constantly topping up as one individual states that after using it for 18 hours his hallucinations led him to believe that centipedes were crawling over him and biting him. This led him to receive hospital treatment after he ripped his scrotum off.'

More Xmas Tree/Elfin Safety Fun...

From The Metro:

The tree that normally costs £500 has been replaced by a £13,000 fake amid fears it would fall over in strong winds. The new 10m (33ft) tall variety, has no branches and decorations, is sturdier and doesn't have to be cordoned off to keep people away, authorities claim. But residents say it looks more like a gigantic traffic cone, a witch's hat, an ice-cream cornet or even something out of Doctor Who...

Richard Randall-Jones, the town centre manager, defended the new fake tree."People think you can just go into the woods, chop down a tree and put it up in the high street. But if it blows over and kills someone then somebody is liable for it," he said.

I'm not sure how many people have ever been killed by real Xmas trees, and presumably there are as yet no statistics on how many are killed by giant cones. Does anybody else suspect that somebody on the council might have a brother-in-law who happens to sell giant cones?

Reader's Letter Of The Day

From today's FT:

Sir,

Robert Zoellick (Heed the danger of asset bubbles*, November 25) mentions at least five ways being attempted in Singapore to dampen the property price bubble.

Strangely he does not suggest that it might be appropriate to increase the annual land value tax (currently 0.5 per cent of land market value) levied by the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore. As head of the World Bank Group, should he not be suggesting that this type of tax be seriously considered internationally to inhibit property (ie land) price bubbles?

In Singapore, public infrastructure is funded by land value tax, which is a fair quid pro quo, since the value of land is directly related to infrastructure improvement.

Charles Bazlinton, Alresford, Hants.

* From the earlier article: "In Singapore, the 16 per cent surge in property prices during the third quarter of this year led the authorities to release more land for development and to take steps to stop borrowers from deferring payments. Other more focused measures include setting targets for the overall rate of growth of bank credit, imposing caps on the share of bank lending for real estate and portfolio investments, or higher capital requirements for riskier lenders.

In developed countries, where central banks want to keep rates low, regulators should be considering supplementary tools such as raising margin requirements on stock, bond and futures transactions, or raising down-payment requirements on commercial or speculative real estate deals."

Tony Blair

Life copies satire (again)

Woman On A Raft (who now blogs here), in a thread about patio heaters of a year-and-a-half ago:

I picked up a green living catalogue from outside Neal's Yard and it said that fire bowls, chimineas etc were all OK, and double OK if you bought them from ethical suppliers, preferably having been made by Mexicans/Indonesians whatever, from clay or recycled bottletops...

All this time, I had assumed she was being ironic.

Nope.

*sigh*

Umbongo, in the comments to an earlier post:

Oswald then concludes (I think) that [unemployment is] somehow prevented by a flourishing O-O market. A more obvious and less laboriously constructed conclusion (again, per Friedman) is that were there not frictions in every part of the housing market then all markets (including the employment market and the transport market) would be more efficient.

Oswald is entitled to draw any conclusions he likes. I was just presenting the raw data, not saying that I agree with him in everything. The point is that high owner-occupancy rates are inimical to a "flourishing" or "frictionless" housing market, because owner-occupiers tend to strongly oppose new developments - whether that is of new executive villas, normal estates for normal families or indeed sink estates - and vote for whichever party promises the least new development. And negative equity is a real brake on (geographic) mobility.

Forgetting that O-O might be, to a large extent, a non-economic ambition. Oswald's implied solution (since it's one of the 5 "problems") must include the prevention of owner-occupiers exercising their political strength (in planning inquiries etc) so that the state (through councils/housing associations) or developers can impose their preferred solutions locally. This would certainly contribute to reducing home-ownership.

O-O is very much an economic ambition! People genuinely believe that a home should not just be somewhere to live but a source of tax-free income and capital gains. That's (partly) which O-Oer's oppose new development - to create an artificial scarcity value (or to preserve their private enjoyment of whatever public benefits accrue to people living in any area).

And what is this mantra "developers imposing their preferred solutions"? There's demand for housing from perfectly ordinary people, who'd also like to be able to afford to buy a house. The same as there's demand for cars or apples or private schools. I never hear anybody complaining about car manufacturers or farmers or private schools "imposing their preferred solutions" (except maybe the Lefties, but they're just as bad).

Such a solution might "solve" some unemployment but would certainly create some messy democratic problems.

OK, young couples who'd like to buy a house are a minority at any one time, so on a static basis, existing O-Oers can use their vote to thwart their wishes. But wasn't everybody young once? Isn't the O-O market actually a great big Ponzi scheme?

Since Oswald's paper has been posted on a blog which strongly advocates LVT as an economic panacea, Oswald's implied solution would not, of course, be a problem for fans of LVT since the downgrading of a local area would be "compensated" by a lowering of LVT.

I never said "panacea". There are two kinds of economic problems. Those that will be solved by LVT and those that are insoluble. With LVT, local councils would be doing their utmost to ensure that their area is as attractive as possible and not "downgraded", or else they choke off their only source of income, that's the whole point.

I would be happy to pay a higher LVT (as I currently pay a higher council tax) to keep my local area in the way I and my neighbours want it. However, a lower (or nil) LVT would not, I think, ever be able to compensate for the parachuting of problem families (or worse) into the neighbourhood. This lack of a true compensation mechanism is one of the basic weaknesses of LVT (unless a negative LVT is contemplated).

As to the "problem families", logic says that the best thing we could do is round them all up and make them live on some isolated army-style barracks somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Far too many people say "Oh, we can't liberalise planning laws because we'd get stuck with a council estate." How about "We don't want a council estate so we'll ask the council to allow more new housing for O-O to be built"? When did you ever hear that?

Finally, of course there's negative LVT. More LVT = less of other taxes. Whether you see that as an "income tax cut" or an "LVT refund" is a different matter.

*/sigh*

Wrong on so many levels ...

It's difficult to know where to start with this article in The Evening Standard...

A Town Hall is poised to ban open-plan design in new housing developments because it is unpopular with Asian families.

A six-month investigation by Tower Hamlets found affordable units in the borough — aimed at key workers and people on low incomes — were vacant. But there are more than 22,000 people on its housing waiting lists.

The council believes this is because many families, particularly those of Asian origin, are not interested in homes with a combined kitchen and living space. A report on the problem says: “Separate provision would be much more suited because the [Asian] lifestyle requires separate seating space for male and female visitors and also the type of food cooked, heavy in oil and spices, which can have strong odours.”

Despite the borough's large Asian community — almost 37 per cent of the population, according to the latest census — only 12 per cent of the open-plan units were sold to Asian buyers. Almost 70 per cent of those sold recently have gone to white people.

Tower Hamlets is now set to alter its planning guidance to specify the need for separate rooms in all new developments. The Greater London Authority has recommended separate living and kitchen areas in large family units...

Developers often prefer open-plan designs because they are cheaper to build. But if they fail to find the extra space in family-sized affordable homes in Tower Hamlets, they are unlikely to win planning permission.

Waiseul Islam, chairman of the council's group on affordable home ownership, said: “Overcrowding and the demand for social housing have continued to rise locally, and shared-ownership schemes designed to assist people into home ownership haven't been as successful as anticipated.”

... so I don't think I'll even start, because it would take me all afternoon.