As I've mentioned before, just like Soviet Socialists, the Home-Owner-Ists have a deep seated phobia of free markets, they neither welcome them nor even understand them. They choose whichever side of a free market transaction they can paint in the most unfavourable light and completely ignore the upside; in free markets of course, the upsides always outweigh the downsides.
One argument trotted out many times in response to that modest proposal by the Intergenerational Foundation goes as follows:
TC: Yet more government intervention to try and solve the problems created by... government intervention (nationalisation of land and the planning system).(1)
The genius of this idea being, of course, as thousands of older people downsize they compete with first time buyers for smaller houses forcing prices up and creating more unaffordability.(2)
1) It's nice to see that TC admits that land has been nationalised, in fact land has always been nationalised, it can't possibly be anything else because land 'ownership' is merely an agreement between the land owner from time-to-time and 'everybody else' with the government as referee.
But with typical Home-Owner-Ist DoubleThink gusto, TC blames the planning system on 'the government'. I don't think the government could give two hoots about the planning system, it is the Home-Owner-Ists themselves who impose all the restrictions, so it's like totalitarians complaining about police brutality.
2) It is not inconceivable that there would be more demand for smaller homes by older people, but overall demand for such housing would not increase, as young couples will quite happily leap frog the "bottom rung of the property ladder" and buy the larger ones straight off.
We know that young couples have a fixed housing budget, so if SDLT, Council Tax etc were replaced with Land Value Tax (or Property Value Tax) and there were more larger homes being sold, the selling price of larger houses would fall.
This would flatten the differential between the purchase price of smaller and larger homes, is all, with an equal opposite increase in the differential in ownership costs, that's how prices respond in a free market, and, free markets being what they are, all in all it would lead to a more efficient allocation of resources, in this case housing.
Blimey - he's off again
40 minutes ago
8 comments:
Maybe I have misunderstood, but are you really arguing that young people who could previously only afford small houses can now afford large houses because they cost less than they did before even though they cost more than small houses?
TFB, I am pointing out that the free markets will sort things out (price rationing is the best form of rationing).
We cannot quantify all the effects down to the last pound and penny, but whatever the outcome, it will be better than what we have now. Worst case, nobody moves home and just coughs up the tax, in which case at least people in small houses get a tax cut.
How about the poor old folk rattling round in large houses say, 'Look, I'm really attached to my house on this little piece of land that I own. You don't have any business telling me where to live. In consideration of this, I have no business in telling you where to live. There's a field adjacent to my property that I don't own so it's no skin off my back if you build suitable accommodation for your family there.'
TFB, in my case, my family of four is renting a 2 bed maisonette. If the Baby Boomer next door had to decide between spending all her income on land tax or moving somewhere that suits her income, like our place, we'd switch. My income tax would go down to zero so I could afford the land rent on her bigger place. Her land rent would go up but her income tax would come down very little because she doesn't have much, so would be forced to make free market decisions.
Joe, Joe, Joe, when will you learn? We can't build on The Hallowed Green Belt in order to preserve our green and unpleasant land and guarantee food security for future generations. So when young people are forced to live in cramped, overpriced housing, it's ultimately for their own good. The fact that all this primarily benefits the Boomers is entirely coincidental.
And I've made that point before about 'downsizing' being a relative and not absolute thing, but these Homeys refuse to contemplate such a concept, because they are so vindictive they don't even care how shabbily they are housed, as long as everybody else is even more shabbily housed.
The idea that everybody gets to live in a nice house for an affordable price is anathema to them.
"You don't have any business telling me where to live."
That's the point Mark is trying to make. No-one is telling anyone where to live. However, there are lots of people in the country who'd love to be able to tell everyone else where to live, but they can't, so they hate the idea of anyone else doing so, or even something that even looks like someone else being able to do so.
Thats a brilliant piece
Exchange of property us a contract between tax payer and taxing authority.
Tax payer is the home owner
Taxing authority is everyone else
The more tax you pay in proportion to your income, the bigger your stake is in the game of monopoly, for better or worse
The "wealthiest" dont pay tax. Yet their biggest assets are in land, monopoly profits, resource rents, countries sovreignty.
Most homeys do not own any of these assets but aspire to them. Most wealthy people are simply the few homeys who made it to the top of the pile.
This strongly suggests that home ownerism is a sneaky ploy designed to benefit the "wealthy" few land owning benefit scroungers
RS: "Exchange of property us a contract between tax payer and taxing authority."
What I actually pointed out is that land 'ownership' is an ongoing contract or agreement between the land 'owner' and 'everybody else' with 'the government' acting as referee. That's just a fact.
I personally see no reason why 'everybody else' shouldn't demand suitable payment in return for keeping their side of the bargain, but that's where the Homeys and Faux Libs disagree.
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