As suggested by Bayard, for the benefit of Woody 42 and others, here's the Venn Diagram I prepared a couple of years ago, with 'homeowners' (in the narrower sense) in the left hand set and "Home-Owner-Ists" in the right hand set. Of course there is a large overlap in the middle, and none of these categories are clear cut, but hopefully this will give you an idea of who is driving "Home-Owner-Ism" and who really benefits from it.
Classy
14 minutes ago
3 comments:
Just for fun I reviewed the political manifesto of my country's National Association of Homeowners. Such an association seems nice enough, they give out a magazine, has lawyers on hand for their members. People owning their own homes are important right? So let's shee in what way they really want to help homeowners, and compare it to the diagram (abbreviated and roughly translated):
We want to:
Increase the amount of tax-reduced allowances for "first buyers savings accounts".
Remove the wealth tax on the value of primary residencies.
Abolish the property tax.
Balancing the rights of landlords and tenants - in particular allowing landlords to dock paychecks and get faster with evictions ordered by bailiffs.
Lower stamp duty to the actual cost of administrating property transfers.
Minimize expropriations.
Make sure compensation as result of expropriation and planning changes reflects market values - in particular when down-planning property to lower value use - compensation should be for the previous higher value use.
How would you place them? I'd say they are pretty far rightright in that diagram. Can't be any more blatantly advocating the financial interests of homeowners than that AFAICS.
Kj, correct, they are hard core, fundamentalist and extremist. In other words, they reflect the views of half the UK population.
Just chipping in a few words about allowing more houses to be built, "affordability" etc., would at least create a slight confusion about their primary interests, but they don't bother, probably because their mass of membership does not really care once they are "on the ladder", expecting to be rewarded for their service to humankind. Yuck.
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