The responses to last week's poll, "Which method of dampening house price bubbles damages the economy least?", were as follows:
Liberalising planning laws - 43%
Increasing property taxes (and cutting other taxes) - 30%
Increasing interest rates or imposing lending controls - 20%
None of the above. High house prices are good for the economy - 7%
I am delighted to see that only a tiny minority believe that high house prices are good for the economy, which is pretty much the opposite of what most people seem to think, but maybe I'm wrong.
So that's the topic of this week's Fun Online Poll, I'd like to know which of various economic variables you think that most voters care about most - i.e. not the one which one you care about; or the one that you think they ought to care about; but the one that they actually care about most in practice and the one that all major political parties seem to prioritise.
Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.
---------------------------------
Going back to the comments in last week's, I'd agree with DCB Reed and Lola rather than with Anti-Citizen One:
AC1: "The purpose of [Land Value Tax] is not to remove bubbles from the economy it's to pay for the externality that the Government grants to property owner. The best way to stop a bubble is to stop credit bubbles from forming so I'd vote for "lending controls" Whereby lending controls are simply increasing the reserve requirements of lenders."
DCB: "Post Keynes, one of the purposes of LVT is to prevent housing bubbles. If you restrict credit to stop housing bubbles, business and entrepreneurs will also be hit. Babies and bath water."
With hindsight, I could have included "Higher capital ratios for banks" as an option as well, that would be another important part of my multi-pronged attack on house price bubbles.
I Don't Know Why They Call Them 'Thinktanks'...
2 hours ago
12 comments:
Personally the best way is to change the benefit system so that being a single mum is not such a great idea.
Then we would have the same level of single parents as other EU countries - and need a million less houses straight away!!
While I believe that most voters consider job security to be the most important issue, reducing the government deficit and reducing taxes is more important because they lead to job creation.
Anon, obviously. That's another argument for a flat-rate Citizen's Income type welfare system. They'd get nothing extra for having loads of kids, so they'd stop ding it.
F, yes of course, what I was really interested in was the trade-off between job security and ever-rising house prices. So let's see how the poll pans out.
It would be interesting to know to what extent house prices are pushed up by the economically inactive. I would have thought it is enough to add it to the cost along with benefits. One would imagine if immigrants went home and their jobs taken by natives house prices would fall.
Unfortunately if you follow this line of argument you get a soviet system of people having to have permission to live in a place.
"They'd get nothing extra for having loads of kids, so they'd stop ding it."
I very much doubt it. I suspect that most single-mumdom is caused by living in denial of the biological consequences of unprotected sex and naively believing the promises of unreliable men, rather than a cold assessment of the economical benefits of having lots of kids. It might make more of them put their kids up for adoption and increase the abortion rate, though, which would come to the same thing.
RLJ, there is no doubt that immigrants (whether 'good' or 'bad') must have some marginal effect on house prices, but it is not that significant.
B, as Anon says, most other European countries don't bribe young single women with low earnings prospects to have as many kids as possible, and as a result, they have far fewer single mothers (and as a result fewer badly brought up kids, as a result less crime etc).
It is very much an economic decision on their part.
@Fausty-- I agree with your point of view. I thinks that every man wanna that.
"RLJ, there is no doubt that immigrants (whether 'good' or 'bad') must have some marginal effect on house prices, but it is not that significant."
Nah, millions of them live in tents and not in houses...
Of course there is no correlation between supply and demand!
(what do you dream at night? ;-)
Addendum: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/6489956/One-in-five-families-receive-housing-benefits.html
1 in 5 families live rent-free, courtesy of the tax payer, and they pay 'market rent' (and more) instead rents they can actually afford.
That means that 4 or of 5 families pay 1/4 more in order to keep those freeloaders housed.
Also note the locations mentioned...
Fat Hen, you are jumbling lots of separate topics.
1. I never said that immigration had no impact on house prices, and it must be especially galling when they jump the queue for social housing, but out of a 200% price rise in the last ten years, I'd be surprised if they were to blame for more than 20% of that.
2. I covered the myth about the taxpayer paying for people in social housing who claim housing benefit here. It's only a small part of housing benefit - the part paid to private landlords - that is a real cost to the taxpayer (and serves to drive up rents and house prices).
"B, as Anon says, most other European countries don't bribe young single women with low earnings prospects to have as many kids as possible, and as a result, they have far fewer single mothers"
I'd quibble about that "as a result". Do you have statistical evidence to show that benefits, and not other factors, is the reason for lower incidence of single motherhood? Which European countries are we talking about anyway?
Also, I cannot see that reducing the number of single mothers will reduce the number of homes required. Where were all these women living before they became mothers?
B, the IDS report (for example) included a chapter correlating benefits vs number of single mothers for various countries. Netherlands and Italy spring to mind. You may well say that the low number of single mothers is because those countries are more religious or moralistic and has nothing to do with welfare... but this is then a circular argument.
Alternatively, we can look at the UK. As the benefits are of fixed monetary value, they are 'worth more' to a woman with low earnings expectations than to one who wants to finish school or university, get a good job etc. Therefore, the number of women from lower income or welfare families who become single mothers themselves is far higher than for middle or high income women. That's a simple, observable fact.
"Where were all these women living before they became mothers?"
They were occupying one room in their parents' council flat; one or two sprogs later, they have a council flat of their own.
Post a Comment