Tuesday 23 February 2010

"Encouraging homeownership"?

When I post my rants against the Home-Owner-Ists and their insane economic policies, a lot of readers have asked me why I am attacking homeowners or why I oppose homeownership.

The simple answer is that I am not attacking homeowners per se and do not oppose homeownership in the slightest. AFAIAC, if people want to own their own home (and most people do), then they should be allowed to do so, and I have explained at length how a wider spread of homeownership could be achieved (briefly, by adopting economic policies* that are the opposite Home-Owner-Ist economic policies).

Y'see, this is a clever bit of propaganda by the Home-Owner-Ists. They claim that they want to encourage a wider spread of homeownership, but nothing could be further from the truth. According to today's Telegraph, in the last ten years of Home-Owner-Ist madness, the number of households (the article incorrectly refers to households as 'individuals') renting privately in England has increased from 2.1 million to 3.1 million.**

So there.

* Basically, liberalise planning laws and replace as many taxes as possible with Land Value Tax, within the overall constraint of bringing the tax burden down; as opposed to Home-Owner-Ist policies of allowing no new housing being built; taxes on productive activity being increased to subsidise mortgages, bail out banks etc; and taxes on property (for example Council Tax) being reduced.

** Points go to the first Home-Owner-Ist to leave a comment saying the bulk of the increase is down to all those pesky foreigners.

4 comments:

Lola said...

It's all down to those pesky foreigners...........them Eh-rabs, comin' over 'ere with them petro-dollars an' buyin' up 'alf of London. It jurst pushes up them aarse prices so's no-one can get on the bleedin' ladder no more.. Wot squire? The illegals? Just dahn't get me started on them illegals. Claiming benefits or working on the cheap. They'll all be drivin' minicabs soon. Putting an 'onest bloke like me out of a decent job. OK Squire will 'ere do. I know it's raining but the stations just up there. 15 quid please.

Anonymous said...

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ianmcowie/100003921/how-increased-tax-and-regulation-hurts-young-homebuyers/

for some more homeownerism.

James Higham said...

Could we conclude form this that you don't like Homeownerists?

AntiCitizenOne said...

I think that a Laffer-maximum LVT/IPVT paid to the crown and returned as a CD minus the costs of government would have a strong incentive to minimise the size of the state.