Thursday 22 July 2010

The Home-Owner-Ist Death Spiral

Based on a thread over at HPC on inflation/deflation:

1. ... wages and profits fall, which puts downward pressure on unaffordably high land prices.
2. This does not go down well with the Home-Owner-Ist coalition, so the central bank (i.e. part of government) buys crappy mortgages off banks to prop up land prices or gives them low interest loans
3. This increases government liabilities (where else does the government get the money from to pay the banks?)
4. So taxes have to go up, now or in future to repay those government debts, plus to cover the losses the central bank incurred by buying up crap at overvalue.
5. The government can't increases taxes on land values, as this would defeat the object of point 2, so it increases taxes on incomes and production.
6. So wages and profits fall further, which puts downward pressure on unaffordably high house prices.

7. This does not go down well with the Home-Owner-Ist coalition, so the central bank (i.e. part of government) buys crappy mortgages off banks to prop up land prices or gives them low interest loans
8. This increases government liabilities (where else does the government get the money from to pay the banks?)
9. So taxes have to go up, now or in future to repay those government debts, plus to cover the losses the central bank incurred by buying up crap at overvalue.
10. The government can't increases taxes on land values, as this would defeat the object of point 2., so it increases taxes on incomes and production.

11. Wages and profits fall further, which puts downward pressure on unaffordably high house prices.
12. This does not go down well with the Home-Owner-Ist coalition, so the central bank (i.e. part of government) buys crappy mortgages off banks to prop up land prices or gives them low interest loans
13. This increases government liabilities (where else does the government get the money from to pay the banks?)
14. So taxes have to go up, now or in future to repay those government debts, plus to cover the losses the central bank incurred by buying up crap at overvalue.
15. The government can't increases taxes on land values, as this would defeat the object of point 2., so it increases taxes on incomes and production.

16. So wages and profits fall further, which puts downward pressure on unaffordably high house prices.
17. This does not go down well with the Home-Owner-Ist coalition, so the central bank (i.e. part of government) buys crappy mortgages off banks to prop up land prices or gives them low interest loans
18. This increases government liabilities (where else does the government get the money from to pay the banks?)
19. So taxes have to go up, now or in future to repay those government debts, plus to cover the losses the central bank incurred by buying up crap at overvalue.
20. The government can't increases taxes on land values, as this would defeat teh object of point 2., so it increases taxes on incomes and production.


Repeat to fade.

11 comments:

Electro-Kevin said...

Britain's political and banking establishment is in thrall to property. There are hopes that a resurgence in house buying will detoxify bank debts which are poisoned by deflated real estate values.

Is ramping up our house prices to reboot our economy really the best defence we have against the usurpation of West by East ?

Steven_L said...

EK, they only have to make house prices go up against sterling. So they might just plump for currency debasement.

DBC Reed said...

Points 1,6,11,16 etc show the death spiral starting and gathering strength with falls in wages and profits.Prof R Wolff of "Capitalism hits the fan" gives an old-fashioned Marxist explanation : American real wage growth stops in 1970;evil capitalists supply credit as a substitute for wage growth; things go along like Wily Coyote off a cliff;then a drop because the workers can't afford to keep up the loan repayments.The argument is a bit straightforward even in Wolff's original formulation but it can be cipped onto the fronty of the rise of home-0wberism narrative.
BTW I have long been worried that come the low-land price Millenium with Sentinel LVT ,the Evil Caps would lower wages because "people did n't need them anymore" there being no high rents and mortgages.

Mark Wadsworth said...

EK, you missed off the largest section of the Home-Owner-Ist Coalition - homeowners who couldn't give a stuff about their children or grandchildren.

"Is ramping up our house prices to reboot our economy really the best defence we have against the usurpation of West by East ?"

Nope. It's called economic suicide.

SL, we did out GBP competitive devaluation two years ago; this year it was the EUR's turn, next year it'll be USD and then we'll all be back to Square One.

DBC, fear ye not.

Proper capitalists (people who run businesses) will always bid up wages; and higher demand will bid up the prices which the proper capitalists can charge - not that there is any absolute distinction between 'business owners' and 'workers' in the first place, because a member of one group can always choose to become a member of the other group.

The key to this is driving the wedge where it ought to be driven - between (the proper capitalists/workers) and (the faux capitalists/corporatists/Home-Owner-Ists).

James Higham said...

Only an accountant would write that.

Mark Wadsworth said...

JH, that's a potted history of Japan since 1990 and my prediction for what will happen in the UK. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong - maybe they'll just go for hyper inflation instead.

No accountancy knowledge required (but it always helps).

business plan said...

I think your article misses the real metric which a homeowner must consider: whether they are upside down on the value of the property vs. the amount owed. A host of people are now considering 'strategic defaults', or pushing their banks into a short sale exit.

Lola said...

MW and DBCR - It seems to me that many people confuse 'business' with 'capitalism' aka freedom and markets. If business has its way then things will look bleak. However if markets have their way - whoopee!

I would say that small business is naturally more pro-market than big business.

Robin Smith said...

This is good posting.

Agree with Lola's 2nd point. Its the Tesco affect. When capital is concentrated in such large amounts it effectively becomes a monopoly through buying power etc and is no longer part of a free market to all intents. (I'm not anti Tesco per se. It is, what it is)

DBC Reed said...

Slightly at a tangent but you don't think all this stress-testing of banks is an attempt to see how many would survive,among other things,various percentages of house price falls?If the financial authorities were finally waking up to inflated house prices,would n't they be doing this psper exercise to see what the collateral damage would be of house price deflation? In other words,you don't think they're considering letting house prices drift down as a definite act of policy?

business plan said...

I was singing death metal growls outside for as long and as loud as I can for about 15 seconds. When I was done I started talking regularly to my friends and my voice sounded different for about 20-30 minutes. Am I singing death metal wrong or was I not supposed to do growls really loudly?