UK house prices

[chump]

JT,
I wouldn't accept this statement as a true description of the state of affairs "The gap between such high and low earners in terms of commitment, hours work, effort etc is minimal if not non-existant" ...... I have known many high earners who have pushed the boat 6 and 7 days a week with horrendous hours each day..... but all that notwithstanding it is not about sheer hours of effort or your idea of commitment...it is about what can you get out of the space between your ears that puts numbers on the profit line..... my objection to the fatcats you mention only arises when they fail to do what I have just alluded to and I agree there is all to much of that prevalent......... by the way your postie may be up early , but he's back in bed for 10am and onto his other job by after a nap

 

[JTrader]

Hi chump

sorry if I made my statement fit my line of argument and over-simplistic.

There just seems to be something wrong - a conflict of interests - with somebody earning £500k a year + a £300k bonus, and probably having a say on how big that bonus will be.

Our Postman lives 2 doors away!

His hours of work are 5am-1pm. If all the mail is delivered - they get to go home early. I usually see him returning home at about Midday. They are paid until 1pm though! and get 1.5 times basic hourly rate of £7 per hour after 1pm.

Becoming a fully fledged postman is not easy. I believe that it involves a 13 week trial period. During this trial you are paid £5.50 per hour until you prove yourself competant.

Cheers


jtrader.

 

[JTrader]

Originally Posted by chump
JT,
The adavtantage that the experience of flying over the UK at night offers is the 'brids-eye' , top down look at what is going on at ground level .The focus of this is in the difference between the 'lit' areas and the unlit areas....to be frank you just have to see it to understand just how much of this country is already "settled" , that is populated....the density of population will amaze you if you have not seen it before.

Just to return briefly to the subject of the land mass that is the UK!

It is true that much of this island is "settled". That is not to say that there are not large areas of open countryside between urban areas - because there are large areas of nice countryside. However, apart from some areas of woodland and some sections of coastline, I cannot think of one area that isn't agricultural/farmland. The countryside is mainly agricultural farmland.................Even the most remote areas of the UK - the Highlands of Scotland and the mountain areas within the Highlands are essentially farmland. Sheep inhabit these hillsides and have had a huge impact on the vegetation - heather and trees etc. (or lack of it) that exists there.

I cannot think of any places in the UK that can be classified as wilderness and are untouched by the influence of man. Can you?

Many thanks

jtrader.

 

[frugi]

To use the above analagy (ignoring tax codes and allowances for now) The £400K earner pays £160,000 p.a. for the provision of state services, and the £40K pays £16,000. Why should someone who already pays 10 times the tax of his neighbour then be required to pay a yet greater proportion of his income.

Or, indeed, why should they not The central issue is really one for moral philosophers to, erm, not answer.

(The benefits system is a different beast from the the tax system. Persistenly scrounging able-bodied malingerers don't deserve our tax whatever we might earn so let's leave them out of the equation.)

Regarding income: Flat rate tax, proportional tax or progressive tax. Amount or proportion. Which is theoretically fairest? Are any fair? Perhaps we should let everyone earn more but tax some forms of consumption more? I've no idea.

All I have is an instinct that says, regardless of moral theorising, that it is easier for someone earning 400k to pay a 200k bill than it is for someone earning 9k to pay a 3k bill. Let's be realistic - anyone one 100k+ a year is sorted, even in London with a 25k mortgage. If they are not they need to seriously look at their spending or stop sending their triplets to Eton!

And you want to trust these people with more money. No thanks.[/QUOTE}

No, their benefits at our expense disgust me too. I am talking about the public purse, not their private earnings. I'd want the pp to be the same amount as now but with the sources balanced differently so those who find it easiest to pay, pay more into it. Not middle England on 40k but the fat cats on 400k (whose bloated salary is probably only possible thanks to exploitation of their employees, like the poor old postman mentioned previously).

Now Chumpy said that above a certain % of tax our good fat cats will desert us for a life of undbridled luxury in Monaco. Does this actually matter? Are the whisperings of "it'll knacker the economy, stupid" that always seem to accompany this suggestion actually true? There would be no shortage of people of equal merit willing to take their place for less money, I am sure, as it is still far more than most of us earn. Are our CEOs really so special and talented that a few of them leaving our shores would bring the FTSE100 to its knees?

Chump's second point I think being if you have private healthcare and send your kids to private schools (i.e. you earn 100k+ a year!) why should you have to pay more (if any at all) tax to fund the public versions of these services as well? Another one for the philosophers I suppose. Anyone care to answer.

Anyway I'll leave it there cause dax is right - this thread is not the place for an argument that is as well-worn as my reasoning and knowledge are simplistic.

 

[chump]

JT,
No problem , I understood the point you were trying to make and it is not invalid . if many so called high fliers were actually rewarded on objective (profit) merit alone a lot of them would be extremely poor ..... Peters Principle abounds.... may be they should all have a trial period first on £5.50 phr , who knows it might even focus their minds a little more on what it is they are supposed to be there to do .....I still think the postie has the best of the deal ... he get's a free uniform and also get's to play with the dogs

 

[frugi]

I cannot think of any places in the UK that can be classified as wilderness and are untouched by the influence of man. Can you?

Assuming man is in possession of reason, Meadowhall shopping centre?


Some consolation - there's 30 countries ahead of us in the population density stakes.

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Population-density

 

[chump]

No you don't frugi...if you want me to help you let your profits run I want my cut and not on the back of my head



JT,
"I cannot think of any places in the UK that can be classified as wilderness and are untouched by the influence of man. Can you?"... unfortunately I can , my garden , I'm open to offers to rectify that at a reasonable price....may be we should have a gardening services thread

 

[JTrader]

Hi chump

I certainly agree - There's nothing that sharpens the mind more so than the prospect of impending poverty and life on the breadline.

A Mail Delivery Persons work also helps them to stay fit and so prevents them from becoming a "fat" cat.

It does sound like a pretty good job all in all. However, I COULD NOT cope with a a 8-9pm bed-time and a 4am rise 5 days per week. Which leads me to another question..............Why should Mail Delivery Persons be denied a normal life/social life? They start work at 5am. Would it make that big a difference if they started at 6 or 7am?

I can understand that the business world perhaps requires there mail as early as possible during office hours. However, it would not make the slightest bit of differnce to Joe Public if their mail got to their house an hour or 2 later!

 

[frugi]

No you don't frugi...if you want me to help you let your profits run I want my cut and not on the back of my head ;-)

Unfortunately I was able to input too high a distraction value on the beta Chumpy Distractive Pip Squeezer indicator and it consequently missed a blindingly obvious entry off a century number. You might wish to address this before you market it to charting software providers. ;-)

Erm, houses...

 

[JTrader]

Thanks frugi -

some interesting links there.

 

[JTrader]

I find it amazing how one minute a person is chairman of ICI and the next minute with Marks and Spencers.A bit like the football manager game.

Hi saxo98

steering further away from UK house prices - I agree. It seems that there is a tendency to appoint "big names" in industry - people who have become recognisable figureheads. He used to be Chairman of ICI so naturally he can do a good job at M&S etc.

Examples include Adam Crozier and the Frenchman PY Gerbeau who ran the hugely successful Millenium Dome - who has then gone on to run xscape indoor ski company.


Cheers

jtrader.

 

[chump]

There are all sorts of different permutations that one could arrive at in looking at the future of property in the UK..... I have formed an hypotheses based on supply & demand determining a side stepping approach over the mid term coupled to a labour shortage forcing labour costs upwards resulting in inflation and increasing interest rates .. my timeframe for allocating assets is up to 5 years and it has started earlier this year...... this might turn out to be a load of codswallop ,but I will be adjusting my hypotheses as the data unfolds....

 

[DaveJB]

Meanwhile up here in N Scotland the housing boom continues unabated, BOTH crofts have been sold as holiday homes to crazed London types, for outrageous prices - although Mad Hamish is keeping unusually quiet about it runours are circulating that he cleared almost a thooosand poonds sheer profit.
(Sale price £1050 - fittings, carpets and goats thrown in).
Dave

 

[chump]

Dave,
It's just scandalous how these sharp southerners come up here and take advantage of us yokels .... I 'm thinking of having caveat emptor doormats made

 

[DaveJB]

Ha!
Fat lot that'd do - the goats'd eat 'em!

 

[chump]

Naivety is very refreshing and the world would be qualitively poorer without it ,but woe betide those who try to adopt it as a strategy for making money...

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/041110/344/f6b9b.html

 

[chump]

LOL..last week it was Barclays and this week it is ....

http://www.business.telegraph.co.uk...nuId=242&sSheet=/money/2004/11/24/ixcity.html

I guess these might be the same institutions who would tell you to buy stocks about now.....

 

[JTrader]

Trailer parks in the UK - are they the future?

Hi

Given the fact that housing in the UK is now unnaffordable for many people in society, land needed to build new homes is limited, and the population will continue to grow (I read recently that the UK population is expected to peak at 67 million around 2050) I would not be surprised to see the spread and growth of US style trailer parks - in the near future - in the UK - for the less well off social groups............

Do you think that this is a strong possibility?

Cheers

jtrader.

 

[TheBramble]

I think it unlikely the deputy prime minister's office would find that option appealing. At a time when they are virtually forcing house building companies to produce 'affordable' housing, increasing the housing density (12/acre) and freeing up previously designated green belt land under 'special provisions' acts for building, the move to trailer accommodation is unlikely to be the next expansion industry.

I think the housing cost issue is likely to take care of itself - as it always does through a combination of reduction in the disparity between earnings and housing costs and the innovative implementation of clever financial instruments (multi-generation mortgages).

 

[RogerM]

I'm sure I read a quote by John Prescott a while back which read :-

"One of Labour's greatest achievements is the provision of a green belt around our big cities, and I aim to build on it!"

Doh!