child without an eye

"It doesn't take a genius to work out what ever-increasing house prices do to an economy. All that money is pissed away on rent or mortgages, with the only winners being the banks (which make a killing off the loans) and those who own more than one property (i.e. the wealthy). Everyone else drowns in debt or struggles to make ends meet, but each penny they spend on housing is a penny that is not spent elsewhere in the economy. More specifically, it is a penny that is not spent in areas of the economy that are actually productive, that actually employ people and that actually produce things.

This situation simply cannot continue. With ever-increasing house prices, employers have to pay higher wages, which in turn makes Britain less competitive on a global level. With no rent controls or restrictions on the numbers of properties people can own, a small number of people can effectively become feudal lords. That's not hyperbole: these people, who had capital to begin with and simply invested it in real estate before house prices got absurd, make millions of pounds simply by sitting on their asses and collecting rent each month. The people they live off actually work, and therefore contribute to society, but the landlords do not need to work - indeed, it is actually more lucrative to give up work altogether."

Sunday, November 27, 2016

People Farming