Comments on: A bit weird

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 23:50:41 +0000

During the Great Depression, to prevent deflation the US Government tried burning crops and killing livestock because it would cause food prices to rise. It worked, but then many people starved.

Same goes for housing – don’t confuse affordability with need. People can need housing even if they can’t afford it. Last time I checked there were four million people on the council housing waiting lists.

A glut of housing would look like our obesity crisis – many people having too many homes. That’s certainly not the situation we face today. Instead we have a famine situation, people want housing but can’t afford any.

By: Martin

Martin — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 21:22:07 +0000

“You don’t revive a market by restricting supply”

You seriously think the answer to oversupply, is more supply?

How would you treat an overdose? Administer more drugs?

But to answer the question, the left has a single answer to every question: spend taxpayer’s money on it. Preferably a lot.

By: Roger Thornhill

Roger Thornhill — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:18:53 +0000

Of course they want to front load it – spending money now before the Tories get in AND it is a rare opportunity to get the state’s dirty fingernails into the housing arrangements of more people than would have otherwise been possible.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 12:47:30 +0000

Well you don’t revive a market by restricting supply

Umm, actually you do. How did OPEC get oil prices to go through the roof in the 1970s? Opening the taps?

and you can have a very healthy market with increased supply and falling prices – think computers.

Healthy market? Is that why IBM abandoned it and Dell is in very deep doo-doo?

By: Pat

Pat — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 19:04:00 +0000

We either have a shortage of houses or a surplus of people otherwise house prices would have stayed stable, before the availability of finance was (necessarily) reduced, which is what has caused the prices to drop.
Unless more building land is made available wich entails reducing that set aside for green belt house prices will resume their upward march once the finance problem is got over in a few years as the demand will remain and the supply of land will remain fixed.
Exisring houseowners will fight any reduction in green belt restrictions because their assets would diminish in value (the value consists too much in owning permission to build).
Of course were this to happen then those with money to invest might choose a company that makes things, rather than a thing which gets rarer,to invest in so we’d all get better off.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 12:53:01 +0000

Well you don’t revive a market by restricting supply and you can have a very healthy market with increased supply and falling prices – think computers.