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Post by mostlywrong on Sept 6, 2024 10:01:35 GMT
Ooh look, house prices have risen by 4.3% in the last year.
Champagne and horses doovers all round.
When are politicians going to realise that sinking our wealth into rising property prices does not make for a good, thriving economy?
Everybody wants to make a return on their money in order to build for the future.
But if the government then taxes dividend and interest income at excessive rates, where does the smart money go?
Answer: buy the biggest house you can afford and watch the profit roll in tax-free. Until one is dead, obvs.
Daft.
MW
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agent69
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Post by agent69 on Sept 6, 2024 10:18:44 GMT
Another day and another school gun shooting in USA, with the gun toting, NRA supporting republicans all going onto social media to say how terrible it is.
Good to see that the father of the 14yo shooter has been charged with murder (for allowing his son to have access to the firearm). The boy himself is also being charged as an adult with murder, as in Georgia, state law allows prosecutors to charge minors from age 13 as an adult in certain crimes.
edit: I wonder if the 14yo boy who is accused of murdering an 80yo recently will be treated in a similar way.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Sept 6, 2024 10:24:28 GMT
I wish we could understand the “aliens” better when seeking asylum. Why they have to risk all the way to US, UK, France, Germany, anything but their neighbour countries? The vast, vast majority do. There's about 1.5m Syrians in refugee camps in Lebanon, f'rinstance, with a total population of about 5.5m. Now, if your entire family has been stuck in camps like that for years, what are you going to do? Are you going to scrape together everything you've got to give the youngest and fittest of the family a chance to make it to a wealthy country, in order to work and send back money, hopefully get permission for the entire family to follow? Yeh, me too. It's basic human nature, not rocket science.
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benaj
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Post by benaj on Sept 6, 2024 10:40:03 GMT
I don’t deal with asylum seekers daily, no idea what kind of dinghies visitors are the UK expecting at the moment.
What about those from Vietnam? The country is a developing economy right? some pay VIP packages for dinghies. Would you say all of them need asylum from the UK.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Sept 6, 2024 10:58:01 GMT
I don’t deal with asylum seekers daily, no idea what kind of dinghies visitors are the UK expecting at the moment. What about those from Vietnam? The country is a developing economy right? some pay VIP packages for dinghies. Would you say all of them need asylum from the UK. Remember, "small boat" arrivals are only about a third of those seeking asylum. They used to come over in the back of trucks on the Dover-Calais ferry. We used to be able to send them back to France under the Dublin Agreement within the EU. If the asylum system worked properly, then everybody's claim would be assessed in a prompt manner, and those who meet the criteria would be given the chance to rebuild their lives, while those who didn't would be sent home quickly. I presume we can agree that's right and proper...? The problem is that the last government broke the system, either deliberately or through incompetence. All those thousands waiting in expensive hotels or even more expensive detention? They're the queue for claims to be assessed...  The last government simply never got round to doing anything with them, except shovel money at facilities management companies owned - purely coincidentally, I'm sure - by party donors. The only thing the Rwanda scheme did was offshore the queue and the processing. Oh, and those who met the criteria? They stayed in Rwanda. The UK gets fewer asylum claims per capita than any other wealthy developed country. Yet our backlog is FAR longer. Why is that?
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Post by mostlywrong on Sept 6, 2024 11:01:38 GMT
I wish we could understand the “aliens” better when seeking asylum. Why they have to risk all the way to US, UK, France, Germany, anything but their neighbour countries? or even the 2nd largest world economy? What makes it so unsafe staying the countries next to their homeland? Are their neighbours countries not capable making their lives better, or they can’t make their lives better in their neighbours countries? But risking their lives on the way for asylum are okay? Especially if they really have the “prepare to die” mindset, why they are afraid staying in their home country or even the neighbours ones? I have worked around the world in some pretty awful countries.
And I remember the relief that I felt whenever the aircraft doors closed at contract end.
The people who lived in those places had no such relief, although the equipment we installed was supposed to improve matters!
So, yes, I can understand the pressures. Add in the ubiquity of modern mobile phones (only partially guilty, your Honour) and the images of a world of plenty, if not of excess, that is available at the touch of a finger, just adds to the pressure.
But I can also understand the pressures of life in modern Britain. The various governments of the last 30 years have not dealt well with immigration, in whatever form, and have failed to address the infrastructure issues that arise from a large increase in population and a failure to maintain, and upgrade, the infrastructure that was largely built by the Victorians.
MW
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Sept 6, 2024 11:18:23 GMT
The various governments of the last 30 years have not dealt well with immigration, in whatever form, and have failed to address the infrastructure issues that arise from a large increase in population and a failure to maintain, and upgrade, the infrastructure that was largely built by the Victorians. Agreed, especially around the failure to upgrade infrastructure. But it's worth remembering that most population growth in the UK is still "natural", and that's largely due to increasing life expectancies - the most expensive bit of life for the state... Also, asylum is but a tiny fragment of net migration, let alone immigration - IIRC "small boats" are about 2% of immigration, 3% of net migration. Most of those migrants are actually making the country better by working in the NHS or care system, or bringing money in to our education system* thereby helping us develop skills and technology. It's all a distraction, just another part of the last government's overall attempt to blame THEM for internal government failings. Strangely, the last part of that attempt, actually made things worse. And now here we are, two months into a new government staring at a financial black hole, blaming the new guys for the entrenched systematic failures of the last decade and a half. * - (oops - that's been stopped, due to xenophobia, with universities all about to go bankrupt as a predictable direct result)
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benaj
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Post by benaj on Sept 6, 2024 11:22:39 GMT
I don’t deal with asylum seekers daily, no idea what kind of dinghies visitors are the UK expecting at the moment. What about those from Vietnam? The country is a developing economy right? some pay VIP packages for dinghies. Would you say all of them need asylum from the UK. Remember, "small boat" arrivals are only about a third of those seeking asylum. They used to come over in the back of trucks on the Dover-Calais ferry. We used to be able to send them back to France under the Dublin Agreement within the EU. If the asylum system worked properly, then everybody's claim would be assessed in a prompt manner, and those who meet the criteria would be given the chance to rebuild their lives, while those who didn't would be sent home quickly. I presume we can agree that's right and proper...? The problem is that the last government broke the system, either deliberately or through incompetence. All those thousands waiting in expensive hotels or even more expensive detention? They're the queue for claims to be assessed... The last government simply never got round to doing anything with them, except shovel money at facilities management companies owned - purely coincidentally, I'm sure - by party donors. The only thing the Rwanda scheme did was offshore the queue and the processing. Oh, and those who met the criteria? They stayed in Rwanda. The UK gets fewer asylum claims per capita than any other wealthy developed country. Yet our backlog is FAR longer. Why is that? Some party donors? So have they donated to the new government prior election?
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Post by bracknellboy on Sept 6, 2024 12:04:59 GMT
Another day and another school gun shooting in USA, with the gun toting, NRA supporting republicans all going onto social media to say how terrible it is.
Good to see that the father of the 14yo shooter has been charged with murder (for allowing his son to have access to the firearm). The boy himself is also being charged as an adult with murder, as in Georgia, state law allows prosecutors to charge minors from age 13 as an adult in certain crimes.
edit: I wonder if the 14yo boy who is accused of murdering an 80yo recently will be treated in a similar way.
with regard to the boy: lets not lose sight of the fact that his mother had become a meth addict, and was apparently a victim of domestic abuse by her husband. She - the mother - had apparently at one time tied her own mother up with duct tape and left her 'for dead' for 24 hours. Prior to all of that, she was apparently "a highly educated engineer who previously held positions with Toyota and Olympic Steel". There is lots of tragedy going on here. The result of which is 4 people dead, many others traumatised, but also a 14 year old boy is going to end up in prison for the rest of his life (mandatory full life sentence).
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Post by bernythedolt on Sept 6, 2024 12:27:00 GMT
[...] The latter, as each of those links indicates. I make no comment on the Convention, whilst noting that Libya has been sending asylum seekers to Rwanda since 2019, with the approval of the United Nations. "...sending asylum seekers from Libya to Rwanda began in 2019. The United Nations says the arrangement is reasonable because it protects migrants from possible torture, sexual violence and indefinite detention in Libya."
My main point was whether anyone believed the ECHR and Council of Europe will start ordering Germany about as they did the UK... and whether Germany would ignore them.
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ilmoro
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Post by ilmoro on Sept 6, 2024 13:25:52 GMT
IIRC the shipping elsewhere for processing of claims was part of the election plank advanced by Ursula VDLs grouping in the recent Euro elections so the German proposal is entirely in line with that.
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michaelc
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Post by michaelc on Sept 6, 2024 14:54:21 GMT
I assume the reason the BBC shows a chart from 2005 to now which illustrates the change rather than the absolute average house price is for a reason? Is it to confuse or merely to exaggerate the point of their article? No doubt some would say its all part of a grand strategy of the government to make folk think a certain way - I'm on the fence on that one. I would find a graph of the average house price much more interesting and informative. www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr4091rzy2wo |
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Post by bernythedolt on Sept 6, 2024 15:59:24 GMT
I assume the reason the BBC shows a chart from 2005 to now which illustrates the change rather than the absolute average house price is for a reason? Is it to confuse or merely to exaggerate the point of their article? No doubt some would say its all part of a grand strategy of the government to make folk think a certain way - I'm on the fence on that one. I would find a graph of the average house price much more interesting and informative. www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr4091rzy2wo2005 doesn't have any particular relevance. The graph heading says it runs from Aug 2004 to 2024, thus spanning an exact 20 year period. Looking back exactly 20 years doesn't seem unreasonable, so I personally can't read anything sinister into it. I agree graphing the average house price would be more interesting and informative, but I guess it depends what point they are trying to get across. This graph is effectively the first derivative - the rate of change - of the base graph you and I would have preferred. Occasionally, the first (and second) derivative graphs can be more informative (which you'll well know as a mathematician).
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ilmoro
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'Wondering which of the bu***rs to blame, and watching for pigs on the wing.' - Pink Floyd
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Post by ilmoro on Sept 6, 2024 16:00:25 GMT
I assume the reason the BBC shows a chart from 2005 to now which illustrates the change rather than the absolute average house price is for a reason? Is it to confuse or merely to exaggerate the point of their article? No doubt some would say its all part of a grand strategy of the government to make folk think a certain way - I'm on the fence on that one. I would find a graph of the average house price much more interesting and informative. www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr4091rzy2woBecause thats the data relevant to the report which comes from a third party ... Halifax (& NW)... wouldn't make much sense to report a statement by Halifax then show unrelated data ... this is the BBC doing reporting ...you complain when they do opinion.
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Post by mostlywrong on Sept 6, 2024 16:36:27 GMT
I assume the reason the BBC shows a chart from 2005 to now which illustrates the change rather than the absolute average house price is for a reason? Is it to confuse or merely to exaggerate the point of their article? No doubt some would say its all part of a grand strategy of the government to make folk think a certain way - I'm on the fence on that one. I would find a graph of the average house price much more interesting and informative. www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr4091rzy2woI cannot find an absolute chart but here is a Halifax one for the percentage changes per annum from 1984.
Nope. Didn't work...
MW
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