Margaret Thatcher has died

[DIANAt951t]

I thought the real problem with housing is that subsequent parties did nothing to tackle the deficit. This is not necessarily labour bashing, but 'new labour' just accepted this was what people wanted. And see what price now. The finance sector trying to make profits on debts, money that did not exist. And it wasn't unique to the UK.

There's obviously a lot of discussion on the bedroom tax, but councils have been bullying vulnerable tenants in housing for years. Over 15 years ago my gran was forced to move out of 3 bed house in the northern isles, to a granny flat. Within 6 months she'd made several suicide attempts, been hospitalised in Aberdeen and her last attempt succeeded.

I dunno if any of my other relatives could have got the money together to buy out the remaining value under Maggie's 'right to buy' scheme but probably would have led to disputes when she was gone. Why do we even need to own property? A friend told me rents in Munich are a third of Cambridge, and average dwelling sizes are significantly larger than the shoeboxes we live in here. Worst of both worlds.

Maggie can rot

 

[magic_man43343]

What housing crisis are you talking about? Sorry, I am a little out of touch with the UK crisis and how it was caused by Maggie. When did it happen and how did Maggie create it?

Also, the pits were a form of welfare benefit that was bleeding the country dry. They were losing money at a rate of around 700M GBP per year, adjusted for inflation that number is 1.4 Billion GBP per year.

Unions were demanding pay increases despite the fact that their business was losing money and their pay was subsidized by the state.

 

[Morrissey]

Yeah, she didn't create a housing 'crisis', she created wealth for the people that bought their council homes.

We have something of a housing shortage in some categories because demand outstrips supply making them unaffordable for certain income brackets. This causes many people to rent who might otherwise buy.

Ideology aside, dancing on someone's grave is never a good look. It's not like she was a child murderer or anything.

 

[charltonhestonsghost]

Mining was dying, but she effectively pulled the plug years sooner than was necessary. She could have spent those years planning for what would come after and she could have worked to support those communities through the transition, but instead of that, she crushed them and they've never recovered.

When you are elected to public office, you are supposed to work on behalf of all of your constituents, not just the ones who voted for you.

 

[AlexisInfectious®]

The Falklands invasion was purely the fault of the Argentinians. How did she self create their invasion exactly ?

Where other people wanted to waver and try diplomacy, she had the balls to stand up to the bully tactics of the Argentinians head on. It was a calculated risk and what she did took guts.

 

[whothiknow]

It's sometimes sad when things come to an end. But It's best for everyone not to drag out the pain and lose more in the long term as a collective.

You have to cut your losses, not let them run. Whole communities have to move on sometimes. It's really not better to let a dying dog suffer the pain.

 

[jmoney]

She forced local authorities to sell off council houses, but at the same time preventing councils from spending the money they got for selling houses on building new houses (spending on social housing dropped by 67% in her premiership).

This created a lack of social housing, and created a house price speculation bubble that has taken an entire generation of people off the housing ladder.

It also meant private landlords are now in receipt of massive amounts of welfare benefit, as the more cost effective state run social housing isnt there.

 

[hardrockdesi4lyfe]

Why would you provide new social housing when in the process of selling the social housing that you have ?

The whole point was to move away from social housing towards self ownership..

 

[matilda]

My reasons I disliked Thatcher

- She ignored intelligence about Argentinian preparations for the invasion of the Falkland Islands and scrapped the only Royal Navy presence in the islands

- She introduced the gradual privatisation of the NHS
- She introduced financial deregulation in a way that turned city institutions into avaricious money pits

- She implemented the anti homosexual Section 28 in our schools
Banning ''the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship".[2]''

- She opposed anti-apartheid sanctions against South Africa and described Nelson Mandela as "that grubby little terrorist"

- She support the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and sent the SAS to train their soldiers

- She opposed the reunification of Germany

- She had the lowest approval rating of any post-war Prime Minister

- Her post-PM job? Consultant to Philip Morris tobacco at $250,000 a year, plus $50,000 per speech

- She opposed the indictment of Chile's General Pinochet

- She opposed the inclusion of Eire in the Northern Ireland peace process

- She supported sanctions-busting arms deals with South Africa

- Black Wednesday – Britain withdraws from the ERM and the pound is devalued. Cost to Britain - £3.5 billion; profit for George Soros - £1 billion

Poverty doubled while she opposed a minimum wage

- She privatised public services, claiming at the time it would increase public ownership. Most are now owned either by foreign governments (EDF) or major investment houses. The profits don’t now accrue to the taxpayer, but to foreign or institutional shareholders.

 

[TheWhiteRose]

However it created a property rise so high, there is no possibility of self ownership for those on an average wage.

 

[KattyB]

There was actually a property crash in the late eighties and early nineties, when prices declined and were flat for quite some time after. This lasted quite a while actually and it's what allowed me to get on the property ladder for the first time. Things didn't take of again until after the mid nineties. Thatcher was already long gone by the early nineties, so from there you can hardly blame the women for the continued policy of not investing a bit more for social housing for those in need.

Our economy had undergone a radical transformation from the shambles she inherited from the Seventies to what she implemented in the Eighties. If ideologically you're a socialist then I can understand the disagreement on this topic. However I think moving more towards self ownership and putting homes into private hands was a good move in of itself.

 

[cruzito]

Once the property is gone, the money needed to restart social housing just isn't there.

Interestingly, in terms of economics, council houses allowed the government to set the rates, and therefore also meant that private housing rates could be kept under control.

Also it meant that the money paid for rents went straight back into government funds. Whereas nowadays the governments money is being paid to private landlords, with only the small tax on this going straight back into government funds.

 

[ridingorracing]

Rented Council houses have been a very difficult social experiment, highlighted in the extreme with those units that sought the high rise approach. These communities, by definition are poorer than the general community, have less assets, often less education (lower class if we are going down that road again).

Crime rates in such communities are higher than average because the residents feel disenfranchised with the community at large, and feel they have no options for the future.

By empowering these people by giving them the opportunity to own their property suddenly they are protecting an asset that is proven to be the No1 driving force of net worth appreciation. They suddenly are vested in the wellbeing of the community as they profit from its overall community feeling.

These properties were offered at below market rate for the area they were in, and once the vesting period completed were instantly multiplied in value. This created wealth for the poorest section of the society, and improved the inner city by creating a community of people who actually cared about making their neighborhood a better place (so that property prices rose and they benefited).

The government has many checks and balances to manage, including debt. There are times when it is better, from the big picture to take from one assigned asset class and give to another, eg take from housing and give to education - or pay down past debts that are incurring interest.

Keeping it all enclosed in small profit centers doesn't work once the system has already encountered debt spread, money must be targeted towards where it can do the best for the country as a whole.

Now, certainly, with any policy there will be winners and losers - but a big winner here were the poor people who now own an asset, at a deeply subsidized rate.

Since that time vast sums have been put into social housing, in addition to the model of a council house from the 60's simply housing benefits for privately owned residences also fall into this category.

And yes, there has been a privatization effect by paying private landlords, but that is more like the government is renting temporarily rather than buying its own property to host those in need. That government is still doing this now, many years after Labour were in power.

 

[NAENAE]

Err, anyone is free to invest in them.

I much prefer as a tax paying citizen that I can if I want buy shares in these profitable businesses and services. I think it's better that, than they remain a poorly run inefficient drain on state resources.

In one scenario I can profit from a shareholding. In the other my taxes get eaten up and wasted by a poorly run state service.

Would you prefer if we were more like Greece in that regard ? In the Seventies that's pretty much the status Britain had economically in Europe.

 

[xxtaylor_tragedyxx]

Investing in those communities would have been cheaper than paying hundreds of thousands of mine workers unemployment benefits for the next 20 years.

Communities can't move on without preparation time. When half the community works in the mine and the other half works to support the miners, how can that community move on when the mine is closed? What were they supposed to do after? Say what you will about Labour, but they gave people a chance when the big plants closed down - they paid for people to retrain and gave them the opportunity to move on.

And referring to working men and women as dogs shows you for what you are.

 

[indeed]

Paying private landlords, Isnt social housing, as well as costing more money per person, and having lower standards, it also acts a a subsidy for those who are already rich enough to own more then one house, and also acts as an incentive for viewing Buy to let house ownership as an investment and thus funneling money direct to the banking sector away from the government.

In essence our differences in views are one of economic and political views.

I see economics as the wealthy riding on the work of others, the trickle up effect if you would, now this is partiality a good thing, as otherwise how would people be incentived, however when wealth inequality reaches levels it is today, something needs to be done.

Im sure you see things otherwise, (well you are part of the elite, 12th dan isnt it?)

 

[terminate]

There's nothing wrong with money going to private landlords rather than the state. It's what we call a free market economy. No one has a birth right to a state subsidised home.

This pivots on how much you really think the state should provide for people. Property doesn't maintain itself, the costs to the taxpayer are huge. Where do you think all the money comes from ? From the taxpayer obviously.

Why do people simply assume state ownership is a better economic model than private enterprise: it simply isn't. It will just cost us more in taxes, or we'll just have borrowed more to make it happen.

 

[Due8l20l08]

I'm guessing some people here haven't sen the devastation caused by shutting pits & mills on a whim. Many of which were actually still making money.
Some communities still haven't recovered and will never be what they once were

 

[bluedragon]

If a private landlord can turn a profit on a few homes then maybe the state could do it with thousands of them?

 

[HabibA]

Its quite simple, YOU RUN THEM PROPERLY.

However, if you take essentials such as electricity and water, and profit from them, who do you think the profit is taken from, ill give you a clue, its the taxpayer at source.