Poverty in UK

metalblue said:
You’ve lost me with your last sentence.
Click to expand...
Under the original decree, both legal and beneficial ownership was transferred to the royal family without compensation to the original owners, unlike a commercial operation which would have paid for it. The same is true under the Enclosure Acts where common land was effectively transferred to the local aristocrat and the population lost their ancient grazing rights, again without compensation. Much poverty was caused by these actions.
If their landlord was the companies you suggested those landlords would have paid for the land benefitting both the holders and the economy.
Er….this is very basic economics, the circulation of money versus confiscation; and part of our history—the principle of a willing seller versus confiscation by the powerful.
See also, for example, the Dissolution of the Monasteries whose land was taken into the possession of the king and his aristocratic cronies.
 
Last edited:
Mr Kobayashi said:
Well local authorities already do own farmland. How do other taxpayers benefit from a small percentage of the population having access to social housing?

They owned more until they started selling it off to manage dwindling budgets.

Why is it any different from any other other commercial investment e.g. commercial property in offices and shopping centres?
Click to expand...

There are no parallels there. County farms are from a bygone era, the yields are horrendous.

It would cost the taxpayer around £160bn to buy the land a good portion of which isn’t arable and so has little to no rentable value, you’d be lucky to see yields of something like 0.75%. The council would get more money putting it in a savings account. There isn’t a compelling value case here.

Social housing and commercial offer far better yields, and in the case of social housing is the mark of a civilised society. A farmer being able to rent off the council or some member of the aristocracy isn’t - said farmer is still able to rent in either case. Councils owning commercial space to regenerate areas is a value proposition or the yields are a value proposition.
 
KS55 said:
Under the original decree, both legal and beneficial ownership was transferred to the royal family without compensation to the original owners, unlike a commercial operation which would have paid for it. The same is true under the Enclosure Acts where common land was effectively transferred to the local aristocrat and the population lost their ancient grazing rights, again without compensation. Much poverty was caused by these actions.
If their landlord was the companies you suggested those landlords would have paid for the land benefitting both the holders and the economy.
Er….this is very basic economics, the circulation of money versus confiscation; and part of our history—the principle of a willing seller versus confiscation by the powerful.
See also, for example, the Dissolution of the Monasteries whose land was taken into the possession of the king and his aristocratic cronies.
Click to expand...

The land in question is owned by the aristocracy. Aren’t these wealthy people not routinely criticised for not spending the money in the economy?

Now if someone wanted to file a legal claim from centuries ago then I’d be interested to see how that goes. In the absence of any other route it’s the aristocrats who will “benefit”. I’m not suggesting what happened was right but nor would the state taking ownership without compensation be right either.
 
metalblue said:
The land in question is owned by the aristocracy. Aren’t these wealthy people not routinely criticised for not spending the money in the economy?

Now if someone wanted to file a legal claim from centuries ago then I’d be interested to see how that goes. In the absence of any other route it’s the aristocrats who will “benefit”. I’m not suggesting what happened was right but nor would the state taking ownership without compensation be right either.
Click to expand...
It’s our old friend the Statute of Limitations that would frustrate any action.
You are right about wealthy people not always using it for local benefit but that is their right. The Duchy of Cornwall was sued a couple of years ago for failure to upkeep a water pipe and refusal to do anything about it. They lost.
 
Increasing poverty is not an accident, it is being done by design. The post WW2 social consensus, the creation of masses of Social housing, the NHS, the expansion of the welfare state, nationalisation and increased taxation all led to their being lower levels on inequality in society. Union power was at its zenith, political parties had enormous memberships and there were political giants striding the Parliament stage. We went from a situation where GDP was -256% to a country that was booming and built things, we were an industrial powerhouse, a country that built Concorde, had numerous car makers, steelworks, built ships and had prestige in the world.

What changed everything was Neo-Liberalism, Thatcher read a book at University by Hayek called The Road to Serfdom and it influenced her political thinking enormously. Hayek was a member of the Austrian school of economics which was heavily influenced by American libertarian thinkers such as Mises, they were viruently anti Socialist and believed in the freedom of markets. Keynes described Hayek's work "Prices and Production" as one of the most frightful muddles he had ever read with barely a sound proposition in it.

Unfortunately for us we got Hayek, not Keynes. Hayek believed in smaller government, whereas Keynes thought that expanding state investment was the correct way to run the economy. Keynes thought a Government should be austere in times of boom, Hayek thought we should be austere in times of bust. The austerity this country has endured now since Cameron and Osborne times has led to a huge rise in inequality and yes to poverty. The ideological addiction to Hayek and the proliferation of RW think tanks espousing Hayekian dogma is now so normal in UK political thinking that even the Labour party tips a hat to Hayek. UK life once based around community is now based on individualism, Union power is diminished and the power of the owners of capital has increased expotentially. We live in a society where the running of a country is commonly compared to running a household, we have maxed out credit cards, we have magic money trees, and as Alexei Sayle put it, the banking crash was caused by there being too many libraries in Wolverhampton. This is all designed to further enrich those with capital at the expense of those whose only asset is their labour, hence we have wage stagnation yet an ever increasing amount of millionaires. Public services are virtually non existant, our transport system is third world level, schools are falling down, hospitals are understaffed, the care sector is woeful, you cant see a dentist or a doctor, but people can have jet skis and maseratis at their holiday homes. We have record numbers of children who do not have a book at home, teachers have to buy text books, yet we have tax cuts that benefit those with most and offer those with least not enough to buy a book. We have parents going hungry so their kids can eat, whilst we have a government who wanted to stop school dinners.

Those with least have the highest propensity to spend, those with most spend on luxury items and have a higher propensity to save, this affects economic growth, it sucks out spending from local shops etc whilst multi nationals get tax breaks.

We need a total rethink about how this country works, it should work for everyone not just a select few.
 
Rascal said:
Increasing poverty is not an accident, it is being done by design. The post WW2 social consensus, the creation of masses of Social housing, the NHS, the expansion of the welfare state, nationalisation and increased taxation all led to their being lower levels on inequality in society. Union power was at its zenith, political parties had enormous memberships and there were political giants striding the Parliament stage. We went from a situation where GDP was -256% to a country that was booming and built things, we were an industrial powerhouse, a country that built Concorde, had numerous car makers, steelworks, built ships and had prestige in the world.

What changed everything was Neo-Liberalism, Thatcher read a book at University by Hayek called The Road to Serfdom and it influenced her political thinking enormously. Hayek was a member of the Austrian school of economics which was heavily influenced by American libertarian thinkers such as Mises, they were viruently anti Socialist and believed in the freedom of markets. Keynes described Hayek's work "Prices and Production" as one of the most frightful muddles he had ever read with barely a sound proposition in it.

Unfortunately for us we got Hayek, not Keynes. Hayek believed in smaller government, whereas Keynes thought that expanding state investment was the correct way to run the economy. Keynes thought a Government should be austere in times of boom, Hayek thought we should be austere in times of bust. The austerity this country has endured now since Cameron and Osborne times has led to a huge rise in inequality and yes to poverty. The ideological addiction to Hayek and the proliferation of RW think tanks espousing Hayekian dogma is now so normal in UK political thinking that even the Labour party tips a hat to Hayek. UK life once based around community is now based on individualism, Union power is diminished and the power of the owners of capital has increased expotentially. We live in a society where the running of a country is commonly compared to running a household, we have maxed out credit cards, we have magic money trees, and as Alexei Sayle put it, the banking crash was caused by there being too many libraries in Wolverhampton. This is all designed to further enrich those with capital at the expense of those whose only asset is their labour, hence we have wage stagnation yet an ever increasing amount of millionaires. Public services are virtually non existant, our transport system is third world level, schools are falling down, hospitals are understaffed, the care sector is woeful, you cant see a dentist or a doctor, but people can have jet skis and maseratis at their holiday homes. We have record numbers of children who do not have a book at home, teachers have to buy text books, yet we have tax cuts that benefit those with most and offer those with least not enough to buy a book. We have parents going hungry so their kids can eat, whilst we have a government who wanted to stop school dinners.

Those with least have the highest propensity to spend, those with most spend on luxury items and have a higher propensity to save, this affects economic growth, it sucks out spending from local shops etc whilst multi nationals get tax breaks.

We need a total rethink about how this country works, it should work for everyone not just a select few.
Click to expand...


Why would the ''select few'' want that ?
 
KS55 said:
It’s our old friend the Statute of Limitations that would frustrate any action.
You are right about wealthy people not always using it for local benefit but that is their right. The Duchy of Cornwall was sued a couple of years ago for failure to upkeep a water pipe and refusal to do anything about it. They lost.
Click to expand...

Is this statute of limitations why are museums aren’t empty?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top
✖
  AdBlock Detected
Bluemoon relies on advertising to pay our hosting fees. Please support the site by disabling your ad blocking software to help keep the forum sustainable. Thanks.