"so people build c--p.”

[Tim Lund]

We cannot all live in London.

Not everyone wants to, but it's not fair to price out those who do.

If a big housing programme is announced I doubt if that many will be built in London.

This is such a difficult programme and not black and white

Side issue if HMG did organise Marshall Plan of housing

Is it that youthful dalliance with socialism coming out again ... why do you first look to HMG for solutions? HMG just needs to make the construction of the sort of housing people want to live in easier. There are billions upon billions in pension funds, etc., that could be invested in responsibly managed private sector residential property.

then most of the builders , plumbers etc would be immigrants. Our Dole queue will remain as long.

Only if all of the builders , plumbers etc would be immigrants. Sure it would bring in new immigrants, but would also reduce unemployment here.

[14BradfordRoad]

91% of Pret a manger's staff are non-British nationals. Pret do not pay the London living wage. Working at pret is a low waged job that British people cannot afford to do, like virtually every low-level service job in the West End. Pretty much every cleaner in every office in London is a non-British national. This is an appalling situation - this level of exploitation.

London enjoys the vanity of being an Internatinal city, it enjoys the influx of finance. I do not accept that as a result of this that I have to accept high house and transport prices.

I strongly agee with your points Rod..

The jobs situation plays into the hands of further exploitation of immigrant workers.
These companies make big money from being in London but costs passed onto society
to support the local unemployment problem. As you rightly point out; Londoners not paid
a London living wage so all too often can not afford to take lower paid work. UKIP have a
policy to employ Londoners before imigrants, a policy that I strongly agree with for the very economic reasons you have given, other parties should strongly consider this.

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London enjoys the vanity of being an Internatinal city, it enjoys the influx of finance. I do not accept that as a result of this that I have to accept high house and transport prices.

Which as an end result makes Londoners worse off!
An unacceptable situation which has an end result of surrounding areas experiencing a
rise in crime and a rise in grime as they descend into undesirable barely affordable areas.
This can be experienced all around the world just outside many major cities, these are the
areas where the cities lower paid workers are often forced to live.

[Eagle]

Londoners cannot afford to accept low paid jobs. If that were the case how come immigrants happy to fill these jobs.

Building work , I would have thought , would not pay lowest wages.

London has a hard core of people who seem to be unemployable or do not appear to want a job , or a job that is on offer.

Amazed travelling round The Borough in working hours how many gents of working age appear not to be working.

Cannot believe you would have had the same results in the 60's.

We do need some new houses for people prepared to work and I appreciate this is a very serious problem.

[leenewham]

This is the best explanation to why house prices are so expensive.

http://youtu.be/Y4WmDoYJhnk

(I cant seem to embed the youtube video for some reason admin)

It's the banks fault. Before you all groan, watch it. It makes sense.

I don't believe it's down to supply. The market of housing is about making housing as expensive as possible though competition. In most other markets it's the opposite as competitors undercut another and they all follow suit.

Common sense.

[leenewham]

As for Pret, it's not that badly paid:

"We pay our people as much as we can afford, rather than as little as we can get away with. We invest in, train and develop our people . Our starting salary is £7.35 an hour in London (after 10 days, including bonus). Many get over £8 an hour and more. The average salary (including bonuses) for General Managers is £36,216 pa and Assistant Managers is £26,790 pa."

I had a friend who worked there and loved it. She was from Brazil and studied here. I've never been served by someone who didn't look friendly and happy in Pret. The fact they they are transparent enough to put their wages on their website says a lot. McDonalds don't (I checked).

Perhaps the reason why so many people in Pret are from overseas is because they don't have an issue with working there. It's not seen as demeaning. There is a culture here that it you don't become someone with a job of stature, you are somehow a failure.

Perhaps many immigrants have a stronger work ethic than others? What is the unemployed total at present? If it's so high, how come it's so difficult to get a quote for building work? Or Carpentry? How come some of the people I want to use for signage have a 3 month waiting list?

[Tim Lund]

This is the best explanation to why house prices are so expensive.

http://youtu.be/Y4WmDoYJhnk

(I cant seem to embed the youtube video for some reason admin)

It's the banks fault. Before you all groan, watch it. It makes sense.

I don't believe it's down to supply. The market of housing is about making housing as expensive as possible though competition. In most other markets it's the opposite as competitors undercut another and they all follow suit.

Common sense.

Lee - let's leave banks out of this for the time being. Do you think there is a housing shortage in London? If so, does this not mean we need more housing here?

Now back to banks. How banks operate and create money has been studied over many centuries, and thanks to technology, the details keep changing, and every time something changes, it seems alien. It does also create opportunities for bad people in the world of finance to rip off the unwary, but there are bad people in all walks of life, as well as good (actually, there's also good and bad in all of us as individuals, even if not all in the same proportions ...)

Now - I'd not say it is easy to grasp the essentials of how banks create money and why it's a justifiable consequence of normal human behaviour - I don't think I understood before I did a course on monetary economics - at Essex University - when I was 21. Because I tend to see things in a historical context, the popular explanation which first comes to mind is from one of the most widely read popular text books ever written, Mill's Principles of Political Economy.

Book III, Chapter XI

Of Credit, as a Substitute for Money
III.11.1
§1. The functions of credit have been a subject of as much misunderstanding and as much confusion of ideas, as any single topic in Political Economy. This is not owing to any peculiar difficulty in the theory of the subject, but to the complex nature of some of the mercantile phenomena arising from the forms in which credit clothes itself; by which attention is diverted from the properties of credit in general, to the peculiarities of its particular forms.

As a specimen of the confused notions entertained respecting the nature of credit, we may advert to the exaggerated language so often used respecting its national importance. Credit has a great, but not, as many people seem to suppose, a magical power; it cannot make something out of nothing.

But it is basically understood, in the way other processes can be understood, and if properly regulated, relied upon, even if not everyone does understand; I wouldn't expect to understand how much of the legal system works, or how someone like you comes up with neat design ideas.

[14BradfordRoad]

As for Pret, it's not that badly paid:

I've just been reading this article Lee "Pret workers want more for their smile: enough pay
and hours to live on" - Link below:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho ... 39133.html
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"We pay our people as much as we can afford, rather than as little as we can get away with. We invest in, train and develop our people . Our starting salary is £7.35 an hour in London (after 10 days, including bonus). Many get over £8 an hour and more. The average salary (including bonuses) for General Managers is £36,216 pa and Assistant Managers is £26,790 pa."

I wouldn't have thought these extraordinary salaries (when including bonuses) for Managers
and Assistant Managers Lee but what does a cleaner (for example) get paid? It is workers at the bottom end that struggle with London living expenses such as mortgages, rent, travel, etc.

Last year Prey announced record sales of £377.3m across nearly 300 shops (London being
particuarly profitable) which is the case that Rod was making earlier about the exploitation
of lucrative city markets on the backs of their lower paid workers (91% of whom are non-British nationals).

[gerispringer]

Does anyone ask why such a high% of non British nationals work for this pay? Presumable because it is more than they would get in their home country? If they paid a living wage would more unemployed Brits apply for such jobs? Maybe that would save many of our problems - housing, schooling healthcare etc.

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

[14BradfordRoad]

Londoners cannot afford to accept low paid jobs. If that were the case how come immigrants happy to fill these jobs.
Building work , I would have thought , would not pay lowest wages.

I used to think the same but you would be very suprised at lower level of pay in much of the construction industries these days Eagle, times have really changed a lot!
Sometimes this can be due to Eastern European workforce who will live 8 workers sharing a rent to take money back home where this level of pay would be considered good in their homeland economy, they help drive wages down for native workers in the long run. Some disappear before taxman gets his chunk too, as not always PAYE or CIS registered.
Workers with family and children in London should not be expected to share a rent with 7
others under one roof, this is one way that many immigrant workers make working here worthwhile.
I was self employed in the building trade for a while , unlike the good old days it has become
far more regulated, certificated, registered meaning that you can't legally work for 'Cheap'
which is what many customers want, I moved onto other 'employed' work which I assume many others have done as well. This is why it's not always so easy to track down plumbers, sparks, etc..

London has a hard core of people who seem to be unemployable or do not appear to want a job , or a job that is on offer.

London also has many struggling to find a job that will support 'Living in London' costs too,
some of these in lower paid work at the moment and not an easy hole to climb out of. There
are of course the element of 'Workshy' that you occasionally bring to our attention
they do exist, have always existed and always will but we can't base solutions to employment solely around punishing these people..

Amazed travelling round The Borough in working hours how many gents of working age appear not to be working.

Are you of working age (men up to 65 yo and rising) and are you working? I work a split shift
and often wander around the shops during my break, maybe you have spotted me?
Others work night shifts, have non-work days during the week. It's a lot different from the Mon-Fri / 9-5 many of us used to know.
Are more jobs being created for a swelling population? Are you better off in low paid work or
of living on benefits? Many other reasons too. Some of these gents, as you point out, are probably unemployed as well.

Cannot believe you would have had the same results in the 60's.

There's a few good reasons for this: It was much easier to find a job, expectations have moved on quite a bit too, rents, etc were often not as expensive (in relative terms)..

We do need some new houses for people prepared to work and I appreciate this is a very serious problem.

We need more economical housing for everyone. Getting people working has it's own problems
and issues to overcome..

Sorry to deviate OP away from housing TIm, I agree with Eagle - It's a serious problem!

[leenewham]

But going back to the original OP,
we are building homes people don't like or want according to the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... es-british

I agree with the article. Infact we are't building homes any more, we are building spaces to sell at the maximum per m2 irrespective of how we really live or want to live. These days we have more stuff then ever, less room to store it and less room in which to use it.

To answer Tim, We keep being told there is a housing shortage. So there must be, although what do they actually mean by 'housing shortage'. Do they mean not enough homes to live in or for new owners to buy?

If it's the latter, This opens another debate: do we all need to buy? My parents couldn't afford to buy when they were married and lived with relatives. I couldn't afford to buy for a decade after I started work, and even then only by getting lucky with an incredibly cheap flat above a shop. There were loads of flats on the market with loads of new builds. Many of the places I went around were being snapped up minutes after viewing by landlords. One block of ugly, tiny flats were being sold for huge sums, there were cues outside and after 10 minutes looking around there were only 3 flats left. As I stood watching 3 people handed over their deposits and they sold in front of my own eyes. Nearly all were bought as 'to lets'. Not as homes.

Judging by the size of them, they were built for that market and the builder knew it. They weren't homes, they were investments.

So Tim, what did you think to the video? Do you think the Banks have pushed up the price of Mortgages?

[leenewham]

Er, Rod, I asked it as a question, not a statement. The clue is in the ? at the end of the sentence. I wasn't saying that is was a fact.

As for the rest of your post, I will take it as an oversight having mis-read what I had written.

Please watch this to get what I am going on about regarding job status:
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_s ... ivity.html

Ken Robinson says it so much better than I can.

[Robin Orton]

Perhaps many immigrants have a stronger work ethic than others?

Why on earth would that be true, that immigrants have a higher work ethic? How dare you? That is the kind of crass generalization of the sort that had it been applied to a Jamaican (which it often is) would have you defending accusations of racism.

Steady on, Rod. There's nothing racist about believing that people who've got the enterprise and energy to up sticks and travel to a foreign country looking for work are likely to more strongly work-oriented than us timid souls who prefer to stay put.

[Tim Lund]

But going back to the original OP,
we are building homes people don't like or want according to the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... es-british

I agree with the article.

The article title, "The British don't want to live in new-build homes. No wonder" could be interpreted as making a point I've tried to make more times than I care to recall on this Forum, which is that we accept that new build is bad, and don't wonder why. That's not quite fair, since I realise that some people do wonder, including you, Lee. The problem (IMHO) is that people are shy of where their wondering might take them, and if you consider the criticism I have taken on this Forum and SE23.com for suggesting we could have higher rise redevelopment of existing sites, you can understand why people shy away from such thinking.

People also take the easy option of stopping thinking when they come across a plausible villain to blame for the problems, such as profit seeking developers. Developers, good and bad, are equally profit seeking - the differences are how good they are, and the environment in which they operate. It's the same with the problem of high rents - scapegoat buy-to-let landlords, and, hey presto, you can go back to the warmth of your own moral comfort.

In fact we are't building homes any more, we are building spaces to sell at the maximum per m2 irrespective of how we really live or want to live. These days we have more stuff then ever, less room to store it and less room in which to use it.

To answer Tim, We keep being told there is a housing shortage. So there must be, although what do they actually mean by 'housing shortage'. Do they mean not enough homes to live in or for new owners to buy?

To live in - have I not said enough about how dubious I think the automatic assumption is that people should buy their own house? Here's just one recent thread where incidentally you'll also find me criticising bankers.

it's difficult to teach anything other than the conventional wisdom, but as readers of this Forum will know, there's one fairly substantial part of this that I reject - i.e. that property is the principal asset anyone should put their savings towards.

If it's the latter, This opens another debate: do we all need to buy? My parents couldn't afford to buy when they were married and lived with relatives. I couldn't afford to buy for a decade after I started work, and even then only by getting lucky with an incredibly cheap flat above a shop. There were loads of flats on the market with loads of new builds. Many of the places I went around were being snapped up minutes after viewing by landlords. One block of ugly, tiny flats were being sold for huge sums, there were cues outside and after 10 minutes looking around there were only 3 flats left. As I stood watching 3 people handed over their deposits and they sold in front of my own eyes. Nearly all were bought as 'to lets'. Not as homes.

Judging by the size of them, they were built for that market and the builder knew it. They weren't homes, they were investments.

I think we're agreeing here - we don't all need to buy, and what those buy-to-let investors were doing was financing somewhere to live for their future tenants, who either did not feel they needed to buy, or could not. And it's interesting that you mention these were new build; I'm sure that the developers knew much of the demand would come from buy-to-let investors, so you are describing precisely how buy-to-let investors expand the housing supply, and so reduce overall housing shortage. I wonder what sort of quality those new builds were - if you were thinking of buying them, I imagine there weren't too bad. At the very least, it would seem this was a case of profit seeking developers providing places where people did want to live, even if not as good as could be achieved.

(I'll answer you question about 'Positive Money' later)

[leenewham]

Eh? I would have gone for "perhaps Brazilians are better at football than England" rather comparing it to mass genocide, murder and ethnic cleansing.

I didn't say that me, my parents, my gransparents, my son and fellow Britons were lazy which seems to what you are implying. As i said, you are reading more into this than is there. I was asking in the form of a question whether perhaps people from other countries are willing to take on jobs that we in the uk dismiss as being underpaid or beneith us.

I agree, a living wage in london should be paid. We had a cleaner for a while when we first had our son to help out which cost £25 for 3 hours. I posted the pret article as it was originally implied that the workers were being paid minimum wage, which they weren't. Im sure many other companies pay less. It doesn't excuse pret, but its Good that they actually say how much they earn and that they are transparent about it. I wonder if any large similar brands do take a lead and pay living wage.

Shall we move on?

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

[Eagle]

Rod
Dare I ask how all these unskilled Latin Americans got to work in the UK.
No Latin American country has free enty for work into this country for patently unskilled labour , which British people could do.

We are letting down our own people.

[leenewham]

Why do you think they are unskilled Eagle? They might just be doing unskilled work to make money. They might be studying here and doing the work part time. They might be asylum seekers, they may have gone through the skilled workers program, they might be married to a native English person.
They might be half Italian, half Spanish or similar.

There could be all sorts of reasons why they are here Eagle. Like my wife, who is form Latin America. My son is half Latin American. Many of my friends who are from all over the world. I really don't care where someone is born. As long as they treat the country they live in with respect, they have mine.

[Tim Lund]

Lee - as you know, I'm working on your question asking what I think about "Positive Money" - and since I know you're a decent, open minded, intelligent person, I'm going to do it in a way that has the highest chance of making you accept that you might be misguided. I hope you don't mind. In the meantime, let me say how I agree with you about welcoming people from all over the world, as long as they treat the country they live in with respect, as you say.

The world really is better for people from all over being able to live together, know each other, visit each other, work together,bring up children together. It is sometimes challenging, but we'd be the poorer without it. Perhaps most seriously, if people in one country exclude people from elsewhere, they are likely be excluded in turn from those other countries - so less chance of selling the good and services their initiative produces, taking advantage of good value products and services produced elsewhere, even being able to go on holidays, dream one day of retiring to the sun.

[JulietP]

Agh, I hadn't realised that Lee's link was to the positive money drivel. It's a really simplistic way of looking at a very complex problem. And assumes, incorrectly, that taking away the banks' ability to leverage deposits and capital via the multiplier effect (in essence, to lend out more than you have) would have a positive effect, when in reality, it would return our economy to the dark ages.

And it very conveniently ignores OUR role in perpetuating this problem as homeowners - largely by seeing property as investments rather than homes.

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

[leenewham]

Juliet, how can you lend more than you have? Isn't that the same as spending more than you have?

I'm not a banker, and like most people I have no idea what Multiplier effects are or how banks can give me money that I don't have.

Another thread perhaps…but seriously, I don't get it.

How much did the financial crisis cost us again?

[Tim Lund]

Another thread perhaps…but seriously, I don't get it.

And nor do most people, but it doesn't mean people who speak and write as if they do are just trying to fool you, or are somehow deluded themselves. I don't get how you come up with your nice designs, but somehow I can appreciate their value. Bankers as of now have, let us say, incurred some reputational damage, but this does not mean that over the centuries they have not helped finance trade and useful investments; and when people have tried to explain how it all worked, they have come up with terms such as 'multiplier'.

How much did the financial crisis cost us again?

Well, I came across the numbers for how much it was costing the US more easily, but it will be comparable here, and as I posted previously, when you look at the numbers, bankers individually may have been most irresponsible and morally reprehensible with other people's money, but the total bills racked up are small by comparison with those dues to so many of the rest of us.

As I wrote:

'Bankers' are great scapegoats, and the world of finance was where the infectious greed of the last twenty years was most feverish. But the amounts owed by ours and other governments attributable to bailing out banks is dwarfed by the amounts owed thanks to the failure to manage welfare benefits.

Here's what the US government estimates is currently

The total cost of the bank bailout?

The Treasury estimated taxpayers would be out $51 billion -- or only $29 billion when interest is repaid to the government by the once-troubled insurance giant American Insurance Group.

Specifically, losses from the bank bailout are expected to be $17 billion in investments in General Motors, Chrysler and the auto finance companies, and $46 billion in the Home Affordable Modification Program, a mortgage modification program.

and here's how the total US debt has been going



according to Wikipedia

So if you put numbers to it, then 'bankers' were not that significant. There's a case to say they set a bad example, but that would be to infantilise everyone else - was there really no one else out there in a position of leadership with a moral compass to hand?

People of all sorts will act irresponsibly if someone else will have to pay the bills, and sometimes for actually altruistic reasons. So not just bankers, but also politicians who promise generous benefits which will be paid by future tax payers, house buyers who feel confident that no government in its right mind would allow house prices to fall significantly, maybe even GPs signing off incapacity claims.