ianrobo1

no the rules are that thatch changed the housing market from a mixed rented/owned soceity to one where it was desirable to own your own home the market then decided the prices, under the troeis we saw one property crash and now iunder labour because the housing market is uncontrollable where so much is owned I presume Richard you fully supported the discounting of good quality council stock to be sold off and the inability of councils by law to replace them ? I also presume you are against any such public house building now ? Is that correct, if so you are just going along the same path to anohter house price crash in 10 years or so no matter which party is in charge

Probably by saying "oh really, and where are you going to find another 10 billion Mr Brown?" so would that to agree to the plan or not ? isn't spending on infrastructure a good thing in the recession but the Tories are wedded to the thactherite issue of owning your own home and that is why we are in the mess we are now no chance of them ever supporting it

I wouldn't because we already have 4th in my opinion, we have already done enough. actually the prize is far greater than 4th I believe if we beat Chelsea 3rd is the prize and that is so valuable

And that would be, to a certaint extent, where I would differ from you. There have been too many top down policies in the last decade. They often prove unworkable and increasingly often are proving unpopular with the public. The money does need to come from central government (initially), I agree. And there ought to be guidelines which come with the money that local areas decide to take. But it ought not to be a directive from on high. The regional housing policy and targets passed down from central government have already caused a great deal of anger and resentment, it would be rather silly not to learn the lessons from that and devise a slightly better strategy. the only reason I say top down is in some areas some councils would go for it 100% and in other areas they would not based on poltical colour I would suspect

well Gringo, say Labour said they would spend 10bn on social housing (whether buying up exisiting properties or new builds) it would be interesting to see the Tories response

actually Brian for me the choice was easy Chelsea is THAT importnat the point of this poll of which 80% agree, which shocked me

Social housing is state dependenace is it not ? I am all for any plan to increase social housing but also I think a lot of private housings needs to be made into state, reverse the disatorus policy of thatcher of selling the good stock of council housing and leaving councils with shite we do actually agree I think on the increase in social/rented secotr but is the UK public ready to give up the drug of house prices as some kind of status symbol ? If the Tories win the next election Gringo as it seems likely do you think they would do any of this ? Labour might do a little, lib dems a bit more, but you and I, I feel would go further

it is amazing those so incensed actually contributed I think most understand the point I was getting to ...

the reason I suggested the plan was because it also redfines the economy to understand that owning your own house is no longer a government aim won;t happen

It is an idea, but it's a rubbish one! The budget is only about thrity billion (about 2.2% of GDP), what exactly do you suggest is cut? Even if you binned the armed forces entirely it would probably only be enough to bail a bank out for six months anyway. Cable is the only person in politics who seems to have a clue at the moment, I suggested way back on this thread that the entire banking system needs to be nationalised and then re-privatised over a ten-fifteen year period. I don't think there is anywhere else left to go. I don't think there is but poltically it is a dynamite topic

Tony look at what happens, now, someone gets unemployed they may get 6 months grace anyway on the mortgage if not then they get chuicked out, go to the councils and get rehoused, the cost of that per person far outweighs the cost of keeping them in the same house and them paying rent. Obviously there would be limitations on it but the costs of peopel being rehoused are far more

Nick, you need to chill out man,I gave two situations and asked for people's view the % has stayed steady at 80% for choice A which is not what I expect but more like a 50/50 split it shows to me how important the Chelsea game is for everyone

the money would have to come from central government, local councils simply don;t have the cash and I think any scheme like this (you could include new builds that have not been solid and empty houses) would have to be run through national guidelines to ensure all take part because some councils would not want to take part and this is a national problem. If Cable has said that then I agree with him and the money can come from other sources where we cut back and for me the armed forces is one area.

nope John always three points off chelsea above anything else

I question everything snowy but I unfortunatly see little alternatives than to get back to where we were contradictary I know An idea I have been thinking about for a while is that the government buys up every repossed house at market value they then rent it back to those repossed (thus ensuring no homeless problem my Mrs is starting to see ) the rent is based on ability to pay and the rent obviously gos back to the gevernment to pay off the borrowed money these houses are never then sold back onto the private market, thus boosting the rented sector and decreasing private stock which should help stablise prices over the long term. It also avoids the need to build new council housing at teh levels some have predicted ok pick holes in that

I think the GTC and CMC is a perfect analogy snowy the whole business is far too complicated for laymen to understand only bankers could. see who would you have on it instead, retired bankers, same issue economics proessors with no experience of actually working in it ? o difficult, almost impossible to come up with an answer the one thing I am happy that this situation has meant is the cry of less red tape has disappeared as it has become apparent lassiez faire/hands off polcies have failed

see crackpot that is why I posed the question for me beating chelsea would not noly go a massive way to securing 4th but in fact makes us the clear favourites for third which is far more valuable than two cups now would ever be

see Lev thats my whole point I have said over the past few months the free market (I knwo you argue less regs may have stopped this) has spectaculary failed not only that the last few moths have changed people's perception of it because I think peopel have seen how unfeted captialism leads to greed and excess now I would never advocate wholesale state nationalisation either but I struggle to accept an idea to get out of the mess caused by the housing market is to actually help it get back to exactly where it was whats the point o pourig in trillions of dollars only for it to happen again in an other generation think of all the money wasted and what could have been done with it instead

I would rest those players the other way round my real concern is the lack of cover of the two CB's I would almost play Clark i one fo the games because if we get an injury on oe of the two we have few options that would not mean really disrupting us

It's not exactly a subsidy though.... in all probability the government will end up making money on the deal. only if house prices recover ok so they might and thats why when the government took ovver RBS it paid a cheap price and nominally has liabilities but when it goes back to provate the government may make a proit but Lev isn;t the scheme you propose an anthema to the ree market principles I believe you follow as I say that type of scheme could work, it means the government in efect acts a guarntee on loans but how far does that go and again are we not just carrying o the same old policiy of allowing house prices to drive the economy ? is it not time for a 'new economy' based on something more susbstainable than house prices what, I have no fecking idea

Lev, I think I understand what you say basically you are saying the tax payer should underwrite the losses on mortgages ? that would be huge amount of money so say for someone like me with a sensible mortgages still in positive equity (just) i should subidise indirectly those who over stretched themselves foolishly ? I am not saying it is not the answer (isn;t the governments buying toxic debts teh same kind of thing), but poltcally very difficult to get peopel to accept

sorry , i thought the topic was "the economic situation is dire " , and as the claim from you has constantly been that it's a global problem and not our governments fault AND that our government has shown the way forward i would think it's perfectly obvious that I am asking a valid question As for your question it's been answered many a time , however i would point out my answers were based purely on speculation as we don't know what outcome it would have produced .... what we do know though is that the actions that have been taken have all failed .. maybe less typing and more reading and you will seek the answers that you find .... just asking for a word Yes or no

problem is that few others are qualified ... the GMC looks over doctors GTC looks over teachers MP's over MP's unfortunatly you need bankers to look at the complex regs and rules for banks what the FSA need is tougher regs and more teeth and accountability the banking bill address;s osme of those

one of the top 5 is us one is out only three left

tony what the **** has that go to with the topic, nothing at all, just poltical oint scoring, because I asked you a simple yes or no question a few pages back you either missed or refused to answer so YES or NO would you save (nationalise) the banks if they needed it ?