As the previous post demonstrated, Labour MPs are on average very stupid- yet very confident about their own ability despite any evidence to the contrary.
Their conference has thrown up many examples of this, but lets start with Ed Balls and his big idea- taking the money from the sale of 4G licences to mobile phone operators and using it to build 100000 homes and subsidise first time buyers.
It isn't exactly clear why widespread property ownership is such an obvious public good that it should be subsidised. Germany has far lower rates of home ownership than Britain, yet seems to have a more robust economy.
The problem of not enough homes being built is fundamentally about nimbyism and a lack of clear property rights. If neighbours are given too much say in what people can build on their own land, then building is going to be artificially depressed.
So after a crash caused to some extent by a housing bubble his solution is to reflate the bubble! And to squander 4-5 Billion pounds on benefiting a tiny, tiny minority of the country at everyone else's expense.
Whilst the national debt keeps rising ever higher.
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A senior manager of a major housebuilder explained "the problem" to me just last moth.
"If you can only afford an affordable house you will not be able to get a mortgage; if you can afford to buy an unaffordable house you don't need one".
Germany has a better economy partly because workers can move more easily to where the work is when they rent.
If you own your own home and there is a crash in prices then you are stuck and can't move to where the work is. Instead you have to wait till the local economy crashes so much that it becomes attractive for businesses to hire low cost labour - except that they can't now that there is a minimum wage. So there is no escape at all now - all due to government interference.
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