Housing - anarchy is the answer

[Brendan Boal]

Hi James,
I understand your point about high house prices being
used insted of interest rates to choke of demand. But
suppose by some miracle, measures were introduced to
stop property speculation/monopolisation, leading to a
dramatic drop in house prices.  Would people not then
just use the billions saved to buy a mass of new
imports rather than doing the sane thing and working
less, thus requiring money to be taken from them by
higher interest rates instead? 
I think your analysis of the evils of coroporate,
war/capitalist economics is spot on, the problem is
what to do about it.  They have such a grip that they
appear to be unreformable from within, and outright
revolution seems very unlikely.  The only remaining
option seems to be to use the space for manouvere
within the system to opt out of it.  I know there has
long been a Kropotkinesque dismissiveness towards
people who focus their energies on organising their
own economic/social and cultural space, rather than
directly attacking the system that you describe so
well, but I see no alternative to it, at least within
our lifetimes.  
I percieve an increasing mood of quiet determination
abroad in the world, a mood which says: "we're not
going to bomb your ivory towers, instead, we're going
to quietly subvert your monopoly over our lives and
minds, damn your jobs, damn your pretend democracy,
damn the idiocy of bread, circuses, drugs and
religion, we're just not co-operating any more -
anarchy is the answer!

Brendan.
       
--- james armstrong <james36armstrong at hotmail.com>
wrote:

> THE MIRROR WORLD OF GOVERNMENT HOUSING POLICY
> The Housing policy is by any standard a Government
> failure.
> 
> THE GREATEST HOUSING PROBLEM IS WESTMINSTER, IN THE
> HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT
> by James Armstrong, Dorchester
> 18th March 2007
> 
> The Iraq war is unlawful- mistaken if in reaction to
> non existent WMD or  a failure of policy , if the
> policy was to enable a democratic regime.
> The Afghan war has been raging for six years- as
> long as the World War II - with as yet no success or
> improvement in the Afghan's lot.
> Trident arouses massive protest and with all the
> government hype is 
> unpopular EU membership is so unpopular that it
> contributed to the defeat of the Conservative
> government.
> Massive C A P payments of �3bn every year since
1973
> to a tiny minority- the landowner /farmers would be
> unpopular  with the millions in housing stress if it
> was widely known.
> 
> WHY ARE THE GOVERNMENT'S ACTS SO UNPOLULAR?
> Why does a government which derives it legitimacy
> from The People's will, act in so unpopular a
> manner?
> Could it be that   the government has a different
> agenda from The People?  
> If so this would be serious - undemocratic and would
> forfeit legitimacy.
> Having to submit to an election every five years is
> not so onerous. 
> Especially when the government chooses the date  of
> the  election, has 
> massive resources of the state, the control of
> propaganda and patronage and also private funding
> for the party machine.
> What does it get in exchange  that would justify it
> turning its back for five years at least, on the
> electorate?
> 
> WHO INFLUENCES THE GOVERNMENT?
> We know that the electorate is shamefully in the
> dark for many major 
> decisions foreign policy is run by a mature
> establishment in the shape of the Foreign Office-
> professional ambassadors-  embassy staff..
> The army and the services have an entrenched
> historical  role in 
> military decisions.
> The arms industry fuels wars.
> The landowners are constitutionally represented in
> the monarchy, in 
> house of Lords , in local government and in many
> official and unofficial 
> agencies.
> The City is massively influential. The banks and 
> finance houses, 
> generate employment, make huge profits, and have a
> vital role in industry and in stimulating  High
> Street spending through advancing credit - the
> rising house prices   give access to credit for
> homeowners.
> 
> THE MIRROR WORLD OF MONEY
> Here is another world in which  the Government can
> operate  and it has 
> attractions which the world of people does not hold.
> It is local to Westminster. Located in the
> prosperous  centre- the City  in the capital city -
> London - in the heartland of the Nation- the most
> populous and most prosperous South East    It has a
> world role wider than that of the Foreign Office, it
> is corporate not individual, it is powerful. 
> Unlike 'people' it does not need a raft of welfare
> legislation- pensions, health, education, housing
> ,Children's Acts nor Social Services. Nor does it
> require a vast criminal system of courts, police 
> and  prisons.   In short it is a success story. A
> money
> And profit making machine.  The world of money is a
> mirror  world to that of people in which money
> itself can generate profits with the minimum need
> for regulation and the Government cannot help
> looking at itszelf in this mirror.
> It is to this world of success and power that
> politicians address their attention.  The role of
> The People is as consumers and electors. Once the
> politicians have been given access to this world by
> the once every five years vote it is in the
> interests of. politicians to concentrate their
> policies on nurturing the City  which is large and
> powerful  enough to influence the world and compact 
> enough to be  influenced personally.
> Policies can be disguised from the the  electorate
> which can be mollified by spin, deceit, secrecy and
> propaganda.
> 
> THE MIRROR WORLD EXPLAINS THE HOUSING CRISIS
> This explains the crisis in the housing market.
> Building houses is not rocket science.  It is one of
> the defining activities of civilisation.  And as old
> as man.     The crisis suits the City.  The crisis
> stresses The People. The government housing policy
> is designed to stress the The People and benefit the
> City . The principle goal of stressing The People is
> to  drive them to work, to encourage them to get
> into debt which weakens and stresses them  and 
> diverts them into consumerism and entertainment and
> away from informed attention to the ulterior
> activities of the Government.
> 
> 
> THE BIG HOUSING LIE
> The big housing lie, is that the stress can be
> relieved by 'affordable 
> Housing'  which is underfunded and restricted so
> that most people don't qualify  because  they are
> not poor enough or they are too poor to afford the
> repayments. In  any case the supply of  'a.h's' is
> quite inadequate . A  campaign of lies easily
> diverts attention , in this complicated market, away
> from  covert  Government malpractice to plausible
> popular causes.
> 
> 
> WHO  BENEFITS FROM THE CRISIS?
> The principle way of benefiting the City through
> housing are:
> 1 to drive up the price and value of houses  (the
> banks and city 
> institutions hold a huge portfolio of houses-  the
> title deeds of every  mortgaged house is held by the
> mortgagee not the occupier /"owner".
> 2 to drive up the price of land  - many or most
> corporations own land and property 3 to increase the
> banks' mortgage income and fees from mortgage
> advances and closures.
> The housing market can be regulated in price and
> quantity which influences the value of the pound and
> the inflation rate which in turn regulates the
> economy,  employment, trade and the 'feel good'
> factor - this is of course an incidental  popular 
> consideration  but the government has no compunction
> of throwing an occasional sop to the voters if this
> suits the bank and its own prolongation in power.
> 
> THE CRISS BENEFITS THE LANDOWNERS.
> There is a land monopoly which is endemic in 
> British history.   Feudalism has been replaced by
> pseudo feudalism- control of the population by
> denying them access to the land for the necessary
> activities of life- employment, agriculture, and
> housing.
> 
> IT BENEFITS THE BANK OF ENGLAND  
> Which concerns itself with stimulating the economy
> and maintaining the foreign exchange value of the
> pound -while  keeping inflation low. This   normally
> requires  a policy of high  interest rates. High
> house prices however stimulate the economy and the
> inflation rate can be kept low by arbitrarily
> excluding  house price inflation from the Retail
> Price Index. This is political jugglery since
> housing costs are real and felt in people's pockets
> because they are the largest item in household
> expenditure. Housing is important as the largest
> industry of Gross Domestic Product. The rate of
> house price inflation approaches ten percent per
> annum when the  target rate for the  Bank of England
> is one percent.   
> Normally inflation stimulates the economy but
> interest rates have to rise to choke this off. The
> negative side of this is that  the pound falls in
> value (Harold Wilson and Liam Britain knew this too
> well) The unique benefit of house price inflation is
> that it is localised domestic inflation only - it is
> confined to the housebuyer's pound- with the foreign
> exchange value unaffected.  High house prices are
> the alchemist's dream and the political economist's
> lode stone.
> 
> HIGH HOUSE PRICES BENEFIT THE CHANCELLOR
> Stamp duty revenue goes up as house prices rise. 
> The economy apparently booms. The City smiles.
> 
> THEY BENEFIT THE NATIONAL HOUSE BUILDERS  The
> buidlers  make more money from building less houses.
> Their landbanks increase in value to the extent that
> they make more profit from their land than from
> building  and they transfer their activities to
> amassing landbanks-  Persimmon had 16 years' supply
> of land with  planning permission or potential p.p.
> in 2003. The Government turns over responsibility
> for building houses totally to the big builders
> whose interest it is not to build too many - the
> price would fall!
> And with it the value of their land banks.
> 
=== message truncated ===



 
____________________________________________________________________________________
Food fight? Enjoy some healthy debate 
in the Yahoo! Answers Food & Drink Q&A.
http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=list&sid=396545367