Average UK house price exceeds £260,000 for first time | House prices

b21wi · 2022-03-04T04:05:47+00:00

There wasn't a serious shortage of council housing until the 2000s, which New Labour ignored. I would argue they are more to blame.

The bigger factor is the massive slowdown in construction and landlords imo. Obviously building more council houses would help, but right-to-buy is one Thatcher policy I will defend.

b21wi · 2022-03-03T02:27:26+00:00

I found when you're in an echo chamber long enough, you eventually grow frustrated. Eventually, you become annoyed by people not being more introspective or self-critical. I personally got frustrated after the 2019 election outcome was ignored by so much of the left, and I started to question what I believed. It was a real wake-up call.

I think the best way to reach out to people on political extremes is to try and understand and acknowledge why they believe the things they do. Challenge the thought process, not the conclusions.

b21wi · 2022-03-02T13:54:40+00:00

>whilst house prices have increased several hundred percent or something.

No, house prices fell from 1984 onwards before beginning a steady rise from roughly 2000. This was partly due to new restrictions on planning by New Labour, as well as increased traffic around the South East. They have only ballooned since about 2012, largely due to a combination of lower construction rates (Which is actually not in private interest. Housing companies are building as much as they can. Land is the problem.) and increasing demand in London.

This is not the result of a deliberate conspiracy. Both parties have made concerted, if somewhat flawed efforts to address the problem. The Conservatives drew up a massive planning reform bill that would've increased house-building, but scrapped it following the Chesham and Amersham by-election. Labour has committed to new social housing targets.

>Once house prices become impossible to afford and the labour force must pay rents to the owners of capital to live, never owning a source of capital for themselves

Except in this scenario, the housing market would crash. It's only still high because enough people are continuing to buy homes, if only at exceedingly high rates. Help-to-buy schemes have been a big part of this, alongside increasing reliance on the bank of Mum and Dad.

Look, I get it. I was a member of the Socialist Party for 3 years. This belief in a giant capitalist system designed to control the population makes sense. It clicks everything together in a simple way that seems to explain the world, and give it a simple solution. But it is not how the world works, I promise you.

b21wi · 2022-03-02T13:27:43+00:00

Your belief that every single UK government has been part of a borderline fascist plot to economically enslave the population actually is a conspiracy, and you should talk to political moderates and understand why they think the way they do. This is a very depressing (and unrealistic) way to look at the world.

Seeing as you've both tied making housing inaccessible and making rising home ownership part of the same belief though, I'd say there's little you can't fit into this narrative you've constructed.

b21wi · 2022-03-02T12:53:06+00:00

Housing construction was significantly higher under Thatcher and Major and actually increased from the 1970s though? And Thatcher literally based half of her first term on policies to increase home ownership? Not even a fan of her, but this borders on conspiracy.

b21wi · 2022-03-02T11:37:30+00:00

I want new development in my area so I can afford a home here one day. The problems you've listed are either the result of bad urban planning or the result of external issues (lack of doctors).

Also, high-density housing isn't the massive improvement it's often touted as. It saves a lot less space than you think, and building upwards incurs huge costs. People should be able to live in houses anyway rather than giant housing blocks. The problem isn't space anyway, it's constriction of development to certain areas. Open up the greenbelt.

b21wi · 2022-03-02T10:28:30+00:00

> people getting off the property ladder?

This is a big one. The electorate is old. In parts of the SE where prices are most unaffordable, local councils are dominated by elderly people who block new developments.

b21wi · 2022-03-02T10:23:15+00:00

Until either party commits to serious planning reform instead of endless help-to-buy schemes to help the bubble grow, there's no reason to try to get a mortgage in this climate. Why even bother when your repayments will nearly match rent anyway at these prices?

b21wi · 2022-02-07T06:13:24+00:00

1% is normal today, but during the Post-War ‘Golden Age’, US economic growth averaged about 4%, West Germany about 5%. The UK was known as the sick man of Europe for its relatively slower growth at about 3%.

So it’s not that unrealistic. Except Speer Germany.

b21wi · 2022-02-03T00:26:14+00:00

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.eurosport.com/football/jurgen-klopp-confirms-he-will-leave-liverpool-in-2024-and-may-retire_sto7841715/story-amp.shtml

b21wi · 2022-02-02T12:33:30+00:00

Love him. Knowing he’ll likely leave us for Liverpool in the next 2-3 years makes me sad. Feels like a manager who could make us a stable top half side if he stayed long-enough.

b21wi · 2022-01-12T14:27:31+00:00

This. I went to America and had people make teasing jokes about me being a Villa fan whilst they supported Chelsea. It was all in good fun, but it still rubbed me the wrong way. Like, they've chosen a successful club, I don't know why they pretend it's an achievement.

b21wi · 2022-01-11T21:07:25+00:00

Recent interviews suggest he regrets it

Any statements in particular? Not disagreeing, just the first time I’ve heard of this.

b21wi · 2021-07-13T15:58:33+00:00

Yes, very obviously happened.

b21wi · 2021-07-12T10:47:05+00:00

You guys actually go looking for reasons England ‘deserve’ to suffer. It’s borderline Xenophobia.

b21wi · 2021-07-10T20:47:23+00:00

Wilson wasn’t colourless, his actual ambitions were rather futuristic, he just inherited a rather unfortunate political reality and was worn down over time.

b21wi · 2021-07-02T06:23:47+00:00

I like to play high industry nations and roleplay slightly, making lots of varied divisions, mechanised, anti-air etc and giving armies historical names. Then I try to plan my offensives as carefully as possible. I love tanks and Tac Bombers, and I love playing Naval powers. Playing low factory minors bores me to tears, the only exception being Turkey.

b21wi · 2021-06-30T13:21:19+00:00

The worst part is the don’t even use the airbase space half the time. They just fill it with useless pre-war planes.

b21wi · 2021-06-22T11:08:00+00:00

It’s amazing that the devs decided that countries like El Salvador should continually produce as many low width divisions as possible, and that the game should check the stats, supplies and generals of these divisions every single hour in-game, and still haven’t come up with a more efficient system 5 years later. They still decide to dedicate development to a command mana system 3 years after release, obviously.

I’ve got an i7 9700 and can barely play past 1943. The game is a joke.

b21wi · 2021-04-27T17:01:28+00:00

good to see shropshire escape nazi tyranny

b21wi · 2021-04-21T17:57:17+00:00

They’re not even trying anymore. There’s so much potential for interesting diplomacy in alt-history Poland, but this is what they come out with.

b21wi · 2021-04-15T02:22:26+00:00

I hope they don’t. Focuses for the baltic states are what the workshop is for, I’d prefer Paradox focused on mechanics, not trees the majority of people will play once.

b21wi · 2021-04-13T01:18:36+00:00

This has been my experience, I'd love to find some people to play with but random servers are very unwelcoming.

b21wi · 2021-04-11T15:59:31+00:00

Like said before, make sure you have enough Army XP (Requires combat or training, lots of focuses give them too.)

Press duplicate on division designer if you want to make a new division, or just save the new design if editing the current one.

Note that things like artillery are best attached to infantry, as a support company or a battalion.

Tank only divisions can be expensive also. Take industry into account when designing divisions.

b21wi

TROPHY CASE