Sorta seems like cherry picking data. "Oh, look how bad england energy is!" Meanwhile German energy bills are up 20x...
Blaming capitalism for consequences of the largest worldwide government intervention in everything possibly ever seems disingenuous. If that is capitalist, I guess nothing isn't. We could nationalize every industry and when there are shortages, despite having no private ownership of capital we'll all just scream "damn you, capitalism!!!"
Blaming capitalism for consequences of the largest worldwide government intervention in everything possibly ever seems disingenuous. If that is capitalist, I guess nothing isn't. We could nationalize every industry and when there are shortages, despite having no private ownership of capital we'll all just scream "damn you, capitalism!!!"
It's great that you can get electricity cheap in what -- Norway? Sweden? But if you're not in Norway or Sweden and instead you're in Germany or Italy the fact that they drag the average down is cold comfort.
The key here is that if there's an honest truth to be told, represent it with the truth, not with cherry picked or out of context data.
It breaks good arguments.
It breaks good arguments.
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It's no accident that some of the most expensive places to live in the world are commonwealth nations: England's London, Canada's Vancouver and Toronto, and Australia's Melbourne.
All three countries have faced a collapsing industrial base, and in the face of that, real estate was a quick and politically easy way for governments to keep people feeling rich despite not being rich.
In Canada in particular, I'm well acquainted with the tens of thousands of dollars in free money available to buy a house, and that's on top of artificially low interest rates propped up by the central bank (and one of the central bankers who led the charge into housing, Mark Carney, ended up as the head of the Bank of England, unsurprisingly). Political parties fell over themselves to come up with new ways to prop up the housing market. If I wanted to, I could go to the bank tomorrow, and borrow a million dollars to buy a house in Toronto (assuming I could buy a house for that little). That's absurd, I simply shouldn't be allowed to do that, but I am. People want to blame foreign investment, and that's certainly a small part of it, but access to unlimited credit has been the primary driver of real estate, and most purchasers of real estate are people living in those cities. In Vancouver, there's an absurdly high tax on buying places to live and not living in them, and I think in Toronto there's even a foreign investment ban, but there's still people buying houses for a million bucks.
The absurdly high house prices are basically the genesis many of the other parts of the high cost of living. People living in those areas need a lot more money to live because just renting an apartment is absurdly expensive.
This isn't because the conservatives spent a lot of time in power in Canada, at least. The liberals are known as "Canada's natural ruling party", and there are no term limits, so they were totally in control of the government from the late 90s through to the late 2000s, then eventually got power in 2015 and have formed the government ever since (meanwhile housing costs have done nothing but rise). For most of that time, the liberals were in charge of Ontario, and the liberals or NDP were in charge of BC.
As I recall, Melborne has incredibly beneficial tax incenentives for purchasing property which people take advantage of to purchase multiple properties.
As for the UK, I believe the biggest thing in London is it's a great place to launder your money, and real estate is one of the ways to do it. It's been a while, but I think that was the big thing.
A Canadian (Doctorow) claiming that high cost of living is because of the eeeeevil conservatives just doesn't track. I mean, they contributed, but it was a team effort.
Now, energy is another thing, and it's a lot simpler. It comes down to a few little things:
1. "green" policy that just means we "stop using fossil fuels" by transferring those activities to dictatorships that don't care about being green and only allow those dictatorships to drill for oil;
2. the covid lockdowns and the government response;
3. central bank money printing; and of course
4. shtickinittaputinbrah
So it's a complicated thing, but a lot of it starts with monetary and fiscal policy and banking regulations and taxation.
House prices are starting to drop now, and it appears to be happening exactly because interest rates are finally starting to rise in response to inflation. That should give a great clue as to where the solution will be.
All three countries have faced a collapsing industrial base, and in the face of that, real estate was a quick and politically easy way for governments to keep people feeling rich despite not being rich.
In Canada in particular, I'm well acquainted with the tens of thousands of dollars in free money available to buy a house, and that's on top of artificially low interest rates propped up by the central bank (and one of the central bankers who led the charge into housing, Mark Carney, ended up as the head of the Bank of England, unsurprisingly). Political parties fell over themselves to come up with new ways to prop up the housing market. If I wanted to, I could go to the bank tomorrow, and borrow a million dollars to buy a house in Toronto (assuming I could buy a house for that little). That's absurd, I simply shouldn't be allowed to do that, but I am. People want to blame foreign investment, and that's certainly a small part of it, but access to unlimited credit has been the primary driver of real estate, and most purchasers of real estate are people living in those cities. In Vancouver, there's an absurdly high tax on buying places to live and not living in them, and I think in Toronto there's even a foreign investment ban, but there's still people buying houses for a million bucks.
The absurdly high house prices are basically the genesis many of the other parts of the high cost of living. People living in those areas need a lot more money to live because just renting an apartment is absurdly expensive.
This isn't because the conservatives spent a lot of time in power in Canada, at least. The liberals are known as "Canada's natural ruling party", and there are no term limits, so they were totally in control of the government from the late 90s through to the late 2000s, then eventually got power in 2015 and have formed the government ever since (meanwhile housing costs have done nothing but rise). For most of that time, the liberals were in charge of Ontario, and the liberals or NDP were in charge of BC.
As I recall, Melborne has incredibly beneficial tax incenentives for purchasing property which people take advantage of to purchase multiple properties.
As for the UK, I believe the biggest thing in London is it's a great place to launder your money, and real estate is one of the ways to do it. It's been a while, but I think that was the big thing.
A Canadian (Doctorow) claiming that high cost of living is because of the eeeeevil conservatives just doesn't track. I mean, they contributed, but it was a team effort.
Now, energy is another thing, and it's a lot simpler. It comes down to a few little things:
1. "green" policy that just means we "stop using fossil fuels" by transferring those activities to dictatorships that don't care about being green and only allow those dictatorships to drill for oil;
2. the covid lockdowns and the government response;
3. central bank money printing; and of course
4. shtickinittaputinbrah
So it's a complicated thing, but a lot of it starts with monetary and fiscal policy and banking regulations and taxation.
House prices are starting to drop now, and it appears to be happening exactly because interest rates are finally starting to rise in response to inflation. That should give a great clue as to where the solution will be.
There's a fantastic blog on Canadian real estate and investment at https://greaterfool.ca/ which covers a lot of these subjects.
But let's say that foreign investment is 20% of homes in Toronto. That means that 80% are owned domestically. For all those seven-figure sales, a Canadian goes to a Canadian bank, borrows Canadian money, hands it to another Canadian.
But let's say that foreign investment is 20% of homes in Toronto. That means that 80% are owned domestically. For all those seven-figure sales, a Canadian goes to a Canadian bank, borrows Canadian money, hands it to another Canadian.