In my local area of Southend in Essex, a modest two or three bedroom house or bungalow that a young family might wish to purchase to get onto the property ladder, may pay in excess of £280,000 just for the privilege of owning their own property. With rentals for the same type of properties being around the £1000 per month mark, renting doesn't seem a viable option for anybody either. For many wishing to start out in life and move away from their parents, or begin a family of their own, these costs are simply prohibitive. This is partly because wages for the most part seem to have been in decline since the banking crisis of 2008, when factoring in inflation. In many ways given that interest rates have been kept at 0.5% since 2008, we're still very much in the midst's of the same, if not another more serious dip in the economy.
The bottom line is that for the younger generations, things aren't getting much better. A "solution" to the problem of a lack of social mobility for the younger generations, is this new "living wage" initiative started by the Conservatives, which in truth isn't going to help anybody. Any wage increases as a result of this new minimum wage are only going to be short-term. An overall increase in money being paid by companies, will simply lead them to increase their prices ultimately devaluing the currency, and causing inflation. In fact, long-term the effects of increasing everybody's wage may end up meaning more people ultimately end up being paid minimum wage as some companies will refuse to pay more, in a sort of squeezed concertina effect. Ultimately the middle-class is being wiped out by rising minimum wages at the bottom and the 40% tax cap once you begin earning over £43,000 at the top. Essentially there is little incentive to succeed or bother with vocational training in this ridiculous system. Being cynical, the elimination of the middle classes is beneficial for our overlords running international finance, but that is a separate debate for another day.
There are in my opinion, three contributing factors to the housing crisis that many communities today have felt, factors which in many ways slot into one another as to make them basically the same issue.
Firstly, one of the biggest contributing factors to house price rises is population growth, and the biggest element to population growth over the last few decades in the United Kingdom is immigration. Over half (53%) of the increase in the UK population between 1991 and 2014, was due to the direct contribution of net migration. As a result, the projected population in 2014 for 2030, is 11 million greater than what was projected back in 1994. This shows an enormous disregard by current and previous Governments to plan for and accommodate the influx of newcomers. The lack of precautions to build an infrastructure to cope is only just becoming apparent as vital public services are today already feeling an immense strain. These figures by the way, do not include 2nd or 3rd generation immigrants who were born in the United Kingdom before the 1990s. A recent European Union prediction expects that by 2060, one third of the British population with be 1st or 2nd generation migrants, once again omitting from this data the impact that families that came to the UK pre-1990s have had. The United Kingdom is already the most densely populated country in Europe with the exception of Malta, the population growth caused by further immigrants having generally larger families will only acerbate this issue, with an expected average of 500 people being sardined into each kilometer in Britain by 2046.
Just so you know, to prevent going off on a tangent I'm not even discussing the issue of ethnic and cultural genocide going on in the UK against those who define themselves as White British on their census forms every ten years. That argument is for another day.
The second reason for the housing crisis is a localised one. Although I personally was born and raised in the South East of England, I am not blind to the suffering of other communities in Britain who suffer for different, although connected reasons. While people living near London struggle to find affordable housing, those living further afield in rural areas, particularly ex-mining or industrial towns, struggle to find work at all whilst the local housing generally remains cheap. In fact, for the price of one family home in Essex you could potentially buy up an entire terrace in an old mining town. Stoke-On-Trent's council, a town long associated with heavy industry and mining, even began selling homes for £1 last winter in the hope that it would kickstart the local economy. Trouble is, nobody wants to move to these places for the simple fact that there's no local jobs, and those who do live there and can move, do move to where there are jobs. When people flock to areas with jobs, they in-turn push house prices higher, leaving those who were born in those expensive areas in a difficult situation where they struggle to buy or rent.
This issue has mostly been bourne out of decades of Government Ministers simply being disinterested in the problems faced by those who live outside counties that border with London. A lack of investment or infrastructure to assist these communities after the UK was essentially de-industrialised starting in the 1970s, has acerbated the decline of old industrial towns. Although on the face of it, investment seems to finally be taking shape, if you look at the HS2 campaign as an example, this once again seems to mainly benefit London's economy by taking workers out of their own localities and placing them into the capital.
Towns with transport links with London do grow faster, but are also responsible for the biggest rise in house prices. Take my area in Southend as an example again. With London being only an hours commute away, the area is popular with people who work in the city. It's far enough out to not be of London, but close enough not to make their commute too long. As a consequence, properties here have become desirable. Towns like this, as they begin to attract more wealthy professional city workers, fall victim to their own success though. This process known as gentrification, makes properties become more valuable at the expense of the local communities. As a result, those who aren't high earners get pushed out of the communities that they may have grown up in. They may end up having to move somewhere where houses are cheaper, but perhaps where there aren't so many job prospects. Whilst there is the mantra that there are always winners and losers in the dirty game of capitalism, the fact that nothing is done to at least limit the affect of this situation which is ruining lives and destroying communities is a disgrace. That's without taking into consideration the massive influx of immigrant workers that have entered this country over the last two or three decades.
The bizarre situation we have now in the UK, is that the Government would rather build more homes in these desirable locations at the detriment to local greenbelt land and local infrastructure, than invest in the building of industry outside the tentacles of the City of London. Entire towns remain practically deserted whilst contractors build on flood plains elsewhere. The entire situation is simply retarded.
Thirdly, and essentially combining the first two aspects of this already long post, is that all of these problems are caused by globalism. It is globalist interests within the EU, the UK establishment and right at the top within organisations such as the International Monetary Fund, Goldman Sachs, the World Trade Organisation etc, that promote immigration as an economic boost.
Whilst it might be true that mass-immigration brings short-term economic gains for top corporations, ultimately it is not these corporations who have to deal with a collapse of public services and all of the social issues, like the housing crisis, that emerge from such ridiculously ill-thought-out plans. Like your Mother always used to say, money isn't everything, and it's true. There are things more precious than simple economic gain for the sake of gain. The real economic argument for immigration as seen by these top corporations, is that it lowers average wages by saturating work markets. As I've already mentioned earlier on in this post, this works against the British people who were born here, and who want to work and succeed.
Globalism is also at least in part responsible for the degeneration of British industries, as the Government sits on its hands with it's head up it's arse as British factories are sent abroad to China, India or Turkey. The fact that our Government's inactivity surrounding protecting our own industry is mostly caused by international regulations, usually at the behest of the European Union, is seldom mentioned by the gutless wankers in Westminster. For instance, it was European Union grant money that actually paid the Ford motor company to move the Transit van plant to Turkey from Southampton. Look at the recent fiasco surrounding the UK steel industry with TATA on the brink of complete collapse. Not one fuck is given by the UK Government because in all likelihood, it's non-competitiveness was caused by the UK and the EU's collusion with Chinese steel exporters who have made steel manufacturing practically worthless by saturating the market. Nothing has been discussed on the issue of protecting our own industry by placing tariffs on Chinese or other imports. (By the way, the fact that TATA's partial closure was announced the same week that China had an official state visit in London was totally coincidental, I'm sure.)
These issues, whilst they on the face of things seem disconnected, form the main crux of the issue in this country with housing. Too much emphasis is being put on the financial industry and the City of London, and as a result the rest of the country is in economic decline. This is clearly obvious from the fact that London is the richest area in Northern Europe, yet Britain has almost all ten of the ten poorest cities elsewhere in the country. This is what is driving those who can to move to the same areas in the South East.
In those centralised areas like London, those who move are then coming into direct competition with an immigrant workforce, which can only drive wages down. It doesn't take a genius to work out that in this situation, short of getting lucky with finding an exceptionally well paying job, or being given inheritance monies, young adults are effectively being priced out of the housing market.
Whilst the majority of permanent immigrants to the UK were not born in the European Union, voting to leave in the upcoming referendum in June would potentially give the UK the ability to put strict new measures on those who entered the country to live and work. Currently the majority of policies governing these issues are the result of unaccountable European bureaucracy. It would also put a stop on the influx of those born outside of Europe, who are encouraged to come to Europe by the EU themselves.
The only crisis in Europe is that the citizens are not being told that this entire issue with refugees is a ruse. The Syrians and North Africans are being invited! Ironically they're being invited because birth rates in Europe are below replacement rate, and they hope this will act as a stop-gap, however the immigrants themselves also cause lower wages for reasons already discussed. Low wages and high house prices are in part, a reason why many Europeans in their peak fertile age (mid-twenties) can't actually afford to move out of their parent's homes and start a family of their own. News reports recently have been stating that the 'remain' campaign are scaremongering the public by saying an EU exit would cause a drop in house prices. This is surely a good thing!
Leaving the European Union would also remove a plethora of regulations to do with housing, and give at least some control of our economy back to the British Government meaning, at least in theory, that tariffs could be implemented to protect British industry and jobs. That is a big but however, considering that the same types in bed with our national Governments, also pull the strings in the EU. But we can only have hope at this stage. Perhaps ridding ourselves of the European Union would also make the politicians consider their commitments to those poorer areas in the UK too, and hopefully do their part to rejuvenate them instead of spunking all of our money up a wall on nonsense European projects. Whilst entire towns and cities in the UK suffer poverty, the British Government funds art projects in Germany, or Syrian migrant accommodation on Lesbos. The time has come to put our own children first for a change.
Whilst short-term, leaving the European Union may have some economic hurdles, it should be clear that long-term, the best bet for the younger people in society is to get control of our country from Brussels so they can one day own their own property, have actual careers and start their own families.
No comments:
Post a Comment