SO what are the alternatives to the current mess?

Nationalise Land and the Housing Stock?

My first question has to be what do you mean by "mess"?

Yes, things are working out fine & the market is doing its job in finding the balance between supply and demand.

The problems in the housing & property market have mostly about through government interventions (planning permission, zonings, mortgage interest relief, the Bacon report, stamp duty).

Abandon all market supports.

Get rid of TRS, investment interest relief, rent relief.

If relative poverty is a problem, introduce social welfare changes to increase the income of those who need it.

Remove all incentives to build (section this that and the other).

ok, I'm totally lost...

everyone is making up their own problems

*watches topic go down the sink*

I'm off for a pint.

The topic is nationalise the housing stock & land.

What are the merits.

I am talking about ending the "Housing Market" and the "Land Market"

Nothing else. So lets deal with in those terms and not fall into familiar logical paths.

RE: what is "mess", well all of the bad stuff that has happened because of market instabilities and the ensuing economic fall out. All the bad planning, the political corruption, the chronic commutes, the children who barley see their parents, the no solution in sight or anything ever being done. You know about all that stuff...

As for the market working correctly and some may believe the world is only market driven (dream on ), thats about as helpful as an atomic bomb performing to its technical specs in this search for an alternative approach.

So lets move on and try to imagine what a state, even a world where its citizens didn't have to worry about the matter of shelter and get themselves into an awful pickle.....

What youre proposing is absurd. What good could come out of the state owning everybodys houses? Nobody would take care or maintain the house because if they didnt own it.

Ask anyone from eastern europe why communism failed and theyre likely to say something like "Because people like to own stuff".

You come across as being so out of touch with reality that Im wondering**************blah blah blah noob*****

out and out sexism cant be tolerated here
blindjustice

Bad planning? Market not being left do its job, humans intervening
Political Corruption? Market not being left do its job, humans intervening
Chronic Commutes? Market not being left do its job, humans intervening

It seems to me that it's only when politicians interfere with the market we have these problems. And your solution is more market interference? Will we have a situation where a politician or a faceless bureaucrat tells you where to live? And what your accommodation will be? And how much you will pay for it? And who you can live with? Sounds positively Orwellian.

Now now

You are sailing close to the wind Calvin J with comments like that, previous posts are noted also. Admin Hat off.

Now;

1) Absurd?

WHy?

2) What good could come of this?

Well thats why I proposed the "idea"

Why do people feel so threatened by ideas, on a forum? An idea that might achieve a nicer place to live, a better life? Why hold onto the old legacy system because you fear of a better future?

While I don't know if it would work but I think its a very interesting idea and one that hasn't been tried entirely.

3) As regards reality, what the hell is reality my friend what the hell is it....

Animal Farm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksnwIUyspps

My proposal is:

No Land/Housing market.
Solves: Results of Problematic Market interventions.

For the rest of your questions I'll admit there are not easy on/off switchc answers. It is a new reality and some of those queestion thus become invalid simply becasue of that, for example there bveing no ownership of land or houses thus it no longer invovle din a market scenario. (people can still buy hair dryers, ipods, toothpaste and so on, we are only ending one market that is, the land & landed property)

So lets simulate rather than asking questions.
Its much more rewarding and instructive and gosh non one gets hurt and we can even simulate many many times over till we find a solution we most like.

So suddenly we all wake up tomorrow, no one has to pay for accmodaiton anymore be it a mortgage or rent but all still retain the right to live in shelter and for this imulation lets just say its the one they woke up in, in the natural family units as required or in whatever other arrangements are required or where standing at the time.

The Spare capacity form people who have more homes than they need will be alloted to those with no shelter.

So no problems there as far as I can see?
Ok.
So whats next.

Carry on as if nothing else changed. Yea? Ok....

So whats next then, anyone any ideas (I have some but I'd like to hear others, I don't want to soap box this one)

Come on simulate!!

I don't think so - the current system works 'post construction' relatively well, it just screws up completely in the early phases.

There's a very good argument to be made for a government run operation which buys up land at a reasonable premium to its current value, and when it has a decent size chunk in one place (with the option of compulsory purchase to complete an plan), rezones it, specifies with reasonable detail what it is to be used for and sells it off to the highest bidder to perform the actual development. The 'rezoning' profit can then go into infrastructure to service the area.

It takes away as massive incentive for corruption (since developers currently make much if not most of their money on the rezoning, not the actual developing), encourages actual planning (since it's not in anyone's personal interest to implement a hair brained scheme), and directly provides funding for any needed infrastructure.

I believe some of the scandinavian countries work on a principle not a million miles from this.

OW,

Your idea is unconstitutional (article 40.3.2. Irish constitution), and you are attacking the symptoms but not the cause of this misallocation of resources.



Look at the above picture, that's what you get when you nationalise land and housing. Eastern Europe is littered with the same communist era apartments and has the most serious destruction of land and pollution problems in Europe.

Why Socialism Causes Pollution
http://www.fee.org/publications/the-fre ... p?aid=1909

The Ethics and Economics of Private Property
http://www.mises.org/story/1646

Environmental Preservation: A Matter of Property
http://www.mises.org/story/2136

Environmentalism Without Government
http://www.mises.org/story/1844

Now lets look at the people we elected in government, can we really trust their judgement that they will act in the best interest of Irish society and not line their own pockets? The weight of evidence shows that they will never do this.



In 1963 Neil Blaney introduced the Planning Act (that's where the phrase Pre-63 comes from). From that point on we have not had a free market and it has provided ample opportunity for political corruption and monopolisation of land that can be developed (land banking). This is not free-market capitalism, remove planning permission today and the entire edifice that are current property values crumbles and house prices move to reflect their proper utility value (shelter), in such an environment companies that want to build houses must compete on quality if they want to achieve the best price.

Think about it, no-one would build houses where there is no economic need, Apartments and high rise would be built, since people would demand to live near work and services, and the rooms would have sufficient space so there would be no restrictions on height. You would have to pay proper economic rents for services such as water and waste disposal and there would be an incentive to use these resources efficiently in order to save on costs. There would be freedom of movement so if your new job was in Dublin and you are based in Cavan, you could move house easily enough.

The fact is central government planning is inefficient and combined with cheap credit is responsible for the blight of unwanted housing stock we have today.

The reason for the massive misallocation of resources that led to this unsustainable boom and now recession in Ireland would not occur in an economy in which most of the forecasting & resource-allocation was done by entrepreneurs rather than bureaucrats. But there is no free market in money or short-term interest rates anywhere in the world -- central planning and control of money & short-term interest by governments is universal. All currency is the product of government fiat, banking is controlled by government central bankers who do not understand what they are doing and manipulate the market causing business cycles.

An Austrian Theory of Business Cycles
http://www.benbest.com/polecon/buscycle.html

I have mentioned before on the pin that I am completely against residential property speculation. Four things should be protected. Housing, Food, Health and Education. I favour private individuals/businesses competing with these goods and services. However I think the basics should be protected. In particular I have a real problem with flippers. This is not a victimless sport. These flippers add a wedge onto the price a person would have to pay for a place to live. They get rich providing absolutely nothing. It is simply some cute hoor putting his/her hand into the pocket of someone struggling to get by.
As for nationalising housing and land, it is already done here. Just not enough of it is done. If you could get on the housing list and actually get a modest house within a few months then there you have it, nationalisiation of property. The big problem IMO is involving a government. Government ministers in this country are inept and corrupt. So nationalising anything in this country with FF and FG is a foolish idea. The first thing to do is purge every last member of our parasitic government. Only then would it be possible to try anything of benefit to the people of this country.


Ok. Lets say when a child is born a house in the area is earmarked for that child. The council keeps tabs on all local children and plans ahead to ensure the child can live close to the family home if they so wish. This would allow children to spend all their lifes surrounded by their childhood friends and family and would build strong comunities where people actually know each other and care about each other. In fact take it further. Crime would probably be reduced since people in an area would know about individuals and would have a stake in the comunity so it would be intheir interest to guide wayward kids away from crime.
Doing the above would be tough in a globalised world. There would be little room for immigrants and people would not move for work. Work would have to come to them. The comunity would have to specialise in something. For example telecomunications technology. Their kids would take it up and innovate with the help of more experienced mentors (am I starting to ramble?)