House prices are falling across Britain and the doommongers have come out of the woodwork.
The thing is house prices, and how much your house is supposedly worth, is fairly arbitrary. I mean, a luxury villa is always going to be more expensive than an average semi detatched, but the prices of these individual items are decided by the market, and what you paid for the house becomes irrelevant provided you can afford to pay for it. If the value of the house you bought goes up £20,000, you haven't made a profit. In the same way, if I buy a plasma screen telly for £2,000, if the price in the shop goes up to £2,250 I haven't made a profit either. (Not to mention the fact everyone else's house has gone up proportionally).
The problem is caused(and the argument about house prices is also caused) when the middle class begin to think they are wealthy because of their house prices and borrow money against their mortgage for whatever luxuries they want, when in reality the best thing to do is pay off a mortgage asap.
I also think low house prices are a good thing. It actaully gives first time buyers a chance to get on the market rather than screwing them over.
Tuesday, 12 August 2008
Saturday, 2 August 2008
Random Politics
Just a few brief opinions on recent pilitcal issues in Britain.
Domestic Violence Legislation: We are trying to get a law passed that will allow women who women who murder their abusive husbands to have their convictions reduced to manslaughter. This is a very good idea, espceiialy as men who see their wives commit adultery can also get a more lenient sentence.
Labour Welfare Reforms: Labour are trying to reform the welfare system to cut down on cheats. One of the proposed ideas of the government is to make the long-term unemployed to do community service work to earn their dole money. This would involve people who nhave been on jobseekers' allowance working full time. In my opinion, the scheme may have a point but I think it is unreasonable to get people to do this work for 46.00ish a week. Assuming that they work 35 hours a week, that's pay of £1.31 an hour. Even if they do the minimum to be regarded as full time, 16 hours, that is still only wages of £2.87 an hour(the minimum wage is about 5 quid). The most you could reasonably got someone to work for that money is about 1 seven-hour day, which I think would be a fairer idea.
Domestic Violence Legislation: We are trying to get a law passed that will allow women who women who murder their abusive husbands to have their convictions reduced to manslaughter. This is a very good idea, espceiialy as men who see their wives commit adultery can also get a more lenient sentence.
Labour Welfare Reforms: Labour are trying to reform the welfare system to cut down on cheats. One of the proposed ideas of the government is to make the long-term unemployed to do community service work to earn their dole money. This would involve people who nhave been on jobseekers' allowance working full time. In my opinion, the scheme may have a point but I think it is unreasonable to get people to do this work for 46.00ish a week. Assuming that they work 35 hours a week, that's pay of £1.31 an hour. Even if they do the minimum to be regarded as full time, 16 hours, that is still only wages of £2.87 an hour(the minimum wage is about 5 quid). The most you could reasonably got someone to work for that money is about 1 seven-hour day, which I think would be a fairer idea.
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