The global property scene

"Housing wealth".........

Interesting words, those.

I've got this great piece of contemporary art, and I'll sell it to you for GBP 10,000.

It only cost GBP 4.50 to make, but you're not paying for the materials or the labour; it's the pure intellectual idea of the piece that's worth all the money.

"Wealth".....how do we measure it?
Maybe it should have its own denomination, called "tulips".....

Will we ever learn ?????????????????????

Stephanie, you're just writing about it like it's a game of Monopoly.

Ever thought about houses as homes and the idea that they should be affordable?

If prices are bottoming out, it still isn't much use to those who can't afford a home. Houses are still overvalued aren't they?

And if they start to rise again, have we sorted out the problems that made the bubble happen? Are we all going to be conned into large mortgages again to line the pockets of estate agents and bankers?

Post 1. You have hit the nail on the head!

Goes to prove Phineas T Barnum's view that there's a sucker born every minute.

Sadly we in the UK have not been immune from people who thought property was a one way bet. Interest only mortgages will be the next disaster when interest rates rise again and people cannot remortgage.

There must be millions with interest only mortgages with little if any investments to cover the repayments.

it is interesting that in the UK a "recovery" is seen in terms of rising house prices... Are we really spending all this money to bail out banks, save our economy, just to ensure our children can never afford to buy a house?

Are you shore it was WW.2 I remember when house prices fell in the 70s and lots of people were in negative equity, some were even reprocessed or handed back the keys, I suggest you get your history book out.

"But, for what it's worth, the Global Property Guide puts Israel on top - house prices there have actually gone up by more than 6% in the 12 months to March 2009."

Who would have thought eh? ;-)

Why do we have to keep reading the word "collapse" in so many reports. I am not aware of the Pound Sterling having collapsed. It has fallen and is now recovering. Collapse which of course sounds so dramatic and terminal, means to most people that someone or something has fallen in a heap!

sorry Stephanie, but this is a gigantic exercise in comparing apples and oranges.

there are huge variations in price falls within countries and between, say, houses and crappy new-build 2-bed flats

anyway, I understand that there are 19 million empty properties in the US now; many abandoned or keys returned, as people move back in with family etc; and prices down by 30% + in sunbelt cities like Phoenix; the hangover from the house-flipping craze, which extended all the way up to Ms Blears, will take many years to recover from

as for Dubai, the place is an affront to all common sense; indoor ski-runs in a 40c climate etc; all built by virtual slave labour from the sub-continent; the sooner it returns to sand dunes the better

here in my current neck of the woods (Eastern Ontario) the local estate agent is advertising rural 3-bed homes for $75k (about £40k); that would no doubt elicit expressions of horror and or sympathy from the average Londoner but the fact is that it is absolutely great because it means that:

an ordinary young person working in an ordinary job can easily afford a mortgage and people are not obsessed about house prices

the reasons for such low prices are many, including it being outside a commutable distance to the nearest urban area, but has been helped by tight lending regulations here

@7
You've got to remember its relative the pound has not started to recover the Euro has just started its decline.

ahoy there Stephanie and #6 JJ

perhaps the reason that house prices have supposedly gone up in Israel (want to live in a permanent war zone - even South London sounds preferable) is the inclusion of $1 million in each old mattress by savers who don't trust the banks any more

all it proves is that estate agents will do anything to talk up the housing market

I hear that the Gaza strip has excellent potential, as does South Beirut

there are some real bargains to be had in Somalia as well

The United States figures are determined by two bodies: the real estate business and the governments. Because many local governments and to some degree state governments rely heavily on real estate taxes they have not provided neighborhoods with fair assessments of the new value of the properties because this would mean a loss of tax income for the local governments. When forclosures occur the local governments classify these an anomalies and do not factor them into the valuation of neighborhood properties. This of course is rather dishonest as foreclosures are a better reflection of the true value of the properties than the over-inflated values produced by the predatory loan business that enticed unqualified buyers into an inflated market. So, even though the values of homes may have been reduced by as much as 30% the surrounding properties are still assessed and taxed at the over-inflated values to finance the local governments who though loans, grants and rezonings were handmaidens to the "boom" but remain unwilling to accept the consequences of the "Bust."

megagodfrey (#5) - I think she's right, from memory the overall national house price stats didn't drop during the late 70's, although one or two individual regions did. And obviously you can't generalise about individual streets or whatever, although usually it's not negative equity that causes repossessions, it's inability to pay the mortgage. The unemployment and strikes of the late 70's are classic reasons for repossessions.

In fact there was a massive house price crash in the late 70's, but it was masked by inflation going mad at the time, it's quite revealing to see what happened to "real" house prices back then. The circumstances are quite similar now, the only difference is that inflation on consumer goods is low, so the crash is much more obvious. But you can't ignore the effect on psychology, the end of the "can't go wrong with houses" mentality.

In this country house prices will start to rise again soon because of all the money thrown at the mortgage funding by the government. The problem is when does a taxpayer funded house price recovery become a taxpayer funded house price boom? Acording to the Halifax house prices rose last month by 2.6 per cent, if that carried on for a year then you are looking at an increase of well over 30 per cent!! In this country its more about re inflating house prices so that the banks assets ie the homes they have lent money against go back to the kind of levels they were at before the crash.
Notice how the government provides JUST enough part-buy part-rent mortgages to get house prices on the up again, but not enough that everyone can have one. So if you cann't get a subsidised mortgage or if you are one of the 4.5 million people on the council house waiting list then your tax money will be spent inflating property out of your reach and pricing you onto the street.

Interesting. The culural/economic drivers of housing need globally must vary. In UK there is a supposed shortage of supply. In the short term income expectation, cost of borrowing and credit availability are influencing demand. But did the real hike in demand here come from key demographic changes and longevity, increased single living, divorce and separation, multiple households etc. I dont think it was all down to over generous loan-to-value and income multiple mortgage conditions.

Stephanie,

I must take issue with your value judgement in your last paragraph

vis-

"In the UK, some encouraging data in the past month has many predicting that house prices are bottoming out"

I take exception to the unqualified way that you call this data 'encouraging'. I ask you to consider if it is encouraging fro all those who still cannot afford somewhere to live at the present price levels?

Most 'informed' and 'dispassionate' observers still consider that house prices in the UK have some way to fall yet.

Please consider the effects of your language that suggests that the end of the fall at these price levels is a good thing. You may be encouraging buyers to overpay for a home!

Only today did I read that we are already seeing the mortgage market hardening and prices rising and this could well presage a further fall in prices. In short I consider your language irresponsible, ill advised and not in accordance with the facts.

"In the UK, some encouraging data in the past month has many predicting that house prices are bottoming out..."

Are these the same "many" that predicted that house prices would rise indefinitely during the "bubble" years?

The problem with "bubbles" like these is that when one is in one, it is very difficult to tell what is real what is artificial.

Real estate property prices in the US and UK were artificially bid up to insane levels because the central banks (US Fed and BoE) created cheap credit by forcing interest rates down way below what the free market would have set them at back in 2001. Therefore the bubble was initiated by Greenspan, George and King et al.

And what are governments/central banks trying to achieve now with yet more monetary pumping and near zero interest rates?

And especially for those, including media pundits, who just love to blame free-market capitalism:

https://www.europac.net/voicesframeset.asp?id=44

As an ex-pat living in Australia, I continue to be amazed by the "it can't happen here" attitude most people have to house prices falling. The Federal Goverment are doing little to help by giving first time buyers a huge financial incentive to enter what is a completeley saturated market, not dissimilar to that of the UK 2 years ago where FTBs are borrowing 6-7 times the earnings to get onto the housing ladder, at rock bottom interest rates, with unemployment rising and an economy falsely jacked up by enormous stimulus from a popularity chasing Government.

If you want to see the next property explosion, look no further than the suburbs of Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.

But it can't hapen here can it? We're different!

We shall see.

#14 shireblogger,

"But did the real hike in demand here come from key demographic changes and longevity, increased single living, divorce and separation, multiple households etc. I dont think it was all down to over generous loan-to-value and income multiple mortgage conditions."

Like all bubbles it is a mixture of all of those factors, along with builders and developers maximising the One Third model - one third for the land: one third for the construction costs: one third profit (only this last third became extended by the daily/weekly/monthly % increase). These factors were then ignited by a prolonged promotional campaign in the media (tv and press). Hence the bubble assumed a life of its own. No one factor was responsible.

#18 Snowler,

You KNOW it can

#7, Not a collapse huh? Pound - US Dollar from 2.05 to 1.35 in 3 months. Pound Aussie Dollar 2.60 to 1.96 in 3 months - you can define collapse as you see fit, but in economic terms it will more than do for me. The recovery against the greenback & Euro isn't a sterling recovery per se, just a reflection of more pain for those currencies. Whilst the Sterling OCR is 0.5% or thereabouts and the UK Govt are talking up QE, there will be no sustained Sterling recovery. Who would want Sterling in those conditions?

#19 I know it can? I want it to! When the Aussie property Ponzi scheme implodes and the commodity price contraction finds its way past the Fed Govt's sticking plasters and shameless spruiking, the A$ will correct too and it will be profit take-arama!

Anyway back onto thread......

John_from_Hendon (#15) SF: "In the UK, some encouraging data in the past month has many predicting that house prices are bottoming out"

"I take exception to the unqualified way that you call this data 'encouraging'.......Please consider the effects of your language that suggests that the end of the fall at these price levels is a good thing. You may be encouraging buyers to overpay for a home!"

You still don't get it do you. The language is intensional. This is how SF and other economic reporters (and social 'scientists') write. It is why it is now predominantly a female art. It goes with high female fluency whc is unaccountable (literally).

ALL=NOT(SOME(x)), SOME=NOT(ALL(x)) and SOME=AT LEAST ONE (ALL and SOME being logical quantifiers). The problem with the intensional is that these idioms resist reliable quantification-in (which is the sine qua non for rational inference). This is an important point as it is the hallmark of our anarchistic culture where there is lots of spin but no traction by design.

The language is indeterminate. It rarely, if ever specifies a specific quantity, and even when it does, it ranges over a class which is itself nebulous/ethereal.

If you want something accountable, you have to have a 'totalitarian' government, and there are plenty of people like George Reisman around to scare the likes of you off thinking the unthinkable. Oddly, they seem to forget to mention the PRC in all their scaremongering, essentially because they can't come with any evidence to substantiate it. Why not? It's far more Stalinist that the USSR was, and with 10x the size in population of Russia you'd have thought it would be teaming with the terrified - instead they seem quite loyal and angry with the Liberal-Democracies and their interference.

With the USA somewhat weakened economically, the cracks in Liberal-Demoractic propaganda are starting to show, but with so much National Debt, we can't afford socialism unless the PRC bails it out. Clever eh?

There are some very interesting points in this blog... but regarding the 'encouraging signs'---I think SF uses that, and similar, adjectives straightforwardly in the way many commentators use it;unthinkingly.

For most(many)of their readers the 'good times' of the latter Blair years where when most people felt well off ----and house prices were rising.

That was itself the probably the main reason for the feel-good factor.

A virtuous circle and hence 'encouraging'.

For myself, both in my own life and in running my business, and I get the feeling this is shared by many on this and other Blogs; I was very worried 05/06/07 because unlike the Treasury and Govt who 'couldn't see any crisis coming', I was like most ordinary people I met in ordinary life, and we could all see it couldn't possibly last.

Those Eastern european plumbers and immigrants on low and below-minimum wages were (I thought) the last amphetamine tablet for the economy hooked on speed.

Now of course we see the green shoots ----in housing as in the business world being fuelled by the crack cocaine of quantative easing.... seen from this perspective the bottoming out of house prices isn't encouraging...it's worrying....

Those 10% cuts ARE coming and the interest rates will be rising...that's something else everyone knows despite the increasingly bizarre convulsions of rhetoric from politicians; who are incapable of just saying what we all know and moving the debate from sterile cant and droning banality, on into useful areas.

The really explosive issue is that people are almost totally detached from the entire political and metropolitan elite seen as a whole (I am including journalists and Broadcast journalists as well as big business elites and politicians in this 'elite'althought not every single one in each category)---but cannot see any alternative vehicle for expressing their views and having them listened to ---

It's been a 'made in London' (and of course New york, Chicago and elsewhere) crisis that London people (politicians) got their London mates (Bankers) off the hook to rounds of applause from London people (media)----But using our money and then telling us there is none left to help LDV, Corus Teesside, Silicon Glen, Vauxhall, etc etc etc.... those will be non-London people losing their jobs of course.... real jobs in the real world, not the world where you destroy a company and 'pay the price' but receive a £750,000 pension on a nod-through from a London mate!

Over the past 10 or so years the government has become dependent on the feel good factor that rising house prices has created amongst the electorate. Property, rather than tax, has become the great new inequality. The majority of the electorate own their own homes, and obviously have been happy with the idea that their greatest asset has been appreciating rapidly in price over the past 10 years. The "wealth" that they have become accustomed to understanding that they have will not be given up easily and they are likely to strongly punish any government that threatens a decrease in house prices.

Labour know that if house prices continue to decline losing the next election is a virtual certainty. One of the side "benefits" to lowering interest rates is a stimulation of the housing market, which will hopefully (for Labour) continue long enough for people to be fooled all is well again. Labour are likely to call an election while this feel good factor is kicking in.

Interest rates will rise aggressively in the near future (see current fixed mortgage rate pricing). This is a certainty. This coupled with increasing unemployment will cause another housing market collapse within the next 1-2 years, leading to all those who purchased in 2009 into negative equity.

What is truly shameful is that the very people who Labour are allegdely supposed to protect (low income FTB's and families desperate to be on the housing ladder) are being suckered into providing a dead cat bounce to the housing market to improve Labours electoral chances, and will be the sector of the population most vunerable when the next housing crash takes hold.

The current government has lived for the past 10 years off the goodwill that rising house prices creates. But this can't go on indefinitiely. The government decided to allow an unsustainable increase in prices and now it has to face the consequential correction.

""Wealth".....how do we measure it?
Maybe it should have its own denomination, called "tulips".....
Will we ever learn ?????????????????????"
Mr Tweedy

Err...later maybe..and err.. thanks for the tip, quick, sell pork bellies buy tulips..anyone got spare tulips ???

Confidence/Speculation in housing does not improve trade deficits or borrowing levels, it just makes more money for speculators/banks, more misery and indebtedness for young people (and future generations), and a even less competitive economy ...

The green shoots of recovery we need to see are in innovation, exports and jobs, not in how much banks/speculators think they'll be able to profit from loans given to hard-working UK people just to get a roof over their head. People are being taken for a ride again ... by a corrupt form of 'spin' focused on 'feeding' everyone's 'self interest' and 'greed' (and supported by a plethora of TV property programmes too)!

Contrary to popular belief, 'confidence' does not really derive from the price of a house, but from security/opportunity in ones job and the robustness/strength of the overall economy (i.e. trade and exports).

Some people need to take a reality check ... and realize that many old people's houses are already being taken back and sold to pay for their old age - this is the only plan (and a hidden one at that!) that the Government have to cover the demographic changes now starting to occur and all the pensions black holes that exist (nb the entirely unfunded Civil Service Pensions liability too)!

A very sad state of affairs, and it's a disgrace that many people in 'Power' know this already, but because most of them apply Poweromics*, they do not listen and don't care! A few do - but they have not been listened either - take a listen to Frank Field's interview below**

Young, hard-working people and future generations have been failed badly by us all ... responsibility clearly lies with Government (applying Poweromics*) ... but we are all responsible for doing nothing about it either (Ignoromics***).

We should not be surprised if they do not tolerate what has been done, and make choices of their own, either by withdrawing their labour/support and/or moving to countries who have a taken a more responsible path (which some have, and in the EU too ... which means young hard-working people can move there without restriction)!

For the sake of future generations, can we stop this downward spiral now and only use the word 'confidence' when we're referring to jobs and trade/exports please ... so we can focus on improving the right things, not the wrong things ...


David Clift, a Future 500 Leader


* Poweromics = People using position and power for their own personal gain, based on poor moral values, self interest and greed. Take a look at https://poweromics.blogspot.com for more information/examples of Poweromics.
** https://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front_page/newsid_7955000/7955859.stm - "I predict a riot" - Frank field
*** Ignoromics = People are either effectively ignorant of the situation (e.g. the overall environment) or not prepared to take responsibility to make sure it changes for the better.

..LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION...;-)

e2toe4 (#22) "For most(many)of their readers the 'good times' of the latter Blair years where when most people felt well off ----and house prices were rising.

That was itself the probably the main reason for the feel-good factor."

Note how when his Faustian pact was exposed by the Cash for Honours scandal, he bolted for the Catholic Church. It was like a scene from The Exorcist. Maybe more people should immunize themselves against this virulent strain of Narcissistic Personality Disorder by embracing the principles set out in the PRC constitution before some odd sounding East Asian person from WHO goes and scares us all even sillier....?

I think it could be starting again. Halifax just send me a letter extending my overdraft. I don't have an overdraft, I have just £6 in the Halifax and haven't used the bank for 2 years. A friend has also received same letter and likewise hasen't used the Halifax with, he thinks, around £10 in said bank.

Having been made redundant I happened to be in Nat West and mentioned looking at setting up a little busines to see me through to retirement. Chap said they had loads of money to give away from the Government. I said I was not interested in their money. Didn't stop them ringing me up for a week trying to talk 'business'. I ignored the phone.

So here we are. House prices are 6 times average earnings. Banks are flush with money. Trouble is it is OUR money we haven't started paying back yet - this will be done through future taxes. The Government (us) are in debt all over the world and another BOOM is about to start.

As someone said to me last night. It's like we're in denial. We're standing on a think sheet of ice and it's going to crack. But I fear we're ladening ourselves up again but this time we won't be able to swim.

I keep saying actually, there's no "recovery" really, the illusion machine of the last few decades has switched off, people don't want a recovery to the same old bubble driven insecurity of the former system. While this is the case debt-deflation reigns supreme. What people want is a dramatic alteration in the world system. Something that doesn't favour the priviliged few at everyone else's expense. Something less US centric, less USD centric, not based on oil, coal or gas, and something without global poverty, disease and famine.

#25 leanomist and #27 Dense Singularity.. just think this sort of thing is the commonsense you hardly ever hear from politicians....

the problem I have with economics and the economic theorising that goes on, as it is deployed at present (and leaving aside the layer of political spin/manipulation etc)--is that the endless musings on tier one capital, £xxxBillion here and £XXX Billion there almost make sense as long as one ignores any number of enormous elephants in very small rooms.

The various pronouncements whether from whichever think tank, Govt department, FT columnist, NAO, or whatever think tank decide to chip in, all carry the baggage that they didn't see this coming in 2006/7.... and now they don't see what's coming in 2010..let alone the 11-14 focus they have.

Tax receipt projections seem unbelievably out of synch with reality to me (and that's just one elephant in one room).

Those two 'super' aircraft carriers that have staggered forward (as a great jobs hope incidentally) don't have a chance of being built as far as I can see--- with the further knock on for jobs in those shipyards clinging to the hope they will be---

There won't be an announcement before the election...bad news has been banned---- about this, or anything else.

If the 'state of denial' we are being forced to live in was effect-neutral that would be one thing.... but it isn't, the things NOT being done now are making it worse.

It's like deciding to put off trekking to solid ground, and also cancel the swimming lessons, to organise a bonfire party instead on Dense Singularity's thin ice.... and invite all the enormous elephants along to do a clog dancing turn as the main attraction.

DenseSingularity (#27) "Trouble is it is OUR money we haven't started paying back yet - this will be done through future taxes. The Government (us) are in debt all over the world and another BOOM is about to start."

Welcome to the great cow-shed/sheep-pen we naively refer to as Liberal-Democracy.

DenseSingularity # 27

"Trouble is it is OUR money we haven't started paying back yet - this will be done through future taxes. The Government (us) are in debt all over the world and another BOOM is about to start."

But it is NOT you that is creating this debt; it is those politicians in government who claim to represent you in this so-called democratic society and, of course, their fraudster/bankster/gangster cronies at the central bank/Wall Street/City.

The current economic crisis stems directly from government intervention in the production of goods and services in the market place and their monopoly power to create paper money (debt) out of thin air. It is THEIR money that we are all FORCED to use. If everyone suddenly refused to accept THEIR money as payment for goods and services tomorrow, their fiat money debt based system would come crashing down around their ears in an instant.

Think of it; what store of value is used to back fiat money? Nothing, just an empty government promise! Historically, all paper currencies end up destroying themselves in the end.

The problem IS the government/state itself; it is not the solution.

"The current economic crisis stems directly from government intervention in the production of goods and services in the market place and their monopoly power to create paper money (debt) out of thin air. "

Really? If you could elaborate on how on earth that might be the case I think the whole world would be very grateful.

"If everyone suddenly refused to accept THEIR money as payment for goods and services tomorrow, their fiat money debt based system would come crashing down around their ears in an instant."

That's called hyperinflation

#31 LibertarianKurt
Don't knock Fiat. They're doing OK. I hear they're going to bring back the Old Jalopy.

Stephanie, it may interest you to know that there is something of a housing boom at the moment in Canada of all places! This has been sparked off by the fact that Canada has slashed its interest rates to an all time low of....3.5 per cent!! I think it says alot about the relative health of our economy compaired to theirs when you consider that an increase in British interest rates from 3.5 to 5 per cent was enough to cause our economy to grind to a halt as people could not pay their mortgages, credit cards, car loans and stopped spending money in the shops leading to the recession we are in now. I wonder what will happen to our tentative recovery when interest rates go back up again, which they will, and as you pointed out the other week, to a level much higher than the 3.5 per cent we all became used to over the past 12 years.

LibertarianKurt (#31) George Reisman writes/spins like that (he's right in the first part, but the rest is obviously self-serving 'scorned' twaddle). Have you considered that it may all just be paranoid subversion born of narcissism and matriarchy, and that en mass this leads healthy families/states to throw groups like this out, or not let them in in the frist place? There's a very long history to this 'disorder' as I'm sure you know:- First the creation of Christianity and Islam in opposition to Judaism. Then Catholics (Stalinist statists) being subverted by heretical Protestants (i.e. 'Trot' anarchists) leading to wars of attrition keeping European populations down ; then the UK Aliens Act 1905 in the wake of the East European Exodus in the 1880s, and similar immigration legislation in the USA; then the fuss in the USSR after Lenin's death when the original anti-statists sent in by the German High Command (to topple the Tsar) wouldn't do as they were told and were purged in the 30s. Then the mass expulsions from Austria/Germany etc in the 1930s and 40s sending the Austrian Schoolers etc to London and Chicago.

That's what one can expect when one puts one's faith in matriarchy - Liberal-Democratic mayhem - just look what it does to birth-rates ;-)

FrankSz # 32

"Really? If you could elaborate on how on earth that might be the case I think the whole world would be very grateful."

What do you think all this government deficit spending is doing? C'mon Frank, start sparking!

LibertarianKurt (#36) "C'mon Frank, start sparking!"

There you go again, trying to recruit people to your C21st Iskra - it shouldn't be allowed. Where's our Okhrana or NKVD (aka 'blogdog') when it's needed?

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

The BoE has warned today that negative equity may have speeded up Britains fall into recession, they have come to the conclusion that people don't want to borrow money when their home is worth less on paper than what they paid for it! Also that banks with lots of mortgages on their books that are now worth tens of thousands of pounds less than the properties they were lent against are not as ready to lend as much as before because of the dodgy assets on their books!
What I want spelled out more clearly by the BoE is what they see as the long term solution to that problem?
I worry that in Britain we seem to be going down the road of re inflating property prices to make the banks balance sheets look more healthy, at the cost of spending in the rest of the economy.
Take America for example, over there they have decided that for the long term strength and stability of their economy consumers should only be able to borrow mortgages with a maximun monthly payment equal to no more than 30 per cent of their monthly salary, those who are stuck in massive negative equity are having their mortgages payed down to that level so they can have money to spend in the shops and can afford to sell their houses on to new buyers at a price that does not leave the new owner just paying a massive mortgage every month and nothing else!
In this country however we seem to have gone for the Sir James Crosby plan of protecting the level of house prices at all costs by getting the taxpayer to buy into the mortgage backed securities market to ensure that the number of mortgage products on the market guarentee rising house prices forever. I wonder which plan will prove to be the more sustainable in the long term?
In America the focus is more on getting the consumer into a better position where they will be able to buy cars, save for pensions or whatever in the decades ahead, but in Britain our economic eggheads don't really care what a person is left with in their wallet after paying their mortgage as long as the banks can feel confident that they can lend forever based on ever rising house prices underpinning their loans. Most first time buyers I know who bought homes since 2002 have mortgages of between 6 and 9 times their salaries, they just don't have the disposable income people had 10 years ago, so what is our economy going to be like in say 10 years time when most people will be in that position? Who is going to be spending money in the wider economy?

Clearly a falling population (below replacement level TFRs) across Europe is very bad for the building and property market, and whilst high levels of immigration over recent decades sustained demand or prevented a fall in demand, I don't see how this mass importing of people from Africa and South Asia (as Frattini plans) is good for these countries, as it also means lowering-skills. Increasing access to higher education (which is mainly female) was also daft too as that just further lowers the birth-rate where it's most needed if we are to be competitive.

But then, I don't think that those making their money on the back of all that give a monkey's about this country as that's deemed 'nationalism', and telling the truth about immigration is 'racism' - hence nobody stops or gets in the way of those who are making their money.

See how bad it really is? Good people are still being duped by predators who can (and will) move on internationally.

THE CRISIS IN THE UK IS STILL IN FIRST GEAR. . BE NASTY NEXT YEAR FOR

THREE TO FOUR YEARS. . .

JadedJean # 37

"There you go again, trying to recruit people to your C21st Iskra - it shouldn't be allowed. Where's our Okhrana or NKVD (aka 'blogdog') when it's needed?"

Oh dear! Are the "nasty" little "anarchists" upsetting you again? That's right, go and sob to those "nice" men at the GPU/RSHA/MI5/FBI.

;)

This whole debate is a sad reflection on the British economy. Essentially houses are where people live yet in our economy the have become major investment elements and if not the prime driver then a major indicator of our economic health.

Note when we talk about the Housing Market we talk in terms of loan to income ratios, interest rates and price fluctuations. We talk about banks and building socities ability and willingness to lend. We talk about the relative benefit/loss in investing in the property market as compared with stocks. We talk about buy to let, etc. etc. The one thing that we don't talk about is the physical market itself. When was the last time there was a discussion about builders, the types and quality of what is being built?

muggwhump points to a different approach in the US. Perhaps there is some room for us here. We must find a way of divorceing houses and the majority of bank lending. Don't cry for the banks if they can't loan to homeowners they'll ultimately find a new customer base. Perhaps then the 'market' can truly return to a level of activity wherein it seeks to meet the true demand for homes. Perhaps then the real state of economic situation will become clear to the general public. Perhaps then interest rates can be allowed to move upwards without non-acceptable numbers of repossessions.

Well, it is the weekend and a time to dream.

#32

Kurty, Kurty, Kurty. :-) I've explained to you what the causes of this crisis are.

It seems that your obsession with gold and other numismatic delights has led to some kind of heavy metal poisoning that renders you incapable of understanding a word that is being said to you.

One must wash their hands after playing with coins. If you want to remind yourself of their authenticity, try not to bite them so often too. Use some scales, it's more hygienic. Come on Kurt, tell us, how often do you get your gold coins out to play with? :-) Once a day? More?

#43

Private debt will have to get written off by decree. That's probably what will end up happening

LibertarianKurt (#42) "Oh dear! Are the "nasty" little "anarchists" upsetting you again? That's right, go and sob to those "nice" men at the GPU/RSHA/MI5/FBI."

The last two are on your side!

FrankSz # 44

"I've explained to you what the causes of this crisis are."

Sorry, I keep forgetting fairytales; please remind me again.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

#21. JadedJean wrote:

You do write claptrap!!!

Let me explain the idea of 'rationality' to you yet again through consideration of why it is a fundamental 'duty' to highlight irrationality. (I am afraid I did earlier this in poetic German and this frightened the automatic moderator! The German is better poetry.)

In translation:

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

Then they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
I did not protest;
I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out for me.

Martin Niemöller

All of your many arguments amount to 'don't rock the boat' there is no point - that is you are a nihilist. All of your arguments always support the status-quo ante. You are philosophically opposed to rationality as understood by Pastor Niemöller and in my view there is no worse moral or ethical crime than that!

John_from_Hendon (#49) "Let me explain the idea of 'rationality' to you"

After listening to that speech, go and dig out Herb Simon's Nobel speech. After that, listen to the audios here and try to take on board that this was Herrnstein's field before he died in 1994 still thinking that there was a 'Liberal' (Jewish) conspiracy (and he was Jewish himself). Then read this and try to grasp what Quine was saying at Skinner's retirement party, why ETS were saying this 13 years after Herrnstein and Murray did in 1994, which SF could have picked up on when she interviewed Flynn and Mackintosh for Newsnight a couple of years ago, but didn't. Why not? Why no interview with Lynn, Rushton, Murray, Gottfredson or many others?

Then come back and tell me about all about human 'rationality' and why you haven't grasped that we no longer have the Public Sector executive power which would be the sine qua non for any effective measures which you think should be implemented.

You don't appear to have grasped what I have been talking about, wnich pretty much indicates to me that you are not a realist and that you don't know what you are talking about either. Do you want to learn or do you intend to just keep bleating? ;-)

As to you literary hero, he was in prison from 1937-1945, so what did he know? After his release (which would have coincided with the start of the intensive pro Liberal-Democracy allied denazifaction programme, he allegedly said:

"I hated the growing atheistic movement, which was fostered and promoted by the Social Democrats and the Communists. Their hostility toward the Church made me pin my hopes on Hitler for a while."

Those 'communists' in Germany would have been Jewish Trotskyites/Anarchists, not Stalinists. In August 1939 Germany and the USSR were working together, and jokes were being made in high places about Stalin soon joining the Anti-Comintern pact. Do you know why?

Ask yourself how half a percent of the UK population (equal to that of the British Chinese who come top in all our schools in English, Maths and Science at 7,11, 14 and 15) has such high salience in positions of power and influence whilst the British Chinese do not. Look at the House of Lords for example. How is that possible in our equalitarian times? The same is the case in the USA where this group amounts to 2% of the US population and yet contributed 50% of Obama's funds. How?

Bear in mind the demographics of NYC today, and that in the next 30 years, 99.8% of London's population growth will be in BME groups. Bear that in mind when you see all the gun and knife crime on TV. Who was responsible for our Race Relations Act? What function did it really serve?

#2
Most people have become slaves because of this addiction to credit they have been brain washed into thinking that they must all be homeowners/buyers, most of them complain about how many hours they have to work.
It's time for people to think outside the box's and realize the homes and must have cars, they are trying to buy, own them

There is no chance of the average young person buying a home today ever being able to pass that home on to their children in the future.
Most people today do not even have a pension, they will most likely all have to sell up just to live in their old age, if they even ever manage to pay off their mill stone.

Addendum (#50) Another Lutheran perspective on the problem. Now, prima facie, clinically, what all these people seem to be getting all agitated about over the centuries is a higher prevalence in one group (because of endogamy) of a very destructive clinical Personality Disorder closely related to NPD which is defined on Axis II in Cluster B of DSM-IV, unless I am very much mistaken. It doesn't go away by ignoring it.

15. At 7:52pm on 12 Jun 2009, John_from_Hendon wrote:


"Most 'informed' and 'dispassionate' observers still consider that house prices in the UK have some way to fall yet."

I thought the general expectation was that as the economy recovers house prices will slowly rise. But also interest rates will rise causing the slowly increasing prices of houses to become unaffordable to many again, fairly soom after, as the costs of mortgages go up against a back-drop of increased unemployment, frozen or reduced wages, etc., etc.

So the notion is that shortly after property prices slowly rise, they will fall again because of reduced demand - i.e. there will be a 'false start' to the property market recovering.

#50 jadedjean

"Those 'communists' in Germany would have been Jewish Trotskyites/Anarchists, not Stalinists."

There you go again, re-writing hostory and getting your facts wrong - AGAIN. Before you start pontificating consult the record. You will find that the 2 major communist organisations in Germany at the time were directly controlled by Moscow. The records are there, freely available, in the Russian State Archive in Moscow. Now if you can't be bothered to check your facts then don't use them to try and berate others.

#52

ASPD - seems like you've made a self diagnosis there Jean

JadedJean

Actually I had a quick look at the first couple of pages of That Two Dogmas stuff and got stuck immediately. I don't agree with anything that is being said and I just want to know if that is what Quine intends or not. ie. should I go on reading or not?

Here is a step by step stream of thoughts on the 1st couple of pages

" We must observe to begin with that meaning is not to be identified with naming or reference. Consider Frege's example of 'Evening Star' and 'Morning Star.' Understood not merely as a recurrent evening apparition but as a body, the Evening Star is the planet Venus, and the Morning Star is the same."

Well no. If he doing the naming already knows that they are one and the same then the meaning is the same. The naming and meaning are the same if the knowledge is already there. The naming and meaning are separate if the knowledge is not there. Information depends on prior knowledge.

"Again there is Russell's example of 'Scott' and 'the author of Waverly.' Analysis of the meanings of words was by no means sufficient to reveal to George IV that the person named by these two singular terms was one and the same."

"The person named by". As far as George was concerned then, no person or two people was/were named by. The 'meaning' of the two terms was not disclosed to him. Had the meaning been disclosed, the naming would have been disclosed.

"but a general term is true of an entity,or of each of many, or of none"

...only after a process of evaluation, and the process of evaluation is subject to errors and must be performed by an entity.

"The class of all entities of which a general term is true is called the extension of the term"

No such class can ever be identified, without the use of meaning, as it is an infinite process. This is analogous to the concept of "actual infinity". The result of such a process must always be indeterminate.

Actually I have to be adamant on this one. I have noticed in the past that other logics or ideas have hinged on the notion of 'actual infinity'. It is just epistemologically unsound. How can one ever refer to something unknowable? Ultimately things must translate down to processes, behaviours. The result of dividing 1/0 is not "infinity", but we can conclude that the process of integer division cannot complete, and would carry on for infinity, when the divisor is zero, through white box analysis of the process. No result of "infinity" is returned. "infinity" is not an integer

https://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/14/bnp-andrew-brons-mep-racist

All sounds remarkably familiar

#8 "here in my current neck of the woods (Eastern Ontario) the local estate agent is advertising rural 3-bed homes for $75k (about 40k); that would no doubt elicit expressions of horror and or sympathy from the average Londoner but the fact is that it is absolutely great because it means that:"

True for the "average Londoner" but I've seen houses going for less than one third of that in Malaysia at the height of the "boom", a place with a similiar standard of living, if not the same level of security !!

#18 "But it can't hapen here can it? We're different!"

Of course you are !! If the worst happens, you can just go walkabout !! :-)

#22 Don't worry. When the next government comes in, there will either be "cold turkey" all around or an inflation of Zimbabwean proportions !! Either way, the price of property wouldn't matter any more !! The price of survival will be paramount in everyone's mind !!

#25 "The green shoots of recovery we need to see are in innovation, exports and jobs,"

I think many bloggers here have made this same point over and over again. It's just that our "listening" PM still have wooden ears !! If you believe anything he says, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn going cheap !!

#26 "..LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION..."

Actually what we need much more of is "...and deliver us from *THIS* evil..."

JadedJean

Erratum:

"The naming and meaning are separate if the knowledge is not there, " should read

"The name and meaning .." (ie that the naming and the meaning are the same)

foredeckdave (#54) "You will find that the 2 major communist organisations in Germany at the time were directly controlled by Moscow."

Exactly. Moscow was purging the COMINTERN. What do you think the Moscow Trials were all about? See Enemies Within TRhe Gates: The Comintern and the Stalinist Repression 1934-1939 W J Chase (2001). Stalin told the real communists that their future lay with Hitler.

Incidentally, Social Democrats were described as Social Fascists. If you watch how the BNP MEPs have been treated by self-righteous Social Democrats (aka Trotskyites/economic anarchists) in the UK recently, you may begin to see why. Or just consider your own behaviour. if possible, watch the Nicky Campbell show broadcast today for an illustration of Social Democracy in all its social fascist glory ;-)

You really do need to entertain the idea that you have been fed Black as White. Try doing an inversion and see how it works out .... even if just as a heuristic. I bet you can't do it, the (dark) force (conditioning) is strong with you ;-).

The way this egeregious deception works is by playing on people being 'offended' (see above censorship). That's how advantage is surreptiously confered at the expense of other groups for socio-political advantage. Either a) you don't see this, or b) you see it, but as a beneficiacy 9or 'useful idiot') don't want others to see it.

50. At 11:09pm on 13 Jun 2009, JadedJean wrote:

John_from_Hendon (#49) "Let me explain the idea of 'rationality' to you"

I repeat my first line of my previous post.

You have never said anything positive and your contributions are totally destructive to critical debate, by design! Indeed you abjure any notion of critical debate ab initio.

(You have also deliberately not understood the essence of the German Pastor's poem.)

Your position is about as useful to the real World of economic discourse as that of a trapist monk to free speech. You are unable to succinctly say what you mean and you seem not to understand that if others, in your view, do not understand you then it is your fault not theirs! (My considered view is that you have nothing to say.)

foredeckdave (#55) "ASPD - seems like you've made a self diagnosis there Jean"

I suggest that's further evidence that your education is woefully lacking, as you have, once again, turned to ad hominem at the expense of grasping/grapling with a substantive point because what I have said is either unfamiliar to you or not what you want to hear (an innate response anathema to learning yet the sine qua non for it nonetheless - we may call that neophobia....

First, nothing in any of my verbal behaviour is diagnostic of ASPD, and second, the point I made about this Axis II cluster of behaviours possibly explaining a very important pattern of behaviour in history, still stands does it not?

Let's see you try to tell us all why any of those points are not sound and educational.

FrankSz (#56) "Well no. If he doing the naming already knows that they are one and the same then the meaning is the same. The naming and meaning are the same if the knowledge is already there. The naming and meaning are separate if the knowledge is not there. Information depends on prior knowledge."

You don't appear to have noticed that meaning like knowing is the canonical intensional (psychological basically) idiom of propositional attitude. This paper was a classic in the analysis of language and mind. Along with chapter 6 of Word and Object (1960) it dramatically showed that psychological verbs are all defined in terms of one another and so never cash out into physical reality!. That is, they belong in a closed, solipsistic, world of irreality. For some this led to an austere eliminativism (e.g. Churchland), for others, a variety of 'make-doisms' whilst behavioural and neuroscience, genetics etc provided something more useful than these archaic, magical, terms, which together comprise nothing more than a modus vivendi of superstitiously conditioned largely practically useless (and often harmful in fact) folk-psychology. Some others (really smart) gave up philosophy altogether seeing it to be vacuous. Many have subsequently been bemused at the emergence of 'Cognitive Science' as a chimerical confusion of peole who should have behaved better...but some people can't be told.

I'm sharing heap powerful medicine here Frank. Seriously. It is worth struggling with.

(A respectful aside to blogdog: ultimately, it's probably in nobody's best interest to censor (e.g. #48) any of this you know - in the context of what matters here, the truth must hurt if I am right, and I probably am ;-).

John_from_Hendon (#65) "You have never said anything positive and your contributions are totally destructive to critical debate, by design! Indeed you abjure any notion of critical debate ab initio."

I've said plenty which is positive, you just don't se it.

In fac, your view isn't considered at all, it's just a child-like appeal for someone to do something magical outside the current system. It's based on a misunderstanding of the anarchistic natire of Social or Liberal-Democracy in practice - cf. PFI and National Debt destroying the Public Sector expenditure i.e. the state, for the foreeable future.

Look into the past influence of Murray's 'Losing Ground'. Why do you think he's now basically advancing a libertarian position whilst I am not? You're just not prepared to struggle with what's a very difficult position to take up in a Liberal (anarchisti) Democracy which you have championed probably. My position is far more humanistic than Murray's - I suspect he doesn't want the USA to get any worse than it already is, but I suspect, given the succcess until recently of the neocon project, he's just adopted a damage limitation position at the AEI. Libertarians are Trotskyites/Social Democratic fascists with makeovers - you need to grasp that tyhye are anti-statist and what that entails. Matters, (including the US and UK/EU economies) will continue to get worse with all this individualism, as it's basically narcissism, which is close to psychopathy.

68. At 9:27pm on 14 Jun 2009, JadedJean wrote:

"John_from_Hendon (#65) "You have never said anything positive and your contributions are totally destructive to critical debate, by design! Indeed you abjure any notion of critical debate ab initio."

I've said plenty which is positive, you just don't see it."

No you haven't said anything positive! Indeed, Your continued tangential waffle proves my point for me!

You are wrong to believe that in order to alter things that it is first necessary to understand them in minutiae, or in your case misunderstanding them. This is one of the fundamental errors of liberal academia. They, like you, appeal to a sophistry of analysis. Whilst I agree that the shibboleth of narcissistic and hedonistic individualism is an economic error and indeed a blind alley - I refuse to have to waste time in unnecessary analysis. Indeed that act of analysis raises error onto an elevated platform which it does not deserve.

If you want change the first thing to do is to advocate change - not be understanding of the obstacles in the way of change as this is no assistance in achieving change. I do not intend to be drawn into a long discourse on the nature and processes of revolutionary and non revolutionary change as as I have said earlier this is a waste of time. All I will say is that if your truly believe in economic change then say what you mean to change and how.

#69 John_from_Hendon. JadedJean will be unable to comply with your request as any clarity on the part of JJ would result in non publication.

All of this "censorship" must be very frustrating for JJ. So much to say, and yet no outlet available. Must be similar to permanent constipation, I guess the stomach pains just get worse and worse.

If you are really interested in the mesage just research Hitler, Pol Pot, the GIA, and any number of others who all offered solutions to an ungrateful world.

Speaking of house prices I note that average prices in Detroit are now down to $6,000 having declined from an average of $7,300 earlier in the year.

One way of arresting declining house prices is to knock down large swathes of existing housing thus reducing supply. This latest technique for getting house prices to rise again is being trialed in Flint, Michigan. If it works no doubt it will be introduced to a neighborhood near you.

Apparently knocking down entire neighborhoods is also good for the environment as the land can be returned to nature - so it looks very much like a win win idea whose time has finally come.

#s 64/66

JadedJean,

I would rather build my uderstanding of history via the weight of evidence that exists rather than the minority thoughts. Therefore my contetion stands.

As for your Personality Disorder then there are clues to such in every post you make despite your porotestations otherwise. I have already laid bare for you the startegy that you employ and hence there is no point in entering a debate with you. So, I and probably the majority of others here, are perfectly able to draw our own conclsions as to your disorder without reference to you.

A metaphor for the Nazi party could well be 'lunatics in charge of the asylum' it would be exactly the same if the BNP ever by accident assummed power here.

John_from_Hendon (#69) "You are wrong to believe that in order to alter things that it is first necessary to understand them in minutiae, or in your case misunderstanding them."

Where did I say that? I have repeatedly drawn attenton to the fact that we have voted in governments which have been systematically taking apart the executive for decades. We have 'liquidated' assets and thus weakened the Public Sector to such an extent that there's no longer anything to govern or govern via any more. This is why I say you are just talking idealistic hot air. The infrastructure required to do anything has been eroded in the name of liberalism. If you look at how most people write to this blog, they reveal that this is all they know. They think it 'freedom'. Freedom from what? From an NHS dentist? from nationalised transport, steel, coal, gas, eletricty, communications....etc etc? A couple of blokes from the BNP get voted in as MEPs and the hysteria in the media is comically revealing. It's like 'snakes on a plane'!! Ask yourself why. What's the media really scared of? I suggest it's fear of the exposure of Social-Democracy as 'social-fascism' right wing ie. anarchistic, free-market supporting black propaganda. Those are the people who are fearful of the majority suddenly waking up to what's been going on and asking difficult questions about sex differences, racial differences and C20th history. When they do finally wake up, and when they hear the answers, they're going to be very angry with those who have been making money out of asset stripping the state which in fact their parnst and grandparents invested in for their children!

You don't see it do you? They now have this generation's future children paying off National Debt in order to bail out banks today, banks which will continue to lend wherever they please e.g. PFI projects. There will be little money for the Public Sector for decades - the public will fund PFI!, so the Public Sector will continue to atrophy in favour of the Private/Third Sector.

Do you understand this i.e. who benefits and who loses? Look at the disproportionalities I keep pointing out - that's rationality at work!

#39 "The BoE has warned today that negative equity may have speeded up Britains fall into recession, they have come to the conclusion that people don't want to borrow money when their home is worth less on paper than what they paid for it! Also that banks with lots of mortgages on their books that are now worth tens of thousands of pounds less than the properties they were lent against are not as ready to lend as much as before because of the dodgy assets on their books!"

Wow !! What a brilliant insight !! Who'd have thunk that !! BoE warning us *NOW* what we'd have known for yonks !!

#49 "The BoE has warned today that negative equity may have speeded up Britains fall into recession, they have come to the conclusion that people don't want to borrow money when their home is worth less on paper than what they paid for it! Also that banks with lots of mortgages on their books that are now worth tens of thousands of pounds less than the properties they were lent against are not as ready to lend as much as before because of the dodgy assets on their books!"

In English, there is a saying - For evil to flourish, all it need is for good men to do nothing !!

JJ

Thanks for the response

in terms of one another and so never cash out into physical reality!.

Well nothing ever cashes out into physical reality if you reject the dualism.

I get the impression that he is just looking for some kind of formalism in language whilst trying to avoid the subjective. If his proposal is interchangability of terms based on their "extension" then this is both computationally impossible and perhaps also 'semantically' impossible as categorisers or classes (a function that yields a truth value when applied to an instance) may not be deterministic.

For example, the term "rabbit". In order to get the extension of the term rabbit, the way I understand it is that the algorithm is as follows:
a) Identify all "things" in the universe and make this the set U
b) Define an empty set, S
c) For each thing, T, in U
c1) Apply the function "Rabbit" T, t=Rabbit(T)
c2) If (t is True) add T to S

The function Rabbit looks like this:
If (
(T is Rabbit) AND
(Random(1000)>1)
return true
) ELSE
return false

Clearly doesn't work.

If no such process is required, if all he is doing is looking for static logical constructs, then I am afraid all I am looking at is some reshuffling of semantics that has little practical use.

TO GRASP GAVAGAI, BE PREPARED TO LOSE ONE'S MIND, MUST ONE BE

FrankSz (#76) Perhaps the defining characteristic of the sciences is that they progressively replace the intensional in favour of the extensional. Are they any use? John_from_Hendon confuses the austerity which results from such exorcism or eliminativism with nihilism as he's reluctant to lose his mind. But that's what predatory spin-doctors condition him to fear in order to perpetuate their parasitism. It's hard work being an extensionalist or witch/warlock/vampire hunter - no estate agents, property-porn stars or celebrity chef producers or financial service providers required ;-).

foredeckdave (#72) "As for your Personality Disorder then there are clues to such in every post you make despite your porotestations otherwise. I have already laid bare for you the startegy that you employ and hence there is no point in entering a debate with you."

Translation: "I am ever so slowly grasping what you have been writing about, but it hurts, and I don't like that one bit, it makes me look bad, and narcissists are flawless. Yah boo! (narcissists' anthem)"

Are you a masochist too? ;-)

#77

I am afraid I have to outright dismiss extensionalism as computationally useless, for the reasons above. The idea of an 'extension' can only ever be merely that - an idea. An extension is again only identifiable or definable with respect to certain axioms, and thus is part of those dogmas that Quine attacks.

The problem I have many such approaches is that they neglect that in order to be useful they must be able to translate into behavioural specifications - either as behaviours of machines or 'real' physical processes or computer programmes. An extension is the set of things for which Function(thing) is true,but Function is left open to specification, and it can be entirely dependent on an individual executing the Function. In other words, an extension, in order to be applied, must be the set of things for which Function(thing,observer)=true.

That brings subjectivity, and the mental, and everything else back into the equation. So, sorry. It's all irrelevant.

Singapore is 3rd from the bottom. And with 80% of its population residing in aparments built and sold by the Singapore government, repossession could never be issue. Can't imagine the G-men conflicting with voters over some delayed mortgage payments.

FrankSz (#79) Insightless solipsistic mentalist/Luddite. ;-)

You have to reject it do you?

You'd better stop using that computer then as it's 'irrelevant'.

People who appeal to processes which they don't understand in order to explain other things they don't understand just don't know what they're talking about. Those who refuse to grasp this fact simply lack awareness of what they're doing as well as how and where they learned to do what they do!

See Radical Behaviourism (Quine, Skinner, Herrnstein) and me on the drivers of the Credit Crunch. It's not populism, but it's not wrong.

Peston's come up with a nice little article on regulators and whether they can be trusted, most of the comments are as predicatble as they are here - i.e written from inside the Liberal-Democratic/Social-Fascist aka 'Trot' bubble.

Like John_from_Hendon, they just have to reject what they don't undertand - which is pretty much a formula for ignorant bliss is it not? ;-)

The US housing market is a very complex picture. It's my guess some areas will recover quickly and even begin to appreciate while for others it will be a decade or more before prices return to their levels of a few years ago when they peaked. The most desirable areas where there is little buildable land left in and near places like New York City, Washington DC, San Francisco will always be in demand. 90% of the US labor force is still employed even if it is underemployed. The population will continue to expand through immigration and so eventually the surplus housing stock will be absorbed by the market. Naturally the most desirable properties will be sold first. The US still attracts people from all over the world who want to live there. Recently, government census analysts projected a sustained population increase of around 3 million a year for the very long haul. This is good news for market recoveries in some local markets. Some markets will be oversupplied for a long time. Florida, Nevada, Sacramento, possibly Southern California among major markets. California has the added burden of a state government that is so broke, its finances seem all but unfixable.

#81

Yes. I understand it perfectly. The concept of 'extension' is useless.

#80 "Singapore is 3rd from the bottom. And with 80% of its population residing in aparments built and sold by the Singapore government, repossession could never be issue. Can't imagine the G-men conflicting with voters over some delayed mortgage payments."

More importantly, repossessions are not a problem because they are not allowed to arise in the first case. All purchasers are checked for their ability to repay what they wish to borrow !! There are *NO* ridiculous loans like 125% of property value there !! The people are only allowed to purchase what they can truly afford to repay within a reasonable time and their income. Self-assessments do not exist and proof of income (e.g. income tax payment) is required !! If you are in the black economy, tough luck !! Speculators and gamblers are "actively discouraged" !!

Mortgages are generally made out of borrowings from their state mandated pension scheme. It is an interesting and, so far, workable means of reinvesting the pension funds in solid assets, not airy-fairy "financial instruments" like CDOs, etc. !!

FrankSz (#83) "Yes. I understand it perfectly. The concept of 'extension' is useless."

'Concepts' (i.e. intensions) are useless in explanatory positions. It's measures over variables and how at least pairs of these functionally relate in helping us to improve how we do/predict things which matter. Alas, as we have seen, the only thing which the UK Liberal-Democratic anarchistic government seems to be able to manage is the money supply and it's even devolved that to the BoE. It's not even any good at tax-collection and spending.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Addendum (#85) For example, it doesn't explain anything if one talks in terms of what one believes some agent thinks or what some politician knows or does not know. All that matters is what they do and don't do.

Yet most in our culture still spend most of their time talking in the language of intensions as if these make any difference.

Watch what comes out of the Iraq Inquiry or listen vlosely to exchanges in Parliament or in the media, read blog pieces. It's nearly all intensional. That's largely how (most) females talk, and it's why there is a fluency advantage, I suggest. It is why fluent males are brain-feminised too of course. It is, alas, unaccountable behaviour (spin) for the logical reasons which I have provided. It has all the merits of a good vignette/novelette.

#78

"Translation: "I am ever so slowly grasping what you have been writing about, but it hurts, and I don't like that one bit, it makes me look bad, and narcissists are flawless. Yah boo! (narcissists' anthem)"

YOU MAKE MY POINT FOR ME.

#82 Mr Aurelius

I flogged through the usual debate to get to your comment and....

I agree.

There is no such thing as a US housing market. There are lots of housing markets. The housing market in New York is not the same as Detroit or Philadelphia or Pittsburg or Denver or Atlanta or Las Vegas or northern Maineor southern California. Despite the publicity most people with mortgages have 30 year fixed rate deals. Unlike the UK they can just hand in the keys.

In the same way the housing market in west Wales is not the same as in London.

I am sure that differences apply across most countries across the world. I'd be surprised if Paris were the same as Avignon.

And lets face it only about 50% of Germans own their own home.

Apples and Pears

Cheers

#87

Sure, the effect of what people say or do is what they actually do, not what they think they are doing. This is important if you want an objective view on what is happening. It is one thing that makes it problematic for economics as a science: when a prominent figure in society voices an opinion, it affects how people behave and alters their investment patterns. Thus, when an economic theory or model attracts belief and popularity, the theory or model alters in accuracy because it has changed society. It is akin to Soros's concept of 'Reflexivity'

However, I don't see what this has to do with intensional/extensional. These are to do with formalisms in logic and have nothing to do with every day interaction or even formal communication in law or science. Also, as I have shown you, 'extension' is unsound. It is completely neglecting so many things. How can you have an extension of a term, if the term is not visually or aurally recognised? A term does not exist in and of itself. You are living in an abstract world called the objective, which I do not share with you. What use is this "extension" and how does it contrast with "intension"? It does not in any way!

Look - you tell me what is wrong with this interpretation of extension:

Extension is the set of all things,T, for which function, F(T) is true. F is an 'attribute' or 'property' of T.

Immediately you have an ontological problem. What about the term "ghost"? How does one go about identifying ghosts, who describes the F(T)? Can the set permit non-'physical' entities? You see? No problem of interchangeability is solved. It is unintelligent sophistry at best, a criminal waste of time at worst.

Next, how do we realise extensions computationally? What executes F? Must F be deterministic? Must F be F(T) or can it be F(T,...)? etc etc

Nobody speaks or communicates using extension, because it is impossible!




For a term

foredeckdave (#88) "YOU MAKE MY POINT FOR ME."

Glad to be of some help. You have a long road ahead of you mind.

FrankSa (#90) "when a prominent figure in society voices an opinion, it affects how people behave and alters their investment patterns."

No. They do not voice an opinion. They make a physical verbal statement. This can be physically recorded. It is all behaviour. You are mistaken. You are appealing to fictions.

You are also being rather naive (if not arrogant) if you don't think Quine and Carnap knew the difference between properties (intensions) and classes (extensions). See Quine in Quiddities on properties vs classes. You have to also take on board that Quine's logic played a key role in the emergence of computing/programing. Look into it. Especially Carnap on artifical languages. This is is how FORTRAN etc came about note.

I have told you before - this is radical (beaviourist) stuff.

Do you want to learn or not?

No.90 FrankSz

You'll be telling us you "believe what you know" next.....

It is important to "feel" the world around you, to truly experience it.
However, do not allow yourself to be manipulated by orators who attempt to appeal to your feelings, as a way of steering you away from the facts.

Saying and doing are two different things.

There is also a difference between art and science.

Whilst commenting on this blog (post 25), and all the other comments too - I have been particularly struck by fellow contributor (ishkander) who made the following observation (Post 75)

'In English, there is a saying - For evil to flourish, all it need is for good men to do nothing'

This brought an additional meaning to me for the definition of Poweromics, and Ignoromics, and provided a more spiritual dimension to the 'battle of values' ahead too.

Leanomics v Poweromics vs Ignoromics

where

* Leanomics = People taking responsibility for adding value and continuously improving the situation for others (e.g. customers, communities, overall environment), based upon fundamental values such as trust, honor, responsibility and respect.

* Poweromics = People using position and power for their own personal gain, based on poor moral values, self interest and greed. Take a look at https://poweromics.blogspot.com for more information/examples of Poweromics.

* Ignoromics = People are either effectively ignorant of the situation (e.g. the overall environment) or not prepared to take responsibility to make sure it changes for the better.


Until the Government stops trying hard to make us believe that Property = Wealth .... and focuses on improving community well-being, jobs and sustainable enterprise instead ... underpinned by strong moral values such a trust, honor, responsibility, respect ... the UK is going to continue its rapid downward spiral into oblivion.

Jobs are continuing to be lost and job security is at an all time low. The Government is now worried about unrest too ... perhaps because "The Devil makes use of idle hands" ...

... but rather than using this as an excuse to increase police/security and reduce civil liberties, why don't they 'listen' to the people and focus on solving the right problems, rather than the wrong ones (e.g. trying to make property prices ramp up quickly again, so young people and future generations have to be saddled with huge debt once again to get a roof over their head, and so banks, using our money, can make money from them again) ...

... I'm afraid it comes down to more Poweromics I'm afraid (or should I be calling it 'evil' ?) ... and as my fellow contributor also pointed out ... our 'listening PM' has 'wooden ears"!



PS Ishkandar - Thanks for the insight. I've referred to them on the Poweromics blog too ... take a look at https://poweromics.blogspot.com (post 16/6/09), where there are other examples too.

The "good men to do nothing" quote comes from Edmund Burke, who was writing at the time of the French Revolution. He was complaining about the anarchy of freedom without wisdom and without responsibility.
Hence, the similarity with our current economic mess.

All fascinating stuff!

So it's all in the mind?

FrankSz (#90) "You are living in an abstract world called the objective, which I do not share with you."

Exactly.

My prefered world is populated largely by doctors, engineers and others who can be trained to work with the extensional at the expense of the intensional and who can build a sustainable social infrastructure. They are by no means perfect but their research and development continues nonetheless. Better selection and breeding would go a long way towards halting the way we are now headed. But hark at you and what you believe.

Alas, whilst ICT has a very important role to play (if used wisely) in all of what I value, it is currently a vehicle for the reverse, i.e. it is propagating spin, virtual reality and narcissistic solipsism. Note how Democratic-Centralists try to benevolently control it. Watch them prosper whilst we don't. Lord Carter is a spin-doctor is he not?

CPI figures are 'good' aren't they? Not anywhere near as 'good' as interest rates though....

Reflexivity = polite way of saying a mixture of feeling the market and guess work

Housing wealth = polite way of saying speculating on the price of necessities, at the expense of the general public who have to buy the houses

Sub-prime = polite way of saying un-creditworthy

Free market = polite way of saying economic anarchy, coupled with exploitation by those in the know

Liberal consumer society = polite way of saying freedom without responsibility = unbridled consumption and over-indulgence without fear of the consequences

etc, etc, etc

In all cases, someone has to pay the price. But just who will pay?

leanomist (#94)

quoting anoter poster 'In English, there is a saying - For evil to flourish, all it need is for good men to do nothing'

But Hitler thought he was saving his people (and Europe) from exactly that. So did Stalin. So did the Old Labour Party. So does the BNP today believe it or not (and most don't).

You go on to say that Brown has wooden ears. But so do you. Like John_from_Hendon you appeal (like a child) to some imaginary Wizard of Oz when all about you you should see that in Liberal-Democracies, the state is rolled-back to release equity and the unfettered markets. This is Social-Democracy aka Trotskyism at work. It is asset-stripping and debt-slavery by stealth. Power is devolved from the state to the people (The New Labour Project) with the people having the 'choice' to buy/believe whatever they want with nobody interfering. In fact laws are passed specifically to stop anyone from interfering (see PC legislation, see Lisbon enshrining business). This is designed to fragment populations and nations into individual, narcissistic groups of consumers (note how the family is broken up it goes with anti-racism and anti-sexism) where the only 'power' people have is buying power as debt-slaves. Now who does that ultimately benefit - buyers or sellers?

Post 95 Mr Tweedy

and re Post 94 - thanks for the update on the origins of quote - I've added your additional comments onto the Poweromics blog too.