Interesting Links for 03-11-2013

[andrewducker]

• A great short film about bikes and childhood. Delightful _and_ impressive
  (tags: bicycles viaSkreidle video )
• Simon's cat vs the spider. I giggled all the way through. And now itch.
  I _wish_ that last time I had a cat, it had been this good with spiders.
  (tags: cats spiders funny video )
• Amazing car ad, full of optical illusions
  (tags: cars

Comments

[momentsmusicaux]

I've been without my daily coffee with breakfast for over 3 months now. (I have the occasional coffee with cake less than once a fortnight, and maybe a caffeinated soft drinks the same frequency at the cinema).

I think I am just as crabby :(

[andrewducker]

I think you might have some very good reasons for your crabbiness :->

[momentsmusicaux]

Not that I want to detract from the Gordon Ramsay thing, but I often worry that it's not a good thing to say something like, 'Don't be upset'. Because it's not as if people can really control feeling upset.

And yes, I can completely understand his attitude. I have a tendency to do that myself with work -- be a bit too impatient with people who I think ought to be able to do something, and help those who are still learning.

[fub]

I think most people who say "Don't be upset" mean to say "Don't let the fact that you are upset get in the way of moving forward to fix this situation".

[momentsmusicaux]

I agree. What I worry about is how it's heard.

[ajr]

Admittedly I'm only working on the limited context of the linked Tumblr, but I think in this case his saying that is OK because he's also following it up with advice and support, so it's useful. It's when people don't follow it with advice and support, or follow it by saying something which comes across as dismissive, that it's problematic.

[gonzo21]

I think the house price thing is deliberate social planning. They're trying to build fewer, in order to keep the values rising, so the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and eventually the majority of housing will wind up in the hands of the super-rich gentry, and everybody else will be reduced to renting.

And sadly both Labour and the Condems have bought into this scheme of enriching the rich and screwing the poor. Even though it means another financial crash is now inevitable.

[andrewducker]

The Coalition are currently pushing through changes to planning legislation to allow more building. They are getting _huge_ amounts of pushback on this.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/planning-measures-will-make-best-use-of-underused-buildings-for-providing-new-homes

http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN06418

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23831517

So it's not like moves are being made - although not as strongly as I'd like.

[gonzo21]

I sometimes wonder how much the pushback is coming from people who simply don't want their views spoiled, or if that might be the lie they tell themselves where the truth is they don't want their high property values to be threatened by the appearance of more supply.

[resonant]

My building is being torn down, and the rental units are being replaced with condos. The rich homeowners in the neighborhood love that. However, they want the zoning laws changed to only permit condos that are $500,000 and above, not the planned $350,000 and up, to attract "the right demographic".

Rich people don't want to live in the same neighbourhood as regular people.

[steer]

15 facts about houses

[andrewducker]

Cheers, helpful!

I do think that the UK has an issue with home ownership - we focus highly on it, where Germany doesn't. But part of that is because Germany has much better protections for renters (so far as I know).

What I'd like to see is the percentage of income that people spend on rent/mortgage, over time. I'll have a dig about and see if I can find that.

[steer]

Yes... completely agree. We've been sold this idea that we should all own which leads people to expect shit behaviour from landlords and people driving themselves crazy trying to save for home ownership.

I think I posted something about rent versus mortgage costs possibly on here some time ago in a debate about what are the financial trade offs.

[kerrypolka]

Re: #12, most of the newbuild skyscrapers in Zone 1 are for offices rather than flats (and the flats they do contain are not for the likes of us!).

[kerrypolka]

That should surely be "of London's housing market" really...

[andrewducker]

Or anywhere else with a green belt, or that's not building new housing. Which is most places, as far as I know.

[del_c]

If London wasn't attracting people, it wouldn't have higher house prices than other parts of the country. Just building a few more houses there is like bailing out a boat that's sinking because it's got a big hole in the bottom: the bailing doesn't stop the sinking. House building isn't going to stop the house prices rising.

So who wants planning permission scrapped, if it's not going to lower the prices? Chart 14 there tells the ugly story: it's people who own land in the right-hand bar, who want their land to fetch prices like the left-hand bar. gonzo21's right that, to quote blogger Lambert Strether, it really is "all about the rents".

[andrewducker]

Increasing supply _must_ either decrease price or increase demand.

Either more people paying the current minimum will move to London if there are more homes, or the price will drop. Frankly, probably both.

But it's a certainty that if you don't build more homes then the price will continue to go up.