Question Time

[clivex]

In fairness that's where he can use his celebrity. Its clearly a result. Individual causes are his bag but anything wider is far too complicated for him and as well as looking horrendously exposed, is the best asset that anyone not on the left could wish for. Which is one of a number of reasons Miriam create loathed his presence.

not mentioned enough was his protest against the bombing of isis whilst those thousands of Christians were marooned and facing genocide up that mountain.

that is truly disgusting and the naturally only conclusion that can be drawn is that he was comfortable with an isis massacre of these people.

 

[Warbler]

It's also a perfect rebuke to those people who try and counter him with this silly why don't you stand for parliament question.

The chances are if he were an MP he wouldn't have made a jot of difference. Now that's an endictment on the broken nature of the parliamentary process. The simple fact is, a celebrity with profile is more likely to bring about a change than the due electoral process (Joanna Lumley and the Gurkhas anyone). Imagine what 2 or 3 celebrities could do.

I've already told the story of the script from Yes Minister when Hacker gets the backing of Brad and Angelina, but I'm also reminded of a Simpsons episode when Homer draws the same conclusion and rather than go to lobby Washington, he goes instead to Hollywood and holds up a celebrity dinner party at gun point. One of his demands is that 'A listers' start to support charities that do real good meaningful work that affect real people, (the room applauds and agrees) and he followws it by demanding that they're not allowed to concentrate on causes which have either affected their own families or benefit their own profession (the room groans with one of them saying what else is there).

 

[icebreaker]

Hope the journo who tried to belittle Russell Brands efforts acknowledges it (I doubt it though).

I doubt it too. Because "he's a snide, mate, he's a snide" (wish I could do Brand's cockney accent).

This is a significant victory for people power against a greedy corporate behemoth with over $15billion in assets globally. The parliamentarians in their luxury Dolphin Square apartments did nothing for these families facing eviction from their homes some of whom were there for three generations. It took direct action and local populist willpower to achieve a legitimate and correct outcome. And of course, no little help and support from Russell Brand. My respect goes to him for this.

There is apparently other similar situations to this across London. In Barnet, in Hendon, peoples homes are being sold off cheaply to vulture investment funds. Maybe the New Era victory will be seen in future times as a beginning of a fightback by ordinary people against against the corporate carpetbaggers. Maybe Russell's "Revolution" has begun?

 

[Warbler]

Not sure its the beginning of his revolution. I'm almost inclined to suggest its more likely the beginning of the end. Brand won't be allowed to have too many successes. I'd expect to see him embroilled in some major scandal that discredits him before long (if he's lucky)

It has set me wondering about the public relationship with celebrity and whether or not they're becoming our proxys increasingly rather than our political leadership? There are some common threads.

Celebrities need to have some kind of public endorsement in order to stay in the public eye and remain relevant. The moment we lose interest in them, they cease to function. In that regard they carry a mandate, albeit not one that's attached to party structure and manifesto. But does that make any difference? Politicians routinely renege on manifesto commitments anyway.

In the old days celebrities were forced upon us, but these days there are so many more platforms for them which hands us choice. We can also interact with them and register our approval. Brand has more Twitter followers than the Labour party has voters. Are we seeing a situation evolve whereby high profile 'celebrities' are starting to perform the role of a quasi second chamber. There's not rules as such to this, but it's equally likely that if any of these campaigning celebrities were immersed in the machinary of government they'd never get the profile or reach to effect anything. How many times was Glenda Jackson called before the UN? yet the likes of 'Ginger Spice' and 'Hermonie Grainger' are given that platform because of what? Similarly, William Hague suddenly becomes massively concerned about rape in war zones because an A lister makes her pet cause

Are we looking at a structure emerging where the MP becomes less relevant and little more than voting fodder, and instead we mandate campaigners or celebrities to bring pressure upon legislators. You could of course point out that this is already an industry with the lobbyists, but the rapid evolution of social media now means that mouthpieces can be accessed without having to pay lobby companies a small fortune to call in old university favours

It wasn't Brand who set me thinking about this necessarily, but campaigning woman who intervened and tackled the 'snide' on his behalf. She pointed out that Russell Brand came out for them when no one else would because their cause (the loss of their homes) wasn't something that was dear to the hearts of most celebs like some of the equality crusaders I've mentioned earlier

With trade unions dissolving and the Labour party becoming more and more bourgois there's certainly a vacuum opening, but so far it's tended to be the adoption of middle class issues that have led the way

 

[icebreaker]

It has set me wondering about the public relationship with celebrity and whether or not they're becoming our proxys increasingly rather than our political leadership?

I am forced to agree.
And a major reason must be that it is the behaviour and past performance of politicians themselves that have led to this pass. There is much evidence of a public becoming increasing disenchanted with a political class that they see as duplicitous and base. In my circle of acquaintance there is an ever-increasing number who have lost all faith in party politics to the extent that they don't even bother to vote anymore. It is quite extraordinary, but these are people who once were firmly committed to the prevailing political system. Nowadays they see all politicians as party hacks with loyalty only to the party and their own selfish interests. They see the political parties as entities in hock to the rich elite and to the corporations.
But I do reckon people are drawn to celebrities who they believe share common concerns with them. I wonder if people truly give any thought to the likes of, say, Kerry Katona and other braindeads who are foisted upon us by the tabloids. These "safe" celebrities are a bit yesterday; the genuinely committed ones like Brand are the ones garnering a steady street-cred amongst the disenfranchised and the poorer sections. As you say, he has more Twitter followers than the Labour party has voters -- he's certainly not an "underground" phenomenon, not by a long shot.

I do think, tho', that the New Era housing incident might just be a landmark. I wouldn't be surprised if it serves as an organisational and structural template for further similar community-based campaigns against profit-motivated evictions. I don't think it far-fetched to maybe suggest that the topic might be discussed in social science classes in future days and years. Perhaps why Brand's support was so significant and useful to the campaign was because -- unrealised by himself -- his anarchism is more Individualist in nature and practice rather than leaning towards the more traditional Platformist tendency. This Individualism will be supremely adaptable to suit further particular localised micro-community issues. I can see the New Era grassroots-type campaign being replicated elsewhere. People (some of them, anyway) have discovered their power, and it's great that they have.

 

[clivex]

Total nonsense.

There have always been campaigning celebrities and almost certainy more so in the past. Jane Fonda anyone? Some were actually articulate and had a grip on the issues they went after. But it will always be single issue at best. Brand is rightly hated as a person and rightly seen as a joke by most people. I'm amazed anyone on the left want this virtual illiterate as their representivive. Not to mention his sinister views on certain subjects .

As for rents, there will be no change. I don't know the circumstances of the new age squatters or whatever they are but the right to charge a market rent for a property will remain and rightly so. If you restrict that then you will restrict the supply to the market because potential landlords will not want to know. Best way to create a housing crisis. Simple economic fact that even a monkey would understand although I would draw the line at brand who's iq is lower than a chimpanzees as we all know

 

[Warbler]

Jane Fonda's not a great example for were queuing up to go an fight. Jane Fonda played her part, in much the same way as Hollywood put out appalling propaganda in the other direction such as "The Green Berets". Ultimately Jane Fonda and not John Wayne were on the right side of public opinion, and it was that public opinion that swept Nixon into the Whitehouse on a promise of ending the conflict. It would be wrong to ascribe all of this to Jane Fonda, but she was a campaigner amongst many, and it was they, not the politicians who brought about the change in direction as the politicians came to realise that if they didn't change course, they wouldn't be politicians for very much longer

The rest of your post is much more the sort of ill informed guessing that we've come to associate you with. This isn't about supply chain management. This is about profit cleansing. Your receipe in this case would actually add to the housing crisis as you're displacing people and putting them onto the street because a private equity company deems they could make more money from an alternative mega rich tenant. This company aren't providing any new capacity Clive

 

[clivex]

Stupid. Patronising from someone who hasn't the first clue about economics. Guessing? Then why don't you answer the point made then?

because you can't.

Any idiot could see that you forcing down rents to below market rate will depress new rental capacity. Does it need to be explained again that there is no incentive for new builds in the rental market if it is not worth a potential landlords investment? Stuck with tenants who are not paying market rate and cannot be shifted? What's difficult to understand about that?

tenants do have rights and I do believe that existing tenants should not be subject to ridiculous rent rises overnight but go too far down the rent control route and you will create problems. If a property has been " affordable housing" for longer than a particular period of time then I think that new or existing owners should be under some legal obligation to respect that.

 

[clivex]

The one celebrity who did make a difference was Reagan. In truth he was better known as a governor than actor at the latter stage but he was just as radical as anyone on the left and he backed himself too.

People complaint they "have no one to vote for" are mentally lazy. There were something like eleven candidates standing in my constituency in the last election. It's always a whine from the far left that "no represents the working man". Bollocks. There are far left parties standing such as the socialist rapists party and if there was a demand there would be more.

Fact is there isn't a demand. Very few subscribe to a Venezuelan or East German economy and if they do they are probably sectioned. It's not representation, it is simply that no one buys anything that doesn't work.

Moaning that politicians do not represent so stupid it doesn't bear scrutiny. Politicians are merely citizens who are elected. What do you want instead. Unelected "representatives" ? Good luck

Ukip and the greens nail once and for all that it can't be done.

 

[Warbler]

Stupid. Patronising from someone who hasn't the first clue about economics. Guessing?

Coming from someone who was suggetsing that banks who'd gone bust would be able to dispose of their balance sheets at the value they'd booked them at, and not be subject to a fire sale that's mildly remarkable. "why should all loan books be marked down? thats rubbish. one example proves absolutely nothing".

I didn't repsond to your silly suggetsion, because it was just that, so silly it didn't deserve a response.

In the first case if the assests were worth what they were booked at, then the crisis wouldn't have existed, as they'd have acted as securitised collateral, but this backstop had failed to guarantee them hadn't it? Why? Well alot of these CDO's were bundled up in property that no one knew how much it was worth. A bubble had bid the price up and banks booked them at the price they paid for them. Are you seriosuly suggetsing they could have sold them at the same price .... pleasssse .... if anyone's insulting anyone, it's you asking everyone else to believe this. It requires intervention nowbecause the market has failed

The bottom line here is that property is only worth what someone will pay for it. It is not worth what someone has mistakenly paid for it the past. With no one knowing who held what, and what was in these bundled CDO's anyway, there was not a cat in hells chance that a bank forced into disposing of thes etoxic assets would be able to do so at the value they had them on their asset sheet for is there? They'd have been subject to a heavy discount. In addition, as the world economies slipped into deprerssion the consumers capacity to reflate the market would also be affected leading to another mark down

Which banks were able to sell their revised assets at a profit without BoE guarantees? Santander didn't pay for the former building societies what they would have done

This admittedly only pertains to property lending, albeit that was a sizeable chunk of the credit crunch. Lending in the corporate sector was also going to cause issues. This was particularly acute in Spain of course. Other banks decided to start squeezing this sector of course, but that's another story

 

[clivex]

Wrong on too many counts. For a start the crisis was down to the subprime mortgage market being overvalued and over rated by agencies and used as collateral. With the swaps the whole thing became a pyramid.

But abolsutely not true that all property lending books were overvalued and would have been sold at a mark down. Property prices recovered quickly enough didnt they? In many parts of the market they barely shifted. Who wouldn't want to take on a book or mortgages where the borrowers are highly rated and have good equity even with a dip?That would have been anyone who bought an absolute maximum of 10 years before 2008 and that would be a huge proportion of the market.

And your originally referred to all bank lending. Again that was nonsense. Personal loans? Asset financing? Credit card debt? Corporate lending ?

all of which is irrelevant because the guarantees (I suspect to some people's disappointment) and that was that.

 

[Warbler]

Was it not the case that the mortgage books had become so big on speculative property turned toxic that other loans could have sustained them? Everyone said what a great deal Lloyds had on the Halfiax mortgage book. 3 months later Lloyds were hours away from going down the toilet because of the HBOS loan book. The bottom line is there was a hell of lot more toxicity in there than they ever realised and they were being subjected to mark downs on a daily basis.

Lloyds would have gone bust wouldn't they? They said themselves they could have lasted to 10.30.

What would have happened next? Barclays were already under pressure. It seems inconceivable that if Lloyds had gone bust then Barclays didn't have any liabilities with them they could no longer claw back. They'd have gone the same way, and certainly wouldn't have been able to secure the middle east investment that they ultimately had to rely on to stay afloat

The whole lot would have come down as one bank collapsed onto another. Do you really think that at the end of this, those asset sheets wouldn't have been affected and all those CDO's would have been held by the market to be worth what the investment arm had paid for them.

The ramifications of this collapse would have had consequences right across the worlds economies. Other lending that was dependent on people having prosperous business, or secure employment would similarly have become the subject speculative discount leading to these going into reverse as well with no collateral to back them up.

 

[clivex]

If every bank went bust of course it would have affected the whole asset value across the world because its interconnected. But it's totally irrelevant because it was never going to be allowed to happen. And it would be temporary. Ultimately manufacturing and services and the economy would still be operating and businesses and individuals would still have value. It is clear that new lenders would fill that void. Loads of American banks went under in the Great Depression and America didnt exactly disappear? It was only the reluctance to get off the gold standard which probably delayed a quicker recovery.



And the one bank that went bust was lehmans. Shouldn't have been allowed to of course. And as I did happen to know its realisation of assets has not been a "fire sale". In fact quite the opposite

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304441304579479814095060506

So the assumption that in the rare event of banks going bust their assets have to be sold at heavy discounts is entirely false.

 

[Warbler]

Any idiot could see that you forcing down rents to below market rate will depress new rental capacity.

This isn't about new capacity though is it. This is a rapacious change of ownership followed by a rental hike.

The longer term prognosis of this market led supply is damaging for the UK as a generation emerges that is in continual rental bondage to overseas speculators who simply earn themselves easy money by fleecing us to live in our own country. The consequence is that people won't be able to afford to live here and one of two things happens

1: They demand higher wages without the productivity gains in the economy leading to uncomeptitiveness
2: New models of living have to be adopted, be that cramming more people into smaller spaces to share the rent, or living with parents as they do in Japan

The warning signs are there as figures continually show that people are now buying property much older than they used to (largely because they can't save up for a deposit as it all gets hoovered up by landlords). Rent is very often the single biggest out going now, not tax. With future generations leaving university with ever spiralling debts, their prospects decrease further. It's a bleak picture.

The answer is public investment, and even the Tories are grudgingly coming to realise this with some concessions now seeping out towards old fashioned council houses as a model and other SRL's. One of the things missed a little bit the New Era scheme isn't so much that the American raptors have withdrawn, but they've decided instead to sell onto a housing association type charity that operates in this sector once they realised that their 'quick buck' model was going to run into adverse publicity and problems

 

[clivex]

Was it not the case that the mortgage books had become so big on speculative property turned toxic that other loans could have sustained them? Everyone said what a great deal Lloyds had on the Halfiax mortgage book. 3 months later Lloyds were hours away from going down the toilet because of the HBOS loan book. The bottom line is there was a hell of lot more toxicity in there than they ever realised and they were being subjected to mark downs on a daily basis.

Lloyds would have gone bust wouldn't they? They said themselves they could have lasted to 10.30.

What would have happened next? Barclays were already under pressure. It seems inconceivable that if Lloyds had gone bust then Barclays didn't have any liabilities with them they could no longer claw back. They'd have gone the same way, and certainly wouldn't have been able to secure the middle east investment that they ultimately had to rely on to stay afloat

The whole lot would have come down as one bank collapsed onto another. Do you really think that at the end of this, those asset sheets wouldn't have been affected and all those CDO's would have been held by the market to be worth what the investment arm had paid for them.

The ramifications of this collapse would have had consequences right across the worlds economies. Other lending that was dependent on people having prosperous business, or secure employment would similarly have become the subject speculative discount leading to these going into reverse as well with no collateral to back them up.

Why are you going on about this? It almost sounds as if you were disappointed that the rescue worked?

Yes it was last minute but so what? Week before or a minute before makes no difference.

As has been proved by subsequent recovery, the crisis was manageable.

 

[clivex]

This isn't about new capacity though is it. This is a rapacious change of ownership followed by a rental hike.

The longer term prognosis of this market led supply is damaging for the UK as a generation emerges that is in continual rental bondage to overseas speculators who simply earn themselves easy money by fleecing us to live in our own country. The consequence is that people won't be able to afford to live here and one of two things happens

1: They demand higher wages without the productivity gains in the economy leading to uncomeptitiveness
2: New models of living have to be adopted, be that cramming more people into smaller spaces to share the rent, or living with parents as they do in Japan

The warning signs are there as figures continually show that people are now buying property much older than they used to (largely because they can't save up for a deposit as it all gets hoovered up by landlords). Rent is very often the single biggest out going now, not tax. With future generations leaving university with ever spiralling debts, their prospects decrease further. It's a bleak picture.

The answer is public investment, and even the Tories are grudgingly coming to realise this with some concessions now seeping out towards old fashioned council houses as a model and other SRL's. One of the things missed a little bit the New Era scheme isn't so much that the American raptors have withdrawn, but they've decided instead to sell onto a housing association type charity that operates in this sector once they realised that their 'quick buck' model was going to run into adverse publicity and problems

sorry but that's entirely incorrect.

The idea that if some evil foreign owner doubles rent the renter will go and demand (and get ) a 30% pay rise is just daft. If the owner charges over and above the buying power of the rental market then they will have an empty property. Simple as that

Rental property is probably as pure a market as you can get because there are so many different suppliers.

The idea that property owners, who are very widely dispersed, can dictate the whole economy is simply wrong.

 

[clivex]

Again blaming landlords for buyers not having a deposit is completely wrong.

If it was so impossible to buy then the market at the lower end would respond. It simply hasn't done so.

I do however believe that there should be substantial new house building.

 

[moehat]

If first time buyers aren't struggling to get on the property ladder how come the rental market is so buoyant?

 

[EC1]

If first time buyers aren't struggling to get on the property ladder how come the rental market is so buoyant?

i've never lived in a time when parents are remortgaging their own homes to give their children the deposits needed to get on the phoney home owning boat

the real truth is..many people who think they "own" their own home are going to have one hell of a shock if they get ill in old age

i speak through experience on this with my Dad..who at the moment has paid out 70K for care for his wife + himself so they can stay together at home..because he couldn't look after her at home without help...thats all his and his wife's savings gone..next thing is they take your property down to 23k...so anyone buying their "own" home is just paying into a health insurance scheme.

All you are doing when you buy a house is paying the NHS to look after you in old age..its a health care policy in truth..unless you can guarantee your own health...you never actually own your own home..its just lent to you until you need it to pay the NHS.