Via DBC Reed, from the FT, hopes raised...
On to housing. The wealth of some pensioners has expanded by more in retirement than it did in work simply because the value of their homes, which they tend to own outright, has risen so rapidly. That price expansion is largely due to repeated shortfalls in home construction and the increasing use of housing as a financial asset. Neither is directly the fault of baby boomers, but it means younger people are spending greater proportions of their net income on housing and taking on debt for longer periods — the Council of Mortgage Lenders reports that almost three-fifths of first-time buyers take a loan of more than 25 years.
Mrs May acknowledged this is an undesirable outcome: “Unless we deal with the housing deficit, we will see house prices keep on rising. Young people will find it even harder to afford their own home,” she said at her campaign launch [a fortnight ago]. “The divide between those who inherit wealth and those who don’t will become more pronounced.”
[The 'increased supply' thing is ineffective in itself, it has to be done together with a whole bundle of other things as the UK did pre-1980s to keep prices down. It fell far short of proper LVT but did the particular job on a rough and ready basis].
From The Evening Standard today (I can't find the link), hopes dashed...
Responding to the Labour leader calling for an end to austerity, she snapped "He calls it austerity, I call it living within our means."
(As background, the Tory government is running and historically they have always run, larger deficits than Labour governments. Weird but true.)
The brief exchange set out her battle lines against Labour on spending and home ownership. Mr Corbyn attacked the upper limit for [government subsidised loans to encourage first time buyers to pay more for housing] set out in government policies, saying it was too high.
But Mrs May pointed out that it reflected everyday life for people in bis Islington constituency.
All right, sod her, she's an evil Homey witch like the rest of them who has abandoned any principles she held a fortnight ago.
FFS, if the government wastes taxpayers' money on encouraging first time buyers (a sub-set of taxpayers) to get even deeper into debt in order to pay even more for overpriced housing, how does she square that with the worthy idea of "living within our means"???
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