To ask what's the beef with benefits?

Saw this article about cancer survivors in the i newspaper today.

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/cancer-survivors-can-cause-unmanageable-crisis-for-nhs-9959106.html?origin=internalSearch

something doesn't make sense about this explanation. if units are empty, landlords should reduce their price,
You'd think.
but they hold out in the hope of getting the higher rents.
Lowering the rent on one "retail unit" sets a market expectation.

Commercial rents don't work the same as private rents, the market is very strange. lots of the landlords involved outright own property (as a lot of high street retail spaces in market towns are what were family businesses) there is no money lost, (it's not like loans or mortgages are still being paid)

As it is the town has plenty of empty retail units, so there is clearly not a supply issue, according to council minutes plenty of people have applied for permission to open xyz shops, (granted) but pull out when they find that the landlords are greedy.

Why not both? Worked until the mid-80s, when Thatcher decided to tamper.

did it really work? Was the country (or London) facing the same housing shortage?

when you think about it, if rental prices could be controlled or reduced, then less people would struggle, less people would be in debt, less people would need housing benefits, the benefits cost could therefore be better distributed.

if you have a hotly contested good, it's scarcity will drive up prices. putting price controls on will just reduce the incentive to make more of the good. lots of places have tried this with disastrous effects. in the long term it can make the problem much worse.

council meetings (minutes published online) show that the reason for this is that rent is too high, and that private landlords won't bring down rents,

something doesn't make sense about this explanation. if units are empty, landlords should reduce their price, otherwise every month they are losing money. over a couple of years, that's a lot of money. it's possible, however, that your high street gets so little traffic that rent might really need to be rock bottom in order to survive and such low rent may not even cover the landlords' expenses. it could be that it's just not a good place to do business. suburban stores might be sucking all the business away.

kitty you don't sound very analytical.

Anyway, the idea of rent control is gaining popularity;

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/majority-of-public-in-favour-of-rent-controls-for-private-housing-9953666.html

kitty

You are absolutely allowed to have an opinion...as am I hence the bollocks comment

And I have never called bollocks on anybody else's life experience...but I don't believe your story in this case

And I don't think you are lying...I just don't think you had all the facts at the time.

While I said I don't think rental caps are the answer, making renting more attractive is part of the answer. give private tenants the same tenure as social tenants

Why not both? Worked until the mid-80s, when Thatcher decided to tamper.

• EatShitDerek Tue 06-Jan-15 20:37:25

So not only is she a rich benefit claimant she is also fat and getting help from the NHS*
firstly, to avoid confusion I'll say, I have no problem with people using the NHS.
My wife works in the NHS
Compared to places like America it's crazy to think how much we take it for granted that it's just there and always will be...

but knowing people who work for the NHS, It's stories that are told about how people arrive at A&E etc, often by ambulance because they feel a bit sick. The reason that there are major emergencies currently declared by three hospital trusts isn't just that funding has been reduced.
It's that expectations are drastically increased.
Ambulances are called for non-emergency situations
A&E is visited for cuts and grazes that could be treated at home.

I have a friend who works for the ambulance service, you wouldn't believe it, but often people treat ambulances as if they are taxis, they know full well that they have a non-emergency situation, but don't want to drive themselves to the hospital as they don't want to pay for parking.

I've been told of ambulances being called because a person has a headache, or because someone ate too much pizza and had stomach cramps.

the NHS (of course) is there for everyone to use, it's a universal benefit, but you can't help but think that if a few people were a little more conservative with their use of the service that there would be (for example) lower waiting times, more money for cancer treatments and new drugs etc.

People abusing the service are not limited to those claiming other benefits.

I think housing is a much more complex market than that written. In fact, it's several markets.

Housing stock won't actually evaporate in response to changes of tenure. Demand for private rentals isn't high because it's the preferred tenure. It's high because social stock is scarce and ownership increasingly difficult.

Why? Why is it several markets? That's because of the silly two tier tenure system here. Private housing should have the same tenure system as social housing. While I said I don't think rental caps are the answer, making renting more attractive is part of the answer. give private tenants the same tenure as social tenants (not impossible, I have lived in places where this happens).

The broken answer here is more social housing, while keeping the dichotomized system, whereas better protections for private tenants and more housing should be the goal.

the whole thing about BTL is a red herring. making it harder for them may in fact push up rents. what BTL's do and charge is a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself.

You don't want the government to own all the houses, all the shops, banks or theatres,
why not? the high street of the town I live in is dead, council meetings (minutes published online) show that the reason for this is that rent is too high, and that private landlords won't bring down rents, it's been a battle over many years of the council trying to improve the town centre where they can, but work going to waste because nobody can afford to rent retail units.
If the Local government owned the stock they could at least see problems and set the market rates accordingly.

Having a controlling figure in the rental market would help stop speculation.

Having an entirely free market approach to houses has led to runaway house prices,
this has the affect that only those extremely well of, very credit worth of investor groups can afford to buy houses.
and meant that the rental market has "boomed" - read those too poor to be approved for a mortgage get told that they couldn't possibly afford the minimum repayments, and that therefore they must go rent a place (at a price that's higher than the mortgage would have been!

when you think about it, if rental prices could be controlled or reduced, then less people would struggle, less people would be in debt, less people would need housing benefits, the benefits cost could therefore be better distributed.
(i.e it could be giving someone a reliable car rather than lining the pockets of an investment group that bought houses.)

those that appear to be saving a probably in as much debt, if not more than you.
whilst that may be possible, I can say that you could not service the minimum payments as well as rent, council tax, gas/electric water as well as food and anything else. (let alone have anything left to save!)

oh whatever, i was just using her as an example, jesus christ, i thought people were allowed to express opinion.

it may be different now but when i knew her this is what i witnessed.

maybe i saw the minority, but its the only experience of benefits i have seen, and thats why in my original post i said i disagree with the amount that SOME people get, because she's not going to be the only one

I'm sure you have a career as a Daily Mail journalist just there for the taking.

oh and she didn't have a job at all so she was definitely not working, and i was there almost every day, i'm pretty sure i would have heard something, she was always mentioning her benefits and i was there when she got her gastric band on the NHS and she said she couldnt lose weight by herself but i saw how much she ate! if she didnt eat so much she wouldnt be so big!

and many people will disagree with my last comment, but i've BEEN overweight, i've had an obese bmi, and i lost the weight by myself with diet, not even diet and exercise, i didnt exercise very much at all. so i am not having a go because she was overweight, but i think if she just took the time out of her 'busy day' to actually cook instead of getting takeaway every night and filling hr cupboards with biscuits, cakes and such then she wouldnt have needed the gastric band...

What "evidence" of loans do you expect to see when visiting people's houses?

no one died, so no inheritance, a lot they already had but in the two years i was going out with the son, she gave him the money for a new phone, bought the second tv for his brother, payed for a new laptop, she had money everywhere, shes a single mother with 3 kids, she's on disability allowance for her back, and housing benefit and other bits and pieces like that

okay, i was going out with one of her sons, thats how i know, i was going out with him for 2 years, and was round there a lot, i never saw any evidence of loans, nor any mention of loans, it is not a load of bollocks thank you, and i am very pissed of that you think that.

kitty do you really believe that that little lot was paid for with benefits?

Of course it wasn't. If they don't work and they have recently acquired all that, they are either borrowing, have inherited, or something shady is going on.

Kitty have you not stopped to think about how most of that probably came from Brighthouse and/or Provident loans?