Genuine question – Why should schools deliver food outside school hours?

How has it comes to point that an already very overstretched education system is now in charge of feeding children? There are so many systemic failings that has lead to the 7th largest economy in the world letting children go hungry – I wish everyone was taking about these.

I had my fireplace modified to take wood burner, but after researching the environmental impact could not bring myself to buy one. That said my mains ‘green’ energy comes from importing and burning trees…

We cant opt out of this stuff in any practical meaningfull way.

It’s really not that hard, install a chrome extension and ignore social media – really people just do not care.

I would not be comfortable with this either (if the camera was on the children). Kids deserve a safe space, without every tiny details of their lives being recorded and shared. My girlfriend worked in a nursery and her job was to ‘observe’ the children and record every tiny interaction onto a iPad – on day 2, a 4 year old girl asked her to please put down the ipad and play with her..

Our school has started to video assemblies and put them on facebook – I think this is totally inappropriate. Of course we can opt out and our child will be excluded.

I am pretty impressed with how Argos have been able to turn things around. You can get things delivered same day often within a few hours. The website is much easier to use than the cesspit that is Amazon and I don’t have to worry about buying some utter shite that will probably set on fire if left unintended. Amazon really do not give a **** what they sell and 90% of reviews are completely fake.

Good on your kids. Amazon is a horrible company run by a man completely devoid of empathy.

People seem to be wishing economic disaster so they can buy a house to sit outside of with an assault rifle

or perhaps prices could just slow down and credit is given to people that need homes rather than to investors

Is a car a want or a need though? Is its necessity comparable to that of a home?

Depending on where you live and your profession, it might be.

Honesty, how ridiculous a statement

He buys companies, strips off the profitable parts, while cutting costs then uses it to borrow more money to do the same all over again.

This works because a) he does not care about the longevity of a company b) he is a ****.

Who’s going to spend £100k on a big extension, £25k on a new kitchen, £10k on a patio etc., if it adds no value to their asset?

People who want a nice home? The problem is speculative increases in value that have no basis in the value of physical assets – for example no one is adding a 10k patio to a BTL

Let’s follow the logical conclusion of everyone who can’t afford to live moving, how does this actually work the vast majority of jobs still require you to be present – who is going to deliver your parcels, serve your food, look after the elderly, fix your car etc.. I thought we learnt the importance of key workers..

Ubi will drive up the price of any in demand commodity by UBI value…. You’d just giving BTL owners more cash to throw at their port folio

You are talking about inflation which is always the first argument against UBI. Governments can control inflation very successfully e.g vast quantitative easing did not lead to inflation. UBI gives everyone liquidity regardless of where they come form. It’s captalism just not from zero.

Also we have house prices inflation now, BTL is not built on cash it’s access to credit

Universal basic income solves all these issues, but people will somehow have to get over their lazy stereotypes to any sort of ‘benefit’ system.

@crikey you are describing the problem, houses are being sold at a fierce rate between an ever dewilnding section of the population who have access to credit lines that younger people do not have.

Your assertions have no basis in reality outside of your own little bubble

Right, nothing to see here everything is fine. I just need to do what you suggest – move, get rid of the kids, work harder, but not too hard as you find my definition of a average salary offensive somehow.

House was bought 4 years ago.

You would have be emotionally impotent or wilfully ignorant not too see the ineqaualities in the housing market.

Right but we reached a point where you can’t just crack on.

Right the only option in life it to become a feudal style landowner, because erm… capitalism and it’s the way it is so shut up with your alternatives.

Average salary today is about 25k. Did you get a mortgage for 7+ times your salary or do you think £50k/pa is “average”

If that was the case (it’s not) you are just underlining my point. It **** hard to get a house

Here is one thing you can do:

– give up your BTL

New Labour were the architects of this housing crisis, vote on polices not party lines.

Mass automation is coming, more voters are trapped in untainable living situations – change is coming.

I haven’t seen any other viable alternative proposed by anyone else

– limit number of btl, through increase in taxes and the introduction of proper rent standards
– stop propping up the market every time is looking like it will stall.
– remove the private sector from social housing – it’s economic illiteracy.
– stop selling houses to foreign investors
– tax empty properties heavily
– ban second home owners in areas that are pricing locals out
– introduce a universal basic income, so everyone can have some liquidity and actually address generational immobility.

None of these are viable of course because they might lead to less unearned wealth.

work hard and deal with the real world.

This is not how the world works, try working in a Amazon warehouse or delivering IKEA furniture. Are they not working hard? Certainly harder than your average landlord.

You are way off with your numbers, which is not surprising as you are quite happy to round up 400k to half a million.

Not that is matters but the house was 265k, average salary (freelance work could not count) + 2 kids means I could only borrow 180k. The house had not been touched since the 70s and did not have central heating – a long way off the picture you are painting of a luxery lifestyle I am demanding.

Please tell me what question you are asking, because I have no idea.

There’s way too much jealousy and whining in this thread (you struggle to like a mate’s facebook post??! Get the **** off facebook and work harder!).

How many jobs do you want people to have? Average salary does not get you a house.

I saved 80k over 12 years because the bank would not lend me enough to house my children without this deposit. Not sure lack of hard work was the problem.

Since owning a home I have started a business and now earn more. I could not do this before as I would not have been able to get a mortgage.

@trail_rat it’s a admiral story, ever wonder why you had to make such choices? There is a bizarre belief by some people that there has to be some sort of epic struggle to obtain housing. Personally I would like it to be easier for my children.

Pretty sure you are meant to stop eating and move to Burnley.

So he got inheritent wealth, access to credit (presumably guaranteed by parents) free education and house prices were much more affordable. See the problem with the situation today?

So many questions which he/she couldn’t or wouldn’t answer.

I answered nearly every point, I guess you just did not like the answers. Many of my own questions have gone unanswered e.g why is student loan debt at 6% when interest rates are near 0?

University education is another example of trusting the market to act responsibliy. What happened is fees tripled in a few years, grants got cut, loans interest rates soared, top staff took massive salaries and foreign students are prioritized for their higher yields. The hell with the young people trying to better themselves. Shall we trust captalism to take care of the NHS? How is that going in the States?

The counter arguments always comes back to it’s captalism, suck it up, move, stop wasting your money on a ‘instagram lifestyle’ etc.. this lack of empathy used to surprise me.

I understand, you and many people like you don’t think there is a problem, you can not relate to a experience you have not had.

The only time it’s profit is when they’re firing up the furnace at the crematorium and my daughter gets it.

No problem with you owning a house to live it – this was directed at the BTL cheerleaders.

Then there is our kids, average house to pass on to them, paid off and divided by three siblings and minus my care costs….

You are missing out the next stage – when your kids have nothing to pass on to their kids.

Jeez, those young fellas like moaning don’t they?

Things are the way they are and at some point you’ll have to get with the programme and start dealing with reality instead of complaining that your life isn’t fair.

Did this, home owner now. What was the point of it all? I guess it does not matter if it is not happening to you?

Do you have a problem accepting that profit is essential for a functioning economy?

No, just less profit on housing.

What’s your proposed solution to the multiple inequities to see?

less profit on housing.

@matt_outandabout the key word in your post in Scotland.

you really like to use emotive language

This is because I am talking about homes and people, while you are talking about investments. It should be an emotive topic, we are keeping people trapped in unnecessary misery. I am very bitter about this.

no different to PCP on a car really

I don’t live in my car, I don’t need a car that is near my job, kids school and friends. I don’t need a car at all in fact. It does not wreak my life when the car reaches a point I can no longer afford.

At least with PCP you are getting a brand new car that is maintained. The house equivalent would be a 20 year old banger with blown windows, faint smell of damp and a locked boot the owner uses to store his old golf clubs in.

Owning isn’t the right solution for all….but it is for many.

Let’s talk about why renting is such a bad option in this country.

– It much more expensive then a mortgage.
– The quality of houses is by and large appalling – never met anyone who has not rented a damp house.
– Rentals are simply not maintained properly by amateur landlords only interested in monthly yields.
– Rents rise year on year despite lending cost dropping to the bottom.
– You can not get a contract longer than 12 months
– You can be evicted through no fault of your own, with 2 months notice – think of the mental stress this causes and the waste of resources moving someone who does not want to.
– You are treated like a second class citizen by the estate agent despite you paying their wages – I am the customer, not the joker who is 300 hundred miles away who has managed to take out a intrest only loan.
– Despite paying for someone else home, the home owner still thinks the home is theirs and will lock the shed or board up the loft or pop round with his own set of keys to check how he can convert it into a flatshare.

What like? I’m just in the process of transferring my old corporate pension (just moved jobs) into Pension Bee with my others so I can manage it myself.

Almost anything else – how about a green investment fund?

It’s all connected, we would not have plan for our retirements in this manor if housing was not such a drain on our resources.

Wife lets her old house, every year the agency just up the rent value without asking and every year she makes them put it back down to its original value!

Commendable in this day and age.

you can fix your mortgage for 5 or even 10 years (for very little extra now) to reduce this risk. Once again this sort of thing happens to renters all the time, you get a letter one day and your rent has jumped 10%.

Would it? Do you default when you have negative equity?

No you don’t and why is it always the extreme example. It rarely that precarious for home owners. They can wait it out or downsize.

Who said prices need to crash anyway, they just need to stop raising and wages will catch up.

No reason it shouldn’t be both a home and a self funded part of a retirement pot. As per my previous post, pensions are worth sweet FA

Same applies to non homeowners.

So unless there’s done other sort of provision made to financially support people in retirement, BTL is probably the safest bet.

How about we invest in things that are not peoples homes, but actually create something of value. We have been brainwashed into thinking BTL is the only way to secure our futures and the hell to the next generation coming up behind us.

The housing market is not good for the economy it dampens the economic activity of the young – the people we need to start up new businesses.

Given we’ve only been in this house 5 years I doubt it’s worth much more than we paid for it, even with doing a lot of work to it when we moved in.

Is it a home or an investment vehicle? Are you not enjoying the improvements you made to your home?

You are describing the symptom of high house prices and the commodification of homes – we need house prices to keep raising to stop people getting into negative equity. Can’t see how this is going to end well.

Interesting how it’s a problem for homeowners costs to increase, but not a problem for renters / those looking to save a deposit.

if you have a lot of equity, why is it a problem that house prices fall a bit ? Did you really do anything to earn the increase in value of your home?

To summarize:

– no problem with high house prices and rents

– it’s totally fine to make as much money as you can get away with, despite doing no actual work or contributing anything useful to the world

– if you can’t afford to live where you work, move hundreds of miles away.

– renters will just smash things up anyway (if only you could insure against this) yet somehow it’s still worth doing.

Of course there can be a profit, but there is far too much profit. As was mentioned a few posts back mortgage costs have gone down, while rents have gone up, how is that not exploitative?

the analogy does not work.

How do landlords get away with doing nothing and just taking in rental cash.

Pathetic isn’t it, maybe Doctors should stick to their day jobs, for which they are paid very well to do.