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Could you say that in English please?

Post 1

There is only one thing worse than being Gosho, and that is not being Gosho

The marketisation of access to housing security is central to the increasingly normative experience of housing precarity in London.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/opensecurity/hannah-schling/eviction-brixton-creating-housing-insecurity-in-london

smiley - huh

As an aside, Geggs was talking about irony earlier today in his journal. I can't fail to see the irony of this story since it involves Lambeth council - once at the forefront of the right-on left wing London councils (the 'loony left') during the 80s. I was a resident of one of those for a while - Tower Hamlets - and it was no bad thing. Plus, we had this organisation called the GLC which was run by some folks who thought helping poorer people to have a life that's a little less nasty, brutish and short was a good idea.

I wonder where that idea went smiley - sadface


Could you say that in English please?

Post 2

There is only one thing worse than being Gosho, and that is not being Gosho

"Organising around the Living Wage is a policy development that is really linked to the lives of ordinary people"
http://i.imgur.com/GQmhKeK.jpg

How about 'It's a good thing to pay people enough money to live on'? smiley - rolleyes


Could you say that in English please?

Post 3

2legs - Hey, babe, take a walk on the wild side...

There hasn't, ever, to my knowledge, (or during my lifetime at least), ever been any talk, in the political arina, of 'controlling' the housing market, and in particular ntrolling the utterly out of control price of houses... in fact, the governments we've had during my lifetime seem to have decided out of control unrealistic house prices is the way to go, and soemthign to be encouraged; Not least in all governments inability to provide sufficient 'council housing', (or whatever one wants to call it), and their inability to do anything at all about taking care of the housing shortage.

There's not any justification for a piddly little 3 bed old Victorian terrace house just round teh corner from me, being sold, within a day or two of going on the market, for £400,000 plus... there's no value of half a million pound, in any new build flat round here, yet, for a one bed flat... yeh, you can pay close to half a million, especially, it seems if it overlooks the railway yard... and this isn't even in the London market which always seems the highest...

Even travelling to the back of beyond places I do, in Suffolk and Norfolks, the 3 bed, little mid terrace Victorian houses, £29,000 or therabouts Circa 1993 are, for some reason, despite the raging unemployment and low wages in such areas, now at th £120,000 market smiley - huh and yet governemnts increasingly say this is good... or at least 'hint' that it is... though it can't benifit ordinary 'home owners', nor those trying to get a house to buy, as the only peopel who can benifit can be those with multiple properptys, no morgage etc.... who can benifit from the bonkers rental prices....

I see places round here to rent, at over £1000 per month; a four bed house, and your hosuesharing with three other people?! what?! smiley - headhurts I'm so lucky I bought this place before it went up by %150 in two years... no. Its not made me rich, its not made anyon rich, unless, of course, you count the government, due to the increased money it'll incur in stamp duty next time its sold... smiley - alienfrown


Could you say that in English please?

Post 4

There is only one thing worse than being Gosho, and that is not being Gosho

I too have never understood this idea that it's a good thing for house prices to go up and up and up when inflation of an equivalent figure in all other areas of life causes a wailing and a gnashing of teeth, and not just because of property bubbles bursting the way they have done spectacularly in recent decades and on more than one occasion, causing much misery. I'd hate to subject myself once again to the UK private rented sector, but I know that I couldn't afford to buy a home (or get a mortgage at my age) and the chance of getting any kind of public or housing association type home is less than zero.

Thanks a bunch, Thatcher smiley - cross

When I was living in Accrington around the turn of the 1980s you could buy a liveable two-up two-down with an outside bog for between £1200 and £1500. At the time my weekly wages were about £40 a week and my rent for a... well, they called it a one-bedroom but is was more a studio flat really. It was comfortable, and it cost me £60 a month.


Could you say that in English please?

Post 5

2legs - Hey, babe, take a walk on the wild side...

Gosh... yes, you don't even need to go back far to see how rediculus the inflation has been... half a million quid, for a little 2 up 2 down Victorian Terrace... Its just insane... and bares no resembalance to anyones wages, except sucha tiny tiny minarity of those who get the megabux... smiley - alienfrown
Was just looking at an E0mail I got, with house price sold figures, etc, in my area (and a couple other areas I track)...

Apparently, and this is insane. really*insane.

Looking at average*price change, in my postcode area, a house i this postcode area, for each of the last three months, 'Made' over £2000. yes. you could buy an empty house, leave it empty, not even rent it out, and it makes (albeit this is average figures of course), £2000 per month you own it. insane. smiley - headhurts of course, looking at average rents, you'd make at least £1000 more each of those months, were you to also rent it.. smiley - huhsmiley - headhurts

i saw a few 2 up 2 down (mainly 2 bed ones), terrace houses, a bit*further out of town, than where Iam, for rent, just*under £1000 smiley - huh for two bedrooms?! Mind, you can only knock a hundred or two hundred quid off that, when looking at well, 'studeo flats' (is that the same as bedsit or not quite the same? I forget...) smiley - alienfrown

Oh, and BTW; the 2 up 2 down, terrace houses, on the road near me (where the pub Is Ilike/use), which selel for about £400 to £500 (occasionally a bit lower), the entire street, was destined for demolision in the 1970's, as part of slum clearance! smiley - snork yeh... a slum clearance area... no idea how many houses up it, but its a fairly long road... even just twenty houses per side, and thats what...twenty million pounds worth of housing now?! smiley - laugh nah... there just isn't that actual*value in the bricks and morter, a rebuild woudln't cost a fortune, and the plots are mostly pretty tiny too... smiley - alienfrown

According to the same site's estimate, my ex-council masonette style house/flat is closing in on being towards worth £270,000... which is equally insane... I didn't think it was that*cheap when Ihad to get into a bidding war to buy it for £102000, back at teh end of 1999... smiley - weirdsmiley - 2cents

I could buy a lot of beer if I sold this house... smiley - laugh .... which is*the point really... its all meaningless money, I've not made anything, I've not got*that*much money, its all imiganary money, as I'd still need somewhere to live... smiley - weird

Mind, as a slight oddity, Ijust saw a four storey 'multiple use' 'building' for sale, in Lowestoft high street (guessing its part accomidation part shop/retail, or offices), for £40,000 ... (mind, I'm guessing its probably leasehold so no idea how meaningful the 'price tag' is..).. smiley - weird bakery... bakery... with accodidaiton above... and maybe even a little cafe/bar on the 1st floor... smiley - droolsmiley - winkeyesmiley - laugh


Could you say that in English please?

Post 6

I'm not really here

There should be a cap on house prices, OR a ban on people making money on buying and selling them on. All those TV shows about people making money from houses just encourage it. I could afford a bigger house, but I'd have to buy one that needs doing up, and they get snapped up by people who do them up then sell them on for more money than I can afford. smiley - sadface

Yes there is a need for people to do up derelict buildings, and modernise old fashioned properties, but NO need to make people rich out of pricing ordinary people out of the market. smiley - sadface

And as an employer I am paying the living wage (I think). But it's not going to be a full time job for most of the staff so they still need top ups. smiley - blue


Could you say that in English please?

Post 7

Baron Grim

A few years ago, while we were pondering whether we were heading for a complete global financial collapse, I saw a very telling graph regarding home prices. The graph adjusted for inflation compared the average price of a "first home". It adjusted that price to $100,000 in 1900. The graph shows generally a steady incline as building methods and house features increased. There was a major dip between the two world wars including the Great Depression but then they fairly level out just above $110k. Then there were a couple of quick bubbles in the 70's and 80's where they peaked just over $120. But then, starting in the late 90's something insane happens and they rise to over $200k

Obviously this was ludicrous. Home prices had shot up at a rate that had NO relation to their actual value. People were being convinced by predatory lenders to purchase at prices way above their means.


I was able to find a link: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-housing-chart-thats-worth-1000-words-2009-2


From what I've been hearing lately, it's starting up again. Very little was done in light of the financial crash and all the advice from folks like Elizabeth Warren and many respected economists who had warned the public about the coming burst.


Could you say that in English please?

Post 8

There is only one thing worse than being Gosho, and that is not being Gosho

"Unsustainably high home prices can not be sustained."

But somehow they always are. In the case of the UK, supply and demand is a bigger factor than it is in the US, as well as the amount of social housing there *used to be* and that it's generally more acceptable to be a council tenant in Britain, with a far smaller social stigma. Of course, there are now far fewer council flats and houses after Thatcher started selling them off.

Leaving that aside though, there was a property crash in Britain around the turn of the 90s when a bubble burst. The market was already red hot by the time Chancellor Lawson announced that he was going to do away with joint tax relief on all new shared mortgages in the March budget of... 1987... 88? And that it wouldn't go into effect until August. Ah, it was '88 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/141485.stm

So between the announcement and the August deadline, the housing market went into meltdown as couples and friends who wanted to buy a home together were snapping up whatever they could in order to get a mortgage and both get tax relief on the interest. I was operating a little man-and-a-van business at the time so it was a windfall for me and I was working seven days a week, but I was moving some people into places I wouldn't care to live as developers were buying up old houses, converting them into as many flats as they could, a lot of which were so small and awkwardly laid out that you couldn't get the furniture in, and raking in the profits as couples outbid each other to get that flat before the deadline.

A few years later the bubble burst, but prices never fell back to anything vaguely reasonable and within another three or four years they were back up to pre-bubble prices and still rising. Nowadays, those 80s bubble prices look cheap by comparison.


Could you say that in English please?

Post 9

2legs - Hey, babe, take a walk on the wild side...

The other factor, I think, is the huge differnce in house prices across regions/towns/citys in the UK... heck, even the differnce IN* citys, is quite strange; my road on this* end, averages the 200 to 300 K, the other end of the road, is pretty much at* the 300 K, mark, a one minute walk to an ajoining road, and they're 400 K, and up; and no, its not that they're wildly differnt sized/types/quality of property; if anything, my end of the road has the biggest houses of the three groups, the other end of my road is fairly decent sized places and the really* expensive ajoining road, is the 2 up 2 down Victorian terraces, destined for slumb clearance in the 70s smiley - huhsmiley - weird

Its a fair few miles out of town though, before you start to see anything properly* affordible, and even then its still high as far as I'm concerned for what you get...

Its one reason I'm still very tempted to move, to a somewhat cheaper area, where I can get a detached house, with a garden, probably with a brick garage, on a decent road, and stilll in a city centre location, but probably for 100K less than my house would sell for smiley - huhsmiley - headhurts but once you sort of get a bit settled in an area, and used ot it, that gets harder to move away.. smiley - groan Mind, I could always sell this place and buy about four or five 2 up 2 down terrace houses back over in the darkest recesses of the Suffolk/Norfolk fens smiley - laugh actually, back there* I could buy a small mansion style house for the price this would sell for, but I really don't think I could handle living quite so far out in the sticks anymore thesedays smiley - laugh (fine for a visit... but not to live me thinks....)


Could you say that in English please?

Post 10

There is only one thing worse than being Gosho, and that is not being Gosho

"A spokesman said: "The company will continue the process of reviewing, updating and improving our core employment documents and procedures across our entire business beyond its existing compliant framework."
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-30066568

Good grief.


Could you say that in English please?

Post 11

There is only one thing worse than being Gosho, and that is not being Gosho

The double 'is' has become so prevalent that even the President of the United States can't avoid it.

"What I've said is, is that this deal does not count on our fundamental relationship with Iran changing."
http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/08/11/431277202/obama-on-iran-deal-attitudes-will-change


Could you say that in English please?

Post 12

Baron Grim

http://youtu.be/j4XT-l-_3y0

smiley - laugh


Could you say that in English please?

Post 13

There is only one thing worse than being Gosho, and that is not being Gosho

All this month our local NPR station is promoting the Mothers Milk Bank of Austin http://kut.org/post/get-involved-spotlight-mothers-milk-bank-austin A worthy cause, but two parts of that trail are worse than fingers down a blackboard for me - the two parts where someone says "preemy babies" smiley - yuk

Stop it. Stop calling them that. And stop calling the people who deal with pregnancy and birth 'OBGYN' smiley - yuk It's 'premature babies' and 'obstetrician' or 'gynaecologist'.


Could you say that in English please?

Post 14

Amy Pawloski, aka 'paper lady'--'Mufflewhump'?!? click here to find out... (ACE)

I'm afraid your campaign against the shorter form of "premature babies" and the doctor title is doomed to fail--I've heard both for as long as I can remember. Granted, my memory's a bit shorter than yours smiley - winkeye but not by *that* much. Plus, the doctor letters make sense--not all gynocologists are obstetricians, so it's good to know if you need one that is both.


Could you say that in English please?

Post 15

Sho - employed again!

in Germany the OB/GYN is called a Frauenartzt - a woman's doctor. (as opposed to a woman doctor smiley - rofl)

it's quicker to say OBGYN though. And preemie has been around as long as I can remember.

Going back to the "is, is". That's how people speak. it should really be transcribed as "is... is" it's a rhetorical device. It gives people time (especially it gives journalists time to lick their pencil ready to write) to hear the pertinent bit.


Could you say that in English please?

Post 16

Baron Grim

Maybe we should pronounce OB/GYN as "obgine". There, fixed. smiley - ok



smiley - run


Could you say that in English please?

Post 17

There is only one thing worse than being Gosho, and that is not being Gosho

No, the double is isn't a case of someone pausing to think - a substitute for er or umm. I hear it in particular instances of sentence construction, which I find it difficult to describe. I'll bring it up again next time I hear it.


Could you say that in English please?

Post 18

Baron Grim

I almost used a double "was" yesterday, but rearranged the sentence to avoid it. I can't remember which convo that was in though now.


Could you say that in English please?

Post 19

There is only one thing worse than being Gosho, and that is not being Gosho

What? smiley - huhhttp://pbs.twimg.com/media/CPLiDi7WgAAA_lC.jpg:large

That's a fantastic(ly villainous) example of corporate speak smiley - headhurts


Could you say that in English please?

Post 20

Bald Bloke

Rough translation

Lets shut down and sell off all the interesting bits. smiley - sadface


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