Richard Murphy's proposals for running the economy

Only between 6 and 9% of our land is built on, depending on which figures you use. That leaves quite a lot. I don't think builders will need to compete.

There is a big difference between land available for building and how much of that land is actually owned by the developers and councils who want to do the building. Land is expensive has been for decades, with all the developers fighting for this land if we increase house building, prices will rocket.

While overall there may be more than enough land for building, is it in the places the housing is needed. A big brownfield site in parts of the north west, where house prices are minimal anyway and many of the cheapest cannot find a buyer is really not much use.

Large brown field sites are often the result of major industries closing down and that means the land is contaminated from decades, if not centuries of industrial waste and remediation, ground consolidation can be very expensive, which adds further costs to the houses.

Developers usually work on holding a 5 year landbank. They can be told to stop hoarding that land and build on it, assuming buyers can afford what they build, but what then? Hundreds of developers, with no land to build on all competing for what land is available, and driving up the price of land further.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2015/08/05/credible-economic-policy-for-a-resilient-mixed-economy/

Joy of Tax didn't come out until October 1st.

Do some people have chips on their shoulders about graduates?

The 'Joy of Tax' precedes 'Corbynomics', although originally McDonnell picked up on some of his ideas. Murphy doesn't belong to any political party and has been very critical of McDonnell's interpretation of Green Quantitative easing.

Most economists, even those in the IMF, agree that an alternative to austerity is needed. The UK never imposed austerity across the board, because the most wealthy weren't affected.

Ha-Joon Chang has some good videos on YouTube, which explain basic economic thinking in an accesible way.

Do we want to go back in time when universities were elitist? university or bricklaying apprenticeships

In fact his last book The Joy of Tax says he is the author of Corbynomics, which he denies strenuously.

Who denies it strenuously?

Mind you, we'd still probably have to employ a lot of European workers to help.

PQE, Maizie, along with a basic income. That will fix unemployment and the housing crisis.

I thought that was you, daphne. I mentioned this blog on another thread.

Maizie, Murphy takes great pains to tell people that he is not a Labour member. In fact he is quite annoyed that they took his ideas and then ditched them.
He says he will work with them if asked. In fact his last book The Joy of Tax says he is the author of Corbynomics, which he denies strenuously.

Same with my gardener, roses, and also the specialist tree surgeon company I contacted about my conifer problem. They are all inundated with work (and I bet there isn't a university degree among them!).

Exactly Ana and it hasn't helped the students any.

....which is good ( for him) but it may not be the same for everywhere in the country.

Well, the trouble is that it was attainable, because schools and universities fell over themselves to make it so.

But what's the point when some degrees are hardly worth the paper they're printed on (if they even are any more!)?

Had a new bathroom fitted recently, and had to almost beg the plumber to come back and do work on another small bathroom here, he is so busy that he can pick and choose.

It will never be 100% full employment, but it is higher than it's been for years apparently.Graduates are often not doing well paid jobs, but graduates from say, the Russell group of Uni's will be doing much better than somebody from Preston Uni who did media studies.house building in the South East and South Midlands is booming.

Yes Ana wanting 50 % of young people to enter Uni's wasn't one of Blair's better ideas.That huge percentage was never realistic.

Confused now. On the first page roses said we have full employment yet on this page dd and Ana say we have unemployed bricklayers and graduates. These statements aren't compatible. Which is it to be?

I also understood that property builders and developers are sitting on very large banks of unused building land. There's a small one in our local village where the allotment holders were turfed off about 5 or 6 years ago as the land was wanted for building. It has had horses grazing on it ever since...

Thanks everyone for your comments

I think something has to change. We cannot revert to an 18th/19thC scenario where a few people are extremely wealthy and a very large percentage of the population are grindingly poor. We don't have such high levels of deference and feelings about people 'knowing their place' as we did then.

I'd vote for a party whose economic policy was informed by Murphy's ideas so long as they were able to convince me that they had a practical strategy for putting them into operation.

All building firms doing well in my village ( as Monica can attest) and in this region of the country generally.So many new houses, literally thousands, all to buy, but some housing association as well.More council houses are needed everywhere it's true, but with the large estates and all the problems that go with them, it would be better if everywhere had just a couple of 'Closes' but that even villages in the UK had this amount and in towns they were dotted about in the same way, so they don't become no-go areas.

Plenty of unemployed university graduates as well. Probably more.

@Ana

There are plenty of unemployed bricklayers and builders. Wolseley, a big builders' and plumbers' suppliers, has just announced the loss of 800 jobs, as a result of a drop in demand.

Indeed! The wheels of NIMBYs and local authorities grind slowly.

PS. I know . My gt gt grandmother's family were a poor(ish) family with a shop and flat they owned (because I tracked down the deeds) in Salcombe. I once went to Salcombe to see where they had lived. The shop is now a trendy restaurant and the whole property is worth mega-bucks . I once had visions of retiring there - errmmm - I don't think so!

Joined up thinking is needed here. The country pays about £20 billion in housing benefit. That money often goes to private landlords, who make their profit, and to mortgage companies, who make their profit, as do the investors in the companies. In effect, the state is paying private investors.

It would be better if the money went back to the state, which could build more housing and/or pay back its loans.

This development has been in the planning for goodness knows how many years because friends live right on the edge of the countryside (or what was the countryside!) And we heard about it umpteen years ago.
Things move slowly down in Devon .....

What a pity your ancestors didn't keep just a few acres