Jeff Fairburn’s £75m bonus has sharpened focus on the vast windfalls generated by help to buy
In Austerity Britain, this may be the single biggest giveaway to one small group of businesspeople – and it gets barely any attention. The scheme may have helped some first-time buyers on to the ladder, but by inflating prices, it has kept many others off. Add to it quantitative easing and the erosion of stamp duty, and the British state has looked after housebuilders like no other.
What it certainly has done is help Fairburn and his company, as a look at its latest annual report confirms. Strip out Persimmon’s comparatively small executive homes business, and two out of every three private houses it sold last year were bought with the assistance of the Tories’ help to buy. Without that money from you and me, Persimmon would simply not have made that many sales, nor made that much profit – and its outgoing boss probably wouldn’t have got such a large bonus.
The Guardian
Aditya Chakrabortty - Let’s stop lining housebuilders’ pockets and tax them instead
The Guardian
Aditya Chakrabortty - Let’s stop lining housebuilders’ pockets and tax them instead
2 comments:
“The British state has looked after housebuilders like no other.”
The British state is looking after the banks and rentier class. Banks boost their profits by causing housing prices to skyrocket. Higher prices boost the profits of housebuilders too. The government does whatever it can to promote unaffordable housing.
And people wonder why the number of homeless people keeps growing.
And people wonder why the number of homeless people keeps growing. Konrad
In ancient Israel, every* Hebrew family had a family farm, vineyard, orchard, etc. that was their's in perpetuity though it could be lost for up to 49 years if not redeemed earlier.
The question then is why can't the West do at least as well wrt to eliminating and preventing homelessness?
Woe to those who add house to house and join field to field,
Until there is no more room,
So that you have to live alone in the midst of the land!
In my ears the Lord of hosts has sworn, “Surely, many houses shall become desolate, even great and fine ones, without occupants." Isaiah 5:8-9 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
*Except the tribe of Levy who had separate provision.
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