Mike Fall

There'd be a pretty strong correlation, I'd guess, stratified by societies with certain religious or social commonalities which have driven a long term tradition of larger or smaller family size.

It's very easy to simplify it as "just an individualistic choice", but all of our choices are made in our unique complex contexts. I'd be very interested to see a plot of national birth rates versus the inverse of a property affordability metric.

And all that money going on rent or mortgage or payments is far less productive than if it were being spent in the wider economy instead. Where & how does it end? What happens when everyone is maxxed out? ( I think I know the answer to that question, but it's rather depressing).

Yet the media only ever portray house price increases as a good thing, and governments of all colours continue to implement policies "to make it easier to get on the housing ladder" which only have the net effect of pushing prices up further, simply making the problem worse.

Minimum wage increases (objectively a good thing) push up the costs of these services. The cost of living (esp. housing) means people delay having (or decide not to have) children, further unbalancing the demographic profile. A shortage of young workers pushes up wages and prices. Rinse and repeat.

Whenever I read a thread like this it always makes me think about how our economy is a giant Ponzi scheme driven by housing costs. The high costs of housing mean that families have to employ childcare and social care for young and elderly family members because both adults are working full time.

Agreed. But that's a different issue to that raised in the original post. The issue with pricing vs fossil alternatives is far more to do with our ridiculous electricity market in the UK rather than suppliers trying to profiteer.

This really isn't a meaningful comparison. The vast majority of recharging capacity is & will be on driveways, at kerbside and in car parks. The 'petrol station' model is only needed for occasional long journeys. Anything shorter than 200-250 miles and you'll be charging at home/your destination.

Sadly 35% (and in our stupid voting system that's all it takes) of our electorate, despite disliking Trump and Putin, think the right solution to being let down by the mainstream parties is to vote for someone who offers them overly simple solutions and targets for blame (foreigners and wokeness)

And taxing empty property would also have the secondary effect of reducing house prices as such investments become less attractive versus alternatives and demand falls. Thereby making all properties more affordable in the longer run.

I'm talking nationally BTW. Don't know the precise London position, but it certainly has more than it's fair share of empty investment properties.

Nearly a quarter of a million properties sitting empty as charity warns Government is wasting opportunities to tackle homelessness Welcome to the media centre where you can find our latest press releases and contact details for the Crisis press office.

It's an inexact science (e.g. not all properties have same bed capacity, and not all families same size) but plenty of recent reports/analysis including this from Crisis in 2023 showing more empty properties than families without secure accommodation. www.crisis.org.uk/about-us/cri...

By then the falling birthrate will have taken over and solved the housing crisis for us. At a live birth rate of 1.6 per female, and falling, we'll soon be in the same bucket as South Korea and Japan. The downside is we'll all have to work until 80 and provide our own social care

We have sufficient properties however they are underutilised. The answer to the crisis is to heavily tax empty and predominently empty second/multiple/investment home ownership. The existing housing stock will then either be fully utilised, or it will raise funds that can fund social housing.

Well there's one thing you can be certain of: That there will be a lot of opinions spouted by people who haven't actually watched it

Untidy

Yes, and that all happened because of c.50% cuts to central government LA grants by the Conservatives. Central government austerity is the root cause of this, and is regularly ignored by the media.

Your post says "workplace pensions" but the chart says "private pensions". Is it the wrong chart or is it mis-labelled?

5 authors I've read 5+ books by:
James Ellroy
Ian Rankin
John le Carre
Elmore Leonard
Agatha Christie

Four words: First Past The Post.

Labour (just like the tories were) are desperate to cling onto the votes of 500 or so voters in each of 50 or so marginals, and the perceived desires of those voters trump all else. It's why we need PR if anything is to meaningfully change in this country.