Emeritus Prof. Christopher MayJun 6

Andy Burnham is casting round for ideas for how to fund a major increase of spending on social housing, within the current (albeit modified) fiscal rules set by Rachel Reeves;

A while ago, I proposed a social hosing bond (not unlike a war bond) that would direct savings & investment towards the sector from people looking for stable investments (and who perhaps want to see a rise in social housing).

While not fully developed you'll get the idea.

#housing #politics
https://northwestbylines.co.uk/politics/opinion/could-social-housing-bonds-be-part-of-the-answer-to-the-housing-crisis/

Could social housing bonds be part of the answer to the housing crisis?

Funding needed for social housing is massive, and this article offers a novel approach, to be known as national social housing bonds

North West Bylines | Powerful Citizen Journalism
Show thread🐕Jun 6

@ChrisMayLA6 in Scotland our councils are busy building thousands of new council houses, funded by borrowing from the treasury at a margin over gilts, paid back out of rents, all helped by having binned right-to-buy years ago. There's usually a small contribution from Scot Gov, again effectively funded by gilts.

There's no need for Burnham to reinvent the wheel, just let English councils borrow and build again.

Show threadThe Penguin of EvilJun 6
@jbenjamint @ChrisMayLA6 You need to drag "right to buy" out to a dark crossroads and burn it so it never comes back for this to work. Scotland and Wales have done so, which is the critical bit to make it work.
Show threadJonathan SchofieldJun 6

@etchedpixels @jbenjamint @ChrisMayLA6

Just to add variety into the possibilities of how to structure an equitable housing sector:

I heard today that in Cuba 96% of people own their own home and for the remaining 4%, the proportion of their income that they are allowed to be charged in rent is 6%.

1h:6m in here https://www.patreon.com/posts/rise-and-fall-of-159401405

Show threadLillyLyle/Count Melancholia

@urlyman
What about the land their homes sit on? Is it owned by them, or "leased" in some fashion?
As long as there still is private landownership, the inequalities will return. Land = patriarchal power.

@etchedpixels

@jbenjamint @ChrisMayLA6

Jun 6 at 6:04pmPachli
Show threadThe Penguin of EvilJun 6
@LillyHerself @urlyman @jbenjamint @ChrisMayLA6 Land reform, particularly breaking and removing ownership of vast tracts of land and destroying the giant (mostly foreign) landholders was pretty much the core of the cuban revolution. That's why the USA spent 70 odd years trying to destroy Cuba.
Show threadSimon BrookeJun 7

@LillyHerself @urlyman @etchedpixels @jbenjamint @ChrisMayLA6 Strong agree here.

If you have heritable ownership of land and a market economy, over time the land is inevitably concentrated under the ownership of the richest.

People need security of tenure of their homes, but only for their lifetimes. Heritable property is not something a democratic society can tolerate.

Show threadJonathan SchofieldJun 7

@simon_brooke @LillyHerself @etchedpixels @jbenjamint @ChrisMayLA6

Fwiw I agree (as a home owner!)

Show threadThe Penguin of EvilJun 7
@simon_brooke @LillyHerself @urlyman @jbenjamint @ChrisMayLA6 depends if you want too see any long term investment, or farms survive when they need 50+ year plans and nobody who can't pass it on will care. Plus how you evict the children living there and so much more.
Large scale rentier ownership is a problem but not general ownership with sufficient inheritance taxation
Show threadSimon BrookeJun 7

@etchedpixels @LillyHerself @urlyman @jbenjamint @ChrisMayLA6

You don't necessarily evict children. They too have a right of lifetime tenure to some home somewhere, and the home in which they reside at the time of their parents' death is as good a candidate as any. They just must not have an automatic right to it.

If land is managed by a local community, that community has a generational interest in its good management.

#LandReform

https://www.journeyman.cc/blog/posts-output/2022-02-17-manifesto-for-a-good-society/

Manifesto for a good society

This essay grows out of a quite minor Twitter thread, which is here.Scotland now provides period products for free, to everyone who needs them.That's an incredibly powerful thing. The fact that Scotland does it — the fact that Scotland is the first nation in the world to do it — makes me proud to be Scots. It is a seed from which the good society can grow.

The Fool on the Hill
Show threadLillyLyle/Count MelancholiaJun 7

@etchedpixels That's a patriarchal mindset, my friend.

In matriarchies, land (and indeed, children!) are collectively loved and cared for, and nature is venerated.

Tending the land and the creatures in and on it, and caring for each other, is natural - only a patriarchal society insists that the fruits of such labour can only be passed on to (male) blood relatives.

Patriarchy underpins capitalism.

We are all family, let's act like it.

@simon_brooke @urlyman @jbenjamint @ChrisMayLA6

Show threadLillyLyle/Count MelancholiaJun 7

@simon_brooke Private landownership also leads to militarism, because the "owners" become focussed on "defending" that land, keeping others off it.

It also leads to patriarchal religion, which was invented to endorse - via authority granted by a mythological god entity - the right of male land "owners" to repress the rights of women, in order to (at least in theory) guarantee succession based on bloodlines.

@urlyman @etchedpixels @jbenjamint @ChrisMayLA6