My point is that on current wages it is largely lifestyle choices that make prices seem "indecent".  I'll agree that UK house prices have been inflated and it would be better if they fell (this is largely the work of mortgage lenders, since increasing the multiple you can borrow at automatically seems to feed into an increase in prices, tightening borrowing - or raising interest rates - depresses prices) but what you can afford still depends largely on your priorities and if you are austere in other areas you can afford more for the rent or mortgage.

sure but in practical terms i see for instance salaries in London for graphic designers set on a 15-25K pounds range that means what you can afford (one third of your salary on average) is 6-700 pounds per month and with that in London you can only expect a sh-itty student room with shared toilet ... and that's nothing i've seen ads for studio/assistant photographer at 12K/month ... how can you live with 12K in London ? that's impossible unless you already own your home or you supplement your full time job with freelance gigs.

living in a camper outside ? yes, that's an option but then it takes 2 hrs to commute and 15-20 pounds per day to rent your camper space in the camping so not a big saving unless you get some fat discounts.

i'm quite fascinated by alternative lifestyles since i've seen with my eyes several cultures here in the third world living with almost nothing but it just can't be exported in the West, everything has been banned or made illegal, even parking a camper/RV in europe's biggest cities is now illegal apart in parking lots designed for it which cost an arm and a leg (almost like renting a room), the governments are hellbent against anything that could compete with the ongoing housing scam, in some EU countries it's even forbidden to put a tent in farm land you own as by their burocracy it's considered a place where you can live full time  !

so this leaves squatting as only alternative and that's why it's so popular in UK and elsewhere.
what else these guys can afford ?

capitalism was over at the exact same moment when government used tax payer's money to save big private banks.

unfortunately we still don't have good system to replace it. socialism was much more unfair and was over long long time ago.

Quote

the market forces don't care about the social consequences of all this, and the governments have abdicated from their natural role ... the entire West is de facto at the mercy of the greediest and most corrupt multinationals and speculators in housing, education, food, energy and pretty much any primary item humans need, sooner or later they will privatize even water with the excuse of global warming.

You forget that, what you want, has been tried for 50 years in Eastern Europe,  with disastrous social consequences. You forget that systems where some "elite" tried to fight the market forces failed miserably.
Before '89, East Germany was way behind West Germany, despite being populated by the same Germans. Look at South an North Korea. Same people, two systems. There is no need to highlight, which one belives that rules and regulations, instead if market forces, will bring prosperity (instead of inequality driven by greedy capitalists )

You want more government control,  more artificial rules, laws and regulations? You don't have to be Nostradamus, to imagine where it will end. Just look at North Korea. History can easily repeat itself.

There isn't much logic in taking an original argument about basic minimum wages in the US and comparing it to the system in North Korea.

For an 'Off Topic' subject this has turn into a very interesting string 

Quote from: ultimagaina on April 05, 2015, 09:15

Quote

the market forces don't care about the social consequences of all this, and the governments have abdicated from their natural role ... the entire West is de facto at the mercy of the greediest and most corrupt multinationals and speculators in housing, education, food, energy and pretty much any primary item humans need, sooner or later they will privatize even water with the excuse of global warming.

You forget that, what you want, has been tried for 50 years in Eastern Europe,  with disastrous social consequences. You forget that systems where some "elite" tried to fight the market forces failed miserably.
Before '89, East Germany was way behind West Germany, despite being populated by the same Germans. Look at South an North Korea. Same people, two systems. There is no need to highlight, which one belives that rules and regulations, instead if market forces, will bring prosperity (instead of inequality driven by greedy capitalists )

You want more government control,  more artificial rules, laws and regulations? You don't have to be Nostradamus, to imagine where it will end. Just look at North Korea. History can easily repeat itself.

There isn't much logic in taking an original argument about basic minimum wages in the US and comparing it to the system in North Korea.

Sure it is. North Korea and former economies of Eastern Europe show what happens when government gets too much central control. It can only fail. The trick is striking a good balance, preferably weighed more toward free markets than otherwise.

You still have to have some government. It does no good to build a highway and have no rules for using it. All you'd get is chaos. At the same time, nobody wants a highway where you have to drive 35 mph all the time because some people aren't good at driving faster than that.

Quote from: robhainer on April 05, 2015, 13:15

Sure it is. North Korea and former economies of Eastern Europe show what happens when government gets too much central control. It can only fail. The trick is striking a good balance, preferably weighed more toward free markets than otherwise.

What about China?

I'm from Eastern Europe, what exactly happened to our economy?

Seattle or Estonia or North Korea who can tell the difference? 

Quote from: sgoodwin4813 on April 05, 2015, 08:03

At the bottom end employers will pay as little as possible.  If left to market forces we will have what we have had in the past, which was basically slavery and/or people working under horrible conditions.

exactly, or even not paid at all with the excuse of unpaid stages and internships, i can attest this sh-it is going on even in top-tier multinationals like IBM or Oracle, go figure...

the market forces don't care about the social consequences of all this, and the governments have abdicated from their natural role ... the entire West is de facto at the mercy of the greediest and most corrupt multinationals and speculators in housing, education, food, energy and pretty much any primary item humans need, sooner or later they will privatize even water with the excuse of global warming.

Long article but worth the read, not completely accurate but close enough, they sucked the middle class dry on a large scale and left many without retirement or jobs. 

The Subprime Mortgage Crisis Timeline
http://tinyurl.com/37q963

Quote from: ultimagaina on April 05, 2015, 13:56

What happened is that all economies were crippled by the centralized planning, when some bureaucrats belived that they know better what people need, than people themselves, they belived they can set prices and wages better than the market itself. What happened was a lack of basic goods and a flourishing black market. People stop using money because it didn't have any value, directly trading services or  goods (a lot of them stolen from their workplaces  because everything belonged to everybody and nobody at the same time)

In which Eastern European country do you live?

Does it matter? Do you deny the above facts?
Sooner or later these will be the direct consequences of centralized planning, artificial price and salary fixing, or minimum wage laws, with no economical justification.

Quote from: panicAttack on April 05, 2015, 13:27

Quote from: robhainer on April 05, 2015, 13:15

Sure it is. North Korea and former economies of Eastern Europe show what happens when government gets too much central control. It can only fail. The trick is striking a good balance, preferably weighed more toward free markets than otherwise.

What about China?

I'm from Eastern Europe, what exactly happened to our economy?

What happened is that all economies were crippled by the centralized planning, when some bureaucrats belived that they know better what people need, than people themselves, they belived they can set prices and wages better than the market itself. What happened was a lack of basic goods and a flourishing black market. People stop using money because it didn't have any value, directly trading services or  goods (a lot of them stolen from their workplaces  because everything belonged to everybody and nobody at the same time)

I think you are maybe mixing things together there and they need to be teased out into seperate strands to understand what went wrong in different ways. For example, central planning requires a full understanding of the flow of all elements in the production system. It's just not humanly possible to do that. Only individual, uncontrolled cells of supply and demand can do it.  That affects what is available, but it doesn't affect the value of money. And I don't think a black market devalues money, either, but you need an economist to discuss those things.

Does it matter? Do you deny the above facts?
Sooner or later these will be the direct consequences of centralized planning, artificial price and salary fixing, or minimum wage laws, with no economical justification.

Sure it matters, because you don't understand what really happened to most Eastern European countries. Only from media as I can see.

You are partly right but the worst things in my country happened after socialism/communism when neoliberal capitalism started, when few chosen families got everything because of their political/party  matters without any professional knowledge and robbed/destroyed or sold to foreign owners all ex-state-owned companies/banks/factories. Hundreds of thousands of people got fired. National debt sky rocketed.

Socialism failed obviously when people decided to abandon it and there were good reasons for that, neoliberal capitalism failed when governments started to "help" private banks whose managers got millions for bonuses with as you say poor people tax payers money.

Do you agree with that or at least are you able to see it?

Belive me, I know better than you think and it is not from the media.
The socialists economies were not able to compete with market driven economies. This is why all those painful re-adjustments were necessary.
And the corruption that followed, has been enabled exactly because the free market economy was not in place. There was no respect for property because the whole economy has been previously nationalized. Factories were sold for pennies to corupt politicians because they didn't belong to anyone.

What do you think about governments of countries with so called free market economies helps private banks with tax money?

Do you think there is any real free market economy in the world without any interfering from the government? Name few if you can please

Quote from: Hobostocker on April 05, 2015, 08:47

Quote from: sgoodwin4813 on April 05, 2015, 08:03

At the bottom end employers will pay as little as possible.  If left to market forces we will have what we have had in the past, which was basically slavery and/or people working under horrible conditions.

exactly, or even not paid at all with the excuse of unpaid stages and internships, i can attest this sh-it is going on even in top-tier multinationals like IBM or Oracle, go figure...

the market forces don't care about the social consequences of all this, and the governments have abdicated from their natural role ... the entire West is de facto at the mercy of the greediest and most corrupt multinationals and speculators in housing, education, food, energy and pretty much any primary item humans need, sooner or later they will privatize even water with the excuse of global warming.

Long article but worth the read, not completely accurate but close enough, they sucked the middle class dry on a large scale and left many without retirement or jobs. 

The Subprime Mortgage Crisis Timeline
http://tinyurl.com/37q963

Worked out good for me. I was able to buy a foreclosure for $75,000 in 2011, remodel it for about $15,000 and now I'm selling it for $150,000 after 2.5 years. All tax free because I used it as my primary residence and reinvesting it in a new, better house.

Quote from: gbalex on April 05, 2015, 14:03

Quote from: Hobostocker on April 05, 2015, 08:47

Quote from: sgoodwin4813 on April 05, 2015, 08:03

At the bottom end employers will pay as little as possible.  If left to market forces we will have what we have had in the past, which was basically slavery and/or people working under horrible conditions.

exactly, or even not paid at all with the excuse of unpaid stages and internships, i can attest this sh-it is going on even in top-tier multinationals like IBM or Oracle, go figure...

the market forces don't care about the social consequences of all this, and the governments have abdicated from their natural role ... the entire West is de facto at the mercy of the greediest and most corrupt multinationals and speculators in housing, education, food, energy and pretty much any primary item humans need, sooner or later they will privatize even water with the excuse of global warming.

Long article but worth the read, not completely accurate but close enough, they sucked the middle class dry on a large scale and left many without retirement or jobs. 

The Subprime Mortgage Crisis Timeline
http://tinyurl.com/37q963

Worked out good for me. I was able to buy a foreclosure for $75,000 in 2011, remodel it for about $15,000 and now I'm selling it for $150,000 after 2.5 years. All tax free because I used it as my primary residence and reinvesting it in a new, better house.

Your attitude simply amazes me. The only reason the mortgage crisis worked for you was luck. If you'd bought that house 5 years earlier, it would now be worth less than what you paid for it. But heck, it worked for you, so eff the suckers who could afford a house before you could.