Cheapo broadband, a warning



Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:
> With people living longer and the decline of the traditional family,
> the number of houses required per head of the population is growing.
> There is only one real way to fix that, and that's to build more
> houses.


Or let people drive in the manner and at the speed which they want,
thereby eliminating the population growth problem ;-)

--
Trevor Barton
 
wafflycat wrote:
>
> "Not Responding" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>
>>
>> Planning rules force sustainable high density development where it
>> would otherwise not arise. This is a Good Thing IMO, speaking both as
>> a cyclist and an environmentalist.
>>

>
> What would be a Seriously Good Thing, IMO, would be much higher standard
> of building regs as regards sound insulation of buildings, so that in
> the high density development, the noise of your neighbours wasn't forced
> on you through thin walls... Those Europeans could teach us a thing or
> two about decent building standards.


Exactly. Having lived in several European countries, I've seen both
good and bad. In the UK we have the constant mantra of "low cost", for
which read "****". Result: very limited decent-quality housing (almost
all of it Victorian and earlier), and tremendous pressure on what decent
housing there is. Post-war Germany built to high quality instead, and
so has a much healthier housing market and less problems (I lived on
the 9th floor of a 1970s tower block in Nurnberg, and it was superb,
and at the price of something pretty shabby in the UK)!

Land is a scarce resource in this country. And it's something we
can't simply manufacture more of. So private ownership of land imposes
a real cost on society, and should be taxed by society at a rate that
reflects this. I think the Italian system of heavily taxing second
homes (as opposed to subsidising them as we do) has a lot of merit
there.

Guy, why is stamp duty bad? If you make £20000 earned (approx UK
average AIUI) and £20000 unearned through you house price rising,
why should one be heavily taxed and not the other? The person with
£40000 all earned, but without family/inherited wealth, will be taxed
at maximum rate, yet may *never* in a lifetime be able to buy a house
in todays market, and will remain a have-not.

--
Nick Kew
 
Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:

>>OTOH, maybe the availability of quality rental stock acts to create a
>>culture where rental is seen as acceptable - after all, in today's
>>climate of a mobile workforce renting has its attractions.


If only ...

We had something of that around the 1990-ish bust, when people who
couldn't sell would let their homes instead. Now the rental market
has polarised again, with precious little in between the ridiculously-
expensive and the grotty-but-still-overpriced.

> It might work if we had the "rentier" class as in France, but for the
> most part it is people mortgaging the property and then renting it out
> for more than the mortgage payments to people who, for the most part,
> can't get a mortgage because the bank won't lend them that much.


Exactly. Our generation's have-nots.

>>OTOH, when prices start to turn down, as they always do in a cycle, will
>>the stretched buy-to-letters rush to leave the market, flooding it with
>>properties and ensuring that the crash they have prophecised is
>>fulfilled?

>
> I will do my best not to laugh out loud if it does...


I think that's why my ex-landlady wants to sell. But I think it'll
be some time before the real glut comes on the market. A small bust
now, and the big one in maybe another 15 years when today's wealthier
investors want their assets to fund their retirement in an era of
reduced pensions.

> But lots of people want to live here, and the only thing preventing
> more houses being built is politics.


Try geography. Water supply, sewage, transportation links, ...

>>Agreed. But this doesn't necessarily require vast acreages of green fields.

>
>
> Around here? Precious little else available. There is no significant
> brown field potential around me.


On the contrary. We should build upwards where more building is
necessary.

> What's unsustainable about a place 20 minutes by train from London?


See above. Or ask the people who've been flooded in recent years.


>>Being more subjective, I also place value on retaining a distinction
>>between rural and urban landscapes.


Not sure about that. What passes for rural in the UK is still
depressingly man-made. I have some hope that the changes in the CAP
may have a seriously positive effect: at least it removes the
artificial economic incentives to massive overgrazing.


>>>Blimey! Free market thinking from me! Who'd have thought it?

>>
>>Blimey! Central control economy thinking from me! Who'd have thought it?

>
>
> Yes, interesting bit of role reversal :)


And here's me who supported Mrs T in the 80s ...

--
Nick Kew
 
"Nick Kew" <[email protected]> wrote:

> Guy, why is stamp duty bad? If you make £20000 earned (approx UK
> average AIUI) and £20000 unearned through you house price rising,
> why should one be heavily taxed and not the other?


If your house rises in value it is not "money in the bank" like the money
your employer pays you each month, as you generally have to spend it on your
next house purchase. It is also largely unrelated to *ability to pay*, as
just because you have to move house (eg having a family so need a bigger
house/redundancy forces a move) does not mean you are more wealthy than a
person who stays put in the same house for a longer time, you will often
have *less* money due to moving costs & solicitors/estate agents bills. A
"good" tax is one that relates to ability to pay, or taxes "non essential"
things, and a roof over ones head is pretty necessary in the scheme of
things.
 
"Nick Kew" <[email protected]> wrote:

> Guy, why is stamp duty bad? If you make £20000 earned (approx UK
> average AIUI) and £20000 unearned through you house price rising,
> why should one be heavily taxed and not the other?


If your house rises in value it is not "money in the bank" like the money
your employer pays you each month, as you generally have to spend it on your
next house purchase. It is also largely unrelated to *ability to pay*, as
just because you have to move house (eg having a family so need a bigger
house/redundancy forces a move) does not mean you are more wealthy than a
person who stays put in the same house for a longer time, you will often
have *less* money due to moving costs & solicitors/estate agents bills. A
"good" tax is one that relates to ability to pay, or taxes "non essential"
things, and a roof over ones head is pretty necessary in the scheme of
things.
 
Nick Kew wrote:
>
> Land is a scarce resource in this country. And it's something we
> can't simply manufacture more of. So private ownership of land imposes
> a real cost on society, and should be taxed by society at a rate that
> reflects this.


I'm missing something here. Sure, land is a scarce resource but mere
ownership of land does not impose any cost on society. Equally, the most
effective tool to deal with and distribute scarce resources is the market.

> I think the Italian system of heavily taxing second
> homes (as opposed to subsidising them as we do) has a lot of merit
> there.


OK, if you simply mean a luxury tax on people with multiple land
holdings, I sort of agree but that's tax for revenue rather than tax to
offset any costs to society. Although tax on posession always strikes me
as wrong - I prefer taxes to be at the point of transaction (either
sales or income).

Council Tax is, of course, different as that is effectively a payment
for services provided by the community.

> Guy, why is stamp duty bad? If you make £20000 earned (approx UK
> average AIUI) and £20000 unearned through you house price rising,
> why should one be heavily taxed and not the other? The person with
> £40000 all earned, but without family/inherited wealth, will be taxed
> at maximum rate, yet may *never* in a lifetime be able to buy a house
> in todays market, and will remain a have-not.
>
 

> Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:
> > With people living longer and the decline of the traditional

family,
> > the number of houses required per head of the population is

growing.
> > There is only one real way to fix that, and that's to build more
> > houses.


Hmm, not sure about this; the only new homes that are getting built are
either condos or 4 bed executive homes with postage stamp gardens, not
really what is needed by the new influx of home-seekers (ie the young,
the old and the separated/divorced AIUI) so is it not just inflating
prices by shifting those already owning into the new properties?.
Surely a builder should have to provide affordable tterraced/semis on
any new developement whether they are more profitable or not.
 
Colin Blackburn wrote:


> Yes, because BT Broadband and BT are notionally separate

organisations.
> BT aren't allowed to offer favourable conditions or lower charges to

BT
> Broadband. I make no comment on how well this is enforced at other
> levels but the charging of £50 to customers is a very visible

charge.
>
> Colin


thanks for clarifying. So suppose I decide to say "get stuffed tiscali"
and sign up with any other supplier, will I escape the charge or end up
paying it up front? (a bit academic anyway as tiscali are so much
cheaper it's a false economy)
also am I entitled to a refund of my month's subscription as they have
broken their contract by not re-connecting me within 20 days?
 
"MartinM" <[email protected]> writes:
>
> Hmm, not sure about this; the only new homes that are getting built are
> either condos or 4 bed executive homes with postage stamp gardens, not
> really what is needed by the new influx of home-seekers (ie the young,


These are what my wife and I call 'executive slums'. They may quote
large numbers of rooms but the houses are tiny, not very workable and
not terribly nice. We lived in such a house (in Steventon, near
Didcot) and whilst it was OK, it was nowhere near as nice to live in as
a well designed Victorian house.

I'd like to go down the 'design and build my own' route at some point,
but I'll need a bit of money to start off with.

...d> the old and the separated/divorced AIUI) so is it not just inflating
> prices by shifting those already owning into the new properties?.
> Surely a builder should have to provide affordable tterraced/semis on
> any new developement whether they are more profitable or not.


They are always profitable, just not as much profit.. It depends on
what inflated price they have paid for the land.

The house next door to me is up for sale. It has it's own garage, a
25m front garden, and ten rooms of which the two in the basement could
form a seaprate flat. Lots of original fittings including a large
stained glass window above a curving central staircase.

The only downside is that the current owners (who are having to move
becasue he has had a series of strokes and can't really cope in the
house now) have done virtually no maintenance for 35 years. So it is a
gut and refit job. You won't get a mortgage on it[1] but if you have a
spare 30-50K on top of the guide price of offers over 85K you could
have a really nice house to modern standards or better[2] with a load of
character. Walking distance to shops, schools, local
amenities. Good PT links to the city centre (walkable in 30 mins).

...d

[1] structural dry rot, needs a new roof as well.
[2] except things like the dimensions of the stairs and so on.
--
----------------------------------
David Martin PhD
Bioinformatics Scientific Officer
Wellcome Trust Biocentre, Dundee
+44 1382 348704
----------------------------------
 
David Martin (MAJF) <[email protected]> wrote:

: The house next door to me is up for sale. It has it's own garage, a

Sigh. Any jobs going in Dundee? I could buy the house but it's a long commute
to york :(

Arthur

--
Arthur Clune PGP/GPG Key: http://www.clune.org/pubkey.txt
Don't get me wrong, perl is an OK operating system, but it lacks a
lightweight scripting language -- Walter Dnes
 
"Arthur Clune" <[email protected]> writes:

> David Martin (MAJF) <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> : The house next door to me is up for sale. It has it's own garage, a
>
> Sigh. Any jobs going in Dundee? I could buy the house but it's a long commute
> to york :(


What do you do? We may soon be looking for bodies who are happy with
Grid/web services and similar eScience stuff.. Though you may be too expensive for us.

...d

--
----------------------------------
David Martin PhD
Bioinformatics Scientific Officer
Wellcome Trust Biocentre, Dundee
+44 1382 348704
----------------------------------
 
I got my photo driving licence back today, free if you move house, one
of the few perks. Apparently it is useless without the paper bit which
in itself is bigger than the original licence; what's the point of that?
 
On Fri, 20 May 2005 01:06:56 +0100, Nick Kew
<[email protected]> wrote:

>I think that's why my ex-landlady wants to sell. But I think it'll
>be some time before the real glut comes on the market. A small bust
>now, and the big one in maybe another 15 years when today's wealthier
>investors want their assets to fund their retirement in an era of
>reduced pensions.


At this point I am reminded of my extremely shrewd mate Oggy, who has
bailed out of property entirely in the expectation of forthcoming
problems. I think he has sold all his houses, "even the ones in
Mayfair". Yes, that is a plural.

>> But lots of people want to live here, and the only thing preventing
>> more houses being built is politics.


>Try geography. Water supply, sewage, transportation links, ...


All fixable, all essentially market driven.

>> Around here? Precious little else available. There is no significant
>> brown field potential around me.


>On the contrary. We should build upwards where more building is
>necessary.


I think that's been tried, it was not an unalloyed success.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4452293.stm

>> What's unsustainable about a place 20 minutes by train from London?

>See above. Or ask the people who've been flooded in recent years.


Yes, I wonder what part of "flood plain" the developers had trouble
understanding? But that is immaterial: the main reason for building
on the flood plain was the restriction on building elsewhere. Remove
that, the problem goes away.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at CHS, Puget Sound
 
On 19 May 2005 09:39:39 -0700 someone who may be "MartinM"
<[email protected]> wrote this:-

>>Not in Kingston upon Hull though. We are tied to the Kingston
>>Communications monopoly

>
>Oh yeah; you have those white phone boxes n'est pas? was that some sort
>of Thatcherite pilot scheme?


Quite the reverse.

A long time ago the telephone companies were nationalised and put
under the control of the Post Office. As I understand it telephones
in Hull were already run by the Council and were left out of the
nationalisation.

As I understand it Hull was once much better than the Post Office
with regard to telephones, but this advantage was slowly lost in the
Thatcher era.


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E
I will always explain revoked keys, unless the UK government
prevents me by using the RIP Act 2000.
 
Not Responding wrote:

> I'm missing something here. Sure, land is a scarce resource but mere
> ownership of land does not impose any cost on society. Equally, the most
> effective tool to deal with and distribute scarce resources is the market.


Your house and garden is land I can't live off. Or on.

The absence of land I *can* live off imposes an economic cost on me:
I have to get my food in the supermarket (except in blackberry season)
and I have to pay a ridiculous amount just to be able to sleep somewhere
I won't get routinely harrassed by the powers-that-be.

--
Nick Kew
 
Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:
> On Thu, 19 May 2005 16:17:36 +0100, Nick Kew
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Too late now, but what's really needed is much higher stamp duty.
>> If we'd had that in the past, property wouldn't be quite such a
>> uniquely tax-efficient investment, and we wouldn't have such a
>> huge boom-and-bust market, nor house price rises that dwarf earned
>> (and highly taxed) income.

>
> That is a seriously bad idea, IMO.


<AOL>
Larringtons Anonymous have already had to drop the asking price of a
property we're flogging below 250 kZU...

Anyone wanna buy a bungalow? New Barn, near Longfield, Kent, Formerly
owned by little old lady, never raced or rallied, FSH, etc. etc.

--
Dave Larrington - <http://www.legslarry.beerdrinkers.co.uk/>
Wood is an excellent material for making trees, but is otherwise not to
be trusted.
 
Dave Larrington wrote:
> Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:
> > On Thu, 19 May 2005 16:17:36 +0100, Nick Kew
> > <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> >> Too late now, but what's really needed is much higher stamp duty.
> >> If we'd had that in the past, property wouldn't be quite such a
> >> uniquely tax-efficient investment, and we wouldn't have such a
> >> huge boom-and-bust market, nor house price rises that dwarf earned
> >> (and highly taxed) income.

> >
> > That is a seriously bad idea, IMO.

>
> <AOL>
> Larringtons Anonymous have already had to drop the asking price of a
> property we're flogging below 250 kZU...
>
> Anyone wanna buy a bungalow? New Barn, near Longfield, Kent,

Formerly
> owned by little old lady, never raced or rallied, FSH, etc. etc.


very close to the CML by the sound of it; wait util they build a
station and it will rocket
 
In message <[email protected]>,
MartinM <[email protected]> writes
>
>Colin Blackburn wrote:
>
>
>> Yes, because BT Broadband and BT are notionally separate

>organisations.
>> BT aren't allowed to offer favourable conditions or lower charges to

>BT
>> Broadband. I make no comment on how well this is enforced at other
>> levels but the charging of £50 to customers is a very visible

>charge.
>>
>> Colin

>
>thanks for clarifying. So suppose I decide to say "get stuffed tiscali"
>and sign up with any other supplier, will I escape the charge or end up
>paying it up front?


It would depend on the other ISP. The charge is levied to the ISP, they
can choose to pass it on or not, hence the many ISP's who have 12 month
min contract but give free connection..

Since you would effectively be signing up for a new ADSL connection, not
migrating, another ISP should treat you the same as any other new
customer.

>(a bit academic anyway as tiscali are so much
>cheaper it's a false economy)


I wouldn't touch them with barge pole, your mileage obviously varies.
You could threaten to move to another ISP to avoid the charge and se
what they offer to keep youi......

>also am I entitled to a refund of my month's subscription as they have
>broken their contract by not re-connecting me within 20 days?
>

Pass, since I've not see the contract,


--
Chris French
 
Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:
>
>At this point I am reminded of my extremely shrewd mate Oggy, who has
>bailed out of property entirely in the expectation of forthcoming
>problems. I think he has sold all his houses, "even the ones in
>Mayfair". Yes, that is a plural.


Don't you have to trade them for a hotel once you have four?
 
Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:
> On Fri, 20 May 2005 01:06:56 +0100, Nick Kew
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>>I think that's why my ex-landlady wants to sell. But I think it'll
>>be some time before the real glut comes on the market. A small bust
>>now, and the big one in maybe another 15 years when today's wealthier
>>investors want their assets to fund their retirement in an era of
>>reduced pensions.

>
>
> At this point I am reminded of my extremely shrewd mate Oggy, who has
> bailed out of property entirely in the expectation of forthcoming
> problems. I think he has sold all his houses, "even the ones in
> Mayfair". Yes, that is a plural.
>
>
>>>But lots of people want to live here, and the only thing preventing
>>>more houses being built is politics.

>
>
>>Try geography. Water supply, sewage, transportation links, ...

>
>
> All fixable, all essentially market driven.


That assumes significant advances in technology, and/or expensive,
energy-hungry things like desalination plants.

>>>Around here? Precious little else available. There is no significant
>>>brown field potential around me.

>
>
>>On the contrary. We should build upwards where more building is
>>necessary.

>
>
> I think that's been tried, it was not an unalloyed success.
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4452293.stm


It failed in the UK because it was botched. It works very well
in many other countries.

>>>What's unsustainable about a place 20 minutes by train from London?

>>
>>See above. Or ask the people who've been flooded in recent years.

>
>
> Yes, I wonder what part of "flood plain" the developers had trouble
> understanding?


Market forces. And changes to what was a flood plain, brought about by
changes to land use (building and agriculture and, according to some,
things like the so-called jubilee river).

--
Nick Kew