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10 May 13:03

Rents are too expensive, according to Shelter. And STILL they cannot make the most basic correlation

by Riccardo Tonelli
One of the "hot" topics in the news this morning was the Shelter report on unaffordable rent. See BBC story
Despite stating the bleeding obvious - rents are too expensive for  "hard working families" - nobody dares mentioning the big white elephant in the room again: housing costs.

The general direction of the comments is correct, but it is as if there is a collective conspiracy in the media which prevents from mentioning high house prices as a BAD thing, and instead focus on the opposite:

  1. Rents are too high? Lets' cut red tape for landlords. Wonderful! As if speculators need any more help.
  2. People can't afford rent? It's because the nasty tories cut housing benefits. Nothing to do with housing benefits ending in the pockets of speculative landlords and rising up prices in the first place, of course. 
  3. Not enough houses around for rent? Let's build more. Great! That's what the government should do. Except, they are inviting the big builders to the party and only "some" - we are not allowed to know how many exactly - of the 100,000 houses which will be built between now and 2015 will be assigned to social housing or rental schemes. A tiny drop in the ocean. I guess you can't displease the NIMBYs. 
Some 38% of the people interviewed claimed they have to buy less food in order to pay the rent.

And instead of using the freshly-printed money to create adequate social housing, the government (and the Bank of England, of course) decide to give it to the banks. 

Amazing.