Big J

You'll enjoy the transport infrastructure once you're out of the West Country 😝 🤣

14c, strong wind, rain blattering against the living room window. Apparently, the heatwave is supposed to arrive by the 20th of August. It won't be a moment too soon.

Possibly not. Either way, it's grim. I just can't get over how low the base temperature is at the moment. If it's raining, it's 15-16c, if it's sunny it's 20-21c. If it's cloudy, it's 18c. Bring on a little heat. It's interesting to note how the growth of the eucalyptus slows with this shitty weather. I reckon it's reduced the growth rate by 30% or so, based on the one that I measure every couple of days at the bottom of the lane.

Not exactly

I'm just waiting to get the XC70 back from the garage. Having only spent £1170 on it, it needed a few things doing to get it right, so once that's back, I'll advertise the van

I viewed a house at the same time as a German family that bought it there and then. It's nice for us as they'll be in the town too, and their boy is the same age as my older daughter. They cited the heavy handed lockdown as one of the main reasons for leaving Germany. I'm not sure that the anti EU sentiment is as strong as you think. I don't know anyone in Germany who is for leaving. We do possibly inhabit different circles though.

Quite possibly. As unpopular as Sweden is politically, it was remarkable how many Danes and Germans there were there last month

Rather odd given that their infection rates are lower than many of the green countries. Most of the world really doesn't seem to appreciate their approach to tackling covid.

Fair point. The Bank of England is however owned by the Government and works within a framework dictated by the government. I'm not sure that they can be claimed to be fully independent. As someone who's rented for a good while, it is indeed something that's pretty depressing. I'd say that we've probably got a similar amount of cash in the business to if I'd been employed in a reasonably paid job and paid that into a house. We've not been especially successful or unsuccessful with work - it's not been the easiest of times. Either way, the avoidance of a complete crash in 2008 by tanking the interest rates has simply kicked the can down the road. The interest rates leading up to 2008 were exactly the long term (as in 300 year) average and the only way to avoid wide scale defaulting was to take them to unsustainably low levels. No one has any incentive to save as rates offered are now substantially below inflation. So more and more money is spent, contributing to ever escalating inflation. But the base rate cannot be increased without wide scale financial hardship for millions of people. But it also needs to be increased in order to avoid widescale hardship for millions of people. Therein lies the dilemma.

I don't pretend that there aren't problems. But I look at the broader picture and view the benefits alongside the drawbacks and look at their quality of life. On that metric, we fall a long way behind (especially now we've left the EU, if nothing else from the freedom of movement point of view). We aren't going to agree on this Andy. We haven't in the past and nor will we in the future. You are in the fortunate position to be financially insulated from many of the issues that Brexit is going to create, and work abroad. The irony is that working in Norway, you're working in a country that illustrates how bad the UK is at managing it's own affairs. Norway is supremely wealthy and the UK isn't. They both had the exact same resource

I always regarded the EU as a moderating influence on our own bile filled spitemongers. For that matter, has a term ever better encapsulated the very essence of Pritti Patel?. We're now truly seeing the consequences of how our politicians will act when they feel that they aren't accountable to anyone.

The EU didn't start their vaccine rollout as well as they could have, I'll certainly agree, but most of the barriers have been put in place by the UK. Not signing up to the EU vaccine passport being one.

Yeah, I thought you'd like that. It just gets my goat when the government tries to make a big thing about restrictions being driven by the data, when clearly they're not. It's contingent on where they want to go on holiday to and who they want to do trade with.

So the green list has been expanded to include Norway, Austria and Germany, all of which have higher case rates than Sweden, which remains on the amber list. It seems very political. Not relaxing the restrictions on the only country that didn't really do restrictions seems pathetically punitive at this stage. Sweden fulfils all the criteria to be moved onto the green list. Obviously I have a vested interest, but it still smacks of politics, rather than science.

Yes, but when I sell the forwarder I will also have to pay tax on that sum. So to be charged an export duty and pay tax on the total amount is double taxation. If I get £95k for it, I'd pay £46,500 in tax (duty plus corporation plus dividend tax). That's Scandi plus levels of taxation 🤣 A classic car like a Dodge Charger cannot be built today for £40k. The originality and the scarcity is what causes it to accrue value. It's also not a necessity. A house is, and the houses that appreciate inexplicably in today's market cannot be held up as examples of unique or remarkable design (like a Dodge Charger).

A machine isn't accrued wealth though. It's just a tool. It's depreciated since I've bought it (a bit) but the addition of an export tax means that if I want to sell it abroad, I suddenly have to fork out an additional £20k. That is patently daft. Also, there isn't a £600k house in the UK that is actually worth £600k. The cost of construction is no where near that. All I'm suggesting (and I am no expert in the field) is that there needs to be some thought given on how to make the property market more accurately reflect the cost of construction. Obviously, there will always been more and less desirable places to move to, but the situation is presently unsustainable. For instance, three years back, my brother and his wife bought their first home in Exeter. A very, very small three bed detached house, but it ticks the boxes. It's presently £355k if you buy it new in Exeter, up from £305k when they bought it. It's £235k in Northumberland. The exact same house. There isn't that difference in the cost of the land, and frankly, £235k is still about £80k too much for it, given that the cost of construction is less than £100k. It's difficult for you to appreciate (I feel) because you have a substantial house in a relatively inexpensive part of the UK. The affordability (especially considering your line of work) is good. It isn't so peachy for the rest of us though. Down here, property prices are at least 50% higher, but the salaries are infact amongst the worst in the country.

I don't drive around in my road blocking machinery It occasionally gets transported from site to site. It's not a road going machine. You're just being intentionally difficult now. You know as well as I do that a 22% export tariff with zero import tariff puts every single second hand machine owner in the unenviable position of having a machine which can only really be sold in one country. Previously, it would have cost nothing to export it, other than the logistical costs. I pay rather more tax than I'd like, and collect a crap load of VAT for the government (in particular). I say that I pay more tax than I'd like, because I don't feel that I get much in return for it. A tax on accrued wealth isn't necessarily a bad thing. The property market is buoyed up by quantitative easing and artificially low interest rates. The money isn't even really real. It's just numbers on a piece of paper. At least a machine has a material cost of construction and a retail price that reflects that. The price of property in the UK does not reflect the production cost, only the market demand with the demand being dictated by a series of concessions that serve only to prop up the market. Either way, I feel confident in saying that: a) houses are far too expensive in the UK (terribly built and too small too) b) our national infrastructure isn't fit for purpose. Friends of ours returning to Northampton the other day took 5hrs to drive from Newton Abbott to Bristol, nominally a 1hr 40min journey. This is standard fayre for the M5 in summer. c) Brexit is having a great many negative effects on a great many businesses and individuals, with almost nothing positive thus far.

I don't think that the comparison is valid. I'm not suggesting taxing people's houses. Regarding my machine, the British government (who have perpetually claimed, contrary to the best evidence, that Brexit is a good thing) has imposed an export tariff on a machine that isn't even manufactured here. A 22% export tariff. Nah, there is no defending the ridiculous lack of adequate transport infrastructure here. You can have perfectly beautiful places with lovely roads - take the Scottish Highlands. From home near Edinburgh to the pub in Kincraig (by Aviemore) always took 2hrs and 8 minutes, once the average speed cameras were installed on the A9. It was comical how precise it usually was. Except (it needs to be added) the one time in 30-40 where you're diverted off for an accident and then you lose a few hours. It's all the bloody retirees who like the quaint insanity of the place that resist investment in the roads. The irony is that the traffic would be a lot less noticeable if the roads weren't so poor. Traffic only becomes an issue if it exceeds the operating capacity of the roads, and given that the average road here has a capacity best measured in horses and carts per hour, it's no wonder the place is jammed solid in summer 🤣 I have two light bars on the forwarder being reattached at the moment, thanks to low hanging branches. It's very difficult to make a machine that's 12ft tall low enough for every branch when it's sat on a trailer.

I would hardly say that £20k plus on an asset that was tax free until 8 months ago constitutes a wee bit of tax 😄 It's a difference of perspective here. I don't object to a free market economy, but it shouldn't be at the expense of public investment. The successive British governments have mismanaged and squandered colossal sums of money lining their own pockets of buying votes and as such we have a country where the concentration of wealth is in private property as opposed to public infrastructure. That imbalance is probably one of the main contributing factors to our low levels of productivity (when viewed in the European context). Compare our roads to the German autobahns. Our train network to just about anywhere in Europe. Our health sector to France. We just need concerted investment in bringing the lagging parts of the economy, society and the country into the 21st century. That's not communism. It's socially responsible capitalism.

My dad has said the same thing. They would much prefer to just buy something new not needing any work. It's a similar mentality to buying an old car. You can chuck a whole load of money at it, but it won't perform as well as a new vehicle and you'll be doing well to get your money back. Interesting. I didn't know that. There do seem to be some fundamental differences in the psyche between Norway and Sweden. You're confusing communism and socialism my good man. There is a capitalist argument for first class infrastructure, health care and education, in that it improves productivity and profit on a population-wide basis.

It's a rather philosophical question, I fear. If we only do things that we see as being financially lucrative, we're fundamentally doomed 🤣 We should be investing in our homes to make them better places to live, not because it makes us wealthier. I'd rather be in a house that is worth a lot less, but pay some of that excess money into the tax system so that the infrastructure, health care and schooling is better. You do notice the difference acutely between the UK and many European countries, in that we (as a nation) have a lot of amassed personal wealth. I say that insofar that individual properties can be sold for a lot of money, but all the infrastructure and services around them are terrible. I recall working down the bottom of a valley a few miles from Tiverton 2 years back. God awful little lane, pot holed to hell, both wingmirrors in the hedges are you drove it. No school, no pub, no services whatsoever. A 3-4 mile drive (at about 20mph max) to get to Tiverton, but forget it if it's icy. And then once you're into Tiverton, you're in a market town with some notable social issues. The high school has a permanent police officer there, for instance. But despite this, the average house price on that postcode 2 years ago was about £658k. It feel that if the owners of these homes spent less on their mortgages and more in local taxes, the whole area would function better.

Yeah, my Dad's pretty pragmatic about the fact that his house near Poitiers hasn't and probably won't appreciate much. It's served him well as a cheap and spacious home and didn't cost much in the first place. Fundamentally, in order to sort out the housing market, we've got to do away with the idea that a house is an investment. It's first and foremost a home. It has to perform adequately in that regard, and part of that is affordability. By treating homes as investments, we forget what their primary function is.

Affordability is determined by two factors really. The willingness of the creditor to lend you the money in the first instance and your ability to pay it back. Once the ability to pay it back is lost (through interest rate rises or loss of earnings) then the willingness of lenders to risk lending decreases. Affordability criteria then becomes stricter, reducing and limiting the maximum amount person a with income b can borrow. Once the lending cap is reduced, asset prices can only go down as people simply cannot get a mortgage to cover the cost of it. Then you're into an awful situation (which I remember friends in 2008 finding themselves in) of negative equity, at which point you have people doing what @Mick Dempsey said. Huge interest rate rises aren't likely though, it would appear. It would bankrupt almost every western government to do that, but it really does feel that the longer we go on without some sort of adjustment, the worse it'll be when it comes. I rather like the policy that the Dutch and German government use when it comes to building low cost housing. They will sometimes employ compulsory purchase orders for land, but will do so on the 'present use value'. So rather than an acre of building land costing £500k - £1 million, it'd be £9-12k. This would massively reduce the cost of constructing housing, and given that good quality, sustainable construction is less than £1500/ square metre, you could see top notch, 120 square metre houses for less than £200k. Owning a home isn't something that I regard as being fundamentally necessary. Living in a home of good quality and affordably however is