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It’s even worse because there’s an adult social care crisis, a pension crisis, and in some areas a rundown NHS and school system. So all the incentives are towa

It’s even worse because there’s an adult social care crisis, a pension crisis, and in some areas a rundown NHS and school system. So all the incentives are towards not just home ownership but also additional buy-to-let ownership so that those with the means can afford private health care, dentistry, school fees for their kids/grandkids, inheritance for the kids who are priced out of the market, and retirement. It’s a gravity well of incentives towards absolute property gluttony and creating an overheated housing market and massive social inequality.

DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
> adult social care crisis, a pension crisis, and in some areas a rundown NHS I remember about 10 years ago, "the idea" was that retirees would, as their health starts to decline, do equity-release in their homes to pay for their care needs (on the basis that the NHS would start to means-test care based on the value of all assets, including housing, so that if an OAP has £1m locked-up in their house and they probably have less than 5-6 years to live it's only fair that they liquidate some of that wealth instead of expecting the NHS to pay for everything - while those who don't own their own houses, would still benefit from free NHS care). I left the UK just-over 10 years ago (but I still visit my parents a few times a year and do the WFH-thing-but-abroad) so I'm not as clued-in on subtler points of public policy, but I'm curious if that's still the case? ...or if the Tories reversed that decision in the 8 years they've held power? (after-all, it would be anathema to Daily Mail readers, who give me the impression that they fully expect to enjoy their house-prices even after they're dead).
- TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
  Theresa May tried to sell this as part of her election campaign. It was a disaster. No one wants to be forced to give up some of their personal wealth to pay more for an NHS they've already paid into. That may not be fair, but when most voters are property owners you're not going to get a different outcome. This is an interesting topic because it highlights how the political and economic culture is broken and incapable of effective national strategy. I don't think housing, health, industrial policy, education, or anything else can be fixed without a complete overhaul of the UK's political parties, media, and systems.
  - ericd 3y ago
    It seems like maybe they didn’t pay in enough - baby boom demographics meant there were relatively more productive workers paying for relatively few old people, so each worker was paying a fraction of what it would cost to carry themselves through old age. Also, not enough kids, and of those, not enough who wanted to go into medicine. It seems like baby booms have a way of making things seem artificially good for a while, and then there’s a hangover.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - ilyt 3y ago
      > It seems like maybe they didn’t pay in enough - baby boom demographics meant there were relatively more productive workers paying for relatively few old people, so each worker was paying a fraction of what it would cost to carry themselves through old age. Right but manufacturing technology better and more efficient, we produce far more "per worker" now
      - ericd 3y ago
        Yeah, but I don’t think we’ve seen commensurate gains with healthcare workers, except by perhaps reducing visit time per patient.
        anigbrowl 3y ago
        Perhaps the inference is that the owners of industrial technology should be paying more taxes on their profits, since the proportion of labor as an input is shrinking.
  - sidewndr46 3y ago
    But getting people to pay twice for public services is a core way to increase tax revenue!
    - 3y ago
- DeathArrow 3y ago
  So people are expected to pay twice for healthcare, just because they own a house?
  - jlokier 3y ago
    No. At the moment it's people who don't own a property and have savings instead who "pay twice". People who couldn't get a mortgage to buy a house so saved instead are expected to pay more towards old age care than those who did get a mortgage to buy a house. The proposed policy change was to rebalance the current rules which greatly benefit property owners over involuntary renters of similar means, to make the rules fairer. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36489768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36489768
DeathArrow 3y ago
>It’s even worse because there’s an adult social care crisis, a pension crisis, and in some areas a rundown NHS and school system. So all the incentives are towards not just home ownership but also additional buy-to-let ownership so that those with the means can afford private health care, dentistry, school fees for their kids/grandkids, inheritance for the kids who are priced out of the market, and retirement. It's also about rapidly declining population and people not willing to work. The result of welfare state. If you incentivize people to develop themselves, acquire skills and knowledge, work and make kids, then they will be able to afford housing, medical care and pensions.
- jraedisch 3y ago
  How would you incentivize people to have children?
  - marvin 3y ago
    Make it seem to be profitable, obviously. France’s system is genius - supposedly, income can be shared between all household members regardless of age. So the marginal tax rate becomes very low if you have three kids. Even incentivizes one parent to work less.
- Marazan 3y ago
  Hi, the Cradle to Grave Welfare state has existed since the 1940s. Were people not willing to work in the 1940s?
  - okeuro49 3y ago
    There is a problem that the age demographic has changed. There is the ever increasing problem of more people drawing down state pensions, using the NHS and social care, than there are young tax payers to support them.
- hgomersall 3y ago
  If there's a finite resource, you can't just say "if only the population worked harder, they'd have more money to spend so they can buy the thing we're discussing". Money is used as the tool to ration in our society, but it doesn't therefore mean that insufficient money is the problem behind rationing. This financializing of everything is the problem with too many analyses these days - fundamentally we need to think about provisioning before financing.

DaiPlusPlus 3y ago

> adult social care crisis, a pension crisis, and in some areas a rundown NHS I remember about 10 years ago, "the idea" was that retirees would, as their health starts to decline, do equity-release in their homes to pay for their care needs (on the basis that the NHS would start to means-test care based on the value of all assets, including housing, so that if an OAP has £1m locked-up in their house and they probably have less than 5-6 years to live it's only fair that they liquidate some of that wealth instead of expecting the NHS to pay for everything - while those who don't own their own houses, would still benefit from free NHS care). I left the UK just-over 10 years ago (but I still visit my parents a few times a year and do the WFH-thing-but-abroad) so I'm not as clued-in on subtler points of public policy, but I'm curious if that's still the case? ...or if the Tories reversed that decision in the 8 years they've held power? (after-all, it would be anathema to Daily Mail readers, who give me the impression that they fully expect to enjoy their house-prices even after they're dead).

TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
Theresa May tried to sell this as part of her election campaign. It was a disaster. No one wants to be forced to give up some of their personal wealth to pay more for an NHS they've already paid into. That may not be fair, but when most voters are property owners you're not going to get a different outcome. This is an interesting topic because it highlights how the political and economic culture is broken and incapable of effective national strategy. I don't think housing, health, industrial policy, education, or anything else can be fixed without a complete overhaul of the UK's political parties, media, and systems.
- ericd 3y ago
  It seems like maybe they didn’t pay in enough - baby boom demographics meant there were relatively more productive workers paying for relatively few old people, so each worker was paying a fraction of what it would cost to carry themselves through old age. Also, not enough kids, and of those, not enough who wanted to go into medicine. It seems like baby booms have a way of making things seem artificially good for a while, and then there’s a hangover.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - ilyt 3y ago
    > It seems like maybe they didn’t pay in enough - baby boom demographics meant there were relatively more productive workers paying for relatively few old people, so each worker was paying a fraction of what it would cost to carry themselves through old age. Right but manufacturing technology better and more efficient, we produce far more "per worker" now
    - ericd 3y ago
      Yeah, but I don’t think we’ve seen commensurate gains with healthcare workers, except by perhaps reducing visit time per patient.
      - anigbrowl 3y ago
        Perhaps the inference is that the owners of industrial technology should be paying more taxes on their profits, since the proportion of labor as an input is shrinking.
- sidewndr46 3y ago
  But getting people to pay twice for public services is a core way to increase tax revenue!
  - 3y ago
DeathArrow 3y ago
So people are expected to pay twice for healthcare, just because they own a house?
- jlokier 3y ago
  No. At the moment it's people who don't own a property and have savings instead who "pay twice". People who couldn't get a mortgage to buy a house so saved instead are expected to pay more towards old age care than those who did get a mortgage to buy a house. The proposed policy change was to rebalance the current rules which greatly benefit property owners over involuntary renters of similar means, to make the rules fairer. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36489768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36489768

DeathArrow 3y ago

>It’s even worse because there’s an adult social care crisis, a pension crisis, and in some areas a rundown NHS and school system. So all the incentives are towards not just home ownership but also additional buy-to-let ownership so that those with the means can afford private health care, dentistry, school fees for their kids/grandkids, inheritance for the kids who are priced out of the market, and retirement. It's also about rapidly declining population and people not willing to work. The result of welfare state. If you incentivize people to develop themselves, acquire skills and knowledge, work and make kids, then they will be able to afford housing, medical care and pensions.

jraedisch 3y ago
How would you incentivize people to have children?
- marvin 3y ago
  Make it seem to be profitable, obviously. France’s system is genius - supposedly, income can be shared between all household members regardless of age. So the marginal tax rate becomes very low if you have three kids. Even incentivizes one parent to work less.
Marazan 3y ago
Hi, the Cradle to Grave Welfare state has existed since the 1940s. Were people not willing to work in the 1940s?
- okeuro49 3y ago
  There is a problem that the age demographic has changed. There is the ever increasing problem of more people drawing down state pensions, using the NHS and social care, than there are young tax payers to support them.
hgomersall 3y ago
If there's a finite resource, you can't just say "if only the population worked harder, they'd have more money to spend so they can buy the thing we're discussing". Money is used as the tool to ration in our society, but it doesn't therefore mean that insufficient money is the problem behind rationing. This financializing of everything is the problem with too many analyses these days - fundamentally we need to think about provisioning before financing.