Stamp Duty : £9,000. Guvmints are evil. FACT.

[Pekka]

Since the poor can't afford decent houses, why should anyone else afford it either? They must pay for their rude attitude of saving and working hard.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by MOBIUS
You mark my words, Cardiff is going to be well and truly on the map in the next few years!

You mean the Welsh haven't yet discovered cartography?

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Dauphin


You realise that your definition of elasticity sounds a lot like a bull and bear market.....

Unless I misunderstand your meaning of bull/bear market, no it doesn't. It has nothing (well, little) to do with housing prices increasing or decreasing. Drogue is saying that in an inelastic market, where the buyer MUST buy the item, the buyer will pay the tax (or at least a large part of it) because the number of people buying the items won't drop very much after a price increase, as it would in an elastic market, where the buyers don't have a need to buy the item and can and will choose to not buy it.

Housing is IIRC fairly inelastic, but not entirely; there are a lot of non-monetary incentives to buy (social benefit to being a landowner, renting is far more expensive long term, control of own destiny, etc.) but there is still a decent amount of elasticity from their being other housing markets around and the rental market.

It's inflation, 3% on a £300,000 house is the same as 3% on the same much cheaper house earlier.

Why then does the government increase the personal allowance, CGT, inheritance tax etc (often in line with inflation)? And have you never heard of fiscal drag either. Not increasing thresholds is effectively the same as decreasing the thresholds in real terms.

It's not the same, because of the thresholds, IIUC. What I'm reading is that there are thresholds at which different percentages kick in ... if those numbers don't change with inflation, the tax affects lower and lower 'real' value property, with higher dollar values. (That's what Dauphin's saying here, I think, now that I reread it...)

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison


You mean the Welsh haven't yet discovered cartography?

They just finished writing a few years back, and the 10% science slider is causing Map-Making to take a long time to research.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by MOBIUS
You mark my words, Cardiff is going to be well and truly on the map in the next few years!

As for suburban, I doubt being within about 200-300 yards of the Millennium Stadium is suburban by anyone's standard...

Not sure about the UK but in the US, until very recently (last ten years or so), virtually every stadium was built in the suburbs because the land was cheaper. That meant it was cheaper for the city to buy the land and they could have more room for car parks. Only recently has the trend reversed as officials have figured out that blighted urban areas can be redeveloped into booming urban areas based upon building sports venues in the downtown area. Those venues attract lots of people into the downtown area so restaurants, bars, shops, parking garages and other commercial ventures all pop up to sell goods and services to the crowds. People see that old areas have been given new economic life and that cheap housing can be found in that area so in short order you have gentrification and urban renewal.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
Hmm, impressive. Though - you can live within a few hundred yards of the New Wembley Stadium but still have the stigma of living in Neasden.

Anyway, why no stamp duty, Mobius?

I think that he's implying he's paying less than £120,000 for it.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by snoopy369


Unless I misunderstand your meaning of bull/bear market, no it doesn't. It has nothing (well, little) to do with housing prices increasing or decreasing. Drogue is saying that in an inelastic market, where the buyer MUST buy the item, the buyer will pay the tax (or at least a large part of it) because the number of people buying the items won't drop very much after a price increase, as it would in an elastic market, where the buyers don't have a need to buy the item and can and will choose to not buy it.

Housing is IIRC fairly inelastic, but not entirely; there are a lot of non-monetary incentives to buy (social benefit to being a landowner, renting is far more expensive long term, control of own destiny, etc.) but there is still a decent amount of elasticity from their being other housing markets around and the rental market.

I mean, that if you have a market with a lot more buyers than sellers, (i.e a bull market) then an increased level of taxation will not dissuade many people from buying. If you have a market with more sellers than buyers (i.e a bear market) then an increased level of taxation will probably dissuade people from buying. If that is true, then the bear market sellers suffer more than the bull market selllers from taxation.

The point about them being the same is that in a bear market you are effectively having people say 'I don't want to buy and I don't need to buy' - it's a more elastic market.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Dauphin
You realise that your definition of elasticity sounds a lot like a bull and bear market.....

Not at all. Elastic/inelastic is a term used to describe a market, for example the oil market is inelastic (almost however high prices are people will pay them), whereas the coffee-house market is elastic (if prices rise, people stop going). Nothing about whether the market is heading up or down. Indeed, bull and bear markets are stock market terms, entirely removed from the supply and demand of an industry.

Originally posted by Dauphin
Why then does the government increase the personal allowance, CGT, inheritance tax etc (often in line with inflation)? And have you never heard of fiscal drag either. Not increasing thresholds is effectively the same as decreasing the thresholds in real terms.

Point taken, the personal allowance should, IMHO, rise in line with inflation. Not doing so is a stealth tax. However the % doesn't need to change.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Dauphin
I mean, that if you have a market with a lot more buyers than sellers, (i.e a bull market) then an increased level of taxation will not dissuade many people from buying. If you have a market with more sellers than buyers (i.e a bear market) then an increased level of taxation will probably dissuade people from buying. If that is true, then the bear market sellers suffer more than the bull market selllers from taxation.

You're confusing cause and effect. If buyers outnumber sellers, the price goes up, and vice versa. Elasticity is the amount that price goes up given a certain amount more demand than supply (or more definitely defined as the other way around - the quantity change for a given change in price - but equates to the same thing). Increasing the demand for something shifts the demand curve, it doesn't alter it's gradient, which is the bit that defines elasticity. Unless it's a pivot movement, in which case it changes the elasticity.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Dauphin


I think that he's implying he's paying less than £120,000 for it.

Ah. Provincial backwaters.

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
Hmm, impressive. Though - you can live within a few hundred yards of the New Wembley Stadium but still have the stigma of living in Neasden.

Nope, I just have the stigma of living in the centre of town!

Anyway, why no stamp duty, Mobius?

<£125K

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Not sure about the UK but in the US, until very recently (last ten years or so), virtually every stadium was built in the suburbs because the land was cheaper. That meant it was cheaper for the city to buy the land and they could have more room for car parks. Only recently has the trend reversed as officials have figured out that blighted urban areas can be redeveloped into booming urban areas based upon building sports venues in the downtown area. Those venues attract lots of people into the downtown area so restaurants, bars, shops, parking garages and other commercial ventures all pop up to sell goods and services to the crowds. People see that old areas have been given new economic life and that cheap housing can be found in that area so in short order you have gentrification and urban renewal.

The Millennium Stadium IS the centre of town!!!

One of the best things about living here is the carnival atmosphere on big matches where they close off the central streets and the whole place goes crazy!

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=CF10%201GE&t=h

BTW, those maps are old (a few years) - there are literally dozens of new developments that have spawned since then, mostly around the bay...

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
Ah. Provincial backwaters.

This provincial backwater will be a venue for the 2007 Rugby World Cup, about 15 miles from the 2010 Ryder Cup, and also a venue for the 2012 Olympics...

Not to mention holding the centrepiece of English Sports, the FA Cup for over half a decade because the silly so and so's don't have a ****ing clue how to build a stadium! Not to mention the fact its in the middle of nowhere (Neasden)

[Krill]

5 Years...Hasn't the FA Cup been going for about 120 years? To be fair I'd be a bit pissed if it hadn't been held in Wales in all that time.

[Cort Haus]

I'm very pleased for you and your flat, Mobius

My point was, though - isn't it unusual to have garages in major city centres? A Capital of a country with its own football team, no less.