daggett, was that..... sarcasm?

Ooooh. I'm so hurt.

Your continued bluster only underlines the fatuity of your position. If you had anything constructive to offer, you probably would have stumbled across it by now.

The logic behind your insistence that it is somehow my task to come up with alternatives to Ms Newman's selection of France as a useful comparison to Australia defies analysis.

daggett: France and Australia are sufficiently similar for them to be used side-by-side in Ms Newman's thesis on housing affordability.

Pericles: No they are not. They are very different. Demographically, historically, industrially.

daggett: OK smartyboots, so what would you propose as a valid alternative?

Do you not see the problem I have with that position?

Pericles,

Your last post is yet one more of many similarly lame attempts to distract the attention away from the lack of substance in your own contributions.

I have suggested that given the costly, inefficient and iniquitous shambles that the privatised housing market has become since Menzies commenced the process of privatisation that we are entitled to ask whether we could have done any better. If other countries such as France and other European countries have managed to do a vastly better job with housing than Australia has been able to do, then we should seriously consider adopting their policies, rather than persevere with what has demonstrably failed so abysmally in this country.

You demand that we exclude that possibility altogether until we find another positive example that much more exactly matches that of Australia in terms of arable land mass population and demographics than that of France.

Once again, I leave it to others to decide which of these two approaches is the more reasonable and adds anything of value to the discussion. Again I invite others to read the contributions of myself, Kanga and others who have raised the connection between population and housing affordability, as well as the abovementioned thesis and submission downloadable from http://www.candobetter.org/sheila and compare them with yours and to decide for themselves which side is trying to address the substance of this issue.

I would also urge others to re-read Andrew Bartlett's original article to which you also take exception. In spite of its failure to address the issue of population, it still contains a lot of very worthwhile ideas.

daggett, you seem to start always from the assumption that your observations are, by definition, true. Unfortunately, most of those observations fall into the category of your individual opinion, which - I have to point out - should also be open to question.

>>...the costly, inefficient and iniquitous shambles that the privatised housing market has become since Menzies commenced the process of privatisation<<

...is, I have to say, a value judgement that you may share with a number of your friends and co-academics, but is not what may be termed a fact.

Many people have, you may be surprised to hear, actually been able to buy a home "since Menzies commenced the process of privatisation", and - shock, horror - continue to do so today. The "crisis in housing affordability" that started this thread is no more than a reflection of basic capitalist economics, and will soon become just another short term blip on the graph.

And your characterisation of my position on "why France?" is becoming very tedious.

>>You demand that we exclude that possibility altogether until we find another positive example that much more exactly matches that of Australia<<

You know perfectly well that I do no such thing. I asked a simple question, intended to provide illumination to an otherwise obscure comparison, and suddenly find myself being told that I am "demanding" information from you. You may be able to get away with that kind of bluster at Ms Newman's university, but it means jack to me.

Either France is a relevant comparison or it is not. You have so far made not one single attempt to justify her position, merely referred me to the offending document, without being able to find one shred of supporting argument that can withstand scrutiny.

And somehow you want me to believe this is my problem?

I notice that you couldn't resist the temptation to promote Ms Newman's "paper" once more. I am sure that those who accept the challenge will find it provides no more insight into the real issue than does our meaningless little interchange here.

Pericles wrote: "The 'crisis in housing affordability' ... will soon become just another short term blip on the graph."

Of course it will!

No-one should think that just because the REIQ expects average housing prices in South East Queensland to go from $365,000 to $800,000 (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4834#53620) in the next ten years that housing will become any less affordable, particularly to those earning the minimum wage.

No doubt Howard's 'Work Choices' legislation will make ordinary Australians so prosperous that they will easily be able to afford $800,000. And with home theatres to look forward to, they will hardly miss back yards, gardens, trees, parks or bushland.

Pericles wrote: "I notice that you couldn't resist the temptation to promote Ms Newman's 'paper' once more."

Would you have preferred that I had, instead, promoted your own scholarly works on the subject? Please let me know which submission to the Housing affordability Inquiry you wrote on behalf of land speculators or property developers and I will be happy to give it equal space with Sheila Newman's thesis and submission (downloadable from http://www.candobetter.org/sheila) from now on in this thread.

daggett, we can all speculate about what might be:

>>the REIQ expects average housing prices in South East Queensland to go from $365,000 to $800,000... in the next ten years<<

Just for the record, that is an increase of just over 9.1%p.a., or about the same rate as China's GDP.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-05/10/content_586537.htm

The real question of course is whether houses will be more or less affordable at the end of this particular growth spurt.

It may be the case - we are talking about the future, so at this moment I am as "right" as you are daggett - that the SEQ economy will grow at this rate too.

Especially if it is fuelled by all those new and active workers flooding in to take advantage of Beattie's economic miracle.

Let us also speculate for a moment whether houses in China will be more, or less "affordable" at the end of their particular growth experience. Do you think it is likely that in ten years time there will be a) more b) the same number or c) fewer Chinese able to afford their own home?

>>Please let me know which submission to the Housing affordability Inquiry you wrote on behalf of land speculators or property developers and I will be happy to give it equal space with Sheila Newman's thesis<<

If I do write one, I shall make sure it compares our housing situation with places such as Rio, Maui, St Petersburg, Vienna and Rome.

Not because they can shed any light on the issue, but because hey, they are great places to visit. I can always find the odd comparison to validate the choices. They all have people who need housing. They all have governments. They all are therefore "roughly comparable".

N'est-ce pas?

Pericles,

Once again:

The reasons for using France as a comparator was given by Sheila Newman in the abstract (http://www.candobetter.org/sheila/thesisAbstract.html) to her thesis and in greater detail in Chapter 1 and in the submission. As I have put in my own words on more than one occasion: "The reason for using France as a comparator should be obvious, and in any case is explained in Chapter 1 of the thesis. Clearly this country's housing policies have not worked in recent years as we now have the world's least affordable housing. Surely it is of interest to see whether we can do better by comparing Australia with another country which has, at least until very recently managed to provide all of its citizens with affordable good quality housing." (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4834#55100)

The fact that you don't accept this explanation or are incapable of understanding it does not give you the write to mislead others, for example, by writing: "... You have so far made not one single attempt to justify her position ..."

As the preceding statement shows, the above statement is a lie, and as I have shown (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4834#55524), by no means your first attempt to mislead in Online Opinion discussions.

Pericles wrote: (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4834#58869): "... that kind of bluster ... means jack to me."

I don't particularly care what you think. You have already demonstrated amply that your mind is completely closed on this issue and you are not interested in considering any evidence which conflicts with your current views. As I wrote in an earlier post (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4834#58830): "I leave it to others to decide which of these two approaches is the more reasonable and adds anything of value to the discussion."