From: dlawbailey <dlawbailey at netzero.net> writes 'C. Heartfield, You are living in a fool's paradise, comrade.' etc etc
On the contrary, you just do not know what you are talking about. This morning farmers leaders met with the prime minister to hear his proposals to retire vast tracts of land from agricultural use to be converted into nature reserves, flooding them for bird sanctuaries and so on.
At the same time, house building is at a historic low. Of the four million homes (conservatively) estimated to be needed back in 1996, just one million have been built. You may be surprised by 66 year leases, and no doubt relatively short term leasing represents a bias in favour of property owners. But the specific reason why housing prices are so favourable to landlords and developers is that the supply falls so short of the demand. In the US, where there is no comparable shortage, one presumes, leaseholding would never catch on, hence your surprise.
Marx never said that supply and demand were not factors, he merely said that he would assume them to be in balance to study the underlying determinants of value. -- James Heartfield Sustaining Architecture in the Anti-Machine Age is available at GBP19.99, plus GBP5.01 p&p from Publications, audacity.org, 8 College Close, Hackney, London, E9 6ER. Make cheques payable to 'Audacity Ltd'. www.audacity.org