The present situation is an unenviable one for any government. It can stand back and let things happen. Or they can intervene to prop up the market to keep it at its present urealistic levels. Or it can run an inflationary fiscal policy and allow price levels to adjust by a fall in the value of money. Most likely, governments will do a bit of each. Whatever happens, people will have to pay, and all that governments can do is shift the bill around. Their inclination seems to be to make taxpayers pay for at least some of the excesses and stupidity of banks and borrowers.
It is a strange inconsistency that the British government is even thinking about propping up house prices, having previously said so much about the need to keep housing "affordable". A major part of the problem is a failure in understanding, above all, that this is an issue about land. Consequently, most people outside the LVT movement do not appreciate what is really happening. Unfortunately the LVT movement is unable to make the contribution to public debate that it should, as it has no way of presenting the case in the wider public forum, a difficulty compounded by the fact the idea of LVT rests on assumptions other than those habitually held and that in Britain particularly, public debate gives little space for sophisticated argument.
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