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  • "Sorry, just noticed Brian is in the USA, perhaps he didn't know about the housing shortage here ?

    As I understand it, the USA were left with an overhang of empty unsold housing stock, but, in the UK, it wasn't as bad, and we were not building more than we needed.
    The latest figures for the USA give starts at 654,000/year and consents at 747,000/year. The UK had 132,000 consents in 2011, and with our population at 20% of the USA's, their consents are running about 13% higher.

    Brian's point about McMansions doesn't exactly ring true for the UK, as we were building a lot of city centre apartments, rather than family houses. His point about manufacturing is however very true."
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Building doubts

9:29am Tuesday 1st May 2012 in Letters

“CONSTRUCTION can offer a route out of recession” says the first letter in your edition of April 27. Perhaps, but I doubt it.

In the UK and the US, it was mad property construction, real-estate speculation, and the resulting boom and bust that put us into recession in the first place.

Both governments ran tax policies that fuelled the speculation but neglected boring activities such as making things which could be sold on the world’s markets. Who needs to make things when we can import them from China? Who cares? The kids will pay the bill.

The third letter in the same edition notes that “amid all the doom and gloom within Europe, Germany still shines supreme”. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

While the British and American economies were building McMansions, mortgaged and remortgaged up to the hilt and beyond, many Germans were renting relatively modest apartments and manufacturing stuff: stuff that customers around the world wanted to buy.

They were also financing their students from taxes rather than loading them up with debt while doing little or nothing to ensure that they had jobs waiting.

Brian A Jones, Clinton Street, Brooklyn NY, USA.

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