I like neeps wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 1:37 pm
Because voting for the conservatives is very rational if you own assets. As they have reliably increased those assets values with every policy. Very few people have argued that voting Tories if you own a house is extremely sensible because every year you become richer. Brexit is irrational if you understand economics but if you don't really and read The Sun, Mail, Telegraph or Times then it's rational because they blamed the EU for everything.
People who have paid off their mortgage and people with large savings are the minority of the population. And then how many have paid off their mortgage and used their savings to buy a BTL with recurring revenue? That's now gone. How many of them are watching their bank of mum and dad nest egg to their kids go bye bye? Surely that doesn't make them happy? How many are nimbys to retain their houses value for when they downsize or want to help their children with inheritance? That now is going. How many rely on the NHS more and more as they get old? Because that's in a dreadful state.
I agree that people are going to lose all spending power when their mortgages become unaffordable and the economy will fall in on itself. But that's why I said it's the end of the Tories. When their policies fail because international investors don't like them or brexit (check) and the interest rates rising collapses their voters personal income and the income (2-5 years time) they're done. There's no nationalism to cling on to.
Of course they've played a hospital pass to the next Labour government so the rampant press baiting of Labour in power could bring them back but people won't forget.
Out of homeowners "people who have paid off their mortgage and people with large savings" are the majority, as in more people own their residence outright than people paying a mortgage for the house they "own". They bought decades ago when house prices were much lower and an average salary covered more of the cost, and have been paying in for decades. Just that alone makes them immune to the higher interest rates the Tories are going to bring about. It's such an advantage they basically stand to lose not much, other than the psychological hit of falling house prices maybe (but it's illusionary wealth, because when a house is sold it's usually exchanged for another house, so if house prices broadly fall they lose not much), but there's still a lack of supply so maybe house prices don't fall much.
There's reports that even more taxes are going to be cut. Fuck knows where the interest rate is heading, in all the reporting I've read there's zero comprehension that numbers like 5% or 7% may sound low by historic standards, but they're as unaffordable as much higher numbers in the past were. there's zero comprehension what house price inflation and a decade and a half of wage stagnation has done.
It's also being reported in the Times that Tory connected hedge funders short the pound and made a killing, same thing happened when parliament was prorogued and on the Brexit referendum. There was also this at the end of that Times article, if you want a read on how rational people people can be:
"However, even those who like what Truss has done so far are concerned that it needs to be explained better to the public. There is some evidence that the public will give Truss the benefit of the doubt for now. In a focus group with voters from the marginal Midlands seat of West Bromwich East conducted by Luke Tryl, a former Tory political adviser, on Friday evening, many questioned the effectiveness and fairness of the budget measures. But they also said it was “too soon” to judge Truss. Several questioned whether Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, was “strong enough” to be prime minister. Five of the participants had voted Tory in 2019, when Nicola Turner beat her Labour rival by 1,593 votes; three of them had backed Labour. In a vote at the end of the focus group, they divided six for Truss and two for Starmer.".
