Bedroom Tax - Coalition Government Attempts to Cure Britain of Benefits Disease Epidemic

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Large swathes of the Britain are infected with the Benefits disease which results in wasted lives as instead of millions of people developing themselves to the best of their productive ability instead focus on a full time career of determining what needs to be done so as to engineer how to be in receipt of the most amount of benefits payments from the state, including not engaging in legal work, giving the impression that they are single parent families and not forgetting the diseases primary manifestation which is to churn out an near endless supply of children that many have little intention of properly looking after as countless mainstream media reports continue to illustrate.

Britain's housing crisis manifests itself in over 250,000 families living in over crowded accommodation whilst as many as 600,000 live in under occupied properties.

One of the the coalition government's latest efforts to cure Britain of the benefits disease epidemic that infects as many as 8 million people of working age is the 'Under Occupancy Charge' that has come to be successfully publicised by vested interests as the 'Bedroom Tax', despite the fact that it is not a tax but an attempt to free up under occupied social housing stock properties with typically 3, 4 or even 5 bedrooms that continue to be held by individuals, couples or small families, when the properties are far more suitable for larger families stuck on long waiting lists whilst living in overcrowded properties. The policy will seek to implement a charge on those who choose to continue to live in under occupied properties and thus result in a reduction in housing benefit payments.

However, whilst the mainstream media may focus at great extent on the 'bedroom tax', the truth is that the implementation of the policy will barely make a dent in the £200 billion annual benefits bill of which £23 billion is spent on housing benefit of which the 'bedroom tax' will attempt to reduce by just 2% or about £400mill a year due to the dual fact that private properties and pensioners have been excluded, therefore single or pensioner couples living, in 2,3, 4 or even 5 bedroom houses whose children have long since left the nest will continue to be in full receipt of housing benefits and therefore continue to deprive working age families and non working families of their opportunity to also enjoy a family life as they have benefited from.

Similarly pensioners have been totally immune from the Coalition governments benefits cuts program which has virtually wholly focused on those of working age for the dual reasons of a. that the conservative party relies on the gray vote to get them elected, and b. that those of working age really should be shocked into work rather than wasting their whole lives from cradle to grave on benefits.

So today's implementation of the 'bedroom tax' will result in only partially curing perhaps no more than 1% or 2% of those infected with the benefits disease. And it should be remembered that many hard working people cannot afford spare bedrooms, whilst being forced to subsidise spare bedrooms for housing benefit claimants (most of whom do not work at all). Meanwhile highly vocal vested interests continue to force the government to spend money it does not have which creates the very inflation that the same people tend to moan about, whilst the national debt continues to expand exponentially towards a point where the markets Greece, Ireland, Spain and now Cyprus style say enough is enough your bankrupt!

Profiting from the Bedroom Tax

There's profit for housing benefit recipients in the details, and one such mega loop hole in the change in social housing is that tenants can now rent out their spare rooms for as much as hey like without affecting their housing benefit! Whilst for most areas of the UK this will earn a potential of £30-£50 per room per week, however in London the sky is literally the limit as a room in the right area can demand in excess of £150 per week!

Source: http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article39733.html

Nadeem Walayat

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk

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Nadeem Walayat has over 25 years experience of trading derivatives, portfolio management and analysing the financial markets, including one of few who both anticipated and Beat the 1987 Crash. Nadeem's forward looking analysis focuses on UK inflation, economy, interest rates and housing market. He is the author of four ebook's in the The Inflation Mega-Trend and Stocks Stealth Bull Market series.that can be downloaded for Free.

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