In the news

Ah bugger I'm off work this week, 19th was the first day back. I'll have to break my "no logging in on holiday" rule and shift a bunch of meetings while there's still some gaps next week.

If you can't take more Queen TV, Knight Rider is on. Two episodes! Freeview channel 41. Michael and KITT are putting bikers in their place.

I have a gap at 41. Retune time!

Edit: Legend!

It's called Legend. Hurry up, Michael is in disguise, creeping around the dirty bikers' camp.

I've not even turned the TV on since finding out via this place that she'd croaked, and looks like I won't be turning it on until at least the 20th. Pass the beer.

If you could put that 20% on a loan, not a bad idea?

The way house prices are going though many adults cannot move out as rent is too expensive. It's getting bad in some parts of NL and England too.

So if the parents die and they have to sell the house but cannot buy/rent anywhere it's really a bit shit.

At some point my parents die. We bought. My brother hasn't a chance (Amsterdam is £££) to buy without a lump sum.

So a 100 inheritance tax means he gets nothing which is a bit shit...

Obviously solution is far more housing but that's going "well".

You have to sell your house to pay for care in Northern Ireland.

It's absurd you cannot insure yourself for this, it's possible in the Netherlands.

One of the reasons we bought is so we can stop paying rent asap and save up for all that.

This is the issue though isn't it - it becomes really chicken and egg. Demand continues because some people have made enough on property that they can fund children's House purchases / leave big inheritances - that then contributes to prices being high, prices are high so more and more people feel they need to be able to do that to help, the cycle continues...

Not easy to see a way out tbh

That would make the housing shortage worse.
UK/USA/Canada all have issues with large funds buying up housing stock and converting it to rentals. These funds can outbid any private buyer. They have a serious influence on the market, both raising pricing and reducing available supply of affordable housing.
Houses staying in the family is better IMO.

Do these funds knock the houses down after they buy them? I don’t buy the shortage argument.

Mostly they rent them out. Some are knocked down if they have obsolete wiring, plumbing or insulation. Sometimes the cost of upgrading is not worth it.
Sometimes the land is where all the value is. Knock the old house down and put up a new build, sell for two or three times your cost.
My point is that private buyers cannot buy them.
I have a couple of friends who do this, one has over 40 houses plus a few walkup apartment buildings.

On balance sounds better than the current UK market dominated by boomer dinner party landlords.

Germany has some of the most affordable house prices and rents in Western Europe whilst simultaneously having a concentrated corporate landlord sector.

Don't be scared! This won't hurt. I have assumed you have some knowledge of the basics, but if any of the steps are puzzling I can explain

1. Go here https://www.utorrent.com/downloads/complete/track/stable/os/win/ and download uTorrent Classic.
   
2. Install it. Normally installing something is just clicking 'Yes' or 'Accept' a few times, without reading what's on the screen. But in this case you will need to click 'No' or 'Decline' once or twice, because you will be offered a free trial of something or other. So read what's on the screen and try to refuse your free trials. It doesn't matter if you mess it up, because the trial software is not harmful and can easily be uninstalled.
   
3. Go here https://www.torproject.org/download/ and download Tor by clicking on 'Download for Windows'. [Unimportant factoid: Tor is a secure version of Firefox. It allows you to go to The Pirate Bay without your broadband provider knowing. Broadband providers usually block The Pirate Bay.]
   
4. Install Tor. This time you can click on 'Yes' or 'Accept' without reading what's on the screen.
   
5. Go here https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.en_GB.html and click on 'Download VLC' [VLC is a video player which is usually better with torrented videos than the 'Films & TV' thing provided with Windows.]
   
6. Install VLC. You can click on 'Yes' or 'Accept' without reading what's on the screen.
   
   

Now you've finished installing apps. Here are the steps for stealing the films.

1. Run uTorrent.
   
2. Run Tor. [You may notice Tor is slow. This is because it's secure. Use it as if it was your usual browser....Chrome or Microsoft Edge or what have you.]
   
3. Use Tor to go here: https://thepiratebay.org. [Sometimes Pirate Bay isn't available. Try again later.]
   
4. When it is available you'll see a ship with a search box below it. Type the name of the film or TV series and the year of release into the search box. [Putting the year in gives more accurate search results.] Then tick 'Video' and click on 'Pirate Search'.
   
5. Searching is slow, but after a while you'll see a list. Each item is a file copy of the film. The files at the top of the list are usually easier to get.
   
6. For example, search for "Another Round 2020".
   
7. When the list of files appears, hover over the magnet next to the file at the top of the list. Right click. Left click on 'Copy Link'. Go to your uTorrent window. At the top left, left click on 'File', then on 'Add Torrent from URL'. A small window appears: click on 'OK'. Another window appears: click on 'OK' again. The file will appear in your uTorrent window. Hopefully its status will change to 'Downloading'. When it's finished downloading, the status changes to 'Seeding.' Hover over the film name, right click, then left click on 'Open containing folder'. A new window appears. Left click on the film to play it. Windows will ask you how you want to play it. Choose VLC.
   
   

Good luck! This was a bigger job than I expected....I'll be amazed if you get anywhere with it!

I disagree. A society with plentiful affordable housing available for rent or purchase with strict rent control and huge penalties for rogue landlords is the key. No more mortgages for second homes.. No section 22.

The UK is obsessed with property ownership, in part because landlords are cunts who get to charge what they want.

There are plenty of countries in Europe that give tenants long term rights and rent protections. Surely all anybody wants is the right to a home that they can afford amd is theirs for as long as they want it?

Really? A friend told.me what they pay in Berlin!

Not sure that’s a great representation of Germany as a whole given how they have been fucking around with rent controls.

Look at the chart of house price growth over the last 20 years in Europe and Germany stands out as one of the few places that didn’t have the ‘07 or (potentially) ‘21 bubbles.

I'm not sure that's the big demand increase.

Divorces / increase in population concentrated in cities / bad use of space / increase in price of land / selling space to developers for luxury apartments all play a role.

Perhaps inheritance tax should be 100 % but everyone gets a cut?

Thanks for this - I might give it a go. I simply CBA to ever try to get into this kind of stuff in the past, but your instructions have slightly motivated me!

Agreed, financing that as a normal person is impossible, two beautiful wrecks near us.

Cash buy only, no way we could renovate them.

I hope it works you - let me know if you get stuck.

If you want even easier I have a browser extension VPN (browsec for Chrome I think) so I don't have to bother with tor and magnet links just auto open my torrent client when clicked. I also prefer eztv for TV torrents and rarbg for films. Also I stream all the stuff to my telly/Chromecast with Plex.

Massive increases in population competing for a finite amount of housing.
It only takes a small reduction in supply to set off increases in prices.
Also there is a limited amount of land in many large cities. People don’t want to live too far from work/school/shopping so they become more concentrated.
What really bothers me is the conversion of agricultural land to subdivisions. A lot of the Fraser Valley east of Vancouver and a lot of the Okanagan area has been consumed by urban sprawl. This means Canada will no longer be self sufficient for food supply.

Thanks, that's really good. Never used eztv or rarbg before. And I didn't know there was such a thing as an easy, free VPN. What can I use it for?

I only use it to torrent shit because the sites are blocked otherwise, I doubt it's quite as secure as tor but no-one has broken down my door for my copy of frozen 2 yet.

Interestingly, the high water mark for support for the monarchy appears to have been just after the Queen parachuted into the Olympic stadium in 2012.

Haha she didn't though
So her support is based on lies and deception

Who knew