Quote Originally Posted by joecity View Post
This where will the money come from lark. Surely a government that can borrow money at a record low rate, create jobs through constructing housing stock that will in turn generate income and become an assert improve health, criminal justice cots, related improvements in getting people back to or keeping them in work, save countless millions on b and b s, housing benefit rip offs. The wider benefits to society of well housed people. You could ask what will the cost be of not doing it.
The UK government and every other government who issues its own currency doesn't need to borrow money with any interest attached because it can create any amount for itself at 0% - that's commonly known as quantitative easing, and the UK has magicked £450b of that into existence since 2008. Just 7% of that found its way into the economy, much of the rest lined the pockets of the usual suspects, the bankers.

UK debt to GDP is 90%. The government make out that's horrifically high as cover for swingeing cuts and the poorest have been in the crosshairs. What they never let on is it stood at almost 250% of GDP after World War 2. Britain recovered not by implementing austerity but the direct opposite. One component was building a million prefab homes in 7 years.