'the only houses any contractors are interested in building are high-end luxury homes since those have a higher profit margin. They will sit unbought as well, since they will still be out of most buyer's price ranges.'

If the developers keep on doing this, they will go bankrupt. It only makes sense if they ARE selling - which is the case in the UK where lots of large houses are getting built and bought.

Duke of Fentanyl
Marquis Heroin
Earl Crack
Viscount Cocaine
Baron Methamphetamine
Sir Cannabis

Where fire insurance has been underwritten by the state for some time.

Any financial institution issuing a mortgage on properties not protected by the sea wall need to be prosecuted for blatant misuse of their shareholders' money. Given that, no new properties should be being built that are in danger.

Beyond that: we face a major issue which nobody is facing up to...

ALL the beliefs at the centre of the present culture wars are metaphysical ideas with no objective foundation. Abortion is about when a fetus becomes a human being to be protected. The gay debate is about what sort of sexual activity is moral. The trans issue is about when is a male not a male. There is no objective answer to these questions, only beliefs that express themselves in legal outcomes.

Cheap partisan point scoring about the Democrats evil history does nobody any good. We have an unhealthy political discourse at the moment. Focusing on the errors of the past contributes nothing to the conversation.

There are two scenarios here:

1) School rolls are expanding, so there is a need for additional capacity in the school district. In this case school vouchers clearly save the taxpayers money

2) School rolls are falling. So schools need to be closed, somehow. If a building is rented out to a private school rather than have a small number of kids rattling round inside a building designed to far more, then everybody gains...

Vouchers and school choice undermine the power of teaching unions to impose their will and demand ever more money for education, despite there being no correlation between higher expenditure and better outcomes. We need a lot more thought about what schooling should be, and that's not happening.

It is not an issue that schools should not employ paedophiles. It is not an issue that burglary and murder should be crimes. So there is no debate about this. And it was not an issue that abortion should be a crime - because it was a crime and noone was disputing it. Then certain activists started to make it legal - and others started to bring it to the attention of the public.

Say after me: 'correlation is not causation'...

If the unions are acting in the best interests of all the stakeholders in the company, then they will not cause the firm to become uncompetitive. When they do then yes, there is a serious problem.

I've a complicated history here. As a Brit growing up in the 1970s when the unions made life miserable with power cuts and high inflation because of their demands, I was not a fan. Yet by 2000 I was a union representative following my public sector employer's attempt to enforce massive pay cuts on some staff as a result of a 'job evaluation' exercise. I joined at that point. A few years later the existing rep moved to a new job outside the IT section and I got the gig.

On a good day unions can ensure the better operation of the firm. They enable concerns to be transmitted upwards and challenges raised. Unfortunately too often they get too powerful, start to throw their weight around, and do things that are destructive of the firm in the long term. I had opportunities to be obstructive for the sake of it - but resisted. But I did challenge crass behaviour to good effect at times.

The IT industry didn't need unions because the demand for our skills meant that we could easily move on. Now it's getting tougher and firms will be tempted to bully staff because they don't have an easy alternative: 'Unpaid overtime, unpaid on call time, etc. etc. So - given the option - join. Use the power wisely.

I'm retired now - and very grateful I'm not facing this crisis. Best of luck!

If so we may see some rather more serious consequences. The fines GDPR allows are spectacular... here's hoping that someone will cut and paste the evidence and outcome of this conclusion as the basis for a criminal charge in the EU.

That was the approach of the Roman Empire. Nothing new...

by the people that matter...

If you're going to be snarki, then so shall I! :)

We underestimate the real prosperity of the world today because we don't value things like this. Impossible 40 years ago, access to this is now part of our life. Yet it is not captured in measures of social well being. For those of us to whom such things are attractive - and there are many equally valuable other things on the net - we live in a golden era. Yes, and in this case, ad free as well, thanks to the generosity of the British TV licence fee payer!