RAPID RESPONSES
Building problems
[Re: London homes still horribly expensive for first time buyers, yesterday]
Unfortunately, policy-makers are stuck in a house building dilemma. If they supply more homes to help first-time buyers, the price of the average home will drop – therefore moving many existing homeowners into negative equity.
Stephen Bishop
Private sector contractors are certainly better than public ones, but only provided there is competition and not one company providing the service. For example, if the managers running the Oyster card system were incompetent, could the government easily replace them with an alternative?
Steve Okare
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Better capitalists
[Re: Supporters of capitalism must help expose blundering firms, Thursday]
There’s no problem with capitalism. It just doesn’t work if long-term goals are ignored, if unrealistic yearly growth is blindly chased, and if governments step in and distort the market with bailouts, tariffs and subsidies.
Jonathan King
[Re: Shareholders can find a potent ally in activist funds, yesterday]
Gil Shidlo may be right to be optimistic about a better approach to reforming company management by activist funds. But can we be certain that they can override the anti-capitalist crowing of Shareholder Spring proponents?
Karl Carter