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Property developer Gerry Knight & Lexadon fined £175k under Proceeds of Crime Act

Perhaps what is needed is a "Sofa" thread for Landlords here.

Can swap experiences of how hard done by they are. And how ungrateful tenants are. Me and my buy to let flat. Why are people so rude about landlords? They are only doing what is reasonable.

:rolleyes:
 
Tulster218 said:
Most property developers have to be accountable to their investors - Portobello, Antic, Lexadon - that's how it works.

The point I'm making is that when Laxadon offered Brixton Hill Studios a ten-year-lease at a higher rate than their previous ten-year-lease, they were acting reasonably. It's how the system works, and it's the same system which allowed Brixton Hill Studios to lease the space in the first place. Lexadon's behaviour is unremarkable to all but the most biased observer.

It would be a scary world to live in if every tenant had to rely on the generosity of landlords to lease a space. I like the system we have where landlords are landlords and arts funders are arts funders.
Click to expand...
Do you think that a company that has earned tens of millions from exploiting an area for relentless profit should have any sense of social responsibility to that area, or do you think it's just fine for landlords to squeeze people for as much cash as they possibly can, contributing to the area's cultural decline?

I could be wrong, but judging by your posts here, you seem like the kind of person that would excitedly clap along to Thatcher's "There's no such thing as society" mantra.
 
editor said:
Do you think that a company that has earned tens of millions from exploiting an area for relentless profit should have any sense of social responsibility to that area, or do you think it's just fine for landlords to squeeze people for as much cash as they possibly can, contributing to the area's cultural decline?

I could be wrong, but judging by your posts here, you seem like the kind of person that would excitedly clap along to Thatcher's "There's no such thing as society" mantra.
Click to expand...
To take your second point first, Margaret Thatcher's statement is a quote from an interview she did with Woman's Own in 1987. It was widely criticised at the time. Perhaps you don't have a copy of her autobiography to hand, but you might want to know that she "clarified" the statement saying "My meaning, was that society was not an abstraction, separate from the men and women who composed it, but a living structure of individuals, families, neighbours and voluntary associations.“ It was a clumsy attempt on her part to define Methodological Individualism. It's a widely held world view, and in fact you talk about Jerry Knight as an individual, ascribing motives and ethics to his behaviour rather than seeing the world in a more macroscopic way. It suggests that it's your world view too. But I don't know why you're trying to derail the thread with a discussion with a discussion about Margaret Thatcher.

And to your first point, I would say that you're again using the language of folk-economics. You talk about "exploiting an area" and "squeezing people". This is where we fundamentally disagree. An area isn't exploited like like cutting down a forest or excavating a mine. There isn't a fixed amount of wealth that gets squeezed, out of an area, like water out of a sponge. Wealth isn't like water. Wealth can be created. We don't have to fight about who gets it, we can cooperate about how we create it together. Three hundred years ago the human race had almost nothing. Now we have schools and hospitals, and roads and iPhones. The whole world is much wealthier than it was. Humans created this wealth.

Wealth is created when two parties make an exchange. When a man buys a beer in the pub, he wants the beer more than he wanted the money. The pub landlord wanted the money more than he wanted the beer. Both sides of the trade get something better than what they had. No one is being exploited. No one is being squeezed. Far from it. People who go to pubs regularly say that they are "supporting the pub". They are please to have this When I buy bananas in Tesco, I want the bananas more than I want my money, and Tesco wants my money more than it wants the bananas. We both gain something by the trade. When a South American farmer fills a ship with bananas, and it comes back a few weeks later with toasters and computers, he has gained. Trade is what creates wealth.

When Lexadon buys a property from an owner, both sides of the deal are getting something they want, in return for something which has lesser value to them. It's "Win Win", as the cliché goes. When Lexadon, (or whoever), leased a space to Brixton Hill Studios, they both were giving up something they wanted, in return for something they wanted even more. Both parties gained from the transaction. When a man buys a beer in a pub, he's not exploiting the pub, nor is the pub exploiting him. When I buy bananas in Tesco, I'm not exploiting them, nor are they exploiting me. When Lexagon leases a space to Brixton Hill studios, neither side is exploiting the other. They're both creating wealth together.

You rightly complain of the high rents in the area, both of housing and commercial space. The problem is a lack of supply. When a landlord has a property, she can easily increase the rent, because she knows that the tenant can't easily find somewhere else to live. If there were lots of suitable local properties then the tenant could move out to a new better property. The landlord would have to lower the rent to attract a new tenant. The price of local housing, and the level of rents is controlled by demand and supply. Building more property doesn’t just help the people who live there, it helps everyone who already rents a home, by keeping prices down. Aldi doesn’t have low prices because they’re really really kind people, they know that if they put their prices up we’d go elsewhere. As Adam Smith says “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.” The same is true of landlords. We don’t need to worry about Lexadon’s motives. More housing and commercial space is good for everybody.

Some people believe the answer is that government (society) should regulate rents. That they should keep them very low. The problem with that is that if prices were reduced then demand for housing would increase massively. Every parent with children sharing a room would want a bigger house, every arguing couple would want to separate, every young professional would want a flat of their own, as they do in most countries. The demand for housing would be overwhelming, and so government would then have step in and decide who gets a property and who doesn't. Just as if government told pubs what price to sell beer, it wouldn't make pubs better, and if government told supermarkets what price to sell baked beans then it wouldn’t make food distribution better - the same is true of housing.

If all property were subject to price controls then the only way to get somewhere to live would be to go on a waiting list. Lambeth Council aren't very good at doing things, and national government is even worse. I don't know why anyone would give them more things to do. It hasn't worked anywhere it's been tried. Do you think if everyone in Lambeth were on a waiting list for housing, then people like you and me would be at the front of the queue? Your home would soon be converted to storage for Jacob Rees-Mogg's tie collection, and you'd have to move to a small village outside of Newcastle. His kids would get to practice drums at Brixton Hill Studios, whilst Alabama 3 twiddled their thumbs outside on the pavement. Claire Holland would put out a press release about celebrating and nurturing young talent. Probably.

The answer is that we need to build more housing and more commercial space in Brixton. In a beer shortage, I'd be glad that breweries and pubs existed, in a food shortage, I'd be glad that farmers and supermarkets existed, and in a housing shortage I'm glad that property developers exist. It has nothing to do with squeezing people, or exploiting them. It helps us all if property developers build more not less.

And I still don't know what is meant by rampant Toryboy.
 
Tulster218 said:
To take your second point first, Margaret Thatcher's statement is a quote from an interview she did with Woman's Own in 1987. It was widely criticised at the time. Perhaps you don't have a copy of her autobiography to hand, but you might want to know that she "clarified" the statement saying "My meaning, was that society was not an abstraction, separate from the men and women who composed it, but a living structure of individuals, families, neighbours and voluntary associations.“ It was a clumsy attempt on her part to define Methodological Individualism. It's a widely held world view, and in fact you talk about Jerry Knight as an individual, ascribing motives and ethics to his behaviour rather than seeing the world in a more macroscopic way. It suggests that it's your world view too. But I don't know why you're trying to derail the thread with a discussion with a discussion about Margaret Thatcher.

And to your first point, I would say that you're again using the language of folk-economics. You talk about "exploiting an area" and "squeezing people". This is where we fundamentally disagree. An area isn't exploited like like cutting down a forest or excavating a mine. There isn't a fixed amount of wealth that gets squeezed, out of an area, like water out of a sponge. Wealth isn't like water. Wealth can be created. We don't have to fight about who gets it, we can cooperate about how we create it together. Three hundred years ago the human race had almost nothing. Now we have schools and hospitals, and roads and iPhones. The whole world is much wealthier than it was. Humans created this wealth.

Wealth is created when two parties make an exchange. When a man buys a beer in the pub, he wants the beer more than he wanted the money. The pub landlord wanted the money more than he wanted the beer. Both sides of the trade get something better than what they had. No one is being exploited. No one is being squeezed. Far from it. People who go to pubs regularly say that they are "supporting the pub". They are please to have this When I buy bananas in Tesco, I want the bananas more than I want my money, and Tesco wants my money more than it wants the bananas. We both gain something by the trade. When a South American farmer fills a ship with bananas, and it comes back a few weeks later with toasters and computers, he has gained. Trade is what creates wealth.

When Lexadon buys a property from an owner, both sides of the deal are getting something they want, in return for something which has lesser value to them. It's "Win Win", as the cliché goes. When Lexadon, (or whoever), leased a space to Brixton Hill Studios, they both were giving up something they wanted, in return for something they wanted even more. Both parties gained from the transaction. When a man buys a beer in a pub, he's not exploiting the pub, nor is the pub exploiting him. When I buy bananas in Tesco, I'm not exploiting them, nor are they exploiting me. When Lexagon leases a space to Brixton Hill studios, neither side is exploiting the other. They're both creating wealth together.

You rightly complain of the high rents in the area, both of housing and commercial space. The problem is a lack of supply. When a landlord has a property, she can easily increase the rent, because she knows that the tenant can't easily find somewhere else to live. If there were lots of suitable local properties then the tenant could move out to a new better property. The landlord would have to lower the rent to attract a new tenant. The price of local housing, and the level of rents is controlled by demand and supply. Building more property doesn’t just help the people who live there, it helps everyone who already rents a home, by keeping prices down. Aldi doesn’t have low prices because they’re really really kind people, they know that if they put their prices up we’d go elsewhere. As Adam Smith says “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.” The same is true of landlords. We don’t need to worry about Lexadon’s motives. More housing and commercial space is good for everybody.

Some people believe the answer is that government (society) should regulate rents. That they should keep them very low. The problem with that is that if prices were reduced then demand for housing would increase massively. Every parent with children sharing a room would want a bigger house, every arguing couple would want to separate, every young professional would want a flat of their own, as they do in most countries. The demand for housing would be overwhelming, and so government would then have step in and decide who gets a property and who doesn't. Just as if government told pubs what price to sell beer, it wouldn't make pubs better, and if government told supermarkets what price to sell baked beans then it wouldn’t make food distribution better - the same is true of housing.

If all property were subject to price controls then the only way to get somewhere to live would be to go on a waiting list. Lambeth Council aren't very good at doing things, and national government is even worse. I don't know why anyone would give them more things to do. It hasn't worked anywhere it's been tried. Do you think if everyone in Lambeth were on a waiting list for housing, then people like you and me would be at the front of the queue? Your home would soon be converted to storage for Jacob Rees-Mogg's tie collection, and you'd have to move to a small village outside of Newcastle. His kids would get to practice drums at Brixton Hill Studios, whilst Alabama 3 twiddled their thumbs outside on the pavement. Claire Holland would put out a press release about celebrating and nurturing young talent. Probably.

The answer is that we need to build more housing and more commercial space in Brixton. In a beer shortage, I'd be glad that breweries and pubs existed, in a food shortage, I'd be glad that farmers and supermarkets existed, and in a housing shortage I'm glad that property developers exist. It has nothing to do with squeezing people, or exploiting them. It helps us all if property developers build more not less.

And I still don't know what is meant by rampant Toryboy.
Click to expand...
So you think it's OK for multi millionaires to demand the highest possible rents they can get away regardless of the damage that it causes to the existing community?

Like I said, rampant Toryboy,
 
I carefully explained how consentual lease agreements benefit the community, regardless of the participants financial status.

And you still don't know what rampant means, you don't know what my voting intentions are, and you don't know what my gender is. That's ignorance, prejudice and sexism, all in one insult.
 
Tulster218 said:
And to your first point, I would say that you're again using the language of folk-economics. You talk about "exploiting an area" and "squeezing people". This is where we fundamentally disagree. An area isn't exploited like like cutting down a forest or excavating a mine. There isn't a fixed amount of wealth that gets squeezed, out of an area, like water out of a sponge. Wealth isn't like water. Wealth can be created. We don't have to fight about who gets it, we can cooperate about how we create it together. Three hundred years ago the human race had almost nothing. Now we have schools and hospitals, and roads and iPhones. The whole world is much wealthier than it was. Humans created this wealth.
Click to expand...
you're right an area isn't exploited but the men and women who comprise the population of an area are being exploited. it's a simple fact of work, that bosses pay workers less than the value of what they have produced - exploitation.
 
Tulster218 said:
To take your second point first, Margaret Thatcher's statement is a quote from an interview she did with Woman's Own in 1987. It was widely criticised at the time. Perhaps you don't have a copy of her autobiography to hand, but you might want to know that she "clarified" the statement saying "My meaning, was that society was not an abstraction, separate from the men and women who composed it, but a living structure of individuals, families, neighbours and voluntary associations.“ It was a clumsy attempt on her part to define Methodological Individualism. It's a widely held world view, and in fact you talk about Jerry Knight as an individual, ascribing motives and ethics to his behaviour rather than seeing the world in a more macroscopic way. It suggests that it's your world view too. But I don't know why you're trying to derail the thread with a discussion with a discussion about Margaret Thatcher.

And to your first point, I would say that you're again using the language of folk-economics. You talk about "exploiting an area" and "squeezing people". This is where we fundamentally disagree. An area isn't exploited like like cutting down a forest or excavating a mine. There isn't a fixed amount of wealth that gets squeezed, out of an area, like water out of a sponge. Wealth isn't like water. Wealth can be created. We don't have to fight about who gets it, we can cooperate about how we create it together. Three hundred years ago the human race had almost nothing. Now we have schools and hospitals, and roads and iPhones. The whole world is much wealthier than it was. Humans created this wealth.

Wealth is created when two parties make an exchange. When a man buys a beer in the pub, he wants the beer more than he wanted the money. The pub landlord wanted the money more than he wanted the beer. Both sides of the trade get something better than what they had. No one is being exploited. No one is being squeezed. Far from it. People who go to pubs regularly say that they are "supporting the pub". They are please to have this When I buy bananas in Tesco, I want the bananas more than I want my money, and Tesco wants my money more than it wants the bananas. We both gain something by the trade. When a South American farmer fills a ship with bananas, and it comes back a few weeks later with toasters and computers, he has gained. Trade is what creates wealth.

When Lexadon buys a property from an owner, both sides of the deal are getting something they want, in return for something which has lesser value to them. It's "Win Win", as the cliché goes. When Lexadon, (or whoever), leased a space to Brixton Hill Studios, they both were giving up something they wanted, in return for something they wanted even more. Both parties gained from the transaction. When a man buys a beer in a pub, he's not exploiting the pub, nor is the pub exploiting him. When I buy bananas in Tesco, I'm not exploiting them, nor are they exploiting me. When Lexagon leases a space to Brixton Hill studios, neither side is exploiting the other. They're both creating wealth together.

You rightly complain of the high rents in the area, both of housing and commercial space. The problem is a lack of supply. When a landlord has a property, she can easily increase the rent, because she knows that the tenant can't easily find somewhere else to live. If there were lots of suitable local properties then the tenant could move out to a new better property. The landlord would have to lower the rent to attract a new tenant. The price of local housing, and the level of rents is controlled by demand and supply. Building more property doesn’t just help the people who live there, it helps everyone who already rents a home, by keeping prices down. Aldi doesn’t have low prices because they’re really really kind people, they know that if they put their prices up we’d go elsewhere. As Adam Smith says “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.” The same is true of landlords. We don’t need to worry about Lexadon’s motives. More housing and commercial space is good for everybody.

Some people believe the answer is that government (society) should regulate rents. That they should keep them very low. The problem with that is that if prices were reduced then demand for housing would increase massively. Every parent with children sharing a room would want a bigger house, every arguing couple would want to separate, every young professional would want a flat of their own, as they do in most countries. The demand for housing would be overwhelming, and so government would then have step in and decide who gets a property and who doesn't. Just as if government told pubs what price to sell beer, it wouldn't make pubs better, and if government told supermarkets what price to sell baked beans then it wouldn’t make food distribution better - the same is true of housing.

If all property were subject to price controls then the only way to get somewhere to live would be to go on a waiting list. Lambeth Council aren't very good at doing things, and national government is even worse. I don't know why anyone would give them more things to do. It hasn't worked anywhere it's been tried. Do you think if everyone in Lambeth were on a waiting list for housing, then people like you and me would be at the front of the queue? Your home would soon be converted to storage for Jacob Rees-Mogg's tie collection, and you'd have to move to a small village outside of Newcastle. His kids would get to practice drums at Brixton Hill Studios, whilst Alabama 3 twiddled their thumbs outside on the pavement. Claire Holland would put out a press release about celebrating and nurturing young talent. Probably.

The answer is that we need to build more housing and more commercial space in Brixton. In a beer shortage, I'd be glad that breweries and pubs existed, in a food shortage, I'd be glad that farmers and supermarkets existed, and in a housing shortage I'm glad that property developers exist. It has nothing to do with squeezing people, or exploiting them. It helps us all if property developers build more not less.

And I still don't know what is meant by rampant Toryboy.
Click to expand...

This is classic 19c laissez-faire economics.

It is Thatcherism. What was brought back in by her. In a particular form.

Though I think yours the more socially liberal kind.

You could read some Marx.

Not everyone is a winner in the exchanges in his analysis

Most of us sell our labour to get by. As Marx showed this is not an equal exchange.

Labour is a special kind of commodity in a capitalist society. Yes Labour does create wealth. Wealth is created by the workers.

However a portion of the labour they sell is taken by the capitalist as "surplus value".

It's a myth that the market works perfectly. And if it is not it's because it's not "free" enough is a myth.

This country has had a generation of a Thatcherite Laissez-faire experiment.

The end result has seen wealth distributed unequally.

This isn't to be dismissed as "folk" economics it's perfectly reasonable for ordinary workings people to resent how the system works.
 
Last edited:
Tulster218 said:
I carefully explained how consentual lease agreements benefit the community, regardless of the participants financial status.
Click to expand...
I don't see how this well liked music studio potentially having to move out of the area due to rent rises is benefiting the community.

I
 
Pickman's model said:
you're right an area isn't exploited but the men and women who comprise the population of an area are being exploited. it's a simple fact of work, that bosses pay workers less than the value of what they have produced - exploitation.
Click to expand...
Like the bosses of Brixton Hill Studios exploiting their employees.

Those rotten capitalist bastards!
 
DaphneM said:
Like the bosses of Brixton Hill Studios exploiting their employees.

Those rotten capitalist bastards!
Click to expand...
Exactly. I don't see how it can be called exploitation when it's consentual. We don't improve Brixton by firing all of the employees. Self-employed people aren't self-harming.

It's a fact of work that emploees don't show up work unless there's something in it for them.
 
Tulster218 said:
Exactly. I don't see how it can be called exploitation when it's consentual. We don't improve Brixton by firing all of the employees. Self-employed people aren't self-harming.

It's a fact of work that emploees don't show up work unless there's something in it for them.
Click to expand...
You cannot expect any kind of intelligence when discussing this kind of thing. Not worth arguing with them imho
 
DaphneM said:
You cannot expect any kind of intelligence when discussing this kind of thing. Not worth arguing with them imho
Click to expand...
I understand what you're saying, but I think it is worth sticking your head in someone else's echo chamber occasionally. Britain has become so polarised. For those of us who can withstand the abuse it's worth having a go.
 
Gramsci said:
I don't see how this well liked music studio potentially having to move out of the area due to rent rises is benefiting the community.

I
Click to expand...
It's hugely detrimental. It was the main resource for a slew of local bands of all backgrounds and genres and there's nothing to replace it in the area.

But I'd love Tulster218 to explain why Jerry Knight's bank balance gain is somehow good for the wider community.
 
Tulster218 said:
I understand what you're saying, but I think it is worth sticking your head in someone else's echo chamber occasionally. Britain has become so polarised. For those of us who can withstand the abuse it's worth having a go.
Click to expand...

And why is Britain polarised?

Because, unlike you, they are not reasonable and don't understand how the world works?

Could be that living standards for a lot of working people have declined over recent years. And there is no sign they will improve. That's imo a factor in polarising society.

But somehow your above it all.

For someone going about echo chambers it's pretty obvious you have me on ignore.
 
editor said:
It's hugely detrimental. It was the main resource for a slew of local bands of all backgrounds and genres and there's nothing to replace it in the area.

But I'd love Tulster218 to explain why Jerry Knight's bank balance gain is somehow good for the wider community.
Click to expand...
His bank balance is irrelevant. I've argued that point repeatedly.
 
Tulster218 said:
His bank balance is irrelevant. I've argued that point repeatedly.
Click to expand...
I disagree but I'm still waiting to find out why a predatory landlord demanding full whack for every property he gets his hands on - and thus pricing out valuable community resources - is somehow good for the wider community.

And just to double check: you don't think landlords should have any sense of community cohesion or should feel even the tiniest obligation to give a little back to the the area they've ruthlessly exploited to build up their personal fortune?

Now, I'm not suggesting he should start giving away stuff or run anything at a loss, but there's a whole spectrum of possibilities running from charging enough to keep some tidy profit coming in (and thus allowing it to stay open), and cranking to the max for the fullest, fattest profit possible and pricing them out of town.
 
Tulster218 said:
There are other, cleverer people than me who can explain to you why that's not a convincing argument.

I think it's perfectly reasonable for me to not be a Marxist.

I don't think Jerry Knight or Brixton Hill Studios are Marxists either.
Click to expand...
You don't need to be a Marxist to work out that workers produce value and are paid less than the value they produce, the difference being surplus value and thus exploitation. This doesn't rely on one accepting marx's politics
 
Gramsci said:
And why is Britain polarised?

Because, unlike you, they are not reasonable and don't understand how the world works?

Could be that living standards for a lot of working people have declined over recent years. And there is no sign they will improve. That's imo a factor in polarising society.

But somehow your above it all.

For someone going about echo chambers it's pretty obvious you have me on ignore.
Click to expand...
How lucky you are
 
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