the forest path to the spring

nothing today for us from henry david thoreau (at least not from this day in 1852 for us, at least not as collected by laurence stapeton for us).

thursday something from edmond de goncourt for us (the capitulation of paris). with kilvert nothing until friday. 

'professor of economics and finance josh ryan-collins points out (that), since 2016, more homes have been bought as “additional dwellings” (second homes, holiday homes, airbnbs, buy to lets, and so on) than by first-time buyers.'

what are we to conclude from this? that there is enough money in the economy still but that the poor don't have enough of it to keep themselves housed. the housing stock is being converted into stores of capital or sources of rental income. 

look at the states. people driven out of their homes and onto the roads and the streets. 

as a result merely building more housing (and not enough of it is likely to be built to drive down the cost of it (because why would housebuilders do that?)) will not fix the housing shortage. 

the changes being introduced by the government will drive out smaller landlords and replace them with larger commercial landlords (and similarly with the farmers etc.).  

'at dusk, every evening, I used to go through the forest to the spring for water.' - malcolm lowry, the forest path to the spring. 

lowry's fond memories of living in the squatter camp at eridanus. it sounds idyllic/ (s)hellish but it must have been freezing in winter. horsemouth noticed it sandwiched between hear us o lord... and lunar caustic. this is the thing with lowry, everything was endlessly rewritten and repackaged. horsemouth's copy of october ferry to gabriola is elsewhere. his copy of dark as the grave where my friend is laid. his malcolm lowry biography. 

today more rubbish weather (well actually more 50/ 50 ish).