Fascism in The Netherlands

While on July 1st 2008 fascism was already introduced into the horeca sector when Dutch Government took away the right of bar owners to run their property as they saw fit with the introduction of the smoking ban, Labour (PvdA) in Amsterdam overbid the CDA smoking ban by taking away the right of home owners to do with their home as they see fit, a living ban. Here's the deal:

Anybody owning a small home or apartment with a purchase price of up to 163.000 euros (upping that to 200.000 is under consideration) and not living there permanently (i.e. the owner has not registered in Amsterdam) will be forced to rent his property out to the social sector, even if the property is used during the week to avoid commuting to the owner's proper home, which happens quite a lot.
One drawback is that you cannot be registered at two addresses. So if your normal residence is some other house, even nextdoor, there is no way to register for two houses.

The other drawback is that houses in this pricerange easily 'do' mortgages of 700 euros monthly and up. As Dutch government have decided that social rent for these houses is around 400 euro's, maxing out at 548 for more expensive ones, owners are forced to become landlords of their own property, paying out up to 1000 euros monthly, and receiving only 548 euros max.

Labour calls that 'fair', as they 'really cannot allow homes to stay empty', 'empty' meaning nobody's registered there. That owners now will face severe losses, as well as the use of their property, is just 'tough luck'.

While this is against European law, which states that governments cannot force home owners to rent out their property below its cost, PvdA doesn't care. It claims housing need is such that this policy is just and justified. Guess who will be PvdA's preferred new renters.

Typical leftist hypocrisy shows through: ex mayor Job Cohen (PvdA, of course) will be allowed to stay living in his luxury mayor's home, while his residence is elsewhere. Also The city of Amsterdam owns (how a public body can own property is something for another discussion) a stock of around 400 social rental homes, which are not rented out, but exploited by hotels like Barbizon and Krasnapolsky at 200 euros a night.

If housing need is so severe that private owners should be robbed of the use of their property, which I would consider unthinkable, then at least Amsterdam should stop their fraudulous behavior with its own stock, which is specifically intended for social rent.

While the city admits this fraud, it also has a 'solution' for it. It suggests that the rating standards for its own stock should be changed such that it no longer follows country-wide rules and thus is exempted from the rule. Reasoning behind it is that purchase prices are such that cost-effective renting out at established prices is impossible.

Yeah. Sure. Do as I say, not as I do.

Welcome to The Netherlands, welcome to Amsterdam, welcome to Labour. Although even VVD (Fredom and Democracy Party, supposedly conservatives) are now part of the city council, so VVD is accomplice. Welcome to open fascism, where the state denies owners their property rights.

Labour supposedly is 'social', caring for the 'laborers', the lower and middle classes. Just look at Gordon Brown, who can be rented to speech now for a mere 100.000 euros an hour. Yes that's per hour. Well, they should probably pay me that amount for me to suffer an hour of listening to this criminal. Oh, and he 'does not expect to have to pay for business class trips and luxury accomodation', while he does expect to 'travel extensively' for his speech tours. For an extra 20 grand, his wife gets to be part of the package as well.

There's nothing 'social' about socialism. The only thing Labour and, more generally, the political Left, is good at, is disrupting society, while taking care of their own, at the expense of others. Abolish the state, introduce anarcho-capitalism.