Loads of exclaimation marks, CR.
I'm going to suggest you switch to decaf after lunch.

I dig my 1% property tax bill, and feel it's fair.

The only way i've been screwed is my county values my property @ $50k more than we paid for it 5 years ago, a flesh wound in the scheme of things.

How much would I pay if I was in Upstate NY in property taxes for a home?

Wouldn't taking out a refi convert the current non-recourse debt into new full-recourse debt?

CalculatedRisk wrote:

"Is this too good to be true?"

and if you gotta ask...

great post!

HomeGnome wrote:

Use as many as you feel like.

here, have some of mine:!!!!!!!!!!

It's getting harder and harder to dream up ways to give our money away. Didn't someone mention helicopters?

I know, let Neel Kashkari loose on the problem...He'll fix it master ACE that he is.

Now, free lunches are handed out in the form of to the likes of Lawler.

No body will ask if its too good to be true as that's just plain Un'merican.

In light of the previous discussion -

Have a few of these, gratis, Tomás:

¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡

shoulda said: give him some of mine

Have you ever seen that contraption like an isolation booth, where air is pushing money all over the place and in the confusion it all looks the same, and the contestant has to grab as much money as they can in 60 seconds, and it's mostly dollar bills, but seen one dead president, seen em' all?

Helicopters would be great for spreading the manna to the masses~

Juvenal Delinquent wrote:

Helicopters would be great for spreading the manna to the masses~

Those were weird helicopters from aliens...it only spread the manna up and it never came back down.

Iceland continues to amaze...

Moody's Puts Iceland's Baa3 Rating On Outlook Negative, Next Stop - Junk, As Island Nation Continues Giving Banks the Finger | zero hedge

ghostfaceinvestah wrote:

Yet another example of the Administration knowingly breaking the law, and Congress not insisting that the laws they created are followed.

We just can't seem to catch a break with these administrations we keep electing....

Juvenal Delinquent wrote:

Helicopters would be great for spreading the manna to the masses

I don't, know helicopters are very expensive to operate and maintain. It's a machine that's essentially continually trying to rip itself apart, I know a guy who's worked with many types for over 20 years....they're beasts.

curious wrote:

Lawler is writing as if he assumes the MS analysts want to help the borrowers. I'd reconsider that assumption.

There are many, many houses underwater, some by 50%.
There are many, many short sales and REOs selling for 30% to 80% under the 05 highs.

There is no refi program, no modification program, no stimulas that is going to change those facts.

Either most everyone moves, or we hyper inflate fast, or we move slowly through the housing mess.

Hey, just combine their program with a $6500/buyer government program to cover closing costs.....Slam Dunk!!

josap wrote:

There is no refi program, no modification program, no stimulas that is going to change those facts.

That is the reality. We need to accept it and let both the underwater homeowner AND their creditors take the hit. Pretending that the situation is any different will only make the day of reckoning even worse.

Cinco-X wrote:

That is the reality. We need to accept it and let both the underwater homeowner AND their creditors take the hit.

Except it is pretty obvious the plan is to convince/encourage/fool/scare the sheeple into signing up for a lifetime of interest slavery.

Outsider
VAT is a sales tax. It applies only to final sales, not business2business or other intermediate transactions. The reporting is more robust, if you sell or buy something there is a transaction trail that either results in claiming exemption or remitting the taxes for a final sale. Generally a VAT is refunded on exports, applied to imports.

Rob Dawg
if you're so worried about a slippery slope argument:
- what is the correlation between govt receipts and spending
- why not demonstrate or lobby for a repeal of income taxes instead

at the end of the day money has to be collected, and the only logical concern is to have that done in a way that is efficient, effective, and resilient to cheating

if you think too much money is being spent, or too many others are benefiting from loopholes then argue against that
have you not complained about illegal immigrants not paying income or payroll taxes? don't you want a more manufacturing friendly policy?

i think mentioning a VAT has become a dog whistle cue to begin hysteria

another short sale just hit my neighborhood. Originally listed at $390K. Now at $295K.

Pretty soon it is going to be really hard to get an appraisal with comps like that around.

12th, are the people left asking for reassessments on home values for reductions in property taxes?

just reading Gail Collins column in the Times:
she wrote: In days of yore, presidential offspring frequently came to grief. Early on, there were quite a few suicidal alcoholics.
...
any guesses?

are the people left asking for reassessments on home values for reductions in property taxes?

plenty of people left. These past few months are when things started to go down around here. I'm assuming the short sales that are hitting must be people who got resets or lost jobs.

Since the city just did a reassessment at the exact peak for property values, plenty will be asking for reassessments. I've actually helped several neighbors do this. They make you jump through a few hoops but if you have your comps and go to arbitration, you stand a good chance.

Nanoo-Nanoo wrote:

The rot continues and I don't see how hyper-inflation will be doable under the circumstances

I agree, don't see inflation happening. Just wanted to put it out there as it would solve the housing issues,

So that leaves us with everyone moving over the next 3 to 10 years and a long slow economic slide.

How much of our economy was MEW or contruction? More than FIRE, allot more.Fire was the base of the building, all the services, retail, car sales etc etc was built on housing. Housing is gone and will be for many years.

nikola tesla wrote:

Did I miss the Great Doubling?

Thanks to Eric we have this:
A Year In The Great Doubling 

how about this for a 'stimulus'

cramdowns. yup, moral hazard for the umpteenth time, for the guys without 7 figure salaries.

three appraisals per property (govt pays - there is the stimulus! and yes, it costs money)
average or median appraisal sticks.

Remaining principal is cramdowned to the appraisal value.

That's it, done. Now everyone, worst case, is 100%LTV.

And voila, they are all eligible for a refi. Mortgage brokers dancing in the streets.

Sorry, bankers not so much, and GSE's etc realize the loss they have coming to them anyway.

Unfair you say? We are so far past unfair why is that even an argument anymore.

Don't want to refi - fine - sell, won'tmatter now that it can't be a short sale, and you aren't underwater. You lost the equity forever ago, so if you want the property you can pay the mortgage (I mean rent). If not, sell.

P.S. It will never happen.

this is another joke, from our fearless leaders at the FDIC:

Covered Bond Bill Heads FDIC's Way

"The FDIC has said it supports a covered bond market but fears it could make failures more expensive if not done properly."

I see, as opposed to our system of mortgage finance today, where the GSEs and the FHA take all the credit risk. Yeah, that hasn't cost the taxpayer anything.

I didn't know.

EHP - I was under the impression the VAT was a snowball kind of a tax - it kept getting bigger and bigger the longer down the road it went.

I'm going to double check my assumptions.

Yeah, when all the buzz started hitting the blogs earlier today about "auto-refis", the first thing that jumped in my head was "what about closing costs?"

Not all analysts have an agenda. Some are simply stupid. And then there's the occasional 1/1000 who knows what they're talking about.

EvilHenryPaulson wrote:

VAT is a sales tax. It applies only to final sales, not business2business or other intermediate transactions.

My understanding is that it applies to all sales throughout the supply chain and the final sale. The advantage of this is that it's hard to game, and causes minimal distortions.

wiki link

thanks for your reply Josap. That was a good post and you are quite correct. Thing is, state and local governments are going to feel the pinch of this in the worst way that will translate into more job losses and likely higher taxation. I'm having a tough time figuring out how the this ends in my lifetime. It has and will continue to affect the global economic picture because as we all know now, this isn't isolated to the USA and the USA isn't isolated from the world. Sorry for the ...just can't see clear of it and I keep looking HARD.

Cinco-X wrote:

I think it's more like a sales tax on GDP

YES! & Velocity!

bearly wrote:

I think it's more like a sales tax on GDP

YES! & Velocity!

Velocity is already accounted for in GDP....

bearly wrote:

Anyone that was able to already refinanced or are going to walk away.

I see many people trying to hang on, make the payment and scrape by. Some think things will be better or back to "normal" in a few years. If they can just make it that far. Most don't want to know how many REOs are shadow inventory or how many REOs are yet to come in the next few years. They want to hope.

"Many persist in viewing deflation as a price phenomenon, rather than as the monetary phenomenon it always is. They cling to the notion of the fundamentals driving the credit markets, and then wonder why it is impossible to make accurate predictions. In short, the causation runs the other way. The availability of credit drives the real economy, because credit expansions are Ponzi schemes that generate large swings of positive-feedback (self-fulfilling prophecies) in both directions. It is only the context and scale that are different."

--Stoneleigh

My head hurts.

that is because I just read this piece and I have been dealing with people who are not connected to reality all day. People who seem sane, and then think that they can afford mtg payments, including taxes and insurance for more than what they make in a month before withholding..

Forget whether the bank lady approves a mod or not, even at 1%, it can't be done.

And, in Fabulous Florida, there are few who are underwater a mere 25%. Hey, if it's only 25% I might advise you to keep making payments!

Rob Dawg
you need to pick your battles better. scoring cheap points by suggesting a VAT leads to European socialism can prove costly in the end

Outsider
A VAT does require reporting at each step of the way, but that should alreadyhappen assuming they are reporting/paying sales taxes due at each transaction. It will put separate small businesses working together on par with big conglomerates in terms of sales taxes. The caveat is the Federal government will decide if and what exemptions or tax rates will apply; which could lead to a sales tax on some goods/services where none was in effect before, or conversely it would reduce the tax-competition between jurisdictions to steal businesses/jobs/taxes as sales taxes are an important source of revenue in most locales.

The party that passes a VAT can kiss it's ass goodbye in the US. Will not happen.

anotherajh wrote:

My understanding is that it applies to all sales throughout the supply chain and the final sale. The advantage of this is that it's hard to game, and causes minimal distortions.

It is only collected upon final sale. As opposed to the sales tax you are familiar with where it must be paid at each individual transaction -- which would snowball as the tax collected on the sale of any given product increases geometrically with each transaction

Yancey Ward wrote:

The party that passes a VAT can kiss it's ass goodbye in the US. Will not happen.

Yup, that's why the crisis will require a bipartisan solution.

EHP???? I really appreciate your knowledge about VAT. I do not know if a VAT would be in lieu of other taxation or in addition to other taxation, state or federal. Its it just basically a federal sales tax that replaces state sales taxes if I read you correctly, right?

"Extend and pretend cannot persist forever. There'll come a time when that proverbial kid will holler: "He has no clothes on!". At some point we will see investors trying to sell distressed assets, and then we will realize what they are actually worth (i.e. what someone will actually pay for them). When we see that they are worth pennies on the dollar, and that whole asset classes need to be repriced overnight, we will see the reality of deflation. That, almost at a stroke, will mark the destruction of the virtual wealth created during the long expansion years."

-Stoneleigh

EvilHenryPaulson wrote:

should the homebuilder not pay the same taxes as if he were a machinist?

I'm thinking we back out the financing and only consider the actual capital exposed. 2500% returns taxed at 43.5% anyone?

I love the smell of napalm in a CR post*

*I know it was a guest, but CR approved

Plato...? Socrates!? Morons.

Comrade Janošik wrote:

So, the only way that properties will find their way onto the market at a realistic price, is if the banks/underwriters/owners all go bankrupt?

Not all of them......Just the ones that over paid, over loaned, or over-underwrote....

Ok, had a client come in whose investment property was lost. The vulture who bought immediately called him to see if he wanted to buy it back for less than half the amount of the foreclosure judgment, and will make a good profit. The deal isn't made yet, but a price was tentatively agreed to. So how would agreeing to cram down to 50 or 60% lose the bank more money again, when they stopped bidding on less that 31 cents on the dollar??

I have another foreclosure in a building where I've done a number of recent short sales and closings, so I am quite aware of the values. The amount owed is at least 50% more than the place is worth. That is, 100k value 150k loan, more or less. My lady would agree to
125K, and I do think she would pay. At this rate the bank will net maybe 75k after expenses. How is cramming the loan down by 25k, worse for the bank???

It doesn't make sense to me.

Basically yes, Comrade J.

They are bankrupt already, but are refusing to notice.

I'm glad to see this article call out all the residential real estate - link deleted by kcoop - talk about additional stimulus. I mean, is there any other industry more stimulated than housing? Stop handing out the money already.

dantes1807 wrote:

s there any other industry more stimulated than housing?

Porn?

lawyerliz wrote:

They are bankrupt already, but are refusing to notice.

What a backasswards society we've weaved.

The vulture who bought immediately called him to see if he wanted to buy it back for less than half the amount of the foreclosure judgment, and will make a good profit.

Now THAT's a great idea.

lawyerliz wrote:

So how would agreeing to cram down to 50 or 60% lose the bank more money again, when they stopped bidding on less that 31 cents on the dollar??

We've been asking this question for a long time, haven't we? I'm interested in any answers out there
I know one argument goes that if mortgagees got wind of banks offering write-offs, they would all want one
I think why mortgage-servicers act the way they do plays a large role, but I'm not clear on their general incentives

One other thing - as all these higher interest rate mortgages are refinanced, the original underwriter - BofA/Countrywide, JPM/WaMu, Wells/Wachovia, MS/Saxon - is now off the hook for any buybacks.

This is probably the real reason the banks are pushing this - those buybacks are adding up.

Collect more taxes, defer the day of reckoning when spending has to drop... and slow the economy down more in the process, so that there wont be as much left to recover anyway... A much better approach would be to eliminate the income tax completely and cut spending to balance the budget... it would be somewhat painful in the short term, but any solution is going to be painful at this point... even the status quo is painful...

ShadowInventory wrote:

at this point... even the status quo is painful...

and is is also unsustainable in the long run....

EHP - I have heard VATs spoken of very dimly. I will research them on my own, but I am suspicious of them. I am wondering if your acceptance of them might be partly cultural - doesn't Canada have high taxes?

josap wrote:

Yes. The transactions must be "distanced" by law. Otherwise you and the buyer are comminting fraud on a third party..

Darn. I was ready to suggest www.cram_me_downs.com for the web site name.

curious wrote:

I was ready to suggest http://www.cram_me_downs.com for the web site name.

It's be a good one.......for porn-
Edit: Or http://www.cram_me_downs.org

Nope. The bidding is one line now. I have no feel for when the banks stop bidding. In the past the bank would bid a nominal100 bucks and nobody would take it from there.

You can NOT sell property for more than what someone is willing to pay for it.

Josap has a point maybe about stretching the agony out, but, I think acknowledging reality might be better. But yeah, then the pension funds would be bust and my insurance policy would be worthless.

Okay EHP, just some minor researching here, I think Cinco has a point that with a VAT we could well end up still having to pay income tax.

If you are advocating switching from a sales tax to a VAT, I assume you're thinking this would be added $$ in tax dollars by hitting "more deserving" people up along the line. However, $$ gained in tax dollars means money subtracted from the private sector at large. No? And money withdrawn from the private sector (as we are seeing money taken out of Main Street and given to Wall Street - I don't consider Wall Street a private sector anymore with the govt. backing them up) will hurt Main Street even more. That is the general gist way I have heard VATs spoken of. They are yet another fancy way for the govt. to pickpocket its citizens.

I'm not so sure. The vulture wins the bid fair and square. the vulture chooses who to sell to.

Can't seem to correct spelling: edit.

In Florida, you can't take the title back in your own name, because the lien will hop back on the property.

The first thing this vulture did was call my clients. The bank could have kept on bidding, but chose not to. Why should the vulture be able to sell to everyone in the world, except the previous owner?

If there is a way to game the system, which is now on line, I don't know it unless you bribe the person at the bank who decides when to
stop bidding. Who knows maybe the vulture did that alreay, now that I think of it. frankly once the bank takes the property back, is when I see collusion, with brokers choosing who to sell to for low REO prices.

Yep Josap, yep.

One other missing component of the MBS investor pie (being an MBS investor myself) is that because you are suddenly looking at a LOT of prepayments on a premium bond, that premium bond is very quickly going to become a par bond, who wants to down a $105 price bond that's paying off quickly at $100? So what happens? Mortgage spreads gap out dramatically, and that 4% mortgage rate is suddenly 5.5% simply because the mortgage basis widened that much.

Sure, you have put a lot of people in nice cheap mortgages, but at the expense of every new homebuyer out there, who now has a higher mortgage.

It's really a twisted proposal.

Yep--that's when I tell 'em it's a no brainer.

lawyerliz wrote:

Why should the vulture be able to sell to everyone in the world, except the previous owner?

He can sell it to the prior owner.
What he can't do is arrange the sale before he buys.

Vulture: Hey want to screw the bank for 50% of the mortgage? You can buy it from me. But you have to sign this RE Contract before I bid.

Owner: sure. I want a good deal, 50% less is good.

Bank: The two of you conspired to pay us 30% of the value, profit by 20% and 50% respectivly. That is fraud and you both get to go to jail.

EHP - In your example, who determines the value of the machine's output?

Sounds like a VAT may include some level of subjectivity.

DC and Wall Street JUST. DON'T. GET IT.

People who are severely underwater do not want to pay another dime on their houses anymore. They certainly aren't going to throw good money after bad, even though throwing good money after bad is business-as-usual for DC and Wall Street. Unless there is some sort of penalty-free cramdown, mortgage mods just do not interest any severely underwater borrowers.

And a penalty-free cramdown means the loss can't be papered over on the banks' books anymore. And DC is STILL only interested in Wall Street and doesn't give a damn about anyone else.

Besides, if a 700 billion stimulus didn't do anything, why would a piddly 48 billion make any difference? Citi alone is hiding more than 48 billion fer crissakes.

curious wrote:

The vulture profits by ~66%, no?

Yes.

Can't count and type at the same time.

However the vulture is going to pay 2 closing costs, title etc.
And the old-new owner 1 time for costs.

In my particular case, IF it goes through, the vulture will make an instant 37%, Or maybe a bit less because there are clerk's fees.

My impression is that this could happen a lot, but actually doesn't.

And in Florida,

josap wrote:

Bank: The two of you conspired to pay us 30% of the value, profit by 20% and 50% respectivly. That is fraud and you both get to go to jail.

That assumes that laws are still enforced. Only selectively and not very often.

Jack Staub wrote:

If the GSEs allowed all underwater homeowners to refi at the lower rate then the GSEs would generate $46B less in profit -- as it is the underwater homeowners who continue to pay at the higher interest rate that are now creating this added profit.

What we're really talking about here is Hawking radiation. Profit/antiprofit pair production at the GSE event horizon. The loss falls into the GSE black hole and the profit escapes to be captured by MS.

It's a free lunch until the GSE evaporates to nothingness.

amiramr0 wrote:

That is not how I remember VAT working in Israel. You pay VAT at the point of purchase. It doesn’t matter what you buy or where you buy it. The machine owner will still pay VAT when he buys it from the manufacturer.

Lower Cost of Doing Business | The Harmonized Sales Tax
that's just my province, i think it's a pretty standard implementation

I am seeing something new on the county tax records for property sales.

The lender forclouses, then the title transfers to Fannie on the day a buyer closes escrow. Which makes Fannie the seller. Not sure why this is happening, but the loans are all Fannie HomePath loans. So maybe only Fannie owned properties can get a HomePath loan? Not sure.

marking everything down immediately just isn't an option (my cramdown 'stimulus'.)

extend and pretend, extend and pretend.

to be fair, we do the same exact thing with our national debt (will we pay back the 12 trillion, to oursleves and huever else owns us - no, we will just roll it over as long as we can

same goes for the mortgages held on the books for unrealistic values.

cram them all down and 2 things happen

everyone is insolvent and BK
everyone jumps on the good ship cramdown

so, quite beautifully, it creates a nice vicious cycle of haircuts until we are all bald.

it would clear out the system, but hey, hu definitely doesn't care about that.

MLM wrote:

Value added tax (VAT) is similar to a sales tax. It is a tax on the estimated market value added to a product or material at each stage of its manufacture or distribution, ultimately passed on to the consumer.
Value added tax - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 

that's the theoretical basis. in practice, it is collected only at the final sale
theory: you buy $5 widget, sell it to a consumer as a $10 superwidget. you 'pay' the VAT on the $5 of value you added.
practice: you sell a $10 superwidget with the VAT applied, the tax collected covers the sales tax for every stage of production

and here I was thinking the GSE's were the Higgs boson

montas ankle wrote:

so, quite beautifully, it creates a nice vicious cycle of haircuts until we are all bald.

Instead we are just going to sit around and quietly watch each other's hair fall out.

josap wrote:

I think if the solution were cutting off a toe, or a leg, we may have done it.
What we have is a bad heart and no donor heart available.

We had a crisis pitched to appear that way. Maybe it really was, because the vested interests had become so central to our affairs.

The problem with drawing out the going-down is that you go in to the crisis later, so you come out later. In our case, I think we will be a sick man while the rest of the world is recovered and aggressive. Had we had a crisis, IMO we'd be asserting ourselves again around now.

I would say also it is better to have the sudden thunder. Then you can wipe out the vested interests and gain yourself some space. I do not see any meaningful structural / fundamental reform coming from this approach.

Of course, again, you are their captive at this point, so it's only an illusion of a choice unless you have an autocrat with a dab hand. Everyone who isn't Han Fei's ideal Man Facing South chooses the long slide and the preservation of extant structure.

All crying over spilled milk. Would have been nice if we could have preserved the Republic, but the dice were cast long ago, as it had to be to reach this juncture, because the only way the crisis would arise was utter captivity to vested interests.

But worth considering, this is not a game played alone. In fact the people you are playing it with are absolute jackals. you have to make sure you are never alone in a room with Vladimir Putin in addition to playing the best game you can internally.

Outsider wrote:

FWIW, Forbes' list of the World's Happiest Countries

The chart indicates only three pre cent of Americans are suffering.

correct, and in that time some of those heads will find that their bodies have died

simple bean counting, writ large

If you shaved my head, I would look awful for a while, but then my hair would grow back.

EvilHenryPaulson wrote:

that's the theoretical basis. in practice, it is collected only at the final sale

Not in France. Per Wikipedia:

With a 10% VAT:

burnside wrote:

The chart indicates only three percent of Americans are suffering.

....but 25% of Californians need mental healthcare??......Just another "official" study I guess.............

With a 10% VAT:

Well, there you go.

Besides pumping the market for those math majors, this system is more complex than the average American cares to experience.

VAT taxes tax the brain. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

actually, with massive cramdowns for everyone to their appraised value, all appraisals would come in even lower than they already are coming in, and thus, the prinicipal + interest might be a good deal (take your average mortgage, slice it in half, keep the rate or drop it to 5+%) for the newly minted homeowner (s/he was a fictional homeowner before, but was actually just a renter/debtholder/bagholder).

All of a sudden 20 yrs of holding probably would be a moderately decent (real return of maybe 1%) 'investment.'

but of course, that whole scenario would lead to mad max and there would be a lot fewer houses, so, not such a good theoretical construct

MLM wrote:

With a 10% VAT (In BSR Land):
........my cow makes a gallon of milk. I use it on my garden. End of VAT tax. If that doesn't work, my cow milks herself while standing over the tomatoes.......talk to her about VAT!

Well, yeah, but when the property does sell for that teensy amount, the loss does have to be recognized.

Or can't they just refuse to report it??? Hummmmmmm.

Depending on the slope of the bobsled course (it will be a race to the bottom), everything has a possibility of Mad Max.
Lets hope the course designers were on ludes' when they designed it.
It really depends on the rate of resource depletion, and access to energy.

Outsider wrote:

Well, there you go.
Besides pumping the market for those math majors

so in France, here's how it works
B = price of goods/services you bought that go into a product
S = price you sell the product for
r = the VAT rate

tax paid = (S-B) * r

there's a subtraction in there, so it's more complicated in that sense than just applying a sales tax on a prior sales tax... but maybe you like paying more taxes, or you prefer jobs that have few capital inputs like hairdressing as the basis for an economy

lawyerliz wrote:

I heard, but it's my house several times today. Also, some tears.

And
"I just can't change my kids school"
"My sister lives 2 streets over."
"But if we rent we aren't "buliding equity".
"My wife loves this house."
"We have made friends in the area."
"What will my parents think."

It is enough to make me drink.

All of this talk about taxes leads me to wonder:

Do the taxpayers exist for the sole reason of keeping the government running?

It seems to me that in considering a tax policy, you want to make sure that most money ends up invested in productive enterprise. Something has to generate actual wealth besides printing presses and industrial policymakers and war machines. Edit:

josap wrote:

It is enough to make me drink.

.....LOL......can you tell it's way past my nap-time?.....

adornosghost wrote:

I was just in LA (Melrose/Harper) and the game seems to be still on.

It is.

EvilHenryPaulson wrote:

2/3rds of American pay more in payroll taxes than income taxes. full amount is paid at general income tax levels, FR tries to shut the economy down when you start getting wage increases...
capital income. no payroll taxes, 15% rate of what is declared, federal reserve bails you out when you don't get an 8% increase...

Right on the dot.

All that money sitting there — and deflation continued apace.
But at least some Fed types are getting it.
Deflation Risks - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com

who is Krugman referring to? note: he said "Fed types"

Go Iceland. Go. Show those Viking ancestors that you can outloot the looters.

Yeah, team.

Seriously wouldn't paying be worse?

lawyerliz wrote:

Seriously wouldn't paying be worse?

I can't imagine why anyone would think the Icelanders wouldn't stiff their creditors. It's just a sign their state is working. Now maybe in the future, their state will not work so much, but there no reason for them to honor those obligations.

Umm ... I thought this was supposed to be a joke:
UK supermarket sells squirrel meat | Courier Mail

more liberal lies!

Republican Tea Party Contract

Report: Las Vegas existing home prices to continue slide - Thursday, July 29, 2010 | 3:32 p.m. - Las Vegas Sun

I heard most people in Pavlovegas rolled over and played debt, good doggie

YouTube - Viva Las Vegas

Kids' school, friends in the area, loving the house all seem like legitimate life style issues that carry some monetary value. It is also a big hassle to move if you have a lot of crap. The stigma or lack thereof is another thing it is hard to assign a value to so it all plays into the mix.

sm_landlord wrote:

Do the taxpayers exist for the sole reason of keeping the government running?

There are some that believe that the taxes are primarily a social tool. It would explain the growth of the tax code to 170,000 pages.

There are some that believe taxes are only used to control inflation. I am not one of "those" people.

EvilHenryPaulson wrote:

who is Krugman referring to? note: he said "Fed types"

Some Fed governors IMO.

Good news: more people at the Fed are taking the risk of a Japanese-type trap seriously.

Juvenal Delinquent wrote:

I heard most people in Pavlovegas rolled over and played debt, good doggie

sportsfan wrote:

How else could you sell $120,000 houses for $350,000 and up without using play money?

It was all a Sinderella story...

The home got foreclosed on, the Hummer got downsized to a Hyundai and so it goes~

Mr Slippery wrote:

It is also a big hassle to move if you have a lot of crap.

With the rest, things worth considering before you sign. Not much help dwelling on them when default is at the door.

Josap, allenm, any other Arizonans around: any truth to this?

Specter of Arizona immigration law slowly drains economy - CNN.com

Okay EHP, just some minor researching here, I think Cinco has a point that with a VAT we could well end up still having to pay income tax.

That is a distinct possibility but still not all bad if say rates were reduced & per capita deductions increased. Or have the VAT replace FICA.

VAT aren't evil or benign - they are only as good as the plan they are conceived in and the people implementing them. I'm all for well conceived & fairly implemented VAT - those would be a real boost to domestic production and grow middle class jobs. A poorly conceived plan implemented for the crony class would be a disaster.

It probably isn't wise to initiate a VAT until the is reeled in and spiked.

Whatever else you may observe about VAT, it appears to be procyclical.

amiramr0 wrote:

later refunded back

If you fill out the proper paperwork and after the government has had an interest free loan of your money for a couple of years.

More Az housing info from our local paper.

Short sales, priced below normal or traditional home sales, are climbing. During the past month, almost 28 percent of all of the region's home sales were short sales, up from 21 percent the month before. Short sales are better for home values than foreclosures but still pull down overall home prices.

The prices of foreclosure homes taken back by lenders and resold had been climbing in the Phoenix area until June 25 but have fallen nearly 7 percent since then.

The number of foreclosure homes lenders are trying to resell has climbed 21 percent in since June 8.

Normal or traditional home sales, excluding foreclosures and short sales, are down 30 percent from last month.

The housing market definitely received a boost from the federal home buyer tax credit. But most of those sales have now been recorded.

Some housing market analysts believe Arizona's immigration law, known as SB 1070, is impacting home sales and foreclosures in the state. But whether the impact is negative or positive hasn't been documented yet.

azcentral.com - members

Headed into the Big Smoke, adios.

dantes1807 wrote:

I'm glad to see this article call out all the residential real estate talk about additional stimulus. I mean, is there any other industry more stimulated than housing? Stop handing out the money already.

If you liked that, you'll like this quote I just found, more applicable earlier today, regarding mostly public builders:

"[NOL refunds] probably did contribute to a temporarily elevated demand for lots, and distorted the market for a while, but that's over now."

I couldn't figure out why I was hearing about a run on lots when demand was not improving and that was gonna take jobs - whereever the heck they came from.

If we were to implement VAT here, would it be our own particular model? Like financial reform, say, or healthcare reform?

Of course - the plan.

RE wrote:

sportsfan, privilege is not bestowed on just anybody. . . .

Being just anybody myself, I can attest to that.

That privilege thingy seems to be a birthright or something.

NorkaWest wrote:

If you fill out the proper paperwork and after the government has had an interest free loan of your money for a couple of years.

But it's for your own good, can't you see. We're From the Government and We're Here To Help!

burnside wrote:

how do you game VAT while you're devising the legislation and regs so that, like financial regulation or healthcare, you manage to redirect the evident benefits, appear to have done a good job, and claim sweeping reforms?

Too much for me, I'd rather go kayaking, or for a hike, or cook a nice meal with Mrs. Gnome.
Or just watch the cardinals, junkos, chickadees and woodpeckers eat at the feeders....

I think VAT is coming too after asking myself:
What benefits the elite?

Juvenal Delinquent wrote:

During the 30's, states got so hard up for tax revenue, they issued little tokens called mils, 1/10th of a cent, so as to get the last penny, er 1/10 of a penny.

I've got one sitting on my desk from the State of Washington that I found while working on an old house. It reads on one side:

0 Cents or Less

Finally truth in fiat.

edit: It's pretty worn so it actually originally read 10 cents or less, but the 1 has been smoothed away as the tokens were made out of aluminium.

In Israel, VAT is levied on the profit made by and salary paid to employees of financial companies.

Since we're on taxes, here's something to chew on;

Despite the seeming counterproductive aspects of it, we have seen that people avoid taking income where there is an income tax. Schemes abound.

Now suppose there were a tax on "adding value". It would not be surprising if people avoided adding value, at least in ways that could be detected and taxed. For example, add the value elsewhere, then import the product labeled as raw materials. This brings to mind the business of selling software to Brazil. I hear that a lot of "blank" CDs get shipped to Brazil, but very little software... Hmmm...

I should add, that to my dismay, in Canada financial services (like mutual fund managers' fees and investment planners' commissions) are exempt from the GST/HST (our VAT)
Israel has the policy right there
too bad there isn't a type of appeal court system where you could challenge special tax treatment. where you could force the government to argue why one group is deserving of a subsidy over another... and if it can't then the same rate must apply to all

EvilHenryPaulson wrote:

too bad there isn't a type of appeal court system where you could challenge special tax treatment. where you could force the government to argue why one group is deserving of a subsidy over another... and if it can't then the same rate must apply to all

That system would put too many politicians out of business. You aren't anti-business, are you?

Comrade Dazed and Amused wrote:

Here in Mexico, there is a 16% VAT (known as IVA en español).

that seems to be working pretty well in Mexico - no surviving large cash businesses.....

sm_landlord wrote:

For example, add the value elsewhere, then import the product labeled as raw materials.

Imports get taxed at the VAT rate, and if they aim to sell it to consumers in the US it would be hard to dodge paying the full amount anyway... with transfer price tax dodging, they've already avoided corporate income taxes regardless of where production or sale occurred

I hear that a lot of "blank" CDs get shipped to Brazil, but very little software... Hmmm...

VAT generally do not apply to exports, so it would make no difference whether you wrote to those CDs and packaged them in the US or Brazil from a US tax perspective

Comrade Dazed and Amused wrote:

the government requires you to report your top 200 customers and suppliers every year.

Can you say $600 1099's?

Speed-
I agree, no religion.
While not a fan of Mao, he did have the occasional insight.
A hopeless ideologue occasionally gets it right, as a stopped clock does every 12 hours (at least in the US)

"Religion is poison"
--Mao

ATA Truck Tonnage Index declines in June

"If you see Buddha by the side of the road, kill him"

On second thought, that may get some of my Christian friends excited.

Nanoo-Nanoo, asset inflation passed away two years ago, even in the state of NY.

josap, do you think the landlords used both the rent money and that from not paying their mortgages to go on vacation and help the hotel industry's occupancy rates?