Comments | rowyn: Behind the Meltdown

rowyn

Behind the Meltdown

Nov 10, 2010 12:39

A couple of years ago, I posted a rant about Fanny Mae & Freddie Mac's involvement in the economic trainwreck still unfolding today. (Summary: RARGH ALL THEIR FAULT WHY DIDN"T ANYONE STOP THEM?!?)

jurann left a comment on my post last week that reminded me of this, and reminded me that I've never tried to organize all of my thoughts on What Went Wrong. ( Read more... )

economics

Comments 38

ext_317516 November 11 2010, 10:24:44 UTC

If you are going to buy a house and live in it long term, perhaps until you die, it is NOT an investment. You do NOT want the assessed value to increase. Why? Because an increasing property value means you have to pay more property tax ( ... )

rowyn November 11 2010, 14:21:31 UTC

One of my friends described buying a house as 'the property belongs to us, a bank, and the local government.' :)

ext_317516 November 12 2010, 09:07:44 UTC

Do a google for anti-rent war. Such tenant revolts led to the elimination of European style feudal arrangements in the US, at some point local governments decided it was a great system to copy, but they called it property tax.

Then there were the company towns, mostly in eastern coal mining and oil drilling areas. If it was rotten enough for government, it was good enough for those big companies to copy.

Just seems to be something humans cannot get away from, the desire of some people to sit on top in positions of rule, and even worse the desire of other people to be sheep to be ruled and believe 100% of everything their rulers tell them, including that they're too dumb to be truly free.

joxn November 12 2010, 16:39:57 UTC

Of course, the extreme opposite of this is Georgism: there should be no taxes assessed except on the value of land, because land is the only thing that all of humanity holds in common.

kelloggs2066 November 14 2010, 12:41:25 UTC

rowyn November 14 2010, 19:25:35 UTC

...

While I agree that the QE2 plan is mistake, I don't really agree with much of the video. Accusing the Federal Reserve of failing to prevent the housing or internet bubbles is slightly more fair than accusing the weatherman of failing to prevent tornadoes, but it's not exactly fair. And if it were in the power of one agency to stop bubbles, that would be an entire disaster unto itself.

anonymous January 31 2011, 06:53:35 UTC

I’ve meant to post about something like this on my webpage and you gave me an idea. Cheers..