[efarmer]

I did not mention the lunacy of the American consumer with
regards to aversion to savings and fiscal responsibility, but
I do agree on the subject. You make valid points on regulation
and invasion of banking havens being more of an excuse for
more insane bureaucracy and political positioning than actual
remedy. I suppose if we are financial whores we shouldn't
expect seamless honor and uniformity in our johns.

Thanks for taking the time and being the excellent resource
that you are on this forum. You simply are the very best
Mr. Bill!

[gnm]

Well the fact that you can't own real estate free and clear in the US without paying property tax in perpetuity is rather like serfdom. You only own it as long as you tithe.

-G

[MrBill]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gnm', 'W')ell the fact that you can't own real estate free and clear in the US without paying property tax in perpetuity is rather like serfdom. You only own it as long as you tithe.

-G

[gnm]

I agree basically MrBill - But I would like to see an option where a property can refuse "services" and be owned freely. I live in an area where the roads were paid for by the people who sold the land, and some of them are 200 years old so no telling who paid for that one (the burro driver who cut down the trees?). Many of the roads are not maintained or graveled. The fire dept is a long ways away and is volunteer. The county generally tries to pay for "improvements" by strong-arming new property purchasers into paying for a road upgrade or being faced with suits and property condemnation/confiscation. Thats in addition to the property tax. I knew one guy who purchased 75 acres and the county was demanding $25,000 from him before he could build on the property (to bring the road up to code they said) - There isn't a road within 10 miles that meets their supposed "code" - he sold at a loss and left the state. The problem is the local governments have used property tax as a cookie jar that they can keep pumping their spending with - just send out the appraisers and hike up the value and spend spend spend! Try to fight the valuation and watch the code violations fly! You'll have to put in a guest house for all the regulators who will be crawling up your ass at that point.

BTW I thoroughly appreciate your posts and astute financial analysis - It is an area where I feel I am lacking in knowledge so I find them very interesting.

-G

[efarmer]

I watched Peter Orszag testify before congress on CSPAN and take
questions last night. It was fascinating to see him take questions
and attempt to be redirected by every possible political pull or bias
and to adeptly and logically pull the topic back on target again.

I found an op ed piece he wrote for the Boston Globe in late
1996 and was further impressed by his approach.

Go to www.boston.com and search or google search for:

"Cool Headed Warm Hearted Economics"

[sittinguy]

I'm about ready to stick my head back in the sand over this.. They are friggin printing money and sending it to us.

From the outside,, can you imagine how this must look,, """" WOW, America is so fucked they are printing money and giving it out to everyone, including the homeless.

Instead of cash they might as well just send out a few bags of weed, and a little crack, (pipe not included)

[MrBill]

gnm the rules and regulations between farmland and urban property may be very different where you are? In Canada, pure farmland is taxed very low for the purposes of county taxes to maintain roads and actually can be transfered upon sale tax free from capital gains. When you think of it that is a pretty sweet deal for farmers.

Now, enter the snake into the garden, the hobby farmer that is not really a fulltime farmer, but his accountant convinces him that big house in the country can be claimed as a farm and therefore incur lower tax burdens.

Before long, everyone and his uncle is trying to do the samething and then both the county and the federal government have to come up with new laws and, yes, new taxes to pay for improvements and services. Of course, this is patently unfair when some farmers have already paid for their own power, their own water wells and built their own roads.

And something else I have a hard time with is farmers basically living tax free during their lifetimes and then being able to sell farmland for urban development tax free. That ain't right either! Either the farm is a going concern or it is re-zoned for development. At which point the government is right to try to clawback some taxes and even subsidies already paid.

No matter how you design the system it will lead to abuses as there will always be those that try to game the system for their own benefit. Just as I dislike high taxes, I also have no time for tax cheats either! ; - )

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('sittinguy', 'I')'m about ready to stick my head back in the sand over this.. They are friggin printing money and sending it to us.

From the outside,, can you imagine how this must look,, """" WOW, America is so fucked they are printing money and giving it out to everyone, including the homeless.

Instead of cash they might as well just send out a few bags of weed, and a little crack, (pipe not included)

[Twilight]

Great answer MrBill, and there is another important aspect to this. The more individual circumstances any organisation attempts to accommodate, the more laborious and expensive administration becomes. Everyone's situation feels unique to them and understandably everyone wants it to be accommodated, but a line always has to be drawn about where this becomes impractical. Nobody likes being lumped into an inappropriate category, but such are the compromises when managing anything. It could simply be they don't want to take gnm's money so much as they don't have the budget and staffing to make exceptions.

[Ferretlover]

(more at link)
Starting in May, the Treasury will begin sending economic stimulus payments to more than 130 million individuals. The stimulus payments will go out through the late spring and summer.
The vast majority of Americans who qualify for the payment will not have to do anything other than file their 2007 individual income tax return to receive their payment this year. The IRS will use information on the tax return to determine eligibility and calculate the amount of the stimulus payments.
For more information on the stimulus payments, including the amounts and eligibility requirements:
• View IR-2008-18, IRS Will Send Stimulus Payments Automatically Starting in May; Eligible Taxpayers Must File a 2007 Tax Return to Receive Rebate.
• View FS-2008-15, Facts about the 2008 Stimulus Payments.
• View Questions and Answers on the stimulus payments.
• View IR-2008-21, More Information on Stimulus Payments Posted to IRS.gov; New Details for Recipients of Social Security, Veterans Benefits
• Listen to the Feb. 13 media briefing on the economic stimulus checks.
• Listen to IRS acting Commissioner Linda Stiff summarzing the key points of the economic stimulus payments in English or in Spanish.
Stimulus Payment Examples
The eligibility for and amount of stimulus payments to taxpayers will vary according to their income and family situations. Here are the various scenarios:
• Married with Children
• Married without Qualifying Children
• Single (Head of Household) with Children
Infernal Revenue

[I_Like_Plants]

You won't get it unless you've got a refund coming. And it will be an advance on your 2008 tax refund.

It's more of an insult than a payment.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('I_Like_Plants', 'Y')ou won't get it unless you've got a refund coming. And it will be an advance on your 2008 tax refund.

It's more of an insult than a payment.

[I_Like_Plants]

Work fulltime and have all but $50 a month garnished to keep you neegars in pork-rinds and 40's, nope!

Just because I'm white doesn't mean I have to work for you.

[vision-master]

You need SSI.............

[Ferretlover]

Gimme, gimme, gimme...

St. Paul Pioneer Press (www.twincities.com) 24 Feb 2008 p 3D:
"Retailers prepare ads to coincide with rebate checks.
President Bush just signed into law the economic stimulus package, and the program's rebate checks don't go out for the months. But retailers are formulatting incentives to lure shoppers into their stores once checks start arriving in May. ..."

[Novus]

It almost seems criminal that Bush and Co and telling people to go shopping again.

[I_Like_Plants]

There was a shopping mall giving out $50 bills on the weekend, no, not around here, saw it in the news.

Anything, anything at all, to keep people "consuming". If I'd been there, I'd take my $50 and say Thanks and go home and put it right in the coffee can.

[phaster]

just thought I'd get a basic idea of what people think of the economic stimulus program and various bail outs, do you think its a good idea or a bad idea (and why its a good or bad idea).

for the record, I think the economic stimulus payment

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/economic ... notice.pdf

is a bad idea for several reasons.....

first off congress and the president in order to look like they are doing something the help out, IMHO are not looking at the big picture. An unsustainable system will eventually crash, its just a matter of how bad. I've got a physics back gound, and I look at the problem in terms of adding energy to an unbalanced system. Think about a un-balanced tire, it is possible to drive with an unbalanced tire a long time if ya drive slow, but if ya drive faster (which as analogous to adding energy or money) to the system, the tire will wear faster.

If your diving faster and a tire blows due to uneven ware, the basic rule of thumb is the faster you're going when a failure occurs in the tire, the worst off is the potential crash. Basically its another inverse square law, if ya double the speed the potental energy in a crash goes up as a square.

Another way I thought about the problem of congress and the president adding fiscal stimulus or changing the banking rules mid-stream, is something I've experenced while flying called PIO or "Pilot Induced Oscillation".

What happens in PIO is the plane does something unexpected, say a draft hits the plane on final, a surprised pilot tries to correct from the unexpected turn of events, but what too often happens is the pilot over corrects and this feedback loop grows ever larger over time with catastrophic results.

with the US national debt exceeding 9.4 trillion

http://zfacts.com/p/461.html

IMHO the financially prudent thing to do would be to pay down the debt. Basically I look at the economic stimulus payment as kinda like debt on a credit card (as it stands we the american people are digging an ever deeper financial pit, that should be looked at as something that will cause ever more harm if we postpone the fact that people get into trouble when they do not take the difficult position of living within our financial means).

As painful as it might be in the short term to tighten our financial belts, I think if we do not face the reality that we are spending beyond our means on consumer goods, then the united states will eventually implode, because we were reckless when it came to basic financial management (and only considered the short term gain and not the long term pain).

[vision-master]

I get some moola, yeah!

Why not, we going down anyhoo. Party Time!

[seldom_seen]

Bread and circuses.

The bread is the "economic stimulas package" and the circus is the current "presidential election."