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How Dumb Little Laws Hobble Prosperity

By Rick Ackerman Posted on September 1, 2010, 12:01 am EDT Last Updated November 23, 2010, 10:05 pm EST

[Today’s guest commentary, by Ben Rositas, takes an elliptical path in arguing that dumb little laws and legalistic thinking have helped undermine the sort of  self-determination that alone can make real and lasting prosperity possible. RA]

This is probably going to seem off-topic for a Rick’s Picks commentary, but I hope that it becomes clearer at the conclusion.  First, a brief history. Most summers, I take on a writing project, usually fiction of one sort or another. I’ve done this for the past 20+ years, and my current project is based on a computer game called Arcanum that was released in the late 90s. I feel kind of silly, being that I’m 34, but when I came across that game recently, I was so intrigued that I bought a copy and spent some time playing it. No wonder the country’s in trouble! But if I could create a rich world and story, I figured it wouldn’t be a total waste. Anyway, as I scanned for material that would help me capture the feel of such an era and setting, I came across a Wikipedia definition for “gentrification”.

Eyesore, or a virtious sign of thrift?

Gentrification. You may not have thought about this before, but the process of gentrification is driven as much by lawyers as anyone else.  When newly-minted lawyers buy a fixer-upper and move into the neighborhood, at the same time they are plying their trade, dividing families through divorce, some of the ones I have known would happily take credit for driving up the demand for land and housing – having a “successful impact” on property values, that is. Perhaps I am being too harsh on the legal profession, but it is surely legalistic thinking that drives so many rules that degrade the quality of life.

Consider a seemingly innocuous ordinance against, say, clotheslines. I haven’t seen any in my area since I was ten. And while there’s no special ordinance against it where I live now, I’ve heard about such ordinances elsewhere. My parents started out in such a town, where, among other things, there were laws on the books forbidding clotheslines.

Keeping Up

I had to ponder the irony of that:  Someone was forced to buy and run their dryer more frequently because some snob wouldn’t let them save money on electricity by hanging their clothes out to dry!  How’s a body going to get ahead in life if he or she can’t even make decisions as small as that one anymore? Okay, then. Is gentrification a cause (major or minor) of our problems today? My point of view:  If people have to be forced to look or be richer than they are, I say that there’s no way we can ever be sensible enough to be truly prosperous.

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  • C.C. September 2, 2010, 7:38 pm

    “I am not picking on the Parents who write in the forum who are parenting. I am just tell the reality of the masses. People don’t care what a democracy is as long as they get there stimulus payments, and tax return with non-earned graft payment.”

    Something about the quote/s of the public discovering that it can vote itself largesse from the Treasury, comes to mind.

    I was explaining to my kid the other day about the genius of Communism – 2nd only to our Founders and their writings, subsequently our Republic.

    The ‘genius’ being the ability of the Communist mind-set to ‘co-opt’ the masses under its umbrella, by way of ‘free’ and ‘safety’ and ‘entitlement’. It is the Low Bar. And it works. Because it preys on the natural tendencies of people to gravitate to what is ‘easy’, ‘free’ and ‘protected’.

    Of course, nothing is free. And the least of which is free, is Freedom itself.

    Once the cancer of entitlement (to anything) sets in, it is nearly impossible to root out, for the reasons of human nature as described above.

    Our Founding Fathers did the best they could regarding that human nature, to bulwark the citizenry against Tyranny. Sadly, the bulwark only works if the citizenry value Freedom and Liberty itself.

    Observing who we elect does nothing but underscore that simple truth.

  • Steve September 1, 2010, 11:10 pm

    Having been inside Law Enforcement. I can assure you that in June the administration comes around and says buy everything you can because if you don’t spend it all we cannot get more. You have savings and they will cut the budget.

    The second reality is the threat of reduced Fire and Police Services to force the people to vote for more taxes, or bonds when the city will not reduce administration for a 1000 other abuses.

    The last is Education – if you don’t give us more and more and more we will not be able to brainwash your Children. Take it from me, when the average High School Grad does not know the difference between the Republic and Democracy – well, can you spell F A I L U R E.

    I am not picking on the Parents who write in the forum who are parenting. I am just tell the reality of the masses. People don’t care what a democracy is as long as they get there stimulus payments, and tax return with non-earned graft payment.

  • Chris T. September 1, 2010, 10:11 pm

    while debating where that got started, and which came first, the worst part of it is that property taxes by and large go 100% to tax-feeder public employment.

    Not even the pretense of directly giving any of that via redistribution, assistance, etc is made.
    The justification is always and only any indirect benefit supposedly accruing to those who pay.

    Giving the local cops another in the interminable 4% raises and free healthcare provides NO extra benefit vs. just raising by 1% or even holding flat and making them pay some for healthcare– or would these same cops make the town any less safe if we didn’t kowtow?
    Same for teachers, would they do any less of a job without having their recurring demands met?
    And even if that were true, what kind of cop or teacher is that?

    Fact is, much of this money only benefits the recipient is not really there for anything else.

    To F. Beards point about the root cause:
    To my thinking,while I fully believe that public employees feed and extort from their fellow private paymasters, that is so only relatively speaking.

    In absolute terms, these groups are the last ones left that still have the ability to extract that which they need to keep up what was once enjoyed by all (made this point previously).
    That means while most of us have lsot the ability to enjoy the middle-class wealth with its attendant lifestyle, these groups have not.

    In this state, NJ where most towns top personnel (superintendants, fire chiefs, police chiefs, town administrators, etc) make 150K+200K and up (not hyperbole) and regular cops earn 100k by the time they are 30, they can live like someone making 1/3 that could 30 years ago.
    But the rest of us, who pay their way, can’t.
    All from property taxes.

    Case in point: Recently saw a brand-spanking new Audi A8L at Newark airport. In the window, the prodly displayed FOP banner and badge ID.
    No wonder.

  • F. Beard September 1, 2010, 5:41 pm

    Anti-clothesline laws?

    I think the answer is fairly simple. Since folks are discouraged from honest saving via negative real interest rates then their homes become a major means of saving for retirement. Property values must therefore be kept up.

    As usual, “respectable” bankers are at the root of the problem.

    • Benjamin September 1, 2010, 6:42 pm

      I used to think so myself, F Beard. And it can be, but it needn’t be at odds with what I wrote.

      First, the house I have now was bought, cash, as a property tax default. I’ve it for, oh, maybe three years now. Before that, I was living out on the road. So I can’t say how it all went in regards to the treadmill of taxes –> credit demand –> debt cycle I described in the first response.

      What I can say is that I don’t know anyone that was planning retirement on the price of their house. I have a fairly large family on my mother’s side, almost all ‘boomers (six, twelve including spouses), and none of them have given it much thought; they just assume they’ll have to work until they’re dead. That’s what they tell me. If anything, they have (or had) their 401ks, though they laugh at that as well. Four/eight of them began financing in the mid to late 80s. They’re still in debt, because of the refinancings.

      That said, I beleive it was the intention of the cabal and government that people retire on their homes, as well as send their kids to college, so they could get higher paying jobs to boost social security. Trouble there is, it bumped up against the human tendency to seek reward for hard work… as well as rewarding freeloaders (usurers and government borrowing).

      I don’t think life was meant to be a constant tightrope, reward to be collected upon at a certain age. Hard times are inevitable, but it’s just ridiculous to assume people can forced to withold any sense of reward and fulfillment until they’re almost dead.

      That goes right to the heart of the issue… Social security was a big flop, so something else was forced instead, in order to cover it. But inhuman processes can’t drive themselves. And while clotheslines* certainly aren’t enough to explain things, tinkering with the many different taxes can have that driving effect. Add to that other ordinances that a city can use to bully someone with, and you got a perfect recipe for credit demand.

      * the other reason I used those is because they were the easiest to fit inside 400 or less words, and they illustrated best what I was getting at: thrift lost, but what is gained?

  • RTS September 1, 2010, 5:06 pm

    Arcanum… (sigh)… excellent game.

    • Benjamin September 1, 2010, 6:00 pm

      Yeah, and it’s really too bad that Troika was broken up shortly after.

      The one thing that I especially liked, even though it might not make sense to those that weren’t around when it was first released (raises hand), was that graveyard, dedicated to the fans at the time. And if you read the commentary made by the team during development, you could easily see how much they cared about their product and their fans opinions of it. They worked hard on that game, for sure!

    • RTS September 2, 2010, 6:27 pm

      No kidding, Benjamin! I’ve never actually encountered such a carefully constructed game in all my years of dabbling in the nascent endeavor. The story is unbelievably rich and comprised of both modern and antiquated myths, fitting perfectly within the context of a Tolkienesque industrial revolution. The time spent compiling the game manual alone must have been monumental; another example of genius buried under the poor decisions of higher-ups.

  • Robert September 1, 2010, 4:26 pm

    Ben-

    Excellent commentary. Funny how civility is often the first casualty of civilization.

    One of the great inequities of the human condition seems to be that none of us are ever able to live up to everybody else’s expectations.

    Steve- Bravo, as always. If the nationwide corruption of the Industrial revolution effectively subjugated the republic and laid the framework of a new feudal oligarchy, then it will be interesting to see what the information revolution (which is still in its infancy) will bring.

  • BDTR September 1, 2010, 4:20 pm

    Not off topic in the least, Ben, since much of the discussion here invariably relates directly to the elusive process of distinguishing and hopefully conserving value.

    The photo takes me back to a viscerally beloved texture and smell of air dried t-shirts and semi-rigid Levis that emerged neatly folded from my childhood chest of drawers. That harkened to the dairy farm meadows interspersed with undisturbed tracts of woods and wetlands long since supplanted by faux colonial McMansion fore-runners sheltering a pretentious gentry. It frowned deeply upon a farmhouse lined exposure of wash to naked sun from fancy curtained kitchen windows. Better a corporate bottled scent of synthetic, air-sun softener for pudgy teflon kids un-lost and well-behaved amidst street-lined, geometric foliage instead of fantastic youthful wanderings in wild-woods, fields and along still free flowing, non-toxic, fish filled streams.

    Ironically, it’s accommodating demand for a facsimile of life-likeness that is and has been basic to our cultural, economic and political evolution for decades. As real-life experience has arguably degraded qualitatively to ‘reality-show’ observation, values redefine accordingly.

    But real gentry has always been willing to sacrifice the well being of it’s lessors to maintain it’s own authoritative advantage. A culturally generic, ‘American Dream’ of ‘gentrification’, has synthesised an exponentially dilutive model irrespective of costs to it’s real global lessors, and pesky questions of economic, moral or environmental sustainability.

    It seems most rather would not think about value standards in rational, qualitative and ethical terms, but monger fear, market myths, leverage fantasies and pale facsimiles at ever higher nominal prices to actually poorer, real people.

    Makes you want to string up a line for more than clothes.

    • Benjamin September 1, 2010, 5:06 pm

      Well, I’ll always be a city boy, at heart. The hustle and bustle of it all… relaxing, away from it all, despite it being only feet away… the paintings of the country, hung on the walls of my abode… How it still gets quieter as the night progresses… racing down the expressway at 3 AM!

      Not that I’m saying the country is ill fitting for human habitation, mind you. I’ve seen it all, at least 1,000 times, trucking across North America as I have. All a matter of preference, my friend! 🙂

      One thing I didn’t have room to mention was what I was specifically looking at when I came across that ‘gentrification’ article. Flop houses. Like I said, I was looking back to get an idea of how things might have been. According to what I read, flop houses weren’t quite what I thought they were (ahem). No, they were places were migrant workers and the like went after the seasons changed. They went from the country, back to the city, to wait out the winter. I imagine that they were a way for many a person to work their way up to where they wouldn’t have to live in such places for the rest of their lives.

      Later on, as the Great Balance among things was disrupted, they became houses for the homeless, so I imagine that’s why they went away. The element, the lack of profitability, especially as the alchemists worked their magic. Now, they’re gone, and in their place is the back and forth flight to/from the country and city.

      We just can’t seem to make up our minds what is valuable and what isn’t. But I can assure that both are.

      Take care, country boy!

  • Chris T. September 1, 2010, 3:39 pm

    Ben,

    Whenever I read a comment which makes me think, whether or not I agree with the contents in part or fully, I think it was a good one.
    And so here.

    One thing occurred to me though.
    What these lawyers are doing, whether its banning clothes lines, or regulating the height of your lawn, etc…, is converting social rules into legal ones.
    It used to be that people were morally suaded by social norms into holding the common accepted line.
    That was not necessarily good (esp. for the non-confomrist), but the conformance came mainly from within than being only enforced with a stick.
    That is part of the homogeneity I was referring to recently. Not good for the individualist, but it did made society function more smoothly, a trade-off.

    As to the clothesline: It never would have occured to my grandmother to hang her clean laundry out to dry in public, that woudl have been an embarrasment, so it wasn’t done. Because it had to be dried of course, “one” hung it out in private, where it couldn’t be seen. She never wanted to use a drier either, why be so wasteful? Sure, not everybody could hang it out in private, but it was probable for the very reason that they couldn’t hang up in private (not enough money to live that way) that those who could, didn’t hang it out in-sight, it was considered a low-class thing to do..
    A social distinguishing certainly, but self-imposed.

    We prob. chafe at so many social norms now, but unfortunately, we have allowed to many petty dictators to impose on us.

    Another sad part of gentrification is that while it may make the place appear safer, cleaner, just nicer, it makes it boring, too!
    Soho for ex. is just galleries now, all the artists are gone, the edge is gone, because they got priced out. In Brooklyn now, and give it another decade or two, and they will have to find a new place yet again.

    The best example of this is just down the street from where we may go to see Rick this winter (just kidding!), 42 nd Street bewteen 7th and 8th in Manhatten.
    You can now walk there and not worry about being shot, solicited for drugs or by a pimp looking to find work for his “employees”, but its boring, too. Disneyesque and faux.

    Enough rambling.
    Steve, don’t worry, do this too, if you reread your own silly typos, boy tha’s embarrassing, “ow could I make such a dumb mistake…” But you get the hard ones right, and we haven’t had too many of those silly ad-hominem posters who write stupid stuff like: “your argument is ignorant because you can’t even spell buy correctly”, so no matter.

    • Benjamin September 1, 2010, 4:40 pm

      Hi Chris,

      Yeah, it’s something else entirely, isn’t it? Frankly, I sometimes think that I hang out here in the bad part of town simply because it has a bad reputation. I could live in better, but I don’t think I would like my neighbors so much. They probably actually measure their lawn to make sure it meets standards. A bit too creepy, for my tastes!

      The clothesline was of course just an example, as well as a kind of metaphor. Still, growing up around here I used to see them all the time. Then one day, like the sound of no crickets where there used to be crickets before, they were gone. Maybe it’s just a progress thing, or maybe since other towns have banned them the “rule of value” just caught on. I mean, in this day and age, one secures as much credit as they can…

      This is what I would consider to be a case where freely made decisions might be invisibly shaped by the State regardless. Whether taking down clotheslines or tearing down garages that can wait another decade, people get the idea that credit is easy and with the cost of living keeps going up… I honestly can’t say I know for sure that tinkering with taxes is the cause, but it does seem like a darn good suspect… and the process feeds on itself, taking on a life of it’s own.

      Anyway, this quote by the other ol’ Benny is quite fitting for today…

      “Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is. ” –Benjamin Franklin

  • DDoc September 1, 2010, 3:05 pm

    In my neighborhood we have a homeowner rule book an inch thick. No work trucks parked on the street, no business run out of the house, not even allowed to change the color of your front door or plant a tree without permission. At first it does feel limiting, but in practice after a few years people did pretty much whatever they wanted anyway. As long as the property looks reasonably good, nobody will say anything because we all want our freedom to make our own decisions. Laws can never be absolute.

    • Steve September 1, 2010, 4:27 pm

      Wrong Theory on Law – murder will always be murder. The only question is whether or not the people engage in outlawry as a governmental form. The laws of Assault, Breach, Fraud, Theft, and Trespass remain, the ordinances of man are the garbage Ben writes about. Ordinances control political conduct, Law judges Wrongs. Killing is another Thing – justified by Law when others Assault etc. This is the problem with America – you sign a contract and then breach before the ink is dry. How do you expect your legislators to obey fiduciary duty to the Constitution when you will not obey the least of a contract you endorse voluntarily.

    • DDoc September 1, 2010, 6:37 pm

      Steve,

      Are you blaming the American people for the corruption of our government?
      That is like them blaming us for the recession because we didn’t spend enough.

      As you pointed out politicians have been making and breaking laws for a long time. The Middle and lower classes are always being lied to and manipulated to serve the rich, its been going on since the beginning of recorded history. I didn’t start this idea of seeing legal contracts as being optional.
      So don’t blame me,
      blame the lawyers!

      Oh nice rip on american politicians by the way.
      F-ing pricks…
      Of course the corruption runs to the core.

      I like to say “Same sh!t different century”.

      rock on

    • Steve September 1, 2010, 11:01 pm

      DDoc,

      Who else are we to blame except the people who vote in a representation of themselves. Crooks could not get into office unless they were put there by people who have no Law, or find the law is subject to themselves. History calls this anarchy – denial of the Right of Contract in Order to do what one wants regardless of the Evil Breach represented. President Madison called this ‘democracy’ a tyranny run by despots. What can I say to the confession in the Court just made.

      May I clarify the distinction between the ordinances of man, and the Law. The covenants for a housing development are ordinances of person who wish to control and destroy Liberty. When one agrees and endorses that ordinance of man (housing/subdivision covenants) to destroy Liberty one comes under the Common Law of meeting of the minds to reach agreement to endorse a contract. The individual who endorses a Contact now is under the Law to obey and HONOR their WORDS in endorsement.

      Yes, the problem is the American person who elects a reflection of their own actions and honor.

      You confessed to Breach of Contract, an Assault upon the Peace and Dignity of Free People my friend. The problem is that the legislative body does not prosecute the assault, and the outlawry self perpetuates via voters who have no HONOR. The confession made is a Dishonor of Good, and an acceptance of the evil voted for.

  • mario cavolo September 1, 2010, 2:09 pm

    Hi Ben,

    Thanks for such a great point. Here in China, one of the interesting things about the culture is the flags of laundry hanging out local neighborhood windows. We had a clothesline in our backyard where I grew up in Yonkes, N.Y. The bigger trouble was us boy rats climbing up the clothesline pole rather than the laundry 🙂

    When I asked my close friend Gene why NOT to move back to the states, he replied “too many rules”. Indeed it is true and and unfortunate and very often for exactly the reasons you described. People with power playing their games legislating rules for ridiculous reasons that take the humanity out of humanity.

    Cheers, Mario

    • Benjamin September 1, 2010, 4:02 pm

      I kind of figured you’d have something to say about this, Mario! And I can just picture it in China… One does what one can. Am I right?

      But over here, what really gets me is that some would say others have no right to “damage” another’s property value, yet it’s perfectly okay in the name of fake high-class snobbery to do what was done to my folks.

      Long story short, an old garage (or rather, the city) forced them into their having to go back into debt, right as they were almost done with the original mortgage. From there, things snowballed, mostly because the code shamans wouldn’t leave them alone. That was back in 1995, and to this day, that debt is still hurting them, all the more that they were involved in a near-fatal car accident a couple years back. Now, fortunately for them I did some right things and have a decent chunk of money. It’ll hurt me in my future (I already have a slew of health problems, from untreated botulism poisoning five, six year ago), but what’s a son to do when those who were so good to him fall on harder and harder times?

      Anyway, it shocks me that we call this civilization. It angers me that some people even snitch on their neighbors, all to protect the price of their house (read:credit line). But by far the worst offenders are those people that think they should walk away rich from putting down pennies in a run-down neighborhood. They get a bailout from the law.

  • Steve September 1, 2010, 6:30 am

    Ya know I have got to quit writing with such passion – I keep making errors like by, instead of BUY.

  • Steve September 1, 2010, 6:28 am

    How long have ‘property taxes’ existed in the several States? And what in reality does the ‘fee’ on the absolute simple estate, which is all that is inheritable, under Escheats mean?

    And then we speak of Lawyers, the practitioner of Law, and an attorney and what that means. In Latin Atturn Ey – to twist the truth to the favor of the Lord (King). Maybe my State is different than others. 1868 the Legislature abandons and never goes sine die because of fraud in regard to the 14th amendment. 1897 the U’Ren progressive (communist party) empties the banks at the state Capital, and sends a special train for more gold and silver to by whisky and whores to keep the legislature from sending senators to Washington. 1910 the judicial branch is supplanted by fraud and misrepresentation, creating a body subject to the legislative branch. 1935 the Bar Act passes making every attorney a judicial officer in agent/agency. Nearly every county Court house is burned destroying all records between 1910 and 1935. Our alleged governor sets in a town which is not the Seat of Government, res Judicata, stare Decisis. There is a supreme court opinion saying that every act is utterly null and void and the people are “in rebellion”. Thus, the attorney has fused the branches of government, created a system where only a Bar Member can be a judge, and most legislators are members of the judicial branch, and can legislatively overturn executive and judicial branch decisions (was done in the last election cycle).

    The federal congress in 1852 passes 10 Stat. 146 saying that the people are under their (congress’s)absolute control and may experiment politically in democracy, Article I, sec. 8, cls. 17, Article IV, sec. 3, cls. 2. Congress refuses to fund the legitimate State House in Oregon City, and funds an experiment in democracy. Curin v. Converse says that citizens of territory have no constitutional rights owing their existence the federal legislative process. Supreme court opines the 14th amendment is a voluntary political act over which they have no jurisdiction, the people can vote to stop the abuses of democracy (tyranny run by despots according to Federalist Paper #46)

    Maybe your state does not have a documented history of bribery with gold and silver Coin, Whiskey, and Whores all done by what is called the Salem Clique – a group of New York attorneys lead by Matthew P. Deady, and a constitution written by the same man who wrote the 14th amendment (I’ll remember his name before this is over). Our Oregon System is famous – the U’Ren Progressive movement (better known as the Oregon Communist Party), all created by attorneys who now own a fused governmental system that does not let most play.

    To sum up the property tax matter. Prior to ‘property taxes’ in fee, fife, feod, feud, tenant in fee. What a man grew to subsist for his family on his land could not be taxed, and there was no fear of being taxed off one’s inheritable estate. Nor could quid pro quo Trade be taxed. Anything taken from the property to be sold in commerce was taxable. All corporate activity ‘excises’ was taxed, as were imports and exports, as was interstate trade taxed. Who bore the burden of taxation was the persons (word person assumed to mean corporation since 1934, Erie Railroad Doctrine) who gained from commerce in the Rights of Way, and via the corporate veil, and in importing and exporting. This system worked and produced so much revenue that million dollar Tiffany Lamps were put in the Denver Mint.

    What has changed ? At least in Oregon, one must ask who supplanted the judicial branch via the misrepresentation of F.W. Benson Dec. 3, 1910, creating a new state of legislative judiciary complete with an Oath to this state, versus the State, which are both defined at Ore.73, ch. 836, sec. 13, with exception at sec. 11(2).

    I hear the excuses over and over again – This is the New Paradigm – Its all Different this time – Quit looking at the past look to the future.

    I look forward to a future where fair weights and measures define our way. Where all of our children will have it better than I did. The future I see says that the few will have much, and the few will become fewer, as the many become many many more. The future I see says that those coming out of law school do not know the history of their power in abuses and crimes, nor; do they care their foundation is built upon whores, whiskey, and bribery so bad a special train had to be sent from the state Capital to the largest trading Port City to bring back more gold to corrupt what remained of good.

    • Benjamin September 1, 2010, 9:08 am

      Refusal to look to the past is as fatal as a tree not growing by it’s roots. Yeah, there’s more than clotheslines that disgust the modern equations, that being the “disgusting, poor people” trapping of history’s dirty laundry.

    • ben September 2, 2010, 5:42 am

      Atturn Ey !?!?! WTF kind of bogus Latin is that?

  • Benjamin September 1, 2010, 1:22 am

    Since submiting this last week, I’ve thought further on the question I provided, and stumbled upon a possible explanation as to how housing prices have been rising all these years…

    Some new buildings go up, some old ones undergo renovation, but most probably just keep on ageing like they were. And, as said in the article, the power ordinance rears it’s ugly head.

    Along comes an Assessor, and they just decide that property taxes are worth more. They probably look at building permits issued in an area over some period of time, but then again, maybe they cast bones and lick toads to decide (for all that it makes any sense to use permits in free society to begin with!).

    Now, even a little bit of tax increase can squeeze at least some people. Personally, I think it’s more than a few. Something like a property tax increase, being that it can be a few hundred at a time, just might cause people to make a payment or two late on something they owe, or even miss it altogether. Interest mounts. And with the pay raises just not coming fast enough…

    But once people begin to figure out that they just aren’t making it, they refinance. And when they decide to do that, another alchemist (called an appraiser) shows up, carrying the mystical healing devices of a clipboard and a screwdriver. They look around, then declare that your house is worth more. Yep, just like that. Problem solved!

    So now what? Well, we have housing price inflation, without any new money or credit created first. Following behind like a shadow is the increase in demand for credit. In addition to that, once a government “workers” union gets a wiff of the higher tax revenue projections, they of course want slice of that pie. So government, not being able to meet that request, borrows more to provide it. Gotta make everyone happy, you know!

    But property taxes doesn’t have to be the only way, as there are several taxes in the U.S. I can name at least eight, off the top of my head. Raise some, maybe lower others, even, and it’s not hard to imagine how they can stimulate borrowing, both among the general population and of government itself.

    Is this how things work? Possibly. All I know for certain is that I’ve not read or heard an adequate explanation as to how housing prices and credit demand have universaly been rising all these years. That, and until recently I’ve always thought that credit expansion had to come first. But when I least expected it, another explanation came along.

    Whatever the case, some readers occassionally remark about what the value of property is. Of course, it is to keep you warm and safe from the elements. It’s price? Whatever the buyer and seller agree to. The idea that granite countertops (as Chris T has remarked) increases value is just plain hogwash. And the idea of “eyesores” hurting the “value of the neighborhood” is a veiled form of collectivist bailout, if one were to ask me!


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