Mark Wadsworth: Julian Assange

Monday 14 February 2011

Julian Assange

13 comments:

The Grim Reaper said...: Is that your own creation, Mark?; 14 February 2011 at 11:49
Mark Wadsworth said...: TGR, I drew it yesterday, if that's what you mean.; 14 February 2011 at 11:54
The Grim Reaper said...: That is what I meant. I'm impressed.

By the way, you can call me Grim, Mr Grim, Mr Reaper, or Grimmy as one person did once...; 14 February 2011 at 12:01
dearieme said...: Rather good, M. By the by, I thought you might enjoy this passage from "Mish".

"Property taxes in Illinois are insane. I pay about $14,000 a year ($1167 a month!) on a house worth about $650,000. Thus my property taxes are roughly 2.2% a year. Is this really "owning" a house?

Why Own a House?

As noted above, you can never really own one. Property taxes are a perpetual liability.

However, I made an agreement with my wife, decades ago, that we would get a house as soon as she finished school. She wanted one, I didn't. However, now that I have one, I am happy with it. There are tradeoffs.

My advice to people has not changed. If you want a house and can afford a house, then as long as you really know what you are getting into, and as long as you are quite sure your job is stable then buy a house. (That's quite a lot of IFs)

In 2004-2006 I was more vehemently opposed to buying a house than now.

Twenty years ago you could get nice appreciation, but that is no longer true. Moreover, I suspect that once home prices bottom, prices will stagnate for a decade.

Thus, there is no compelling financial treason to own a house. Indeed, from a financial perspective, there are good reasons to not own a house.

However, there are more important things than money. If having a house makes you or a loved one happy, then as long as you can afford a house, and as long as it does not make you a debt slave, it is reasonable to buy one.

The biggest key right now is making sure your job is stable. If it's not, then buying a house might bankrupt you if you lose your job. Unfortunately, many people vastly overestimate the stability of their job."; 14 February 2011 at 12:25
Mark Wadsworth said...: D, ta.

What's the problem with Illinois? In the absence of those taxes, that house would be worth (say) $1 m. So for the next purchaser, the $14,000 he 'saves' in taxes he pays in extra mortgage payments.

You say 'you can never really own a house' because there are tax payments involved, so what? By the same token, people only 'own' about half the value of their own skills and labour etc (which I find is a considerably worse state of affairs).

PS, the real reason you can never really own a house is because you're going to die one day and it will end up belonging to somebody else anyway, all this 'wealth cascading down the generations' is bullshit anyway, I'm sure most people would rather pay less tax, year in year out than for some people to inherit random amounts of money at random intervals.; 14 February 2011 at 12:39
Bayard said...: Mark, good point on inheritance. The question most people don't think of is "Would you rather leave your heirs a house (which might be in the wrong place, is a maintenance liability, and is a legal minefield if left jointly (many a happy family has been riven apart by the joint inheritance of a property)) or would you rather leave them a chunk of money worth the same as the house?" (Unless, of course, you are Sir Peter Fulford of Fulford Manor and your family has lived there since the C13th when they built the place.); 14 February 2011 at 12:55
Mark Wadsworth said...: B, ta for back up, I would go further and say that the real question is:

" "Would you rather leave your heirs a house [etc] or would you rather allow them to keep a larger share of their own earned income, worth far more than the house?"; 14 February 2011 at 13:24
dearieme said...: "What's the problem with Illinois?"

Chicago, Chicago, that toddlin' town.; 14 February 2011 at 13:30
Bayard said...: Mark, I'd agree, but I think that many people can't really work it out that far.; 14 February 2011 at 18:13
Scott Wright said...: "You say 'you can never really own a house' because there are tax payments involved, so what? By the same token, people only 'own' about half the value of their own skills and labour etc (which I find is a considerably worse state of affairs)."

At the end of the day even in this country (as my dumb fuck mother found out) you can never truly own a house if you don't pay your dues to "The State" as they will take you to court, whack a bankruptcy on you which of course if all you own is your house, you end up losing it as its sold off to pay your debts. Sure the balance comes back to you if its sold at a profit but they can force it to be sold.

So if we align our thinking, knowing this then surely LVT isn't such a bad thing as its less economically damaging than shite like VAT and Employer NI.; 14 February 2011 at 18:17
Mark Wadsworth said...: B, yes, but I had to think it through for a while, problem is finding a snappy way of formulating it.

SW, true, the strange thing is, if I say that LVT isn't an issue for pensioners because they'd be allowed to roll up then the HO crowd shout back "Well that's like Inheritance Tax then!" but as we know, if you die with massive income tax arrears then HMRC will claim that before the heirs get their hands on anything.; 14 February 2011 at 20:13
Bayard said...: Sorry, I meant Francis Fulford, a fellow blogger: http://francisfulford.blogspot.com; 15 February 2011 at 17:17
Mark Wadsworth said...: B, that's amazing. I thought you'd invented a character but he is actually a real life thieving shit and proud of it.; 15 February 2011 at 18:51

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