Harry,
At 02:26 19/05/2011, you wrote:
Its land values falling that is responsible for the drop, not home values.
Harry
True, but not quite. At present, good
agricultural land is going up in value because of
world over-population and the growing of
biofuels. In fact, if you were to do a
cross-sectional walk through a major city in most
advanced countries, land price would drop as you
entered the suburbs and proceed through most
parts of the city where the bulk of the
population live. Land prices would then rise
steeply as you came to small pockets in some
living/retailing/restaurant/office parts of the
inner city where the rich spend most of their
time. This is where I strongly agree with you
Georgists. We won't have any sensible system of
taxation until land values are directly taxed.
The rich -- with the notable exception of Warren
Buffet! -- always want to reflect their wealth in
the precise locations where they live and work.
Even rich criminals with incomes that are unknown
to the tax authorities need to show their status
publicly. Rich people know that they already pay
over the odds when they buy goods and services,
so even they wouldn't want to try and evade land
taxation by living in a hovel because it would
reduce their status. Instead, and motivated by
popular envy, we have become stuck in a system of
personal taxation which is punitive to the
entrepreneurial (and also to the middle-class
family man these days) and easily avoidable by
the very rich who employ clever accountants and lawyers.
Keith
******************************
Henry George School of Los Angeles
Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042
(818) 352-4141
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From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of D and N
Sent: Friday, May 13, 2011 7:35 PM
To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION
Subject: [Futurework] 28% homeowners owe more on mortgage than home worth
<http://www.cnbc.com/id/42955097>http://www.cnbc.com/id/42955097
CNBC - U.S. home values fell in the first
quarter at the fastest rate since late 2008,
real estate data firm Zillow said on Monday,
suggesting that a bottom will not be seen until 2012 at the earliest.
Zillow said its home value index fell 3 percent
in the first three months of the year from the
previous quarter, and was down 8.2 percent year-over-year.
The number of homeowners under water or, those
who owe more on the mortgage than their house is
currently worth amounted to 28.4 percent of
single-family homeowners, representing a peak
since Zillow began calculating the data in 2009.
..... Almost all of the 132 markets covered by
Zillow saw home value declines. Only Fort Myers
in Florida, Champaign-Urbana in Illinois, and
Honolulu, Hawaii, managed quarterly increases.
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Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/05/
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