One of the reasons that house prices got so high here is that people could get crazy financing for huge amounts without adequate resources to pay it back. So “dumb money” bid the price too high, and now no one can buy or sell because they can’t finance their homes.
So there are two ways to fix this - the healthy way would be to let the market forces bring the prices down to what people can reasonably pay. This is the best for everyone long term as it levels out who can live in California.
The second way would be to use the government backed entities, Fannie and Freddie, to prop up these insane prices. This is akin to providing an alcoholic with discount coupons for the corner liquor store.
There’s a movement afoot by the Democrats to get the minimum wage raised again. Despite historical financial evidence to the contrary, raising the minimum wage does not help those at the low end of the wage spectrum, as our nation’s leftists would like us to think. Raising the minimum wage means businesses are less likely to hire more workers, due to their increased costs with the raise in the minimum wage.
Contrast this with the fact that, according to today’s Political Diary, Germany is set to cut its corporate tax rate to thirty percent, down from thirty-nine percent. Once it does so, the United States will have the highest corporate tax rate of the industrialized world.
How does this affect the minimum wage? I’m glad you asked. It seems high corporate tax rates, according to a “new study by American Enterprise Institute scholars Kevin Hassett and Aparna Mathur…is for the most part paid by workers in the form of lower wages.”
Ergo: cut the corporate tax rate, workers’ wages will rise.
You can not get even odds in Vegas that the Democrats would sign on to such a policy.
Liechtenstein is 200. The total population of the nation is a little over half of that of my town.
In the market for a new mortgage? Be sure to check out the Mortgage Professor, who has a list of “Upfront Mortgage Brokers”. These brokers promise the transparency of disclosing “the loan’s wholesale price (the interest rate and points), plus the markup, in writing and in advance.”
[Via Newsweek, June 26, 2006.]
A thought on why Honda rocks:
Last week, during swim lessons, I had a moron moment and forgot to take my Pilot’s key and fob out of my swimsuit pocket. An hour later, after drying off the tyke (the lessons were for him, in case you were wondering), I went to change in to some dry clothes and had one of those Seinfeldian “Oooohhhhhh” moments.
Just out of curiosity, I hit the lock button on the fob. Twice. I heard the Pilot’s horn blast a single note.
And I smiled.
It’s still working, with apparently no ill effects. So is the little keychain LED light my sister-in-law got as a stocking stuffer for me two Christmases ago.