Deduction?
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I wonder if I will be able to claim a mortgage deduction on my income taxes next year for these mortgages that I'm helping to bail people out of with my taxes?
Heck, I ought to get some kind of benefit for actually doing the right thing and being responsible! I'm not going to be able to live in those houses or ride the jet-skis that people bought with home equity loans, or go out to eat with the money they saved by agreeing to a ridiculously low variable rate and not having to pay any down payment.
The very least I should get is a frickin' tax deduction, don't you think?
-snakelips
Heck, I ought to get some kind of benefit for actually doing the right thing and being responsible! I'm not going to be able to live in those houses or ride the jet-skis that people bought with home equity loans, or go out to eat with the money they saved by agreeing to a ridiculously low variable rate and not having to pay any down payment.
The very least I should get is a frickin' tax deduction, don't you think?
-snakelips
-snakelips
that's what i don't understand about conservative governance theory: if the free market naturally leads to better things, then why do they bail out these giant institutions so much? why do they give all those subsidies to the oil companies? why do they step in and interfere with bankruptcy protection to preserve the income of credit card companies?
in reality, all these bailouts are just another form of regulation: except they're regulating the companies that need it the least.
the one exception i have is the bankruptcies and home foreclosures: these were the result of 2 Bush-led initiatives, #1 the terrible bankruptcy bill that made it harder for people with legitimate bankruptcies to file, and #2 the easing of regulatory restrictions to lenders so Bush could advance his "ownership society."
in that case, i think our government owes it to the citizens who were hurt by their policies, to help them out a bit. I just think it should be the credit card companies and the mortgage companies doing the bailouts because they are the ones who profited handsomely from taking advantage of people. We shouldn't bail out with our taxes, make the mortgage companies pay for their own mess!
We don't see Bush & Cheney complaining about high gas prices, guess why? Because high gas prices only make them and their friends richer. Why should our tax dollars be spent on investments for these companies who don't need them?
I would suggest too that at least we the people got something out of the oil companies. I kinda like having gas stations at every corner and only having to pay a couple of bucks for all the energy contained a gallon of gas.
OH! And, I can actually decided to buy gas or not. I can't really do anything about being forced to bail out dumb-asses who signed ridiculous mortgages. I was hoping free market capitalism would solve that problem, but no, once again big gov't steps in and meddles with the system. How can you expect people to do the right thing when there's no negative effect of doing wrong?
And I don't want to hear anything about what someone needs. If they provide a good or service they deserve as much profit as people are willing to spend. Again, let the market work.
-snakelips
the reason we had all these foreclosures is because of the easing of regulations to lenders. now, you might be against regulation, but you must be able to see that regulation in this example protects our economy from the drastic dips that can happen as a result of reckless lending/borrowing.
so while conservatives my typically oppose regulations, in the case of the mortgage companies, such regulations are not only there to protect consumers, but to protect the entire economy from the domino effect of irresponsible borrowing AND lending.
what really chaps my hide is the fact that the same mortgage companies that loaned irresponsibly are now buying up those same properties at sub-market rates, in effect DOUBLING their profit... all off the misery of others.
Free markets are a-moral. Regulation is the idea that we insert some morality or ethics into the equation.
I know you are for some forms of regulation from your posting in the past, so I imagine you would agree with this?
I think the reason is because the left still wants a progressive tax system where you are punished for earning more and rewarded for not doing better. If we could pass a flat tax or something similar, maybe we could then start fixing the mess.
-snakelips
Oh, no doubt that the community will feel the pain in the short term if this bailout didn't take place. My concern is the precedent being set and the damage long term to the whole system of lending and borrowing based on risk and the ability to repay.
Aren't we always hearing about how are kids are going to have to pay for our mistakes now? I think this is a prime example of this. Let's take the short term PAINFUL hit now, to preserve the long term benefits of a healthy home loan market. Let's let the people who did wrong feel the pain too. Bailing them out puts most of the pain on we who did right, while those who made bad choices come out much better than they should have.
This, to me, smacks of advancing socialism and further unearned redistribution of earned wealth, and I don't like it.
-snakelips