Wampum

During my last year of high school we'd a large scale project, to survey our community, then being "malled" for the first time, and while the tension between main street small independent business located on owned or long-term leased properties on and off of the main streets and the mall developers were obvious, we discovered something else. For the population at, or older than, retirement, schools were an expensive nuisance. It was something of a surprise to discover that those nice older people in their smallish, in-town houses built before our parents were born, pretty much wanted to drown the progeny of their progeny.

It would have made the last year of high school much more interesting if we'd shared our data. Driver's ed could have been a series of hilarious learning experiences involving kinematics, walkers and crosswalks, with liability picked up by the school district, that is, by the property tax payers.

Eight years later Jarvis-Gann was on the ballot:

SECTION 1. (a) The maximum amount of any

on real property shall not exceed One percent (1%) of the full cash value of such property. The one percent (1%) tax to be collected by the counties and apportioned according to law to the districts within the counties.

Education in California plummeted, K-12 and in the Junior College, State Colleges, and University of California systems.

Property values in coastal Maine rose sharply between the mid-nineties and the mid-oughts. Between 1999 and 2000 the appraisal value of our house increased $35,000 -- 10% in one year. It was the same every year we owned that property, 10% a year. Even with an unchanged mil rate, our property taxes went up every year, as did our replacement-cost insurance, though our income did not. It was the same or worse all up and down the coast. People were being appraised out of their incomes, hence out of their homes.

Everyone could agree that the root cause was Massholes buying up property for summer homes, using the Masshole bubble market equity, forcing a Maine bubble. No matter what direction you bought, up coast, inland, out on the islands, the transaction itself caused values to inflate.

We'd the plague, the ad valorem plague, in its highly contagious form.

Edwards proposed to stop the foreclosures. MB was preparing a post explaining that she did not support John on this issue, even with the knowledge that the directly affected are not all yuppie flippers who rolled the dice one time too often, but that lenders targeted minorities and women for subprimes. More poor people are harmed by the inflated cost, that is, the hyper-profitability, of basic shelter, than are harmed by being converted back to being renters when their loans reset. Stopping the foreclosures would simply leave housing cost unchanged from the peak, or near peak, set by the ad valorem plague, and leave the hyper-profitability of basic shelter something every speculator, every investor, could count on, guaranteed by the Federal treasury.

Clinton proposes to stop the foreclosures. See above.

Obama's message of the moment is more hands-off. Help those who've been scammed, but nothing for the flippers, to the investor class go the spoils.

What all of these miss is that we'd a public cost increase no different from the private cost increases planned and executed by the executives of Enron, and the private cost increases planned and executed by the executives of Exxon, Mobile, and so on. The cost of local government has gone up, the amount of liability has increased, independent of income, particularly incomes not adjusted for cost of living increases, without a vote. Maintaining the hyper-inflation of valuation of shelter, fixer-uppers, entry-level, second property rentals, doesn't benefit first time house buyers or renters, and maintaining the hyper-inflated ad valorem tax doesn't benefit long-term mortgage payers and freeholders.

Our Republican friends are ever so quick to identify hidden taxes -- banning lead paint from use where children are present is a hidden tax on property owners who have to buy more expensive paint is one gem that comes to mind.

How about this one -- preventing foreclosures, bail-outs, interventions, etc., all maintaining the bubble, artificially elevate the cost of living, and in particular, artificially elevate the cost of government.

How about a policy other than a property tax stairway to heaven? With three of every five poor renters spending more than half of their income on housing, how about more public investment in shelter? How about a policy other than urban sprawl on the edge of the ever-expanding equity bubble, sucking up sewer, water, school, and fire district resources and driving up bonds as well as the ad valorem tax, like flu in a nursing home?

Build more ecologically sound housing or float more jumbo loans? Its a policy choice.

Tossed over the transom to the Nader 2008 Presidential Exploratory Committee, as there is no Democratic campaign left that offers an alternative to maintaining the status quo, and over the transom to the (currently) suspended John Edwards for President Campaign, who still have the shingle up: We're always looking for fresh ideas.