On Tuesday Britain announced it’s own bailout plan for their battered housing market- exempting homes under 175,000 pounds [311,000 USD] from first year property taxes.
In response the Daily Mash [Similar to "The Onion" ] proposed it’s own bailout program- the government can throw in a car with the housing bailout:
FIRST-time buyers across Britain are hoping the government can see its way clear to stumping up for a motor as well.
They said that while buying them a house is really nice and everything, it will look a bit daft without a car sitting outside it.
Wayne Hayes, a sales executive from Lincoln, said: "What’s the point of buying me a nice, new house with a garage and then not buying me a car? Are you trying to hurt me?"
He added: "Go on, get us a car. All my mates have got cars. I’ll vote for you. Promise."
The Society of Motor Manufacturers has also urged the government to buy lots of cars, particularly 4×4s and large petrol estates.
A spokesman said: "If you’re buying people stuff then yeah, a car would be good. It’ll totally reinvigorate the car market and all that."
Americans can’t laugh too hard though- Detroit had the same idea before the "Daily Mash" did.
The sad thing is, Daily Mash and The Onion usually make more sense than the politicians. True masters of satire.
Now, this part is definately NOT funny:
“executives at GM, Ford and Chrysler met and agreed that they would need about $40 billion to ride out their current troubles, and the way out of the losing streak would be a government bailout.”
Jeez. Bunch of friggin babies. Each one of these companies (and executives) made crazy stupid money when SUVs were selling hand over fist, but now they can’t suck it up and get the job done without big brother? Bulls***. Privatize the gains…socialize the losses…same old broken record.
Keith-
Kinda sad, isn’t it? I was reading the Daily Mash and chuckling when I thought, “Wait a minute, there IS an auto bailout being proposed.”
It was supposed to be satire, but it was too close to the truth for comfort.
John-
Your Bloomberg find on the sidebar quoting Bill Gross of PIMCO trumps even the Daily Mash this morning. It sounds like he’s looking for an “Everything bailout”.
Next someone will be proposing that government officials cruise garage sales and buy our junk to make sure that it doesn’t lose any value.
You’re right Igor- “broke” is the word that comes to mind.
Is it possible that the top business consultant to the Fortune 500 in 2009 will be none other than Matthew Lesko?
Will he have to change his infomercial?
Will he have to buy a suit without ?????? all over it?
Will he have to stop screaming at people about how to get $ 20,000 to go to college and start hollering to corporate execs about how to get $ 20,000,000,000 in “FREE GOVERNMENT MONEY” to shore up their industries?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Lesko
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkzRZxKw6GY
Hey… stranger things have happened! Like action stars becoming governors of states, for example.
That linked article was written by someone who doesn’t understand stamp duty and got it very badly wrong. Stamp duty is not the equivalent of property tax; it is a one-time tax collected by the central UK government when a house changes hands. It has no equivalent in the USA (probably because stamp duty as it currently exists on UK houses is one of the few remaining vestiges of the old stamp duty, which was one of the taxes the colonists objected fervently to in the American Revolution).
The UK equivalent of property tax, which is paid annually to a more local government, is council tax, which is paid to the local council. The council is charged with a huge array of services typically handled by city or county governments in the USA (for an example council website, see http://www.camden.gov.uk/ — Camden is one of the boroughs of Greater London).
The big difference between council tax and property tax is that the person responsible for it is the occupant of the property, not the owner. It is not included in quoted rents, which comes as an unpleasant surprise to many Americans who move to the UK. Yes, I know that rents indirectly pay the property tax in the USA.
This stamp duty measure is an incentive to buy this year rather than next, if you are shopping for a property cheap enough to qualify, which basically means reasonably sized and nowhere near London.
Goodcheer is wrong. This duty, when a property changes hands, DOES exist in the U.S. Many municipalities impose it (including the one in which I live), and during the boom, they have been floating their government entities on this charge. True there is no such Federal charge, but one of the dirty little secrets of the American economy is how much this charge has been responsible for municipalities not going into bankruptcy.
By the way, my Wachovia contact–the one who sells repossessed houses–is still laughing, laughing, laughing as the idiot bank reports that these properties are “sold.” Either the purchase is financed–so the bank is going to get the property back, according to the bank’s own research into the purchaser–or it is speculation, with many of the purchasing being made in ACTUAL CASH (not even checks).
How long does she think this can go on? “Until tech tanks–then all the money will dry up from any source whatsoever.”
And an idiot like Bill Gross–whose own book is in DEEP doodoo (he thought everything would turn out “fine”)–says we need to have the Federal Government monetize everything RIGHT AWAY.
Well, ain’t gonna happen. Why not? Because the Washington crowd is VERY WELL AWARE that the Federal Government could not sell ANY assets it now purchased, and that monetization will now do nothing but collapse the dollar, i.e., lower Federal power.
Maintaining Federal power is what it’s all about now, so….
liquidate liquidate liquidate. Macarthur (or whoEVER) on his white horse, Hoovervilles, Huey Long and bonus armies.
But no FDR. The scrutiny regime is the one thing which has totally lost credibility. And poor John Roberts–that fathead (he keels over now and then, his psychopathology is so bad) had to sign off on West Coast Hotel IN WRITING (check it out on the web). Silly fool! Let’s hope his head rolls, along with a LOT of others.
Oh and by the way, this is why Bill Gross wants the Federal Government to monetize FM bonds. Can you say “moral hazard”? What a loathesome piece of trash!
Bloomberg, 9/4
The Pimco Total Return Fund returned 9.8 percent in the past 12 months, beating 97 percent of its peers in the government and corporate bond fund category as of Sept. 3, according to Bloomberg data. The returns are 5.76 percent annually over five years. Pimco has about $830 billion of assets under management.
About 61 percent of Gross’s holdings were mortgage-backed securities as of June 30, mostly debt guaranteed by Fannie, Freddie or Ginnie Mae, according to data on Pimco’s Web site.