Author Archives: Yves Smith

“Les Français sont comme les chihuahuas” (#Snowden)

By Andrew Dittmer, who recently finished his PhD in mathematics at Harvard and is currently continuing work on his thesis topic. He also taught mathematics at a local elementary school. Andrew enjoys explaining the recent history of the financial sector to a popular audience

Although the incident occurred several days ago, the responses among French readers were so extraordinary that they merit further attention. For many, the incident represented an unmistakable turning point:

There is a certain concept of the world that is disappearing definitively.

And so I have selected a representative sample of these responses, both from Le Figaro (center right) and Le Monde (center left), and formed them into a conversation:

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Banks Outbidding Private Equity Funds at Foreclosures, Believing They Can Beat Them at the Pump and Dump Game

It’s conventional to deem local journalism to be dead, but Josh Salman at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune has written well-researched investigative story on bank bidding at foreclosures in his neck of the woods, Big lenders bidding to keep homes, that has national implications.

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It’s Time to Levy the Land

Yves here. While some of the concerns in this post are specific to Australia, they can be readily translated to other property regimes. The part that is missing, however, is that the US relies on “real estate taxes” which includes the value of the buildings on the land. Michael Hudson has advocated taxing land much more heavily, since unlike taxing capital or labor, it does not burden the economy with higher costs . As he explains in a 2009 interview:

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Beware, the Borderless Tax Man Cometh

Yves here. Readers presumably know that the US departs from the practice of pretty much every country in the world in taxing its citizens on worldwide income. Spain is breaking new ground in making citizens and residents declare foreign assets…which most see as a precursor to taxation. And of course, a move to tax out of country income or assets will increase the interest of countries to do more intensive snooping into the financial affairs of their inhabitants.

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