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Heh! I’m like….ah, waaay behind in terms of keeping this blog updated.

So I’ve decided to try to make an effort to post something, anything, to this blog more regularly (daily if I can, otherwise at least several times a week) until such time as I totally blow up my brain and can’t come up with anything else to yammer on about. I’m gonna try to update the LJ blog too. Problem with that is I’ll talk too much about Bill, which, although would save me from talking too much about Jack and dropping any “K5 Through Infinity” spoilers, I’d end up dropping too many spoilers about this upcoming Bill story (tentatively titled “Crossfire”) and I…can’t…reveal…anything! ARGH!

I think my brain’s gonna blow up sooner than I figure.

Now, I could talk about MaryAnne but then Jack and/or Bill would find their way in to the conversation somehow.  See above. Repeat.

Maybe I won’t worry about the LJ blog for the time being. I’ll just focus on this blog and whatever commentary I can come up with on the Never Ending Saga of Human Misery and Suffering.

And speaking of the Never Ending Saga of Human Misery and Suffering…how about that housing bill that’s comin’ down the pike? Eeeeyaaugh…

I made the mistake of reading up on this thing today. No wonder the President has decided to sign it. It’s junk! About the only good thing that’s gonna come out of this housing bill is that more folks will qualify to deduct their property taxes on their income tax return.  The only way you could take the deduction before was if you itemized your deductions on form 1040. And even then, you had to have enough deductions to actually qualify to take deductions at all. So if you were on a fixed income and owned your home outright, had no deductions to take, yet forked over, say, $4000 a year on property taxes, you were SOL.

Of course, you can only take up to $1000 extra on the standard deduction under this new bill, but this is still good for those folks who actually busted their asses, paid for their homes, worked hard and are now retired and have a reduced income. They played by the rules, dammit they oughta get something for it!

I should note as an FYI, if you’re on a fixed income and have a high property tax bill, you can check with your local city/town tax collector about maybe getting a credit or exemption from your property taxes if you meet certain qualifications (such as age, veteran status, income, ect.). 

The other tax benefit (and that’s debatable) is first time home buyers will get a $7,500 credit. Now there’s a difference between a deduction and tax credit, the biggest of which is the credit has to be paid back.

No kiddin’. If you take that $7,500 credit you have to pay it back. $500 bucks a year for 15 years.

This is the kind of stuff ol’ Boss Hogg would have loved. Only he would have added interest to that $7,500. As this is a tax credit, it’s interest free. (Isn’t it nice of us taxpayers to loan $7,500 interest free?)

The housing bill does now put mortgage brokers under regulatory scrutiny, which is long overdue. Although that doesn’t immediately fix the current problem, it should help prevent the kind of shady deals and such that we saw that led to the mess we’re in now.

On the other hand, there’s provisions and such in the housing bill that could just open the door to new kinds of fraud and such. And this legislation’s attempt to fix the immediate problem, however, I ain’t so sure is gonna fix anything.

Click here for a good overview of the housing bill from Bankrate.com and check out the Bankrate.com Mortgage Matters blog here for a complete overview of all the good, the bad and the ugly of the housing bill.