A Chula Vista attorney has submitted a proposal to the California Attorney General's office for a constitutional amendment that would overhaul the state's tax system via the voter initiative and referendum process.

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From the New York Times:

As the value of home mortgages crumbles by the day, Wall Street has hoped that commercial real estate loans would stay clear of the storm.
For Wall Street banks, which hold about $100 billion of commercial mortgage-backed securities, the prospect has fanned new worries that a deterioration of the overall commercial property market could prompt more write-downs in the coming quarter, on top of losses already expected from their distressed mortgage securities holdings.
“When consumer credit goes south, commercial will follow.”
At the end of the second quarter, Deutsche Bank held $23 billion worth of commercial mortgage backed securities. Lehman Brothers, which has the largest exposure to this type of security, is shopping about $40 billion worth of commercial real estate assets, as well as its entire commercial real estate business. Moody’s/REAL Commercial Property Price Index has dropped nearly 12 percent since its peak last October. It was the kind of optimistic assumption that ran rampant in the residential housing market, but one that remained less common for commercial real estate loans.
Before the credit squeeze, financial companies bundled commercial mortgages into securities in much the same way they packaged home loans and private equity debt. Ratings agencies have only downgraded a few commercial real estate securities. Citigroup and Deutsche Bank created the commercial mortgage trust that included Riverton’s mortgage in March 2007. Riverton’s loan is the seventh-largest in the $6.6 billion trust, according to Fitch Ratings. Since February, delinquencies on commercial mortgage-backed securities have increased 43 percent.
At the same time, investors are also expecting further trouble in commercial real estate bonds. “The housing market’s weak, so market perception is that commercial real estate fundamentals will follow,” said Steve Gordon, managing director of MKP Capital Management, a hedge fund that manages $4 billion.

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From Dale Mayer's The Home Mortgage Book:

* Renting allows you more geographic flexibility. A rental lease is shorter and more finite than a mortgage.
* When you rent, you usually don't have to worry about maintenance.
* You don't have to pay property taxes.
* You don't have to worry about property values.
* Average monthly rent is less than a mortgage payment.

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