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California's housing bill SB 50 has died in the state Senate

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Re: California's housing bill SB 50 has died in the state Senate

#421

Post by tptacek »

scarface74 wrote: post #412
tptacek wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an unserious argument. ED and property taxes aren't comparably unpredictable. An obvious illustration of this would be the fact that most places in the US don't have California's cap, and people manage tax planning just fine. If your real argument is, essentially, "taxation is theft", that's a coherent position, but since most people don't agree with the premise, you're not left with much to contribute to thi…

No, I’m not saying that “taxation” is theft, but the undercurrent of raising property taxes on people who have been living in their houses for years is that the land could be better use by “more productive” tech bro’s than old people and if you raise the taxes enough, they would be forced to move. Those same tech bro’s would hate it if they were taxed on unrealized, illiquid wealth. But, yes there are plenty of juris…

This is how property taxes work pretty much everywhere else, dense and sparse, tight housing market and loose. It doesn't seem to be causing a crisis anywhere, unlike California's policy, which is implicated in an actual housing shortage.

Re: California's housing bill SB 50 has died in the state Senate

#422

Post by scarface74 »

amunicio wrote: post #418
scarface74 wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does a person who owns a $1 million dollar home "consume" more resources than a person who owns a $200K home? What if the homes are the same but in different parts of the city?

This is not a good argument. It would be the equivalent of me asking: Does the trash pickup service, repairing potholes or patrolling the street cost more if the home owner just moved in than if has own the house for 30 years?

Well, that does argue for my previous stated idea of charging every property owner the same fee for the same service.

Trash pickup is actually a great example. Where I live it’s not part of your property taxes. It’s a separate bill and everyone pays the same amount.

The city council can set budgets for the different departments and set taxes based on the budget. Neighborhoods already do something similar via homeowner’s association fees and condo fees.

Re: California's housing bill SB 50 has died in the state Senate

#423

Post by potatoz2 »

baddox wrote: post #192
potatoz2 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's much likelier that they are responding to the voters that have the time and money to make their reelection difficult.

Okay, change "state senators are probably making quite a bit of money off this housing shortage" to "state senators are probably being awarded with a lot of power by supporting this housing shortage." Decision-making on the basis of wanting to be powerful is certainly not better than decision-making on the basis of wanting to be wealthy.

It's very different though, because in the former case the assumption is that direct financial benefit is blocking all chance of change. In the second you realize that organizing by different interest groups (renters for example) can easily change the calculus. Senators who are landlords will gladly vote against their financial interests to stay in office, by and large (or be replaced by senators who are will to do so).

Re: California's housing bill SB 50 has died in the state Senate

#424

Post by triceratops »

generalpass wrote: post #347
triceratops wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A well-funded campaign is useless against pissed off voters.

> A well-funded campaign is useless against pissed off voters. The re-election rate of incumbents in California state senate districts approaches 100%. Getting into office in a district of a million people is about money, nothing else.

> nothing else.

So the politician is getting re-elected even if they vote entirely contrary to their constituents' wishes? That's a bold claim.

Re: California's housing bill SB 50 has died in the state Senate

#425

Post by potatoz2 »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #233
icelancer wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that cultured Americans love Paris without taking any of the lessons of Paris (insanely dense city) never ceases to amuse me in the Bay Area.

Paris is shaped like a snail and concentric circles of density and affluence with the inner most circle being most affluent. Paris also has a stellar and reliable public transport system and is very walkable. Bay Area wants the density (and property taxes inflow) but don’t want to invest in infrastructure and public transport.

That's largely true, but many parts of Paris itself are relatively working class (the 13th district, the 19th district) and still very dense.

Similarly while the outskirts of Paris don't have a subway system (they have the RER, akin to BART) they are still very dense.

Walkability comes from density almost inevitably because it's financially doable to have more stores/activities/restaurants in a smaller space while still getting customers. This makes walking around the city interesting.

I think the issues in the Bay Area cities I know relatively well (SF and SJ) comes down to political will to zone neighborhoods properly.

Re: California's housing bill SB 50 has died in the state Senate

#426

Post by lkbm »

mnemonicsloth wrote: post #104
djannzjkzxn wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relocating HQ means laying off all your employees. This is not a figure of speech or analogy, it’s literally true. You are laying off all of your employees in the current location when you move the jobs away. The question is whether those employees are going to choose to uproot themselves to go work for you at the new HQ, or stay behind and find another job. Most will stay put instead of moving away. People generally…

Because of my father's job, my family moved 9 times before I was 12. It wasn't as big a deal as you're describing.

That's nice, but would I move to follow my company? Probably not. I'm pretty sure most of my coworkers wouldn't either. Would you?

Re: California's housing bill SB 50 has died in the state Senate

#427

Post by triceratops »

BurningFrog wrote: post #306
roca wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No problem. To an outsider like me, this seems like one of the worst features of Prop 13. Over time it separates people into two classes: those whose family has owned property for a long time, and everyone else who can't afford to buy a house because the taxes are prohibitive. (Even if you're very rich, it will make more sense to rent than to trigger tax reevaluation.) Call it neo-feudalism.

...but even this Prop 13 Landed Gentry has a big problem: They have to live in their fabulously high priced and undertaxed home to enjoy the benefits. They can't move to another town or maybe not even take a job in the other side of town.

They actually could, until December 2018.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13...

Re: California's housing bill SB 50 has died in the state Senate

#428

Post by BurningFrog »

joe_the_user wrote: post #417
BurningFrog wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One realization that's helped me a lot: Yes, people talking self serving nonsense are lying. But they're primarily lying to themselves !!! Essential book: https://www.amazon.com/Elephant-Brain-Hidden-Motives-Everyda... TED talk version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V84_F1QWdeU

Yes, people talking self serving nonsense are lying. But they're primarily lying to themselves! When we're talking this kind of phenomena, we certainly using language at a very high level of abstraction. But the "color" of how one expresses one's self matters even more. What "primary" means here is key, for example. People talking self-serving nonsense often believe what they're saying, maybe more than someone taking…

> On the one hand, one can give the defense, "they aren't consciously trying to put their interests ahead of yours and aren't trying to deceive you"

Almost. There needs to be a "consciously" before each "trying".

Because they are trying to deceive you, but the conscious part of their (or, just as much, our) mind doesn't know it.

It helps to think of the brain as dozens of more or less independent units, most of which are unconscious.

The common metaphor is:

If you think of the brain as something like the White House, the conscious part ("me") assumes it is the President. In reality it is the Press Secretary, tasked with coming up with arguments for why what the real decision makers decided is a great idea.

Re: California's housing bill SB 50 has died in the state Senate

#429

Post by harryh »

scarface74 wrote: post #413
harryh wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad you've come around to my p.o.v. on property taxes! The pros and cons of a mark to market capital gains tax are pretty far outside of the scope of this thread, so I will save my thoughts on them for another day.

It’s the same concept. You want to tax illiquid unrealized wealth that may force people to sell the underlying illiquid asset to pay taxes.

I already covered this way upthread. Property taxes aren't wealth taxes, they're consumption taxes.

Re: California's housing bill SB 50 has died in the state Senate

#430

Post by harryh »

hundt wrote: post #403
harryh wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ratio between rents and property values varies wildly Does it vary all that much within a specific property tax jurisdiction?

Sure! Here are some things that could cause the rent/value ratio to be significantly different for a single property: - There is no usable building on your property. - There are plans to build a highway through your neighborhood in five years. - Amazon has announced plans to build an office in your neighborhood two years from now. - There are harvestable (with further development) natural resources on your property.…

I don't have data as to precisely how strong the correlation is

I'm actually pretty curious now, and might be go looking for data. It's surely not precisely 1, but I bet it's not all that far off. Especially if you limit the sample to residences.

Your list of outliers is a good one (I particularly like the natural resources one), but I think they're probably mostly exceptions to the rule.

In the end though sure, property taxes aren't precisely consumption taxes. But they clearly aren't wealth taxes either. They're something in between and, I think, much closer to consumption that wealth.

I've really enjoyed thinking about the points you brought up. Thank you for doing that.

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