California population declines for first time in more than a century • Hacker News Board

Re: California population declines for first time in more than a century

#391

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Sat, May 08, 2021, 1:42 PM UTC

AdrianB1 wrote: post #338

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never seen a good solution for this. If the taxes get locked in, then you get the "2 neighbors with near identical houses paying totally different amounts in taxes" problem. If the taxes are not locked in, then you get the retired lifelong home-owner (or renter) on a fixed income, unable to afford the increasing taxes (or rents).

That is easy, eliminate property taxes. That property was bought with money that was already taxed. If you provide services, ask them to pay for the actual services provided, not for a generic tax. Common services like police can be split to the number of residents.

This "the money was already taxed" line is so much BS. There's not some law handed from God that says "Thy shall only levy taxes on a single dollar once in its entire existence". There isn't even one that says "Thou shalt not levy a tax on this meagre dollar more than once as long as it is held by this particular individual".

Taxes are a matter of choice - a (democratic, even vaguely) society makes a choice to spend a certain amount of money, and as a reflection of that, they levy taxes on a variety of things to raise something roughly equal to that amount of money. These taxes will affect different people differently, and they will affect different kinds of income and different kinds of wealth differently. Some taxes are based on what a person is paid for their labor. Some taxes are based on a person's ownership of something valuable. Some taxes are based on what a person spends. What matters is who pays what and why, not whether "the money was already taxed".

But you're right that we have a choice in whether or not we levy a tax on the ownership of land/buildings. Personally, I'm more a Georgeist in such things, and I think that taxing the ownership of land is an excellent idea, much better than taxing income or spending. But I don't feel that Georgism itself answers the question of how to determine how much tax a person would/should pay for owning a particular piece of land.

Re: California population declines for first time in more than a century

#392

Post by jshen » Sat, May 08, 2021, 1:56 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #325

jshen wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can absolutely afford it on two tech salaries. I was exactly the person your describing 15+ years ago, but my wife wasn’t working so we only had one tech salary. Fast forward all that time, and the housing market you complain about will likely be a huge wealth generator for you, where as this cheap houses in the middle of no where won’t be.

Exactly! Housing only goes up and what happened in the last 15 years is bound to repeat itself in the next 15 years.

I’m guessing this is sarcasm, and yes, it’s not a sure thing, but it’s pretty close. Also, you have to live somewhere so the investment is offset by the rent you’d otherwise be paying.

Re: California population declines for first time in more than a century

#393

Post by pharmakom » Sat, May 08, 2021, 1:56 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #387

pharmakom wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Increasing density will naturally decrease reliance on personal motor-vehicles because more journeys become walkable.

> personal motor-vehicles Fancy way to say 'car'.

More precise because it includes trucks and such

Re: California population declines for first time in more than a century

#394

Post by epistasis » Sat, May 08, 2021, 2:03 PM UTC

avidiax wrote: post #288

Lammy wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it feels like that’s why it’s expensive. Either that or it just very coincidentally started getting extremely expensive at the same time housing segregation and home-loan discrimination were banned federally (1968 and 1974 respectively. People ask “WTF happened in 1971?” ( https://wtfhappenedin1971.com ) like they never took a high school “american history” class.

Is the answer that the US left the gold standard and switched to completely fiat currency? Or the US ended the trade embargo with China? Or Walt Disney World opened in Florida?

There are several other general policy changes and trends that are far more relevant to housing.

With the passage of the Fair Housing Act, cities embarked upon thorough downzonings to prevent any new construction and "preserve neighborhood character" by not allowing more affordable forms of housing like townhomes and condos.

Prior to the downzonings, zoning capacity was very free, there's a great graph of LA's zoned capacity versus population over time, and it starts decreasing from many many multiples of population, and as population rises it falls to barely more than population. This sort of extremely tight constraint on housing, allowing it only in very certain areas, and in particular only if there is no small subset of homeowners that oppose it, is a huge change from the past.

You can also see similar evidence pretty much all over the Bay Area too. A six story apartment building in the Sunset may exist now, but could never be build now because of downzoning. You'll find lots of older duplexes in some parts of the Bay Area, similarly outlawed now.

This sort of planning trend wasn't limited to California by any means, and the Levittowns of suburban development embraced a development style of having nearly all land "built out," a state of regulation so that nobody with slightly less money could move in because apartments or duplexes were allowed.

Re: California population declines for first time in more than a century

#395

Post by seanmcdirmid » Sat, May 08, 2021, 2:06 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #322

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is 9.3% on income after $58k until $300k (single filing), but the first $58k is taxed at a lower rate, so you never get anywhere near an effective 9% rate. That’s just the way marginal rates work, Republicans throw out the top tax rate to argue that California is high taxed, but it turns out the taxes are very progressive (the first $100k is taxed very lightly). He should have tenure. The UC system doesn’t pay tha…

I mean yeah, it’s marginal, but $45k-58k is taxed at 8%, then $33k-$46k is taxed at 6%. Those aren’t low rates compared to other states, especially considering the COL.

You have to look at what your effective rate is. If you make $100k, you’ll pay 6% effective.

Re: California population declines for first time in more than a century

#396

Post by epistasis » Sat, May 08, 2021, 2:09 PM UTC

elevenoh wrote: post #310

Der_Einzige wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the places like Oregon and Washington which are booming as a result of "California flight" have all of those same factors with marginally different weights associated to each individual problem. In particular, Oregon has a higher tax rate than California does for high (~120K+) earners as a result of a lack of sales tax and correspondingly absurdly high income taxes. Oregon is booming . Blue state politics is not…

>Blue state politics is not what is driving people out of California It's certainly part of it (wealth tax, non-nuanced small-biz killing lockdown, signalling > results) though. Not all 'blue state politics measures/stances' overlap.

"Wealth tax"? The people who are leaving California are not high wealth.

The best wealth tax out there, a land tax, has been prohibited in the California constitution via proposition 13, and that tax would go a long way towards eliminating the rentierism that is pushing out people with lower incomes.

Re: California population declines for first time in more than a century

#397

Post by lazyjones » Sat, May 08, 2021, 2:13 PM UTC

kewrkewm53 wrote: post #380

lazyjones wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Population growth is a real problem, we are living in an finite system called planet Earth. With 1/4 of the world population everyone would live better First half is true, second half ignorant. Your life is better because somewhere out there are half a dozen poor people mining resources and building goods for you, for a tiny fraction of your income.

That's only assuming that being able to buy cheap stuff actually makes people happier. I don't think it does.

Nobody is talking about happiness and nobody could agree with everybody on what that means. The word here was "better" and cheap labor in poor countries objectively makes our lives better, because we can afford more goods (both needed and unneeded) with our incomes and expectations regarding working conditions.

Re: California population declines for first time in more than a century

#398

Post by ngokevin » Sat, May 08, 2021, 2:15 PM UTC

0x000000E2 wrote: post #241

pbuzbee wrote: post #178

I feel like it's only going to get worse. California has a good number of problems: housing costs, traffic, wildfires, homelessness, ... and the high tax rate you pay for the privilege of enjoying them. But I haven't seen California take meaningful steps to solve any of these. We're still in the stage of "problems are getting worse", and any solutions will take a long time to materialize. I grew up in California. It'…

Most of California's problems go back to lack of housing and opposition to building more. Everyone wants to live in Cali for nice weather and jobs. If you stop people from building more housing your property value just keeps rising. Property costs are high because NIMBY blocking denser housing. Traffic is bad because housing density is too low for the population. Homelessness is bad because houses are too expensive.…

> Wildfires and earthquakes are the only problems not self inflicted

PG&E?

Re: California population declines for first time in more than a century

#399

Post by epistasis » Sat, May 08, 2021, 2:17 PM UTC

cudgy wrote: post #254

linguae wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a lifelong Californian whose lived in Santa Cruz County for nearly nine out of the past 11 years, and as someone who wants to become a CS professor at a teaching university one day, I feel the exact same way. I love California and I don't want to leave the state. However, the housing prices signal to me that if I want to buy a house, I need to have a very high income and maintain it during the length of a 30-year…

Why is owning a house so important that people would move away from family to another state? Seems like there would be more important reasons. Also, professorships are notoriously difficult to obtain and many professors move to far away rural and otherwise undesirable locations for that “privelege”. I’ve known several distinguished professor couples (not in CA) that live separately to pursue their careers … think twi…

Not owning the house means that your landlord can kick you out at any moment because they can claim that they want to move in. Which means hunting for a new place, which is extremely difficult due to the massive shortage. There are also massive financial benefits of owning a house, for tax purposes, beyond avoiding the yearly increase in rent. This happens even in the cities in California with the highest amount of tenant protections.

Personally, I'd rather pay a property manager to take care of everything rather than have to do it all myself, or have to find landscapers and plumbers and all that other drudgery. But I bought purely for the security that we only provide to those who own their own place.

Re: California population declines for first time in more than a century

#400

Post by WarOnPrivacy » Sat, May 08, 2021, 2:17 PM UTC

raldi wrote: post #234

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And farm where? The aquifer used by most of the midwest is over half drained and can't be replenished. South of there is dessert. North is cold. East is populous and mountainous.

If we made no change other than to stop growing the almonds that we export overseas, that alone would free up enough water to accommodate about 20 new San Franciscos: https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/LA-vs-Exports...

While farming that uses even more water gets a pass?

http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/05/11/cows-not-almonds-...