Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Seeing like a state, progress and poverty, and owning land

loukidelis.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 156 posts

Re: Seeing like a state, progress and poverty, and owning land

#81

Post by DubiousPusher »

earleybird wrote: post #62
robocat wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Suddenly, property tax on everyone's $0.01 parcels shoots up from $0 to $12,000 per year In New Zealand, property taxes are relative: the tax you pay depends on how much your property price rises relative to everybody else’s property prices. The local government has a fixed budget, which is apportioned between all the properties proportional to property values. Example: a city has a budget of $1000. The city has tw…

I believe that's the typical scenario. taxes = mill-rate * property-value If you're paying more in taxes it's either because the taxing authority decided to raise more money or your property has increased relative to your neighbours. It all comes down to the mill rate.

Not most places in the U.S.

If your whole neighborhood's valuations go up you all get taxed more.

Re: Seeing like a state, progress and poverty, and owning land

#82

Post by zozbot234 »

mekkkkkk wrote: post #77
mjmahone17 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other thing people who own land can do: take out a mortgage to build more homes on their land, live in one and either sell the subdivided land/co-op/condo units or rent them to others. The only people who can be “driven out” are the renters, but if you let owners subdivide and build more, even they should be able to stay in the neighborhood indefinitely. It’s only once you break the chain by not building new home…

Wouldn't mortgaging and bootstrapping profitable land use become incredibly hard in a world where 100% of land value was taxed?

On the contrary, it would be easier because you'd only need to take a mortgage on the improvement value, the land itself would be very cheap. Sure, you'd have to pay ground rent to the government but that would simply offset other taxes you would've owed regardless.

Re: Seeing like a state, progress and poverty, and owning land

#83

Post by Schroedingersat »

anamax wrote: post #76
Schroedingersat wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A buy or sell offer system works pretty well for determining value. Claim whatever value you please for tax purposes. Anyone can put your land into the commons by giving you your claimed value multiplied by a small safety factor. The current owner then gets priority on public housing or continued stewardship of the asset. Anyone can purchase your land in a forced sale by offering your claimed value x a larger safety…

> A buy or sell offer system works pretty well for determining value. Georgists, which are the subject of this thread, explicitly say that taxes should not be NOT based on improvements, just the "land value". So if the improvements have significant value, buy sell doesn't work. I'll let you fight that with them. > Profitability (no matter whether your abstraction for ownership is property or political favour) as a fu…

>The garbage man doesn't show up unless he's paid. Farmers don't grow enough food for others unless they're paid.

>To first approximation, no one provides any essential service for free.

That's pay.

Profit is proportional to capital, not effort (even if it requires effort to materialise). Wage or earnings don't prodce the same pathological effects as profit, even if one person earns $500/hr and another earns $5/hr, the inequity and power imbalance is a constant and relatively quite small compared to exponential inequity entailed by making earnings proportional to wealth.

The assertion that a factory, or a 1000 hectare farm, or a house that you don't live in can be owned is a positive statement, not a brute fact of the world, or a necessary consequency of commerce and trade. As soon as you maoe that statement you are saying that owning these things entitles the owner or shareholder to an exponentially increasing share of control over the world and other people while your farmer and garbage man slowly go bankrupt.

Re: Seeing like a state, progress and poverty, and owning land

#84

Post by moconnor »

owyn wrote: post #65

I have this half baked idea that taxation could be "inverted" in a way that would let people actually enjoy the game of taxation in a very capitalist way. Here's the scenario: Individuals shouldn't pay tax on regular income up to some limit, just pick $1M for now. Corporate tax could also be set at 95% (chosen only because of the beatles tax man song) above some limit, just pick $1B for now. Every individual, whether…

Transferable tax credits is the most interesting idea for a universal basic income implementation I’ve come across!

It also has the benefit of appealing more to libertarian thinking (tax reduction and market-determined value!) than traditional UBI government handouts and by tying income to tax breaks looks less inflationary to critics.

Re: Seeing like a state, progress and poverty, and owning land

#85

Post by sokoloff »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #81
earleybird wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that's the typical scenario. taxes = mill-rate * property-value If you're paying more in taxes it's either because the taxing authority decided to raise more money or your property has increased relative to your neighbours. It all comes down to the mill rate.

Not most places in the U.S. If your whole neighborhood's valuations go up you all get taxed more.

If your whole neighborhood goes up, but not the whole city/municipality, correct. If the entire tax base goes up (not just one neighborhood), you should expect the mill rate to fall.

Re: Seeing like a state, progress and poverty, and owning land

#86

Post by skybrian »

mjmahone17 wrote: post #47
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The inhabitants don't lose. Play your scenario out. A bunch of poor people buy 100 acres of land for $1, and they turn it into a paradise. It becomes cool, so rich hipsters wanna buy up chunks to Instagram it. The first person sells a patch of land he bought for $0.01 for $1M. Suddenly, property tax on everyone's $0.01 parcels shoots up from $0 to $12,000 per year. These people have no jobs, so they can't afford $12,…

The other thing people who own land can do: take out a mortgage to build more homes on their land, live in one and either sell the subdivided land/co-op/condo units or rent them to others. The only people who can be “driven out” are the renters, but if you let owners subdivide and build more, even they should be able to stay in the neighborhood indefinitely. It’s only once you break the chain by not building new home…

This is a scenario where there are no zoning rules preventing the denser housing from being built.

It might be easier to fix zoning first?

(Property that's zoned to allow more development is more valuable, but property owners are often against lifting zoning restrictions anyway.)

Re: Seeing like a state, progress and poverty, and owning land

#87

Post by ahtihn »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #79
derac wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think they should get rid of prop 13, demolish all single family homes, and replace them with high-density buildings. What many people mean however, is that they want to continue to live there in the same single-family house forever. This is why prop 13 exists in the first place.

High density housing will not work in places with a high standard and quality of living. It will certainly erode individual rights, create environmental decline and infringe upon privacy. In developed countries, high density housing will either make the city unbearably expensive(NYC) or bring down quality of life.(SF) High density is a sign that resources are scarce but demand for them has increased. The sign of a we…

> In developed countries, high density housing will either make the city unbearably expensive(NYC)

I think you're reversing cause and effect.

Re: Seeing like a state, progress and poverty, and owning land

#88

Post by tomohawk »

Countries where it is possible to achieve clear title to property in an orderly and transparent manner are the most prosperous, and have the largest spread of wealth.

Countries that lack this mechanism never really get anywhere.

Politicians can't seem to resist tampering with this successful mechanism, though. They mistake cause for effect, and do things like push financial institutions to offer subprime mortgages, since "everyone knows if you buy a house you'll be successful". I get the impression that they have no clue they could actually kill the goose laying the golden eggs.

Between the financial firms like Blackrock and their pet politicians, it will be interesting to see, after they break things, if anyone will be able to de-humpty-dumpty the mess they create.

Re: Seeing like a state, progress and poverty, and owning land

#89

Post by quickthrower2 »

motohagiography wrote: post #12

> I bought my house 55 years ago, and in the time that I’ve lived in it the city has grown up around me so that the plot of land that my house sits on is now extremely valuable. Examples like these ignore that the reason the land around them is vaulable is by virtue of the people living there making it a better and more prosperous place. They earn the windfall for the time they spend there without making it worse. So…

If the person who lived their for 55 years makes $10m from the increase in land value, how much should of this should he give to the people who rented for 55 years, lived in the same neighborhood, and went about their days with smiles as to make the place nice to live in?

Also what if he was a real asshole, rude to everyone, kicking in fences, and his dogs barking 24/7, and the neighbourhood was doing well despite him?

Re: Seeing like a state, progress and poverty, and owning land

#90

Post by quickthrower2 »

pottertheotter wrote: post #23
motohagiography wrote: post #12

> I bought my house 55 years ago, and in the time that I’ve lived in it the city has grown up around me so that the plot of land that my house sits on is now extremely valuable. Examples like these ignore that the reason the land around them is vaulable is by virtue of the people living there making it a better and more prosperous place. They earn the windfall for the time they spend there without making it worse. So…

At first I thought this comment was made by Marc Andreessen.

More likely Ayn.
Post reply on HN