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Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

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Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#431

Post by Paul-Craft »

Arainach wrote: post #386
dinp wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow the idea of perpetually paying property taxes and land value taxes doesn't sound appealing to me, especially since businesses already pay taxes. I don't understand the argument of designing a system to hurt a specific business type such as low value businesses. If there's a loophole such as lack of sales tax for car washes, fix that, but let the playing field remain even. If desirable high value businesses ar…

>Somehow the idea of perpetually paying property taxes and land value taxes doesn't sound appealing to me Eternal wealth to those lucky enough to have been born and bought in the past or born to families who bought in the past sounds plenty dystopian to me; pay up regularly or let someone else who will contribute to society step in.

Which conflates "contribution to society" with "economic value."

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#432

Post by Paul-Craft »

pjc50 wrote: post #426
TacticalCoder wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Somehow the idea of perpetually paying property taxes and land value taxes doesn't sound appealing to me, especially since businesses already pay taxes. And it doesn't sound appealing to me, as an individual. I don't want to feel like a peasant constantly paying a tax to the monarch/state: so at very least the first property an individual owns should be tax free (not annual land value tax / property tax). I happen…

> I don't want to feel like a peasant constantly paying a tax to the monarch/state If you're not paying your dues, why do you think the state should have an obligation to protect you and your property?

1. You're assuming they're not paying other types of taxes.

2. That's what states are for.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#433

Post by bregma »

_heimdall wrote: post #290
Retric wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So my main concern related to destruction of natural land is that there is a disincentive to keep land natural if you have to pay the tax anyway. There’s no need to limit land value taxes based on density as that’s what’s giving land its value. With the property if the tax is say 0.2%. An acre of farmland worth in rural Idaho worth 20k would be assessed as being worth 20k in a land value tax and an acre of swamp mi…

> The farmland’s 40$/year in taxes isn’t pushing anyone to sell I don't think that's an easy assumption to make. Cost of living, average income, and average plot size are very different in rural areas. I don't know Idaho so I can't speak to land value there, but I can say farmable land in rural Alabama goes for between $1k and $6k per acre depending on the land. If you really want to farm it for anything more than a…

> what is the government's justification for taxing the value of land I own outright?

Well, where I live (which is not in the USA) value-based land taxes go to the municipality and the school board. They pay for municipal services I benefit from: fire, police, EMTs, road maintenance, waste collection and processing, recreational facilities like a park, a library, and a swimming pool. Also schools, but that gets more complicated since some funding for education also comes from a higher level of government which collects income taxes.

Now mind, I live of 25 ha of swampland. But I get excellent value for my land-value-based land taxes.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#434

Post by Paul-Craft »

mdasen wrote: post #233
_heimdall wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you see a solution here of higher property taxes, is it focused on the raw land value or on the value of "improvements?" I've never been a fan of taxing the value of raw land, mainly because it creates incentives for destroying natural land and extracting as much value as possible from the space. Taxing structures based on the expected economic value can make sense, though even then if its a business there are m…

Land value taxes aren't about destroying natural land to extract value. The point of taxing the value of the land in urban areas is that a lot of the time places essentially squat on land that could be better used. A car wash building will have a low assessed value for its improvements compared to a biotech building. For example, in my city we have a carwash with its improvements valued at $400,000 and a biotech buil…

Lol, that's ridiculous. You can't have a city that's full of biotech labs and nothing else. But, according to your logic, that's what would happen. You're not "preserving" anything. You're encouraging every last square meter of ground to be strip mined for whatever "value" one can get out of it.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#435

Post by sushibowl »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #365
Retric wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So my main concern related to destruction of natural land is that there is a disincentive to keep land natural if you have to pay the tax anyway. There’s no need to limit land value taxes based on density as that’s what’s giving land its value. With the property if the tax is say 0.2%. An acre of farmland worth in rural Idaho worth 20k would be assessed as being worth 20k in a land value tax and an acre of swamp mi…

> There’s no need to limit land value taxes based on density as that’s what’s giving land its value. That can't be the case; density is an amenity and is, by definition, not part of the value of the land.

That seems like a strange definition to me. It's clear that people are willing to pay higher prices for land with amenities nearby, so by definition the value of the land is increased.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#436

Post by kriops »

lmm wrote: post #351
dinp wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow the idea of perpetually paying property taxes and land value taxes doesn't sound appealing to me, especially since businesses already pay taxes. I don't understand the argument of designing a system to hurt a specific business type such as low value businesses. If there's a loophole such as lack of sales tax for car washes, fix that, but let the playing field remain even. If desirable high value businesses ar…

> I don't understand the argument of designing a system to hurt a specific business type such as low value businesses. The argument is that good business spots are a limited community resource that it makes sense to tax, like radio spectrum. If you can make good use of the space you're taking up, go ahead, but you should compete fairly with other uses of the space. If anything taxing space use makes more sense than t…

You can't just assert that it makes sense when answering why it makes sense. If you are right, then the owner is losing out on money by operating a car wash, which by the way is their moral and legal right. If you think you can provide more value with the same space – offer to buy it.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#437

Post by mschuster91 »

suslik wrote: post #397
mschuster91 wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's due to poverty... calorie dense, highly processed food is cheap as hell due to mass production efficiencies, but high quality food? Groceries? Ain't no one got the money for that, or they live in "food deserts" [1]. For poor kids, it's even worse, because all they have other than sub-par school lunches is whatever microwave meal their parents can afford not just financially but also time-wise. Cooking for a fa…

This completely ignores issues like food addiction (which is a hell of a drug - some of the, say, top obesity candidate genes are expressed in brain), an overabundance of sugar in the diet, and lack of anything that resembles a decent food culture. It is absolutely possible to maintain a quick and healthy diet on low budget - there are infinite reddit threads and substack articles on the topic.

> an overabundance of sugar in the diet

That's literally the first point I listed.

> and lack of anything that resembles a decent food culture.

Yep. I mean, I'm European so I'm a bit biased - here over the pond, we associate American food culture with "tons of fat and sugar".

> It is absolutely possible to maintain a quick and healthy diet on low budget - there are infinite reddit threads and substack articles on the topic.

It is, if you have the resources: a car to get to a place where healthy food is sold, most especially, and time and energy to cook.

It simply is not possible to drag oneself out of poverty by the bootstraps. Most of these "live on a frugal budget" peddlers are highly privileged: they can afford to buy in bulk when stuff is on sale, they can afford to store bulk supplies without them going bad, they can afford to drive a lot just to get the best deals. Take these three points out of the equation and most "frugal" influencers get revealed as patronizing scammers who I believe have zero right to exist and bullshit others on the Internet. And the politicians who reference to these bullshit peddlers should be thrown into jail and be served nothing more than dry bread and water for a few weeks, just to get some humility into them.

I'm sick and fucking tired of all of that. Fix poverty instead of patronizing those who are in direst needs.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#438

Post by hermitcrab »

globular-toast wrote: post #412
hermitcrab wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've often wondered how legit those 'hand car washes' are. Legit or not, I'm sure it is hard work for crappy money.

I can confirm they wash your car if you pay them to. Is that legit enough?

I was referring to the parent comment "The official narrative here is modern slavery with undocumented migrants". Some of the people working in these hand car washes may not have the legal right to work in the UK, which makes them ripe for exploitation.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#439

Post by hermitcrab »

hobobaggins wrote: post #141
hermitcrab wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've often wondered how legit those 'hand car washes' are. Legit or not, I'm sure it is hard work for crappy money.

They're legit, and they make big tips when they work hard.

The comment I was referring to was talking about the UK, where we don't have a tipping culture in the same way the US does.

>They're legit

It is hard to know whethr they are working legally.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#440

Post by mschuster91 »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #357
mschuster91 wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's due to poverty... calorie dense, highly processed food is cheap as hell due to mass production efficiencies, but high quality food? Groceries? Ain't no one got the money for that, or they live in "food deserts" [1]. For poor kids, it's even worse, because all they have other than sub-par school lunches is whatever microwave meal their parents can afford not just financially but also time-wise. Cooking for a fa…

Many people are obese despite not living in poverty (including myself, unfortunately).

Agreed, but tackling the poverty/food access issue is a pareto issue IMHO - get the wide masses out of poverty and provide equal access to healthy food supplies will get rid of a large chunk of the issue.
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