Breaking Bad made car washes a cultural icon.
Perhaps people want to launder money or be as cool as Heisenberg/Walter White.
Why are there suddenly so many car washes?
451–460 of 615 posts
Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?
#452Earlier 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.
95+% of the value of land in LA is because it's in LA not because it's on the coast. Just compare land costs vs various properties ~1 mile from the ocean in Florida or Texas far from cities.
Meanwhile you can an awesome spot in central WV with a nice stream an a scenic waterfall perfect view for a family home. But it's not worth much because it's far from restaurants, office paying six figures etc.
Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?
#453Earlier 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?
In the 1970's a group of people decided to setup a micro nation on a small unclaimed island. A nearby country Tonga seeing they where not protected by another state invaded, so ended the micro nation.
Ultimately it's the US governments providing a military and police force that causes a piece of paper to have any impact on who controls a piece of land. Such services require payment. Though we charge for local services ie schools, EMS based with property taxes and protection FBI/Army based on people (income tax). Historically this favors land owners, but we could swap in the future.
Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?
#454Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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?
#455Earlier quoted context omitted.
What’s wrong with that argument? Doesn’t getting more money from the user mean that the user is choosing to pay more, which reveals their preference?
No, it does not. That the users end up paying more in no way means or should be implied that they _choose_ to pay more. If cheaper options are made less accessible or clearer, and customers are intentionally mislead to more expensive products, as a result they will pay more too.
Also, there is a cost associated with searching. Consumers may intentionally forego the effort for perceived low marginal gains (especially in nominal rather than percentage terms, e.g. "I'm not going to waste my time to save a quarter." even if the quarter is a significant percentage difference). This is one of the factors in the success of Amazon. People "value" convenience.
Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?
#456Earlier quoted context omitted.
> ridiculously low insurance minimums This looks like a claim that car owners should be required to have even more insurance, which seems inconsistent with your claim that widespread car ownership is the product of onerous regulation. All in all I think this is a pretty glib take that I’ve seen enough times that I’m bored with it. Suffice to say that most of the regulations you’re complaining about mostly postdate th…
>which seems inconsistent with your claim that widespread car ownership is the product of onerous regulation. how is this inconsistent? Insurance raises have to be approved at the state level, again this is not a free market, and for political reasons many states have kept insurance rates at decades old price levels. Insurers actually lose money in most places because they cannot raise prices. ( https://www.economist…
> Just to see how absurd this is. Minimum liability in a lot of states is 50k. In Germany and much of Europe minimum liability is seven million.
Without regulation, minimum liability would be zero.
> It's the governments job to take externalities into account and design urban environments rationally, not to coddle car obsessed consumers
Finally your true colors come out. You believe the government’s job is to decide for us what we should want and then shape the regulatory environment in such a way as to shape our behavior, because they know better than we do. You’re the authoritarian trying to redesign society. Just own up to it and be honest with yourself instead of cynically and disingenuously trying to argue based on principles you don’t even hold.
Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?
#457Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
> 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 it's really such a prime desirable spot then that would drive up the value of the land to the point that the low value business wouldn't have been able to afford it?…
Low value is not synonymous with low profit.
Also, the arguments made against car washes are the same as those made against bank branches which also generate relatively little sales tax.
Anyway, if there is a surplus of car washes they will eventually dry up.
Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?
#458Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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.
Exactly this. We all would love to be perpetual rent-seekers but it just doesn't work for a proper society. Not to mention land is a finite resource.
It's less about land availability. There is plenty of land at least in some countries. It's more about desirability. As those in the real estate trade like to say it's all about "location, location, location."
Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?
#459Earlier 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?
The days of merely protecting one's property are long over. At least in the US real estate taxes pay for many services unrelated to safety of the property. For example, closing a real estate tax funded senior center is unlikely to result in an increase in crime. Maybe the seniors themselves would be more vulnerable without a senior center, but I fail to see a general crime spree resulting. If anything the seniors would be watching other people's property and call the cops at any sign of potentially suspicious activity.
Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?
#460Earlier 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…
The theory of (LVT) land value tax is that it replaces other taxes. LVT has less or no dead weight loss so it's a more efficient tax. > If there's a loophole such as lack of sales tax for car washes, fix that, but let the playing field remain even. My claim is that the playing field is not currently even rather it is massively in favor for low-capital, low-labor, and low-regulatory businesses (like car washes) and ad…
I like Georgism but if business taxes were replaced would internet businesses that don’t need a physical location thereby pay much less taxes than those that do have need for physical location? That does sound kinda lopsided, unless we’re also doing a land value tax on prime domain name real estate.