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

Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

501–510 of 615 posts

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#501

Post by Terretta »

ViktorRay wrote: post #312
Terretta wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> dozens of hotels… feature not bug One hotel (hub) with differentiated service levels could be more efficient, effective, and ecologically minded. Think Vegas casino property without the casino.

This doesn't make sense. You are arguing that a monopoly (1 hotel in an area) would be more efficient than a dozen in an area who compete strongly? For customers the area that has many hotels that compete with each other will be better than the area that just has one. The area with one hotel would have a single hotel that would have no incentive to be efficient or effective.

I do realize this is getting into "is Gene Roddenberry's post-scarcity society even possible starting from capitalism?"

When deciding whether competition is the best governance should take into account system scope or level for that competition. Are you competing at the level of hotel rooms and restaurants within a hotel, at the level of hotels, at the neighborhoods clusters of hotels are in, at sectors of ecosystems like hotels versus transportation versus other people uses of land and resources.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#502

Post by Wildgoose »

Retric wrote: post #453
_heimdall wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 contr…

Thanks for that - fascinating story!

http://www.queenoftheisles.com/HTML/Republic%20of%20Minerva....

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#503

Post by dgoldstein0 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #401
dgoldstein0 wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of land value tax is to charge the same taxes on an empty lot as to a building close by on the same sized lot. Under regular property taxes a speculator might buy a building, tear it down, and sit on the vacant lot for years, as a vacant lot is worth less and so lowers their taxes. With a land value tax they pay the same money either way, which may be higher overall - the general expectation is denser citie…

The problem with your comment is that you're appealing to a phrase, "land value tax", that isn't original to you. The definition you want to give to it is not compatible with the definition that everyone else uses. (And indeed, isn't even connected to the concept of "land value", making it unclear why you'd want to use those words.) This allows you to avoid the logical inconsistency in what counts as land value that…

Land value tax already has a specific meaning as a class of tax systems. If it's poorly named from your point of view, I'm sorry - but I had nothing to do with the naming.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#504

Post by confidantlake »

brhsagain wrote: post #400
bdjsiqoocwk wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a profitable business is probably one that's serving the community well This argument reminds of the argument googlers to explain why placing paid ads ahead of organic results is better for the user: they say thay if someone can pay more for an ad than means that can get more money from the user, and therefore the user likes it more. Lol No, profit is profit, it doesn't mean anything else.

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?

I take it you have never used the healthcare system in the US?

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#505

Post by bzmrgonz »

a_gnostic wrote: post #485
kmacdough wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

*In a healthy competitive market with a consumer-base that's well educated on potential consequences of their purchases. I do agree with the principle that a space-hogging marginally profitable business is detrimental to a community. Just that the opposite is not necessarily true; profitability does not imply beneficiality. Humans do not fit the model of "rational self-interested agent" commonly applied for economic…

> Humans do not fit the model of "rational self-interested agent > Any rational group would pool resources and have a single org do the research and share it with everyone. Oops we've reinvented a government. The firse quote precludes the second.

I disagree... the diff lies in the definition of "humans" vs. "group". It's like the quote in the movie MIB "Kay : A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it"

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#506

Post by eppsilon »

_heimdall wrote: post #470
hackerlight wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there a clear way to guard this system from building higher and higher economic centers Sorry, is this a bad thing? On the social side: In the current system, poor people are forced to live in ghettos and spend 2 hours a day on a round-trip commute. It's too expensive to live near their work. If we had a land tax, the rich enclaves near the city are now financially incentivized to open up their public schools an…

Both of these scenarios are a gamble and not guaranteed. On the social side: the gamble is that social growth will outpace the increased economic pressure. Meaning, you need the new vertical growth to create opportunities faster than it increases prices further in the area. A land tax alone wouldn't pull people out of poverty, create affordable housing, or open up public school. Those are all just potential avenues f…

Sprawling low density cities consume resources too. Mass transit is less effective, so more people must buy and drive cars. Roads and highways are wider and more extensive. Cars need storage at the origin and destination of every trip, so homes need driveways or garages and businesses need parking lots. Other infrastructure must expand too: power lines, water/sewer pipes, communication wires, and so on.

One million people would need about the same amount of food/energy if they lived in 1,000 sq. mi. as they would if they lived in 100 sq. mi. But the cost per person to house and transport people in a dense city is lower than in a sprawling one.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#507

Post by closeparen »

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #181

I really hate sounding like a broken record but this is just another instance of how low property taxes and the absence of land value taxes massively benefits low-value businesses. The real business of car washes is real estate, it's profitable enough to get 3-4x leverage with a low interest loan. TBH I think real estate used to have high information asymmetry between local residents and large investors; low property…

The other explanation for the mysterious presence of sprawling low-value business premises in extremely high demand neighborhoods is that planners zone for them explicitly to take up space so yuppies can't have it.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#508

Post by Tagbert »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #382
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, 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 live in a US state where I do pay property taxes but there is no income tax. Those property taxes and the overall sales tax are the main sources of revenue for the state.

I don't expect to live in an area without paying something to maintain it.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#509

Post by Gormo »

dinp wrote: post #340
KingMachiavelli wrote: post #181

I really hate sounding like a broken record but this is just another instance of how low property taxes and the absence of land value taxes massively benefits low-value businesses. The real business of car washes is real estate, it's profitable enough to get 3-4x leverage with a low interest loan. TBH I think real estate used to have high information asymmetry between local residents and large investors; low property…

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…

> If there's a loophole such as lack of sales tax for car washes, fix that, but let the playing field remain even.

What is even the problem here that needs to be fixed? People have found a business model that is able to generate value from low-cost land that might otherwise lie vacant. Great, more power to them.

The idea that people's use of their own property should restricted or manipulated so the government can maximize tax revenue is the epitome of the tail wagging the dog.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#510

Post by kodt »

makoto12 wrote: post #406
rootusrootus wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm perfectly happy to let them have this, I was just curious why someone would deliberately neglect basic maintenance. It's kinda foreign to me, and frankly I'm towards the lazy end of the motivation scale. Fashion statement is actually a pretty good explanation, thank you.

it's not maintenance if it's for aesthetic purposes. unless there's a serious concern for rust then i don't think it classifies.

If you live in an area where they heavily salt the roads washing is important to get all that road salt off of your car as it does speed the process of rusting. Neglecting to do this will result in rust spots on your body. Most of the comments here seem to be taking highly individual situations and assuming it must be the same for everyone.
Post reply on HN