91–100 of 287 posts
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Fair enough. Atlas Shrugged was such an awful book I couldn't make it past the first few pages. However, I have enough experience with Rand's followers and their "got mine, screw you" attitude to see how a shitty book can get turned into a political movement. See also Mein Kampf.
And the Redditization of HN is now complete. Also, Godwin's law alert!
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It has always seemed to me that property taxes are a completely incorrect idea; far more onerous than, for instance, the estate tax. Have there been any serious efforts to get rid of them?
Property taxes are very progressive and we should absolutely have more of them (fair ones, not like the one in this article where you lose your home if you fail to pay some trivial sum). The reasons are best described in the article below, but in summary, we all pay to defend and enhance your property (by supporting the police, roads, local services, etc). It's fairer for property owners to take a larger share of thi…
disclosure: I am an ordinary, average, white, property owner, not Amish (Atheist, actually).
And yet I still see people saying "no, how dare you compare government to a bunch of thieves?".
The DC local government is somewhat remarkable in how corrupt it is. It seems like every other day some major political player gets indicted for corruption of some sort.
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Do you think income tax has proven a big disincentive for people to go out and work? (To ancitipate an obvious rebuttal: yes, I will admit that inheritance tax has probably put people off the idea of dying.)
Higher rate income tax certainly does. Tax bands certainly provide a big disincentive for bothering to get a better job/raise. Inheritance tax is very unfair. If you are rich enough, you'll plan around it and avoid it. But if you're not rich enough, your kids will not only lose their parents, they'll be sent a bill from the government. Which at best is a tad insensitive. Add to that the fact that the thresholds for i…
You know that your entire income isn't taxed at the highest bracket's rate, right? So, for example, the highest bracket is 39.6% for income above $400k. If you make $410k, $10k is taxed at 39.6%, and the rest of your income is taxed at a lower rate.
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"After the bill isn't paid the lien is sold to investors who increase the owed amount by an order of magnitude " What is the time period that that happens though? Isn't that an important factor in all of this? Plays out over years? How many chances (and over what time period) could the homeowner have been able to rectify for a more reasonable amount of money? Not disagreeing with your main point or that the punishmen…
The article states that the investor can foreclose on the house 6 months after purchasing the debt. Skip to "Outsiders come to buy liens" in the article for a full summary of why it's such a problem.
I guess I have a wider problem with this "problem".
The fact is there aren't really people out there (other than some community activists) who have a brain and can help people like this to navigate the system without charging the rates that attorney's charge. Which seems to be the answer to anyone's problem. Get an attorney to tell you your rights and write a letter so people take you seriously. This is in a sense one of the reasons that poor and/or uneducated people get shafted so often. They have no way to communicate and people don't take their problems as seriously to boot.
Of course even if you created an office of "ombudsmen to the normally shafted" that office might simply drown with those that weren't deserving and simply wanted to take advantage of any thing they could to dodge legal process.
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Property taxes are very progressive and we should absolutely have more of them (fair ones, not like the one in this article where you lose your home if you fail to pay some trivial sum). The reasons are best described in the article below, but in summary, we all pay to defend and enhance your property (by supporting the police, roads, local services, etc). It's fairer for property owners to take a larger share of thi…
Why not just go the whole hog and tax all property. eg you buy a laptop, you have to pay the government a tax each year to keep it. Why just apply it to houses? May as well just prohibit people from owning property. Personally, I think such taxes are a massive disincentive for people to do well. As soon as you have enough money to buy a house, you are penalised for it. Luckily in the UK, we don't have property tax, a…
Islam has the most fair rules against Interest. The Quran says: Chapter 2 - Baqarah - Verse 275: http://www.usc.edu/org/cmje/religious-texts/quran/verses/002... (Read the next 10 or so verses) and Chapter 3 - Verse 130: http://www.usc.edu/org/cmje/religious-texts/quran/verses/003... "O you who believe! Devour not usury (interest), doubled and multiplied; but fear Allah (God); that you may (really) prosper." Some more…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It has always seemed to me that property taxes are a completely incorrect idea; far more onerous than, for instance, the estate tax. Have there been any serious efforts to get rid of them?
Property taxes are very progressive and we should absolutely have more of them (fair ones, not like the one in this article where you lose your home if you fail to pay some trivial sum). The reasons are best described in the article below, but in summary, we all pay to defend and enhance your property (by supporting the police, roads, local services, etc). It's fairer for property owners to take a larger share of thi…
Thanks, I will definitely put this on the plate as I decide to apply for US citizenship.
Basically everything you read about on the news is what almost never happens.
Tell me again how government does such a wonderful job protecting the weakest & most vulnerable.
I understand how it would be hard for the government to implement a policy to do the same, but this situation is ridiculous.