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

loukidelis.com

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

#121

Post by salawat »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #32
rufus_foreman wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The value you put on living around your family and friends in this scenario is zero. That's not how normal people value those things.

If their family lives nearby, they probably own homes and can all sell and move together, move in with each other, move to an area not far away that's substantially cheaper, use your huge winning to build an ADU in your dear family member's backyard and be even closer together, etc... You. Don't. Lose. By. Winning. $1M. You get options.

It's all relative. If everyone else moving in can spend a mill plus, you're priced out. If you and your neighbors happen to be the only ones improving things, and the mil plus group comes in and stagnates/displaces you through gentrificative forces, requiring you to to start from scratch elsewhere.

Lets say you live long enough for the cycle to repeat multiple times. I assume proponents would say, "well, hooray, everyone but you is way better off, I guess it sucks that you weren't better at managing money", when all anyone ever wanted to do was live together and be left alone.

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

#122

Post by salawat »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #99
jjav wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They didn't lose their houses. They sold them. They lost their homes which is not just a house. There's a much more emotional aspect to a home that can't be expressed in merely dollars. They were also forced to sell in the story, it wasn't a choice.

> They lost their homes which is not just a house. You want me to feel sorry for someone who gets a Million dollar windfall when: 1) they got a million dollar windfall 2) they now have a ridiculous amount of options (because money = options) 3) if they're really determined to stay in their house, they can cash-out refinance continuously and use some of the unrealized gains to pay property taxes (and past cash-outs) 4…

They got a million dollar windfall in a market now shifting to where the average buyer is in a position to drop a million plus without blinking.

You can be poor, even with a million in such a market, and all that happens if you move somewhere cheaper to start again, is you perpetuate the cycle.

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

#123

Post by salawat »

Aunche wrote: post #80
lazide wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By 'lose the land', really they'd be forced to sell or go bankrupt/accrue tax debt. Which is pretty terrible if the folks are little old ladies settling down to avoid the cruel harsh world, and now need to find somewhere else to live when they are least capable of doing so (being on a fixed income and all). The 'can't put old widows out of their homes' scenario is why California's Prop 13 came to be, btw. Even withou…

>The 'can't put old widows out of their homes' scenario is why California's Prop 13 came to be That's the Prop 13 lobbyist's excuse. In reality, these old widows are never at risk of being kicked out of their house at all. I'm sure plenty of investors would be willing to pay off the widow's taxes in exchange for ownership of the property after they pass.

Which guarantees the centralization of assets in the hands of a monied few. You might as well just write carpetbagger on your forehead. It's quite clear the outcome you're vested in. The entire concept of an estate existing to anyone but the already well-heeled would become even rarer than it is now.

If you want to invest, go solve a problem that isn't creating a predatory pressure on the real estate market. Homes and property should be affordable. Not investment vehicles, or somewhere to hide cash from that nasty inflation.

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

#124

Post by owyn »

TimPC wrote: post #107
moconnor wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The math on this idea is laughable though. Giving out $1 Million in tax credits per person in the US is $330 trillion dollars. Given that the US Federal Government only collects about $4 trillion in taxes and probably still wants to collect more than $0 then this scheme doesn't really work. Getting a $10,000 tax credit in exchange for nearly completely obliterating the federal budget just doesn't have the same oomph.

At some point I need to do the math and get an economics degree and use this idea to start a think tank.

The standard federal tax deduction is $12.5k and average US income is about $30k and US GDP is around $20 trillion and GDP per capita is about $60k. So you have about 50% of the economic output to work with. And you're right, average income tax per capita is $10k. Maybe $100k or even $10k is a better ball park starting point for a "universal tax credit". I just like the idea of setting the number higher than average earnings. I did hand wave around the assumption that in a scheme like this tax credits wouldn't be worth $1 on the open market but $1M is totally ludicrous I know. It was late and I didn't think anybody would notice haha. Got your attention though!

The general idea is that money could be more productive being added into the economy from the bottom rather than the top. The interesting idea is the marketplace and granting people some intrinsic value and some reason to participate in the economy other than just through labor output. Also not sure how to pay for healthcare, the military, infrastructure and social services if you mostly eliminate the federal budget. If the federal government took a cut of the transaction fees that could be another way to fund it. It's hard to define what "excess" profits are as well, $1B was also a totally arbitrary limit and most businesses don't create that much profit and you could game that system in a lot of ways. It's also difficult for small business to compete with large business in a marketplace for tax credits but I assumed that if you work for a company and also donate your tax credits to your employer that would convert to a cash bonus at some beneficial exchange rate for both. I imagine that's what the think tank would work on. Maybe I'll call it the "Institute for Science Fiction Economics".

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

#125

Post by salawat »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #9
thaumasiotes wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see a different problem with the separation. In the modern day, the improvements may contribute more than 100% of the value of the land. In most cases the sole benefit of having land in a desirable city is that it is near other desirable things. This is unlike the agricultural model motivating Georgism, where the primary benefit of owning land is that you can grow crops on it. But taking the proposal literally that…

Your issue is "what if someone owns huge chunks of land and doesn't try to make any money off it?" Then Hollywood gets built somewhere else where someone does want to make money. And eventually, those improvements may make the land the other person owns worth more money anyway and they'd be unable to pay the taxes.

This is why Georgism is just an urbanizer's ideal; a gentrification engine, if you will.

It emphasizes putting things in the hands of someone that wants to do something with it rather than just maintaining ownership as an option until a voluntary sale is desirable for the occupant.

Gee. I wonder who could ever be behind a push to make it easier for developers and real estate investment firms to utilize artificially created economic pressure to rearrange the ownership landscape, while also pushing all incentives in the direction of urbanization above all else.

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

#126

Post by salawat »

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…

Except Georgists determine your unimproved land value by looking at the improved land value of everyone around you. Otherwise, the proximity to Disney wouldn't mean squat in the post-upthread.

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

#127

Post by jjav »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #99
jjav wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They didn't lose their houses. They sold them. They lost their homes which is not just a house. There's a much more emotional aspect to a home that can't be expressed in merely dollars. They were also forced to sell in the story, it wasn't a choice.

> They lost their homes which is not just a house. You want me to feel sorry for someone who gets a Million dollar windfall when: 1) they got a million dollar windfall 2) they now have a ridiculous amount of options (because money = options) 3) if they're really determined to stay in their house, they can cash-out refinance continuously and use some of the unrealized gains to pay property taxes (and past cash-outs) 4…

> 1) they got a million dollar windfall

You're looking at it stricly as if housing was a investment to be cashed out, as opposed to a place to settle down and live life.

There is no windfall. They got kicked out of their home by being forced to sell it.

Is the $1M a lot? Well, they are now homeless. If the property values rose so much that they got the million, all other properties rose as well and being now homeless they still need to buy a new home. It'll have to be much smaller or maybe there's nothing affordable available anymore so they have to uproot life (jobs, schools, friends, family, doctors) and move to a much cheaper city.

Very cruel, and all because some richer people want to move in and take over? That's the kind of abuse that leads to things like Prop13.

> #3 cash-out refinance continuously

This is completely unrealistic. You can't pay a recurring cost by going farther into debt every year if you can never pay it back.

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

#128

Post by notahacker »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #103
notahacker wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In reality, I think the scenario plays out a bit more like this: A bunch of poor people buy some cheap land with very low taxes because its a run down scruffy mess with no facilities. The land stays a run down scruffy mess with no facilities because the local property owners have strong financial incentives to keep it that way Incremental increases in the land value tax would make low income landowners hungry long be…

In reality, it works like Los Angeles and The Bay - and everyone who (owned) and gets priced out ends up with a massive windfall at some point. How massive depends on how long they stay into the boom. Again, no one ever loses (financially) from prices going up. All you get are options (financially). If your home is direly important to you, and being close to family is important, too - you still have options. 1) Sell…

Los Angeles and the Bay Area provides massive windfalls to property owners because the State of California's tax system is not based on the Georgist principle that 100% of the "unearned increment" of land value appreciation should be taxed away.

And in the case of the Georgist system being discussed, a typical poor person who is living on a typically tight budget and typically doesn't own very much of their home equity has very strong financial incentives to avoid unaffordable tax rises. Sure, they still have "options" to pay that bill, just like unemployed people also have "options" to sell and move in with family, take on lodgers or refinance, but if the consequence of house price rises from are that you have to choose between sharing, moving or paying refinancing costs on your house it's definitely not a windfall. And they're not finally priced out of an area when it's a million pound plot attractive to developers who want to build condos, they're priced out of their still-very-undesirable area as soon as the LVT bumps up 20%, perhaps because some well meaning citizen planted flowers instead of syringes in the local park.

The other option, of course, is to try to keep your house in line with your cost of living by attempting to thwart all attempts to generally improve the area. I think it's pretty obvious a lot of people will choose that...

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

#129

Post by jelliclesfarm »

ahtihn wrote: post #87
jelliclesfarm wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Please give me an example?

Or give me an example of an affordable city that is also high density in America. I haven’t seen it.

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

#130

Post by lazide »

salawat wrote: post #123
Aunche wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The 'can't put old widows out of their homes' scenario is why California's Prop 13 came to be That's the Prop 13 lobbyist's excuse. In reality, these old widows are never at risk of being kicked out of their house at all. I'm sure plenty of investors would be willing to pay off the widow's taxes in exchange for ownership of the property after they pass.

Which guarantees the centralization of assets in the hands of a monied few. You might as well just write carpetbagger on your forehead. It's quite clear the outcome you're vested in. The entire concept of an estate existing to anyone but the already well-heeled would become even rarer than it is now. If you want to invest, go solve a problem that isn't creating a predatory pressure on the real estate market. Homes an…

For Boomers, their homes are one of the few investments they've done as a class that has actually paid off. It's the source of the 'millionaire next door' and the basis of a large portion of that generations nest eggs.

Oops.

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