cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/12113669
don't forget to tip your landlord, peon
wealth desperately
Kinda, actually
this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2024
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Housing Bubble 2: Return of the Ugly
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Did they mean disparity?
Surely.
This means nothing. The gap between the wealthiest and the rest, in other words, the tip of the peak, is constantly rising.
If you pretended everyone who's poor didn't exist, and did the calculation with just the middle class and up, the statement about the wealth gap would still be true.
Just because it doesn't mean what you think they're saying doesn't mean it means nothing.
That disparity is not a benign thing, even with a more robust "middle class".
The disparity is not why poor people are poor--it's a boogeyman.
The correlation between the number of billionaires globally and the prevalence of poverty globally is literally negative.
thanks Reagan, and Murdock
[Sharpens guillotine with revolutionary intent]
I didn't realize wage slavery was such an old term, figures, but still
Land Value Tax is sounding pretty good, aye? By all means build your palace, but get ready to continually cough up the dough.
You mean... Like property taxes? What crazy new idea! Someone should really get on that
No, not like property taxes.
The important difference is that when you tax only the land and not the value of the improvements on top, it doesn't discourage improving the land to its highest and best use the way that property taxes do.
For example, downtown properties with surface parking lots on them (or similarly underdeveloped uses, like self-storage warehouses) ought to pay the same tax as the skyscrapers next door. That's how you make it stop being profitable to build shitty surface parking lots and self-storage warehouses on prime real estate.
Ditto for building McMansions on 1-acre lots instead of bungalows on 1/9-acre lots (or better yet, townhouses or small apartment buildings) in neighborhoods just outside of downtown.
It's a slightly different take on property taxes. Basically, the idea that all land is taxed at a fixed rate per acre no matter what is built on top. It's also known as Georgism
That's how you get skyscrapers?
Correct, skyscrapers that can house a lot of people and businesses. It might be helpful if we were in a housing crisis. Good thing that isn't happening across several developed countries across the world.
Oh wait ...