Overall in agreement with you, but a few thoughts: > And let's be clear: the property owners wind up with most of it. Those of us living in the Valley, and com

Overall in agreement with you, but a few thoughts: > And let's be clear: the property owners wind up with most of it. Those of us living in the Valley, and commanding salaries that sound positively royal to the rest of America, are not actually living much (or any) better than most Americans. As long as you don't want to be living in a massively large house, living in the Bay Area is going to beat being in most other places for several factors. a. Depending on your preferences, the Bay Area is one of the best, if not the best, places to live in the United States. It offers moderate weather, access to outdoors, excellent air quality, access to culture, a variety of job options, and a good tech ecosystem. b. An average salary of $210k for a married couple is large even with the higher rents here. That's about $140k post-tax and after 2 bedroom rent in say San Francisco, you still walk away with $86,000 disposable a year. > Most of the additional value we create by working for these high-tech companies is being siphoned off by property owners. Some is, but not most. Per my note above, an SF resident might pay an average of $15k more per year for a 2 bedroom than they would in "average America", but that's not most of the added post-tax salary an engineer gets here. > it still protects those on fixed incomes from being forced out of their homes by property taxes Can someone actually get forced out of a home by property taxes due to value increases? A tax rate of 1.25% takes 80 years to consume the value of the property. If you just take a reverse mortgage against the additional value, wouldn't that protect you for life?