3 ms·

There's a lot to unpack here, some of which other comments have gotten to. First off, why are property taxes the best choice in taxation? Why is taxing the ric

by moate 9y ago

There's a lot to unpack here, some of which other comments have gotten to. First off, why are property taxes the best choice in taxation? Why is taxing the rich more than the poor bad theory? Taxes, as a general rule and in theory, are meant to pull money from the citizenry in order to fund "public good" projects through the government (i.e. you get taxed by the state, the state the funds a school and builds a road). It would make sense that UBI would need to come from the state, and would therefor be paid by taxation of someone. Many proponents of UBI suggest the taxation be focused more on the producers/corporation instead of the individual citizens. This feels more logical than giving someone a UBI pulled from taxes and then taxing them on that UBI. On the topic of home ownership: This is an extremely complex game that mostly relates to the A: supply of housing and B: proximity of jobs to a specific location. The reason San Francisco has such insane housing prices is that there are also a large number of high paying jobs. Those jobs allow people working in that area to pay more for goods/services, which allows them to push up the price of housing in the area. If you suddenly had a large number of people able to enter the housing market all at once without any change in the supply of homes, you would likely see market prices fluctuate heavily for some period until things stabilized at a price higher than the current market price. In addition, there have been approximately 10,000 articles/threads debating the virtues of home ownership vs renting. There are distinct advantages to both, and claiming that home ownership itself contributes to higher standard of living completely ignores the lessons of economic ruin brought on by the last housing collapse, which could happen again in your scenario since you're still assuming buyers are paying for their homes. If home values rise with the inflation that would likely be associated with the introduction of a UBI, it's entirely reasonable that people would still be capable of accruing too much debt and entering dangerous borrowing behaviors. I'm a huge fan of a UBI, and feel that it will likely be required at some point in the next 100-150 years, but it also feels like the idea you're describing is a half measure that doesn't address many of the issues a UBI is meant to address.

austincheney 9y ago
> Why is taxing the rich more than the poor bad theory? The idea is that basic living expenses do not wildly differ between the poor and the wealthy. Think of things like clothes, child care, and food. After accounting for basic living expenses as a proportion of total regular compensation poorer people will have less remaining capital than wealthy people. It is this greatly increased remaining capital, disposable income, that allows wealthy people to purchase extravegant trifles. Taxing that purchasing potential punishes people, wealth returned to the state, in proportion to their purchasing capability without consideration for exemptions. Wealth consolidated to personal holdings is ripe for taxation and isn't necessarily returned to the public unless gifted as charitable contributions. There are social arguments both ways to that separate discussion. Taxing businesses is not straight forward. Business benefit their local economies unless large enough to invest into different geographic markets. Local geographies generally want to not tax businesses whose capital is tied to local vicinities as they are economic stimulators. On the other hand they generally want to tax larger businesses highly on capital leaving the local vicinity. It is challenging to write a business tax policy that isn't discriminatory and simultaneously free from local economic constraints. These arguments largely do not apply to wealthy individuals. > On the topic of home ownership: This is an extremely complex game that mostly relates to the A: supply of housing and B: proximity of jobs to a specific location. The reason San Francisco has such insane housing prices is that there are also a large number of high paying jobs. That argument loses steam outside the Bay Area. The Bay Area is not unique with regard to a cluster of high paying jobs. Housing prices don't escape the basic economic principles of supply/demand merely because high paying jobs are present. For pricing to become an order of magnitude more expensive other factors must be present, such as limited supply and artificial constraints. There are many favorable reasons to rent opposed to ownership, but that discussion is orthogonal to discussions of property taxes. In order for UBI to be a favorable enhancement it must exist as an economic stimulator rather than a poverty eradicator. Poverty is corrosive, stressful, and burdensome. If a UBI were present just enough to free people to make more meaningful employment and financial decisions than it is a favorable stimulator of employment and education. If, on the other hand, it merely exists to cure the ills of homelessness and hopelessness as a welfare system it may become a compromised system for enabling less economic contribution in impoverished social contexts. Many welfare systems have existed in the past that sometimes work well and sometimes make things worse. A UBI isn't going to eliminate payday loans or prevent people from spending all their money at casinos, but it will likely allow many people to pursue new career choices or skills they would have otherwise not considered.
- moate 9y ago
  I still don't think you've explained how shifting solely to property taxation and away from overall income taxation would work. Your point appeared to be that rich people are better able to exploit the tax code, and I don't see how that would change by shifting to just taxing property. Why not just have large income reserves and not invest in real estate? Why not just get lawyers to better help you exploit the property tax code? Taxing as a whole is not straight forward. But the idea is that you put a greater tax burden on corporate profits, prohibiting the accumulation of wealth by those who are already in possession of wealth. It's basically half-assed state-seizure of industry to make it palatable to the capitalists. >Housing prices don't escape the basic economic principles of supply/demand merely because high paying jobs are present. For pricing to become an order of magnitude more expensive other factors must be present, such as limited supply (Emphasis mine) It's not escaping supply and demand. There is greater demand than supply. This is also common in other urban areas across the country (see New York, Miami, etc) which are large job markets. SF is just particularly bad because of how poorly they address the issues. >If, on the other hand, it merely exists to cure the ills of homelessness and hopelessness as a welfare system it may become a compromised system for enabling less economic contribution in impoverished social contexts. Who cares? "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." This isn't about getting the best economic value from the citizens. It's about taking care of other humans. The whole concept of giving people just enough to not starve but not enough to be satisfied seems like bourgeoisie nonsense to keep a lower working class. You either destroy the capitalist paradigm, or you exploit people. There is no middle ground.

by moate 9y ago

austincheney 9y ago

> Why is taxing the rich more than the poor bad theory? The idea is that basic living expenses do not wildly differ between the poor and the wealthy. Think of things like clothes, child care, and food. After accounting for basic living expenses as a proportion of total regular compensation poorer people will have less remaining capital than wealthy people. It is this greatly increased remaining capital, disposable income, that allows wealthy people to purchase extravegant trifles. Taxing that purchasing potential punishes people, wealth returned to the state, in proportion to their purchasing capability without consideration for exemptions. Wealth consolidated to personal holdings is ripe for taxation and isn't necessarily returned to the public unless gifted as charitable contributions. There are social arguments both ways to that separate discussion. Taxing businesses is not straight forward. Business benefit their local economies unless large enough to invest into different geographic markets. Local geographies generally want to not tax businesses whose capital is tied to local vicinities as they are economic stimulators. On the other hand they generally want to tax larger businesses highly on capital leaving the local vicinity. It is challenging to write a business tax policy that isn't discriminatory and simultaneously free from local economic constraints. These arguments largely do not apply to wealthy individuals. > On the topic of home ownership: This is an extremely complex game that mostly relates to the A: supply of housing and B: proximity of jobs to a specific location. The reason San Francisco has such insane housing prices is that there are also a large number of high paying jobs. That argument loses steam outside the Bay Area. The Bay Area is not unique with regard to a cluster of high paying jobs. Housing prices don't escape the basic economic principles of supply/demand merely because high paying jobs are present. For pricing to become an order of magnitude more expensive other factors must be present, such as limited supply and artificial constraints. There are many favorable reasons to rent opposed to ownership, but that discussion is orthogonal to discussions of property taxes. In order for UBI to be a favorable enhancement it must exist as an economic stimulator rather than a poverty eradicator. Poverty is corrosive, stressful, and burdensome. If a UBI were present just enough to free people to make more meaningful employment and financial decisions than it is a favorable stimulator of employment and education. If, on the other hand, it merely exists to cure the ills of homelessness and hopelessness as a welfare system it may become a compromised system for enabling less economic contribution in impoverished social contexts. Many welfare systems have existed in the past that sometimes work well and sometimes make things worse. A UBI isn't going to eliminate payday loans or prevent people from spending all their money at casinos, but it will likely allow many people to pursue new career choices or skills they would have otherwise not considered.

moate 9y ago
I still don't think you've explained how shifting solely to property taxation and away from overall income taxation would work. Your point appeared to be that rich people are better able to exploit the tax code, and I don't see how that would change by shifting to just taxing property. Why not just have large income reserves and not invest in real estate? Why not just get lawyers to better help you exploit the property tax code? Taxing as a whole is not straight forward. But the idea is that you put a greater tax burden on corporate profits, prohibiting the accumulation of wealth by those who are already in possession of wealth. It's basically half-assed state-seizure of industry to make it palatable to the capitalists. >Housing prices don't escape the basic economic principles of supply/demand merely because high paying jobs are present. For pricing to become an order of magnitude more expensive other factors must be present, such as limited supply (Emphasis mine) It's not escaping supply and demand. There is greater demand than supply. This is also common in other urban areas across the country (see New York, Miami, etc) which are large job markets. SF is just particularly bad because of how poorly they address the issues. >If, on the other hand, it merely exists to cure the ills of homelessness and hopelessness as a welfare system it may become a compromised system for enabling less economic contribution in impoverished social contexts. Who cares? "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." This isn't about getting the best economic value from the citizens. It's about taking care of other humans. The whole concept of giving people just enough to not starve but not enough to be satisfied seems like bourgeoisie nonsense to keep a lower working class. You either destroy the capitalist paradigm, or you exploit people. There is no middle ground.