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ITT, people who think - economic free lunches exist - any capital after their capital came to an area is illegitimate - markets don't price in risk or volati

ITT, people who think - economic free lunches exist - any capital after their capital came to an area is illegitimate - markets don't price in risk or volatility - policy doesn't affect the agent on the margin, decreases costs to his marginal 'neighbors': before a 3% vacancy tax, low consumer surplus buyers could barely afford a house, after the vacancy tax there are some low-consumer-surplus buyers who can no longer afford housing, the two groups who can absorb that depressed purchasing are high-consumer-surplus buyers (read premium buyers) and buyers who had negative consumer surplus who are now low surplus buyers. The majority of that supply gets absorbed by high-consumer-surplus buyers. This is the result of pretty much every economic interventionist policy in so called progressive cities. It's the reason why those cities gentrify: only high-consumer-surplus buyers can survive the policy changes. Play a game: a casino offers you entry but only returns 97% of your original capital. The only people who can profitably play games in the casino are the most intense and wealthy speculators (in the non pejorative).

sonnyblarney 8y ago
Your description of buyers fails to reflect the fact that the high-surplus types are foreign, the rest are local. There is an easy solution: tax foreign ownership at a significant rate. This is even justifiable: why do foreign land-owners have the privilege to own land in Canada? We have to maintain laws, secure it, pay for externalized maintenance (the road out front to start), the water, provide the possibility for electricity even if it's not used and all the civic infrastructure. Non-resident land ownership should be taxed at 3% of the value of the land per year, or banned outright. There's almost no advantage in a nation selling of it's land as an export. Another alternative would be only to allow residential 'surplus' to be sold. One trick to implement this might be to allow foreigners to buy flats, but not homes. Not a very perfect trick but it would 'kind of work': it's possible to build a lot of empty buildings in the middle of nowhere as investments. Allowing only a % of homes in an are to be foreign owned would be another opportunity.
- DINKDINK 8y ago
  >tax foreign ownership at a significant rate If these "foreigners" should be taxed now, why shouldn't you be taxed also? because at some point in the past you were a "foreigner" relative to where you are now. >We have to maintain laws, secure it, pay for externalized maintenance (the road out front to start), the water, provide .... You're describing....property taxes, which still exist. If anything, lower population density reduces demand for those services, so their property taxes should be lower. Listen if you hate foreigners, think there's an Asian "plague", and get behind the trope that 'foreigners are ruining my neighborhood, country, city' just say it. But before you do, you might do well to read some history such as the Chinese Exclusion Act [1] and it's racist legacy despite being legitimized at the time by "protecting American labor" [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act

sonnyblarney 8y ago

Your description of buyers fails to reflect the fact that the high-surplus types are foreign, the rest are local. There is an easy solution: tax foreign ownership at a significant rate. This is even justifiable: why do foreign land-owners have the privilege to own land in Canada? We have to maintain laws, secure it, pay for externalized maintenance (the road out front to start), the water, provide the possibility for electricity even if it's not used and all the civic infrastructure. Non-resident land ownership should be taxed at 3% of the value of the land per year, or banned outright. There's almost no advantage in a nation selling of it's land as an export. Another alternative would be only to allow residential 'surplus' to be sold. One trick to implement this might be to allow foreigners to buy flats, but not homes. Not a very perfect trick but it would 'kind of work': it's possible to build a lot of empty buildings in the middle of nowhere as investments. Allowing only a % of homes in an are to be foreign owned would be another opportunity.

DINKDINK 8y ago
>tax foreign ownership at a significant rate If these "foreigners" should be taxed now, why shouldn't you be taxed also? because at some point in the past you were a "foreigner" relative to where you are now. >We have to maintain laws, secure it, pay for externalized maintenance (the road out front to start), the water, provide .... You're describing....property taxes, which still exist. If anything, lower population density reduces demand for those services, so their property taxes should be lower. Listen if you hate foreigners, think there's an Asian "plague", and get behind the trope that 'foreigners are ruining my neighborhood, country, city' just say it. But before you do, you might do well to read some history such as the Chinese Exclusion Act [1] and it's racist legacy despite being legitimized at the time by "protecting American labor" [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act