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This whole worldview is totally baffling to me. A) So what should these landowners be doing according to you besides jumping off of a bridge? Are you against p

by anm89 7y ago

This whole worldview is totally baffling to me. A) So what should these landowners be doing according to you besides jumping off of a bridge? Are you against private property. Or did just exactly the set of evil people happen to be also be exactly the set of people who wanted to buy property B) So what should we do, a Mao style repossession from everyone who bought land totally fairly according to the legal system they bought it in? C) You honestly believe they are mustache twirling villains don't you?

ZhuanXia 7y ago
A) We are in an incentive trap. It sucks for property owners, but government subsidizing them with zoning laws needs to stop. If they are leveraged and lose all their money I don't care. They used the state to steal their rents and capital appreciation from the productive people, workers and business owners. From a Georgist prospective, aside from removing the indirect subsidization from zoning laws, I think land value should be taxed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax B) See this portion of my comment: From a policy perspective, I like federal land-value taxes that tax based on the counterfactual value of the land absent zoning restrictions, which would internalize the costs of zoning on landowners. C) Not really. Just responding to incentives. Like all of us.
roenxi 7y ago
> So what should these landowners be doing according to you besides jumping off of a bridge? The landowners should be powerless to stop other landowners building high(er) density housing. This is how most of the economy works - all industrial activities face grumpy opposition from someone, so the legal system takes a fairly protective stance on behalf of industry. Most economic activity happens to the annoyance of someone who is suffering minor negative externalities (very minor, eg, the view isn't as good because there is a factory in it now). The issue that is being gone to is that landlords band together to form a sort-of guild that restricts what other landlords can do. GP was quite clear that zoning laws were the core issue. If one or two landlords were allowed to band together to build an ultra-dense block of units in a high demand suburb then housing would become plentiful. This sort of thing is the most effective way of solving a housing problem. So basically, in answer to your (A), landlords could support laws that allow landlords to more easily (and, critically, unilaterally in the face of opposition from other landlords) build the sort of housing people want.

by anm89 7y ago

ZhuanXia 7y ago

A) We are in an incentive trap. It sucks for property owners, but government subsidizing them with zoning laws needs to stop. If they are leveraged and lose all their money I don't care. They used the state to steal their rents and capital appreciation from the productive people, workers and business owners. From a Georgist prospective, aside from removing the indirect subsidization from zoning laws, I think land value should be taxed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax B) See this portion of my comment: From a policy perspective, I like federal land-value taxes that tax based on the counterfactual value of the land absent zoning restrictions, which would internalize the costs of zoning on landowners. C) Not really. Just responding to incentives. Like all of us.

roenxi 7y ago

> So what should these landowners be doing according to you besides jumping off of a bridge? The landowners should be powerless to stop other landowners building high(er) density housing. This is how most of the economy works - all industrial activities face grumpy opposition from someone, so the legal system takes a fairly protective stance on behalf of industry. Most economic activity happens to the annoyance of someone who is suffering minor negative externalities (very minor, eg, the view isn't as good because there is a factory in it now). The issue that is being gone to is that landlords band together to form a sort-of guild that restricts what other landlords can do. GP was quite clear that zoning laws were the core issue. If one or two landlords were allowed to band together to build an ultra-dense block of units in a high demand suburb then housing would become plentiful. This sort of thing is the most effective way of solving a housing problem. So basically, in answer to your (A), landlords could support laws that allow landlords to more easily (and, critically, unilaterally in the face of opposition from other landlords) build the sort of housing people want.