11 ms·

Luckily a San Franciscan figured it all out over one hundred years ago so we don't have to wonder about this: > THE GREAT PROBLEM IS SOLVED. We are able to exp

by rcpt 6y ago

Luckily a San Franciscan figured it all out over one hundred years ago so we don't have to wonder about this: > THE GREAT PROBLEM IS SOLVED. We are able to explain social phenomena that have appalled philanthropists and perplexed statesmen all over the civilized world. We have found the reason why wages constantly tend to a minimum, giving but a bare living, despite increase in productive power: > As productive power increases, rent tends to increase even more — constantly forcing down wages. > Advancing civilization tends to increase the power of human labor to satisfy human desires. We should be able to eliminate poverty. But workers cannot reap these benefits because they are intercepted. Land is necessary to labor. When it has been reduced to private ownership, the increased productivity of labor only increases rent. Thus, all the advantages of progress go to those who own land. Wages do not increase — wages cannot increase. The more labor produces, the more it must pay for the opportunity to make anything at all. A land value tax fixes our problems but Californians went and voted in Prop 13 which is about as far from that as you can get. http://www.henrygeorge.org/pchp23.htm http://www.henrygeorge.org/pchp23.htm

huevosabio 6y ago
Everyone works but the empty lot. I was not aware that Henry George was from San Francisco.
- LVTfan 6y ago
  HG was born in Philadelphia (1839); arrived in San Francisco by 1860 or so, and lived in California until early 1880. He wrote "Our Land and Land Policy" and "Progress and Poverty" during that period, as well as owning and editing the SF Daily Evening Post for 4 years between those books. He then moved to NYC, where he lived until his death in 1897. For an introduction to his ideas, see wealthandwant.com. For more contemporary references, see https://schalkenbach.org/introductionto-the-ideas-ofhenry-george/ https://schalkenbach.org/introductionto-the-ideas-ofhenry-ge... and that entire site.
ponker 6y ago
Most visible in restaurants. They came in and made a dangerous neighborhood a trendy hotspot and then got booted out because VC and law firms outbid them on rent.
mrits 6y ago
You can purchase a 5K sqft lot outside of Austin for $2,200 and we still have a growing homeless problem. I'd look more into providing mental health, relocation, and incentives to stay off heavy drugs.
- norswap 6y ago
  Surely that number is not right - probably lacking two digits?
  - dfinninger 6y ago
    You can get out of Austin pretty quick. 30 mins in some directions can get you out of the metro area. Also, 5k sqft is 1/10 of an acre. That said, I don’t know anything about land prices in Texas right now.
    - tmh88j 6y ago
      >You can get out of Austin pretty quick. 30 mins in some directions can get you out of the metro area. Also, 5k sqft is 1/10 of an acre. During the normal busy hours in which people commute, no way. I can only hope all the construction going on along 183 will speed things up on the East side. The 290/71 junction is another nightmare during rush hour.
    - RhysU 6y ago
      30 minutes won't take you from the river to North Loop. And even Redbud is slow in the opposite direction.
      - mrits 6y ago
        north-south commute? You must be new here.
        RhysU 6y ago
        Nah. I arrived when it was too easy to speed on Mopac. I left town before a north-south was totally inconceivable. Dunno if the behind-Pease-on-Parkway trick still helps. I had an east-west when I bailed.
bhupy 6y ago
A pet crusade of mine: California can pass a 100% (or close to that) land appreciation tax (capital gains tax on land), and that wouldn't violate Prop 13. High land appreciation taxes are essentially indistinguishable from Georgist LVT. China taxes land appreciation between 30-60%.
- alasdair_ 6y ago
  >China taxes land appreciation between 30-60%. Doesn't the government technically own all the land in China and then just lease it to individuals? Slightly different system.
  - bhupy 6y ago
    Not quite relevant, because we already tax land appreciation in the US today, it's just the capital gains tax. The capital gains tax is also low because (in theory) we want to incentivize investment in the name of growth. There's no reason why we ought to apply the same incentive in favor of investment in real asset growth. A Land Appreciation Tax is just a capital gains tax just on real estate. In fact, LVT would be unconstitutional at the Federal level today, but a Land Appreciation Tax would not.
    - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
      Why capital gains tax rate is lower [..] The justification for a lower tax rate on capital gains relative to ordinary income is threefold: it is not indexed for inflation, it is a double tax, and it encourages present consumption over future consumption. ... Finally, a capital gains tax, like nearly all of the federal tax code, is a tax on future consumption.[..]
      - bhupy 6y ago
        Yup, that too. It’s another consideration that I don’t think ought to be made for land appreciation. In fact, because it doesn’t account for inflation, for the longest holders of land, a high LAT functions like a very mild LVT in practice, while also neutralizing the attractiveness of land as an investment vehicle in general.
arcticbull 6y ago
Housing is literally exclusively a supply and demand problem. If you want rent to go down, allow more building. End of story. There's actually nothing else to it. Lower property values caused by an increase in supply will yield lower rents because rents are generally indexed to mortgage rates which are indexed to property values. The problem is twofold. 1. Americans view property as an investment while also wanting it to be affordable. These are mutually exclusive. If you want something to be a good investment you want it to become less affordable over time. 2. Renters tend to be younger, transient, non-voters with weaker ties to the community. Landowners tend to be older, established voters with strong ties to the community. This means the city council panders to landowners, and they pass policies which prevent development. SF is the worst for this, the city is basically unchanged since the 1970s to the absolute and sole benefit of landowners. There are wonderful examples of cities which pretty much default-allow building housing, like Tokyo. Tokyo is incredibly affordable, downtown starter-home/condos cost $200K USD, and people in Japan do not view property as an investment but rather as somewhere to live. More like a car. Yes, prop 13 sucks, yes a land value tax is pointing in the right direction, yes rent control isn't helping, but none of these things are a substitute for the simple unit economics of supply and demand. Anything other than permitting tons of new building is at best a band-aid over a hole in the dam.
- chii 6y ago
  > non-voters ... Landowners tend to be older, established voters ... city council panders to [voters] surprise, surprise, if you don't vote and assert your civic duty and rights, you don't get included in the process to decide the direction of society. > view property as an investment while also wanting it to be affordable. These are mutually exclusive. they aren't - investment is supposed to increase the efficiency of production, thus increasing the availability of said product. The issue here is that land is scarce, and can be made more scarce by various laws. Building/construction costs have decreased somewhat, but the major cost is the land, and lack of density leads to lower supply. > Anything other than permitting tons of new building is at best a band-aid over a hole in the dam. yes, this is exactly it. However the people _want_ low density, but affordable! Both cannot be true. And thus, here there is conflict.

by rcpt 6y ago

huevosabio 6y ago

Everyone works but the empty lot. I was not aware that Henry George was from San Francisco.

LVTfan 6y ago
HG was born in Philadelphia (1839); arrived in San Francisco by 1860 or so, and lived in California until early 1880. He wrote "Our Land and Land Policy" and "Progress and Poverty" during that period, as well as owning and editing the SF Daily Evening Post for 4 years between those books. He then moved to NYC, where he lived until his death in 1897. For an introduction to his ideas, see wealthandwant.com. For more contemporary references, see https://schalkenbach.org/introductionto-the-ideas-ofhenry-george/ https://schalkenbach.org/introductionto-the-ideas-ofhenry-ge... and that entire site.

ponker 6y ago

Most visible in restaurants. They came in and made a dangerous neighborhood a trendy hotspot and then got booted out because VC and law firms outbid them on rent.

mrits 6y ago

You can purchase a 5K sqft lot outside of Austin for $2,200 and we still have a growing homeless problem. I'd look more into providing mental health, relocation, and incentives to stay off heavy drugs.

norswap 6y ago
Surely that number is not right - probably lacking two digits?
- dfinninger 6y ago
  You can get out of Austin pretty quick. 30 mins in some directions can get you out of the metro area. Also, 5k sqft is 1/10 of an acre. That said, I don’t know anything about land prices in Texas right now.
  - tmh88j 6y ago
    >You can get out of Austin pretty quick. 30 mins in some directions can get you out of the metro area. Also, 5k sqft is 1/10 of an acre. During the normal busy hours in which people commute, no way. I can only hope all the construction going on along 183 will speed things up on the East side. The 290/71 junction is another nightmare during rush hour.
  - RhysU 6y ago
    30 minutes won't take you from the river to North Loop. And even Redbud is slow in the opposite direction.
    - mrits 6y ago
      north-south commute? You must be new here.
      - RhysU 6y ago
        Nah. I arrived when it was too easy to speed on Mopac. I left town before a north-south was totally inconceivable. Dunno if the behind-Pease-on-Parkway trick still helps. I had an east-west when I bailed.

bhupy 6y ago

A pet crusade of mine: California can pass a 100% (or close to that) land appreciation tax (capital gains tax on land), and that wouldn't violate Prop 13. High land appreciation taxes are essentially indistinguishable from Georgist LVT. China taxes land appreciation between 30-60%.

alasdair_ 6y ago
>China taxes land appreciation between 30-60%. Doesn't the government technically own all the land in China and then just lease it to individuals? Slightly different system.
- bhupy 6y ago
  Not quite relevant, because we already tax land appreciation in the US today, it's just the capital gains tax. The capital gains tax is also low because (in theory) we want to incentivize investment in the name of growth. There's no reason why we ought to apply the same incentive in favor of investment in real asset growth. A Land Appreciation Tax is just a capital gains tax just on real estate. In fact, LVT would be unconstitutional at the Federal level today, but a Land Appreciation Tax would not.
  - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
    Why capital gains tax rate is lower [..] The justification for a lower tax rate on capital gains relative to ordinary income is threefold: it is not indexed for inflation, it is a double tax, and it encourages present consumption over future consumption. ... Finally, a capital gains tax, like nearly all of the federal tax code, is a tax on future consumption.[..]
    - bhupy 6y ago
      Yup, that too. It’s another consideration that I don’t think ought to be made for land appreciation. In fact, because it doesn’t account for inflation, for the longest holders of land, a high LAT functions like a very mild LVT in practice, while also neutralizing the attractiveness of land as an investment vehicle in general.

arcticbull 6y ago

Housing is literally exclusively a supply and demand problem. If you want rent to go down, allow more building. End of story. There's actually nothing else to it. Lower property values caused by an increase in supply will yield lower rents because rents are generally indexed to mortgage rates which are indexed to property values. The problem is twofold. 1. Americans view property as an investment while also wanting it to be affordable. These are mutually exclusive. If you want something to be a good investment you want it to become less affordable over time. 2. Renters tend to be younger, transient, non-voters with weaker ties to the community. Landowners tend to be older, established voters with strong ties to the community. This means the city council panders to landowners, and they pass policies which prevent development. SF is the worst for this, the city is basically unchanged since the 1970s to the absolute and sole benefit of landowners. There are wonderful examples of cities which pretty much default-allow building housing, like Tokyo. Tokyo is incredibly affordable, downtown starter-home/condos cost $200K USD, and people in Japan do not view property as an investment but rather as somewhere to live. More like a car. Yes, prop 13 sucks, yes a land value tax is pointing in the right direction, yes rent control isn't helping, but none of these things are a substitute for the simple unit economics of supply and demand. Anything other than permitting tons of new building is at best a band-aid over a hole in the dam.

chii 6y ago
> non-voters ... Landowners tend to be older, established voters ... city council panders to [voters] surprise, surprise, if you don't vote and assert your civic duty and rights, you don't get included in the process to decide the direction of society. > view property as an investment while also wanting it to be affordable. These are mutually exclusive. they aren't - investment is supposed to increase the efficiency of production, thus increasing the availability of said product. The issue here is that land is scarce, and can be made more scarce by various laws. Building/construction costs have decreased somewhat, but the major cost is the land, and lack of density leads to lower supply. > Anything other than permitting tons of new building is at best a band-aid over a hole in the dam. yes, this is exactly it. However the people _want_ low density, but affordable! Both cannot be true. And thus, here there is conflict.