3 ms·

Personally, I think one of the greatest mistakes of capitalism is to make property an investment asset.

judge2020 5y ago
Nobody made it an investment asset, it just happened as certain pieces of land grew more valuable for practical reasons. This is unavoidable unless you make it so you can't sell property, which would also mean you can't buy property - the government would need to manage peoples' needs based on family size and do the maintenance of maintaining property to the same level as landlords.
- id02009 5y ago
  Ending up in a monopoly.
- ethanbond 5y ago
  This is not true. We did make it an investment asset around the advent of agriculture. And there is a way to avoid it without freezing the market, which is called the Land Value Tax. As far as I know, no serious economist (from any ideological perspective) seems to actually dispute the functional fitness of this tax. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax?wprov=sfti1
ashwagary 5y ago
Bad money (like inflationary fiat currency) creates the need to use other assets to preserve wealth, which creates bubbles in those assets. Bitcoin advocates say good money (Bitcoin) will return the value of all other assets to their utility value because the best passive store of value will be the money itself (which due to a fixed supply would be deflationary). In that world, people would rather sell assets they don't use to accumulate bitcoin (or money x) because only useful activities will produce more yield than the money itself. This frees up housing, land, precious metals,... and all other resources that are artificially scarce due to hoarding for wealth preservation. I've heard people estimate, under a Bitcoin standard, the actual utility value of a house would be approximately 5-10% of current prices.
- 314 5y ago
  This is hilarious.
  - ashwagary 5y ago
    Feel free to share if you have any criticism of this view.
  - Siira 5y ago
    It might not work in practice, but it is certainly a big factor behind using housing as an investment mechanism.
shephardjhon 5y ago
I think we really need to limit how many one can own. Start taxing very very very heavily for anything beyond a second home for individuals and and anything beyond another number based on statistics for a company. Also add attitional tax for every two months a property is owned but no one is living in it or using it for business. This should cut down on hording and incentivize companies and people to get rid of any property that is just lying there waiting for prices to go up.
- ethanbond 5y ago
  Just institute high Land Value Tax and you kill these birds and their tax evasion schemes, with one very simple stone.
  - blindmute 5y ago
    Land tax is horrid. A person should be able to live off the land if they choose, self sufficiently. This is impossible when the government demands yearly cash payment just for having your own place to farm.
    - ethanbond 5y ago
      A person who removes land from the common good should have to do something productive with it, give it back to the common good, or simply pay a fee to the commons for having kept it from productive use. A person absolutely should not be able to keep several blocks of downtown Manhattan off the market so they can run a private farm for themselves. In practical terms, anywhere a person would want to do such a thing, the land would be cheap enough that LVT wouldn't really matter anyway.
      - blindmute 5y ago
        They do pay a fee to the commons for removing it; it's called sales tax. They are also doing something productive with it, by living on it and using it. If we are to keep trespassing laws, there must be ways to own land permanently and without further cost. There must be a way for man to survive without participating in government enforced labour. All land is owned by some entity; he can't live in the woods owned by the government or someone else; even after buying land and being entirely self sufficient, he cannot simply live, but must pay the government in their currency which he can only get through participating in the labor economy. There is literally no legal way to live freely by your own means. This is a form of slavery that the ancients would find absolutely intolerable. Increase the price of land or the sales tax, limit the ownership a single person can have, levy inheritance tax, but an indefinite land tax is inhumane.

judge2020 5y ago

Nobody made it an investment asset, it just happened as certain pieces of land grew more valuable for practical reasons. This is unavoidable unless you make it so you can't sell property, which would also mean you can't buy property - the government would need to manage peoples' needs based on family size and do the maintenance of maintaining property to the same level as landlords.

id02009 5y ago
Ending up in a monopoly.
ethanbond 5y ago
This is not true. We did make it an investment asset around the advent of agriculture. And there is a way to avoid it without freezing the market, which is called the Land Value Tax. As far as I know, no serious economist (from any ideological perspective) seems to actually dispute the functional fitness of this tax. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax?wprov=sfti1

ashwagary 5y ago

Bad money (like inflationary fiat currency) creates the need to use other assets to preserve wealth, which creates bubbles in those assets. Bitcoin advocates say good money (Bitcoin) will return the value of all other assets to their utility value because the best passive store of value will be the money itself (which due to a fixed supply would be deflationary). In that world, people would rather sell assets they don't use to accumulate bitcoin (or money x) because only useful activities will produce more yield than the money itself. This frees up housing, land, precious metals,... and all other resources that are artificially scarce due to hoarding for wealth preservation. I've heard people estimate, under a Bitcoin standard, the actual utility value of a house would be approximately 5-10% of current prices.

314 5y ago
This is hilarious.
- ashwagary 5y ago
  Feel free to share if you have any criticism of this view.
- Siira 5y ago
  It might not work in practice, but it is certainly a big factor behind using housing as an investment mechanism.

shephardjhon 5y ago

I think we really need to limit how many one can own. Start taxing very very very heavily for anything beyond a second home for individuals and and anything beyond another number based on statistics for a company. Also add attitional tax for every two months a property is owned but no one is living in it or using it for business. This should cut down on hording and incentivize companies and people to get rid of any property that is just lying there waiting for prices to go up.

ethanbond 5y ago
Just institute high Land Value Tax and you kill these birds and their tax evasion schemes, with one very simple stone.
- blindmute 5y ago
  Land tax is horrid. A person should be able to live off the land if they choose, self sufficiently. This is impossible when the government demands yearly cash payment just for having your own place to farm.
  - ethanbond 5y ago
    A person who removes land from the common good should have to do something productive with it, give it back to the common good, or simply pay a fee to the commons for having kept it from productive use. A person absolutely should not be able to keep several blocks of downtown Manhattan off the market so they can run a private farm for themselves. In practical terms, anywhere a person would want to do such a thing, the land would be cheap enough that LVT wouldn't really matter anyway.
    - blindmute 5y ago
      They do pay a fee to the commons for removing it; it's called sales tax. They are also doing something productive with it, by living on it and using it. If we are to keep trespassing laws, there must be ways to own land permanently and without further cost. There must be a way for man to survive without participating in government enforced labour. All land is owned by some entity; he can't live in the woods owned by the government or someone else; even after buying land and being entirely self sufficient, he cannot simply live, but must pay the government in their currency which he can only get through participating in the labor economy. There is literally no legal way to live freely by your own means. This is a form of slavery that the ancients would find absolutely intolerable. Increase the price of land or the sales tax, limit the ownership a single person can have, levy inheritance tax, but an indefinite land tax is inhumane.