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Capitalism is Original Sin
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May 7, 2020 21:27
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Cup Runneth Over posted:It's not a tautology, it's a simple statement: if housing were not a retirement and investment vehicle, or something that could be speculated upon (i.e. if it were public), then owning your home would not apply conservative pressure to your worldview. Tying home ownership to wealth and one's retirement was a deliberate strategy in America to make the electorate more reactionary, and it paid off in spades. The elimination of pensions, the gutting of social security -- it was a path taken, and these are the results. It's not the fault of the homeowner, as Leperflesh pointed out. It's simply capitalism doing its thing to people. Home ownership and inheritance has existed for a lot longer than capitalism.
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May 7, 2020 21:42
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droll posted:Your friend personally knows a landlord. Possibly a family member or friend they care about. Or they fully intend on becoming one. I am pretty sure your right. Back when we were in college my friend had job working a personal assistant for woman who was one of the first fifty employees at YAHOO and left the company as soon a see was vested ie before the post 9/11 dot com crash happened and invested the money in rentals. My friend got very close (and is still friends) with her and I suspect that's where it came from. side_burned fucked around with this message at 22:06 on May 7, 2020 |
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May 7, 2020 22:01
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Admiral Ray posted:Home ownership and inheritance has existed for a lot longer than capitalism. You might want to actually read my post there chief
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May 7, 2020 22:35
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Admiral Ray posted:Home ownership and inheritance has existed for a lot longer than capitalism. The idea that you need to have a big stock of liquid assets to survive by yourself in old age is very new in human history, because typically your children and the community cared for you. And the housing market is very new in human history and unique to capitalist societies. America Inc. fucked around with this message at 23:00 on May 7, 2020 |
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May 7, 2020 22:57
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You also died 20 years earlier
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May 7, 2020 22:59
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Ron Jeremy posted:You also died 20 years earlier Eh no, people living into old age was not uncommon. The average age of death stats were skewed by all the infants dying from disease.
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May 7, 2020 23:01
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Ron Jeremy posted:You also died 20 years earlier No you didn't. This is a myth. Lots of people died very young and it skewed the average. If you made it to your teenage years you were going to do ok. Not as good as today, of course, but you weren't just going to drop dead in your 40s of "old age". Read some biographies sometimes. They all go like this: so and so was a man who lived into their 70s/80s. They had six kids, two of them died before they were teens, one died in some accident or of some chronic disease, the other 3 lived into their 70s/80s. Their first wife died during the birth of the fourth kid. Their second wife lived. (I'm being a bit facetious but this general pattern shows up a lot). Megaman's Jockstrap fucked around with this message at 23:10 on May 7, 2020 |
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May 7, 2020 23:05
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WOWEE ZOWEE posted:Eh no, people living into old age was not uncommon. The average age of death stats were skewed by all the infants dying from disease. most graves dug up pre-colonialism periods of europe show a median age of somewhere around 40-50 for adulthood (so that's after you take out childhood mortality). which is often a far cry more than if you take into account child mortality which pushes it down to like 25-35 something, but that's still a solid 20 years younger than today. i dont know about say pre-colonialism native americans or some other historic 1000s-era china though.
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May 7, 2020 23:08
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Wicked Them Beats posted:Well if the problem isn't capitalism what is it? Housing being an investment vehicle, rather than simply something you buy to use, a long term good, like a car. You can have housing that isn’t expected to appreciate in value indefinitely will still being capitalist. Japan has done it. They made zoning take place at higher jurisdictional levels rather than the local to combat NIMBYism, among other things. You know that saying about it being easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism? I feel like a lot of Americans, Californians especially, find it easier to imagine the end of capitalism than the end of the suburbs.
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May 8, 2020 00:12
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Sydin posted:Bingo. Any attempt to chip away at Prop 13, even in entirely reasonable cases like making huge commercial interests pay their fair share, will be framed as a) an attempt to kick grandma out of her house, and b) a secret plot to slippery slope towards a full repeal, which will kick grandma out of her house again, somehow. This is the argument on my Nextdoor neighborhood, they all read on Facebook somewhere that the plot is to get commercial properties repealed and right before the law is signed they just scribble out "commercial" and write in "ALL" in big capital letters and bingo bango everyone is broke.
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May 8, 2020 00:20
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I stand corrected, I should have done some basic research before making that claim. Nonetheless, my point doesn't change that much. Humans have cared for their elderly for a long time. E: YouTube link https://youtu.be/5n7yTEALxNc
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May 8, 2020 00:28
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Sydin posted:Bingo. Any attempt to chip away at Prop 13, even in entirely reasonable cases like making huge commercial interests pay their fair share, will be framed as a) an attempt to kick grandma out of her house, and b) a secret plot to slippery slope towards a full repeal, which will kick grandma out of her house again, somehow. Let non-property owners know we can reduce gas and sales taxes if we do it
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May 8, 2020 00:44
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Is it generally accepted to say that gas tax should be low because raising it as a method of discouraging carbon pollution affects the working poor the most? What if the tax was raised to continue road maintenance but then also used to pay for electric vehicles for the working poor as well? Still regressive right?
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May 8, 2020 00:55
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droll posted:Is it generally accepted to say that gas tax should be low because raising it as a method of discouraging carbon pollution affects the working poor the most? What if the tax was raised to continue road maintenance but then also used to pay for electric vehicles for the working poor as well? Still regressive right? EV/Hybrids are very very affordable nowadays, so this is wat less true than it was in 2005 or 2010 respectively.
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May 8, 2020 01:08
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droll posted:Is it generally accepted to say that gas tax should be low because raising it as a method of discouraging carbon pollution affects the working poor the most? What if the tax was raised to continue road maintenance but then also used to pay for electric vehicles for the working poor as well? Still regressive right? Any flat tax is regressive by its very nature. Sales tax, sin tax, gas tax, etc are all regressive. Ideally what you'd want to do is reduce as much as possible those flat taxes and replace them with more aggressive income/property/inheritance taxes that place a greater tax burden the more wealth you have. scumby posted:Let non-property owners know we can reduce gas and sales taxes if we do it Non-property owners are half the reason Prop 13 is still going strong courtesy of temporarily embarrassed millionaire syndrome. Ditto the recent failure to implement rent controls. "Yeah my rent is sky high and I'd need to scrounge up $200K in savings just to put 20% down on a condemned lot, but once I hit it big and own property/am a landlord, it'll be my turn to benefit from those systems!"
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May 8, 2020 01:14
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I'm not sure I buy the temporarily embarrass millionaires syndrome. I don't think they believe they will be millionaires. My guess is that the rules don't seem "fair" to wealth "fairly earned", for you see this is a meritocracy!
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May 8, 2020 01:23
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Sydin posted:Non-property owners are half the reason Prop 13 is still going strong courtesy of temporarily embarrassed millionaire syndrome. Ditto the recent failure to implement rent controls. "Yeah my rent is sky high and I'd need to scrounge up $200K in savings just to put 20% down on a condemned lot, but once I hit it big and own property/am a landlord, it'll be my turn to benefit from those systems!"
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May 8, 2020 01:25
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Most poor people are commuting on beat up $2000 cars, you can't buy an ev for 2000-3000, even if you add the state $1500 buyback program. Fuel taxes should not exist in a state that has terrible public transportation. Also, prop 13 needs to be repealed and schools should be funded and run centrally and not locally.
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May 8, 2020 03:44
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Celexi posted:Most poor people are commuting on beat up $2000 cars, you can't buy an ev for 2000-3000, even if you add the state $1500 buyback program. Fuel taxes should not exist in a state that has terrible public transportation. Yeah but you can pickup a hybrid for a 3grand. And the fuel savings in a Prius outweigh the tax
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May 8, 2020 04:06
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Cup Runneth Over posted:You might want to actually read my post there chief I did, and capitalism isn't the reason that owning your home is a symbol of wealth or security, nor was encouraging home ownership a deliberate strategy designed to make the electorate more reactionary. WOWEE ZOWEE posted:The idea that you need to have a big stock of liquid assets to survive by yourself in old age is very new in human history, because typically your children and the community cared for you. The ownership/control of land has been associated with security and prosperity for longer than capitalism has existed. The housing market might be relatively new but owning land/your home being seen as desirable is not.
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May 8, 2020 04:15
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Celexi posted:Most poor people are commuting on beat up $2000 cars, you can't buy an ev for 2000-3000, even if you add the state $1500 buyback program. Why do you think we shoudn't provide EV @ 100% cost? Better things aren't possible? We have to move towards a no-growth, 100% subsidized model else we're going to literally die.
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May 8, 2020 04:21
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droll posted:Why do you think we shoudn't provide EV @ 100% cost? Better things aren't possible? There aren’t enough resources in the world to replace all cars with EVs. But that means we should work towards electric public transport, instead.
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May 8, 2020 04:24
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Lol wrong country NotJustANumber99 fucked around with this message at 04:44 on May 8, 2020 |
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May 8, 2020 04:33
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The North Tower posted:There aren’t enough resources in the world to replace all cars with EVs. But that means we should work towards electric public transport, instead. Wait what?? What is your source for this?
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May 8, 2020 05:03
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droll posted:Wait what?? What is your source for this? Lithium is in very short supply and you need it to make the batteries EVs use. If you tried to give tens of millions of people EVs all at once you'd overwhelm the supply chains and never actually make enough vehicles. Edit: article here According to this we're really short on cobalt. Apparently 65% of the world supply comes from the famously stable DRC, no doubt very ethically sourced. Wicked Them Beats fucked around with this message at 05:19 on May 8, 2020 |
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May 8, 2020 05:15
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Sorry but I want data to support the notion that 'There aren’t enough resources in the world to replace all cars with EVs'. They didn't stipulate EVs can only be 100% lithium.
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May 8, 2020 05:19
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If you’re talking about giving everyone electric cars why not just build trains and busses
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May 8, 2020 05:22
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Centrist Committee posted:If you’re talking about giving everyone electric cars why not just build trains and busses Why not all 3
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May 8, 2020 05:24
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Yeah giving everyone an electric car, whether it's possible or not, is grossly inefficient compared to building out and expanding existing transportation networks. Just building enough EVs to replace cars in the US would take several years, possibly over a decade, not to mention the overhauls you'd need to do to power grids nationwide with everyone suddenly plugging their cars into outlets. Building a bunch of trains is easier and more environmentally friendly and all without spiking the number of child laborers dying in African cobalt mines.
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May 8, 2020 05:26
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Putting billion dollar trains into sparsely populated areas is more efficient than putting electric buses in? That surprises me. Has no one written about this in depth?
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May 8, 2020 05:29
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droll posted:Putting billion dollar trains into sparsely populated areas is more efficient than putting electric buses in? That surprises me. Has no one written about this in depth? No you build the trains in densely populated areas with spurs out to rural areas that have large commuter populations who are coming into the population centers. Presumably you use buses in those areas to get people to the trains that take them into the cities. Regardless of the exact model it's way more efficient than giving everyone their own electric car and crashing the local power grid.
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May 8, 2020 05:42
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Simply getting Caltrain electrified has taken decades; moar trains isn't gonna realistically happen in our lifetimes. The argument I always hear against rent control is that it discourages the construction of additional housing and won't help housing shortages in the long run. That gets parroted a lot. Is there any guarantee that abolishing Prop 13 would lower house prices? Seems like the people that could afford the jump in taxes would just be out bidding on other people like they already do now which would drive up prices.
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May 8, 2020 05:45
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Panfilo posted:Simply getting Caltrain electrified has taken decades; moar trains isn't gonna realistically happen in our lifetimes. We’re arguing in a hypothetical timeline where we have to debate to maximum capacity of the electric vehicle supply chain
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May 8, 2020 05:48
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The thing about housing (if I may back up the convo a little), is that over the last century, nationwide, a house hasn't actually been a very good investment. Compared to other investment vehicles, houses generally suck majorly: they have huge transactional costs (upwards of 10% of the sale price is burned in fees and other bullshit), they're highly illiquid (it takes months to sell), they're taxed in certain ways (an annual tax for possession; but, no cap gains tax on the first $500k of appreciation minus your remodel costs is a big countering benefit), they cost a shitload of money to maintain just to hold value, you have to insure them, and most buyers have to take out a huge loan with a very long term and pay something like double the sale price over the life of that loan. If you only look at "bought for $40k in 1968, sold for $500k in 2020, jesus christ) you get a very skewed picture. As long as houses simply hold their value after considering all the costs and taxes and poo poo, then it kinda works out OK, sorta, but man, that interest; if all those Americans just had rent-free housing, and could plow the exact same amount of money into much more reasonable investments, they'd be vastly richer. What's different in California, and especially in the Bay Area, is that we have had a historically long and lovely run of underbuilding housing. There's a bunch of reasons for it, but the problem is a positive feedback loop: the more people's houses outperform other, better investment options, the more vested those people become in reinforcing the mechanisms that create that outperformance. The largest of those mechanisms are opposition to new housing, densification, and redevelopment; and, the opposition to repeal of prop 13, which artificially lowers their tax rate over time. There are other mechanisms too, especially historically, poo poo like white flight and the power of gated communities with HOAs to do the racism to keep the poors at bay, the disproportions in job creation in neighboring cities that empower some to act like house-price-pumping bedroom communities without having to pay for the connecting infrastructure (see for example: Marin vs. BART), etc. but regardless of what all the factors are, the longer it persists the worse that feedback loop gets. The more attractive housing-as-speculative-investment becomes, the more outside money comes in to speculate, too; and that's not necessarily a "speculative bubble" like we've seen before, either, because the "bubble" part implies that there's no natural demand, only artificial demand (e.g. only speculators want to buy). I'm convinced that right now, even if 100% of the speculative money were pulled out, housing prices would drop something like 10% or less, because there's still this massive pent-up demand from people who actually want to buy and live in a house around here. What I'm angling towards is that while yes, capitalism has created the economic system that permits private property and the speculation thereof, we could at least aim for a housing situation that's no worse than the rest of the country. If, IF, we can build enough housing to satisfy demand, and make sure it's entirely natural demand, e.g., do whatever's necessary to ban speculative investment in homes. And get rid of prop 13. And do more of the state-level or at least regional-level planning overrides of local resistance to zoning reforms and expansion of public transit. You know. We can see this sort of thing all over the country, and housing markets all over the country which, if not ideal, are at least less horribly insane than we have here. That's the argument I'd make to people resisting repeal of prop 13. Grandmas all over the country seem to be not living on cat food and camping in the street; somehow, other states are keeping the bulk of their adorable elderly housed. Maybe not perfectly, but gently caress: why does California have to be worse than those states? Couldn't we get rid of prop 13, but also do better than lovely republican-run impoverished states at keeping our grandmas housed and comfortable? We're the most economically successful state in the country, with the possible exception of new york depending on what measures you use. Can't we repeal this bullshit regressive taxation system in some sort of phased or sensible way, and be more like I dunno, Colorado or Oregon or pick your preferred liberalish niceish state? We don't have to go Full Communism Now, that's not the only alternative, we know it isn't. We can see it isn't, all over the goddamn country. Panfilo posted:Is there any guarantee that abolishing Prop 13 would lower house prices? Seems like the people that could afford the jump in taxes would just be out bidding on other people like they already do now which would drive up prices. No. There are no guarantees of anything, period. The future is unknowable. The best we can do is make reasoned arguments, compare our situation to comparable ones, identify the differences and try to account for them, and then make reforms and hope for the best. The worst we can do is do nothing but worry about unpredictable consequences while suffering the current, highly-predictable consequences of our status quo situation. (Well. The worst we can do is descend into savagery as our civilization collapses around us, but I'm setting reasonable rhetorical constraints around the proposals here.) But to address your scenario: prices are set by supply and demand. If ten million homes instantly hit the market because their owners can't afford the taxes, that would cause prices to plunge due to sudden oversupply. What is more likely to happen is that most people can afford the taxes, some people decide to sell so more inventory hits the market, and buyers factor the taxes they'll have to pay and don't bid up those houses quite as much. BUT what also is supposed to happen, is homeowners who aren't attached to jobs here, less locked into their homes because of the huge tax benefit they'll give up if they move, dump their million dollar houses (irrespective of ability to pay taxes) and move away. People inheriting houses sell them and take the money instead of keeping them as rentals to preserve the tax benefit. In theory. Maybe. Nothing's guaranteed. But we can see that prop 13 seems to really suck, and nobody else does it, so maybe let's try getting rid of it. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 05:56 on May 8, 2020 |
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May 8, 2020 05:49
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It’s not a matter of grandmas getting thrown on the streets. It’s a matter of grandmas giving up the Family Farm that peepaw bought back in the 40’s when the neighborhood was mostly prune orchards and it’s now worth north of 4 million dollars. Doesn’t matter if she sells and retires richer than she ever dreamed of. The family will still lose a piece of permanency and history in their lives. Commercial property repeal might face an uphill battle because peepaw passed on ownership of his bait shop to his failson Uncle Dan who sucks at running it and the new taxes will put it under because grandma won’t be able to afford to bail him out anymore.
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May 8, 2020 06:53
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ProperGanderPusher posted:It’s not a matter of grandmas getting thrown on the streets. It’s a matter of grandmas giving up the Family Farm that peepaw bought back in the 40’s when the neighborhood was mostly prune orchards and it’s now worth north of 4 million dollars. Doesn’t matter if she sells and retires richer than she ever dreamed of. The family will still lose a piece of permanency and history in their lives. Cynical Viewpoint: California can join the rest of the civilized world where this happens all the loving time and deal with it. If Grandma wants to own a family farm worth $4M, she can pay taxes on her $4M farm like a responsible grownup. Or, more likely, heightened tax rates / taxable values will result in a cratering of the market value of the farm, it'll suddenly be worth $600K, and her taxes will only be a bit higher and not $40K+ a year anyway. It'd certainly suck to be the DINK family who just bought a $2M condo because they figured they'll never own a place in CA otherwise and now it's worth $400K, but hey... can't make an omelet without bankrupting a few programmers. (Less awful a response: I actually have no idea what to do about that end of the problem; it'd seriously gently caress over about 5-10 years of buyers who are suddenly so underwater on their mortgage as to make jinglemail completely worth it.) Still, Prop 13 and its associated 'let boomers have cake and eat it too' follow-up props need to go, badly.
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May 8, 2020 07:06
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If there ever was a time, it's with the giant loving hole in the budget that needs to get filled, states can't run a defecit and the Feds aren't gonna be there to help us
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May 8, 2020 07:09
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ProperGanderPusher posted:It’s not a matter of grandmas getting thrown on the streets. It’s a matter of grandmas giving up the Family Farm that peepaw bought back in the 40’s when the neighborhood was mostly prune orchards and it’s now worth north of 4 million dollars. Doesn’t matter if she sells and retires richer than she ever dreamed of. The family will still lose a piece of permanency and history in their lives. Ignoring that this sort of thing is virtually mythical, gently caress them? Their phony, aggrandized connection to a piece of non-operative farmland doesn't reduce the need for the repeal. And the current commercial repeal going on the ballot has exemptions for businesses with less than 50 employees or businesses with less than $2 million in property. So Uncle Dan will have to find something else to blame for his business going under. Edit: oh and it exempts all property zoned as commercial agriculture (because big ag interests must be appeased), so depending on how this farm of yours is zoned it potentially doesn't change its tax situation at all. Wicked Them Beats fucked around with this message at 07:17 on May 8, 2020 |
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May 8, 2020 07:13
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| # ? May 16, 2024 10:39 |
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A guy with some impressive facial hair in the 1800s had some interesting ideas about members of the capital class using their ownership of property to passively extract value, and it's probably not the one that you're thinking of. We're a particularly bad example of it, but this has been an issue for a while.
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May 8, 2020 07:32
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