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Totally agree, and Canada is worse - we have very few major cities to choose from, and the two major ones (Vancouver and Toronto) are insanely expensive to live in on an affordability basis, due to the terrible wages Canadians enjoy compared to the US.

And worse, our already large but planned to increase annually immigration levels, much of which are wives and children of the world's 1%, who also coincidentally choose to live in the two cities above, essentially guarantees that working class people (by that I mean anyone that actually works for a living) will be eventually pushed out, unless some sort of a public dorm system is introduced.

Right... and the conventional 'working class' as in service workers, some factory workers, and the like have to live stacked up in probably-illegal conditions while the white collar 'working class' lives in tiny apartments paying as much in rent for a 1 bedroom as a guy with a lavish multi-hundred-acre horse farm estate with 8 bedrooms pays for his mortgage in the country.

And the cream on top: the white collar worker living in a shoebox is paying 40% income taxes while the estate owner has no taxable income, despite buying a few new $100k+ cars per year. And the government "doesn't see" any of this happening.

To be fair, the accumulated wealth of the rich person has already been taxed.

The accumulation of wealth (income) has been, the accumulated wealth (property) has not (except insofar as they wealth is held in asset classes subject to property taxes.)

Whether income alone, property alone, or some (and if so, what) particular combination of those two should be taxed is a matter of some debate.

You have to buy assets. The income used to buy them has already been taxed. Then, whenever those assets generate further income, that additional income gets taxed.

You can quibble about what the tax rates should be, but I was responding to somebody who made it sound like wealthy people pay no taxes, which is an utter misrepresentation of the situation.

> I was responding to somebody who made it sound like wealthy people pay no taxes, which is an utter misrepresentation of the situation.

Who? Because that didn't happen.

> but I was responding to somebody who made it sound like wealthy people pay no taxes, which is an utter misrepresentation of the situation

I wish you were right, however:

https://globalnews.ca/news/3773729/richmond-incomes-downtown...

A huge percentage of recent sales are to overseas investors (untaxed money), most of the appreciation wealth is accumulated by people who bought > 10 years ago, so no tax as it is their primary residence. So even though it seems hard to believe, in fact the majority of the money in this system is untaxed.

And if you're not familiar with the downtown eastside:

https://www.straight.com/news/847631/photos-three-months-dow...

I find it hard to complain too much about untaxed wealth in the form of primary residences. This is a vehicle that is available to vast swathes of the American & Canadian public. As such, it doesn’t really bolster the argument that wealthy people somehow pay less taxes, which is what I was responding to.

Does this bolster the argument?

https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/3ddbwb/vancouver-dirt-now...

In case the logic isn't obvious:

If you own a house, you are wealthy.

Houses earn more than wages.

No taxes are paid on capital gains of primary residence.

Why should I have to pay higher taxes because I worked my ass off in school and continue to work my ass off, but someone who lucked into winning the modern day Canadian lottery gets a free ride? The legislation wasn't written with this scenario in mind I can tell you that for sure.

Our historic social contracts are starting to break down, if the state doesn't uphold it's end of the bargain, I don't see why I should uphold my end.

I know plenty of non-wealthy, middle and working class people (born to middle and working class parents) who own houses. They aren't wealthy because they still have a mortgage for most of the value of the house. They may be wealthy in 30 years when their mortgage is paid off, but they aren't now.

Wealthy citizens of the U.S. and Canada all had to pay income taxes on the money they used to buy the assets they own. People who are wealthy enough to get by entirely on income generating assets were probably at one time in the top income tax bracket, which means they forked over about 50% of their income to the government. Which, btw, is a much higher percentage rate than people in the lower tax brackets.

So, do wealthy people have it easier than non-wealthy people? Yes. But they had to earn an unbelievable amount of money (since they had to pay half of it in taxes) to get to that point. So maybe it's not actually that unfair. And, since high earners pay a higher tax rate, maybe it's actually kinda fair.

> So, do wealthy people have it easier than non-wealthy people? Yes. But they had to earn an unbelievable amount of money (since they had to pay half of it in taxes) to get to that point.

Usually, but not always. That's the point.

In some geographical regions in the world, ownership of real estate is starting to trump everything. When it comes to net worth, your income is largely a rounding error. Strangely, when this discussion is raised, a variety of standard responses seem to be raised, in this case, "oh, you're saying that this is the case always and everywhere - since that is obviously false, therefore your entire premise if false, end of discussion".

Another common conversational diversion tactic (that worked for several years in Canada) was shutting down any complaint by playing the race card. Since it is usually people from mainland China (unsurprisingly, considering the scope of new wealth in that country) who are involved in massive real estate appreciation is most parts of the world, again and again in all Western countries we've seen dissenting voices silenced by accusing them of racism, often by their very own governments who are supposed to be managing these things and protecting the best interests of citizens. And boy is it effective, up to a point. Citizens in Australia, New Zealand and Canada are finally getting fed up with their governments to brush off racism accusations, but it's far too little, too late - things are so far gone, nothing can be done without destroying the Frankenstein economies that the overall economy depends on. I often wonder if that was the plan.

People living in the US probably don't notice this nearly as much, as you have a large population and enjoy a massive and powerful economy, whereas foreign entrance into our markets cause significant effects.

I think we’re largely aligned here. As I said elsewhere in this thread, I’m very open to restrictions on foreign purchases of residences. And I totally agree with your remarks about charges of racism being used to shut down valid complaints about a government not privileging the interests of its own citizens over citizens of other countries.

I am a little more optimistic about things in general, though, for a couple of reasons:

1. I think Canada has a serious construction policy problem. My wife is from Langley, BC (we were just there over the Easter weekend). There is tons of land available to build on in BC. It’s incredulous that housing costs are so high with so much undeveloped land.

2. All it takes is a crash to flush all the investors out of the housing market.

I believe taxation on capital gains from investments is much less then on salary.

Also another fun game the wealthy can play is they can fund a company with large sums of capital. Then make themselves officers of the company. Then the cars, houses, flights, and clothing budgets are all expenses of the company. So they personally pay no taxes and the "company" can write them off as a lose for the year.

If it was earned in Canada, which is increasingly not the case. How much, the government says it doesn't know. Funny that.

Multi hundred acres horse farms cost a lot more than 1 bedroom apartments in SV.

Or more likely: a corporate town complete with a corporate store and dorms.

Alternatively, you save for years. My SO and I have lived in a smaller apartment for years to save a house down + backup. We have no inherited wealth; we came from a rural background.

We could own in the countryside or suburbs. Both have shitty commutes, limit opportunity, and come with worse arrangements. Sticker price is lower, but TCO is higher outside the city.

I'll take opportunity in the city; where I don't have to drive an hour.

> Other cities in the country that aren't the big offenders that everyone complains about don't really have this problem.

True story. While the above is true for NYC, LA, Bay Area ... it's simply not true for Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio.

San Francisco median income is $78,000 according to Wikipedia. That means 50% of households earn less than that. Those people seem to be able to live in SF, why do you assume it's "priced for people with access to intergenerational wealth and/or who don't work and just live off investments". That's likely a fraction of all the people who live there.

Well, you have to either be one of the lucky 20% who get housing for free from affordability lotteries, OR you have to be a member of the feudal lords who own property in SF. The rest are probably holding on to their rent controlled properties like they're a gold mine.

But, if your new to city and want to come there, anything less than 120K (300K+ if you have a family of 4) isn't going to make it.

> if your new to city and want to come there, anything less than 120K (300K+ if you have a family of 4) isn't going to make it.

Not everyone earning $120k+ are "people with access to intergenerational wealth and/or who don't work and just live off investments". In fact I'd venture to say that most aren't.

Heck I even lived in the Bay Area on less than that and did OK as a single person. But I have been a lot more successful financially in a region with a much lower cost of living. Your mileage may vary, but I bet on an alternative strategy that has been working for me. I believe that many people are discovering that the strategy of working in a high COLA region expecting an extreme payoff is not as reliable a strategy as it was for our parents' generation -- in part because our parents' generation was able to afford to buy property at reasonable prices and then benefit from the appreciation.