Hacker News Reader

I was alive at the time prop 13 passed. I was a little kid in Ohio. Even I remember the stories that were being circulated on the national news about old people being priced out of their homes in LA. It was a big campaign.

"Big campaign" sounds right. These sort of tax revolt campaigns tend to spread wide, with the hope of passing similar things elsewhere shortly after.

Fortunately, this one did not spread which is very good news, because the long term effects have been absolutely horrific for housing prices in California. However, I hear of other states right now proposing adoption of California's housing crisis via similar tax measures... Hopefully they don't pass and learn the lessons of what has happened here.

Vancouver used to have a land value tax, which was widely credited with the its prosperity up to the ~1960s. However eventually enough homeowners and landowners got sick of paying their fair share and overturned it, which has resulted in Vancouver's housing situation which is possibly even worse than the SF Bay Area's...

Inflation does not keep pace with the housing market

And not in small part because Prop 13 disconnects property from housing costs, which leads to political incentives where beneficiaries of Prop 13 embrace policy that causes housing prices to rise precipitously.

Prop 13 or not most people historically resisted zoning changes and pretty much all cities in the country, even in Manhattan, were downzoned dramatically from what was possible as far as infill development the pre war zoning plans. Even today, the trend is never to recognize the housing crisis for what it is and widely upzone, but to just nudge a little more capacity in some containment zone of the city at good arms length from the best of the single family home neighborhoods, in the form of say transit oriented development of certain specific constraining factors, rather than just opening up the floodgates and allowing for market to actually establish prices freely.

> This might be true if you have everything in cash in a safe at your house and plan on taking out fixed amounts for the rest of your life, I guess, but who are those people?

It seems an astonishingly large number of people, including on here, talk as if that were the case despite their actual living and retirement finances. People really hate inflation.

Something about the lizard brain wants the exchange rate between shiny object and edible object to be fixed and gets extremely upset if it changes.

(Or, as is becoming increasingly relevant, the exchange rate between shiny object and flammable fluids)

The exchange rate between shiny objects and edible objects has nothing to do with inflation though; they're both physical objects. Unless people start trading glittery balloons it is quite difficult for shiny objects to inflate and the fluctuations from increasing supply are generally not a problem.

The inflation complaints are people who prefer not to be taxed for saving currency and earning money in fiat. As far as it is a lizard brain thing it's more about principles of fairness in who should be paying taxes and the aversion people have to things taken away from them.

> Most people are on social security, which is inflation adjusted.

Right. Technically. And I have a bridge to sell you!

I was managing all the finances of one of my parents until they passed away. In 2022 inflation peaked at ~9%

That same year, their social security monthly payment went up by..... $10

That for sure covered all the rising costs (/s)

Social Security Announces 8.7 Percent Benefit Increase for 2023

https://www.ssa.gov/news/en/press/releases/2022-10-13.html

So either your parents were getting $115 from social security, or you are trying to report increase of a year with essentially 0% inflation as if it were the year with 9% inflation.

I have the numbers right here. Monthly payment went up from $2455 to $2465. So that's $10.

This is not from a press release or news article, it's from the actual check that got deposited monthly.