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Comment by teiferer | Hacker News Reader

> What do you care about the value of the house you're living in?

When you are eventually too old to live there, sell it and move into an assisted housing facility, the money you get for that house very much matters for how you will live the remaining years of your life.

> What did you do to deserve the massive raise in value of land since you bought that house besides buying early?

What did the sw eng do to deserve the 500k a year comp while the lady cleaning the toilets in the same building hardly makes 10% of that? Market? You don't say...

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If the house is paid off, you have that equity. Maybe it's $500k instead of $1million, whatever, it's still worth money.

To your second question... the difference is a wage is based on adding economic activity while the land value increase is almost exclusively rent-seeking. Apples and orangutans.

> If the house is paid off, you have that equity. Maybe it's $500k instead of $1million, whatever, it's still worth money.

"Whatever"? With 20 years left to live, $500k difference is huge. Try to get informed about prices for such places. And how come you are the one to decide whether they are worth it or deserve it? This is a ridiculous discussion.

> To your second question... the difference is a wage is based on adding economic activity while the land value increase is almost exclusively rent-seeking.

The economic value of their lot obviously increased manyfold since they purchased it. Anybody could have bought it. If society (through laws) should have a say in the price of selling a plot of land then I'd like to see your reaction to society having a say about sw eng compensation. Oh right that's totally different! Because one of them impacts you directly while the other one doesn't and is easy to armchair philosophize about.

> Anybody could have bought it.

People that were not alive could not have bought it.

I own a home. I still see the state of housing as a problem. Because I’m not a greedy selfish asshole.

I believe that most people see the state of housing as a problem, home owner or not.

Still no reason to deny folks whose property value skyrocketed those funds when they sell. Unless you also want to deny Nvidia or Tesla stock owners their money when they sell.

Stocks aren't a necessity to live. Housing is (and while ownership of housing is not, the land costs impact rental rates as well).

And as mentioned in the sibling, few people think of stock gains as an inherent right. Stocks go up and down and we all accept that.

Housing is a market and the value of items in a market can go up or down.

For some reason going down isn’t allowed in housing.

If Nvidia or Tesla tanked tomorrow to $10/share are those who own shares being “denied” money when they sell? Obviously not.

That could be 5-10 years of retirement funds for the average American… “whatever” is extremely out of touch.

You don't have to move to such a place, but there are a lot of real estate that's not very hot, on account of not being near anything economically relevant, but are still pretty nice places.

If you don't have to work a day for the rest of your life, why should you care if a famous tech company has its offices 15 minutes away?

Sounds like a problem with how you fund your elder care. What about the old folks who weren't lucky enough to win the housing jackpot?

It wasn't a jackpot. Many, many people have houses. Trying to make people who did that into a group you're allowed to dismiss is evil. Just as it is with basically any group.

If you bought a house for 50 grand in 1984 and now it's worth $3 million because you got lucky and happened to buy in the right spot, that's a jackpot in my book. You didn't do anything to create the value of that land: that's what Georgism recognizes.

If you bought it in California, say, in 1984 it was more like $100k, and would now be worth more like $900k[0]. Your outlier valuation is a terrible basis upon which to institute yet another tax.

[0] https://www.noradarealestate.com/blog/california-housing-mar...

The outlier valuation is exactly the point! That's why it's a lottery ticket. Some people get $900k, others get $3m, not because of anything they did, not because of improvements made to the property, but just because they picked the lucky patch of dirt.

As discussed in the article, LVT can be implemented in a revenue-neutral way where most homeowners would pay lower property taxes so your handwringing about "yet another tax" is unconvincing.

Nobody is saying it's evil. But the value of your land is also not sacrosanct to the rest of society, nor should it be.

"I'm a highly paid sw eng in the bay area and want to buy a house, but it's very pricy. Let me present a scapegoat so we can all agree to force them to sell below market value. But don't touch my total comp because that's totally the market value of what I contribute to society!"

A consistent view please. Either society decides through laws who gets to have how much, or not, but stop selectively applying that to things you want versus things you already have. Such brain acrobatics is just dishonest.

Sorry, what is your actual objection here? I'm not saying anyone should be forced to sell below market price - I'm saying the market price is inflated by the the cost of land: Land that no one created, land that is not a product of any human market.

The point of a Georgist land-value tax is to separate the value of the land from the value of buildings on the land. Land itself is a public good and should be taxed as such.

I don't disagree that the market price is inflated. Lots of market prices are inflated. Many people here are paid in or own (or both) stocks of tech firms whose value is inflated by at least as much or higher. Have not heard anybody claim that they are earning too much money. Easy to punch others though.

It is, in fact, a common kind of economic policy approach, to disincentive rent seeking. This does not apply to labor income, generally.

I can't begin to understand what the quoted section you start your comment with has to do with the comment of mine that you replied to. I didn't say anything about any of that stuff...

Sorry, took some liberties to paraphrase how your comment sounded to me. You seem to have little respect for what others own, but I'm assuming you expect others to respect your private property. I was trying to illustrate that somewhat selfish inconsistency.

I still have no clue whatsoever how my comment could have sounded like that paraphrase to you.

I'm very confused what private property you think my comment suggests I do not respect.

The land somebody owns is private property, is it not?

Yes. But nobody is talking about taking anybody's land. What's your point?

It was a jackpot because houses were cheap back when they bought and now due partially to nimbys it's not cheap anymore.

God forbid they lose some tiny fraction of their wealth to benefit society. The horror.

Fight for tech workers paying higher tax rates and investors making above X million a year paying an extra surcharge and we can talk again.

I do. Also a LVT would have that same effect since those people live on valuable land.

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