WoodScientist
@WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works
- Comment on ‘My Property Tax Went From $15K to a Life-Altering $91K a Year’ 2 days ago:
Now it’s true that you can borrow against your home value - this is known as a home equity loan or a line of credit.
That is literally how every billionaire funds their lifestyle, just borrowing against stocks instead of home equity. If people with $4 million homes are not rich, then neither are most billionaires.
- Comment on ‘My Property Tax Went From $15K to a Life-Altering $91K a Year’ 2 days ago:
I think property tax should be heavily weighted by the original price you paid for your house, and should go up with inflation and the cost of services. It should not be flatly tied to the price you would get for your house if you hypothetically sold it.
That is how you end up with California, where the old generations get wealthy, and the young generations are driven out of the state completely.
- Comment on ‘My Property Tax Went From $15K to a Life-Altering $91K a Year’ 2 days ago:
I suppose they haven’t. But they are planning on doing so. And their lack of a property tax is a major reason their cities struggle financially.
Also, the key context here is that land in China is technically owned by the state. It’s leased out on very long term ground leases, but it’s all still owned by the state. In principle, the government doesn’t need to add another property tax, as it’s already leasing out the land. It would be like if a landlord also charged property tax to their tenants.
- Comment on ‘My Property Tax Went From $15K to a Life-Altering $91K a Year’ 2 days ago:
Because collecting only one type of taxes would cause massive economic distortion and would inevitably burden people unequally. Different taxes have different properties. Some hit certain groups harder than others. Some hit certain types of businesses harder than others. Far better to have a whole series of modest taxes than one form of ruinous taxation. Do some countries not have property taxes? Yes, but they’re small tax havens that aren’t really a good model for the vast majority of nations.
But as far as optimization, consider some examples.
Property taxes also work best at the local level because the spending needs of municipalities don’t swing heavily with economic conditions. The federal government has spending needs that vary wildly with the economic cycle. During a recession, the federal government needs to massively ramp up its spending. But at a local level, a recession doesn’t mean you suddenly need twice the number of firefighters. Property taxes are pretty steady over time, so they’re a good match for the needs of local government. The federal government’s income tax revenue goes down during a recession, but that’s ultimately fine, as the federal government controls the currency. They can afford to sustain massive deficits during bad years and make it up with surpluses in the good years. (Well, if the federal government was functioning as designed.)
Income taxes also make more sense for government entities whose jurisdictions are difficult to avoid. If you fund your city entirely with income tax and no property taxes, you may find your community completely overrun by retirees who want services like anyone else, but don’t actually earn much taxable income to pay for them. If you fund your city entirely through a large sales tax, people can just drive and shop outside of city limits. It’s much harder for people to avoid federal income tax simply by moving house. Unless you’re leaving the country entirely, you’re not avoiding the reach of federal income taxes. (And sometimes even that doesn’t cut it!)
But property taxes? The only way to avoid those is to not live in the city at all. Which, from the city’s perspective, is fine. If you don’t live in the city, then you’re not putting much burden on the city’s infrastructure and services. But if you want to live in the city and enjoy all the benefits that come with living in a city, you have to pay the city’s property taxes.
In short, different taxes have different properties, different benefits and drawbacks. Funding a society through a diverse arrangement of taxes allows much more efficient optimization of these taxes. It’s a much more intelligent system than just trying to fund it all with one big dumb tax of a single type. That’s more the way of Medieval head taxes, not modern nation states. We used to have simple tax systems. We stopped using them because we realized there were better ways to do it.
- Comment on ‘My Property Tax Went From $15K to a Life-Altering $91K a Year’ 2 days ago:
This Boomer homeowner is why those Gen Z families can’t find homes. If your single family home is worth $4 million, that is the market telling you that that single family home should not exist. The land is too in demand, too close to jobs, too close to amenities etc. to have that lot hoarded by a single selfish person. You want to live in a single family home on a quarter acre lot? Fine. Do it on the edge of the city where the land is cheap. This women’s lost could provide homes for a dozen families, at prices that would be affordable to Gen Z families. Instead people like her vote to prevent such redevelopment.
- Comment on ‘My Property Tax Went From $15K to a Life-Altering $91K a Year’ 2 days ago:
The solution is to demolish the home and build multi-family housing there. Low density single family zoning has no place in an area where the land values are that expensive. Keep that kind of development on the urban fringe where it belongs.
- Comment on ‘My Property Tax Went From $15K to a Life-Altering $91K a Year’ 2 days ago:
If the land your single family home is sitting on is suddenly worth four million dollars, that’s a sure sign that that plot of land should NOT be used for single family zoning. It’s doubtlessly some of the most valuable land in the city, close to job centers and lots of community resources. That kind of land should be used for multi family housing. Quit hoarding it so you can live your Leave it to Beaver fantasy in the middle of a built up urban area.
Not quoting you specifically here but the general vibe of this owner:
“But I want to live as a rancher in the middle of Manhattan. I demand we warp the tax laws to enable it.”
Get the fuck out of here, you entitled fuck.
- Comment on ‘My Property Tax Went From $15K to a Life-Altering $91K a Year’ 2 days ago:
Taxes are the price of civilization. You pay taxes on your land, because if you don’t, a gang of armed thugs will come and steal it from you and bury you under it.
- Comment on Spoon 5 days ago:
They should have actually engineered the spoons to be even better as drug spoons. Tell everyone they’re engineering them to work poorly with PCP. But in reality, they got a lab full of drug users offering pointers on how to improve the product and people using them and filling out little ratings cards as they go. They only stumbled into this by accident. But imagine what they could have accomplished if they deliberately engineered the perfect PCP spoon!
- Comment on sus 2 weeks ago:
Trust isn’t the issue. Probability is. Even without deception, there’s a chance someone can have an STD without knowing it. And there’s a chance that std won’t show up on testing due to incubation times, dormancy phases, and false negatives.
Imagine there is a 1% chance of your partner having an STD without knowing it. 1% doesn’t sound too bad an odds. But if you have 50 partners in an extended polycule, then the chance that at least one of them unknowingly has one is 1-(.99)^50, or 39%. Probabilities compound.
- Comment on N the digital age, it's going to be harder for ICE agents to hide their identities than it was for Nazis trying to evade justice post WW2. 3 weeks ago:
Those were the evil Germans immigrating after the war. Not to be confused with the fine upstanding Ohio Hitlers.
- Comment on Philosophy moment 3 weeks ago:
That’s the policy at most schools. Actually enforcing that in the face of a classroom of kids who don’t respect the rule? That’s a much bigger problem. They’re a lot more clever at sneaking them out than you would think. Moreover, if the phones are just feet from them, their presence is never out of mind. They’re a constant distraction even in a bag. Phone apps are literally designed to be addictive. Imagine if we had a rule that said “crack pipes are fine in your bag. As long as you don’t take them out and smoke in class, you’re fine.” Even if we lived in a world where crack somehow was legal for minors to have, how effective to you think that rule could be enforced?
- Comment on Perplexity CEO says its browser will track everything users do online to sell 'hyper personalized' ads 3 weeks ago:
“Also, may he be abducted by aliens, whisked away to a distant galaxy, and put on permanent display in an alien zoo as an example of the greed of homo sapiens.”
- Comment on Tesla profits plummet 71% amid backlash to Musk's role with Trump administration 3 weeks ago:
If you but a Tesla, you are a Nazi collaborator.
- Comment on This is so strange! Usually, they wait 15 days to elect a new Pope. We could be seeing history in the making. 3 weeks ago:
After all, nothing more saintly than shooting a man in the back!
- Comment on Should naming your children stupid names be illegal? 3 weeks ago:
I think we shouldn’t even have legal names anymore. Nor legal sex/gender. Why does the government even need to keep track of my name at all? Maybe we just have a number tied to our biometric data. Maybe our profile is just defined facial scans, iris scans, thumb scans, and, for ultimate proof, our DNA profile. The state has a profile number on you that ties you to your biometrics. That sounds scary, but the government already has a profile on you if you have any kind of state-issued ID. And states are already collecting biometric data on their citizens.
We could simply tie all state business to an ID number and biometric data profile. When doing a transaction with some other party, the same biometrics could be used to prove your ID. Buying beer at the store? You hand the cashier a card that has your photo and ID number on it. They can type that number in their computer, query a state database, and return your age. Opening a bank account? Prove your ID with ID card and at least two forms of biometric scan. Signing up for a mortgage? Prove your identity with a DNA test.
We don’t even need legal names. Or legal genders. Let’s just do everything with biometric data, photo IDs, and other methods devoid of all the cultural baggage. Let people call themselves whatever they want. Let others choose how to honor that choice.
You want to change your gender? Have at it, the state doesn’t care about your sex or gender at all. It doesn’t even keep track of it. Give your kid a stupid name? At any time, they can start telling their friends to call them by a different one And that new name will instantly have all the legal power as the one their parents gave them - none whatsoever. The state will no longer tell us what our names are. Our words and character will do that instead.
- Comment on Brazil prohibits hormone therapy for transgender minors 4 weeks ago:
After all, a few thousand child corpses are a small price to pay for scoring a few political points.
- Comment on The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remaster is real - Eurogamer 4 weeks ago:
Yup. I’m pretty sour on Bethesda RPGs after getting burned hard by Starfield. But I have a hard time imagining even they could fuck up a simple remastering of a game I already loved in the past.
- Comment on I hope she found herself 4 weeks ago:
We should start a club. Get 30 people together. Select a house in town at random. Then, we all show up at their door at 2 in the morning on a random weekday. We ring the doorbell until they groggily answer. We tell them we’re here to help them find themselves.
- Comment on I hope she found herself 4 weeks ago:
I mean if i was just chilling in the woods having a good time
That’s my kind of party.
- Comment on I hope she found herself 4 weeks ago:
You sure? Maybe someone stole it without you knowing. :D
- Comment on I hope she found herself 4 weeks ago:
Not all who wander are lost.
- Comment on The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remaster is real - Eurogamer 4 weeks ago:
An entire town of dead people. It was hilarious.
I see you also follow the life philosophy of, “if you’re not on at least one watch list, are you even really living?” :D
- Comment on The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remaster is real - Eurogamer 4 weeks ago:
I still remember my first playthrough. Low level character. I save scummed until I could sneak into the tower in the heart of the Imperial City. in the council chamber was a mage with an incredibly powerful staff. I pickpocketed it off of him, again using save scumming. I then traveled to Bravil and entered the castle there. As the Count of Bravil was giving a speech, I pulled out the staff and shot him dead on his throne, right in front the of the whole court. I then got away from the assassination through the brilliant escape plan of running out the front door, murder weapon still in hand.
Damn I loved Oblivion.
Muuuuurrddeeerrr!!!
- Comment on Nintendo confirms $90 price for full Breath of the Wild experience on Switch 2 5 weeks ago:
IDK how to feel about rising video game prices. On the one hand, prices were stagnant for decades. On the other hand, companies can sell far more copies of games than they could back in the 1980s and 1990s. The cost of games is all in the development. The more you sell, the cheaper the price can be. They cost next to nothing to package and distribute (or are distributed digitally.)
On one hand, games are a lot more complex and expansive than they were back in the day. On the other, game devs now have tools the creators of old couldn’t even dream of. No one is hand coding the next Mario game is assembly.
There’s a lot of variables here. And it’s really just hard to make a fair judgment about it.
- Comment on Stuck 5 weeks ago:
I mean, there’s always small beer.
- Comment on Proton 5 weeks ago:
Atomic Nucleus (n): the roiling maelstrom of insanity at the bottom of reality.
- Comment on Does anyone know what's up with lemmy.zip? 5 weeks ago:
Don’t copy that floppy!
- Comment on Does anyone know what's up with lemmy.zip? 5 weeks ago:
I assume it’s because it’s run entirely off of a single old zip disk drive manufactured in 1998.
- Comment on Why do people insist on not answering ALL the questions in an email or text message? 5 weeks ago:
Do you…need a hug?