Who is your favorite political thinker?

Maybe you should tell that to the other poster who supplied some quote from back then.

 

Like I said, the law of supply and demand. While the amount of land is fixed, the availability of land to buy is a matter of supply.

Your comments about a subsidy make no sense to me. Sorry.

 

The amount of land available to buy is fixed. That is what fixed supply means.

The unimproved rental value of land comes from the services and infrastructure government provides, the opportunities and amenities the community provides, and the physical qualities nature provides at that location. As none of those things are anything the owner provides, his legal entitlement to pocket their publicly created value is a subsidy.

 

Not so. My land is not available for sale. If I decide to sell it, the supply of property available to buy is increased. The amount of land is fixed. Supply and demand only apply to land that is on the market.

I just disagree with this. Unless the owner of the land lobbied for it or paid for it then the value of the land was beyond his influence. If he built a farm on it then he had a lot to do with its value. All you are saying is that land values have influences beyond the owner. That is true of every single thing of value. True but fairly meaningless.

 

While you have covered a lot of philosophy, I didn't find anything that might swing the pendulum of how people think- or don't.
While the technology of mechanical and electronic devices has grown exponentially, the ability of people to understand themselves and their world... may well be in decline today.

Societies are not just based on the hard laws we write out. Those things are (or should be) the tools we use to regulate people who won't regulate themselves. A healthy society has constructive values- of "soft laws", which provide people with two kinds of guidelines. One is what the collective society values, the other is the the individual values. If we can all agree on at least fundamental values that allow people to find their own way without intruding on the rights of others, we have a very functional system. The quality of your individual values are going to determine how you stand in relation to the collective.

But- there must be in any society, any collective, and any individual view- a perception of the goals we seek. In fact, people generally all want the same things- which can be stated as Love, Happiness and Success. However, the definition of those things varies widely with the individual. The means of achieving them varies even more widely- and a great many people think that they have no control over their own destiny, and look to society or various sources outside themselves to provide them. They do not believe they have power over their own lives, and can only have influence over it by imposing manipulations and controls on those they hold accountable for whatever they are unhappy about. Thus- there is, among a large part of society, the belief that they must adjust the world to force it to give them those objectives.
Since nobody agrees on what those mean or how to get there, that creates a monumental and endless conflict.

The quality of a society is dependent on the ability of it's people to self-regulate. To do that successfully, an individual has to has to have a certain state of mind, one which provides them access to the power to control their own lives, find their identity, build self-respect and independence. The ratio of people who can do that to those who cannot or will not is the measure of society's quality. The more people who are unable to regulate themselves and need to impose or infringe on the rights of others, the weaker the society is. Bottom line is- that if you want a great society and the happiest people, you need to teach the individual how to that power. It can't be forced by a hard law, and it can't be given. But it can be taught, and those who learn it will by far have the best quality of life, and the best contribution to the quality of the collective.

If you examine most philosophies, you can see that they depend on some form of forcing others to conform to a prescribed set of beliefs, like putting clay into a mold. This never works completely, because it is based on the concept that happiness is achieved if we all mirror the same beliefs. And while we are all of the same material, we are not all from the same mold; each of us is individual. A great society will capitalize on that fact, not try to destroy it.

One way to explain this is to make a comparison between computers and people.
If we have a hundred new computers with the same basics of operation- we have the Hardware. The same is true of 100 children. Then- comes the process of programming. The computer's productivity depends on the nature and quality of the programs it's loaded with. If we program it with garbage- it can only produce garbage. The human mind is somewhat similar. How we think is the subconscious, or the tools controlling the range of what we can think, which is the conscious process. The how comes first.

When our children are born- they are like a new computer, waiting to be programmed. The first part is the subconscious, which means learning the tools of HOW to think. IF we botch that job, it will be extremely difficult to correct- yet we nearly always do botch that job. Our children don't start learning when they acquire language; they are learning even before birth by the process of imprinting. If the environment around them has a lot of anger, violence and irresponsibility... that is being normalized. The way the child will see the world, and what they will believe are the mechanisms to make your way in life- are set well before that child reaches the age of 3. The best programming opens the future and allows unlimited opportunity. The worst- does the opposite.

Is it possible to re-program a computer? Yes, and it's just a mechanical process done externally. Is it possible to re-program a person? Yes- but the only person who can do that is the person controlled by the existing program, which will be used to evaluate any new concept... and will reject anything that doesn't fit into what they already believe. Thus, reprogramming yourself to reach those three fundamental goals is very, very difficult. You can teach people how it's done, and learning how is simple- but learning how is not enough; it's living it that changes a person's life, and no one can do that for them.
It takes a great deal of courage, more than most people can bring to the task.

Philosophies mold people to think a certain way, where people need to be alike to be acceptable. But the very best philosophy of life will be the one that helps you find yourself, helps you find the power to control your own destiny, helps you shape yourself to become the best that is possible for you- and makes you dependent on no one.

We need to learn HOW to think that way. That should be the objective or all politicians; to make the people they represent as strong and independent as possible- by demonstrating the right philosophy. Unfortunately, politicians fear the independence of people, as it is very hard to manipulate. They too have flaws in their programming; and we have to be aware of that.

Knowing how to find yourself is a small secret, it can be written on the back of a business card. Controlling others, keeping them dependent on a system or philosophy- requires they don't discover that.

 

Probably Jeremy Bentham. He was kind of at the forefront of several topics, including his opposition to slavery, his support for women's rights, and his support for animal welfare.

 

Yes it is. You just want more for it than the current market price.

No, you have merely decided that current market prices are attractive enough.

In economics, the amount of anything in existence is the supply. It doesn't matter if the owner is actively seeking a buyer.

No, that is false. Every item that could be sold is part of the supply.

But you are factually incorrect.

That is exactly the point: he gets its unimproved value as a subsidy, without having to do anything for it.

I specifically mentioned its unimproved value.

No, I am saying that land value is publicly created, and rightly belongs to the community that creates it.

No it isn't. If you buy a product, you are paying the people who created its value. When you buy land, by contrast, you just pay a previous parasite for the privilege of legally stealing from the community.

 

The government can put your property on the market any time they want to. Your beloved Trump was a big fan of this and used it for personal gain.

 

Thomas Sowell

 

Not related to my post.

 

Not surprisingly we don't agree on this either.

 

Then you forgot your own post. Because it was directly related.

 

We disagree again. I didn't discuss eminent domain or Trump in my post.

 

It is a little bit more complicated than the supply of land issue when it comes to home prices.

For starters, if you want a home, with a quarter of an acre of land, a white picket fence, a driveway, sidewalk, and a brand new home, you need to move out of the suburbs and urban areas. Farmland is being sold at record prices nowadays, even before the inflation because we want to move outward of the area and not have to purchase a used home. Some people who purchase a used home feel like they are purchasing used clothing in their line of thinking while having all the modern amenities to boot. But the problem is that they must leave earlier to get to work, travel longer on the roads and highways, and in some cases for more than an hour, while their work is still in the same location. We also have a propensity to think that condos are only for those who are either uppity in nature or elderly. And even though condo association fees and HOA fees are pretty much the same, we rather be in an HOA than a condo association for some odd reason. Thus, as farm land dwindles, more residential and commercial land increases and more and more people want that new thing rather than reuse that old thing.

 

Right. It's not surprising that we don't agree on it because I am objectively correct, and you are objectively incorrect.

 

60+% of American adults are homeowners. Too many rejoice as their home increases in value, a retirement nest egg.



The easy money policies create higher asset values. REITs funnel more demand for property into the market.

One house I own has gone from $114,000 in 1984 to $2+m in 2023. It hasn't been modernized because it will soon enough be replaced by a four-plex. It's on a 1/4 acre lot across the street from a small city park-space extending into a city-owned wooded ravine. Fewer neighbors, park west across the street, more parking. Easy walking distance from an elementary and middle school. Half mile walk to a high school.

This location ... a three-bedroom, four-bath unit could go for $1m. At $200 / sq. ft., each unit would cost 300,000 to build.

Now, why should I make that kind of money off a place I bought for $114,000? In today's dollars, that would be $332,000?

 

That, of course, is the disagreement.

 

What would the criterion be for race mixing in a racist society?

The overlap in the distribution of intelligence is such that race isn't a useful metric.

 

Although seen as primarily an economist, Thomas Sowell has been one of my favorites for years. The late Charles Krauthammer also ranks high.

 

No, that is incorrect. 60% of households own their residence. Not quite the same thing. Adult kids living in their parents' basements because they can't afford to rent a place of their own, let alone buy one, are not homeowners.

I.e., they don't understand that when landowners get a bigger subsidy, that increased injustice weakens their community. Look at CA since Proposition 13: land value up, quality of life down.

You mean the land has gone from ~$20K to $2+M.

I.e., the building has depreciated while the land appreciated.

No, because the vacant land is worth $2M.

It is perfectly possible to build good housing for $100/ft^2.

Because you own land. Others -- even up to the whole community -- must be sacrificed on the altar of your privilege.

 

Adoption agencies typically aren't racist, even though racists want them to be.

Right. But racists can't stop talking about race.

 

Right. Which is why I identified the facts that prove I am correct, and you realized that you had been proved wrong, and had no answers. It's always the same.

 

You identified an opinion. Mine is different. It's always the same.

 

No, I deliberately picked the number below the percentage of owner occupied homes because there are, for example, some owners who own multiple homes they don't rent (myself, for one).

Prop 13 was a long-term tax cut for homeowners.

Indeed. The "land" has changed, too, because the zoning allows me to build a four-plex today when I was limited to a single-family home when I purchased it.

I don't like the game, but I'm not prepared to unilaterally disarm.

 

But they are typically more comfortable with same race adoptions.