Conversation

Jesse Powell
@jespow
If you had a load of land and the opportunity to create a new city with it, who would you give votes to? Land owners = shareholders Tax payers = paying customers Residents = users Should it be any different than a corporation? Users can vote with their feet. LO/SH hold the bag.
Image
28
8
54
Jesse Powell
@jespow
What ever happened to that? I get that throwing an income tax on everybody complicates the representation situation but couldn't that have been avoided by just jacking up the tax on land owners and letting them pass it along? Hard to see how letting the users run the biz works.
3
5
Wayne Vaughan
@WayneVaughan
Playing Devil’s advocate. Conventional wisdom among many progressives is as follows: Residents are systematically oppressed by land owners and business owners. Taxing them and providing residents with benefits/services is the moral way to ensure a fair society.
1
1
Jesse Powell
@jespow
This assumes that land owners have a monopoly or people are locked in to their residence and can't shop around for a better fit (product, service, price, terms, etc). Isn't the whole argument blown up just by offering every person a one-way bus ticket to wherever they'd prefer?
1
2
Wayne Vaughan
@WayneVaughan
Society is designed around high switching costs. A person with a mortgage, student loans, credit card debt, and kids in school cannot easily move, change careers, etc. Exiting a marriage is difficult. This encourages stability, but reduces citizens ability to shop around.
2
2
Wayne Vaughan
@WayneVaughan
Recently, I’ve spoken to several high net worth individuals that want to escape California, but feel they can’t leave due to high switching costs. They own houses, have kids in school, and have spouses with jobs that are tied to CA.
2
1
Wayne Vaughan
@WayneVaughan
I’m voting with my feet and leaving CA. It’s been an interesting few years, but I don’t think it’s in my family’s best interests to plant long term roots here.
1
3