Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35083509

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

The idea isn't to get rid of property taxes and do without that revenue; the idea is to tax things that aren't beneficial that we want more of.

I think our perspectives are different on how much of a handbrake bad policy is on the market's ability to create what people want.

COL increases because it is difficult or impossible to build new housing, and because single-use zoning requires creating massive amounts of infrastructure since it is illegal to build work and shopping near where people actually live. In addition, taxing property value disincentivizes developing land, leaving empty lots in even the most valuable places to build: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJqCaklMv6M

Around the world, governments act like abusive parents. If people could migrate freely (creating a competition for residents), much more people would live without the abuse of authoritarian governments.

That's not the point. The point is what they are producing isn't contributing value to our lives, or actually creating negative value. Building highways looked very productive on paper in the 50's, but now we live in car dependent sprawl, and we continue to pay people to maintain that sprawl when we could have walkable cities that are human friendly.

Blaming MBAs for this instead of the JDs that are writing and enforcing the laws is also silly.

Finally, almost everyone from the federal down to the local is running unsustainable deficits, so there is clearly a lack of forethought in spending. I would argue we have the opposite problem you are suggesting. Everyone's happy to spend money thoughtlessly because it's someone else's money.

Women are valued moreso than men. Men are 10x more likely to die at work, have little to no access to domestic violence shelters, and if war comes, the only people who will be conscripted to potentially die will be men.

The issue isn't that people who commit crimes can hide their past, but that "corrections" facilities to not rehabilitate criminals into law-abiding members of society.

Having a criminal past follow someone for their entire life is a surefire way to make sure they can't find legal ways of making money.

> At that higher wage, more people will apply for the job. The increased supply of labor will allow the boss to pay less than $10 an hour; it might suffice to pay only $7.

How is the boss taking advantage of the increased supply of labor that is conditional on increased pay, if that boss is short changing on pay vs the market?

If all other restaurants have increased net wages, this boss will run short on waiters.

As if the federal government isn't the one causing the shortage in the first place.

Sure, but by being taxpayers, your parents already paid a substantial portion of the cost forward by paying for the healthcare of other people. Perhaps they were net takers from the system, but presumably people on HN have parents that are net contributors to the system.

You're ignoring the core truth of the comment you're replying to: Scarcity exists. There is no way to have it all; there are only compromises. Simply walking is dangerous because you could fall. We could all go back to being infants* crawling on the floor if we wanted to be safer. But we won't. Making more compromises in the name of safety has to be justified. Planes will never be perfectly safe. That is okay.

When the article describes an alternative of providing the homeless "housing," what does this housing look like? What aspects of housing are provided that are not generally provided at homeless shelters? Is it privacy, security of belongings, a place to stay during the day, quietness during the night, or other factors that are most substantially different from what is currently available?