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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32863 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

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The recent Georgist uprising in the rat-sphere seems to be spreading outward, and gathering steam if anything. Lars Doucet, who wrote the original ACX post that blew up, is now releasing a book called Land is a Big Deal which summarizes his writings thus far.

There was also a major takedown of Detroit land assessment practices by a major land parcel data collector, ReGrid that dropped a few days ago. Major takeaways:

  • Property tax assessment is widely variable - some houses have *double* the tax burden of identical houses literally across the street.
  • Landowners tend to have far better valuations (i.e. pay less taxes) than homeowners, probably because they have more time/incentive to protest valuations.
  • Poor taxing and tax foreclosure in Detroit are likely a large part of why the city has fallen on such hard times in recent years.

In addition, some fairly mainstream political candidates such as Chloe Brown who's running for Mayor of Toronto, seem to be gaining steam. Land value tax is a large plank in her platform.

I got interested in land reform through the original series of ACX posts, and frankly I'm surprised how interesting the problem is and how overall neglected the topic seems to be. Even extremely intelligent and well read folks I talk to about it are surprised when they learn that land value is usually just pulled out of thin air - the industry standard is to just take 25% of the purchase price and not give a shit about location or any other factors, which seems bizarre upon a critical review.

I've seen some discussion about Georgism/LVT here, but curious if anyone else has been following this?

Also, what are the arguments against LVT, besides low-effort "taxes are always bad and raising them is evil?" Genuinely curious for well thought out reasons why an LVT would be a bad idea.

Edit: For those new to this idea, a Land Value Tax in it's most basic form simply says we should tax away the value of the land, and only let people who sell land profit off of the 'improvements' they make, such as buildings, restorations, etc. For instance if you bought a piece of land and tried to sell it 1 year later off pure speculation, doing nothing to the land, you would not receive any profit.

This strikes me as rationalists rationalizing their own class self-interest. The same way EA just so happens to only support democrat politicians, rationalism coincidentally just so happens to work out extremely well for the types of people that are rationalists. Easy to be YIMBY when you are 25 and living in a rented apartment in San Francisco.

The same way EA just so happens to only support democrat politicians

I know it's not the point of this post, but this is not true. EA does back a number of Republican candidates and works actively to get more, they just keep it quieter out of a mix of unpopularity/strategy.

Like who?

Not a great answer, and not what OP was referring to most likely, but from here

While his biggest spending has been on Democratic primaries, he has also contributed directly to Democratic and Republican campaigns alike.

“There have been a lot of times when I have been a bigger supporter of Democratic candidates than Republican candidates. That’s not — that’s not an immovable fact about the world,” [...] “I am legitimately worried about doing things that will make people view me as partisan when it’s not how I feel

The evidence that Bankman-Fried truly wants to be a bipartisan donor is thin — at least in his publicly disclosed spending. Although Bankman-Fried donated directly to a half-dozen Republicans and gave $105,000 to a super PAC that backed Katie Britt, the Republican Senate nominee who won a contested primary in Alabama, it still pales in comparison to the many tens of millions he’s disclosed giving to Democratic candidates and groups

Guarding Against Pandemic has endorsed 22 Democrats and 15 Republicans, a mix of incumbents and first-time candidates.

Messaged you about this - long story short I talked to someone in person who gave me some info but doesn't look like the candidate list is public.

Well that isn't very transparent of EA

Hah EA is not very transparent.

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