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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   1873 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for February 28, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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The US state of New J*rsey is infamous for (1) having sky-high property taxes and (2) being an industrial wasteland. This court opinion offers a daring synthesis of those two concepts.

Are casks of nuclear waste subject to property tax? The answer is "yes". In theory, they are just temporarily in their current locations, and will be moved to a federal storage facility soon. But, since the feds have failed to create such a facility for the past fifty years (Yucca Mountain et cetera), in practice they count as permanent fixtures (just like your home's bathtub and kitchen sink), which are part of "real property" that is subject to property tax.

In this comment, @VecGS differentiates between options B and B’ (B&rsquo ; without the space). Please note that the latter symbol actually is supposed to be B′ (B&prime ; without the space).

  • Apostrophe ' ≠ single quotation mark ‘ ’ ≠ prime ′

  • Double apostrophe " ≠ double quotation mark “ ” ≠ double prime ″

I wonder if we could solve the issue of nuclear waste by assigning them negative value, I'm pretty sure your property will depreciate in value for having a cask of radioactive waste buried under the floorboards.

Then we could have people bidding to buy them, knowing they'd save a lot of money in taxes (people are irrationally afraid of it, hence would pay much less for the land). My genius frightens me.

A very Coaseian solution! This would certainly be my starting point.

I did know there was a fancy term for it, it just didn't come up off the top of my head, thank you.

Honestly, I wish more people even considered the possibility of trying to price in externalities and let them be paid for.

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