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PaperclipPerfector  10d ago (text post)   27674 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 26, 2025

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I think that there are two distinct groups which value high house prices.

One group are investors. At the end of the day, they profit from the fact that land is in limited supply, and people have been moving towards cities for centuries, thus steadily increasing demand. The proper way to fix this is a Georgian land value tax. If any value you gain from owning land is 100% taxed in perpetuity, then the intrinsic value of the land for its owner becomes zero. (Realistically, one would impose taxes which would increase towards 100% over a few decades, so present-day investors might still reap 20 years worth of rent or so. This is certainly more than the kind of people who invest in goods with perfect supply inelasticity deserve.)

The other group are home owners who would prefer to stay apart from less wealthy people for good or bad reasons, the (home-) NIMBYs. While I am not very sympathetic to the NIMBYs, I can sort-of see their point. If you bought a house situated a quarter of an hour drive from the city half a lifetime ago, you have every reason not to be happy if the urban sprawl swallows your neighborhood and your suburban home gets surrounded by high-rises. Still, as Jesus said, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."

I think that the dynamic between these two groups is not always the same. To complicate things further, landowners generally also own the buildings on their lots, and depending on the type of building their rent could increase or decrease with further urbanization. If you own a hotel building, you will likely be more enthusiastic about urban development than if you own single-family homes you rent to wealthy people.

Still, as Jesus said, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."

That's Spock. And Star Trek 3 and 4 completely (and explicitly) undermine that idea

That was the joke, surely?

I don't think the writers intended Spock to be the sole voice of wisdom in the series. If anything, he's used to show that pure rationality, while probably at least functional, isn't the best most human way to make decisions.

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