son of witless

You did not create the ground on which your home sits. Do you not own that soil ?

Seth

"Rights a wrong."

You mean like "affirmative" action?

Seth

And you honestly believe that with our overstuffed, Babelesque collection of federal bureaucracies in micromanaging mode, everything would be sorted out in no time?

JohnCorrespondent

"fellow travelers" -- I recognize the intended slur. This is why sometimes I just ignore you. You are too careless with your condescension.

JohnCorrespondent

Under our current system, after I pay off the mortgage, then our government would say I "own" that soil (although it will still tax me for it as part of its "property tax" calculation, which implies that the government (or The People it represents) still has _some_ claim on that soil, even in our current system).

Back to what you said: I did not create the ground. True. So, under the new system I'm suggesting, I would not own it.

I should still have tenure to it though. More about that below.

Under the new system I'm suggesting, the tax on land and other natural resources would be much higher than it is now, and all other taxes (most especially the tax on labor's earnings) would be greatly reduced or eliminated.

As long as I would continue to pay the tax on the land, I would continue to have tenure to it.

JohnCorrespondent

As I said, if a wrong is identified, and there's a responsible way to rectify it, that's NOT "screwing" something.

And yet you have a beef with that! Or maybe you just can't restrain yourself from making a snarky reply to everything.

You have the eye-roll icon next to "affirmative action" and I know that some people have disdain for "affirmative action". You're the one who brought it up, so if you think "affirmative action" is not rectifying a wrong, or not a responsible way, then _you_ should be explaining why you think that.

Even if you make a convincing argument about that, still it would be wrong to be disdainful of all responsible rectifications of wrongs, just because you identify one that went awry.

Also, it would be wrong to give up on the idea of trying to identify and right wrongs. I know that you've identified or misidentified me as somebody in a different camp from yours, so you're eager to assume that any effort of mine to rectify any wrong would have to be misguided. Even when I don't specify a particular one, the very idea that I would say anything about it is all it takes to set you off.

JohnCorrespondent

I didn't even re-read what I had written. It is enough that you have framed your discussion with the words "micromanaging", "everything", and "sorted out in no time". This is a kind of exaggeration you are doing. It is unproductive in discussion.

son of witless

Thank you for the answer. Now here is my rebuttal. If you have tenure, you do not have ownership. Which means that at any time the almighty Guvment can evict you. Do not believe it will not happen. In China, which has something like the laws you favor, the Government has evicted farmers from their lands, because all knowing officials have decided that they have better uses for that land.

Now even if you have ownership the government can seize your land using Eminent Domain, but ownership gives you more protection than Tenure.

I am all about property rights. You seem to think that the government is not subject to being hijacked by special interests.

Seth

If it walks like a duck...

JohnCorrespondent

Possibly. My understanding of what "tenure" means is that the person having it can depend on it. If it's not dependable, then it's not really tenure. "Ownership" may be different, but (given that there _are_ property taxes anyway, and given that there's "Eminent Domain" that can take the land away) exactly how is ownership different from tenure? I think it is different because it is a popularly-held concept that makes eviction less thinkable -- but that popularly-held concept is not really logical, because that's the real meaning of tenure.



I don't think you're all about property rights. I believe that if a person were all about property rights, then s/he would care about the right to what one creates, therefore would want to eliminate the tax on value created by labor.

A property rights advocate, if regarding land as property, should also be concerned about the land theft that preceded what is now currently regarded as land ownership. What good is a system based on injustice in the first place -- it's too arbitrary -- too much based on crime -- it lacks in good principles.

As for hijacked, maybe the government is already hijacked by such entities as large oil corporations and large weapons-manufacturing corporations -- something like the "military-industrial complex" that Dwight Eisenhower was concerned about.

JohnCorrespondent

Waddle away.

Seth

Are you a quack?

son of witless

" Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that guy behind the tree. " We all want somebody else to pay the taxes. You must not own much property.

Seth

Well said.

JohnCorrespondent

That would not be the point, unless it were assumed that I were in this for personal gain.

Under my suggested system, if it were suddenly implemented right now, I would lose monetarily. I'm retired; I'm not actively earning money (though I do receive retirement income), nor producing anything, nor making my own food. Regarding my consumption of natural resources: I occupy a plot of land, about 6,000 square feet, which is really more space than I need as living space. Under my suggested system, I'd be paying a higher-than current tax on this plot of land, maybe high enough that I might consider moving to a smaller plot of land. Or, I might consider making this land productive, by raising vegetables on it. I have a house on it. I might rent out a room or two. That would make this space more productive. The vegetables and the room rent(s) might be enough to pay the land tax, or, if I were efficiently productive I'd probably come out ahead. (I'm not a farmer and I don't know how much can be earned from a plot this size.). (I also don't have any experience being a landlord.) (Other natural resource consumption: I use relatively little oil or gas. I don't pollute much. I do use water.) (This plot of land that I'm on is in a town of about 30,000 people and the nearest big city is more than an hour away. Where my land is, it's comfortable living but not wealthy, just sort of suburban-like.) But also:

Under my suggested system, a person who earned money from labor would not pay any taxes on those earnings. If my suggested system had been implemented decades ago before I entered the workforce, I would never have paid any taxes on my earnings from labor (including "labor" from office work, which is mainly what I did).

The reason I would lose monetarily, if my suggested system were implemented suddenly right now, is that I have left my working phase and entered my "accumulated wealth" phase. I don't want to work any more; I just want to enjoy the fruits of my labors. But the government(s) (using its old traditional income tax system) has _already_taken_ a portion of the fruits of my labors (as taxes on my earnings). To have lost _that_ portion, and then suddenly be heavily taxed _again_ for occupying the spacious home (land) that I've earned, might feel unfair, but that's only because of the timing of it, for me personally as an individual. (If the effects on family members of different ages were factored in, it could balance out or be beneficial for the family as a whole.)

People having exclusive use of really large pieces of land (like a whole square mile of land) would have to make them productive or else it wouldn't be worthwhile to hold on to that much land. This is according to the site value of land. If you bought, or got tenure to, a whole square mile of land right in the middle of a city, of course the tax on that land would be very high. But if you bought, or got tenure to, a square mile of land out in the desert, the tax would be much lower -- so low that you might not have to do much to make it productive to make it pay for itself; or maybe it wouldn't be a whole square mile, but still it might be spacious as a living space, out there in the wilderness.

As a whole the system balances the change in land tax with the change in labor earnings tax (depending of course on details such as how much revenue the government needs, and the size of the land or other natural resource tax(es), and the size or total elimination of the labor tax). Young people entering the system would get the balanced system, however those things balance out.