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Magnus Eisengrim Inner circle Sulla placed heads on 1053 Posts |
Woland I (and the report) have never advocated forcing people from their homes, nor have I (or the report) advocated assigning them to other people.
I have discussed the general principle of economic incentives, and do not find them generally objectionable, but neither have I advocated applying them indiscriminantly. Finally, I have reserved judgment on this particular report because I lack data and expertise. John
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.--Yeats |
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Woland Special user 680 Posts |
Magnus, none of my comments are directed against you, and I do not confuse your beliefs with the underlying intentions of the people who produced this report and the people who introduced it to the Commons. The characteristic and repeated behaviors of leftists in power, however, are too well documented in history to be ignored. The IF have already made the most significant moral leap - they have leaped over the chasm already; they regard the home that an elderly couple have bought and paid for, in which they may have lived for decades, not as that couple's private property, but as a fragment of a national, public "housing resource." That leap is the crucial step. Once you agree to that, then it is not very much of a further leap to go from tax incentives, to forcing people out of their homes with legal foreclosures, and to murdering kulaks, wreckers, and parasites who stand in your way. Leftists have done it time and time and time again.
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tommy Eternal Order Devil's Island 16544 Posts |
Anyhow I have always been a fan Omar Sharif. I did not know him but I saw him once or twice at the races in the 60s when I was a kid. He and one of my uncles were friends, they played bridge etc together. He was quite a heavy gambler. We were always being told stories about him. He never seemed to have a home then and lived in hotels from what we were told. Yet or maybe because of him having no home, in the film Doctor Zhivago he played the scenes about his home really well. Also I found it a strange that he having made that great film about that revolution that he should also be in his home of Eygypt when the revolution was unfolding there. I wondered, when I saw on the news here, if it didn't all seem like an epic film to him:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12332197 Getting back to the matter at hand, I think its terrible that they take or try to take peoples homes. I mean a home is not just a house is it?
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy |
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Woland Special user 680 Posts |
Thanks, tommy, agreed on all points. Omar Sharif was magnificent in Zhivago. And I was surprised as well when Mr. Sharif retired from actining in order to pursue professional bridge full time. I hope he is not disappointed with developments in Egypt.
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LobowolfXXX Inner circle La Famiglia 1196 Posts |
All the sort of sterile talk about tax incentives and tax disincentives makes it sound as if making houses affordable for some people wanting to buy is substantively the same thing is making houses unaffordable for some people not wanting to sell. And IMO, it's not. Not even close.
"Torture doesn't work" lol
Guess they forgot to tell Bill Buckley. "...as we reason and love, we are able to hope. And hope enables us to resist those things that would enslave us." |
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Magnus Eisengrim Inner circle Sulla placed heads on 1053 Posts |
Quote:
On 2011-10-21 13:31, LobowolfXXX wrote: I agree that there is a distinction. But I'm not sure it's as decisive as you make out. What about putting a toll on a bridge? You are making access to the other side less desirable than it would be without the toll. I recognize that the difference between this and the report is that the report deals with the cost of owning something and tolls deal with the cost of free movement. I don't think the issues are that obvious. BTW how do property taxes in Manhattan compare to those in Laramie? John
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.--Yeats |
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LobowolfXXX Inner circle La Famiglia 1196 Posts |
I think there are a number of differences between a toll bridge and the incentives/disincentives we're talking about. A toll on a bridge is a user tax; it's an attempt to allocate the costs of building and maintaining the bridge to the people who will use the bridge. Moreover, it doesn't distinguish between the demographic characteristics of the people crossing the bridge, to try to set a price point where certain types of people would able to cross and others would not.
I've never lived in Laramie or Manhattan; my suspicion is that they're higher in Manhattan. More relevantly, IMO, is that the people who live in Laramie or Manhattan knew that when they chose where to buy their houses.
"Torture doesn't work" lol
Guess they forgot to tell Bill Buckley. "...as we reason and love, we are able to hope. And hope enables us to resist those things that would enslave us." |
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Woland Special user 680 Posts |
Moreover, the purpose of property taxes in Laramie and Manhattan, and I daresay in Ottawa, is not to coerce any particular behavior from the taxpayers, but to pay for local government services. Taxes are not used in Laramie, Manhattan, or Ottawa as a tool with which to force people out of their HOMES.
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Magnus Eisengrim Inner circle Sulla placed heads on 1053 Posts |
I have no doubt that many people had to leave Manhattan during the 20th century because they were taxed out of their homes.
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.--Yeats |
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Magnus Eisengrim Inner circle Sulla placed heads on 1053 Posts |
To keep our eye on the prize, let's look at the report in question.
Quote:
Policy Options to Reduce the Hoarding of Housing There is no mention of targeting the elderly. The premise is that there is a lot of unused housing, and it is *in fact* partly a consequence of British elderly not downsizing as they do in America. The Daily Mail suggested otherwise. John
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.--Yeats |
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Woland Special user 680 Posts |
Again, Magnus, the problem here is the fundamental re-definition of what a man's "home" is - is a man's home his "castle," as it has been viewed under English common law since at least the Norman Conquest, or is a man's home the property of the State, to be used as the elite leaders of the State decide?
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LobowolfXXX Inner circle La Famiglia 1196 Posts |
Quote:
On 2011-10-21 14:56, Magnus Eisengrim wrote: I think that's an overly-friendly characterization of what's going on. There are many other excerpts directly from the report that would give a far different impression. The very name of the organization "Intergenerational Fairness" and the clear premise is that what's "unfair" is that older people own something that younger people want both suggest that, but there are numerous statements and graphs in the report that strongly suggest it.
"Torture doesn't work" lol
Guess they forgot to tell Bill Buckley. "...as we reason and love, we are able to hope. And hope enables us to resist those things that would enslave us." |
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Magnus Eisengrim Inner circle Sulla placed heads on 1053 Posts |
I agree that the people behind the report think that the older generation has an advantage over the younger cohort. amd that this advantage has been aided and abetted by current governmental policies, including property taxation. I have no idea if any of this is true.
Most of the objections I'm reading here boil down to "the status quo is just fine"--why is that the default position? John
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.--Yeats |
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LobowolfXXX Inner circle La Famiglia 1196 Posts |
Quote:
On 2011-10-21 15:43, Magnus Eisengrim wrote: I think that in general, the status quo is typically the default. Maybe mostly out of reliability and confidence in the system. People have a right to expect that the rules won't change in the middle of the game. In law, for instance, the "moving party" has the burden of proof. If the evidence is such that it's a 50-50 case, then the status quo remains in place. Having said that, preservation of the status quo certainly isn't my objection. My objection is simply a respect for property ownership. If you buy something, and it goes up in value such that people who come along later want it and can't afford it at the market rate, that's their problem, not yours.
"Torture doesn't work" lol
Guess they forgot to tell Bill Buckley. "...as we reason and love, we are able to hope. And hope enables us to resist those things that would enslave us." |
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Woland Special user 680 Posts |
No, Magnus, I have never stated in this discussion that the "status quo" is fine. I have stated that if there is a housing crisis in Britain, that it would be wrong for the State to expropriate the homes that people have made for themselves, saved for, scrimped for, paid for, lived in, and loved, in order to award them as part of a supposed national patrimony to other people whom the State finds more deserving.
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Magnus Eisengrim Inner circle Sulla placed heads on 1053 Posts |
Woland I completely agree that it would be wrong to expropriate homes.
One alternative is to simply tax larger homes more than smaller homes. Or to tie taxation to assessed property value (which is probably the most common in Western countries). The idea of taxing unused area is interesting, and I don't find it ethically outrageous. I'm not convinced that it is the best approach, or even if it would have the desired effect, but it doesn't seem any worse than taxing property based on its market value. John
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.--Yeats |
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Woland Special user 680 Posts |
Yes, Magnus, you are correct. In the United States, property tax is directly related to the assessed value of the property, so that more valuable properties are assessed for more taxes than less valuable properties. There is thus already an incentive for people who are no longer enjoying a bigger house to downsize. It is also not unusual for parents who moved into higher tax communities that they perceive to have better local schools to relocate to lower tax communities when their children grow up.
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landmark Inner circle within a triangle 5194 Posts |
Quote:
On 2011-10-20 22:37, LobowolfXXX wrote: Austerity budgets, banker bailouts, worker layoffs and redistribution schemes to the wealthy target a specific demographic.
Click here to get Gerald Deutsch's Perverse Magic: The First Sixteen Years
All proceeds to Open Heart Magic charity. |
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LobowolfXXX Inner circle La Famiglia 1196 Posts |
Quote:
On 2011-10-21 19:55, landmark wrote: Rather than do the whole back & forth, I'll just say that if you think this is a pretty good analogy for the situation described in the OP, I agree to disagree, strongly.
"Torture doesn't work" lol
Guess they forgot to tell Bill Buckley. "...as we reason and love, we are able to hope. And hope enables us to resist those things that would enslave us." |
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tommy Eternal Order Devil's Island 16544 Posts |
They are only targeting people that have something
If there is a single truth about Magic, it is that nothing on earth so efficiently evades it.
Tommy |
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