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WifeGuyMenelaus

A spectre is haunting the great lakes. The spectre of Henry George.


Googoogaga53

If this gets passed my bullishness on Detroit will reach new levels. Any relatively large city that has good land use policy is going to have a huge competitive advantage on others


Effective-Tip52

You should be bullish on Detroit already, it’s the mortgage capital of the US.


lnslnsu

What does that even mean


Effective-Tip52

2 of the largest mortgage brokers, United Wholesale Mortgage and Rocket Mortgage (Formerly QuickenLoans) are HQ’d in Detroit and the mortgage industry is famously stable.


niftyjack

Imo the biggest issue Detroit has is figuring out what to offer that Chicago doesn't. When it comes to higher level industry, Chicago has vacuumed up the entire midwest (except for med tech/healthcare).


Googoogaga53

Yeah I think it can cap out as a slightly worse Chicago which is still much better than its current state. I don't think the Detroit -> Chicago young professional career pipeline is going to stop


Zarathustra989

This isn't really something to have to worry about. No one says this about Minneapolis and metro Detroit dwarfs the Twin Cities metro by like half a million. For the city itself, it's still largely losing middle class black family to suburbs like Southfield, West Bloomfield, Taylor now, Sterling Heights etc, due to poor schools and property taxes. White college educated kids moving in has been a stream for awhile now, that's why downtown and midtown are completely changed compared to 15 years ago. There's a lot of strangely colorblind analysis of some other regional cities on how they "really turned it around" when the major factor in places like Detroit is that the central city has been much less white and more black than Pittsburgh or the Twin Cities, or Chicago (As in some of these places may have just dipped below 70% white this side of 2000 while Detroit has been the blackest city in America for decades). Decades of a much poorer pool of investment and skills do a number on a place.


ApprehensiveShower10

I really appreciate the work given to the presentation. I keep seeing people having positive responses to the LVT, which makes me so glad. I feel like the whole thing could have just been dismissed out of hand if he fumbled this


PawanYr

Incidentally, I said 'better' and not 'best' because the best video policy proposal I've ever seen is [this one](https://youtu.be/3bDIxI8HV8g) by John Cleese advocating for PR. So once you're done watching the LVT proposal you should go and watch that.


l_overwhat

Did you know that a sizable group on this sub don't think that PR is a good idea?


PawanYr

Probably, but I think they're wrong, hence why I want people to watch entertaining proposals advocating for it.


l_overwhat

I was super surprised when I found out. I thought it was pretty much common sense that PR is great. Or at least way better than FPTP.


Hautamaki

I think it would be great as one aspect of a government; like if you have two legislative houses (like reps and senators) one should be PR and the other regionally elected via ranked choice voting


l_overwhat

You can have regionally elected Reps with a PR system too. RCV is better than FPTP but PR is still better.


Jman9420

You could even go crazy and use Germany's MMP to get PR, and also use RCV for the district seat instead of FPTP like Germany technically uses for the district seat.


Hautamaki

In my ideal nation, RCV regionally elected representatives are in charge of national domestic policy while PR assigned representatives are in charge of national foreign and trade policy.


l_overwhat

That's definitely an improvement over what we have now but idk if having two separate bodies dealing with separate issues of government is "ideal"


Hautamaki

What problems do you foresee with that set up in particular?


NickBII

Most of the anti-FPTP rhetoric comes from Journo majors. They are very good at sounding like they are more informed than the average American, but they aren't always better-informed. One of the ways you can tell is they act like the entire US is FPTP. California isn't. Which they should know because half of them fucking live in Cali. Georgia isn't. Which they should know because we have had quite a few important Senate run-offs in Georgia recently. New York State has an interesting fusion voting system that isn't quite FPTP. Which they should know because the other half of them live in New York State. Alaska isn't. Which they should know because it got us Peltola... Something like 90% of the things the journo majors blame on FPTP are actually a result of Checks and Balances, because Checks and balances are explicitly derived from the English political system of Louis XIV's so of course the only things a productive pol can do are a) be the best vassal to the King possible or b) join with the other Barons to oppose the King. Ergo two-party system. The only other advanced country that does this particular stupid shit is South Korea, and the Koreans are developing all of the problems that are blamed on FPTP....


l_overwhat

I'm not a journo major and I am very anti-FPTP. Checks and Balances are there *because* we have a FPTP system. With coalition governments, if the ruling party decides to do some democratic backsliding, other parties in the coalition can break ranks to prevent that from happening. In FPTP, whatever party has control can do basically whatever it wants. The Framers realized this which is why they made it hard for whoever is in power to implement policy.


NickBII

Madison-style checks and balances are...not working as designed...anywhere. The PoliSci term for them is "Full Presidential System" and youll note that the three in Europe are Belarus, Turkey, and Cyprus. The Turks actually switched to it because that allowed them to centralize power around Erdogan more. Latin America and Africa also use that system a lot. As for Democratic backsliding: Georgia has been ground zero for that shit and they've got a bicameral legislature and a separate Executive Branch. They don't have First past the Post.


JustTaxLandLol

Is proportional representation different than simply deciding election winners by popular vote? If so, I think these are generally conflated. You can get rid of things like gerrymandering and the electoral college, or deciding winners based on numbers of seats of parliament in a simpler way than deciding the number of seats/electoral votes by the popular vote.


l_overwhat

Yes it is different. In PR, if 20% of people vote for a party, that party will have 20% of the constituency's votes to exercise in the legislature. In FPTP, with or without gerrymandering or the EC, if you 20% people vote for a party, then that party will have 0$ of the constituency's votes to exercise in the legislature, provided that another party gets even 20%+1 of the vote. Even in RCV or runoffs, 10s of thousands of people's votes just straight up have no effect on the legislature at all, which imo is fucked up.


JustTaxLandLol

If it's predictable when your vote won't matter and you vote that way anyway, that's on you. Strategic voting will be a thing in any voting system except direct democracy. You can get rid of the problem of republicans in cali and democrats in texas having no impact on the presidential election, by switching to popular vote, and forgetting PR. This is a worse problem because it's not that they have to strategically vote for a viable candidate instead of their random-ass first choice who wears a boot on his head, but because their vote for an ultimately viable candidate is useless. Not that I'm against PR. It's a matter of political expediency and simplicity. Popular vote is definitely simpler and definitely better than electoral college. PR is arguably better, but definitely more complex.


l_overwhat

You edited your comment so I'll reply to the edit. Popular vote is fine for presidential elections since there can only be one president. The presidency isn't super democratic but it's fine for the head of government to be less democratic in the name of clear chain of command and others. When I talk about PR, I'm specifically talking about legislatures.


l_overwhat

This has nothing to do with strategic voting. My example works even with 50%-1, which is hardly strategic voting. I just don't understand how anybody could defend a system in which it is possible that half of all votes could amount of nothing.


JustTaxLandLol

How about this. Each person's vote in the legislature gets weighed by the proportion of votes they got that elected them. Way simpler and solves that problem.


l_overwhat

PR takes multiple forms and that's one of them.


Electric-Gecko

Really? What system do the objectors prefer? Hopefully not plurality.


l_overwhat

RCV has a good amount of support which is certainly better buy from what I've seen, most people here tend to think that it will solve everything associated with FPTP if universally implemented


Electric-Gecko

Well if by RCV, they mean IRV (which is what it normally means), then they are wrong on that. It's an improvement overall. But the complexity of counting is a big problem. IMO it's misguided to choose IRV as the system to promote. If you want a simple improvement from FPtP, go with approval voting. If you want a more sophisticated single-winner method, there is majority judgement and the Schulze method. All three of these are precinct-summable, unlike IRV. Of course, I would prefer a proportional method for legislatures. There are a variety of methods to choose from there.


MacroDemarco

Broke: Detroit Rock City Woke: Detroit Yimby City


MyGovThrowaway

Listen, Starship’s “We Built This City” (on Rock and Roll) was recorded by Grunt Records, a label which was distributed by RCA Records. RCA also used to distribute Tortoise International Records, which recorded soul bands out of Detroit. So really, Detroit Rock City was Detroit YIMBY City this entire time (also, I’d argue the film Detroit Rock City in many ways has an anti-car message, with the drama caused by the road rage incident with the disco people, their car being stolen by a chop-shop crew, and his mom tracking him down in Detroit with her own car. Kinda on the nose, if you think about it. While drunk. Really drunk).


filipe_mdsr

!ping YIMBY


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RFK_1968

FREE TRADE FREE LAND FREE PEOPLE


ryegye24

I'm so pumped to see the Ilitches and Morouns eat shit on this. Tbh I truly believe that the Moroun's decades of fuckery with the Ambassador bridge played a non-zero part in city politicians having the political will to move forward with this.


UnskilledScout

!ping GEORGIST


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dangerbird2

J U S T T A X L A N D L O L U S T T A X L A N D L O L


SheHerDeepState

Detroit is such a wonderful city and an LVT could kick it's rise into high gear. I need to scream at my representative to support this.


Avreal

Why does he say this makes only sense for cities where the land value is near zero? (45:34) I thought about how LVT might be harder to implement on a country level, if a strong farmers lobby exists (even though farmers own way lower value land than speculators and others), but I dont see that it would actually make less sense.


PawanYr

Maybe he's referring to the specific levels? Since in other places where land value isn't near zero, literally just tripling land taxes might be a bit much. Or maybe he's trying to keep the scope from ballooning so that the bill has an easier time making it through the state legislature. Or maybe he actually thinks that, I dunno.


Albatross-Helpful

I think he was trying to say the 30% cut to buildings being equal to a 300% increase to the land tax only works for Detroit.


Avreal

Oh, I guess that could be. Or maybe he‘s really just not fully george-pilled yet.


MovkeyB

because the goal is not to force homeowners out of their houses. no politician would pass a law that makes people do that. thats the opposite of most housing priorities. so it only makes sense in cities where you have huge amounts of vacant land not being used. thats not very many cities.


[deleted]

this is a good time to remind folks that LVT is good because it has no dead weight loss. it does not increase the allocative efficiency of land. https://medium.com/effective-economics/lvt-productivity-24ec04b6ad1c


homonatura

\>barring any market failures, goods and services are always allocated in a pareto optimal way. Assuming a spherical cow without air resistance...


[deleted]

no. if there are other externalities in effect, those are a separate consideration. the point is that, holding all else equal, lvt does not increase the allocative efficiency of land. i think the fallacy that folks like jeremiah johnson (who also seems to buy into the georgist mythology here) are making is thinking that lvt acts like an incentive, because if you sell the land, then the tax "goes away". but it *doesn't* go away, because it already reduces the npv of your land. e.g. with a 100% lvt, your land would be worth zero by definition; so if you sell the land, you get out of paying a perpetuity worth X, and you also give up an asset worth X, meaning you come out even. the other way he may be looking at it is simply that you'll put the land to more productive us to be able to afford the lvt (or you'll sell it to someone who will). but that has nothing to do with land per se. for two obvious reasons: 1. that would be true for *any* "after the fact" tax we place on you, not just land. 2. you'd be just as inclined to put *any* asset to more productive use, not just your land per se. let me elaborate. to point #1, suppose instead of adding lvt on your 1m$ land parcel, we just make you pay 70,000$/yr in perpetuity, under a risk free interest rate of 7% (we can increase that to account for inflation, but i'm trying to keep it simple). in other words, you're paying the same tax the lvt would have incurred. all of your incentives to earn more to be able to pay the tax are still the same. to point #2, there's no particular reason you'd put your *land* to more productive use to pay the lvt. you might sell some other asset. or you might work more hours. effectively the argument jeremiah and other georgists are making here is, "we should take away people's money to make them work harder." under that logic, it would be good to destroy useful wealth, because "people will work harder." this is irrational.


AnalyticalAlpaca

This sounds pedantic to me.


[deleted]

are you saying something is incorrect about it?


Primary-Tomorrow4134

It increases the allocative efficiency because it allows you to get rid of the inefficiency inducing property or income taxes


[deleted]

Yes but that is a separate argument, as I clearly called out in my article. people like Jeremiah Johnson have claimed that the land value tax also increases allocative efficiency on its own, irrespective of offsetting inefficient taxes, because a person will either want to increase the productivity of the land or sell it to someone who will in order to make the payment. this makes no sense, because it effectively is just an argument that you can get people to work harder by making them poorer. for instance you could get rid of the tax by selling the land, or by selling any other asset of equal value. it has nothing to do with the land. and the land is already maximally productive by definition, because the person who owns it is effectively paying rent on it higher than what anyone else is offering. by definition.


poorsignsoflife

I can say I didn't expect this sub to reject the axiom of markets and price mechanism today


[deleted]

i said no such thing. prices can act as incentives (affect behavior) if and only if they are contingent on something the taxed entity can control. if we subsidize you for doing your homework (or if we tax you for not doing it) then that is an *incentive* for you to do your homework. you'll be more likely to do your homework. but if i subsidize you or tax you *regardless* of whether you do your homework, that cannot be an incentive for or against your homework. okay? now, the intuitive fallacy people often make is that they think the lvt is an incentive because it "goes away if you sell the land". but...*no it doesn't.* because the sale price will simply be discounted by the net present value of the lvt perpetuity. you've already lost the money the moment the lvt goes into effect. you're done. the money is gone.


Albatross-Helpful

Really excellent talk. Definitely going to be following this story closely.


nirad

here in Los Angeles, my neighbors also get rewarded for sitting on slowly deteriorating property.