Wednesday 3 May 2017

Killer Arguments Against LVT, Not (411)

Emailed in by BenJamin' from Reddit:

Brokenladder: You go to some financial entity who agrees to pay the LVT in perpetuity in exchange for 1M$ in cash.

green_meklar: I'm not clear on why any financial entity would write up such a contract, or at least be able to actually fulfill it. Where is this perpetual payment coming from?

Brokenladder: Just imagine Bob and Alice start off equally wealthy, and Bob buys some land. The LVT goes into effect and suddenly Bob is much poorer, while Alice is unscathed. This is clearly arbitrary and wrong.

green_meklar: Just imagine Bob and Alice start off equally wealthy, and Bob buys a slave. Then emancipation goes into effect and suddenly Bob is much poorer, while Alice is unscathed. This is clearly arbitrary and wrong.

No it fucking isn't. It was the slavery that was arbitrary and wrong. Bob is just paying the price for his investment in economic injustice. Economic injustice can be incredibly lucrative, but those who invest in it should do so with the full understanding that if society chooses to enforce economic justice in the future, that investment could be lost. It is not up to the rest of us to protect the investments of those who invest in evil. They had their chance.


The thread is very long, Brokenladder rots out on inconsistency after another, contradicting himself several times over to the exasperation of the Georgists who tried to point out his mistakes.


3 comments:

mombers said...

Just imagine Bob and Alice start off equally wealthy. VAT is then imposed on Bob's wealth (labour or capital) but not on Alice's (rent). Suddenly Bob is much poorer, while Alice is unscathed. This is clearly arbitrary and wrong

Kj said...

This one is especially precious:


"[–]brokenladder 1 poeng 3 dager siden
- It removes the incentive to accumulate land
Simply false. In order for an tax to change incentives, it has to be impacted by some action the person paying it can take. Consider a continuous parking meter for instance. If I vacate it, I stop paying. So that fee is an incentive for me to use less time.
But imagine after I book an hour, the city doubles the cost. Now I'm paying twice as much, whether I use the space or not. If I try to sell the space, it gives me no benefit, because the market rate is still the pre-increase rate that I originally paid.
The fallacy you're stuck in here is thinking that LVT is like the continuous meter when it's in fact like the pre-pay meter.
- increases the incentive to use it productively.
That's like saying an LVT can make some use of the land more profitable. Which is patently false."

What on earth is he talking about. LVT is the continous meter, without LVT it's the prepay meter.
This is the same guy who has just conjured up a fantasy where apparently, everyone bought land from "society" and that banks somehow magically will pay all future rents if you just give themn some cash.

Mark Wadsworth said...

M, exactly

Kj, his parking meter example was particularly fucked up on so many levels.