Demand a 3-Day work week: 1) Reform housing system to reduce cost from 40% to 20% of income. 2) Reform tax system to eliminate regressive payroll & sales taxes.
California
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Another small step towards gross receipts taxes, a smarter way to raise revenue. Forget the deductions: tax a small percent of receipts at low graduated tax rates, <5% for Biz that create goods & services and 15-25% on passive income like rents that are "created" by community.
Canada will deny tax deductions for operators of short-term rentals listed on platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo to help ease housing prices. btaxgo.com/bQI3eDs
As recently reported, "US home ownership rate" is a flawed statistic (~55-60%) b/c it measures housing units, not individual adults. It counts a home as owner-occupied if a primary owner lives there, even if other adults in the house (like adult children/roommates) do not own it.
What has $7.8 trillion in federally backed mortgages actually accomplished?
• US homeownership sits at ~65% – virtually what it was in the late 1960s.
• Home price and construction volatility remain among the highest in the developed world.
Federal intervention has boosted home mortgage debt, not homeownership.
Full report: cato.org/restoring-free-ente…
Vote NO on RTM and regressive sales & parcel tax increases! They force working people to fund wealthy landlords in Fairfield, Livermore & Tracy AND wealthy landlords in SF (and other job centers).
Vote for Taxes on Landlords to fund Transit & Housing;
Move jobs to Mountain states
"My home is an asset class" has become very popular in the US too. The Feds and states even give the housing speculators billions of tax write-offs for interest & phony deprecaiton on housing assets they didn't build. The limp left in the US does and says nothing. Feels hopeless.
Spain is going on general strike for housing on November 11.
The housing crisis goes back to 2008 when housing bubble popped, Blackstone/institutional landlords rushed @NaomiAKlein disaster capitalism style, to gobble up houses, with the complicity of the state
Rob Frances retweeted
An extremely relevant paper, given the renewed concern that wealth taxes lead to massive out-migration:
The Norwegian wealth tax "exodus", discussed in global media, never happened. At most 100 individuals left. Tax revenue increased by +71.5%. No changes in business activity.
Norway's controversial 2021–2024 reforms nearly doubled the tax on business wealth. Firms of affected owners did not invest less, and outmigration was limited to the very top, from @Mariusring nber.org/papers/w35854
BART & regional transit are pushed by Bay Area Council and sprawl advocates to build mostly single-family homes from Gilroy to Santa Rosa (one day). Landlords located near transit get higher rents because of it. Any funding ought to be paid from local rent incomes, not sales tax.
Bay Area peeps: Vote NO on the RTM ballot proposition.
This tax will increase your sales tax on everything you buy from lunch out, kids bikes, family clothing, and homegood from 8.6% to 9.6%
BART has shown zero ability or interest in containing bloated headcount and salaries. The only thing that will drive efficiency and change is cutting off access to the taxpayer’s teat
From WSJ sibling: "America's renters are emerging as a political movement."
I couldn't read it (capitalism) so can't opine on the tone or fear-level. If tenants ever reclaim some of the billions in tax subsidies given to landlords that build ZERO housing interesting times ahead.
This is the exact sentiment needed in the US more than ever. Housing speculators need to be tossed into the dustbin of history.
"Citizens are right to demand housing as a human right and the foundation of everything else. Not as an asset class for speculation."
In Madrid on a tumultuous day for Spain. Citizens are right to demand housing as a human right and the foundation of everything else. Not as an asset class for speculation.
Spain is not alone. We need a different economics and economy: one that sets the objective first and builds the tools and relationships to reach it.
Speaking about this tonight at the Spanish launch of my new book “Bien común” at Fundación Rafael del Pino in Madrid.
More on Bien Común: marianamazzucato.com/books/t…
Rob Frances retweeted
In Madrid on a tumultuous day for Spain. Citizens are right to demand housing as a human right and the foundation of everything else. Not as an asset class for speculation.
Spain is not alone. We need a different economics and economy: one that sets the objective first and builds the tools and relationships to reach it.
Speaking about this tonight at the Spanish launch of my new book “Bien común” at Fundación Rafael del Pino in Madrid.
More on Bien Común: marianamazzucato.com/books/t…
So succinct. Tax rent incomes. Reduce sales and payroll taxes.
"Real estate is like a put option on the US dollar" (expecting US$ to decline in value); "a call option on housing" (expecting rents and house values to increase); "it's an income annuity, and tax haven all in one."
It's not any one thing that makes real estate such a unique investment. It's multiple things stacked. @TheCompoundNews
#realestate #historyhelps
"Shift the tax" ought to be a winner slogan across the US. Each level of Gov has loaded up on regressive payroll, sales and flat-rate income taxes. The first two are awful. SHIFTING TAX to progressive sources WITHOUT changing the total collected is a worthy goal for every region.
Rob Frances retweeted
The country's biggest and densest cities vote Democratic. Their failure to build more, faster, and cheaper stems mostly from the difficulty of building in dense places, not from ideology.
US west coast is unique since large numbers of newly wealthy from China/Taiwan, India, Malaysia, Vietnam and other SE Asia locales often want to take wealth out of their country but remain reasonably close to their homelands. The US/Canada west coast is often a preferred landing.
The fact is that there is only so much land sitting under the world’s most beautiful, livable, economically dynamic cities.
The high earners attracted to these places, and created in their crucibles of economic growth, have high incomes that bid up land prices and the homes sitting on top.
This is the long running, global mechanism we have to face head-on if we are to make progress on the housing crisis.
More: homeeconomics.substack.com/p…
I think causality is backwards. Because SF/BA is a perfect landing for the post-college crowd for its natural beauty, high-paying work and 1000s of similar 20 to 30-somethings, it attracts the affluent Date & Play/Mate demo. Thus it's high-priced. Post-40 priorities often change.
Rob Frances retweeted
The IMF finds “China is backing strategic businesses, like green tech, while the west props up old sectors with political clout, like agriculture.”
In the west, capital disciplines the state to prop up high profits in old industries.
In China, the state creates markets and steers capital towards new strategic industries.
State-capital relations are key in understanding the China-west competitiveness divergence. Real industrial policy is not throwing subsidies at corporations but leveraging and creating public and private capacity towards goals like a green transformation.
More open space, wildlife and native plant habitat lost forever, a CA Biz/Gov specialty. I assume it's likely near San Juan Capistrano, one of few OC access points to hiking, camping and a bit of quietude (Hwy 74). Hey Ma, I forever defaced pristine CA land. Ain't you proud!
4,000 homes will be built behind us
we're standing on the largest lot I've ever seen. it will be an incredible community (and future city) that @cedarbuild will hopefully help build
and believe it or not, it's in California!
Landlords controling housing is terrible policy. It's mostly a zero-sum game since a landlord's gain is a tenant's loss. It's one reason China and others w/o private landlords can produce more cheaply with higher well-being. Who wants a landlord raising rent and barking orders?
As Diamond, McQuade and Qian point out, in addition to this allocative inefficiency craziness, rent control raises medium-term rents through its affect on supply. aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.12…
Another distortion from the "rents will go down if we build condo high-rises everywhere in SF." There is no quid pro quo if SF and other urban Bay Area nabes build massive condo towers. If there is ANY available land in the BA or entire state, someone is looking to develop it.
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We need this in the US, especially the coasts. There's far too much house hoarding in US. Real estate is one of the "best" long-term investments *and* tax dodges (unfortunately for the rest of us), but typical policy of US politicians who are often landlords and speculators too.
The Paris city council (Conseil de Paris) voted July 16 to impose taxes up to 60 percent of rental value on owners of vacant housing in an effort to boost the housing supply available for rent or buying. taxnotes.co/4yx3bDI
Rob Frances retweeted
My midnight scoop: @CAForever loses $3.2 billion shipyard contract as defense startup picks Texas.
The decision follows last-minute legislative push by project's backers to ease regulatory hurdles for building the shipyard in Solano County. @sfchronicle
shorturl.at/YNxed
Some folks buy land for their grandkids to develop in 25 years as a generational bonding experience. Once someone has a house and can afford the interest & property tax on other land holdings, why sell? Govs always need inflation so the economy doesn't collapse. Land = Good Hedge
FET Thursday Throwback:
Because land is traded to those who value it most, from those who value it less, the most patient people are property owners.
The idea that we can trick them all into rushing to build homes is wrong.
fresheconomicthinking.com/p/…