Thomas Hall 🔰

How do all the "increasing supply will bring house prices down" crowd square their views with the policy of "build and they will come"? I mean, do they think Dubai builds more to bring prices down?

@ARN0LD_WEBER Well- let's hope they don't get the chance!

@ThomasBHall The middle class lot are just too afraid of being called racist. They will accept anything that they are told is "anti-racist". Including the complete destruction of their homeland. The greens will go for this if they get the chance unfortunately.

If this ends up happening it's over.

@ARN0LD_WEBER My neighbor a Green town councilor. We live on a lovely leafy middle class road of detached houses. None of the locals round here would support open borders in reality... Even immigrants probably don't want true open borders. It ruins the point of being here...

@ThomasBHall I'm sure they will do it given the chance. They have no reason not to. They are the party of the immigrants as shown by the Denton by-election, wanting more immigrants is highly likely.

@JackLanter8402 @HomelessEconomy This is rather the point. The State enforces the monopoly- but certain private individuals benefit from it. Taxing the monopoly value means that we all pay proportionally and in measure to the benefit we receive from it.

@ThomasBHall @HomelessEconomy Yeah good luck enforcing that monopoly that everyone wants

Land value tax accomplishes what wealth tax advocates want without the deadweight loss

@JackLanter8402 @HomelessEconomy It doesn't help things- but no. Natural monopolies exist regardless. Prime central sites in cities cannot be replicated hundreds of miles away. The Straight of Hormuz can't be built in the US. Zoning is a new concept- but land monopoly is as old as civilization.

@ThomasBHall @HomelessEconomy You can’t really have monopoly rent seeking if there aren’t restrictions on building Let builders build housing & there is no monopoly

@mirandamelendy @DoesteinJohn @xwanyex No- but unlike other taxes, you do actually get something: exclusive use and protection of your slice of the nation. And what is more- the value of that protection can be priced, and will always be higher than the tax levied. So you are always a winner. Anything else is a bonus.

@DoesteinJohn @ThomasBHall @xwanyex But as with any other tax, there's no guarantee the funds will actually go toward the promised services. My town has umpteen homeless "hotels" (autocorrect went to "hovels") and the roads are a mess

One of the big disconnects in the property tax debate is that proponents love to say, “they pay for the sewers” but all the most vocal opponents of the property tax are rural boomers who don’t live within 20 miles of a sewer

@JackLanter8402 @HomelessEconomy Well- I advocate for the scrapping of all taxes- save for those of monopoly rents. So the only behavior punished is monopoly rent seeking. Does that make me a charlatan- and if so how?

@ThomasBHall @HomelessEconomy Any tax advocates are charlatans. All it does is punish behavior.

@db_fink @RachelReevesMP Labour did a temporary VAT reduction once IIRC

@RachelReevesMP You can do that by removing VAT. But you won’t. Because you’re thick.

We didn’t start this war. We didn’t want it. And working families in a cost of living crisis shouldn’t have to pay the price for it. That’s why this government is focused on de-escalation and keeping energy bills down. mirror.co.uk/news/politics/…

@heresyfinancial What a retarded take. One man’s consumption is another’s production. We should only tax the consumption of natural monopolies/ monopoly rents.

The best tax system would be a single flat sales tax 1. Most effective at promoting economic growth because the only disincentive is on consumption, and no investment/saving/earning is punished 2. It’s still progressive because the top 10% spend 50% of all consumption, so they would still be footing the most of the bill 3. No more tax filing for individuals, businesses are responsible for collecting and paying the sales tax 4. Tax code becomes obsolete, freeing up the brain drain and capital drain from the entire tax industry to productive work that contributes to economic growth 5. It’s somewhat voluntary because if you want to pay less in taxes you can consume less 6. A 10% sales tax would likely be revenue neutral after just a few years - and could balance the budget shortly after. Right now the government taxes about 17% of gdp. Re-aligned incentives and freed-up capital would stimulate massive economic growth that would more than make up for the short term revenue drop. The main problem people have with this is it feels unfair to the poor who will pay the same percentage of their spending as the rich. But same percentage is not the same dollar amount. Rich still pay more. If you really wanted fairness, it would be the same dollar amount for everyone.

@LawStud0842619 @xwanyex And they are- as rural properties are cheaper and taxes are normally levied on values.

@xwanyex yes, rural landowners get minimal value from property taxes and their property taxes should be accordingly lower

@DoesteinJohn @xwanyex I pay an absurdly large amount of income tax, 20% VAT on every purchase, and a modest property tax on my (middle class) home. I would love to switch my taxes to property and land over wages and production.

@xwanyex I feel like most people on the other side of property tax debate have never paid property taxes. I'd bet a decent number of them have never paid income taxes either. Taxes are a completely theoretical concept to them.

The State has effectively stopped protecting property rights of certain things (e.g. not prosecuting bike theft, car theft, shoplifters below a certain value etc.). Has this caused the value of those items to drop? Not really. If you think this would be the case if the State stopped protecting land rights- and there are many ways this might happen- then I have a prime bit of Donbas to sell you.

Like wanye I'm not 'against' property tax per se, no more than other taxes, it's just that everyone arguing with him via 'Georgist' principles or enamored of 'land-value tax' or whatever, clearly has a background premise that Everything Is De Facto Owned By The State. And look, it's ok for that to be your starting premise, I guess, but then just admit you're a totalizing commie. Lay your cards on the table so we see clearly where we, respectively, stand; don't waste peoples' time pretending you're interested in marginal 'efficiencies' or whatever. You think the state by default owns everything, just say that.

The State has effectively stopped protecting property rights of certain things (e.g. not prosecuting bike theft, car theft, shoplifters below a certain value etc.). Has this caused the value of those items to drop? Not really. If you think this would be the case if the State stopped protecting land rights- and there are many ways this might happen- then I have a prime bit of Donbas to sell you.

Correct. People are making bad arguments. Property is the ability to exclude. So now we can decide what we want to make property. Property isn't something that came out of the sky - people invented it. For instance, should IP be property? If so, what are the limits on it? There are pros and cons of that. Also, what are people willing to tolerate? Humans are remixers so banning people from telling a joke because it's IP is going to get ignored regardless of how illegal it is. Most people don't want to steal another's clothes or assault their bodies, so those don't need a lot of salesmen to make into property rights. Created property (wealth) like bicycles people generally don't want to trespass again by stealing or using without permission, though I'd imagine more people are willing to steal bikes than assault someone even if they could get away with either. We know that allowing bike theft will lower the quality of life in an area (hence making property taxes lower... but anyways), and will lead to less bicycles being created - people need security of their things to be willing to buy or make them. Economic land is the canvas itself on which we draw. Everything we make needs to be done on and with it, it precedes wealth. Blocking others from accessing it blocks them from making wealth. "Just get a job to buy land, bro" requires the largesse of another, it creates a positive right to a job if you have a right to your body because it becomes a prerequisite to existing without permission. It's comparable to telling a slave to just buy out his contract, or an anarchist to just move to another country. It's a choice of jailers. We shouldn't get rid of private property in land, it's a cornerstone of civilization. What I argue we should do is compensate others for what they would've had access to in the absence of others, either directly via a UBI or by lowering or eliminating taxes on productive behaviors like labor, investing, or trade.

@yhdistyminen @HomelessEconomy @memeticsisyphus Well we have had lots of progressive governments and not many land taxes so…

@memeticsisyphus The "progressive" opinion on land taxes is much closer to what almost any economist will tell you, and the conservative opinion is 100% vibes.

Reading enough of their posts it becomes quite clear progressives just don’t understand money

@xwanyex In the UK a significant amount of land in not on the national registry, as it has not changed hands since the registry was created. Plenty of land is kept in the same families for centuries.

People sort of act like they live in a fairytale in which there’s a group of privileged land owners and then on the other hand the peasants who have been locked out. But in our country what happens is we buy land with money. You aren’t granted the privilege to use it. You buy it with money, like everything else. And the title transfers. You can save up some money and go buy some land yourself. High housing prices, notwithstanding, very large shares of the country are still homeowners. It’s not like this is an extreme minority group.

No one created the land they live on. And yet they've been granted the ability to exclude others from it, backed by state force. All we ask is they pay the rest of society for the privilege to use this scarce resource, which itself derives much of its value from society around it

Replacing property taxes with income or sales taxes (or nothing) is a very bad idea. Traditional property taxes should be replaced with land value taxes, though.

@iAmJoshHunt Sensible nativist social policy (reverse mass migration/ prioritise natives), and a fundamental shift in tax policy away from taxes on wages and production and on to economic rent is the way to go.

I've spent the last few days writing about many of the troubles facing this country. A lot of people have asked what I'd actually do. What my solutions are, and what I stand for. And many keep trying to convince me to vote for the Greens, vote for Reform, or vote for Restore. I'll be honest. Some of this might come across as naive. I'm not a politician. But I've spent months looking at the data, talking to people, and trying to understand why this country feels the way it does. What I've arrived at isn't a policy platform. It's what I want from a political party. What I think millions of people want. And what nobody is offering. And like I said, this may come across as idealistic and naive... but here we go. Truth is, I feel politically homeless. And I believe there's a huge gap in politics right now. Labour is managing decline and calling it stability. You can't redistribute your way to prosperity. You have to build it. The Conservatives spent 14 years without ever articulating a vision for what Britain becomes next. They managed a broken system and left with nothing to show for it. Reform wants to reform what already exists. But reforming a declining system still gives you a declining system. The Greens seem to be in denial of the existence of the bond market. And Restore. The clue is in the name. You can't restore what the world has moved past. I don't want to restore. I want to rebuild. And I want to rebuild in a way that works for everyone. I don't want pensioners terrified of a cliff edge. I don't want our most vulnerable feeling the safety net is being pulled away. A growing economy isn't one that leaves people behind. It's one that generates enough prosperity to genuinely look after those who need it, rather than rationing an ever-smaller pot and pretending that's compassion. But I also want an economy where people want to contribute. Not because they're coerced or shamed. Because they can see themselves in it. A path. An opportunity. A reason to build something. When people feel the system works for them, they show up. When they don't, they check out. Right now, millions have checked out. It's getting worse by the day. And it's so depressing to see because there's so much lost potential. I want energy security. Nuclear, renewables, hydrogen, tidal, all of it. Let's even pioneer energy experiments to deliver what we need. I'm energy agnostic. What I'm not agnostic about is importing 44% of our energy with almost no storage. Every time the world sneezes, we catch pneumonia. That has to stop. I want a planning system that lets people build. Houses. Factories. Labs. The UK's inability to build is not a law of nature. It's a choice. And it's strangling us. I have no doubt there are many creative solutions to solving the housing crisis, planning laws need to change to allow for it though. I want a country where someone with a mad idea can take a risk, build something, and reap the rewards. I want the weird and wonderful. The garage startups and the mad inventors. That energy exists here. It always has. But we've built a system that suffocates it. I want the UK to be the best place in the world to do business... not a place where OpenAI pull their investment because they feel the country is unworkable. I want us to play to our strengths. Aerospace. Biotech. AI. Creative industries. Clean energy. Instead of mourning what we've lost, build on what we're genuinely good at. Because we're good at a lot. World-beating in much of it. I want us to embrace technology to transform productivity. Not as a threat. As the thing that makes public services world class and gives small businesses superpowers. The countries that harness this wave will thrive. The ones that resist it will fall behind. Let me be clear... we're falling behind. I want young people to believe the future is worth investing in. A 25 year old in this country faces the most expensive housing in the developed world, the highest tax burden in decades, and less security than their parents had at every stage. The birth rate just hit its lowest in 90 years. That's not a statistic. That's a verdict on how young people see their futures. And rather than asking ourselves why, we attack young people for their life choices, instead of giving them an environment to thrive in. And we seem committed to suppressing ambition. We have people actively trying not to aim too high, or reducing what they do, because our tax system punishes them for doing too much. That's diabolical and is a huge waste of talent. I want a country where people can be themselves without life choices being horrifically politicised, in order to drive culture wars to divert attention away from the failures of our central planners. There is a massive gap in British politics. A gap for a vision that says the old model is broken, we're not going back, but the future can be extraordinary if we build it. A vision that rewards hard work, innovation, and risk. That serves everyone. That looks forward rather than back. Like I said, this will come across as naive. I know that. But this is what I'd vote for, and the parties we have right now are nowhere close to this. I know many will come back on this to say this is exactly what party X or party Y offers, but I don't see it. I think that vision would win a lot of hearts and minds. A party offering something people would aspire to, rather than just eliminate what they hate. Because millions of people are waiting for someone to say what they already feel and actually bet on the UK rather than just manage its decline. Obviously, all of this would require difficult choices, levelling with the public about the real state of the country, and trade-offs that will feel uncomfortable. But I'd rather sacrifice and work hard towards something that feels worthwhile than this trajectory of misery we're on right now. Anyway, I'm just a nobody ranting and posting nonsense on X. But that's what I'd like to see. Anyone that offers that vision, gets my vote.