[nmhancoc]

I don’t think so, actually. Real estate is a pretty small sector of the economy (maybe 13 or 14% of GDP according to Google. That’s about as much as manufacturing, but not politically unassailable.

The real reason these sorts of reforms will never kick in is that roughly 2/3 of Americans are in owner occupied housing, it’s the largest asset on most of their balance sheets, and an LVT will in many cases effectively zero that out.

So it’s the homeowners (particularly the older cohorts) which will vote against this policy to the detriment of the younger cohort.

[sokoloff]

Which amounts to: “We propose to fix this problem by seizing the value embodied in the homes of 2/3 of Americans, while leaving their mortgages intact.”

That being not politically tenable is a feature of democracy, not a bug.

[AnthonyMouse]

It is kind of a bug, because otherwise how do you fix it?

Housing got set up as a pyramid scheme where the price keeps going up because supply is constrained, so younger people have to take out ever-bigger mortgages in order to have somewhere to live. Nobody wants the prices to be unaffordable until they buy a house, but once they do they're locked in to the high price they bought in at and want prices to go up even more. When you have a majority of people on the hellbound side of the line then you're locked into a death spiral that violently explodes once the prices get so high that the majority can no longer afford a home.

[chgs]

Old rich people want young working people to pay for their lives.

No surprise there.

[actionfromafar]

I wonder what may happen when that generation fades away.