Fair enough. Edited that part off. I was simply extremely shocked at the implications, if I understood it correctly.
> So the situation is that you have lots of old people living in houses that they could never, ever afford at today's prices.
I don't think punishing people for what companies have done to inflate house prices is a good move though.
Screwing over people that bought houses that they live in instead of fixing the root causes for all these insane price hikes seems completely backwards to me.
Remember that companies or rich folks might have to pay some extra taxes but, in general, they can freaking afford it. Normal folks more often than not, can't.
> I don't think punishing people for what companies have done to inflate house prices is a good move though.
The first is that if someone suddenly became wealthy because their house went up 3x in value and they want to continue living there then they can get a reverse mortgage. Assign that new found wealth in the equity to the bank in exchange for getting a monthly payment to pay the tax. If you're arguing they both should be able to stay, and keep the increase in equity that they contributed to them you're arguing housing should be a speculative investment (which leads to bad incentives).
> Screwing over people that bought houses that they live in instead of fixing the root causes for all these insane price hikes seems completely backwards to me.
The whole point is it's not. It's incentivising someone to move so they stop screwing over the 10-20 families they would like to buy a house but can't afford to because the supply is so low. By replacing the single story home with multi floor condos, more people can now afford homes in the area.
> Screwing over people that bought houses that they live in instead of fixing the root causes
The point of the proposal is that it is not an either or. In order to fix things you will have to also "screw over" people that have bought houses or people that currently can't buy houses. Long running problems are not quick and easy to fix and a fix will have collateral damage, not just "companies or rich folk".
Again: I am not taking a position on either side, but you are currently attacking a straw man.
Fair enough. Edited that part off. I was simply extremely shocked at the implications, if I understood it correctly.
> So the situation is that you have lots of old people living in houses that they could never, ever afford at today's prices.
I don't think punishing people for what companies have done to inflate house prices is a good move though.
Screwing over people that bought houses that they live in instead of fixing the root causes for all these insane price hikes seems completely backwards to me.
Remember that companies or rich folks might have to pay some extra taxes but, in general, they can freaking afford it. Normal folks more often than not, can't.