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Comment by asdfasgasdgasdg | Hacker News Reader

In all likelihood, that generation will simply raise taxes to the point where they can pay for the benefits. The odds that old people are going to be like, "Welp, I guess we have to just die now," are basically zero. They, whoever they are, will simply vote for whichever party promises most sincerely to fix the situation by taxing everyone else to pay.

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People are already moving from high tax states to ones with no income tax. They won't stick around to simply die, so where will the taxes come from when the population is dwindling and there's no incentive to stay with rising tax rates?

There's a reason places with little to no taxation are flush with funds.

That's funny, I moved from TX to NY, I remember my public high school couldn't afford enough books. Somehow the lack of taxation didn't help with that.

No other factors are provided: were you in an affluent area? What other demographics influenced your school? Is there a high ratio of homeschooling or private schools to public schooling?

Your anecdote is one data point, nowhere near enough to draw conclusions about the entire state.

> There's a reason places with little to no taxation are flush with funds.

Places with little to no taxation are not flush with funds. https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/state-and-local-t... The generally red, generally low tax southeast and southwest states have about half the revenue per capita of the generally blue, generally high tax states in the northeast and far west. Where did you get this funny idea that collecting few taxes leads to collecting lots of taxes?

It seems you assume I was taking about tax collection and government being highly funded - I'm referring to the economy as a whole, of which government is only one component; preferably a shrinking one.

Investment is accelerating in low and no-tax countries or regions while it is waning in high-tax locations. There is a growing realization that silicon valley is not all it's cracked up to be.

Simple incentive structures explain a great deal of capital movement.

Even that is not true. Texas is doing well, sure enough, but so are New York and California.

I will not do business in California or NY due to excessive costs. Many others are either already moved out or are scaling back in high tax areas; Florida, Puerto Rico and Texas seem to be the top tax-friendly destinations currently.

There is still plenty of activity in CA & NY on a sheer volume basis but the barriers are high, the types of businesses are shifting[1] in a detrimental manner and the overall trend is declining.

Don't get stuck in a purely domestic perspective. Absentee ownership is rising in many major cities due to international capital seeking safe havens for preservation of wealth - empty dwellings purchased at high rates results in elevated prices for working individuals, ensnaring them in a life-long debt cycle. If CA & NY continue resorting to taxation as the primary method for increasing revenue, they will end up like Detroit.

Rome's final collapse occurred over the span of approximately a decade and offers a glimpse at what is likely to occur: taxes became oppressive and property owners simply walked away because it no longer made financial sense - the benefits are outweighed by the costs.

How much more revenue loss can be endured by property owners in NYC before capitulation? They can hold out for a while and everything will appear to be doing alright, then the stampede begins and collapse takes place so fast you'll wonder what happened.

[1] https://www.citylab.com/life/2018/10/how-manhattan-became-ri...

I live in Manhattan and I can promise you it is no ghost town. I don't know too much about the historical record on Rome, but from reading Wikipedia, your hypothesis doesn't seem well supported. It is taxes on the poor that contributed most toward the instability, while the rich were given a pass. That's the opposite of what we do here.

A highly dense population will always experience activity. Unless you're going into private properties, which is generally a prosecutable offence so don't do it, you wouldn't know which buildings have high or low occupancy. This is reflected by a decline in a number of luxury real estate markets worldwide - the lights are on, but nobody's home.

Taxes across the board became oppressive in Rome - it was corruption that funneled funds to those who benefited. Not all wealthy are the same in their quest for control and power, or lack thereof.

Coinage records show a rapid collapse in the economy after a long period of gradual decay[1].

There is nothing new under the sun.

[1] https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/uncategorized/west-is-imp...

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