_DeadFred_

These private property owners you are concerned about normally bought the land with these difficulties you are worried about priced in to the land's value. Why should to government hand them free money in the form of not enforcing what has been priced into the land value?

I wonder how record numbers of adults living with parents impacts household income as now addition income earners.

I'm not litigating my mothers treatment here. I am expressing the damage done.

Another hidden issue in the USA is many households are dependent on contributing income from a retired/disabled/working past retirement age elderly parent/family member. Those people are going to start passing in mass, and a lot of households will become even less resilient.

People living in these situations now live from crisis to crisis. Not paying rent/dealing with the consequences is just another on the list. At some point people just become numb. Modern society at the peripherals is not sustainable. There will always be people in the peripherals, but society is now structured to require middle class type stability as the bottom baseline for an individual to survive.

Somehow the idea of working for wages became a pervasive notion in the U.S.

https://www.denver7.com/news/national-politics/the-race/wage...

Please respond to those examples in context/a substantive/HN worthy way and have a discussion, not a fact free handwaving of 'they're XYZ evil foreign power's propaganda'. How do the examples I provided break Hacker News guidelines and deserve not only a downvote but to be actively flagged dead? This is a discussion site, not a popularity site. Flagged is not supposed to be used to shape the discussion, but for severe violations of HN guidelines, which the examples do not rise to. The proper response is a response.

Leaving California means stepping away from the highest concentration of billion-dollar outcome creation in the U.S. Over the past ~40 years, California has produced on the order of ~120–200 billionaire-producing startups, versus ~15–35 in Texas and ~10–25 in Florida, depending on how you define origin.

Using standard venture-style risk and reward thinking, the data favors staying. The distribution of extreme upside outcomes remains heavily concentrated in California. Now if your a done/finished investor/creator or you have to be cost conscious it makes sense to leave the dream state and move to the retirement home states that cater to the has been class versus the creator class. No shame in having to be cost conscious or being ready to give up and fade into the retirement home of states lifestyle.

"The income tax base captures 60 % of economic income of the top 1 % of wealth-holders."

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00472...

Now if you are proposing a tax on all secondary homes worth $1M or more... I'm listening.

The problem is not homeless peoples' reaction to the world. The problem is societies place for them.

Homeless people have always existed and likely always will. The problem is in the last 45 years we've built a brittle, zero slack society. We've optimized around a particular vision of middleclass life while steadily eliminating the margins that once allowed vulnerable people, those prone to homelessness, and increasingly young adults who just need a place to start from, to exist on the periphery without being put in constant crisis. We removed the pathways that allowed unstable people to find enough footing to maintain a place to live.

We've embraced an economic model that requires continual growth and ever more housing. We've destroyed via economics and regulation many of the housing options that once existed for the very poor such as boarding houses, residential hotels, man camps. Demanding that everyone fit into a middle class model at all stages in life is cruel. It's even crueler when we act surprised or judgmental toward people whom society has systematically left with nowhere to go.

In AI speak 'we optimized away the edge cases and then blamed the people who (always had/always will) lived in them'.

Imagine regulating that everyone must eat a meal individually prepared in an industrial kitchen, with a mandated recipe from the community (any missing ingredients and the meal can't be cooked) and approved by inspectors post cooking, and capped the total meal kitchen capacity. Not everyone would be able to afford that. For peoples' largest expense (housing) that is what we have done and today 50% of young adult Americans are living at home with parents because that is our current housing model. What happens to young adults that don't have parents to live with? In part, homelessness.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/08/donald-trump-iran-a... https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/iranian-intelligence-agent-co...

And potentially the Islamic Republic of Iran wanting to execute his daughter might impact his decisions. https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/ivanka-trump-re...

But we don't need to dig deeper. We are all in agreement and don't need further discussion. Tax it.

>I’d be fine taxing that money at the top marginal rate or whatever you want to do.

Thank you for engaging. We can try going deeper but OP might be better for that. I just had that report with at least some information and wanted to interject so we could talk to something (even though I knew their thesis counters my position, it's worth us all knowing about, and I think it's showing it does occur at least some is useful for my position). Anecdotally in another life I knew some of these people/people in their circles and they very much use these loans and were crazy excited when they learned of the strategies of them.

>Similarly, what percentage of wealthy people take loans against their assets to fund their lifestyle? You should be able to quantify this if it’s happening at scale.

That is the topic being addressed, proof was shown, and you replied "I’d be fine taxing that money at the top marginal rate". To your 'but what about other loopholes' please show me 24 loopholes (dozens) providing individuals such high multiples of median income tax free?

>I don’t understand why people bring this up so often

You just agreed it is happening and you are fine with taxing it in your last message, so it really doesn't matter people bring it up or not, does it? And kind of makes further discussion moot. You agree it's fine to address/tax.

>I’d be fine taxing that money at the top marginal rate or whatever you want to do.

The mortgage interest deduction is not a loophole, it is government policy intelligently reached. A loophole would be when rich people abused the deduction by designating their yatch as a second home and deducting that. And that loophole was closed. The average person having to pay taxes on the old dresser that they bought with already taxed money and report the sale as paypal income earnings would be another loophole but in the other direction..

I look forward to your 24 stated existing examples of greater magnitude actual loopholes (and not intentional policy doing what it was intended, the opposite of an exploited loophole that is taking loans instead of selling stocks to avoid taxes but benefit from realized/current stock value). We can move to the next level but again you agreed you are fine taxing this behavior so kinda no further point.

I'm sad too. I think the point of life is experience, so take in the experience you're having and make the most of it. This might be the saddest point in your life, and someday you may need it to understand yourself or someone else through the lens of where you are today, or to fuel something you can't yet imagine. Make sure you have positive experiences at least weekly, if just a walk.

Ask yourself: what can I take from today? Do I want things to change? How did I get here? Is this sadness enough to make me choose a different path? If the answer is yes, then don't worry about solving everything. Just figure out the first step.

Then comes connection. Do you have someone you can talk through these questions with? If you decide change is needed, would they be willing to help hold future you accountable to the commitments you're making today, without it harming your relationship? And how can you make that reciprocal? Do you have responsibility to someone? If yes, do you intend to fulfill it? If yes, figure out the first step in doing that. (parent who needs your success, spouse, friend you owe a debt to).

It reminds me of a lot of the best religious principles, it's why they were come up with. Forgive yourself/others/your situation so you can keep moving instead of becoming paralyzed. Work to improve yourself. Let others lightening your load but then fulfill your obligations to others. Be a real friend, and remember that being a friend also means being willing to receive help and (potentially selfless) responsibilities on your part. Actively and intentionally reflect on your day at the end of the day and again forgive yourself/others/your situation so you can continue in action and not be paralyzed, look back on your week at the end of the week, and on your life at regular milestones.

In other words it takes hard work, with politically risky outcomes and an upside that becomes invisible as far as political careers go. We need to figure out how to refresh our systems in an environment where that type of thing just stumbles along. Maybe a couple of politicians elected who have lost out because of the status quo, but that want to improve it not throw it away. Maybe working with them to motivate them to take it on as a pet project and move things.

1-2% of 100 million is 1-2 million dollars a year untaxed benefit (44x median income). That is substantial benefit for someone to receive. They are benefiting from buy, borrow, die. You asked for proof, I gave you proof that it is happening and is providing a substantial unfunded lifestyle (44x median income is a substantial income).

Hopefully I won't see further posts from you saying it isn't happening/we don't need to tax it/we aren't loosing revenue. You agree it is happening, and you are ok with taxing it. You don't think it will fund the entire budget. OK. But we have multiple tax streams that don't fund the entire budget, and when patterns shift, we address it, such as now tracking/taxing paypal payments and in the future loans on unrealized gains.

I went for a walk in the woods. It was beautiful and amazing. There were the last of the lupine (my daughters favorites flower). A couple deer. Talked to a friend. Many have it worse, but our struggles are the worst struggles we experience. Anyone need a cheap remote errand boy/assistant with lots of life experience/managed dev teams/managed IT? Or to finance an AI use case into a product with multiple potential available pivots?

1. Dilutes that shares, punishing the people who can effect the most change (shareholders) 2. Puts the government on the inside. With ownership, the government can then demand access/knowledge that they can't from a purely private company. And no company is going to want to deal with that headache if they don't have to.