• Ava@beehaw.org
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    4 months ago

    The claim in this article seems to me to be flawed. The core claim seems to be that the landlord cannot pass on the costs to the tenant because the market is at capacity. But what this really means is, the tax WILL be passed through to the tenants until maximum exploitation of the tenants (as a resource) has been reached. Which would include the UBI safety net as well, since the system demands (intentionally) maximum exploitation of this limited resource, no?

    At this point, the landlord can continue to reduce their OWN share of the profits, sure. But the LVT will continue to increase over time, so eventually the landlord is priced out of the area, the building closes, and all tenants are evicted. MAYBE this particular landlord has enough capital to re-invest into the land that it may again become profitable with additional investment, but EVENTUALLY this will not be the case, and the property must be sold. This centralizes all land assets over time into the control of whichever conglomerate has enough resources to maximally develop the area.

    And what of the tenants? Rent prices are deemed to have been at their maximum for the region. Tenants in this case are displaced, at least for the amount of time that redevelopment will take. And, because the value of a particular parcel of land seems likely to be similar to a neighboring one of identical size, this increase is likely to affect ALL housing providers in a particular area with similar circumstances, since we have to assume that development doesn’t happen in massively disproportionate jumps.