So....Georgism, I kinda have a love hate relationship with the ideology. I consider it simplistic, boiling down all problems with capitalism to land ownership, and proposing the LVT as an end all be all to those problems. BUT...I can also be nuanced, recognizing LVT can be useful when implemented on a smaller scale, replacing local property taxes, or being targetted specifically at land speculators. And that's where this comes in handy.
Looking at Atlantic City, the math isn't mathing. I see vacant lots next to the beach that no one does anything with, which is just insane to me. I know NJ is up north and it's not a year round tourist destination, thats one of the reasons it struggles, but seriously after looking at other towns Ive been on vacation at, I've never seen empty land next to a beach. Because that's prime real estate location. It's in demand. Everyone wants it. The price is high, because the earning potential is high.
But Atlantic City doesnt seem to have that earning potential. Paying more attention to the area, everything with its politics seems to be X is struggling to be profitable, Y is struggling to be profitable. Everything is struggling, and yet, then the price of the land is insane. I know that there's still an empty lot where Trump's Plaza casino used to be (it was demolished like 10 years ago), and I know Ive seen video footage of the areas on the northern part of the island just being...empty. Like wtf. Why is it empty?! And then....when discussion of this stuff goes on the market, it's like...oh yeah, this lot sold for like millions and billions of dollars. And it's like...wait I thought this was a struggling beach town, why tf is this land so valuable. Like you would think between lots being empty for years, and high prices of land, that something isn't adding up here. That the fact that nothing is being done with the land would mean it isn't as valuable as people are saying it is. Like, the land is insanely valuable, but it's so insanely valuable that it cant seem to find a buyer, much less one who can actually pull in a profit. This is why it seems to remain a casino town, the casinos are the only businesses big enough to eat the cost and be able to make any profit at all. Everything else seems to just go out of business. It's weird.
So...I basically googled the issue, and because google searches are answered by an AI now, I had a discussion with the AI about it. Apparently, there's rampant land speculation there where real estate developers and the like buy up land and just...hoard it. They do it to drive up the price so they can sell it for a profit. Simply by denying it to the market, they can make it artificially scarce, which drives up the price. But this price IS out of sync with the market. And as such, the land doesnt get buyers, no one does anything productive with it, anyone who attempts to is killed economically because the place is of relatively low demand for a beach town, but to the land barons, it doesn't matter. They will sit on it for LITERAL DECADES driving the price up waiting for the right buyer at the right price. They can wait forever, especially because, in NJ, they only do property taxes.
So....let's discuss property taxes. Land value taxes tax you on the value of the land. it discourages hoarding and incentivizes productive use of land. It would basically solve this problem. but property taxes? Well, that taxes the buildings on the land. So if you build a building on the land, like the former trump plaza site or some random lot on the north side of town near the beach, well, you get taxed out of existence. Only the casinos can afford to really remain profitable because they're big enough to eat the tax burden and remain profitable. Of course, the casinos are incentivized to appeal to relatively affluent people. Theyre the ones who bring in the big bucks. But yeah. We're starting to see why this place has so many contradictions. Why everyone in the real world is struggling, whereas everything seems so insanely overpriced. With property taxes, a land speculator can buy a lot, sit on it forever, barely pay any taxes, and yeah they'll just wait out the market forever. With LVT, they'd be forced to do something with the land, or to sell it. The land tax would make this hoarding behavior unprofitable because you lose money for sitting on the land and doing nothing with it, youre incentivized to DO SOMETHING with it, something profitable. If Atlantic City implemented an LVT, it would probably bring in some much needed market corrections. Maybe it would be harsh to some, but the current environment is stifling to most. You got poor people unable to afford a place to live, homeless people running around the place, you got casinos struggling to be profitable. You got tourists complaining about the homelessness problem. It's a solid solution. So why doesn't AC implement it?
Apparently they cant. According to google AI, unlike PA where you CAN do split rate taxation, taxing land value and property, NJ has these stupid rules where every municipality has to conform to uniform rules where they tell the localities how they can tax. And in order to fix that, youd need to change state level laws. Of course, these same speculators will lobby the crap out of the legislature, ensuring that such a thing never passes, ensuring that people continue to suffer.
Ya know, the older, and the more I understand, I get the more frustrated I get. There are tons of solutions to our problems, not just this, but also, other ideas. Ya know, like UBI. And it seems like, whenever we want to do something that fixes the economy and makes it work for the people, there's some wealthy special interest that insists society has to suffer because they make money off of it. They hide behind legalese and broken systems that benefit them, and use their massive wealth to ensure that the system doesn't change.
Of course, that's why we're in a populist era of politics. People understand politics as usual has to go. They want to "drain the swamp" so to speak. Sadly, they voted for Trump, the demagogue, the guy who was supposedly the deal maker, the guy who owned casinos right in AC, one of which is now a vacant lot. And he was always a demagogue. So people want change, and the more the system resists changes, the more radical I think people are gonna get. There is a real desire from many to "burn it all down", because they understand the laws are all written by the elites who profit for them, and theyre part of the problem. We just dont understand who the real problem is, and what needs to be done. That's where we on the left come in. We gotta be the ones actually analyzing these problems, correctly identifying them, and offering solutions. Trump and his right wing populism isnt gonna do it. He and his buddies ARE the swamp. And he's not there to destroy them. He's there to enrich them. He's a false messiah. As I keep saying, if you want real change, you want it from the left. Progressives and the like.
Now, I will say this, populism is like fire. A little bit is energizing. We need it in order to push a narrative that yeah, the status quo is the problem and we need relatively radical change not normally accepted to fix it. Locally in AC, it's LVT. Nationally, we need a UBI. But too much populism is a bad thing. Just like too much fire is a bad thing. You dont wanna burn down the place. But as long as elites continue resisting solutions that actually benefit the people, I fear the population will get increasingly extreme until society tears itself apart. We saw this with the evolution of Trump's coalition. 2016, yeah okay they're pissed off at the status quo, i can understand that, now it's like..."hello fascism".
Same with the left. UBI, social democracy, very well needed. Literal communism a la the more extreme elements in the DSA, NO, HELL NO.
So...we need more change than we're getting, but not enough to enable the worst possible people in society to attain power and make things worse.
BUt yeah, in atlantic city, this populism should perhaps take on georgist characteristics. Again, nationally, not HUGE HUGE on the idea. I dont think LVT is the end all be all to the problems of capitalism, I think it's a crappy way to fund a UBI. But insofar as fixing AC's rampant land speculation problem, yeah, it would help the city significantly. I just wanted to mention it since I'm on one of my autistic obsessions with a new vacation destination, and I'm analyzing the problems as I see them. And it is frustrating, understanding how much better society could be, if not for selfish rich people ruining everything. Really, like we dont like to talk about it, but that's why everything is broken. Rich people have corrupted the systems and stop us from implementing the changes we need. Doesnt mean we should stop advocating for solutions, but it is frustrating. Especially since most people dont even have the wherewithal to get this far in identifying problems properly or offering real solutions. They end up just simping for the rich people and/or identifying the wrong causes to the problems while then screaming about everything being broken. It's another weird paradox of our society.
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