If you're 79, living in a mansion, presumably kids have left, and think your taxes are too high, you should probably downsize. I just don't look at an octogenarian standing in front of a 5 bedroom and think "poor him"

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the invisibilization of subsidies is one of the central mystifications of capitalism, painting the mirage of an emergent, spontaneous order onto grotesquely distorted markets and vast state interference

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along with an interest payment they were able to write off their taxable income! part of the problem is clearly visibility, but people also just take the subsidies as part of the natural order of things, and see taxes as an unholy perversion of said natural order

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beyond not understanding that you retain a benefit — growing equity — that justifies continued taxation, what is happening is that these people don’t understand that their mortgage payment included a property tax payment that went into escrow. that, and simple selfishness, is what’s happening here.

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Reaping [tax escrow lowering the salience of property taxes, allowing for higher rates]: Haha fuck yeah!!! Yes!! Sowing [the salience property tax skyrocketing as people pay off their mortgages]: Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck.

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