[TimTheTinker]

> You seem to be agreeing that this would be a fine system with those caveats.

I'm not advocating anything in particular. I'm only pointing out some potentially serious issues with the proposed system.

Sure, primary residence could be excluded. But that doesn't change anything about what I said, except perhaps blunt the initial impact on the middle class.

> The government, as soon as practical, can auction the stock it receives. Thus identifying its value and releasing the funds.

Perhaps that could be part of the tax law. I doubt it would stay that way... once the government can own stocks and portions of real estate, I'm sure it will seek to incrementally increase its benefit from doing so. I shudder to imagine politician-beaurocrats as the most powerful hedge fund managers of tomorrow.

[teachingassist]

> once the government can own stocks and portions of real estate, I'm sure it will seek to incrementally increase its benefit from doing so.

There's nothing stopping the government from owning these things already (governments own plenty of real estate, in particular), so this seems like undue cynicism.

[TimTheTinker]

There's a big difference between agencies owning buildings within which to do business (or the BLM owning vast swaths of land for environmental preservation) and the IRS maintaining a real estate asset class.

In fact there's almost no comparison to be made between the two.

[teachingassist]

Regarding the government's ownership of real estate, I suggest you are simply mistaken, e.g.:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bisnow/2017/04/11/solving-the-m...

[TimTheTinker]

That article is talking about local governments, not the federal government.

[teachingassist]

Ctrl-F "federal government" suggests otherwise.

This is now really a bad faith argument.

You've moved the goalposts (again), and declared that your new goal wasn't met (when, in fact, you just ignored that part).

It's OK to admit you were wrong <3

[TimTheTinker]

I don't think I've moved goalposts -- maybe just failed to articulate my concern precisely. (And only skimmed the article you linked.)

If the government purchases real estate with its own money and later sells it--fine by me. They have business to take care of and need places to do it.

What bothers me specifically would be a growing federal or state government stake in assets owned by others by virtue of a tax law that grants them such ownership.

I imagine whole swaths of businesses, apartments, and other buildings in cities across the US that are >50% owned by the government 40 years from now.

It would push us a lot closer to a world where people don't own anything anymore besides their own houses (maybe not even that) and the government owns everything.