Raise the Hammer

Seancb >> This might be a good place to start before you spew off about falling back on the free market.

First of all seancb, I talked about this issue months ago, so while I'm glad you see the problems associated with this issue, please tone down the bad attitude.

>> The "free market" encourages parasitic behaviour, and we all know what happens to the parasite once they kill the host.

I think you are actually describing the city of Hamilton. It is a more aggressive parasite than either Burlington or Oakville, siphoning off 50-100% more in nutrients (tax rate) from the taxpayer. Unfortunately, this greed has weakened its host (the private economy of Hamilton) and now it needs nutrients from fellow parasites that live on other communities. If it stopped being so greedy, especially towards businesses, it would find itself feeding on a bigger, healthier animal and would prosper as a result.

>> In case you haven't been paying attention to the world around you, we are well on our way to doing just that.

According to the EIA, the number of days of supply of crude oil is currently at 24.7. This number has been trending higher since 2004, when it was at 18. This means that rather than having a shortage of oil supply, the biggest consumer of oil is actually increasing its supply. Here is a chart if you don't believe me...

tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/w_epc0_vsd_nus_daysw.htm

>> What you are asking for is a corporate-run society where the richest company essentially rules the country.

No. I just want property taxes lowered to Oakville/Burlington levels. If this makes the city better (stimulates investment, jobs and demand for area property), than we might want to keep lowering them. If by lowering property tax rates to Burl/Oak levels (for a 3-5 years) the city gets worse, then I will agree that I am wrong. However, over the past few decades, all the economic experiments have been focused on what government can do and the result is what we see today.

>> If one entity (corporation? person?) owned lake ontario, then anyone wanting to use that resource (you, me) would have to pay for the right - because the owner puts profit above all else.

So what is your point? Farmers own their land and yet people don't have a problem with that. What if all farmers decided to stop selling food. I guess everybody would starve to death. The fact is, if a private entity owned Lake Ontario and took too much supply off the market, the citizens would physically take it over. Therefore, if company owners were not suicidal, they would utilize their resource in such a way as to maximize its value to society and in so doing, maximize its profits.

Ryan, what do transaction costs have to do with allowing people to keep and spend more of their hard earned money? Be specific and don't ramble or tell me to read books, just a direct answer to a simple question.

>> You're flat-out ignoring the fact that governance structures are a legitimate means through which citizens can pool resources and raise money to pay for valued amenities

Legitimate by what standards? The standards set out by the people who will send me to jail if I don't fund what 51% of the population says I should fund? A better model of fairness is the raising of capital in the financial markets. In this scenario, people with surplus resources voluntarily give money to others to fund development projects. Yes, sometimes these projects don't work out, but nobody forces investors to keep funding them and if history is any guide, they will continue to fund them in the future. Amazon.com. Ebay, Google, etc were all built with private capital and yet nobody was forced to invest if they didn't want to. A huge difference from taking money from people who don't want to invest.