A Usenet persona calling itself KMAN wrote:



Uh. The landlord will charge the rent he needs to generate the profit margin
he wants, and one of his expenses will be taxes. As long as the property tax
paid by the landlord is appropriate, then so is the share the tenants are
paying through their rent.

Profit margin is not the point. The point is whether each citizen is paying
an equal share of the funding required for schools. Fact is that renters are
not paying an equal share, they are paying far less per capita than
landowners, which happens to include people who own homes and land upon
which NO profit is made. Thus, the single home owner pays more than the
renter as well.

Your beef would seem to be with how properties are assessed.

In part.

This has
nothing to do with the poor guy paying his rent. If the property is taxed
appropriately, the landlord is going to charge the renter and collect the
revenues need to pay the property taxes.

Once again, the issue is the fairness and equitability of school funding
assessments. I'm merely pointing out that in most places in the US, schools
are disproportionately funded by landowners, and that there are many "free
riders" who get substantial discounts on their "fair share."


I'm not surprised at your inconsistent approach to funding medical care and
schools, given the fact that it's landowners who get soaked for schools, and
socialists don't like landowners because they are mostly "have nots" who are
jealous of the "haves" of society and are willing to do anything to bring
others down to their own level. That's what socialism is all about.

I'm a landowner. I'm not a socialist. I'm also not a selfish jerk.

So why the inconsistency in your positions in re health care and school
funding?

"Consumer goods" is the usual term used. It applies to "luxury" goods in
that "luxury" goods are generally defined as items that are for
recreation,
pleasure or quality-of-life enhancement. It excludes necessities such as
food, most clothing, heating and electrical costs and other suchlike
necessities.

I have a feeling it won't be a very popular idea,

Probably not, since the majority of people are not landowners and they, like
you, are happy to stick it to landowners out of jealousy.

I'm a landowner. I am not interested in "sticking it to landowners."

You don't argue very effectively for not doing so.


If everybody in
the country had ethics, we wouldn't need much by way of law.

Let me know when you get some. Advocating vociferously for your own selfish
needs is not what I would call ethics.

That's because you confuse socialist dogma with ethics. It's hardly
unethical to advocate fairness and personal responsibility.


and I think Wal-Mart is
going to fight you pretty hard to make sure as many goods as possible aren't
in your luxury class.

Nah. They don't care about the taxes, they don't pay them, the consumer
does.

LOL. You might want to find out a little more about how taxes affect
spending, which affects the bottom line of business.

Only when the business is marginal. Wal-Mart doesn't give a damn what the
local taxes are because they have a tremendous market dominance and know
that the higher the taxes, and the less discretionary funds that a family
has available, the MORE LIKELY they are to shop at Wal-Mart. It's a key
component of their business model.

This is why while elites don't like Wal-Mart, it's exceeding rare for a
Wal-Mart store to fail. You see, Wal-Mart's customers are the middle and
lower income brackets who *need* to save money on consumer goods and don't
have the luxury of being able to spend more on better quality goods.

"If you build it, they will come." is the catchphrase of Wal-Mart...because
they do.
--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser