Taxing as a whole is not straight forward. But the idea is that you put a greater tax burden on corporate profits, prohibiting the accumulation of wealth by those who are already in possession of wealth. It's basically half-assed state-seizure of industry to make it palatable to the capitalists.
>Housing prices don't escape the basic economic principles of supply/demand merely because high paying jobs are present. For pricing to become an order of magnitude more expensive other factors must be present, such as limited supply (Emphasis mine)
It's not escaping supply and demand. There is greater demand than supply. This is also common in other urban areas across the country (see New York, Miami, etc) which are large job markets. SF is just particularly bad because of how poorly they address the issues.
>If, on the other hand, it merely exists to cure the ills of homelessness and hopelessness as a welfare system it may become a compromised system for enabling less economic contribution in impoverished social contexts.
Who cares? "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." This isn't about getting the best economic value from the citizens. It's about taking care of other humans. The whole concept of giving people just enough to not starve but not enough to be satisfied seems like bourgeoisie nonsense to keep a lower working class.
You either destroy the capitalist paradigm, or you exploit people. There is no middle ground.
The idea is that basic living expenses do not wildly differ between the poor and the wealthy. Think of things like clothes, child care, and food. After accounting for basic living expenses as a proportion of total regular compensation poorer people will have less remaining capital than wealthy people. It is this greatly increased remaining capital, disposable income, that allows wealthy people to purchase extravegant trifles. Taxing that purchasing potential punishes people, wealth returned to the state, in proportion to their purchasing capability without consideration for exemptions.
Wealth consolidated to personal holdings is ripe for taxation and isn't necessarily returned to the public unless gifted as charitable contributions. There are social arguments both ways to that separate discussion.
Taxing businesses is not straight forward. Business benefit their local economies unless large enough to invest into different geographic markets. Local geographies generally want to not tax businesses whose capital is tied to local vicinities as they are economic stimulators. On the other hand they generally want to tax larger businesses highly on capital leaving the local vicinity. It is challenging to write a business tax policy that isn't discriminatory and simultaneously free from local economic constraints. These arguments largely do not apply to wealthy individuals.
> On the topic of home ownership: This is an extremely complex game that mostly relates to the A: supply of housing and B: proximity of jobs to a specific location. The reason San Francisco has such insane housing prices is that there are also a large number of high paying jobs.
That argument loses steam outside the Bay Area. The Bay Area is not unique with regard to a cluster of high paying jobs. Housing prices don't escape the basic economic principles of supply/demand merely because high paying jobs are present. For pricing to become an order of magnitude more expensive other factors must be present, such as limited supply and artificial constraints.
There are many favorable reasons to rent opposed to ownership, but that discussion is orthogonal to discussions of property taxes.
In order for UBI to be a favorable enhancement it must exist as an economic stimulator rather than a poverty eradicator. Poverty is corrosive, stressful, and burdensome. If a UBI were present just enough to free people to make more meaningful employment and financial decisions than it is a favorable stimulator of employment and education. If, on the other hand, it merely exists to cure the ills of homelessness and hopelessness as a welfare system it may become a compromised system for enabling less economic contribution in impoverished social contexts.
Many welfare systems have existed in the past that sometimes work well and sometimes make things worse. A UBI isn't going to eliminate payday loans or prevent people from spending all their money at casinos, but it will likely allow many people to pursue new career choices or skills they would have otherwise not considered.