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Re:David Byrne: If the 1% stifles New York's creative talent... by jlgreco on Monday October 07, 2013 @02:51PM (#6510344)
Would such tax penalties stop the rich from renting/owning in NYC? I doubt it, they are rich after all. Would those tax penalties convince them to declare those homes their primary residence? Maybe, if they were American. But would declaring those homes to be their primary residence actually get them to spend more time in them? No.

Is it really a problem that rich people aren't living in all of their homes simultaneously? No. That is their own business, don't worry about what they do, worry about what you do.

What is next, complaining that middle class families often leave one car sitting idly in their driveway?

Re:David Byrne: If the 1% stifles New York's creative talent... by busterarm on Monday October 07, 2013 @02:58PM (#6510391)
It could put some tax money into subsidized housing to offset their market effect of increasing other peoples' rents and commute times.

It really kind of is a problem because of the effects that it has on the housing market. It's completely different from somebody having an idle car in their driveway because nobody else could park on their property. This is a situation where this is an apartment somebody else could rent and live in and decrease sprawl.

Re:David Byrne: If the 1% stifles New York's creative talent... by jlgreco on Monday October 07, 2013 @03:16PM (#6510506)
If the objective is just to raise more money for subsidized housing, there are more ways to do that than just whining about rich people having underused apartments. Hell, tax caviar; a tax for cheap housing doesn't have to attack rich housing. The only reason to that is pandering to the envious.

And I stand by my car analogy, a car a rich person has is a car that a poor person doesn't have. Artificially high demand for cars ('artificially high' in the sense of people buying more cars than they need) increases their prices. If you want more cheap cars for poor people, then get more cheap cars for poor people. Don't complain about how many cars rich people have.

Re:David Byrne: If the 1% stifles New York's creative talent... by busterarm on Monday October 07, 2013 @03:19PM (#6510523)
These arguments don't work when you have supply limitations, which with housing and cars we kinda do.

It's not about taxing the rich. It's about taxing where appropriate to get the market effects you want.

This is the same reason we have such high tax on cigarettes.

Re:David Byrne: If the 1% stifles New York's creative talent... by jlgreco on Monday October 07, 2013 @04:12PM (#6510884)
Taxing rich people more for having multiple homes isn't going to make them give up those homes (we are talking about "1%"ers, right?), all it is going to do is increase your tax revenue. If you plan is to use that additional revenue to provide housing for the poor, the knock yourself out, I think that is a swell plan. However focusing on where that money comes from is a distraction.

Rich people having multiple homes is a distraction that is engineered to tug on irrational anti-rich sentiment. Tax them if you want, but don't mistake them for the actual problem.

Re:David Byrne: If the 1% stifles New York's creative talent... by so_says on Monday October 07, 2013 @06:34PM (#6511773)
I don't know if taxing is the right idea. I just know that a city void of actual residents is a city without a soul. NYC is becoming like parts of Florida, except at least in FL, the residency is tied to a season, so you get a critical mass of people together in one place.