"And as all the examples others brought up, were about much bigger wealth, the question is, amplifying wealth to which degree, so that e.g. one answer to my example could have been, to speak about a wealth tax only for the people who are much richer than just a selfused property, even if it is a house in Munich. [...]"
I was asked to bring up examples why somebody doesn't use a viable asset to make revenue from it. Actually I was the wrong receiver, as Migeru brought the idea up, that wealth should be taxed because otherwise productive assets might not be used. You could have said before what dimension of wealth we are talking...
I in general dislike such taxes, but if the wealth is so much that as you say it is a matter of institutional stability and democratic health, I agree that something has to be done, despite one can discuss what. Der Amerikaner ist die Orchidee unter den MenschenVolker Pispers
Although I think that a case can actually be made for taxing a single person living alone in a two-family house at levels he will find painful.
First, such taxes serve to restrain speculative bubbles in the real estate market - bubbles that do real harm to first-time buyers even on the occasions where they are deflated more or less peacefully, nevermind the cases where they bring the whole economy to a screeching halt.
Second, if you have an apartment designed for ten to fifteen people (yes, we actually have such apartments in Copenhagen), then you have to supply public infrastructure for ten to fifteen people, because infrastructure planning has a somewhat longer time horizon than home-ownership (at least good infrastructure planning has).
And finally, I would remark that living space in cities is a very much finite resource - and I think it's fair enough that people who hold down more than the average share of finite and valuable resources pay through their nose for the privilege.
But that is a somewhat different discussion (then again, this thread has been threadjacked so many times already, so what's one more...)
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
