Comments by "looseycanon" (@looseycanon) on "Cost of living in major US cities has spiraled out of control" video.

  1. That's rent seeking behavior for you. There's a case to be made about taxes, though. Specifically what kinds of taxes are collected. I read somewhere a while back, that blue states on average collect more from income tax, while red states focus on property tax. The problem is not, that you're overtaxed, if you want to see high taxes, come to Europe. The problem is, that there a lot of real estate is empty, as you have shown it, but value of the building is propped up to completely out of proportion by expected foot traffic, which leads to other vehicles to get your money (loans, ponzi-scheme like fund and share structures)... Really, the problem is, that NYC is undertaxed for property tax! If property tax for certain types of floorspace were high enough, the owners would have no other choice, than to actually look for tenants, or rebuild their property into other types of property (heard there is a housing crisis in NYC). The best thing, however, would have been, to levy a huge vacant floorspace tax surcharge, specifically targeting those owners, who leave their property unoccupied.
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