I've been saying pensions should not exist, as they are contradictory to our political system. Some politician 40 years ago can promise everyone the moon, and never force the next generation to figure it out. I'm from Chicago which has a nightmare pension system that's keeping me from ever buying a home in the city I love, because my property tax increases just go to retired people who moved to Florida.

I really appreciate this perspective as It helps fill in gaps in my mental model of where our economy has gone wrong the last 50 years. Unrelated but - I've read an interesting paper on how allowing private banks to create money has led to the infinite profit growth goose chase...

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jordanb 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I own a house in Chicago and my property taxes are much lower than my friends in the suburbs.

I live in a working-class southside neighborhood. The people who are complaining about property taxes for SFUs in the city are people in neighborhoods with skyrocketing home values.

Those people stand to receive a massive windfall when they sell. And while it may be annoying for them if they find themselves having to sell when they didn't want to, the they're vastly better off than all then renters in that neighborhood who got priced out much faster with no windfall.

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braincat31415 7 hours ago | parent [-]

Nah. I own a property in the gold coast area, and my property values have barely changed in the last 20 years. I only see an insane increase in real estate taxes and assessments. These are the things that price renters out, plus the Chicago housing regulations that leave the landlords without any leverage under pretty much any circumstances and force the risk to be reflected in the rent. Currently net profit from rental properties in that area is close to the interest on the equivalent amount of 10y bonds, without all the headache.

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jordanb 5 hours ago | parent [-]

So sell and buy 10 year bonds. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The Gold Cost isn't suffering a shortage of landlords.

	▲	braincat31415 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Well, I personally prefer having physical assets a lot more than cash. Just mentioning that to show that math does not favor ownership, provided that the rates stay high. Note though that there is never a shortage of demand in that area for rentals either, so I'll keep increasing the rent following increases in property taxes and assessments, and people will pay. If anyone has a problem with that, let them bring this up with the City of Chicago and the Cook County.

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gosub100 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Your Chicago government has way bigger problems than covering its promises to deliver elderly people the standard of life they earned.