Democracy isn't just blind voting. The votes mean nothing if people don't know what the candidates stand for. Manifestos outlining intent and reasoning are part of the process but so is explaining what a policy is intended to achieve as it is being enacted. Without knowing the intended outcome, how can people judge whether it succeeded or not and whether to vote for this candidate again next time?

You really need to provide data to make that assertion. Shortages of buildings are not the only reason that property prices can be high.

Properties are made up of a building and a plot of land that it's attached to. Whilst we can nake more buildings, we can't make more land, so the land in a given location is by definition going to be in a permanent state of shortage. If more poeple want to live in that location OR (the main driver of this crisis) if more money is chasing the same fixed supply, then the prices rise. The land component is the part that has become more expensive recently, not the buildings.

The reason for this is that the rent they would pay will fluctuate with the market. If a city grows and an area becomes more expensive, the landlord captures the uplift by raising the rent and WeWork would operate on a thin margin. On the other hand, if they buy the property, then (if its with leverage) the mortage should be relatively stable as surrounding rents rise making it cheaper. After the mortgage is paid off there is no rent to pay at all and 100% of the location value is captured as profit. Also, the value of the property goes on the balance sheet, giving you back most of the cash paid on the mortgage (or the upfront cash price), so little loss.

Given it's already been done before by Iridium [0], it's hard to see how it would take centuries for a more efficient version of the same thing to emerge if Spacex was not around. Especially given the general technology progress since Iridium initially launched.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constellatio...

Given it's an auction mechanism, it's hard to stop people offering to pay for the land they want. The options seem to be either allowing that money to flow into private hands so someone gets a free lunch, or to capture it as tax, enabling all other taxes to be reduced or eliminated. The latter seems fairer to me as it eliminates the free lunch and keeps people's earnings in their own pockets via e.g. eliminating income tax.

Land prices go up when poeple have more mooney and go down when people have less. The root cause is that land is unique in the economy because it both cannot be manufactured and cannot be moved. Each piece of land is therefore unique and no one can increase supply in response to demand. Renting or purchasing land is essentially an auction and the price is set by the highest bidder. Economists call this a "monopoly price" because it's the same effect you would get if someone has a monopoly and can raise prices at will. This is in contrast to competitive prices which sink lower and lower until they bump up against the actual cost of getting the work done to provide that product or service.

Land value is therefore a really weird part of the economy that allows people to charge money without doing any work or providing any value in return. If we confiscate all the money people charge to rent or buy land, nothing changes because no work was ever happening. The land is still there and still just as useful. Contrast that with anything where work is actually done - the industry would collapse if you confiscate the money. Taxing land value therefore allows the government to reclaim the money which those people should not be able to charge in the first place (if there was free market competition). When this happens, counter-intuitively, land prices do not rise (because the highest bid in the auction doesn't change) and there is no negative affect on production or jobs (because no one is employed to manufacture or maintain land). We know this because economic theory predicts it and various countries have already tried it. Instead, other taxes can be cut or eliminated due to the enourmous boost in government income, which has very positive effects on the rest of the economy. Understanding how this works is deeply counter-intuitive and so people usually think that a shortage of buildings is driving property/land values because it's easy to make sense of.

To directly answer your question: if you tax the land value as set by the current market, you don't have to worry about assessing other factors that SHOULD lead to higher taxes because the people trying to buy the land have already done that. That's why they are offering a higher price. It's simple and therefore cheap and easy to administer. Also essentially immune to tax dodging because you can't hide the asset.

Fully agree. To add to this:

I initally had the assumption (no idea why) that I was supposed to spend most of my time standing if I had a standing desk. Initially I thought standing desks were not for me because I'd start to feel tired after 20-30 minutes. I've now learned that a far more effective approach for back pain and general good posture is to vary your position every 20-30 mins. i.e. got from standing to sitting, or sitting to kneeling (if your setup supports it). The more viable postures you can use, the better.

To enable this, I have invested in an Hag Capisco chair, which supports multiple postures: https://store.flokk.com/uk/en-gb/products/hag-capisco Again, I initially thought it wasn't for me until I realised how it was meant to be used. The intention is to mostly sit on it with the small of your back unsupported, like you're on a stool, but with the option to relax and lean back when you get tired. I now spend very little time in the traditional sitting posture and change regulary to sitting sideways, backwards, or even kneeling on the chair. It's not for everyone but it's made a huge positive difference for me. Places that sell these will often let you try them or hire them for a few weeks to see if you like them. I'd strongly recommend having a go.

Additionally as others have mentioned, having a standing mat is a big help. I used to find that the soles of my feet would become uncofortable quite quickly. The solution I am using now is an Aeris Muvmat https://en.aeris.de/products/aeris-muvmat-schwarz-ohne-bezug which appears to be flat, but actually has irregular hard lumps under the surface. It's designed to mimic the feeling of tree roots on a forest floor. It encourages you to keep moving your feet around without you really relaising you're doing it, effectively massaging your feet slowly, so the circulation keeps going and the soles of your feet don't get tired. Thsi has been really effective for me, so highly recommended.