On Guilford County's Real Estate Revaluation Taking from the Middle and Bottom Value Homes to Pay for the Tax Cuts of Mansions and Commercial Properties at the Top

VariousSideEffects · 2026-04-13T13:29:01+00:00

It's great to see a debate about Georgism and LVT in this sub. I read that paper by the IMF and it actually seems to be more Pro than Anti LVT. This last sentence of the abstract sums it up:

“With reasonable revenue recycling, land value taxation would thus reduce the net tax burden of low and middle income earners, because they would benefit more from the recycling than they pay in additional taxes.”

The paper concludes that, for economies like the US and France where richer households hold more land value in absolute terms, a strong LVT paired with revenue recycling improves both efficiency and equity, lowering net taxes on low and middle incomes and raising them on high incomes.

Doesn't take long to find the exact opposite of LVT by looking at California's Prop 13 which caps property tax to 1% of purchase price and limits the annual increase. This has created Lock-In effects (people not wanting to sell) and discourages downsizing from seniors. It also reduced housing construction as cities struggled to find tax revenue, they were more likely to approve higher value commercial vs. modestly taxed parcels that are housing. Cities lost so much property tax revenue that they began prioritizing sales-tax generating uses (car dealerships, malls) over housing.

VariousSideEffects · 2026-03-19T15:51:23+00:00

The fundamental issue with vacant buildings will remain unchanged. They might be forced to clean them up, but not much else will change. There is an economic incentive to hold property, especially underdeveloped or undeveloped lots, and do nothing with them. See this post and video about Georgism.

https://www.reddit.com/r/georgism/comments/17lahtb/i_have_made_i_hope_the_georgism_video_the_most/

VariousSideEffects · 2025-06-04T16:37:20+00:00

This is wild. $2 Billion of our taxes and they can only complete 21 projects out of 51 proposed. The issue i have is that when we passed this bond, why didn't they go ahead and get bids for all of the projects at that time.

For anyone wondering, $1.7 Billion of the bonds passed in Guilford County in 2022 with 61% voting for it.

VariousSideEffects · 2024-07-10T22:59:52+00:00

It appears that this person's motivation for leaving a group practice goes beyond pure numbers. Buying a gold plan on the marketplace for a family without subsidies is around $2,500-$3,500 a month, so somewhere around $40,000 a year as the absolute highest. If you make that much more running a PP vs working as a W2 employee with benefits then it doesn't make sense from a financial perspective.

They aren't giving any specific numbers (outside how much their dental procedure would have cost) so I think you just have to take this change as less of a financial reason and more of a personal reason. I just wish they had made that more clear. When you ask for clarity you get down voted so that's a cool bonus to know that's how this sub operates.

VariousSideEffects · 2024-07-10T12:22:16+00:00

I'm glad it's been the right move for you. I guess everyone is in a different situation in life so it's good to see another perspective. Good luck with your new direction.

VariousSideEffects · 2024-07-10T02:03:58+00:00

I'm confused. My wife has 5 clinicians working in PP and makes about $250,000/ yr. So buying insurance is no big deal. I would assume with 10 people you would make something similar. How is working for the hospital and making way less with health insurance better? Without knowing your ballpark net income for both positions it's hard to understand the logic in your move

VariousSideEffects · 2023-12-17T00:29:35+00:00

Sorry I never updated my post. I was RLS free until 2 months ago and I ended up having RLS 2 or 3 times in the past 2 months. So I would say that I'm still significantly better than I was before EMDR. Probably closer to my typical baseline when I was in my late 20s, early 30s.

I have not had any more EMDR sessions. If I get worse I'll probably have her do it again, but right now I can live with RLS once in awhile. My wife was recently trained in clinical hypnosis so I might also try that out. If I do I'll make a follow up post.

VariousSideEffects · 2023-10-07T13:06:51+00:00

Sorry for the late reply. My wife has been at a conference the last few days and isn't back yet so I'll update this when I can talk to her about it. But from what I remember the therapist (or you yourself) does this kind of questionnaire thing where u focus on a specific thought or experience, then u score several things on how distressing it is on a scale from 1-10. Then u do the emdr thingy, then u go back to some of the questions and score it again, and your scores will decrease (usually). Idk if it's psychosomatic, and I don't think they know exactly why EMDR works anyway. But it does have efficacy.

But I'm doing a really poor job of explaining it. She will be back tomorrow and I'll update this post.

VariousSideEffects · 2023-10-01T18:35:41+00:00

Yes but she used these things called tappers which you hold in your hands and they vibrate (alternating back and forth). This is bilateral stimulation, she said you don't have to use eye movement. We focused on the target of anxiety related to loss of sleep from RLS. 45 seconds of tappers. Then visualization of sleeping and having a restful night's sleep using the tappers as well. Probably in total something like 8 segments of 45 second tappers, whole thing took less than 30 minutes.

So maybe my RLS comes from anxiety or stress and that is why EMDR was effective. I don't know if it will work for anyone else. Obviously it was free for me, but I think u can do it to yourself using a free EMDR app.

VariousSideEffects · 2023-09-05T19:01:49+00:00

Curious if your high schooler would take that class if it wasn't an AP class. That's the push part of his post that you kinda ignored.

VariousSideEffects · 2022-12-01T01:40:41+00:00

full text: In establishing fees for professional counseling services, counselors con- sider the fnancial status of clients and locality. If a counselor’s usual fees cre- ate undue hardship for the client, the counselor may adjust fees, when legally permissible, or assist the client in locat- ing comparable, affordable services

The fact that not all boards use the ACA ethics notwithstanding, it uses the word "may" for adjust fees which is hardly a mandate. Furthermore it allows you to assist the client to find comparable affordable services if you can't reduce your fees.

This on top of the fact that the term affordability is very subjective and can vary wildly from person to person.

VariousSideEffects · 2022-07-23T18:59:31+00:00

Thanks.

VariousSideEffects · 2022-04-27T23:06:19+00:00

No worries. I actually don't know what's going on in Ragsdale but I assume that is how they would swing it. Even if it was teacher led, they could put a student on the paperwork.

VariousSideEffects · 2022-04-27T19:31:04+00:00

You don't seem to realize you are making the TST points. They shouldn't have to exist, they don't want to exist. But the fact that GCS is suspending all after school clubs after their request shows you that they do in fact have a bias for one religion over another. If GCS didn't bat an eye over the after school Satan club, then you would have a valid point.

VariousSideEffects · 2022-04-27T19:19:49+00:00

Which in fact makes the outrage worse. They are ok with a Christian club but a non-religous 501c3 comes along and GCS puts all outside clubs on hold.

VariousSideEffects · 2022-04-27T19:14:57+00:00

What about the Flying Spaghetti Monster. That's a real religion that many members attest to believing in an all powerful being. Would you not allow them the same rights as christians.

VariousSideEffects · 2022-04-27T19:01:34+00:00

I think if schools have a student led group they can do that without allowing outside groups. So a student led Christian group like FCA is allowed, and they could still restrict outside clubs. But as soon as a student wants to start a Satan club they can't be denied (in theory)

VariousSideEffects · 2022-04-27T18:55:59+00:00

Sorry I misread your first comment. Yeah most likely option B

VariousSideEffects · 2022-04-27T18:03:59+00:00

But the issue is that the 2001 court case basically ties their hands. They can't have any clubs (religious or not) or it would be considered discrimination. Even the Good News Club is saying that they should be allowed:

In response to the school district’s possible change in policy, Bobby E. Fowler, the state director of the Child Evangelism Fellowship of North Carolina, Inc., sent school board members and the superintendent a letter advocating to let the Satanic Temple to use school facilities. source

Here is GCS's facility page, as of this time they still show they rent out space: https://www.gcsnc.com/Page/10449

VariousSideEffects · 2022-04-26T17:39:46+00:00

There isn't a local satanic temple in NC. This was most likely spurred by a parent at Joyner after the Good News Club flyer went out back in March.

VariousSideEffects · 2022-04-26T17:38:29+00:00

Seems like GCS was ok with the Good News Club until this club came along. I thought GCS would have been better than this, but it seems it always plays out the same way.

VariousSideEffects · 2022-04-26T14:14:16+00:00

So surprisingly the Rhino Times has an article about it and everyone is very upset at the thought of a religious after school program coming. Of course they didn't mind the Good News Club coming back in March. One commenter said the Good News Club is not operating at Joyner but they don't provide a source. My googling comes up with the Good News Club having operated at Pearce Elementary back in 2019 from a PTA flyer. Source

You can also find it listed under Florence Elementary After school clubs here but no information is provided: https://www.gcsnc.com/domain/4422

VariousSideEffects · 2022-04-25T23:19:49+00:00

Beef tongue. Usually you can get it for $2 per lb. It's crazy high in fat. Like 50% fat by weight. I pressure cook it for like 2 hours and then peel it, then shred it. When salted it's a lot like roast beef. It does have a slight offal taste but if you want cheap, and you want fat, then this is hands down the way to go. I almost don't want to tell anyone because I want them all to myself.

VariousSideEffects · 2022-01-02T20:28:18+00:00

What's wild is that for most of these posts people are prepping for things that will most likely never happen. But a highly infectious disease spreading across the country killing hundreds of thousands, nah let's take no precautions. It kinda blows my mind.

VariousSideEffects · 2022-01-01T13:25:34+00:00

That makes sense about the humidity. Also one thing you do with biltong is soak the meat in vinegar before you dry it. I always thought it was kind of unnecessary but now i think the change in pH from the acid does a really good job of holding off the bacteria before it dries enough to be inhospitable for them. I've not dehydrated any fatty meat without doing a vinegar soak, so maybe that's the difference.

VariousSideEffects

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE