What we’re reading (6/9)
“Is There A Housing Bubble?” (Vox). “There aren’t enough homes to meet the demand for would-be homeowners, and there aren’t enough homes to meet the demand for renters. The US needs to build enough housing to support the number of people who need a place to live. And to do that, it needs to change local zoning laws that seek to prop up current homeowners’ investments by preventing more dense housing from being built. If it doesn’t, prices will continue to rise.”
“Why We Can't Have Cheap Houses” (Axios). “The holy grail of affordable new housing will realistically always require government subsidy...[o]bstacles to new construction are invariably deliberate, placed there by existing residents in an attempt to maximize their own property values. When all building codes are local, it's impossible to confront them in a formulaic and centralized manner.”
“The Secret IRS Files: Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax” (ProPublica). “In 2007, Jeff Bezos, then a multibillionaire and now the world’s richest man, did not pay a penny in federal income taxes. He achieved the feat again in 2011. In 2018, Tesla founder Elon Musk, the second-richest person in the world, also paid no federal income taxes. Michael Bloomberg managed to do the same in recent years. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn did it twice. George Soros paid no federal income tax three years in a row.”
“US Authorities Are Investigating The ‘Illegal’ Leak Of Billionaires’ Tax Information, Including Data On Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, And Warren Buffett” (Business Insider). “The US government is investigating how some of the wealthiest Americans, including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, had their tax information published online. Nonprofit news site ProPublica published a report on Tuesday showing how much the 25 richest Americans — including Bezos, Musk, Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg — paid in tax.”
“AMC’s Hertz Sequel Far More Successful Than The Original, Spawns Sequel Of Its Own” (Dealbreaker). “When Hertz shares skyrocketed for no particular reason then known to investing man, it struck upon the not-at-all-unreasonable idea of selling a whole bunch of additional shares. If people were willing to snap up shares of a company mired in pandemic and bankruptcy regardless of what had previously been known as “fundamentals,” why should Hertz itself not benefit from the frenzy? The answer to that question turned out to be, ‘because the SEC says no.’ […] Unlike its predecessor meme stocks, AMC Entertainment has neither shown reticence, nor had it imposed upon it.”
