The Single Tax - Land Value Tax (LVT)

[Roy L]

What kind of nonsensical non sequitur strawman combo was that? I wrote, "Buying from yourself is absolute gibberish, and meaningless in economic terms...", which was in response to you stating that what an owner possesses is consider "supply" (to the market) because it is available TO HIMSELF. That's absolute rubbish to begin with, but then you come out with a reference to new, unsold cars (which actually are available -- to the market) while claiming that I'm pretending they are not?

Your "argument" is that because until land is sold, it has no price (which is true), and supply is only defined at a price, therefore land that has not been sold recently is not part of supply. That is fallacious nonsense, because supply is defined as the amount that would be available at a given price IF THAT WERE THE PRICE, i.e., IF the item were selling for that amount. The example of unsold new cars is exactly parallel.

My statement was in reference to your claim that 100% of the total quantity in an owner's possession counts as "available to the market" or "supply", and by virtue of the fact, according to you, that it's available to HIMSELF. You came back with the point that he hasn't agreed on a price...with himself?

<sigh> You claim that absence of a price implies absence of supply. That is nonsense, because supply is defined as the amount available at a given price IF IT WERE TO TRADE AT THAT PRICE.

Why, that's true! That doesn't mean he has nothing! I don't know why you wrote that, or how you thought it was relevant in any way, but that is correct. He likely "has something".

And that is the available supply, even though there is not going to be any transaction or price, because supply is defined for a given price IF THAT WERE THE PRICE.

Which total? The grand aggregate total, the total area within a given subclass, or the total parcels within a divisible area within that subclass?

The total amount. Artificial subclasses are just arbitrary divisions, as are parcels. What is set apart in one class or parcel simply ceases to be part of another class or parcel. The total supply is unchanged.

Because as you just freely admitted, the total of a subclass is not fixed. Likewise with parcels of land within a given subclass under the current landownership regime. It doesn't matter whether you are talking about a subclass or parcels within a subclass -- land is DIVISIBLE.

So is gold. So? Does that mean cutting all the bars in half doubles the supply? Wheee! We can have an infinite supply of gold just by continuing to subdivide it!

Fallacious, absurd and dishonest nonsense.

And because it is divisible, and because landowners have FULL control over which quantity of those divisible units are offered for sale (supplied) at a given price, the total quantity available to the market is NEVER fixed.

As explained above, it couldn't matter less whether they have "FULL control" (they don't) or not.

This is going to kill you, I know, but this is the way it works, Roy:

Not all owners are sellers, just as not everything that is owned is for sale. (part of the supply available to the market)

This is going to kill you, I know, but this is the way it works, Steven:

Supply is not the amount for sale. It is the amount that would be available to the market at a given price IF THAT WERE THE PRICE. That is why anything that exists and will continue to exist at any price is automatically part of supply.

An owner has full power at all times decide what quantity of his own possessions to make available to the market. It is only the quantity he has made available to the market for which he is considered a "seller". Selling is a subclass of Owning. Everything that is for sale is assumed to be owned, but not everything that is owned is presumed to be for sale.

It is if it is presumed to have a price.

I know that may well be a source of ulcers for you, Roy, even to the point where you can't accept it at all, but not everything is counted as supply available to the market simple because it exists and is in someone else's possession.

Yes, it is, because that is how supply is DEFINED.

Owners have full rights, full powers, to choose what is or is not available to the market. Some things really are "priceless".

Especially you...

Again, stop spouting your own words and trying to pass it off as economics. You are no authority on economics here. If you have something authoritative that show otherwise, produce your source. Your gibberish alone won't cut it, regardless how much conviction of belief you convey.

Steven, the definition of supply has already been posted. You just ignore it and give every evidence of not understanding it.

Even though you quote Henry George a lot,

Lie. What I quote a lot is a letter written by someone else, which George merely reprinted in one of his books. Other than that letter, I think you will search in vain for quotations from Henry George's works in my posts.

your particular brand of Georgism is a splinter "protestant" faction.

No. Christianity has splinter factions based on different interpretations of the Bible and Christ's life, but they all accept the Biblical account of Christ's life and teachings, His divinity, etc. My differences with Georgism are explicitly intended as fundamental amendments to and improvements on George's ideas, not mere matters of interpretation. I am not a splinter faction Georgist any more than Christians are splinter faction Jews, or Muslims splinter faction Christians.

In order for there to be a "supply" available of any thing that is already owned there must first be a "seller". Not just an owner. An actual seller.

Wrong. See the definition of supply. You are Not Clear on the Concept.

Not everything that is owned has a seller, because not everything owned has been made available for sale by the RIGHTFUL OWNER, who cannot therefore be accurately referred to as the "seller" of that thing. You can test the opposite proposition (i.e., that everything is for sale, it's only a matter of price) by making offers. The moment you find a single thing that is truly priceless - not for sale AT ANY PRICE, the entire proposition is FALSIFIED. Not axiomatic, not universal, and not necessarily true of all things.

Even if that were true (it isn't) it is irrelevant to supply.

Your presumption, therefore, that everything in existence that is owned is necessarily part of the supply available to the market -- is absolute economics gibberish. A disputable opinion of subjective fiction.

It follows logically from the definition of supply.

On the other hand, here is an indisputable fact of objective reality - Since you never responded:

<sigh> Hurlburt's key statement:

"The supply price is the seller's minimum asking price."

SUPPLY DOES NOT VARY WITH SELLER'S MINIMUM ASKING PRICE.

The number of tracts or acres which are offered for sale (actual supply, or quantity made available at a given price) do in fact vary with the price of land.

No, they don't. Certainly a higher price for land may stimulate subdivision, but that does not increase area (see the gold example, above, and try to understand it). Land prices have risen 1000-fold over the last century, and the number of acres available to the market is just the same.

That's not a vertical supply curve, Roy.

Yes, it is.

That particular QUANTITY SUPPLIED at any given time, which supply does indeed vary according to price, is NOT FIXED. Vary the price, vary the quantity supplied. Out there. In the real world.

Please present your evidence that the 1000-fold increase in land prices over the last century has resulted in more land being offered for sale. Please present your evidence that the 50% or even greater decline in land prices over the last five years in some US markets has been accompanied by a decline in amount of land offered for sale.

Thought not.

Refute that - and not with your own geogibberish. Show me your sources.

Show me where your sources provide EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE that amount of land offered for sale is directly related to price.

Thought not.

Steven, this is not as complicated as you are trying to make it. If an acre of land sells for $1K, no more of that land will come on the market if it sells for $10K (or $100K or $1M), because the rising price just reflects how much people want it, SELLERS AS WELL AS BUYERS. If an ounce of gold sells for $10K, by contrast, gold producers will produce a lot more of it than if it sells for $1K, because they are PRODUCING gold, not just swapping all the same gold around at higher and higher prices as landowners are doing with land.

You just need to find a willingness to know that fact.

[Steven Douglas]

Those changes are irrelevant to the point of the argument. This whole pointless bunch of nonsense resulted from your response to Roy's claim:

A single profit-maximizing landowner would behave no differently than a million profit-maximizing owners, because the landowner cannot affect supply.

The claim remains true, and none of this digression changes that.

I guess you weren't paying attention at all then, which is why you missed the entire point of the exercise, and the proof provided for why that assertion is completely untrue, based on both reality and the economic definitions of supply and quantity supplied.

Here, hopefully this will make it easier for you to get your head around:



Note (and this is crucial) how the seller is always the owner, but the owner is not always a seller.

EACH owner has sole discretion, sole control over the quantities he is willing to make available to the market at a given price (the very definition of supply). Furthermore, the owner is under absolutely no requirement whatsoever to make ANY of the quantities in his possession available to the market AT ANY PRICE. If he has not made a thing available to the market for a price, then he is not consider the SELLER of that thing. That is what full control over both the supply and the quantity supplied means, and why that quantity is anything but fixed.

The sources of your common misapprehension:

• The total quantity owned in existence is not, nor has it ever been, the economic definition of "supply", nor does that have anything to do with the economic definition of supply or quantity supplied. No assertion or insistence on either of your parts will change that. The more common definitions or meanings of supply are not interchangeable with the economic definitions. In economics, ONLY the owners control supply (which is concisely defined), just as ONLY the potential buyers control demand (also well defined).
• Not every good or service is considered supplied simply because it exists. Again, that is not the definition of supply, nor is it simply a matter of price. It is first a matter of whether or not a good or service is even made available for exchange at any price.

This goes to the core of why a million profit-maximizing owners do indeed (TODAY - IN REALITY) behave very differently, as each one has full control over his units (quantity, area) of supply, whether or not to make ANY of available to the market at all, and if so, at what price they are each willing to make a given quantity available.

[Steven Douglas]

You claim that absence of a price implies absence of supply. That is nonsense, because supply is defined as the amount available at a given price IF IT WERE TO TRADE AT THAT PRICE.

Bogus nonsense. That's your ad hoc addition in an attempt to change an established definition. Only the owner decides what to place, as a seller (even as a what-if), onto a supply curve. There is no requirement that everything (or anything at all for that matter) be placed on that curve. That quantity is fully controlled by the owners.

The supply curve deals with all prices possible for GIVEN QUANTITIES, not all quantities (let alone all quantities in existence). Only those quantities an owner chooses to place on the chart as a seller of those specific quantities can count as supply, and ONLY those quantities at a specific price.

Your "argument" is that because until land is sold, it has no price (which is true), and supply is only defined at a price, therefore land that has not been sold recently is not part of supply.

No, that is not my argument at all. That is your premises morphed into a strawman argument. My argument is that unless and until an owner indicates a willingness to sell a thing at all (not "sold", just made available - no sale required) price is irrelevant and that particular quantity cannot be counted as part of the supply.

There are three requirements for supply:

1) Willingness to sell
2) A given quantity at
3) A specific price

Take any one of these away, and you are no longer talking about market supply. Once these three requirements are satisfied and a given quantity of supply exists for a specific price, that supply can sit forever without a sale. It will still be counted as supply so long as there remains a 1) willingness to sell 2) a given quantity at 3) a specific price. However, the owner can change any one or more of these variables: A given quantity can change for the same specific price; an entire quantity at one price can shift upward or downward to a new price; the willingness to sell a given quantity can be removed entirely from ALL PRICES (i.e., a given quantity is taken off the market).

Once a thing is sold (Bid=Ask-->TRANSACTION) that thing is INSTANTLY no longer counted as part of the supply UNLESS AND UNTIL the new owner, which now has FULL CONTROL over that thing, satisfies all three requirements, beginning with a willingness to sell, followed by a given quantity at a specific price, thus making it once again a part of the market supply.

[MattintheCrown]

I guess you weren't paying attention at all then, which is why you missed the entire point of the exercise, and the proof provided for why that assertion is completely untrue, based on both reality and the economic definitions of supply and quantity supplied.

Here, hopefully this will make it easier for you to get your head around:



Note (and this is crucial) how the seller is always the owner, but the owner is not always a seller.

EACH owner has sole discretion, sole control over the quantities he is willing to make available to the market at a given price (the very definition of supply). Furthermore, the owner is under absolutely no requirement whatsoever to make ANY of the quantities in his possession available to the market AT ANY PRICE. If he has not made a thing available to the market for a price, then he is not consider the SELLER of that thing. That is what full control over both the supply and the quantity supplied means, and why that quantity is anything but fixed.

The sources of your common misapprehension:

• The total quantity owned in existence is not, nor has it ever been, the economic definition of "supply", nor does that have anything to do with the economic definition of supply or quantity supplied. No assertion or insistence on either of your parts will change that. The more common definitions or meanings of supply are not interchangeable with the economic definitions. In economics, ONLY the owners control supply (which is concisely defined), just as ONLY the potential buyers control demand (also well defined).
• Not every good or service is considered supplied simply because it exists. Again, that is not the definition of supply, nor is it simply a matter of price. It is first a matter of whether or not a good or service is even made available for exchange at any price.

This goes to the core of why a million profit-maximizing owners do indeed (TODAY - IN REALITY) behave very differently, as each one has full control over his units (quantity, area) of supply, whether or not to make ANY of available to the market at all, and if so, at what price they are each willing to make a given quantity available.

Nope. It remains true that "a single profit-maximizing landowner would behave no differently than a million profit-maximizing owners, because the landowner cannot affect supply."

[Icymudpuppy]

LVT would cripple farmers.

The best crop land typically develops cities around it. As the cities develop, they encroach on the farms. The farmer who refuses to see his back 40 to the urban developer because it is the best productive soil around is taxed out of it via LVT. Thus, the Kent valley SW of Seattle, the best farmland in WA state was paved over.

[MattintheCrown]

LVT would cripple farmers.

The best crop land typically develops cities around it. As the cities develop, they encroach on the farms. The farmer who refuses to see his back 40 to the urban developer because it is the best productive soil around is taxed out of it via LVT. Thus, the Kent valley SW of Seattle, the best farmland in WA state was paved over.

Actually, it's the current situation, where land is not taxed at a high rate, that results in sprawl: as current city owners refuse to sell, anticipating higher prices in the future, people have to seek land elsewhere: at the edge of town. Not taxing land at a high rates causes sprawl, LVT prevents it.

[Steven Douglas]

Nope. It remains true that "a single profit-maximizing landowner would behave no differently than a million profit-maximizing owners, because the landowner cannot affect supply."

And once again you substituted your own completely irrelevant and meaningless definition of supply - as you think of "supply" as the total quantity in existence rather than its actual well-established concise meaning -- knee-jerk, like a bad habit, and without a moment of second thought.

OK, OK, I'll clean up after your mess. Again.

It remains true that a single profit-maximizing landowner would behave differently than a million profit-maximizing owners, because while the landowner cannot affect the aggregate total fixed land area in existence, each landowner has full and complete control over his supply, otherwise defined as the quantity of area (tracts, acres, etc.,) he is willing to make available or not to the market at a given price."

[MattintheCrown]

And once again you substituted your own completely irrelevant and meaningless definition of supply - as you think of "supply" as the total quantity in existence rather than its actual well-established concise meaning -- knee-jerk, like a bad habit, and without a moment of second thought.

OK, OK, I'll clean up after your mess. Again.

It remains true that a single profit-maximizing landowner would behave differently than a million profit-maximizing owners, because while the landowner cannot affect the aggregate total fixed land area in existence, each landowner has full and complete control over his supply, otherwise defined as the quantity of area (tracts, acres, etc.,) he is willing to make available or not to the market at a given price."

Even if your definition of supply were correct, which it is not, your additions make no difference to the point. All you've done is wasted everyone's time for several pages/days.

Edit: which was, of course, your goal, as you can't make any meaningful argument against LVT.

[Steven Douglas]

Even if your definition of supply were correct, which it is not...

Well, I'm the only one that provided actual authoritative sources and arguments, which you denied, dismissed and poo-poo'ed, but didn't actually refute or provide any sources or authoritative definitions of your own.

All you've done is wasted everyone's time for several pages/days.

Edit: which was, of course, your goal, as you can't make any meaningful argument against LVT.

Pretty much thoroughly destroyed a major part of its pseudo-economics underpinnings, actually. Time well spent, I thought.

[MattintheCrown]

Well, I'm the only one that provided actual authoritative sources and arguments, which you denied, dismissed and poo-poo'ed, but didn't actually refute or provide any sources or authoritative definitions of your own.

No you didn't. You googled until you found a discussion of something specific and irrelevant.

Pretty much thoroughly destroyed a major part of its pseudo-economics underpinnings, actually. Time well spent, I thought.

Except it obviously didn't, because the fact remains. Which is kinda the point. Duh.