In communist counties, unemployment is eliminated!

[idiom]

All those casino owners would up and move at the same time? Please get real.

The video poses exactly that hypothetical in order to make its argument. I lifted the wording directly from the video.

You are refuting your own video.

Without infrastructure and people there are no land values.

The casinos are the infrastructure. Where would the roads lead? Who would pay license fees to drive on them? Who would the Hoover Dam sell power too?

The casinos make the infrastructure valuable.

Without the casinos Las Vegas would be an economic hole. It would rapidly become a ghost town and no amount of levying land taxes would give the people jobs.

Look at any small town with a big employer to see the effect of that employer leaving. By your argument the prosperity of the town should go up when the employer leaves, because they are no longer stealing all the value in the land for themselves, they are just leaving it there for the community.

[EcoWarrier]

The video poses exactly that hypothetical in order to make its argument. I lifted the wording directly from the video.

The video is explaining simply to the likes of you how land values came about. It is to educate you.

The casinos are NOT the infrastructure. Find out what infrastrucrtures is. Look at the video again.

Gambling is the industry of Vegas, as cars is to Detroit. The commuity, via their reps, made the laws that encouraged the gambing industry, as other laws encouraged the car industry elsewhere.

Without the car industry Detroit would be an economic hole.

[EcoWarrier]

Johannesburg, South Africa has no tax on buildings. The entire property tax is on land. Mason Gaffney, a highly respected land economist and Professor of Economics at UC Riverside, visited Johannesburg. This is what he said about it.

"The miracle of Johannesburg: Jo-burg is a Bootstrap City. It should have died when its gold mines played out, like a proper mining boomtown; instead it remains as the economic capital of its nation and half a continent."Johannesburg defies most laws of urban economics, e.g. that mines create no great cities. Explainers still site the mines, but its mines have played out; it should now be a ghost town. It has no harbor, no water transportation, nor even any gravity water supply. It is, in fact, on a ridge top, the Rand or "reef," at an elevation of 5,000 ft. Unlike Chicago or Boston, it has no sunburst of rail lines, except perhaps what it has attracted itself. It is "on the main rail line," Explainers say, but so are 1000 miles of other sites. The natural site lacks outstanding amenities, and certainly can't hold a candle to Cape Town. Jo-burg has no governmental economic base. Surrounding farmland is poor.

Why Johannesburg? Why is it the largest city, the center of finance, industry, commerce, and international air travel? As a public finance economist I may overvalue incentive taxation, but Jo-burg has it. The property tax is on site value only, and at a high rate: they tell me it is 4%. This is what makes Jo-burg distinctive. Challenge and response: Jo-burg had to do something right in order to survive, and that is what it did. It not only survived, it became and remains Number One. Give me a better explanation and I'll back off. I haven't heard one yet."

Unhappily, the ANC forced Jo-Burg, against its will, to drop taxation on land values (1918 to 1996). The city is now mired in disinvestment and unemployment. Similar situations occurred in Pittsburgh (Land Value Tax (LVT) dropped in 1990), NYC (LVT was dropped in the late 1930s) and declined until WW2 brought full employment.

However these examples do show the stark difference of the before and after. But the detractors will no doubt blame the transition from apartite and the world slumps (2008 and the 1930s) but not the real reason for the decline - the removal of LVT.

Mason's observations are spot on. Jo-Burg is in a God forsaken part of South Africa and had no right to be the economic super-city for all Southern Africa below the equator. Nothing was going for it at all. It comes across as an artificial creation I suppose like Brasilia. Mason hit the nail on the head in defining the success of this anomaly. Land Value Tax (LVT) can makes cities prosper where they have no right to.

[idiom]

Johannesburg, South Africa has no tax on buildings. The entire property tax is on land. Mason Gaffney, a highly respected land economist and Professor of Economics at UC Riverside, visited Johannesburg. This is what he said about it.

"The miracle of Johannesburg: Jo-burg is a Bootstrap City. It should have died when its gold mines played out, like a proper mining boomtown; instead it remains as the economic capital of its nation and half a continent."Johannesburg defies most laws of urban economics, e.g. that mines create no great cities. Explainers still site the mines, but its mines have played out; it should now be a ghost town. It has no harbor, no water transportation, nor even any gravity water supply. It is, in fact, on a ridge top, the Rand or "reef," at an elevation of 5,000 ft. Unlike Chicago or Boston, it has no sunburst of rail lines, except perhaps what it has attracted itself. It is "on the main rail line," Explainers say, but so are 1000 miles of other sites. The natural site lacks outstanding amenities, and certainly can't hold a candle to Cape Town. Jo-burg has no governmental economic base. Surrounding farmland is poor.

Why Johannesburg? Why is it the largest city, the center of finance, industry, commerce, and international air travel? As a public finance economist I may overvalue incentive taxation, but Jo-burg has it. The property tax is on site value only, and at a high rate: they tell me it is 4%. This is what makes Jo-burg distinctive. Challenge and response: Jo-burg had to do something right in order to survive, and that is what it did. It not only survived, it became and remains Number One. Give me a better explanation and I'll back off. I haven't heard one yet."

Unhappily, the ANC forced Jo-Burg, against its will, to drop taxation on land values (1918 to 1996). The city is now mired in disinvestment and unemployment. Similar situations occurred in Pittsburgh (Land Value Tax (LVT) dropped in 1990), NYC (LVT was dropped in the late 1930s) and declined until WW2 brought full employment.

However these examples do show the stark difference of the before and after. But the detractors will no doubt blame the transition from apartite and the world slumps (2008 and the 1930s) but not the real reason for the decline - the removal of LVT.

Mason's observations are spot on. Jo-Burg is in a God forsaken part of South Africa and had no right to be the economic super-city for all Southern Africa below the equator. Nothing was going for it at all. It comes across as an artificial creation I suppose like Brasilia. Mason hit the nail on the head in defining the success of this anomaly. Land Value Tax (LVT) can makes cities prosper where they have no right to.

So,

- No natural resources
- Little Infrastructure
- Little Government economic activity

Yet it was successful. Tell me again why Jo-burg owed so much of its success to 'the community'?

Oh..... Low taxes. So the 'community' not placing a burden on business is what did it?

Lets set up two identical towns 100km apart, one with 80% LVT and one with 1% LVT. Do you propose that the businesses will all migrate to the town with higher LVT?

[idiom]

Without the car industry Detroit would be an economic hole.

But, without the car industry they could just implement LVT right? The people and the infrastructure are still there... they could just mine all the value crystals.

[EcoWarrier]

So,

- No natural resources
- Little Infrastructure
- Little Government economic activity

Pay attention at the back! Jo'burg has lots of infrastructure now. Government & private economic activity.

Lets set up two identical towns 100km apart, one with 80% LVT and one with 1% LVT. Do you propose that the businesses will all migrate to the town with higher LVT?

Yes. The LVT keeps down or eliminates corporation and income taxes - as in Hong Kong, which is a major world economic player.

[idiom]

Pay attention at the back! Jo'burg has lots of infrastructure now. Government & private economic activity.

The infrastructure arrived after the successful economic activity. Ergo the infrastructure owes its existence to the economic activity, not the other way around.

Yes. The LVT keeps down or eliminates corporation and income taxes - as in Hong Kong, which a world economic player.

Hong Kong is 85% services, nearly all production has moved China to escape LVT. It makes it a huge bubble economy so it feels recessions more than it should. LVT taxes land and resources... Services like finance end up with very very low taxes.

You don't seem to understand terms like identical.

With no other taxes at all, Town A has an LVT of 4% and Town B has an LVT of 80%. Caeteris paribus, which town grows faster?

You answered Town B before. At what point does LVT stop enhancing growth? 200%? 500%?

[EcoWarrier]

Companies and people are attracted to Hong Kong because of the low corporation and income taxes that taxing land brought about.

[Steven Douglas]

Companies and people are attracted to Hong Kong because of the low corporation and income taxes that taxing land brought about.

Yes, and also for the view of the Hong Kong Harbor, especially at night, after the moon comes out and pushes the sun down into the ocean and drags all the stars around. That's when dogs bark loudest, what with being wagged by their tails and all.

[EcoWarrier]

The irrationality of the system right now is that we have masses of Capital and masses of unemployed Labor side by side in a world which is full of social need. How stupid is that?

Capital is looking to reestablish the basis for the extraction of surpluses - the profit level. The irrational way they are going about it, is suppressing Labor and suppressing the circulation of Capital.

Two questions arise:

1. How do we get all this Capital & equipment and Labor together to meets the dire obvious needs?
2. How do we prevent the situation from occurring in the first place?

The answer is ...Geonomics. Based on using the common wealth created by land and its resources.