In communist counties, unemployment is eliminated!

[Origanalist]

EcoWarrier





Member
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Join Date: May 2012Location: The EarthPosts: 229

Only 229?

Seems like a lot more.

[Steven Douglas]

Your absolutely false assumption is that "the tax is due", and simply because the location of the land is known. That assumption, that it's automatically due because the land exists, is your leap of logic.

You have the logic of a fea. Facts:

1. The location of land is known the inch.
2. Land CANNOT be taken to an off-shore tax haven
3. LVT payment CANNOT be "avoided". <--- reassert ad nauseam the same false non-sequitur, this time in bold
4. LVT is VERY cheap to collect <--- add an irrelevant point in an attempt to cement the false statement that went before

Your number 3 is a non-sequitur ("it does not follow"), as in, "It does not follow that LVT cannot be avoided simply because the location of land is known and fixed," which was proved conclusively with real world examples. If a tax is avoided (exempted), as can be the case with any tax, including LVT, then the payment of that tax is also avoided.

Following is an excerpt from a Geoist article pushing LVT - SOURCE

While LVT is not a silver bullet it does offer a workable approach to creating a fair, effective and sustainable source of revenue to realize New Londoners' burgeoning visions for a vibrant, re-vitalized city. With an effective LVT program in place, existing tools such as enterprise zones, abatements, grants and loans (when available) can be employed strategically to supplement an LVT program.

See that? (not you, I know you won't see it; you'll squint your eyes shut and blindly reassert the same nonsense, but others will see it)

1. enterprise zones (LVT reductions and exemptions)
2. abatements (temporary elimination of LVT)
3. grants and loans (redistribution of LVT funds)

The above are just a few of the "tools" for LVT avoidance on land that is both fixed in location and "known to the inch". But never let contradictory facts get in the way of a dogmatic assumption.

[idiom]

Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan are the frreest economic trading cetres of the world. Where the land is owned by a few and they cream off in rents for doing nothing (called unearned income), the countries underperform.

So you just ignored the entire post about Taiwan? Including this part?

2. "Land rent makes the Kuomintang (KMT), the corrupt ruling party that has been in power since Chiang Kai-shek took refuge on Formosa over fifty years ago, the richest political party in the world. Not only does the KMT own about a quarter of the island's economy legally, they also collect an enormous amount of graft. " - Jeffery J. Smith
President, Geonomy Society

Anybody who is 'creaming money off the top' is usually losing money. Renting land out is actually high risk and hard work. Its a reasonable track to wealth but it just as quickly leads to ruin. Those banks you keep citing that 'own all the land' should all have evaporated and cost their owners everything returning the land to the poor at firesale prices, except the government bailed them out. Without the government intervening 'on behalf of the community' a lot of the large landowners wouldn't exist. The speculation is good for breaking greedy landlords. Geoism just protects them as is seen in Taiwan.

[EcoWarrier]

drivel & tripe

You have the logic of a fea. Facts:

1. The location of land is known to the inch.
2. Land CANNOT be taken to an off-shore tax haven
3. LVT payment CANNOT be "avoided".
4. LVT is VERY cheap to collect

Understand the above. At least try. Get the years of political indoctrination out of your head. You have everything to gain.

[Steven Douglas]

You have the logic of a fea. Facts:

1. The location of land is known to the inch.
2. Land CANNOT be taken to an off-shore tax haven
3. LVT payment CANNOT be "avoided".
4. LVT is VERY cheap to collect

Understand the above. At least try. Get the years of political indoctrination out of your head. You have everything to gain.

Oh, well crap, now that you put it in bold and asserted it strenuously. That's better than dib-hocs-dice, tick a locket, no take-backs. That's level 192 wizardry, no argument can withstand that. Why didn't you just say it could be forcefully asserted AND bolded all by itself? That could have saved us so much time!

[EcoWarrier]

So you just ignored the entire post about Taiwan?

Did I? Find out. You even admitted you could not understnad LVT - which is simple. TRY!

Look at British right-wing Conservative Tory Mark Wadsworth's blog he puts up the arguments against LVT then slams them down he is in the hundreds now:

http://markwadsworth.blogspot.co.uk/...t-not-225.html

[EcoWarrier]

WHERE THE PROPERTY TAX SHIFT HAS WORKED: 26 CASE SUMMARIES

by Jeffery J. Smith

Usually, a "reform" of taxes fails to live up to its advance billing. Yet there is one reform, albeit little known, that has an unbroken record of customer satisfaction. For whatever accidents of history, some peoples have tried it; and wherever tried, to the degree tried, it has worked. What is this tax reform that has remained a secret to most taxpayers? It is to reduce levies on wages and enterprise while collecting natural Rent.

1, France, 1790s. Back when the noble savage and natural law and natural rights were all the rage, the in philosophy was physiocracy, the idea that economies could run best by themselves, sans state interference, and government should sustain itself off the Rent people pay for nature. In 1798, the nouveau Republic of France paid for 80% of its budget out of collected land Rent. Might this tapping into the flow of Rent, as much as any other revolutionary reform, have motivated Europe's monarchs, whose fortunes were little more than concentrations of land Rent, to attack France en masse? If the monarchies had left France in peace, might the Revolution have been less bloody? In 1807 Napoleon's government crafted a tax on the increase in land value to be levied when parcels were sold but never applied the law (probably due to war, also why England never applied its land tax law a century later). By 1830, Rent as revenue was down to 25%. In 1980, France still collected enough Rent to fund 13% of its budget, more than do many other far less successful nations. (Vincent Renaud in Lincoln Institute monograph #82-3; Land taxation and land use; Laconte, editor)

2, Denmark, 1840s. One crown prince was so convinced of the rightness of physiocracy that he impatiently overthrew his uncle, the king, in 1784. The new King Frederick then ended serfdom, proclaimed tenants' rights, and helped peasants become owners. He also proposed reforming the land tax so that its amount was geared to site value, not size (as was traditional thru-out Europe). His reform finally became law in 1844, giving Denmark the widest distribution of titles to land in Europe, a distinction the nation has held since. (Michael Silagi, American Journal of Economics & Sociology, 1994 Oct)

After the physiocrats, the best-known proponent of this tax and property reform was the American Henry George (1839-1897), author of the classic Progress and Poverty (1879). An inspiring speaker, George toured most of the US and British Empire, planting the seed of reform. He left a legacy we can measure today.

3, California, 1890s. Back then, many farmers and miners went without water because cattlemen like Henry Miller owned 1,000,000 acres of land. Miller could drive his herds from Mexico to Oregon and spend every night on his own land. In 1886 Miller won full rights to the water of the Kern River.

Some people concerned with justice figured the cattlemen had gone far enough. The state government passed the 1887 Wright Act which allowed communities to create by popular vote irrigation districts to build dams and canals and pay for them by taxing the resultant rise in land value. Once irrigated, land was too valuable to use for grazing, and the tax made it too costly for hoarding. So cattlemen sold off fields to farmers and at prices the farmers could afford.

In ten years, the Central Valley was transformed into over 7,000 independent farms. Over the next few decades, those tree-less, semi-arid plains became the "bread basket of America", one of the most productive areas on the planet. (magazine of the Historical Society of California)

4, Kiaochow, China 1900s. The German Imperial Commissioner for Kiaochow (by the Yellow Sea, also Chiaochou and now Jiaoxian) was Ludwig Wilhelm Schrameier, also a member of the German Land Reformers. Having read the works of Henry George, at the founding of the colony (about 200 square miles in Shangdong, formerly Shantung) in 1898, Schrameier established a land-value tax. At 6%, this levy prevented land speculation, collected about half the land Rent, and funded government services until the Germans lost their colony at the outbreak of World War I. Sun Yat-sen (below #10) was impressed by the results in Kiaochow whose main city, Qingdao (also Tsingtao) had modernized. (Adapted from www.progress.org by Fred Foldvary, after Michael Silagi in the American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 1984 April)

5, Australia, 1900s. While some towns Down Under were born taxing land (late 1800s), some states adopted the idea in the wee 1900s (New South Wales in 1905), and the federacy did so in 1910. In 1920 the continent's capitol (designed by a Georgist) was established on public land. Canberra owns and lets its land to residents and businesses. The biggest city, Sydney, levies only one tax - on land. Neither Sydney's tax nor Canberra's lease recovers all the land's Rent, so these cities also get revenue from the federal government. But the poorer sections of both cities bear no resemblance to the degrading slums of nearly all American cities.

Around Melbourne, some towns tax land alone. Dr. Ken Lusht, visiting from Penn State, found they have 50% more built value per acre than those that tax both land and buildings. Between 1974 and 1984 (last year the government released these statistics), coinciding with some recession years, the number of businesses in the towns taxing property decreased by 20% while in the towns taxing only land it increased by more than 10%. (Phil Anderson, Economic Indicator Services, Melbourne, Australia)

6, New Zealand, 1910s. Many settlements in "Kiwi Country" began with taxing land, peaking at 80%. Even the nation levied land. Employment averaged 99% from 1966 until 1975. When the oil shock hit, making their export goods too expensive since they had to be shipped so far by oil-burning freighters, employment dropped to a true (not fudged) 94%. Then the federal government repealed the national land tax, leaving Rent to localities, who did not always pick it up. Now about 2/3 of the jurisdictions tax land, not buildings. (Incentive Taxation)

7, Western Canada, 1910s. As they came into being, many towns of the prairie provinces decided to go with the collection of site Rent exclusively. Generally they outgrew and out-served their neighboring towns. Besides the surface, British Columbia recognized living nature as a legitimate source of public revenue, too. Royalty from forests funds much of BC's budget. (ex-BC Assessor Ted Gwartney, Incentive Taxation, '87 March)

8, England, 1910s. Impressed by George's argument but skeptical of its political chances, Ebenezer Howard began the Garden Cities. These exist on land owned by a corporation that consists of residents and investors. Letchworth, the oldest of these model towns, serves residents grandly from vaultfuls of collected land Rent. The experiment spread as far as Russia. For a while, Great Britain did pass land value taxation but could not implement it until reassessing all the land, and due to manpower constraints could not do that until World War I was over. By then, the political winds had shifted and the reform was never adopted. Between the world wars in Vienna and Budapest, Georgists also had success briefly, but an alliance of left and right quickly repealed the reform. (Michael Silagi, American Journal of Economics & Sociology, 1994 Oct) Elsewhere, Alexander Kerensky proposed taxing land in Russia and Francisco I. Madero did so in Mexico. Kerensky was thwarted by revolution, Madero by assassination. (Steve Cord, Henry George Fdn). One country did buck the trend that Howard hoped to circumvent. In Denmark in the wee 1900s, the Liberals replaced the land value tax with a conventional property tax plus an income tax. In the 1920s, Georgists reformed the property tax so that it fell more heavily on land, lighter on buildings.

9, New York City, 1920s. After World War I, many New Yorkers suffered from lack of housing. To solve the problem, Governor Al Smith borrowed a page from Henry George (who ran for mayor of New York City in 1886, finishing second ahead of Teddy Roosevelt, and again in 1897, dying four days before the election). Smith persuaded the New York legislature to pass a law allowing New York City for the next ten years to tax land but not the buildings on it.

New construction more than tripled while in other big cities it barely doubled. Not only was there more housing, and thus lower cost apartments, there were more jobs and higher wages for construction workers, and more business for merchants who sold goods to the employed workers.

Economic good times in New York came to an end, though, when owners in 1928 began to anticipate the expiration of the tax-shift law. ("How New York Solved Its Housing Crisis",Charles Johnson Post, 1931?, Schalkenbach Fdn, Mason Gaffney, 2001) Some say that the drastic decline in building starts, not the stock market crash of 1929, was the real trigger of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Other geonomists say it was the Dust Bowl, the collapse of the agrarian sector of the economy. Watching land prices inflate in the 80's, followed by farm takeovers and slowed housing starts, land-focused econometricians predicted land prices to hit bottom in about 1990, then next around 2008.

10, South America, 1930s. Some Hispanic republics continued the physiocratic tradition. In the 1840s, Argentina had a president who tried to capture ground rent for social betterment - until the army put an end to his flirtation with justice. In the 1920s, both Colombia and Uruguay passed laws letting commissions build new roads using funds collected from roadside landowners. After a few decades of success, this mechanism declined. Confusion arose when one property was near more than one road. And as the roads pushed up land values, land assessments lagged behind. With corruption and inflation, poor people could not afford to pay even the assessments lagging behind. Still, as late as the 90s, Bogota used resultant rent to pay for 80% of a new road. For the general fund, Columbia has a city land tax at 1% and a national one at 2%, and a land gains tax up to 50%, yet land is registered at 20% of its value. (Ortiz, Alexandra. Economic analysis of a land value capture system used to finance road infrastructure: the case of Bogota, Colombia; 1996, and Prest, A. P. Transport Economics in Developing Countries; Praeger, 1969)

11, Taiwan, 1940s. Old Formosa was mired in poverty and fast-breeding. Hunger afflicted the majority of people who were landless peasants. Less than 20 families monopolized the entire island. Then the Nationalist Army, led by Chiang Kai-shek, retreated to Taiwan. General Chiang figured he lost mainland China in part by not reforming land-holding. Chiang did not want to risk losing his last refuge - east of that isle lay nothing but open ocean.

A follower of Sun Yat-sen, the father of modern China and an adherent of Henry George, Chiang knew of the Single Tax. Borrowing a page from George via Sun, the new Nationalist Government of Taiwan instituted its "land to the tiller program" which taxed farm land according to its value. Soon the large plantation owners found themselves paying out about as much in taxes as they were getting back as Rent. Being a middle-man was no longer worth the bother, so they sold off their excess to farmers at prices the peasants could afford.

Working their own land with newly marketed fertilizers, new owners worked harder. They produced more, and after years of paying taxes to cover the onerous public debt, at last kept more and lived better. From 1950 to 1970 population growth dropped 40%, and hunger was ended. Taiwan began to set world records with growth rates of 10% per annum in their GDP and 20% in their industry. (Fred Harrison, Power in the Land)
12, Third World, 1950s. While British territories, Jamaica (1957-1962) and East African nations taxed land and exempted all improvements. However, as land value grew, the governments did not keep assessments in pace. Today, there's little to show for such meager taxes on land. (Dr. Mason Gaffney, UC-Riverside)

13, Denmark, 1950s. The Danes built on their land tax heritage. In 1957, the tiny Georgist Justice Party won a few seats and a role in the ruling coalition. Anticipating a higher rate on land, investors switched from real estate to real enterprise. One year later, inflation had gone from 5% to under 1%; bank interest dropped from 6.25% to 5%. By 1960, 100,000 unemployed in a country of just five million had found jobs.

Tho' many people were better off, next election landowners spent enough money to convince people otherwise. The Justice Party lost its seats, the land rate lost its boost, and investors again became land speculators. Quickly inflation climbed back up to 5% and by 1964 reached 8%. From 1960 to 1981, land prices sky-rocketed, increasing 19-fold while prices of goods and services went up merely fourfold. (Knud Tholstrup, MP, A Third Way)

14, Denmark, 1960s. In 1968, the Danish government decided to redefine taxable income. To make this bureaucratic change, they froze everyone's maximal tax liability for one year. Earners realized that all income above the previous year's amount would not be taxed. Their response, from 1968 to 1969, was to double the increase in production (4% to 8%), halve the inflation rate (8% to 3.5%), quadruple investment increases (5% to 20.5%), raise savings by a quarter (from 2.9 million kroner to 3.8), and employ nearly all workers. (Knud Tholstrup, MP, A Third Way)

15, Hawai'i, 1960s. To build up their tourist economy, the newest state in 1963 reformed their conventional property tax. In place of one rate on both land and buildings, they began to lower the rate on structures while leaving a high rate on sites (with many technical complexities yet no surcharges to protect open space). Within a few years, this property tax shift led to 30 large resort hotels in Honolulu's Waikiki Beach. Built value was up to 25% more than it would have been, concluded Richard Pollack and Donald C. Shoup in Land Economics 53, no 1 (1977), p 67-77. Opponents of Rent-sharing dragged out implementation for years, and as growth drove up site values, and no collected Rent was returned as a dividend or voucher, residents and speculators rebelled. In 1977, the legislature knuckled under and repealed this graded property tax, phasing out in two years what had taken 14 to phase in.

16, San Diego City, 1960s. When under Spanish, then Mexican control, much good land in California was "pueblo" (public). Very little of that remains today. Some of it, tho', is quite valuable. One lucrative pueblo land is the Port District of San Diego, formed in the '60s by the various towns sitting on San Diego Bay. The Port Authority collects hundreds of millions of dollars of Rent each year and is the only local government agency with a positive cash flow (SDPD Annual Report). Where does that cash flow? Not into the bank accounts of its owners - the "pueblo". The Rent collected from the Yacht Club, a social club for millionaires, is only $1.00 per annum. (The San Diego Union-Tribune)

17, Kansas City (Missouri), 1970s. KC levied one site value tax for parks and parkways (pleasant streets that wend through parks in ravines) built in the 1930s. Another was for trafficways, multilane throughways that move traffic with synchronized traffic lights built in the 1940s or 1950s. To fund boulevards (thru streets with synchronized lights that preceded the trafficways), KC levied a "front-foot" tax rate on each lot's front footage on the boulevard. This is close to a land value basis because all the boulevards are straight and in a grid pattern. When the city charter was revised in the 1950s, the site-value tax was included.

Under the leadership of Mayor Bartels, the city used straw parties in the 1950s to secretly buy up half of Platte County (then rural farmland) for an airport. The city leased sites around its new airport opened in 1972 at full market value for hotels, warehouses, an aircraft overhaul base, postal distribution center, etc - even to farmers. Outside airport land, investors bought land and built hotels. When the 1970s recession hit, all the hotels buying land went broke while the hotels renting city land survived. Able to learn, some big hotel chains survived the crash at the end of the 80s by separating the hotel real estate into REITs apart from corporate hotel operators.

In the 1980s, voters approved by referendum doubling the land tax rates. Speculators challenged the land taxes as against the state requirement for all real estate taxes to be levied on the value of land and buildings. The Missouri court (most of KC is not in Kansas but in Missouri) ruled that the land taxes were "special assessments" and not subject to the state requirements for taxes.

18, Vermont, 1970s. To thwart speculators, Vermont taxes land sales when the turnaround is under six years. Now more people, including lower income people, are buying land for farming. Conversely, fewer people, especially out-of-state investors, are buying land for speculation or sprawl-type development. (R. Lisle Baker, Suffolk U Law Schl, Boston, MA)

19, Arabia, 1970s. Thanks to the oil under desert sands, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait collect enough oil royalty that they can afford to build a modern, large-scale infrastructure without taxing their citizens. Kuwait even paid their people Heritage Shares. Formerly nomadic tribesmen moved to cities where they live more sophisticated lives. Now Kuwait pays citizens (not guest workers, about 2/3 the population) bonuses for marriage and monthly stipends for children and provides free schooling and doctoring ChrSciMnr, 2001 Apr 18). Another Muslim petrol-nation, tho' beyond the Persian Gulf, is Bahrain; like the others, it is taxless and busily building.

20, North America, 1980s. Thanks to the oil under Arctic-windswept plains, the province of Alberta, Canada, and the state of Alaska, America, have lower taxes. Alberta has no sales tax, pays part of its citizens federal income tax, part of their utility bills, a small, unvarying energy refund, and provides more free social services, such as excellent health care and university education. (Alberta Heritage Fund Annual Report) In Canada, all minerals and forests belong to the people. In America, we don't enjoy that justice. But with 12.5% of the market value of Prudhoe Bay oil, Alaska pays 80% of its state budget. It also pays a share to its citizens, about $1500 per annum (varying with the price of oil and the return on their investments).

While mineral land, such as oil fields, is an obvious source of plentiful public revenue, old-fashioned surface values also abound.

21, Georgist Colonies, 1980s. Followers of Henry George after his passing (1897) founded three country towns: Free Acres (New Jersey), Arden (Delaware), and Fairhope (Alabama). As trusts they leased land, collecting Rent for public goods. Compared to other towns in their counties, they are cleaner, enjoy more services at lower costs (parks, libraries, and schools) and make decisions in town hall meetings. Fairhope, whose Quakers resettled in Monte Verde, Costa Rica to avoid the draft and taxes of the Korean War, was one of only four towns on the Gulf of Mexico recommended in the 80s for retirement by Consumers' Guide.

22, The "Four Tigers", 1980s. Hong Kong, often voted the world's best city for business, exists on crown land, funding 4/5 of their budget with 2/5 of site Rent (Yu-Hung Hong, Landlines, 1999 March, Lincoln Inst., Cambridge, MA). Hong Kong also uses land rent to fund their new metro. Singapore, founded on Georgist tax principles, now taxes land at 16%. Taiwan (above) also taxes land. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, an admirer of Henry George, forced the Japanese provisional government to write land reform into their new democratic constitution that limited Rent paid by tenants to owners. South Korea adopted a similar Rent reform.

A World Bank study credited land reform with creating the basis for their economic miracles. To develop successfully, economies must build on a healthy base of secure farmers who can afford to consume manufactured goods. Such markets can attract investment and modernize without too much outside aid (altho' Taiwan did receive a billion dollars from the US, mostly military aid, spread out over eight years). Soon they become independent industrial powers and trading partners with other developed nations.

Today, to try to control their skyrocketing location values, both Japan and Korea have tried to tax land, tho' still minuscully. In many of the United States, the land tax is unconstitutional. When the Single Tax movement was at its peak and a threat to absentee landlords, they lobbied legislators to require the taxing of location and improvement together. Many states, such as California, succumbed to the pressure. In other states, such as New York, localities may levy separate rates only with permission from the legislature.

23, Pennsylvania, 1980s. Penn's Woods is the only state granting cities outright the option to levy different rates. The state went from two cities in 1975 (Pittsburgh and Scranton), to 16 in 1996 who practiced this reform. All these cities, sited in the midst of impoverished Appalachia, are developing 16% more per year than their neighbors (Dr. Nic Tideman, VPI, Blacksburg, VA), and growing denser, meaning they can provide public services like mass transit at lower cost.

Pittsburgh renewed its urban core without substantial federal subsidy and created an urban park out of its most prime location, the Golden Triangle, without an agonizing citizens effort to overcome developer resistance. Housing costs and crime rate, like a small town's, are far below the national average. Rand-McNally named the Steel City "America's Most Livable City" twice, in 1985 and 1986.

24, Mexicali, BC, Mexico, 1990s. Seeking funds for new and better infrastructure, the mayor of Mexicali, Baja California, Milton Castellanos Gout, on the advice of a graduate from the U of California - Berkeley (Sergio Flores Pena), jettisoned the entire conventional property tax and replaced it with a land tax. For a few years, bureaucrats opposed updating the cadastre, yet subsequent civic administrations continued to modernize official land values. Revenue went from under three million pesos in 1988 from the property tax to over 63 million in 1998 from the land tax. This rapid rise was accompanied by no complaints from landowners. It must be better to own serviced land that is taxed than unserved land that is tax-free. In 1995, Mexicali drew 15.3% of its revenue from its land tax while others cities in BC drew only 8.4% from their property tax, and other cities around the country averaged only 10.3%. Hence the Mexicali land tax has been adopted by other cities in BC and in the neighboring state of BC Sur. (Lincoln Inst's Land Lines, 1999 Sep)

25, Ethiopia, 1990s. Around the outskirts of the capital, Addis Ababa, shanty towns sprung up on land that had been used to feed the city, pushing out farmers on to land that had lain fallow for centuries. The longer trek to central markets raised the price of food there. So the Regional Government, against the advice of the IMF, adopted a tax on land values and parcel size. The tax on structures inside city limits was drastically reduced. The Economics Section of the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington, DC reports greater occupancy and refurbishing of older structures in the city. (Henry George Fdn, Columbia, MD)

26, Estonia, 1990s. After the break up of the Soviet Union, each newly separate republic had to find its own way of raising revenue. Estonia, across the gulf from Finland, found the tax for farmland. Because neither land nor its value can be hidden, it was the most feasible way for the new government to raise funds. Collecting from farmowners was vastly more successful than trying to collect from others, succeeding over 95% of the time. The low rate of 2%, which even governmental owners of public land had to pay, was still enough to spur efficient use of land. (The Economist, 1998 Feb 28)

These 26 case summaries of real-world successes suggest that the number should grow. Society could secure everyone's earning while sharing Earth's worth. Which society will be next to prove the merit of geonomics?

Copyright 1990, 1999-2001 by Jeffery J. Smith. All rights reserved.

[Tudo]

I lived full time in a communist country for several years and never heard of this.

[EcoWarrier]

I lived full time in a communist country for several years and never heard of this.

What haven't you heard of?

[idiom]

Did I? Find out. You even admitted you could not understnad LVT - which is simple. TRY!

Look at British right-wing Conservative Tory Mark Wadsworth's blog he puts up the arguments against LVT then slams them down he is in the hundreds now:

http://markwadsworth.blogspot.co.uk/...t-not-225.html

Yeah, you haven't replied to it at all. In fact once you do I will then happily pull apart your 26 case studies.

Although those case studies are by Jeffrey Smith, whose own writing provides pretty solid rebuttal of his own thesis.

Unless, perhaps, you think Massive environmental damage, seizure of tribal lands and enabling the most corrupt government on the planet are *good* outcomes of LVT?

I really can't wait for the next 25 summaries. I man most of them voluntarily abandoned their strategies... and the others are paradises like Ethiopia

The part of LVT I can't understand is why it still has any proponents at all.

[Steven Douglas]

The part of LVT I can't understand is why it still has any proponents at all.

That's because you don't know any economics. Once you know some economics (viewed just so), it's like, :::: lightbulb! :::: , then you're like, "Whoahhhh!", and EcoWarrier will be like, "See?", and you'll be like, "No friggin' way, get out!", after which you will don LVT tights, a flowing cape, with a Big G on your chest, as you wonder how people can be so stupid as to refuse to see how simple and perfect it is for truth, justice and the LVT way.

[Gumba of Liberty]

The LVT is a bad idea. Who will enforce such a tax? Obviously some government bureaucracy that will corrupt it to the point where they take property from widows and the disabled. Imagine, seriously imagine, being a true land owner and not having to pay anything to anyone. You would be a king, within the bounds of natural law, and you would have the ultimate freedom to live your life and provide for your family. You would have your own realm, you could make your own flag, have your own family customs and traditions, and really live the way you want, such a novel concept in a "free country". If you wanted to, you could work the land and live modestly, in the spirit of Henry David Thoreau. If you had that type of freedom through land ownership, land would increase in value overnight and people would tend to their land the way they tend to their children. They would have a deep connection to it. Land owners would ensure that their land stays enriched, arable, and beautiful for their posterity and we would move closer to a truly sustainable world. The poor of the world, the renters, would also have inexpensive places to live. Homelessness would evaporate and the world would be a better place. Taxation is theft. The only tax I could see tolerating in a free country is a uniform tariff of under 10%. At least until we transition to a completely voluntary society. I firmly believe that humanity will get there, unless we light the nukes and end the show early.

[EcoWarrier]

The part of LVT I can't understand is why it still has any proponents at all.

You freely admitted you never understood LVT. It is best to understand it rather than castigate something you know nothing of, as it makes you look a fool.

[EcoWarrier]

That's because you don't know any economics. Once you know some economics (viewed just so), it's like, :::: lightbulb! :::: , then you're like, "Whoahhhh!", and EcoWarrier will be like, "See?", and you'll be like, "No friggin' way, get out!", after which you will don LVT tights, a flowing cape, with a Big G on your chest, as you wonder how people can be so stupid as to refuse to see how simple and perfect it is for truth, justice and the LVT way.

That is amazing. I thought you were not capable of learning. Keep it up. ten out of ten.

[Origanalist]

That's because you don't know any economics. Once you know some economics (viewed just so), it's like, :::: lightbulb! :::: , then you're like, "Whoahhhh!", and EcoWarrier will be like, "See?", and you'll be like, "No friggin' way, get out!", after which you will don LVT tights, a flowing cape, with a Big G on your chest, as you wonder how people can be so stupid as to refuse to see how simple and perfect it is for truth, justice and the LVT way.

Dude, that is like soooo right on!!! I frigging love my LVT tights!

[EcoWarrier]

For those confused, and there are many, read the first few pages of this thread.

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...urce=hovercard

[EcoWarrier]

The LVT is a bad idea. Who will enforce such a tax? Obviously some government bureaucracy that will corrupt it to the point where they take property from widows and the disabled.

Oh No!!! He is dragged out of the cupboard the old widow Bogey, as Winston Churchill called it. How funny! Scraping the barrel.

Imagine, seriously imagine, being a true land owner and not having to pay anything to anyone. You would be a king, within the bounds of natural law, and you would have the ultimate freedom to live your life and provide for your family. You would have your own realm, you could make your own flag, have your own family customs and traditions, and really live the way you want, such a novel concept in a "free country". If you wanted to, you could work the land and live modestly, in the spirit of Henry David Thoreau. If you had that type of freedom through land ownership, land would increase in value overnight

More misconception. Landowners DO NOT create the value of the land they own. The value is created by others, "the community". Who creates those land values and who should benefit from them? The state-protected monopolist, the landowners, or 'society in general', as they created them? Seeing as people's contribution to [rising] land values is broadly proportional to the value of their output (which is slashed by Income Tax, Sales tax, Property tax, etc), a fair way of allocating the revenues from taxes on land values would be to reduce taxes on output (production i.e. Income Taxes). which will encourage enterprise.

Tell me who creates land values? Is it the person who happens to 'own' each individual plot from time to time, or 'society in general' - including those who don't happen to own land? Society in general creates the values in land.

Land owners would ensure that their land stays enriched, arable, and beautiful for their posterity and we would move closer to a truly sustainable world.

Arable land is always in demand. Nature made it arable with climate water, minerals, etc - NOT the landowner. The "value" of the land is because other covert that land, so are prepared to pay for it. The produce from that land is what makes it valuable, the landowners makes profit on his toil to produce food and rightly so. But it is clear he DID NOT make the value in the land. Others did that collectively.

Taxation is theft.

Bang on!!! Income tax takes away the fruits of a man labor. Sales taxes penalize trade. LVT is NOT a tax it reclaims community created wealth for community purposes.

1. Socialized wealth is used for social puposes.
2. Private wealth stays private - and not stolen by the state.

Geoism is very simple. A massive success wherever it is implemented.

[Steven Douglas]

Landowners DO NOT create the value of the land they own. The value is created by others, "the community".

"Value Creation" is one of the Big LVT Geo-communist lies; the idea that "value creation", which is always established between limited numbers of specific competing parties, can be attributed wholesale to some Nebulous Collective called "community", which LVT proponents want treated as a primary, monopolistic, and perpetual party of interest.

The idea that landowners "do not create" the "value" of the land they own is absolute half-baked bull$#@! -- a big stinky red herring, and false on its face. Anyone with the most basic grasp of economics knows that market value is established ("created") as a function of voluntary cooperative exchanges between willing buyers and sellers, BOTH sides of which contribute to (CREATE) the ongoing, ever-fluctuating market value of any thing, including land. The reason the Geo-communist take on it is a big fat stinky LVT red herring (emphasis on red) is that this market dynamic for value creation exists regardless whether it is the state or private party that is behaving as landlord (the ultimate party of primary and ongoing financial interest).

Even if a taxing jurisdiction behaves as the ultimate landlord, under moonbat color of "LVT community", collecting land rents from everyone, the actual market value will still be "created" by parties of interest known as buyers and sellers. The fact that the LVT Commune(ity) moonbats have managed to slip the state in under it all, like a Mafia Don demanding tribute from everyone on its turf, doesn't change that. So much for the bull$#@! assertion that landowners do nothing to "create" value.

1) There is no such thing as a "community", let alone one that "creates value".
2) The state is not, nor should it ever behave as, a for-profit entity; that means no collecting perpetual rents "just because" on infrastructure.

Tell me who creates land values?

Anyone with half an economic brain knows that in a free market, market values for ANYTHING are ultimately created by buyers and sellers. Economics 101 -- any school.

The "value" of the land is because other covert that land, so are prepared to pay for it.

The word is "covet". Collectivists are the ultimate coveters, and coveting is not a valid reason for a collectivist state to step in and make perpetual renters out of everyone. The "coveters" may all want it, but it only the BUYERS who are actually prepared to pay for it. And it is only when these SPECIFIC BUYERS couple together in voluntary exchange with SPECIFIC SELLERS, that VALUE IS CREATED. By those market participants - not the "community".

But it is clear he DID NOT make the value in the land. Others did that collectively.

Sorry, Geo-communist, you're wrong, but that's because you don't know any economics.

LVT is NOT a tax it reclaims community created wealth for community purposes.

Sorry, Earth Socialist, that's utter poppycock. I want to say "and you know it", but I'll give you credit for being a true believer.

And, btw, I'm not saying all this with the thought of convincing anyone with glassed-over LVT eyes, or even attempting to debate it with them. I know that's not possible, given the dogmatic religious overtones coming from LVT zealots whose minds are locked in their own circular world, with their own convoluted but ultimately circular logic. Rather it's for the benefit of anyone else reading.

:::: BUZZZZZZ! :::: Thanks for playing!

[EcoWarrier]

The idea that landowners "do not create" the "value" of the land they own is absolute half-baked bull$#@!

Your knowledege of economics is lttle more than NIL. Land values are created by the community NOT the landowner. Economic fact. LVT reclaims that socially created wealth for social purposes, leaving the indivdual's wealth alone.

To say apolitical LVT, which is just a tax shift, is Communism shows that you are not very bright at all and displaying a high level of political indoctrination. Get it sorted. You may need professianal help.

Martin Wolf, Chief economist of the Finanacial Times....

"The essential point is quite simple: the value of resources [inc land] is created by the economic activity of other factors of production."

[EcoWarrier]

LVT (Site Revenue) is not an arbitrary impost made by an authority like any common tax. It is reclaiming by society the free market value of a privilege society has granted to a holder of a land site monopoly - a site which has been enriched and made valuable by society.

Occupation of a land site may take the form of freehold, leasehold, pastoral lease or even a mere license.

But Sites may be on land, under land in resource extraction, on water, on the sea bed, in the air or wavelengths.

[EcoWarrier]

"but it is nevertheless true, that it is the value of the improvement, only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property.

Every proprietor, therefore, of cultivated lands, owes to the community a ground-rent (for I know of no better term to express the idea) for the land which he holds".
- Thomas Paine.

Geonomics has Land Value Tax as its core. Where land and its resources are taxed.
Land is:

1. the lakes,
2. in the land (ores, oil, etc),
3. rivers,
4. seabed,
5. sea indoe the limit,
6. air
7. electromagnetic spectrum

– all the above COMMONWEALTH. Nature made these, not men.
Also Geonomics implements Pigovian taxes such as, alcohol, tobacco, congestion charges.

Revenue for common services are reclaimed from economic growth created by commonly created wealth. The best way to fund common services – by commonly created wealth. Obvious.

Geonomics reduces, or eliminates
1. Income Tax (a tax on production),
2. Sales Tax (a tax on trade),

leaving private wealth in private hands.

1. Socialized wealth is socialized
2. Private wealth stays privatized.

This promotes enterprise, as enterprise is not penalized.

As a briliant off-shoot...

Land speculation was the root cause of the 1929 and 2008 crashes. Geonomics prevents land speculation and busts and booms, stabilizing the economy. LVT is self regulating as the free-market determines the value of land. Land cannot be taken off-shore and dodged. LVT is cheap tro collect.

[idiom]

If you need land to create value and the community is creating the value in the land, where is the community getting the value from?


I am starting to understand why LVT is happy with seizing land from indigenous tribes people. They don't add any value to the land they have been living on for centuries. The true value of the lives and culture of the indigenous peoples comes from the governing community.

Surely any subsistence dweller or Crusoe hypothetical can find and create value from natures resources without any input from the government?

Jeffrey Smith states that LVT has been extremely good at transferring wealth from workers to the governing classes.


If the community is creating all the value then why do we need land-workers at all? Why don't we all sit back and let nature pay us the dividends from the value we are creating by being an unproductive community.

Clearly you are defining the community as unproductive, because, by your own definition, all productive people must own and consume resources in their productivity.

[EcoWarrier]

If you need land to create value and the community is creating the value in the land, where is the community getting the value from?

A House. Split into two parts. The CAPITAL (the bricks) and the LAND. The Capital depreciates over time, the Land appreciates. Think hard about why?

Land values are created by Community created economic growth that soaks into the land and crystallizes as land values. That is where the land values come from. They do not come from the sky or the fact you may have painted your window frames (the frames are Capital). The landowner DID NOT created the land values, the community did. This is economic fact not opinion.

Once the above is understood the rest is easier. Currently, the landowner keeps the gains created by the community - freeloading. Reclaiming this community created economic growth to pay for community services makes lots of sense.

Community growth pays for community services - MAKES LOTS OF SENSE.
Community services are NOT paid for by private wealth, that stays private by having no Income tax - MAKES LOTS OF SENSE.

LVT does not seize land from indigenous tribes people. It is a TAX SHIFT. It leaves land ownership and business alone - all the same. If land is worth zero then you pay zero LVT.

The government does not create land values - the free-market does.

LVT does not siphon money to the government from workers. It pushes government back. Only landowners pay LVT using the Single Tax for personal applications.

[Danan]

Land values are created by Community created economic growth that soaks into the land and crystallizes as land values. That is where the land values come from. They do not come from the sky or the fact you may have painted your window frames (the frames are Capital). The landowner DID NOT created the land values, the community did. This is economic fact not opinion.

Why is it important who "created the value"?

That's like taking the Obama position "If you're rich you didn't make that on your own!" - So what?

Yeah it's true, if I own a factory, I couldn't earn anything without people who are willing to buy my products. I couldn't create anything without roads, energy and suppliers. And it's possible that I only own the stocks but never entered the factory myself. All the wealth creation happened because my workers transformed the raw materials to end-products. Does that mean that the workers are entitled to their share of the profits? Does that mean that the community that provided roads, and energy supply should get a piece of the pie?

Obviously the answer to both questions is, "Hell, no!" Who created the wealth doesn't count at all. That's an entirely irrelevant question. And that's the primary flaw in the Marxist world view. That's were the disproven Capital Theory of Labor originates from.

The owner of the factory is entitled to all the profits because of his ownership. That's it. It has nothing to do with all the other factors regarding "value creation". Obviously a bigger, more advanced and more open society enhances overall value. But not only for land but for everything else too. That doesn't mean that everybody has a right to profit from other's property though.

You can own land like every other property by having a better claim than everybody else. Since we don't like to kill each other permanently we developed mutually accepted institutions who decide for us peacefully which person has the best claim if there is a disagreement. Everything else originates from full ownership (which you don't really believe in, in the case of land).

[idiom]

LVT does not seize land from indigenous tribes people. It is a TAX SHIFT. It leaves land ownership and business alone - all the same. If land is worth zero then you pay zero LVT.

Every example I have examined of LVT being implemented has been invariably associated with massive seizures of indigenous people lands shortly afterwards for the good of the community.

What possible moral grounds could you have to roll into a country, declare yourself a 'community' and that you are soaking value into the land around you thus giving you the right to relocate natives wherever you wish???

You claim that complaining about how a government treats those who cannot defend themselves is "scraping the bottom of the barrel". I think that rather it is the first test a system of governance or taxation or tax-shiftation should be examined with.

[Steven Douglas]

What possible moral grounds could you have to roll into a country, declare yourself a 'community' and that you are soaking value into the land around you thus giving you the right to relocate natives wherever you wish???

Easy, when you consider the utterly socialist mechanics underpinnings, wherein everyone who holds land exclusively is presumed to be depriving everyone else of their "natural liberty rights", and for which there must be "just compensation" (whatever the $#@! that means). In Kiaochow, China, everyone who was displaced from their homes and lands were "justly compensated" (read=paid the lowest frozen prices possible before being kicked completely the $#@! out).

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~geost...gdaocolony.pdf
Shaken, Not Stirred: Segregated Colonial Space and
Radical Alterity during the First Phase of German
Colonialism in Kiaochow, 1897–1904

In the words of a German newspaper published in China at the time of the annexation, the Chinese were “driven out” of old Qingdao.

• One of the first interventions by Admiral Diederichs was to forbid all land sales in the leasehold without his approval. Proclamations to this effect in Chinese were posted in the villages.

• Diederichs pressured county officials into giving him copies of the tax books, which he used, along with consulting local experts, to determine who owned each plot of land in the leased territory.

• Anyone who owned land the Germans thought they would need for their construction plans was forced to sell at prices determined by the Chinese cadastral surveys.

The navy administration purchased enough land for the city and harbor, approximately two thousand hectares, or 3.6 percent of the entire area of
Kiaochow. After drawing up an initial plan for Qingdao, the government held an auction in October 1898 to sell plots of land in the city that were not going to be used for official construction. According to one German businessman who participated in the public sale of land, it was “full of excitement” and “prices were driven up to three dollars the square meter.”

The extant Chinese village was razed and its inhabitants dispossessed, and a new colonial city arose in its place. The Qingdao master plan disregarded the previous location of streets and buildings almost entirely.

A “tent village” of workers that had sprung up near the site of the future Dabaodao district was dismantled, and even the dirt beneath the settlement was removed, since it was thought to be contaminated.

Other nearby neighborhoods and villages that disturbed the planning of colonial urban space were “put to rest” (niedergelegt), in the revealing words of one of the navy’s surveyors in 1900, describing the village of Yangjiacun (just beyond Taidongzhen) which had grown rapidly as a settlement of people displaced from upper Qingdao.

• Diederichs also convinced thousands of villagers to sign “right of preemption” (Vorkaufsfrecht) agreements in exchange for payments equal to twice the amount of their annual taxes. This money was then deducted from the sales price if and when the German government decided to buy the land.

• When some villagers tried to charge “unreasonable” prices for their land, the government issued a decree authorizing expropriation of land through purchase (Schrecker 1971, p. 67; Schrameier 1914, pp. 2–10)

Yeah, you could call the gated LVT community of Kiaochow, China a screaming economic success...so long as you're a hive-minded collectivist who thinks in aggregate terms only, and provided you are endowed with a sociopathic disregard toward the individuals whose lives were ruined along the way.

[Len Larson]

Large scale speculation (in land or anything else) is everywhere a symptom of cronyism. Proponents of LVT fail to recognize the complicity of the govt., thus the proposed solution is more govt. LOL.

Why don't we try more freedom instead?

BTW, it's laughable to suggest that Churchill fought against the English Landholders. He was, after all, a part of the system that secured their privileges.

[EcoWarrier]

Why is it important who "created the value"?

Because who created it, it is theirs. The value belongs to the community. With LVT thyey reclaim that value to pay for community services and leave people's private wealth in income (the fruits of their labors) alone.

The profits of a factory are that of the owners. He made them. He never made the value in the land under the factory. The community made that.

Get it?

[EcoWarrier]

Every example I have examined of LVT being implemented has been invariably associated with massive seizures of indigenous people lands shortly afterwards for the good of the community.

You should stop making things up. Again NO siezure of land. A tax on the value of the land only.

[EcoWarrier]

Large scale speculation (in land or anything else) is everywhere a symptom of cronyism. Proponents of LVT fail to recognize the complicity of the govt., thus the proposed solution is more govt.

LVT makes less government. It rolls it back LVT leaves us alone not pestered by Income and Sales tax men. It reduces red tape in tax. It gives us more freedom. It stops booms & busts and crashes. It gives economic stability.

BTW, it's laughable to suggest that Churchill fought against the English Landholders. He was, after all, a part of the system that secured their privileges.

Look up People's Budget 1909. Churchill vehemently fought the landowers. He wanted LVT introduced. They set up the offices to do it but WW1 came along. It was being used to great success in Germany's Chinese colony, but WW1 came along.