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Thread: What do you think of Land Value Tax (LVT)

  1. #1231
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    Market value IS the high bid that can be obtained for an item, as I already proved to you.
    You made a baseless assertion, Roy, which proved nothing.

    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    "Your" land CAN and WOULD trade for that amount, Steven, whether you like it or not. If you have a legal judgment against you that you cannot pay, "your" land CAN and WOULD be seized and sold for that amount, sorry. If you are hit by a bus and your heirs decide to sell it, it CAN and WOULD be sold for that amount, whether you like it or not, sorry. And that is what its market value MEANS.
    See? No landowner rights. Only "privilege", which I do not support. The land that you live on is subject to seizure and the occupants subject to eviction under this regime and yours. Even tax and bankruptcy courts shield someone from being stripped of their bare essentials. Nobody can seize your only source of transportation, or liquidate the tools you need to survive, or food from your cupboards. That's all generally protected. But not land. In a perfect world, you can get a judgment against you, with a lien on part of your income, but your primary land upon which you must live to earn a living would be protected. Because it is an inalienable right, not a privilege.

    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    I agree that government unilaterally removed the rights of the landless -- who are now consequently poor -- for the unearned profit of landowners. Explain for me again why that theft and enslavement was right, and should be continued, and the rights of the landless poor never restored.
    What do you care? You are not in favor of even allowing the poor to own land (as a matter of right, not privilege - completely rent free.)

    The "rights of the landless" are remedied by a right to land. Not some goofy-stupid "liberty right" machination that promises "exemptions" and lower rents to the poor for sub-standard land usage.

    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    where rats can chase one another off and burden one another with higher rents by merely placing a new "floor value" on their living space that increases their rents.
    The only way they can do that is by PAYING those higher rents to the community -- including to the very people they are "chasing off." Hello?
    Yes, and in so PAYING they can EVICT poor people who cannot afford to compete with that BID. Thanks for the oppression, Roy! You just picked the richer, by however much, as the winner in every case. The poor are left with only a "naturally liberty right" to pay, or else VACATE and find poorer conditions that they can afford.

    As an apologist for landowner privilege...
    Proponent of landowner rights, Roy. Not privilege. Rights. Inalienable rights to each and every living individual.

    You are the apologist for privilege, Roy, where NOBODY occupies land as a matter of right. There is always a richer bidder out there who is artificially empowered to raise a floor - to outbid you on your "occupational privilege", who has a "naturally liberty right" to EVICT YOU if you cannot compete.

    That is you, Roy. I am the ONLY one who proposes equal, universal, free, secure land tenure rights for all resident citizens. FREE OF CHARGE. Free of rent-by-any-other-name. Not you, Roy. Me only.

    The poor could only live rent free, and have an actual, perpetual RIGHT of occupancy under my proposal. Not yours. That SHOULD make you ill.

    My solution, as I have stated to you explicitly, is to provide free, secure tenure on enough land to live on for every resident citizen, and to recover the additional publicly created land value from those who want forcibly to exclude others from more of the good land than their own equal share.
    Baloney. Your solution falls apart the moment "additional publicly created land value" comes into play, and deliberately EXCLUDES occupancy by the poor of any "good land".

    There are no rightful rent-seekers, public or private. Only land thieves. That includes you.

    You want to continue to remove the fundamental human rights of the working poor -- their rights to life and liberty -- and sign their rights over to the idle, greedy, privileged, parasitic landowning rich.
    No, I want to take away the only thing that separates the poor from landowners, public and private. I want to make them landowners with RIGHTS to that ownership. That is the ONLY way to protect them from EVER having to "sign their rights over" to idle, greedy, privileged, parasitic landowning rich - public or private.

    HK is not an LVT regime, and my position is that rent should NOT be charged on use of land up to the uniform, universal exempt amount.
    Screw your "exempt amount". If it is suddenly found that an otherwise poor land occupier is on property that suddenly became valued to the point where it exceeds your "exempt amount", she can be forced to pay more, or else EVICTED. Furthermore, it opens the door to a scenario where the "exempt" amount becomes nothing more than a discount on rents paid, as none actually cover land enough to live on.

    Screw your artificial exemptions. An absolute right of ownership, and not occupancy privilege, would be the ultimate exemption, and protection from the value-seeking, rent-seeking covetous masses, both public and private. She should be able to tell all of you to kiss her ass, and take your rent-seeking tentacles elsewhere.

    You know I have stated explicitly that no rent should be charged for secure, exclusive use of good land up to the equal, universal exempt amount sufficient to live on.
    Yes, and you also put government in a position to decide what "good land" and "sufficient to live on" means. You still have your eminent domain genie out of the bottle. You want exemptions from privilege/usage license. I want a right that is not subject to privilege or license. Big difference, as mine actually acknowledges and protects a Right of Ownership.

    Not when it is paid for occupying more -- much more -- than your share, thus unjustly depriving others of their liberty to access and benefit by what government, the community and nature provide. It doesn't matter if Crusoe is "domestically occupying" the whole island. Friday has RIGHTS to life and liberty, and Crusoe must therefore either yield an equal portion of the island to Friday for his own domestic occupation, or make just compensation for forcibly depriving him of it.
    I have NEVER claimed that Crusoe OR Caesar had a right of massive ownership. You rail against Crusoe but argued the benefits of an emperor's ownership. Not me. I say NEITHER. I specifically stated that if Warren Buffet or Bill Gates wanted to go buy up a whole state, that government should step in and force a breakup and sale. NOT because he is denying any strange "naturally liberty right" to anyone who would "otherwise be at liberty" to occupy or use land, but because it precludes landownership by everyone who has a Right to Own land of their own.

    So no, Roy, I don't care whether it is Warren Buffet or the Bureau of Land Management - if either are in a position to block land ownership by massive sequestration of any kind, I am against it.

    There can be no freedom from rent while land is privately owned.
    Oh yes there is. To the landowners. They are free. Turn all renters into landowners, and you have freedom from rent. Why would anyone want to rent from ANYONE else if they have property of their own? Why would anyone give two figs about some mindless "Rent Exemption", when an actual inalienable right of ownership to individuals renders that completely unnecessary?
    Last edited by Steven Douglas; 12-15-2011 at 05:43 PM.



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  3. #1232
    Quote Originally Posted by heavenlyboy34 View Post
    We're just having fun with the troll Roy.
    You know what the (latest) truly hilarious thing is? Roy L. and Steven Douglas could actually come to an agreement very very easily... their positions are really within a hair's breadth of each other. All it would take would be the tiniest bit of diplomacy, forbearance, and creative conflict-resolution by Roy. Their positions are completely reconcilable. Roy wants an citizen's exemption below a minimum total value of land, and really that's all Steven wants, too. They'd both be happy to LVT the land barons, foreigners, and big corporations.

    So while Roy is busy screaming about the outrageous and physically-sickening evil of an agreeable and intelligent man who, for all practical purposes, completely agrees with him, he is at the same time now quite chummy with... me! All I had to do is preface every paragraph with a reverie to his rightness and greatness, and then continue making the same sort of arguments I have been making all along (a bit more subtlely, of course). Voila! All of a sudden I am an Ally and a Saint in Roy's Pantheon.

    Really, all Roy wants is to be told over and over that he's right. He ultimately seems like a very sad and bitter person, and in thinking about that, this is actually pretty sad to me. I don't see any need for him to be so sad. Even if he advocates LVT, that's no reason to be so sad. So I, for one, will keep cheering him up by being his Convert to the Truth and telling him he is right.

    Roy, my friend, you are the rightest of the right! Keep lightin' it up with the LVT Truth! Right On!
    Last edited by helmuth_hubener; 12-16-2011 at 12:24 AM.



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  5. #1233
    Quote Originally Posted by helmuth_hubener View Post
    You know what the (latest) truly hilarious thing is? Roy L. and Steven Douglas could actually come to an agreement very very easily... their positions are really within a hair's bredth of each other. All it would take would be the tiniest bit of diplomacy, forbearance, and creative conflict-resolution by Roy. Their positions are completely reconcilable. Roy wants an citizen's exemption below a minimum total value of land, and really that's all Steven wants, too. They'd both be happy to LVT the land barons, foreigners, and big corporations.
    It's true!

    Roy wants an occupancy privilege exemption that is tied to land value, I want an actual right of ownership tied to nothing but the land area, as a matter of right, regardless of value. That means Citizen homeowners can always trade up, but can never be traded down, squeezed, forced out, or required to compete with anyone of lesser status, or part of the land commerce rat race.

    And you're also right - land barons, foreigners and big corporations can be taxed or otherwise LVT'ed out of existence for all I care. That's what Congress is there for, as far as I'm concerned, and whatever voids are left by those actions can be filled easily enough.
    Last edited by Steven Douglas; 12-16-2011 at 01:05 AM.

  6. #1234
    By the way, everyone in this thread: it is December 16th, Tea Party Day, and I would like to ask if you all could please make a donation. Yes, you too Roy. I speak for everyone when I say we will all forgive everything and +rep you if you will donate $100 to Ron Paul.

    FOR LIBERTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  7. #1235
    Quote Originally Posted by helmuth_hubener View Post
    You know what the (latest) truly hilarious thing is? Roy L. and Steven Douglas could actually come to an agreement very very easily... their positions are really within a hair's breadth of each other. All it would take would be the tiniest bit of diplomacy, forbearance, and creative conflict-resolution by Roy. Their positions are completely reconcilable. Roy wants an citizen's exemption below a minimum total value of land, and really that's all Steven wants, too.
    We'll see if Steven agrees with you. I don't see it.
    So while Roy is busy screaming about the outrageous and physically-sickening evil of an agreeable and intelligent man who, for all practical purposes, completely agrees with him, he is at the same time now quite chummy with... me! All I had to do is preface every paragraph with a reverie to his rightness and greatness, and then continue making the same sort of arguments I have been making all along (a bit more subtlely, of course). Voila! All of a sudden I am an Ally and a Saint in Roy's Pantheon.
    Oh, don't lie. I demolished you. You just didn't make as many absurd and dishonest claims as usual.
    I don't see any need for him to be so sad. Even if he advocates LVT, that's no reason to be so sad.
    15 million annual murders and the needless impoverishment of all humanity for thousands of years would be some of the reasons. Some people can ignore continual and frequently repeated Holocausts. I can't.
    Roy, my friend, you are the rightest of the right! Keep lightin' it up with the LVT Truth! Right On!
    "Of all man's burdens, this is the bitterest: to have much knowledge, and no power." -- Herodotus

    The weight and bitterness of that burden is my constant companion.

  8. #1236
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven Douglas View Post
    Roy wants an occupancy privilege exemption that is tied to land value,
    The liberty to use land, and thus the compensation for abstaining from its exercise, is a right, not a privilege.
    I want an actual right of ownership tied to nothing but the land area, as a matter of right, regardless of value.
    How on earth do you imagine that could possibly work? What would people do when they wanted to move? I don't think you have thought this through very thoroughly.
    That means Citizen homeowners can always trade up, but can never be traded down, squeezed, forced out, or required to compete with anyone of lesser status, or part of the land commerce rat race.
    Competition is part of liberty and the free market. Having a right to liberty means being free to compete, and that includes with people who might not want to compete. If I understand your proposal accurately, it would function a bit like the old village commons, but each person or family would have permanent ownership of a small plot of land instead of a permanent right to use shares of a much bigger plot. The problem is that such a system has no mechanism for moving the resource into more productive hands, and consequently results in inefficiency, lower productivity, and general poverty. My system assures the less productive access to opportunity, but does not enable them to deprive the more productive of opportunity.

  9. #1237
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    The liberty to use land, and thus the compensation for abstaining from its exercise, is a right, not a privilege.
    According to American Jurisprudence, "the power to tax is the power to destroy." Loan Association v Topeka, 87 US 655, 663 (1875). Taxes are of privileges, so if it can be taxed, it is not a right, but a privilege.

    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    How on earth do you imagine that could possibly work? What would people do when they wanted to move? I don't think you have thought this through very thoroughly.
    I have thought it out, actually. It goes to the heart of value floors (BIDS) governing the privileged (under your plan, at least, where a highest bidder can take over occupancy by the use of government force) and value ceilings (ASKS) governing those with rights.

    When a free and natural Citizen landowner wants to move, they are the only ones entitled, as a matter of right, to decide whether or not they are even willing to sell, and the only ones who have final say over the price they would be willing to accept. Their inalienable rights are not tied into any notions of "economy-wide" productivity or anything else. They really can be a big fly in the ointment if they want. That's their right - one that foreigners, land barons, Walmart, Microsoft, et al simply do not enjoy. If crazy old coot Granny says she's not selling her shack or moving to make way for a skyscraper, that is the end of it. Build around her. Beg her. Plead with her. Offer her a fortune. After exhausting all means of enticement to sell, if she says no, that really is the end of it. Too bad. Adapt and plow around her - without interfering with her rights.

    Not true of privileged entities (under your plan, which I wouldn't have a problem with if it ONLY applied to privileged entities) which would be required to keep pace with the BIDS only, and for making LVT payments as a requirement in order to continue to own land, but only on legislated conditions, and only as a matter of taxed privilege.

    Competition is part of liberty and the free market. Having a right to liberty means being free to compete, and that includes with people who might not want to compete.
    Oh yeah? I firmly agree with your first sentence, but your second sentence, if I understood it correctly, did not describe a free market at all, but rather a compulsory market.

    Those who actually place their goods and services on the free market do not have a right to "freedom from competition". If that is what you meant, then I wholeheartedly agree, because I am anti-protectionist to the core. However, under a free market, you are as free to place things on the market as you are to remove them from the market. Spending and/or saving, goods and/or services. The demand side of the market, generally speaking (e.g., assuming I have no monopoly) is not entitled to a supply side, or vice versa.

    The goods in your house or stockpiled in your garage are not part of the "free market" if you are not selling them. As such, they are not "on the market". They have no competition, just as they are no competition.

    A "free market" is not a compulsory market. The existence of goods does not make a market. The existence of "goods for sale" does.

    If I understand your proposal accurately, it would function a bit like the old village commons, but each person or family would have permanent ownership of a small plot of land instead of a permanent right to use shares of a much bigger plot. The problem is that such a system has no mechanism for moving the resource into more productive hands, and consequently results in inefficiency, lower productivity, and general poverty.
    Oh, there is a mechanism, because they can always decide to sell - it's just not fool-proof or guaranteed mechanism. Nor should it be in the case of actual rights. I can ask someone to be quiet, and not to voice their opinion in the moment as a courtesy, and they might do just that. Failing that, however, their right to free speech completely trumps my expectation of silence (yelling fire in a crowded theater notwithstanding).

    Such is the rightful clash of the privileged versus those with actual rights, and why it is EVIL to conflate the two, as we must always err on the side of those with rights.

    Big "Productive" Conglomerate (don't call them "more productive hands", as they may not produce anything with their own hands) wants to erect a nice skyscraper. Ooh, so wonderful, so good for their interests, "the economy", and for government. Not so good for little old Granny. Or is it? Under my proposal, Granny gets a windfall that no privileged entity could ever claim. Under your proposal, Granny loses -- because Big Conglomerate has just priced her out of her own home by raising the "value floor" so high above her head that her "universal exemption value" right will not even begin to cover her ability to stay.

    The natural dynamic of your proposal is a sweeping of the poor to the outside. It would result in naturally flattened pyramids, the most wealthy of whom are always at the center, or "top" - always having access to the very best lands. And that will always have an outward push, because if you outbid me on my land, I can turn around and outbid someone just below me and push them out of theirs. And so on, as the flattened pyramid pushes everyone outward.

    Your universal exemption will not amount to much at all for the rich (which they will have a right to, and may use as well), because they can afford much, MUCH more than that. They can literally behave like Big Productive Conglomerate, and kick Granny to the curb without a second thought under your proposal. Now Granny is "free" to use that exemption ELSEWHERE.

    That is why I am not concerned (where rights of individuals are concerned) about assuring that the "less productive" have "access" to the outskirts they would most certainly be swept aside to. Granny's boat is one that should rise with the productive tides - not be swept away and aside by a relatively "more productive to society" (but destructive to her individual "society") tsunami. Especially on the ironic possibility that Granny might well have worked for, gave value to, retired from, and helped make successful the very firm that is now outbidding her for her own land.

    Roy, when you say "more productive" think RICH. When you say "less productive" think POOR. Thus:

    My system assures the less productive POOR access to opportunity OUTSKIRTS, but does not enable them to deprive the more productive RICH of opportunity BETTER LAND.

    As a tautology your statement reads:

    "My system assures the poor access to the lesser valued outskirts, but does not enable them to deprive the rich of better land."
    And it sure would. How does that sit with you, Roy? Sticks in my craw, personally. Welcome to the doctrine of unintended consequences - assuming they were unintended.

    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    We'll see if Steven agrees with you. I don't see it.
    Reread what Helmuth wrote. He didn't say I agreed with him. He said I agreed, at least in principle (although that word was not used) with you. And, largely, it's true.

    You see "landless" people and clearly recognize that as a Terrible Problem. On that we fully agree, given that landless people are automatically subject to paying rent; a "shelter tax" in order to survive, given that shelter, which requires land, is a basic need of ALL HUMANS.

    I don't see the problem with rents as a matter of degree. It is not a question in my mind of Affordable Rent = Good, while Unaffordable Rent = Bad. I see all rent charged to individuals as bad, so long as there is perfectly good, unused, unowned land which they have been blocked from acquiring for themselves. That, to me, is the original crime of government - which originally saw land strictly as a means of raising revenue - no different in principle than your system.

    You see lack of ownership by the landless and conclude that land ownership is the problem, rather than the lack thereof by the poor.

    Homeless people are not homeless because other people have homes. Homeless people are homeless because they themselves don't have homes. That is the problem (pretty damned elementary to me). Likewise "landless" people (renters and homeless people) are not landless because other people own land, but rather because they do not have land of their own. Making the landless fee-simple or allodial landowners would remove their need to pay rents of any kind. Perpetually. No more exposure to parasitic rent-seekers and takeover barons, public or private, because they live and occupy their land as a matter of right, not privilege.

    Your solution is not to make the landless "no longer landless". Instead you want everyone to be landless -- to revoke all landownership rights, effectively transferring all land title to government, while turning everyone into renters. You want to give all individuals a "value exemption" that can be applied toward "good land", but that necessarily means that the "very best land" is still reserved for highest bidders. To me that is a load of crap, because it threatens individuals who end up in the middle of an area that suddenly increases in value to the point where their "universal exemption" no longer covers the LVT costs of the land they have long occupied. Thus, they are forced to pay the difference or else vacate and move to land of lesser value. That automatically favors the rich over the poor, since you have effectively made it impossible for the poor to remain on their land if they are unfortunate enough to live in area that suddenly takes on increased market value.

    That is no solution, Roy. It is evil to push real people out of their homes in favor of a highest bidder. As such, I think that your "value exemption" solution is weak as hell and prone to massive abuses. It is ultimately not protective of the poor to middle classes, which, under your proposal, will always be pushed to the outside; naturally, given that they are, for whatever their reasons, less productive poor.
    Last edited by Steven Douglas; 12-16-2011 at 06:14 AM.

  10. #1238
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven Douglas View Post
    Pants on fire, liar. You weaseled again and changed the wording. Stop moving the goalposts, Roy. That was very slippery, very evil and dishonest of you, as I never claimed such a thing.
    Sorry, you're right, it was eduardo. I assumed it was you because you answered my response to him.
    Thus, you weaseled. Very evil.
    I can be accused of many things, but weaseling is not one of them.

  11. #1239
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven Douglas View Post
    Roy, for the sake of discussion, let's stipulate to everything you wrote about ancient Egypt and Rome as being the causes of their downfall (even though debased coinage, something that can be done irrespective of land ownership, was also mentioned as a cause).
    Debasement of the coinage was resorted to because all the good land had become tax-exempt. As long as it is not done quickly, it is no worse than a lot of other unfair and economically destructive ways of obtaining revenue, especially the ones often used in ancient times, like tax farming.
    What you argued against were two cases of "ownership by the few at the expense of the many", and the net effect of oligarchical class control of land in both cases.
    Without LVT, landowning is always by the few at the expense of the many, and always produces oligarchical class control of land.
    No problem there, I would argue against that as well. If a Bill Gates or a Warren Buffet and friends had enough wealth to buy 99% of existing lands, they could both kiss my ass. I wouldn't support that at all, any more than I would allow a foreign government to buy domestic land and exert the same financial control over them.
    But without LVT, land HAS to move into the hands of the rich. Landowner privilege is a positive feedback loop. That's why the Duke of Westminster, whose ancestors started out with 500 acres in what is now the west end of London, now owns thousands of acres worth billions of dollars all over the world, despite none of his ancestors ever having done anything productive.
    In the case of Egypt, the priests were, in essence, the government, given that government, by extension, did the bidding of the priests.
    No, they were not, and it didn't. It simply granted them the privilege of owning land tax-free. The forces of economic law, operating over many centuries, did the rest. The priests had no taxing power, and did not perform any government functions such as providing services, infrastructure, or military and police protection. They were simply, in effect, private corporate landowners.
    In the case of Egypt, priests=government.
    No, that's just baldly false, as proved above.
    In the case of Rome, land ownership was even more directly tied to government, given senatorial (and senatorially connected) ownership of lands by an elite few (very important).
    The tax-exempt landowning senatorial families had a much greater influence in government, but did not have to PAY FOR government (very important).
    That is very similar to what is happening in China now - if you are a member of the decidedly limited ruling power elite minority that makes up the Communist Party (a very tiny percentage of Chinese are actual Party members), you (or your family and connections by extension) are insanely wealthy, having first access to both land and moneys used for economic improvements. If you are a party member, you are in a position to decide winners and losers.
    There are similarities but also some big differences. In China, the party privileged take wealth by exercising control over land they don't own. In Rome, the nobility bought up land and then pocketed the rent from either tenants or their own slave-based agricultural enterprises.
    You referred to the emperor's ownership in Rome as a "saving grace", due to army maintenance and infrastructure improvements from rent taxes collected. We don't know how many infrastructure improvements were made by other land owners, but let's pretend they made none whatsoever, but simply sat on their collective asses and collected rents, while The Good Emperor only strived to collect rents so that improvements could be made to a Well Defended And Improved Infrastructure. By implication this argues that a saving grace of land ownership is rental, but only so long as it is owned by government, and only so long as it results in army maintenance and infrastructure improvements.
    Not quite. The only saving grace of landowning is if the publicly created rent is recovered to pay for the public expenditures that create it instead of being given away to landowners in return for nothing. That is exactly what LVT does.
    Now at this point, I would normally argue that class ownership of land, currency debauchery and parasitic army maintenance were all decisive primary factors in the downfall of Rome.
    Huh? Lack of maintenance of the army -- and diversion of military spending to the uncoordinated private armies of major landowners -- is what allowed Rome to be destroyed by barbarian invasions.
    The conclusion that I come away with has nothing to do with land ownership, but rather concentrated land ownership into the hands of a few (but somehow not "the one", and definitely never "the many", for some unspoken reason).
    The reason is obvious: it all depends on what the rent is used for, which normally depends on who gets it.
    In both cases, Egypt or Rome could have simply decreed that renters were now owners, with the express prohibition of owners as rent-seekers (i.e., only occupiers can own). That would have done away entirely with the problem of rent-seeking elitists of all kinds. The only remaining problem would be taxation - which was already in the power of either government to begin with. Merely asserting that "land rent [is] the natural and best source of funding for government" is not a proof at all. It is, rather, what you are arguing, and hopefully not circularly from that premise -- which may or may or may not be true, but has most definitely not been argued, let alone established.
    Yes, it HAS been established, because all the benefit of government spending on services and infrastructure goes to landowners, as the Henry George Theorem shows. Recovering that publicly created value rather than stealing privately created value is self-evidently the natural and best source of funding for government. It is the ONLY POSSIBLE WAY to make government pay for itself.
    All regimes, regardless of land or property ownership laws, are subject to currency debauchery as a means of hidden taxation - which ultimately results in the downfall of the currency, and a consequent regime change (of the regime, or within that regime).
    Currency debasement is often done by private interests -- like our modern banks that issue debt money -- and is thus not a tax, as government does not get the revenue. In ancient China, counterfeiting was rampant -- at times the majority of currency in circulation was counterfeit -- and this was also theft by private interests, not a source of revenue for government.
    Likewise, all regimes, regardless of land ownership or property rights, can be laden with the burden of excessive armies or other parasitic entities, whether beneficial or not (welfare/warfare). That also has nothing to do with land ownership.
    Wrong. The landowner qua landowner is inherently and by definition a parasite to the extent that he pockets publicly created value.
    ln all cases, I see an argument against concentration of rent-seeking land ownership - the greatest concentration of which is "one" owner: namely, a rent-seeking government as the owner.
    Nope. It doesn't matter who owns the land. It only matters what the rent is used for: paying for the services and infrastructure that create it, or subsidizing parasitic landowning at the expense of the productive who must consequently pay the taxes.
    To me, that is the worst possible scenario, to wit: (and this is my opinion only, albeit it one I think is shared by many)
    The truth is not decided by voting.
    Governments are, by their very nature, hungry, dishonest, thieving, cheating hippos; power and money gluttons
    Like private interests. But at least you get to vote on your government.
    who get no pass from me.Not one of them. They are all, by nature, untrustworthy, as they are all run by individuals, all of whom have individual interests to look after, and must be presumed IN ALL CASES as willing to resort to using government to their own ends. I don't trust any of them as far as I can throw them.
    That is why it is SO IMPORTANT to align government's financial interests with the public interest, as LVT does.
    Giving a government sole "ownership" of lands as a method of taxation does not preclude other taxation methods (which are guaranteed to come), nor is it a check on other heaped burdens, including excessive armies, welfare programs, selective and wasteful infrastructure -
    But at least with LVT, the landowners who pocket all the benefit of welfare and infrastructure spending are the ones who must pay for it, and they therefore HAVE NO INCENTIVE TO LOBBY FOR IT.
    nor, for that matter, is there any check against currency debasement as a taxation of last resort, once the limits of normal taxation - regardless how it is assessed or collected - have been reached.
    I agree that LVT does not solve the money problem, cure cancer, or eliminate stupid reality TV shows. But it does align government's financial incentives with the public interest in a way that is inherently transparent and difficult to corrupt: land can't move, and it can't hide.

  12. #1240
    I have responses to the Egypt/Rome scenario, but I'm going to table those for now. I'm more interested in your response to my latest post, which brings everything full circle and ties in with all of that.



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  14. #1241
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven Douglas View Post
    You made a baseless assertion, Roy, which proved nothing.
    Lie. I cited a dictionary definition that proved I was right. You, by contrast, have done nothing but spew absurd garbage in your efforts to avoid knowing there is any such thing as value.
    See? No landowner rights.
    Correct. There can be no such thing as a right to violate others' rights without making just compensation. Landowning is inherently and by definition a privilege, and can never be a right.
    Only "privilege", which I do not support.
    Yes, you do. If you support landowning without just compensation to the victims, you support privilege. It's that simple.
    The land that you live on is subject to seizure and the occupants subject to eviction under this regime and yours.
    And yours. So? The alternative is an even more egregious privilege of immunity from legal remedies.
    Even tax and bankruptcy courts shield someone from being stripped of their bare essentials.
    They don't shield them from being stripped of their land titles or their dwellings.
    Nobody can seize your only source of transportation, or liquidate the tools you need to survive, or food from your cupboards.
    Yes, in fact, they can.
    That's all generally protected.
    Evidence for this claim? Many people have lost their only car, machinery or equipment they use to make a living, and yes, even food (as long as it has significant liquidation value, and its seizure isn't simply to inflict suffering) to legal judgments. Of course, you claim to hold an absurd and indefensible view that these things are seized even though none of them have any value, but we all know that's just a stupid lie on your part.
    But not land. In a perfect world, you can get a judgment against you, with a lien on part of your income, but your primary land upon which you must live to earn a living would be protected. Because it is an inalienable right, not a privilege.
    Wrong. You need to use land to exist, which makes use of land part of the right to life and inherently eliminates any possibility that land can rightly be owned. But you don't need any particular piece of land, and if you are depriving others of their liberty to use good land and can't make just compensation, you have no right to do that to them. You know there is no such thing as "your primary land upon which you must live to earn a living." There are lots of places you can live and still earn a living. You just have to -- and have a right to -- live SOMEWHERE you can earn a living.
    What do you care?
    I care about liberty, justice, truth, and the welfare of humankind. I realize these concerns are foreign to you.
    You are not in favor of even allowing the poor to own land (as a matter of right, not privilege - completely rent free.)
    Yes, in fact, I am, as long as by "own" you mean something very similar to the current fee simple title but with full rent repayment, and not an allodial title immune to all legal process. In fact, under my system it would be trivially easy for the poor to own land, even some fairly good land, and I anticipate a great many of them would choose to do so, though not all.
    The "rights of the landless" are remedied by a right to land.
    That is exactly what LVT with a flat, universal individual exemption provides.
    Not some goofy-stupid "liberty right" machination
    I believe in an equal, universal, individual right to liberty. Apologists for landowner privilege, like you, do not. Simple.
    that promises "exemptions" and lower rents to the poor for sub-standard land usage.
    And...? They would get FREE, SECURE tenure on enough good land to live on. In what sense would it be any more "sub-standard" than the poor's access to transportation, food, medical care, education, or anything else people generally pay for? In fact, far from being "sub-standard," it would give them much better access to good land than to those other things. Your system, by contrast, promises the poor no access to good land at all, just decades of debt slavery.
    Yes, and in so PAYING they can EVICT poor people who cannot afford to compete with that BID. Thanks for the oppression, Roy!
    ROTFL!! "Oppression"?? Give your head a shake. That's how free markets work, Steven: the high bidder gets the goods. The poor who can't pay for premium locations will simply choose accommodation better suited to their needs and means. Are you saying PRIVATE landlords should never be able to EVICT anyone if others are willing to pay a higher rent...?

    Thought not.
    You just picked the richer, by however much, as the winner in every case.
    No, that's just more stupid, dishonest garbage from you. Unlike under the current system and your system, with my system the rich would have no motive to hoard good land they weren't actually using -- indeed they would pay through the nose to do so -- and the poor would consequently have ready access to lots of far better land than they do now.
    The poor are left with only a "naturally liberty right" to pay, or else VACATE and find poorer conditions that they can afford.
    You know that that is a lie, Steven, as under the system I propose, ALL would get FREE, SECURE tenure on enough good land OF THEIR CHOICE to live on. In many cases, that would be high-density residential in excellent locations.
    Proponent of landowner rights, Roy. Not privilege. Rights.
    Nope. That's impossible, as already proved. A right of property in land will ALWAYS BE IMPOSSIBLE because it contradicts the human rights to life and liberty.
    Inalienable rights to each and every living individual.
    What, allodial titles?? ROTFL! You do realize that allodial titles CAN'T BE TRANSFERRED, don't you?
    You are the apologist for privilege, Roy,
    You are a lying sack of $#!+, Steven.
    where NOBODY occupies land as a matter of right.
    No, the right to occupy land is obtained by justly compensating those whom you deprive of it, because OCCUPYING land without making that compensation necessarily means initiating aggression -- violent, coercive physical force -- to deprive others of their liberty to use it. And there can be no such right. We already established that by the examples of Dirtowner Harry and Thirsty, Crusoe and Friday, and the bandit in the pass.
    There is always a richer bidder out there who is artificially empowered to raise a floor - to outbid you on your "occupational privilege", who has a "naturally liberty right" to EVICT YOU if you cannot compete.
    "Artificially empowered"? How would it be any more artificial than whatever mechanism you propose for securing the land "owner's" tenure?
    I am the ONLY one who proposes equal, universal, free, secure land tenure rights for all resident citizens. FREE OF CHARGE. Free of rent-by-any-other-name. Not you, Roy. Me only.
    BBWAHAHAHHAAAAA!!! No, that's just another cretinous lie from you, Steven. The uniform, universal individual LVT exemption I propose is PRECISELY a mechanism that ensures equal, universal, free, secure land tenure rights for all resident citizens.

    But you are the only one who advocates your absurd allodial titles scheme, because the idea is so blatantly idiotic and indefensible.
    The poor could only live rent free, and have an actual, perpetual RIGHT of occupancy under my proposal. Not yours. That SHOULD make you ill.
    What makes me ill is refusal to know self-evident facts in order to preserve false and evil beliefs. Mortals cannot have perpetual rights as a matter of indisputable fact. Under my proposal but NOT YOURS, the poor would have an actual, secure right of FREE tenure on enough advantageous land of their choice to live on.
    Baloney. Your solution falls apart the moment "additional publicly created land value" comes into play, and deliberately EXCLUDES occupancy by the poor of any "good land".
    Flat false. Under my proposal, if the poor wanted to live on good land but pay no rent, they would simply choose to live on a small enough plot of high-value land (such as in a high-density development) as not to exceed their exemptions.
    There are no rightful rent-seekers, public or private. Only land thieves.
    All landowning is rent seeking and land theft.
    That includes you.
    Everyone reading this knows that is a lie, and that includes you.
    No, I want to take away the only thing that separates the poor from landowners, public and private.
    The latter's privilege of stealing from the former? Me, too.
    I want to make them landowners with RIGHTS to that ownership.
    Oh? How do you imagine you are going to do that? All the good land is already taken. How do you imagine you are going to get the poor to live on a few acres of mountainside in Nevada?
    That is the ONLY way to protect them from EVER having to "sign their rights over" to idle, greedy, privileged, parasitic landowning rich - public or private.
    Garbage. There is no such thing as a "public landowning rich," you know that is an oxymoron. And your moronic scheme certainly will not protect the poor from ever having to sign their rights over to rich private landowners. They will need access to opportunity, and under your scheme will have to sign their rights over to the idle, greedy, privileged, parasitic PRIVATE landowning rich to get it.
    Screw your "exempt amount".
    Ooooh, cogent.
    If it is suddenly found that an otherwise poor land occupier is on property that suddenly became valued to the point where it exceeds your "exempt amount", she can be forced to pay more, or else EVICTED.
    Thus moving the more valuable resource into more productive hands, while the less productive still have secure, FREE access to opportunities better suited to their needs and means. Sounds good to me.
    Furthermore, it opens the door to a scenario where the "exempt" amount becomes nothing more than a discount on rents paid, as none actually cover land enough to live on.
    Can't happen: the Law of Rent forbids it.
    Screw your artificial exemptions.
    LOL! If anything is artificial it is landowner privilege, which has never occurred in nature, and never will.
    An absolute right of ownership, and not occupancy privilege, would be the ultimate exemption, and protection from the value-seeking, rent-seeking covetous masses, both public and private.
    There is nothing covetous about recovering publicly created value for public purposes and benefit, Steven, so stop lying. The truly covetous are those who seek to pocket value others have created -- especially by their taxes -- while contributing no commensurate value in return. You know: landowners.
    She should be able to tell all of you to kiss her ass, and take your rent-seeking tentacles elsewhere.
    No, that simply results in grotesque obscenities like this:

    http://www.cloquetchurch.com/files/g...Loneliness.jpg
    Yes, and you also put government in a position to decide what "good land" and "sufficient to live on" means.
    Nope. The market decides. All your "arguments" consist of lying about my position, or about facts of objective reality.
    You still have your eminent domain genie out of the bottle.
    <yawn> Every rational and mature person knows eminent domain is necessary to provide the infrastructure required for a prosperous economy.
    You want exemptions from privilege/usage license.
    No, the universal individual LVT exemption restores the right to liberty by requiring just compensation for its violation.
    I want a right that is not subject to privilege or license.
    But that "right" can never be a right to own land.
    Big difference, as mine actually acknowledges and protects a Right of Ownership.
    Which in the case of land, doesn't and can't exist.
    I have NEVER claimed that Crusoe OR Caesar had a right of massive ownership.
    How would your system not enable massive ownership?
    You rail against Crusoe but argued the benefits of an emperor's ownership.
    Only to the extent that he was the government, and thus spent the money on public services, useful infrastructure, and national defense. There are other cases, such as oil sheikdoms, where the landowner is just blowing the money on his own consumption and maintenance of a police and military force strong enough to keep him in power as the landowner. That is essentially feudalism, which is more like private landowning and therefore indefensible.
    Not me. I say NEITHER. I specifically stated that if Warren Buffet or Bill Gates wanted to go buy up a whole state, that government should step in and force a breakup and sale.
    By some sort of arbitrary bureaucrat's decision. So you DON'T actually support the landowning "right" you claim you do. Thought not.
    NOT because he is denying any strange "naturally liberty right" to anyone who would "otherwise be at liberty" to occupy or use land,
    Despite the fact that he self-evidently and indisputably IS.
    but because it precludes landownership by everyone who has a Right to Own land of their own.
    Self-contradiction. There can be no ownership without a right to dispose, and the right to dispose requires alienation. The system you claim to propose is logically impossible.
    So no, Roy, I don't care whether it is Warren Buffet or the Bureau of Land Management - if either are in a position to block land ownership by massive sequestration of any kind, I am against it.
    What you are against is plain logic. Your claimed system is self-contradictory, which is why you can't describe it in specific detail.
    Oh yes there is. To the landowners. They are free.
    Wrong. They are only "free" on the little patch of ground they claim to own.
    Turn all renters into landowners, and you have freedom from rent.
    That is PRECISELY what LVT with the universal individual exemption does, but only for those who CHOOSE to own rather than rent.
    Why would anyone want to rent from ANYONE else if they have property of their own?
    There are many reasons: they want to be mobile or use a different location temporarily; the location they own doesn't suit them; they want to use better improvements than they can afford to buy; etc. Regardless of the reason, it is not up to you to second-guess their choices.
    Why would anyone give two figs about some mindless "Rent Exemption", when an actual inalienable right of ownership to individuals renders that completely unnecessary?
    Because logical contradictions are insupportable.
    Last edited by Roy L; 12-18-2011 at 02:00 PM.

  15. #1242
    No, Roy, I'll respond to that as well, but I meant this one:


    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    The liberty to use land, and thus the compensation for abstaining from its exercise, is a right, not a privilege.
    According to American Jurisprudence, "the power to tax is the power to destroy." Loan Association v Topeka, 87 US 655, 663 (1875). Taxes are of privileges, so if it can be taxed, it is not a right, but a privilege.

    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    How on earth do you imagine that could possibly work? What would people do when they wanted to move? I don't think you have thought this through very thoroughly.
    I have thought it out, actually. It goes to the heart of value floors (BIDS) governing the privileged (under your plan, at least, where a highest bidder can take over occupancy by the use of government force) and value ceilings (ASKS) governing those with rights.

    When a free and natural Citizen landowner wants to move, they are the only ones entitled, as a matter of right, to decide whether or not they are even willing to sell, and the only ones who have final say over the price they would be willing to accept. Their inalienable rights are not tied into any notions of "economy-wide" productivity or anything else. They really can be a big fly in the ointment if they want. That's their right - one that foreigners, land barons, Walmart, Microsoft, et al simply do not enjoy. If crazy old coot Granny says she's not selling her shack or moving to make way for a skyscraper, that is the end of it. Build around her. Beg her. Plead with her. Offer her a fortune. After exhausting all means of enticement to sell, if she says no, that really is the end of it. Too bad. Adapt and plow around her - without interfering with her rights.

    Not true of privileged entities (under your plan, which I wouldn't have a problem with if it ONLY applied to privileged entities) which would be required to keep pace with the BIDS only, and for making LVT payments as a requirement in order to continue to own land, but only on legislated conditions, and only as a matter of taxed privilege.

    Competition is part of liberty and the free market. Having a right to liberty means being free to compete, and that includes with people who might not want to compete.
    Oh yeah? I firmly agree with your first sentence, but your second sentence, if I understood it correctly, did not describe a free market at all, but rather a compulsory market.

    Those who actually place their goods and services on the free market do not have a right to "freedom from competition". If that is what you meant, then I wholeheartedly agree, because I am anti-protectionist to the core. However, under a free market, you are as free to place things on the market as you are to remove them from the market. Spending and/or saving, goods and/or services. The demand side of the market, generally speaking (e.g., assuming I have no monopoly) is not entitled to a supply side, or vice versa.

    The goods in your house or stockpiled in your garage are not part of the "free market" if you are not selling them. As such, they are not "on the market". They have no competition, just as they are no competition.

    A "free market" is not a compulsory market. The existence of goods does not make a market. The existence of "goods for sale" does.

    If I understand your proposal accurately, it would function a bit like the old village commons, but each person or family would have permanent ownership of a small plot of land instead of a permanent right to use shares of a much bigger plot. The problem is that such a system has no mechanism for moving the resource into more productive hands, and consequently results in inefficiency, lower productivity, and general poverty.
    Oh, there is a mechanism, because they can always decide to sell - it's just not fool-proof or guaranteed mechanism. Nor should it be in the case of actual rights. I can ask someone to be quiet, and not to voice their opinion in the moment as a courtesy, and they might do just that. Failing that, however, their right to free speech completely trumps my expectation of silence (yelling fire in a crowded theater notwithstanding).

    Such is the rightful clash of the privileged versus those with actual rights, and why it is EVIL to conflate the two, as we must always err on the side of those with rights.

    Big "Productive" Conglomerate (don't call them "more productive hands", as they may not produce anything with their own hands) wants to erect a nice skyscraper. Ooh, so wonderful, so good for their interests, "the economy", and for government. Not so good for little old Granny. Or is it? Under my proposal, Granny gets a windfall that no privileged entity could ever claim. Under your proposal, Granny loses -- because Big Conglomerate has just priced her out of her own home by raising the "value floor" so high above her head that her "universal exemption value" right will not even begin to cover her ability to stay.

    The natural dynamic of your proposal is a sweeping of the poor to the outside. It would result in naturally flattened pyramids, the most wealthy of whom are always at the center, or "top" - always having access to the very best lands. And that will always have an outward push, because if you outbid me on my land, I can turn around and outbid someone just below me and push them out of theirs. And so on, as the flattened pyramid pushes everyone outward.

    Your universal exemption will not amount to much at all for the rich (which they will have a right to, and may use as well), because they can afford much, MUCH more than that. They can literally behave like Big Productive Conglomerate, and kick Granny to the curb without a second thought under your proposal. Now Granny is "free" to use that exemption ELSEWHERE.

    That is why I am not concerned (where rights of individuals are concerned) about assuring that the "less productive" have "access" to the outskirts they would most certainly be swept aside to. Granny's boat is one that should rise with the productive tides - not be swept away and aside by a relatively "more productive to society" (but destructive to her individual "society") tsunami. Especially on the ironic possibility that Granny might well have worked for, gave value to, retired from, and helped make successful the very firm that is now outbidding her for her own land.

    Roy, when you say "more productive" think RICH. When you say "less productive" think POOR. Thus:

    My system assures the less productive POOR access to opportunity OUTSKIRTS, but does not enable them to deprive the more productive RICH of opportunity BETTER LAND.

    As a tautology your statement reads:

    "My system assures the poor access to the lesser valued outskirts, but does not enable them to deprive the rich of better land."
    And it sure would. How does that sit with you, Roy? Sticks in my craw, personally. Welcome to the doctrine of unintended consequences - assuming they were unintended.

    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    We'll see if Steven agrees with you. I don't see it.
    Reread what Helmuth wrote. He didn't say I agreed with him. He said I agreed, at least in principle (although that word was not used) with you. And, largely, it's true.

    You see "landless" people and clearly recognize that as a Terrible Problem. On that we fully agree, given that landless people are automatically subject to paying rent; a "shelter tax" in order to survive, given that shelter, which requires land, is a basic need of ALL HUMANS.

    I don't see the problem with rents as a matter of degree. It is not a question in my mind of Affordable Rent = Good, while Unaffordable Rent = Bad. I see all rent charged to individuals as bad, so long as there is perfectly good, unused, unowned land which they have been blocked from acquiring for themselves. That, to me, is the original crime of government - which originally saw land strictly as a means of raising revenue - no different in principle than your system.

    You see lack of ownership by the landless and conclude that land ownership is the problem, rather than the lack thereof by the poor.

    Homeless people are not homeless because other people have homes. Homeless people are homeless because they themselves don't have homes. That is the problem (pretty damned elementary to me). Likewise "landless" people (renters and homeless people) are not landless because other people own land, but rather because they do not have land of their own. Making the landless fee-simple or allodial landowners would remove their need to pay rents of any kind. Perpetually. No more exposure to parasitic rent-seekers and takeover barons, public or private, because they live and occupy their land as a matter of right, not privilege.

    Your solution is not to make the landless "no longer landless". Instead you want everyone to be landless -- to revoke all landownership rights, effectively transferring all land title to government, while turning everyone into renters. You want to give all individuals a "value exemption" that can be applied toward "good land", but that necessarily means that the "very best land" is still reserved for highest bidders. To me that is a load of crap, because it threatens individuals who end up in the middle of an area that suddenly increases in value to the point where their "universal exemption" no longer covers the LVT costs of the land they have long occupied. Thus, they are forced to pay the difference or else vacate and move to land of lesser value. That automatically favors the rich over the poor, since you have effectively made it impossible for the poor to remain on their land if they are unfortunate enough to live in area that suddenly takes on increased market value.

    That is no solution, Roy. It is evil to push real people out of their homes in favor of a richer bidder. As such, I think that your "value exemption" solution is weak as hell and prone to massive abuses. It is ultimately not protective of the poor to middle classes, which, under your proposal, will always be pushed to the outside; naturally, given that they are, for whatever their reasons, less productive poor.

  16. #1243
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven Douglas View Post
    According to American Jurisprudence, "the power to tax is the power to destroy." Loan Association v Topeka, 87 US 655, 663 (1875).
    Yes, well, American Jurisprudence also tells us corporations are people. Let me know when you see taxation of land causing erosion.
    Taxes are of privileges, so if it can be taxed, it is not a right, but a privilege.
    Nominally.
    I have thought it out, actually.
    No, you haven't, and won't.
    It goes to the heart of value floors (BIDS) governing the privileged (under your plan, at least, where a highest bidder can take over occupancy by the use of government force) and value ceilings (ASKS) governing those with rights.
    And on your planet, that might even mean something.
    When a free and natural Citizen landowner wants to move, they are the only ones entitled, as a matter of right, to decide whether or not they are even willing to sell, and the only ones who have final say over the price they would be willing to accept.
    You first need to explain how they ever obtained a "right" to deprive others of their liberty without making just compensation. And you can't.
    Their inalienable rights are not tied into any notions of "economy-wide" productivity or anything else.
    The right to liberty is inalienable, not some fabricated "right" to property in land. That means they have no right to deprive others of the land.
    They really can be a big fly in the ointment if they want. That's their right -
    No, it is not.
    one that foreigners, land barons, Walmart, Microsoft, et al simply do not enjoy.
    Right, because no one enjoys it, because there can never be any such right.
    If crazy old coot Granny says she's not selling her shack or moving to make way for a skyscraper, that is the end of it.
    No, it most certainly is not. She has NO F*CKING RIGHT to hold the entire community to ransom on her personal whim. None. Your opinion that she does is indefensible, and therefore counts for nothing.
    Build around her. Beg her. Plead with her.
    F*CK HER. If she tries to violate others' rights to liberty without making just compensation, pick her up and move her bodily out of the way. She has no more right to stop that skyscraper than to stop cars on the freeway.
    Offer her a fortune.
    No. She hasn't earned it, doesn't deserve it, has no right to it, and won't be getting it. Sorry.
    After exhausting all means of enticement to sell, if she says no, that really is the end of it.
    No, the end of it is, she goes. End of story.
    Too bad.
    Yep. For her. Lesson: don't be a dog in the manger.
    Adapt and plow around her - without interfering with her rights.
    She is the one who is violating others' rights, which SHE HAS NO RIGHT to do.
    I firmly agree with your first sentence, but your second sentence, if I understood it correctly, did not describe a free market at all, but rather a compulsory market.
    Nonsense. Those who do not want to participate in the market are free not to do so. They just aren't free to deprive others of what government, the community and nature provide, and not make just compensation.
    However, under a free market, you are as free to place things on the market as you are to remove them from the market.
    But that only applies to YOUR THINGS, which land can never be. You are free not to participate in the land market, but you have no right to withhold land from it.
    The demand side of the market, generally speaking (e.g., assuming I have no monopoly) is not entitled to a supply side, or vice versa.
    Everyone IS entitled to the supply side of the land market. That is very much the point.
    The goods in your house or stockpiled in your garage are not part of the "free market" if you are not selling them. As such, they are not "on the market". They have no competition, just as they are no competition.
    Because taking them off the market does not deprive anyone else of anything they would otherwise have. Taking land off the market does. Your whole argument fails to that fact.
    A "free market" is not a compulsory market. The existence of goods does not make a market. The existence of "goods for sale" does.
    The existence of LAND that more than one person wants to use DOES make a market, because no one has a right to make land not for sale but the community that administers its possession and use.
    Oh, there is a mechanism, because they can always decide to sell - it's just not fool-proof or guaranteed mechanism.
    If they can sell it, the right is not inalienable, and they will lose it.

    So how will their children have any right to land? Where will the land they have a right to come from when it has all been sold to the rich and privileged?

    You have NOT thought this through, Steven.
    Nor should it be in the case of actual rights.
    You aren't talking about actual rights.
    Such is the rightful clash of the privileged versus those with actual rights, and why it is EVIL to conflate the two, as we must always err on the side of those with rights.
    I.e., not landowners.
    Big "Productive" Conglomerate (don't call them "more productive hands", as they may not produce anything with their own hands)
    I shall continue to call them more productive hands, as they put the land to more productive use.
    wants to erect a nice skyscraper. Ooh, so wonderful, so good for their interests, "the economy", and for government. Not so good for little old Granny.
    Tough $#!+ for little old Granny. She has the same human rights as anyone else. No more.
    Or is it? Under my proposal, Granny gets a windfall that no privileged entity could ever claim.
    And which she has no right to, and is given to her at the expense of the productive. Right.
    Under your proposal, Granny loses -- because Big Conglomerate has just priced her out of her own home by raising the "value floor" so high above her head that her "universal exemption value" right will not even begin to cover her ability to stay.
    So she seeks accommodation better suited to her needs and means. So what? People do it all the time. If we had LVT, she'd do it sooner because there'd be no unearned wealth to hold out for, and people would have access to a lot better accommodation for less money, and business would have access to better premises and locations for less money. The only thing Granny "loses" is a prospect of privilege she should never have expected in the first place.
    The natural dynamic of your proposal is a sweeping of the poor to the outside.
    Nope. Wrong. They'd just live at higher densities in the good locations than more affluent people. The natural dynamic of my proposal is to give them MUCH BETTER ACCESS to opportunity, permanently, than your proposal could ever hope to do.
    It would result in naturally flattened pyramids, the most wealthy of whom are always at the center, or "top" - always having access to the very best lands. And that will always have an outward push, because if you outbid me on my land, I can turn around and outbid someone just below me and push them out of theirs. And so on, as the flattened pyramid pushes everyone outward.
    Obviously wrong, as Hong Kong proves. The affluent typically want and are willing to pay for their space and privacy, and tend to live where they can get it: on the outskirts. Hong Kong has lots of poor people living in high density housing in good locations. There is no real difference in quality of location between the rich and poor in HK, just in density.
    Your universal exemption will not amount to much at all for the rich (which they will have a right to, and may use as well), because they can afford much, MUCH more than that. They can literally behave like Big Productive Conglomerate, and kick Granny to the curb without a second thought under your proposal. Now Granny is "free" to use that exemption ELSEWHERE.
    Yep. And your point would be...? The rich would no doubt congregate together much as they do now, and would just lose money -- a LOT of money -- if they went around bidding poor people out of location after location with no economic rationale for it.
    That is why I am not concerned (where rights of individuals are concerned) about assuring that the "less productive" have "access" to the outskirts they would most certainly be swept aside to.
    Disproved above. It is YOUR proposal that would gradually sweep the poor aside, depriving them of access to good locations and the opportunities they represent. There is no way around it. Property in land MUST have that effect.
    Granny's boat is one that should rise with the productive tides - not be swept away and aside by a relatively "more productive to society" (but destructive to her individual "society") tsunami. Especially on the ironic possibility that Granny might well have worked for, gave value to, retired from, and helped make successful the very firm that is now outbidding her for her own land.
    <yawn> Irrelevant sentimental crap. Grannies have no right to condemn children to poverty by their selfishness, sorry. If you ask me to choose between a child having a better chance at life and Granny not being inconvenienced at the end of her life, I will pick the child every time. And I frankly don't understand the mentality of people who think it is better to spend public money making the elderly's final years a little longer or more comfortable than to provide better health care and education for poor children.
    Roy, when you say "more productive" think RICH.
    No, sorry Steven, I prefer to think accurately, and "more productive" doesn't mean "RICH."
    When you say "less productive" think POOR.
    I will continue not to acquiesce in such errors. There is little relationship between wealth and productivity. The top 1% in wealth are generally rather unproductive if they are not actively destructive, while the existence of the term, "working poor" suffices to show the poor are not necessarily less productive.
    Thus:
    A fabrication on your part, as proved above.
    And it sure would. How does that sit with you, Roy? Sticks in my craw, personally.
    I won't presume to second-guess the market. All the evidence points to it being fairer than your personal opinions.
    Welcome to the doctrine of unintended consequences - assuming they were unintended.
    They are intended. You just don't know enough economics to figure out what they are.
    Reread what Helmuth wrote.
    My reading comprehension is quite adequate, thank you very much.
    He didn't say I agreed with him.
    I didn't say he did.
    He said I agreed, at least in principle (although that word was not used) with you. And, largely, it's true.
    That's what I was talking about: I doubted you agreed with him that you agree with me.
    I don't see the problem with rents as a matter of degree.
    Right: it's a problem of who gets them and what they do with them.
    It is not a question in my mind of Affordable Rent = Good, while Unaffordable Rent = Bad.
    Market rent is always, by definition, affordable to those who bid it. As I have said, the problem is not so much PAYING rent but who GETS the rent -- though the right to liberty does require rent-free access to enough land to live on.
    I see all rent charged to individuals as bad,
    Rent is not bad. It is a voluntary, market-based, beneficiary-pay, value-for-value transaction.
    so long as there is perfectly good, unused, unowned land which they have been blocked from acquiring for themselves.
    It is precisely ownership of that land that blocks them from "acquiring" it.
    That, to me, is the original crime of government - which originally saw land strictly as a means of raising revenue - no different in principle than your system.
    But there is no crime there. The government was to defend the land and the exclusive tenure of those who held it, making it more advantageous to use. Why should not those who got the benefit of government activities have paid for them?
    You see lack of ownership by the landless and conclude that land ownership is the problem, rather than the lack thereof by the poor.
    It is not the poor's lack of land that causes land bubbles and crashes. It is the landowner's self-evidently unjust privilege of pocketing arbitrarily large amounts of publicly created value indefinitely into the future.
    Homeless people are not homeless because other people have homes. Homeless people are homeless because they themselves don't have homes. That is the problem (pretty damned elementary to me).
    True, because my having a home does not affect your ability to have a home.
    Likewise "landless" people (renters and homeless people) are not landless because other people own land, but rather because they do not have land of their own.
    Wrong. Unlike homes, the supply of land is FIXED. What one person owns, another cannot own. Unlike homes, land is zero-sum. People are landless PRECISELY BECAUSE others DO own the land.
    Making the landless fee-simple or allodial landowners would remove their need to pay rents of any kind. Perpetually. No more exposure to parasitic rent-seekers and takeover barons, public or private, because they live and occupy their land as a matter of right, not privilege.
    How? How do they get the land in the first place? How are they to keep it when they are offered more for it than they can produce on it? Your proposal simply cannot work.
    Your solution is not to make the landless "no longer landless". Instead you want everyone to be landless -- to revoke all landownership rights, effectively transferring all land title to government, while turning everyone into renters.
    All who exclude others from land they would otherwise be at liberty to use owe them just compensation. That is just a fact.
    You want to give all individuals a "value exemption" that can be applied toward "good land", but that necessarily means that the "very best land" is still reserved for highest bidders.
    Who will often be bidding so high because they can make money providing high-density accommodation for those who can't afford to bid so much for land.
    To me that is a load of crap, because it threatens individuals who end up in the middle of an area that suddenly increases in value to the point where their "universal exemption" no longer covers the LVT costs of the land they have long occupied.
    So what? Private landlords evict people who have long occupied their dwellings all the time. You going to forbid them to do so? Good luck with that. The free market only "threatens" people who want to stagnate and stop the world from progressing. Sorry, but those people have no right to block the rest of us.
    Thus, they are forced to pay the difference or else vacate and move to land of lesser value. That automatically favors the rich over the poor,
    No, the more productive over the less productive. They are not the same. Loads of rich people are elderly, retired, and not productive at all. Loads of productive people are young, hardworking, and not rich at all. LVT in a free market favors the latter over the former. You are just objectively wrong.
    since you have effectively made it impossible for the poor to remain on their land if they are unfortunate enough to live in area that suddenly takes on increased market value.
    Resources moving into more productive hands means higher production, a wealthier society, is a BENEFIT of the market, and is an INTENDED RESULT of LVT.
    That is no solution, Roy.
    Yes, it is.
    It is evil to push real people out of their homes in favor of a highest bidder.
    No, it isn't. The market does it all the time, and it is GOOD.
    As such, I think that your "value exemption" solution is weak as hell and prone to massive abuses.
    But in fact, you are objectively wrong about that.
    It is ultimately not protective of the poor to middle classes, which, under your proposal, will always be pushed to the outside; naturally, given that they are, for whatever their reasons, less productive poor.
    Wrong again, as proved above.

  17. #1244
    Thank you, Roy. Now I know that you're a lying, state-worshiping, wealth-worshiping shill for fascism, and privilege for wealth, which you conflate as being synonymous with productivity. By your reckoning, banks and insurance companies are among the most "productive hands" in the world.

    When it comes to land, you don't give two $#@!s about individual liberties, or individual rights of any kind. You have co-opted all of these as being neatly collectivized, owned by "society", or "the state" - as if they were the same, and as if that also meant individuals.

    You see private landlords evicting people who have long occupied their dwellings, and don't have any problem with this at all. You are not opposed to rents, nor are you even in favor of giving people a mechanism that would allow them to free themselves from paying rent. You only want to change landlords to one that is public, which you think would be more benevolent. You want to change the dynamic so that government executes all evictions at the behest of the rich (who may or may not be productive), and only because government -- the state -- stands to gain from it.

    I would actually do quite well under your plan, Roy. Not the poor, or any of the laboring productive hands, which you would marginalize and squeeze into little boxes, while allowing me to lay out a red carpet for myself, with enormous "low density", higher value land area. Not as a matter of right, but privilege -- like I can already do now. That's the privilege of wealth, Roy. It works much better than rights. Thank you.

    Resources moving into more productive hands means higher production, a wealthier society, is a BENEFIT of the market, and is an INTENDED RESULT of LVT.
    Not a wealthier "society", Roy. A wealthier state.

    I know you can't wrap your collectivist head around this, but society and the state are not the same thing; they never were, and never will be, regardless of the political regime, even if it pretended (as ours pretends now) to be "democratic". And what you propose is neither communism nor is it socialism, as some have charged. It is fascism. You are a fascist, Roy. You would reward whomever does best for the good for the state, which is not the people, and not the rights of productive individuals, including their putative "natural liberty right" to land use.

    The smallest part of the LVT you propose only indirectly goes back to "productive hands", Roy. Hell, the banks, insurance companies and our current government combined can and DO make all of those claims now -- that every good thing that was siphoned away from them was ostensibly spent on something that benefited them: land sequestered by the BLM, warfare, welfare, infrastructure, you name it. Politicians can boldly claim that this was all done in the interests of those who are either a) most productive, or b) suffer the most. With the middle class left in limbo, forced to be either one or the other, naturally and by design.

    Even moneys used to "build infrastructure" results in something much better for me, as an owner of firms, than it ever could be for the actual productive hands who work for me. Only a TINY portion of that so-called "publicly created value" goes back to those who are actually most productive, who you claim need to be compensated for their deprivation, as they are dispossessed of land they cannot afford to occupy or even work under your system. The rest - the real wealth - goes to the state, and to whomever has the best political and economic ties with the state. (which I seriously doubt would be you)

    That is A Very Good Deal for me, Roy. I can employ a thousand "productive hands", as a small part of my LVT goes to pay for cheap, high density, vertically-stacked cracker boxes on the outskirts. Like Hong Kong. And they will still have to pay rent, given that their exemption won't be any guarantee that they can actually live anywhere rent free.

    Meanwhile, I can keep a giant spacious penthouse with a gorgeous view of the Hong Kong bays for myself. Why? Because my employees - the people that I also rent, who actually are productive, in my name and on my behalf - aren't nearly as productive as your system presumes that I am. I don't have to compensate them for anything you think I have stolen from them - I can compensate the state instead, because the individual people themselves are presumed to be the least contributors of all that "publicly created value". The only evidence they can possibly have that they "contributed more" is wealth itself. Hard specie. Show us the money. Most will never be able to do that, and barring that, we can safely assume that they contributed very little to all the "publicly created value".

    Thank you, Roy, and good luck getting to where I would be under this wonderful system of yours, because I don't think you would be "productive" enough OR politically connected enough, even under your own system, to enjoy a piece of what I would have as a matter of privilege.

    Your system is nothing more than a symbiosis of commerce pyramids and a fascist state, in a way that feeds both. It siphons actual productivity from people while claiming to act in their interests, all under color of protecting their collectivized "natural liberty rights".

    What you designed is a state-owned plantation system, Roy. Sharecropping elevated to the level of the state. The state leases the plantation lands, while a separate class of plantation owners compete for those leases, even as the slaves are given "adequate" living space at very high density, and very little cost.

    Welcome to Roy's Plantation.

    As for the poor and working classes -- let them eat infrastructure.
    Last edited by Steven Douglas; 12-19-2011 at 03:37 PM.

  18. #1245
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven Douglas View Post
    Thank you, Roy. Now I know that you're a lying, state-worshiping, wealth-worshiping shill for fascism, and privilege for wealth, which you conflate as being synonymous with productivity. By your reckoning, banks and insurance companies are among the most "productive hands" in the world.

    When it comes to land, you don't give two $#@!s about individual liberties, or individual rights of any kind. You have co-opted all of these as being neatly collectivized, owned by "society", or "the state" - as if they were the same, and as if that also meant individuals.

    You see private landlords evicting people who have long occupied their dwellings, and don't have any problem with this at all. You are not opposed to rents, nor are you even in favor of giving people a mechanism that would allow them to free themselves from paying rent. You only want to change landlords to one that is public, which you think would be more benevolent. You want to change the dynamic so that government executes all evictions at the behest of the rich (who may or may not be productive), and only because government -- the state -- stands to gain from it.

    I would actually do quite well under your plan, Roy. Not the poor, or any of the laboring productive hands, which you would marginalize and squeeze into little boxes, while allowing me to lay out a red carpet for myself, with enormous "low density", higher value land area. Not as a matter of right, but privilege -- like I can already do now. That's the privilege of wealth, Roy. It works much better than rights. Thank you.



    Not a wealthier "society", Roy. A wealthier state.

    I know you can't wrap your collectivist head around this, but society and the state are not the same thing; they never were, and never will be, regardless of the political regime, even if it pretended (as ours pretends now) to be "democratic". And what you propose is neither communism nor is it socialism, as some have charged. It is fascism. You are a fascist, Roy. You would reward whomever does best for the good for the state, which is not the people, and not the rights of productive individuals, including their putative "natural liberty right" to land use.

    The smallest part of the LVT you propose only indirectly goes back to "productive hands", Roy. Hell, the banks, insurance companies and our current government combined can and DO make all of those claims now -- that every good thing that was siphoned away from them was ostensibly spent on something that benefited them: land sequestered by the BLM, warfare, welfare, infrastructure, you name it. Politicians can boldly claim that this was all done in the interests of those who are either a) most productive, or b) suffer the most. With the middle class left in limbo, forced to be either one or the other, naturally and by design.

    Even moneys used to "build infrastructure" results in something much better for me, as an owner of firms, than it ever could be for the actual productive hands who work for me. Only a TINY portion of that so-called "publicly created value" goes back to those who are actually most productive, who you claim need to be compensated for their deprivation, as they are dispossessed of land they cannot afford to occupy or even work under your system. The rest - the real wealth - goes to the state, and to whomever has the best political and economic ties with the state. (which I seriously doubt would be you)

    That is A Very Good Deal for me, Roy. I can employ a thousand "productive hands", as a small part of my LVT goes to pay for cheap, high density, vertically-stacked cracker boxes on the outskirts. Like Hong Kong. And they will still have to pay rent, given that their exemption won't be any guarantee that they can actually live anywhere rent free.

    Meanwhile, I can keep a giant spacious penthouse with a gorgeous view of Hong Kong bay for myself. Why? Because my employees - the people that I also rent, who actually are productive, in my name and on my behalf - aren't nearly as productive as your system presumes that I am. I don't have to compensate them for anything you think I have stolen from them - I can compensate the state instead, because the individual people themselves are presumed to be the least contributors of all that "publicly created value". The only evidence they can possibly have that they "contributed more" is wealth itself. Hard specie. Show us the money. Most will never be able to do that, and barring that, we can safely assume that they contributed very little to all the "publicly created value".

    Thank you, Roy, and good luck getting to where I would be under this wonderful system of yours, because I don't think you would be "productive" enough OR politically connected enough, even under your own system, to enjoy a piece of what I would have as a matter of privilege.

    Your system is nothing more than a symbiosis of commerce pyramids and a fascist state, in a way that feeds both. It siphons actual productivity from people while claiming to act in their interests, all under color of protecting their collectivized "natural liberty rights".

    As for the poor and working classes -- let them eat infrastructure.
    Well said. The interesting thing about Roy is that he's taken what Rothbard called "the least evil tax" and turned it into this monstrous, fascist, collectivist web of perpetual class warfare in the utopian dream of "fairness".
    Quote Originally Posted by Torchbearer
    what works can never be discussed online. there is only one language the government understands, and until the people start speaking it by the magazine full... things will remain the same.
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  19. #1246
    Quote Originally Posted by heavenlyboy34 View Post
    Well said. The interesting thing about Roy is that he's taken what Rothbard called "the least evil tax" and turned it into this monstrous, fascist, collectivist web of perpetual class warfare in the utopian dream of "fairness".
    Under Roy's plan, I win and Roy loses, because I really am productive, and he's too socially retarded to be politically connected. I would have more than "my fair share" of plantation land to develop, which I could definitely bid on, as well as a steady, continuous "productive human resource" supply, all of whom will have been put in their rightful "less productive" places (obviously, given that they don't have wealth or firm ownership titles), just waiting in cracker box shacks on the outskirts of town to do my "bidding". That's what I'm paying the state for - to put them there. In vertically stacked Human Resource Warehouses.

    As for all that precious infrastructure - well, we would all "share" in that, of course. That goes without saying. Why, they are as much a part of "society" as I am! What more could they ask for? I am footing the bills, after all.
    Last edited by Steven Douglas; 12-19-2011 at 03:51 PM.

  20. #1247
    Quote Originally Posted by heavenlyboy34 View Post
    The interesting thing about Roy is that he's taken what Rothbard called "the least evil tax" and turned it into this monstrous, fascist, collectivist web of perpetual class warfare in the utopian dream of "fairness".
    No, that's just more absurd rationalization of privilege and injustice. "Class warfare" against whom? Landowners? How can there be warfare, let alone perpetual warfare, against a class that would effectively cease to exist?

    It is remarkable, but not unexpected, that those who want economic institutions to remain unjust, and to be made even more unjust, are so eager to dismiss any call for economic justice as a "utopian dream."

  21. #1248
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven Douglas View Post
    Under Roy's plan, I win and Roy loses, because I really am productive,
    A landowner's protestations of productivity are generally inversely proportional to his actual contributions to production.
    and he's too socially retarded to be politically connected.
    Translation: I decline to help the evil pretend to themselves that they are not evil.
    I would have more than "my fair share" of plantation land to develop, which I could definitely bid on,
    But you are not actually productive enough (you don't know any economics, for one thing) to be the successful bidder.
    as well as a steady, continuous "productive human resource" supply, all of whom will have been put in their rightful "less productive" places (obviously, given that they don't have wealth or firm ownership titles), just waiting in cracker box shacks on the outskirts of town to do my "bidding".
    More stupid, dishonest garbage lacking any basis in fact, logic or economics.
    That's what I'm paying the state for - to put them there.
    No, you are paying the state for the economic advantages you are being given.
    In vertically stacked Human Resource Warehouses.
    Let me know if you ever find a willingness to address anything I have actually said.
    As for all that precious infrastructure - well, we would all "share" in that, of course. That goes without saying.
    And those who got to pockets its value would be paying for it.
    Why, they are as much a part of "society" as I am! What more could they ask for? I am footing the bills, after all.
    Paying for what you take from others instead of getting it as a welfare subsidy giveaway. Right.



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  23. #1249
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    I would have more than "my fair share" of plantation land to develop, which I could definitely bid on,
    But you are not actually productive enough (you don't know any economics, for one thing) to be the successful bidder.
    Is that really what you think, Roy? That to be a successful entrepreneur one must "know economics"? Are you that daft, that disconnected from reality?

    Do you have any idea how many very successful simpletons there are in the economy, who only follow basic principles, and didn't get that way from owning any land, and who don't know the first thing about economic theory? Try MOST, Roy.

    And since you are the idiot savant of economics: Have you ever heard of an economic term called "division of labor"? Ever hear the old joke about two guys out on safari who spy a tiger stalking them? One guy immediately sits down and starts frantically lacing up his running shoes. The other says, "What are you doing, you can't outrun a tiger!", to which the other responds, "I don't need to. I just need to outrun you."

    I am an entrepreneur, Roy, and have been nearly all my adult life. I didn't become successful from "knowing economics". I got that way from knowing my specific markets, and how to best fill the needs of my targeted markets better than my competitors - the only ones I had to outrun. I didn't have to outrun everyone else. There was never any other competition, thanks to that wonderful economic principle called "division of labor". Rappers, shoemakers, automakers, brokers, butchers, bakers, candlestick makers, you name it -- none of those were ever my competition.

    And economists? How in the hell could any of them compete, when they don't have the slightest clue about my markets? I am an expert in my chosen fields, Roy. If they tried, I'd run circles around them. And you, if you tried. I know my markets, and how to serve them, much in the way a successful entertainer knows his or her audience. For one of my particular audiences, I needed to know basic physics, fluid dynamics, electronics, semiconductor process control, and a few specific systems. In addition, I needed basic marketing skills, and a general knowledge of business and accounting (which I could hire anyway, dime a dozen). But not "economics". And that was long before I learned anything about macroeconomics - whether Keynesian-spawned mainstream theory in their myriad forms, Austrian, Roy L. 101, or anything else.

    Moreover, do you honestly believe that most of the wealth in the world was created by mere land ownership? Home ownership aside, I have never owned any of the real estate on which any of my commercial enterprises were founded and became successful. I have always leased everything in business, including two businesses in China. Land, cars, you name it -- like most businesses -- renting, providing employment opportunities and paying taxes, all while being productive and profitable, is nothing new to me.

    Not you, Roy. That's an enormous difference between us. You honestly believe that a regime change would actually help you -- that knowledge of macroeconomic theory is somehow required to be a vital part of the economy it attempts to describe, predict, and even manipulate. Roy, you could erase what little knowledge I have of macroeconomic theory, and I would still be successful. I could do it in my sleep...under just about any regime.

    So, back to your tiny, cramped, high density living space on the outskirts of town, you not-so-productive serf. I have a partnership with a fascist government now. I know what they want, and what they're willing to offer me in return. I have some "publicly created value" to profit from now, and some infrastructure to pay for that will help me, not you, to profit even more. So away with you - away from real productivity like mine, that actually contributes to this wonderful new fascist economy you so dreamed about. I am far more deserving of more space than you, more resources, and usage of better lands than you ever will be. I can afford it, not you; you are the least contributor. So take your superior knowledge of economic theory with you, as there are real businesses to be run.

    Here's your lesson, Roy:

    F*CK YOU, Granny (and you are Granny, btw). If you try to violate my rights to superior liberty without making just compensation, your wonderful fascist Godfather regime which serves our mutual interests (mine and theirs, not yours, since I am the goose that lays its golden eggs) will favor me as it picks you up and moves you bodily out of the way. You have no more right to the top of my skyscraper than to stop cars on the freeway. You have earned no fortune, so you don't deserve it, you have no right to it, and won't be getting it. Sorry. Not under the current regime, or the future one you fantasize about.

    Lesson: don't be an economic theory dog in the manger.

    Paying for what you take from others instead of getting it as a welfare subsidy giveaway. Right.
    No, I would be paying others, not you, for what you think I'm taking from you. I was never the landlord in any of my businesses, so no welfare subsidies for me in any case. And my new landlord is now the state, which means no more income tax - just an LVT based on what I bid. And your part in that equation, little undeserving serf, is a tiny pittance. You are the least of my costs. Or theirs. Like a slave, they will determine what you require for sustenance and living space, and that's what you will get. At a modest cost to you of course. You can't just go around stealing from others. You have a price to pay as well; your exemption only covers so much. Most of the money the state gets from me, however, beyond that which greases politically favored interests first, will be spent on infrastructure that serves my interests far more than it ever will yours. That's the beauty of your plan, Roy.
    Last edited by Steven Douglas; 12-20-2011 at 02:51 PM.

  24. #1250
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven Douglas View Post
    Thank you, Roy. Now I know that you're a lying, state-worshiping, wealth-worshiping shill for fascism, and privilege for wealth, which you conflate as being synonymous with productivity.
    ROTFL!! Thank you, Steven. Now I know that you just say any stupid lie that comes into your head, and don't even attempt to support it with fact or logic. You have been comprehensively and conclusively refuted, and you have no answers, so you just make some more $#!+ up. Simple.
    By your reckoning, banks and insurance companies are among the most "productive hands" in the world.
    <yawn> But somehow, inevitably, you can't quote anything I have actually said that states or implies any such thing.
    When it comes to land, you don't give two $#@!s about individual liberties, or individual rights of any kind. You have co-opted all of these as being neatly collectivized, owned by "society", or "the state" - as if they were the same, and as if that also meant individuals.
    Another spew of stupid accusations unaccompanied by any supporting quotations, evidence or logic. What a surprise.
    You see private landlords evicting people who have long occupied their dwellings, and don't have any problem with this at all.
    True; the problem I have is that private landlords get to charge their tenants for what government, the community and nature provide, and to KEEP THAT MONEY (which has been stolen from all who would otherwise be at liberty to use the land), whether they evict any long-term tenants or not.
    You are not opposed to rents,
    Of course not. Rent is a natural market phenomenon and necessary to efficient allocation. I just oppose giving it away to landowners in return for nothing.
    nor are you even in favor of giving people a mechanism that would allow them to free themselves from paying rent.
    You are lying again, Steven. I have described and advocated precisely such a mechanism, and one that, unlike yours, also ensures everyone has the opportunity to enjoy free, secure tenure on enough good land of their choice to live on.
    You only want to change landlords to one that is public, which you think would be more benevolent.
    It would inherently be more benevolent, as land's value is publicly created. The public landlord is therefore inherently a productive market participant, while the private landlord is inherently a thief.
    You want to change the dynamic so that government executes all evictions at the behest of the rich (who may or may not be productive), and only because government -- the state -- stands to gain from it.
    <sigh> Nothing but more stupid lies.

    1. There is no doubt that private landlords would still evict deadbeat tenants. Strike One.

    2. The few "evictions" (what a foul, despicable bit of propaganda) government would carry out would NOT be "at the behest of the rich," but of market participants willing and able to use the land more productively AND (unlike the deadbeat occupants) justly to compensate those whom they deprived of it. Strike Two.

    3. As more efficient and productive land use increases total wealth in society to the benefit of all, it is the people who benefit from movement of natural resources into more productive hands, not government or the state.

    That's Strike Three, Steven. You're out.
    I would actually do quite well under your plan, Roy.
    Almost everyone would, except the top few percent of landowners and the mortgage lenders, realtors, etc. who are parasites on the parasites.
    Not the poor, or any of the laboring productive hands, which you would marginalize and squeeze into little boxes,
    No, that's just an idiotic lie from you, Steven. LVT MUST make more and better improvements available for all, as that is the only way landholders could avoid losing money. Stop lying.
    while allowing me to lay out a red carpet for myself, with enormous "low density", higher value land area.
    If you want to spend your money on occupying land for your personal pleasure, fine: you'll at least be paying just compensation to those whom you deprive of it. But don't imagine that you will be able, as you are under the current system and would be under your system, to pocket great sums of publicly created land value in return for nothing.
    Not as a matter of right, but privilege -- like I can already do now.
    Lie. When you do it now, you make money. Try it under LVT and you will lose your shirt.
    That's the privilege of wealth, Roy.
    I know you are an apologist for greed, privilege, wealth and parasitism, Steven.
    It works much better than rights. Thank you.
    It only works NOW because your victims have been stripped of their rights. Try it under LVT, and you will just bankrupt yourself for society's benefit. Thank you.
    Not a wealthier "society", Roy. A wealthier state.
    No, that's just another stupid, evil lie from you, Steven, much like all your other stupid, evil lies. LVT enriches society both by stimulating more productive and efficient use of land and by removing the burden of unjust and economically destructive taxes. That is why it has ALWAYS produced rapid economic growth and increased prosperity for all. ALWAYS.
    I know you can't wrap your collectivist head around this, but society and the state are not the same thing; they never were, and never will be, regardless of the political regime, even if it pretended (as ours pretends now) to be "democratic".
    No one said they were the same, Steven. Why can't you ever address anything I have actually said?
    And what you propose is neither communism nor is it socialism, as some have charged. It is fascism. You are a fascist, Roy.
    LOL! You are just sad now, Steven. You are disgracing yourself with asinine name calling. Get a good dictionary, look up "fascism," and then try not to kill yourself for being so dishonest and evil.
    You would reward whomever does best for the good for the state, which is not the people, and not the rights of productive individuals, including their putative "natural liberty right" to land use.
    Garbage. LVT rewards the productive, and removes the welfare subsidy giveaway to greedy landowning parasites like you, Steven. Why not just admit that is the only reason you oppose it?

    And people's natural liberty right to use land is not "putative." It is a self-evident and indisputable fact of objective physical reality. It is merely a fact that you have to refuse to know, because you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil.
    The smallest part of the LVT you propose only indirectly goes back to "productive hands", Roy.
    No, that's just more stupid lying from you, Steven. It mostly goes to those who provide desired public services and infrastructure, who are by definition productive.
    Hell, the banks, insurance companies and our current government combined can and DO make all of those claims now -- that every good thing that was siphoned away from them was ostensibly spent on something that benefited them: land sequestered by the BLM, warfare, welfare, infrastructure, you name it. Politicians can boldly claim that this was all done in the interests of those who are either a) most productive, or b) suffer the most. With the middle class left in limbo, forced to be either one or the other, naturally and by design.
    Incomprehensible gibberish. There is nothing disputable about the value of land: people are willing to pay for it.
    Even moneys used to "build infrastructure" results in something much better for me, as an owner of firms, than it ever could be for the actual productive hands who work for me.
    <sigh> The moneys used to build infrastructure don't help you as an owner of "firms," only as an owner of land. As "an owner of firms," you must pay landowners full market value for access to any infrastructure government provides. LVT recovers that value to pay for the spending that creates it. That is the point. The productive hands therefore benefit most of all because they can buy the goods and services they want for lower prices in labor terms, and no longer have to pay taxes for being productive.
    Only a TINY portion of that so-called "publicly created value" goes back to those who are actually most productive, who you claim need to be compensated for their deprivation, as they are dispossessed of land they cannot afford to occupy or even work under your system.
    No, that's just another stupid lie from you, Steven. I have never said it was the most productive who needed compensation. That's just you makin' $#!+ up again. The most productive obviously NEED it less than the poor and unproductive. The most productive have the exact same human rights as anyone else, and merit -- and under LVT would get -- the exact same compensation as anyone else.

    It is precisely the most productive who CAN afford to occupy and use the good land under LVT: they are the only ones who can use the land and pay the LVT without losing money. And as they are using the land, they ARE getting its publicly created value, AND THEY ARE PAYING FOR IT.
    The rest - the real wealth - goes to the state, and to whomever has the best political and economic ties with the state. (which I seriously doubt would be you)
    No, that's just more stupid garbage with no basis in fact. If the state doesn't spend the LVT revenue on desired services and infrastructure that make the land under its authority more desirable and advantageous to use, it won't be getting as much revenue next year. LVT is the ONLY POSSIBLE tax system that aligns the state's financial interests with the people's interests.
    That is A Very Good Deal for me, Roy.
    LOL! Yeah, sure it is, Steven. That's probably why you oppose it with such maniacal ferocity and despicable dishonesty....
    I can employ a thousand "productive hands", as a small part of my LVT goes to pay for cheap, high density, vertically-stacked cracker boxes on the outskirts.
    ROTFL! You're just makin' $#!+ up again, Steven. That's not what LVT revenue is used for, and land on the outskirts can't justify high-density development anyway. You are merely proving yourself an economic ignoramus with nothing sensible to say. Again.
    Like Hong Kong.
    Again proving your ignorance, stupidity and/or dishonesty (pick any two). The cheap, high-density cracker boxes in HK are built and owned by private developers, not government.
    And they will still have to pay rent, given that their exemption won't be any guarantee that they can actually live anywhere rent free.
    Yes, in fact, it will. It's effectively a statistical certainty, like not throwing snake eyes a hundred times in a row.
    Meanwhile, I can keep a giant spacious penthouse with a gorgeous view of the Hong Kong bays for myself. Why? Because my employees - the people that I also rent, who actually are productive, in my name and on my behalf - aren't nearly as productive as your system presumes that I am.
    Then you'll lose money.
    I don't have to compensate them for anything you think I have stolen from them - I can compensate the state instead,
    Which compensates them through their individual exemptions, which YOU help pay for.
    because the individual people themselves are presumed to be the least contributors of all that "publicly created value". The only evidence they can possibly have that they "contributed more" is wealth itself. Hard specie. Show us the money. Most will never be able to do that, and barring that, we can safely assume that they contributed very little to all the "publicly created value".
    There's no way of knowing or even estimating how much any given individual contributes to land value.
    Thank you, Roy, and good luck getting to where I would be under this wonderful system of yours, because I don't think you would be "productive" enough OR politically connected enough, even under your own system, to enjoy a piece of what I would have as a matter of privilege.
    If you are privileged under LVT, at least it won't be in your capacity as a landowner. Actually, given your proven tenuous grasp of economics, I doubt you would be able to maintain a position of wealth or privilege for very long under LVT, which is no doubt why you oppose it so fanatically.
    Your system is nothing more than a symbiosis of commerce pyramids and a fascist state, in a way that feeds both.
    If that meant anything, which it doesn't, it would be wrong. You are just spewing propaganda words with no relation to reality.
    It siphons actual productivity from people while claiming to act in their interests, all under color of protecting their collectivized "natural liberty rights".
    How? Blank out.
    What you designed is a state-owned plantation system, Roy. Sharecropping elevated to the level of the state.
    No, that is just another stupid lie from you, Steven. Why do you always feel you need to tell stupid lies like that?
    The state leases the plantation lands, while a separate class of plantation owners compete for those leases, even as the slaves are given "adequate" living space at very high density, and very little cost.
    The "slaves" have their rights to liberty under the proposed LVT system, unlike under the current system or your system, and therefore cannot be compelled to labor for others' profit. That makes them not slaves.
    Welcome to Roy's Plantation.

    As for the poor and working classes -- let them eat infrastructure.
    Garbage beneath refutation.

  25. #1251
    Go back, Roy. You missed the part where none of my businesses, or my success, has been founded on being a commercial landowner of any kind. I have always paid both rents and taxes, Roy. That's your whole ridiculous premise - that somehow most commerce is based on land ownership.

    I have never been the evil, parasitic commercial landowner/landlord in any case. If you robbed me of my home, it wouldn't affect my business in any way, and that is not atypical or out of the norm for business, Roy. As I expand, I can move, constantly trading across, always to a new landlord. I don't care if the landowner is private or public. My leased properties - land, equipment and vehicles - are constantly rolled over according to need. But someone else has always held the title. I only use them.

    You lost, Roy. Plain and simple. Your arguments were completely destroyed, as they don't apply to me, just as they don't apply to most businesses, for which commercial land ownership was never at issue.

    So, big deal - you combine taxes and rents into a single LVT. So what? What changed for me? Nothing that I can see. I would do quite well. I never needed to own commercial land to make a profit, so how would I lose my shirt? Furthermore, what changed for you? PERSONALLY. Nothing that I can see. You are "otherwise at liberty" to compete with me. Just as you are now. Good luck with that.

  26. #1252
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    2. The few "evictions" (what a foul, despicable bit of propaganda) government would carry out would NOT be "at the behest of the rich," but of market participants willing and able to use the land more productively AND (unlike the deadbeat occupants) justly to compensate those whom they deprived of it.
    Yeah. Market participant willing and able to use the land more productively. Me. The "rich". Not you, the economic theory dog in the manger. I would outbid you, and the government would remove you "at my behest" -- aka "the behest of the rich".

    No strike. Pop fly, easy out.

    LVT MUST make more and better improvements available for all, as that is the only way landholders could avoid losing money. Stop lying.
    Commercially I was never a landholder who did not pay rent to somebody as part of my costs.

    If you want to spend your money on occupying land for your personal pleasure, fine: you'll at least be paying just compensation to those whom you deprive of it. But don't imagine that you will be able, as you are under the current system and would be under your system, to pocket great sums of publicly created land value in return for nothing.
    Never owned commercial land, Roy. I always compensated someone for my land use. So I don't have to "imagine" that I would be able. That's my reality now, for which I am more than able, without owning any commercial land.

    Lie. When you do it now, you make money. Try it under LVT and you will lose your shirt.
    I don't do it now. It's not how I make money, so how would I lose my shirt?

    It only works NOW because your victims have been stripped of their rights. Try it under LVT, and you will just bankrupt yourself for society's benefit. Thank you.
    I don't own commercial land, and I am nowhere near being bankrupt.

    LVT enriches society both by stimulating more productive and efficient use of land and by removing the burden of unjust and economically destructive taxes.
    Thank you. Destructive taxes that I have always paid are now included as just rent, which I have always paid, only now it goes to the government.

    LVT rewards the productive, and removes the welfare subsidy giveaway to greedy landowning parasites like you, Steven. Why not just admit that is the only reason you oppose it?
    Perhaps because I don't own any commercial land, and never depended on such a "welfare subsidy", as you put it, for my businesses to make a profit? I don't charge rents to anyone, Roy. That's your game, not mine.

    The smallest part of the LVT you propose only indirectly goes back to "productive hands", Roy.
    No, that's just more stupid lying from you, Steven. It mostly goes to those who provide desired public services and infrastructure, who are by definition productive.
    Right. Me. It mostly goes to those, like me - the non-landowning entrepreneur, who is richer than you, and self-evidently (by virtue of my wealth only) "more productive" - who provides desired public services and [pays for] infrastructure.

    Gracias.

    <sigh> The moneys used to build infrastructure don't help you as an owner of "firms," only as an owner of land. As "an owner of firms," you must pay landowners full market value for access to any infrastructure government provides.
    Now you're just being stupid. I have to pay both the landowner for use of the land and developed real estate, and I also have to pay government taxes for the infrastructure that government provides. All your LVT does is change the landlord from private to public and combines the two. Which I have always paid separately anyway.

    I have never said it was the most productive who needed compensation.
    No, that's true. You only stated that they (which really means me, given my wealth) would/should benefit most. Need has nothing to do with it. It is my reward for being wealthier more productive.

    That's just you makin' $#!+ up again. The most productive obviously NEED it less than the poor and unproductive. The most productive have the exact same human rights as anyone else, and merit -- and under LVT would get -- the exact same compensation as anyone else.
    Of course they would. You and Granny with your exemptions, and me with my exemption + my wealth superior productivity -- pretty much everyone.

    It is precisely the most productive who CAN afford to occupy and use the good land under LVT: they are the only ones who can use the land and pay the LVT without losing money. And as they are using the land, they ARE getting its publicly created value, AND THEY ARE PAYING FOR IT.
    Yes, just like the non-land-owning entrepreneurs do now. Only now our rent/taxes are combined as a single LVT, as the owner of the land changes hands, and my new landlord becomes government. So now that we've cut out the parasitic commercial landowners completely, my government no longer needs to impose a destructive income tax. Its new revenue base is one that once inured only to the benefit of my former landlords.

    I guess my government won't need as much revenue now, huh? So, was my burden lifted, or merely shifted from my shoulders to my back?

    If the state doesn't spend the LVT revenue on desired services and infrastructure that make the land under its authority more desirable and advantageous to use, it won't be getting as much revenue next year. LVT is the ONLY POSSIBLE tax system that aligns the state's financial interests with the people's interests.
    Replace "people's interests" with "primary commercial interests", and you will almost have it right. Remember? The LVT is based on COMMERCIAL RENTS. NOT "people's interests". The state's financial interests are specifically focused on, depend upon, whomever pays the most rent -- NOT to those whose rents are subsidized...er...reimbursed for your deprivation. You, as an exemption holder, are the payee. The drain side of the equation. I, as a superior LVT payer, on the other hand - am one of those geese that lays golden eggs so that you can be subsidized/reimbursed. Therefore, whatever is in MY interests will be attended to, first and foremost. You're nothing more than an incidental trickle-down in the equation, Roy. As a laborer with an exemption, you don't pay an LVT, remember? Under your system, the State's financial interests will be aligned with ME. You're an insignificant, even minor, shareholder.
    Last edited by Steven Douglas; 12-20-2011 at 04:52 PM.

  27. #1253
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven Douglas View Post
    Is that really what you think, Roy? That to be a successful entrepreneur one must "know economics"?
    No, which is a major reason I didn't say it. You made it up. It's just a fabrication on your part, like everything else you claim I have said.

    What I said was that as you don't know any economics, you would be unlikely to be the successful bidder for the most valuable plots of land under a system of LVT.
    Do you have any idea how many very successful simpletons there are in the economy, who only follow basic principles, and didn't get that way from owning any land, and who don't know the first thing about economic theory? Try MOST, Roy.
    Not if by "very successful" you mean, "rich."
    Moreover, do you honestly believe that most of the wealth in the world was created by mere land ownership?
    <sigh> I have stated explicitly that NO wealth is EVER created by landownership.
    Home ownership aside, I have never owned any of the real estate on which any of my commercial enterprises were founded and became successful.
    Then why do you want to continue paying for government twice?
    You honestly believe that a regime change would actually help you --
    LVT would help almost everyone but the biggest and least productive landowners. If you really are super productive as you claim, and not just another landowning parasite trying to justify his protection racket, then LVT would help you more than me.
    that knowledge of macroeconomic theory is somehow required to be a vital part of the economy it attempts to describe, predict, and even manipulate.
    <sigh> One can be a vital part of the economy without knowing economics. But one is unlikely to be the successful bidder for the most valuable land parcels in an LVT system without knowing economics.
    So, back to your tiny, cramped, high density living space on the outskirts of town, you not-so-productive serf.
    <yawn> Stupid ad hominem garbage beneath refutation.
    I have a partnership with a fascist government now.
    I don't doubt it. Sounds right up your alley.
    I know what they want, and what they're willing to offer me in return. I have some "publicly created value" to profit from now, and some infrastructure to pay for that will help me, not you, to profit even more.
    It will help landowners profit.
    So away with you - away from real productivity like mine, that actually contributes to this wonderful new fascist economy you so dreamed about. I am far more deserving of more space than you, more resources, and usage of better lands than you ever will be. I can afford it, not you; you are the least contributor. So take your superior knowledge of economic theory with you, as there are real businesses to be run.
    <yawn> If I can advance the arrival of liberty and justice by a single day, I will have contributed a thousand times more to society and the economy than you could ever hope to contribute.
    Here's your lesson, Roy:

    F*CK YOU, Granny (and you are Granny, btw).
    Silliness.
    If you try to violate my rights to superior liberty without making just compensation, your wonderful fascist Godfather regime which serves our mutual interests (mine and theirs, not yours, since I am the goose that lays its golden eggs) will favor me as it picks you up and moves you bodily out of the way. You have no more right to the top of my skyscraper than to stop cars on the freeway. You have earned no fortune, so you don't deserve it, you have no right to it, and won't be getting it. Sorry. Not under the current regime, or the future one you fantasize about.
    Does braying how superior you are make you feel better about serving evil?
    No, I would be paying others, not you, for what you think I'm taking from you. I was never the landlord in any of my businesses, so no welfare subsidies for me in any case.
    So, explain for me again why you prefer to pay for government twice, instead of only once.
    And my new landlord is now the state, which means no more income tax - just an LVT based on what I bid. And your part in that equation, little undeserving serf, is a tiny pittance. You are the least of my costs. Or theirs. Like a slave, they will determine what you require for sustenance and living space, and that's what you will get. At a modest cost to you of course.
    Do you feel better now?
    You can't just go around stealing from others.
    I don't want to. Landowners do.
    You have a price to pay as well; your exemption only covers so much. Most of the money the state gets from me, however, beyond that which greases politically favored interests first, will be spent on infrastructure that serves my interests far more than it ever will yours. That's the beauty of your plan, Roy.
    Infrastructure only serves landowners' interests, because they are privileged to charge you full market value for access to it. THAT'S the beauty of my plan.

  28. #1254
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    What I said was that as you don't know any economics, you would be unlikely to be the successful bidder for the most valuable plots of land under a system of LVT.
    Give an example. Bids are based on a capacity and willingness to pay. No complexity of economic understanding required there. Or am I missing something (that you can articulate using specifics)?

    Moreover, do you honestly believe that most of the wealth in the world was created by mere land ownership?
    <sigh> I have stated explicitly that NO wealth is EVER created by landownership.
    <mocking sigh> Let me rephrase that, given your slippery semantic evasiveness. Do you honestly believe that most of the wealth in the world was acquired through mere land ownership?

    Infrastructure only serves landowners' interests, because they are privileged to charge you full market value for access to it. THAT'S the beauty of my plan.
    On that you couldn't be more wrong. Infrastructure serves the "interests" of whomever uses that infrastructure to their advantage, or derives benefit - not just payments - therefrom. The fact that landowners can recoup the costs of infrastructure they created at a profit is incidental. When I lease property from anyone - government in China or a private developer in the States, the infrastructure serves MY interests as well. Or else I wouldn't be willing to bid on it, or pay for it.

    Get your head out of your butt, Roy.

    Home ownership aside, I have never owned any of the real estate on which any of my commercial enterprises were founded and became successful.
    Then why do you want to continue paying for government twice?
    I don't want to pay anyone twice for anything. Actual land ownership for my own use and benefit is something I want to have the option of acquiring for myself, fee simple, so that I never have to pay anyone, public or private. Remember, I don't buy into your "everyone has an otherwise at liberty right to access and usage of all land" philosophical nonsense.

    I see all people as sovereigns, Roy. Real sovereign governance of themselves and with sole despotic dominion over the land that makes up their own kingdoms. If they take too much for themselves, or deny that same sovereignty to others, the other sovereigns can step in and put them in their place. But sovereignty itself, including occupied lands and borders, is inalienable -- just like with countries.

    I don't want the option of owning land outright (residential or commercial), as a matter of right, so that I can rent it out to others - that's a different category of ownership altogether, which I am not defending or promoting. Just my own usage.

    That is one of the reasons I LOVE, and imagine you would HATE, what may well happen in North Dakota in June 2012. If their voter initiative is successful, they will be the first state in the union to constitutionally abolish all property taxes. Talk about historic. No more local taxation layered and hidden below the already heavy layers of state and federal taxes, with general obligations (GO) making unilateral claims that effectively encumber private property (thus turning owners into renters subject to eviction for non-payment of locally imposed rents). All taxes would be required to come from the State government revenue only, and not tied to land value and worthless but expensive public appraisers. If successful, it will be the only state where property is actually owned, fee simple, and not "rented" from local governments.

    Oh, happy day if that happens, Roy. Talk about a major blow to LVT.
    Last edited by Steven Douglas; 12-20-2011 at 05:51 PM.

  29. #1255
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven Douglas View Post
    Go back, Roy. You missed the part where none of my businesses, or my success, has been founded on being a commercial landowner of any kind.
    OK, so you got all your money by owning residential land. So?
    I have always paid both rents and taxes, Roy. That's your whole ridiculous premise - that somehow most commerce is based on land ownership.
    You again prove you have no choice but to lie about what I have plainly written. It is most great accumulations of private wealth that are based on landownership, not most commerce.
    I have never been the evil, parasitic commercial landowner/landlord in any case. If you robbed me of my home, it wouldn't affect my business in any way, and that is not atypical or out of the norm for business, Roy.
    You've never had business loans secured by your residential landholdings? That is atypical.
    As I expand, I can move, constantly trading across, always to a new landlord. I don't care if the landowner is private or public.
    Then you haven't thought the matter through. If the landowner is public, your rent payment reduces taxes. Hello?
    You lost, Roy. Plain and simple.
    LOL! I have owned you. Plain and simple.
    Your arguments were completely destroyed, as they don't apply to me,
    Wrong. Unlike you, I do not use ad hominem fallacies. You and your case are absolutely irrelevant to my arguments.
    just as they don't apply to most businesses, for which commercial land ownership was never at issue.
    Landownership is always at issue, and ownership of the land under its premises is the single best predictor of whether a business's owner will get rich from it or not.
    So, big deal - you combine taxes and rents into a single LVT.
    No, I SUBSTITUTE rent for taxes, cutting out the something-for-nothing payment to the landowner.
    So what? What changed for me?
    Instead of paying for government twice, you only pay once. Your total cost of rent and taxes has been cut in half.
    Nothing that I can see.
    You can't see the cat because you refuse to look at it:

    http://www.henrygeorge.org/catsup.htm
    I never needed to own commercial land to make a profit, so how would I lose my shirt?
    If you tried to be the landholder rather than a user, you'd likely pay more land tax than you took in in rent.
    Furthermore, what changed for you? PERSONALLY.
    I'd only have to pay for government once instead of twice.

  30. #1256
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    OK, so you got all your money by owning residential land. So?
    ::: BUZZZZ ::: Thanks for playing!

    No, one piece of residential land, paid for only, and never rented out to anyone. You know...like what was typical of home ownership prior to the housing bubble and subsequent crash. My so-called "exemption" to live rent free would have come from my ownership, not from some artificial exemption, whereby people "return to me" something I never considered stolen from me in the first place. I would have had a natural exemption to live rent free were it not for that little pesky "rent" called property taxes.

    0.00000% of all the money that I have ever acquired came from land ownership of any kind, and ZERO business loans secured by my residential landholding (not holdings), which didn't happen until long after I was successful. And that is not as atypical as you think. Furthermore, had I used my residential land as collateral, that would be no different than borrowing against my own savings, since that is what paid for the land to begin with - meaning I would be self-funded regardless how you viewed it (all speculative "bubble value" equity nonsense notwithstanding). Otherwise, land would just be a store, not a source, of wealth for me. As it is now.

    Try again, Roy.

    Then you haven't thought the matter through. If the landowner is public, your rent payment reduces taxes. Hello?
    Hello? Reality check to Roy: All it does is give one more revenue channel to my already hungry, hungry hippo of a government, which has nothing better to do with its time than dream up ways to spend other people's wealth and productivity. So no, I would not in any way pretend that a rent payment, even if that was all it was initially, would somehow permanently reduce taxes, let alone replace them. Why would it, once my government realizes that it could have both, and given that government will always try to take more than what the market can bear? It could have my cake and eat it too, Roy. That what governments do.
    Last edited by Steven Douglas; 12-20-2011 at 06:47 PM.



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  32. #1257
    Quote Originally Posted by Roy L View Post
    OK, so you got all your money by owning residential land. So?

    You again prove you have no choice but to lie about what I have plainly written. It is most great accumulations of private wealth that are based on landownership, not most commerce.

    You've never had business loans secured by your residential landholdings? That is atypical.

    Then you haven't thought the matter through. If the landowner is public, your rent payment reduces taxes. Hello?

    LOL! I have owned you. Plain and simple.

    Wrong. Unlike you, I do not use ad hominem fallacies. You and your case are absolutely irrelevant to my arguments.

    Landownership is always at issue, and ownership of the land under its premises is the single best predictor of whether a business's owner will get rich from it or not.

    No, I SUBSTITUTE rent for taxes, cutting out the something-for-nothing payment to the landowner.

    Instead of paying for government twice, you only pay once. Your total cost of rent and taxes has been cut in half.

    You can't see the cat because you refuse to look at it:

    http://www.henrygeorge.org/catsup.htm

    If you tried to be the landholder rather than a user, you'd likely pay more land tax than you took in in rent.

    I'd only have to pay for government once instead of twice.
    If the government you advocate is so great, people would donate to it using the IRS' "patriotic donation" program. No need for LVT. People would not only pay once, but multiple times in order to continue getting more of what they want.
    Quote Originally Posted by Torchbearer
    what works can never be discussed online. there is only one language the government understands, and until the people start speaking it by the magazine full... things will remain the same.
    Hear/buy my music here "government is the enemy of liberty"-RP Support me on Patreon here Ephesians 6:12

  33. #1258
    Quote Originally Posted by heavenlyboy34 View Post
    If the government you advocate is so great, people would donate to it using the IRS' "patriotic donation" program. No need for LVT.
    No, they would not. Such claims are just stupid. You could with equal "logic" claim, "If public education were so great, parents would donate to it without having to be taxed to support it," or, "If public fire protection were so great, people would support it by donations instead of having to be taxed to fund it."
    People would not only pay once, but multiple times in order to continue getting more of what they want.
    OK, so we can add public goods to the roster of economic topics on which you are comprehensively ignorant.

    People ALREADY PAY full market value to landowners for every benefit they get from government. They aren't willing to pay any more. That is why government has to tax them to pay for services and infrastructure. As they are already paying landowners all they are willing to pay for those benefits, they AREN'T willing to pay any more by donation. I don't know any clearer, simpler way to explain that to you.

  34. #1259
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven Douglas View Post
    Yeah. Market participant willing and able to use the land more productively. Me. The "rich". Not you, the economic theory dog in the manger. I would outbid you, and the government would remove you "at my behest" -- aka "the behest of the rich".
    No, that's just more asinine, "I'm richer than you so I'm better than you" braying on your part. You would not outbid me, because you aren't even in the market for the same kind of land I am interested in using. And those whom you do outbid, for the kind of land you want to use, also have other land they can use. You couldn't outbid more than a handful of competitors without losing your shirt, because you are not a real estate developer.
    Commercially I was never a landholder who did not pay rent to somebody as part of my costs.
    Then why are you rationalizing, justifying and defending a system that has been robbing you blind your whole life for the unearned profit of lazy, greedy parasites, and continues to do so? Why?
    Never owned commercial land, Roy. I always compensated someone for my land use. So I don't have to "imagine" that I would be able. That's my reality now, for which I am more than able, without owning any commercial land.
    Then why are you rationalizing, justifying and defending a system that has been robbing you blind your whole life for the unearned profit of lazy, greedy parasites, and continues to do so? Why?
    I don't do it now. It's not how I make money, so how would I lose my shirt?
    You'd lose your shirt if you tried to do it under LVT.
    Thank you. Destructive taxes that I have always paid are now included as just rent, which I have always paid, only now it goes to the government.
    But the landowner doesn't get to tax you. Right.
    Perhaps because I don't own any commercial land, and never depended on such a "welfare subsidy", as you put it, for my businesses to make a profit? I don't charge rents to anyone, Roy.
    Then why are you rationalizing, justifying and defending a system that has been robbing you blind your whole life for the unearned profit of lazy, greedy parasites, and continues to do so? Why?
    Right. Me. It mostly goes to those, like me - the non-landowning entrepreneur, who is richer than you,
    <yawn>
    and self-evidently (by virtue of my wealth only) "more productive"
    Non sequitur.
    - who provides desired public services and [pays for] infrastructure.
    Huh? You're a government employee or contractor providing services and infrastructure? How else would you get LVT revenue?
    Now you're just being stupid.
    No, I am proving that you are an economic ignoramus. You just don't know enough economics to realize what a fool you are making of yourself.
    I have to pay both the landowner for use of the land and developed real estate, and I also have to pay government taxes for the infrastructure that government provides. All your LVT does is change the landlord from private to public and combines the two. Which I have always paid separately anyway.
    WRONG. It does not combine the two. It ELIMINATES THE PRIVATE LANDOWNER. Instead of paying for government twice, once in taxes and once for land, you only pay once, for land. The taxes go.
    Yes, just like the non-land-owning entrepreneurs do now. Only now our rent/taxes are combined as a single LVT, as the owner of the land changes hands, and my new landlord becomes government. So now that we've cut out the parasitic commercial landowners completely, my government no longer needs to impose a destructive income tax. Its new revenue base is one that once inured only to the benefit of my former landlords.
    By George, he's got it!
    I guess my government won't need as much revenue now, huh?
    Right. Many of the expenses it incurs in a futile effort to undo the harm caused by landowner privilege will no longer be needed.
    So, was my burden lifted, or merely shifted from my shoulders to my back?
    To the extent that you are a producer rather than a landowner, it was lifted.
    Replace "people's interests" with "primary commercial interests", and you will almost have it right. Remember? The LVT is based on COMMERCIAL RENTS. NOT "people's interests".
    But people are only willing to pay rent for advantages and benefits they desire.
    The state's financial interests are specifically focused on, depend upon, whomever pays the most rent -- NOT to those whose rents are subsidized...er...reimbursed for your deprivation. You, as an exemption holder, are the payee. The drain side of the equation. I, as a superior LVT payer, on the other hand - am one of those geese that lays golden eggs so that you can be subsidized/reimbursed. Therefore, whatever is in MY interests will be attended to, first and foremost. You're nothing more than an incidental trickle-down in the equation, Roy. As a laborer with an exemption, you don't pay an LVT, remember? Under your system, the State's financial interests will be aligned with ME. You're an insignificant, even minor, shareholder.
    Leaving aside the baseless ad hominem assumptiions about me, that's pretty much correct.

  35. #1260
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven Douglas View Post
    Give an example. Bids are based on a capacity and willingness to pay. No complexity of economic understanding required there. Or am I missing something (that you can articulate using specifics)?
    Consider a large parcel of land zoned for high-density development in a major city. Only someone with the capital and the skills to build and operate a successful, appropriate high-density structure or structures would be able and willing to pay the LVT on it. Anyone else would just lose money.
    <mocking sigh> Let me rephrase that, given your slippery semantic evasiveness. Do you honestly believe that most of the wealth in the world was acquired through mere land ownership?
    Most substantial accumulations of wealth have been obtained primarily by pocketing publicly created land value rather than by any commensurate contribution to production, yes. The greater the accumulation of wealth, the more likely that it was primarily acquired by owning land titles or other privileges.
    On that you couldn't be more wrong.
    Nope. I am definitely right.
    Infrastructure serves the "interests" of whomever uses that infrastructure to their advantage, or derives benefit - not just payments - therefrom.
    Nope. They don't get any benefit at all, because they have to pay landowners full market value for any such benefit. They don't get any NET benefit, only landowners do.
    The fact that landowners can recoup the costs of infrastructure they created at a profit is incidental.
    ROTFL!! You couldn't be more wrong. Landowners don't create any infrastructure, and the rent they pocket is by definition not a recouping of any production cost.
    When I lease property from anyone - government in China or a private developer in the States, the infrastructure serves MY interests as well. Or else I wouldn't be willing to bid on it, or pay for it.
    Of course it is useful to you, that is why you are willing to pay for it. But you don't get any net benefit from it, because you must pay the landowner full market value for access to it.
    Get your head out of your butt, Roy.
    I am the one schooling you in economics, Steven, and I'll thank you to remember that.
    I don't want to pay anyone twice for anything.
    Then why are you rationalizing, justifying and defending a system that forces you to do so?
    Actual land ownership for my own use and benefit is something I want to have the option of acquiring for myself, fee simple, so that I never have to pay anyone, public or private.
    Yes, and some people want to have the option of owning slaves. Some people want to have the option of murdering those who are inconvenient to their plans. Sorry, it's just your tough $#!+ if you "want to have the option" of violating others' rights and not making just compensation. You can't. Deal with it.
    Remember, I don't buy into your "everyone has an otherwise at liberty right to access and usage of all land" philosophical nonsense.
    It is a physical fact, not "philosophical nonsense." You are of course at liberty to refuse to know facts of objective physical reality that prove your beliefs are false and evil. But you are not at liberty to alter them.
    I see all people as sovereigns, Roy.
    And some people see little fairies in their gardens. So?
    Real sovereign governance of themselves and with sole despotic dominion over the land that makes up their own kingdoms.
    How did they acquire a right to sole despotic dominion over others' rights to liberty, Steven? How?
    If they take too much for themselves, or deny that same sovereignty to others, the other sovereigns can step in and put them in their place. But sovereignty itself, including occupied lands and borders, is inalienable -- just like with countries.
    Such claims are of course self-contradictory and indefensible.
    I don't want the option of owning land outright (residential or commercial), as a matter of right, so that I can rent it out to others - that's a different category of ownership altogether, which I am not defending or promoting. Just my own usage.
    "I don't want the option of owning slaves outright (field or house), as a matter of right, so that I can rent them out to others - that's a different category of ownership altogether, which I am not defending or promoting. Just my own usage."
    That is one of the reasons I LOVE, and imagine you would HATE, what may well happen in North Dakota in June 2012. If their voter initiative is successful, they will be the first state in the union to constitutionally abolish all property taxes. Talk about historic.
    Yes, "historic" like Napoleon invading Russia. I find it frightening that people can so completely blind themselves to the dreadful lesson of Proposition 13 in California.
    No more local taxation layered and hidden below the already heavy layers of state and federal taxes, with general obligations (GO) making unilateral claims that effectively encumber private property (thus turning owners into renters subject to eviction for non-payment of locally imposed rents). All taxes would be required to come from the State government revenue only, and not tied to land value and worthless but expensive public appraisers. If successful, it will be the only state where property is actually owned, fee simple, and not "rented" from local governments.

    Oh, happy day if that happens, Roy. Talk about a major blow to LVT.
    Be careful what you wish for, Steven. The more low-property-tax horror stories like Prop 13 pile up, the closer the day when LVT is enacted.

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