Tenants Union Report 1992

'Existing laws fail to provide for controlled and affordable levels of rent, adequate minimum standards of housing and security of tenure,” Penalties for offending landlords or agents , therefore, do not reflect the financial gains that drive investors. Tenants have become increasingly reluctant to object or complain about breaches of the act for fear of being blacklisted as a troublemaker or evicted, says the report, particularly since a database on tenants was established in 1987.

Seven Nobel Prize Winners Endorse.

Milton Freidman “I share your view that taxes would be best placed on the land, and not on improvements.” Herbert Simon: “Assuming that a tax increase is necessary, it is clearly preferable to impose the additional cost on land by increasing the land tax, rather than to increase the wage taxes - the initiatives open to the City (of Pittsburgh). It is the use and occupancy of property that creates the need for the municipal services that appear as the largest item in the budget- fire and police protection, waste removal, and public works, The average increase in tax bills of city residents will be about twice as great with wage tax increase than with a land tax increase.” Paul Samuelson “Pure land rent is in the nature of a ‘surplus’ which can be taxed heavily without distorting production incentives or efficiency.” A land value tax can be called ‘the useful tax on measured land surplus.” James Tobin “I think in principle it’s a good idea to tax unimproved land, and particularly capital gains (wind falls) on it. Theory says we should try to tax items with zero or low elasticity,and those include sites.” Franco Modigliani “It is important that the rent of land be retained as a source of government revenue. Some persons who could make excellent use of land would be unable to raise money for the purchase price. Collecting rent annually provides access to land for persons with limited access to credit.” Robert Solow “Users of land should not be allowed to acquire rights of indefinite duration for single payments. For efficiency, for adequate revenue and for justice, every user of land should be required to make an annual payment to the local government equal to the current rental value of the land that he or she prevents others from using.” William Vickery American Economics Association, “It guarantees that no one dispossesses fellow citizens by obtaining a disproportionate share of what nature provides for humanity.”

John Kenneth Galbraith

“There is a common tendency to ignore the poor or to develop some rationalisation for the good fortune of the fortunate.”

Noam Chomsky

“Freedom without opportunity is a devil's gift, and the refusal to provide such opportunities is criminal”— Market Democracy in a Neoliberal Order: Doctrines and Reality,

Thucydides

“As the world goes, right is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”—The Peloponesian War, Book V, section 89

Amira Hass

“What journalism is really about - it's to monitor power and the centres of power.”

Rev. Dr. Matin Luther King, Jr.

“True compassion is more than flinging a coin at a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”

Clare Short UK International Development Secretary

“To tackle the underlying roots of violence and conflict, we need a massive international effort to reduce poverty and injustice, and to promote development, democracy and human rights.”— Speech to Labour Party Conference, Brighton UK, October 2001.

Henry Thomas Buckle, (1821-1862)

The landlords are perhaps the only large class whose interests are diametrically opposed to those of the people.

William Penn (1644-1718)

Fruits of Solitude: If all men were were so far tenants to the public that the superfluities of gain and expense were applied to the exigencies thereof, it would put an end to taxes, leave not a beggar, and make the greatest bank for national trade in Europe.

Richard Cobden, (1804-1865)

You who shall liberate the land will do more for your country than we have done in the liberation of its trade.

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)

The whole land (of Attica) was in the hands of a few, and if the cultivators did not pay their rents, they became subject to bondage...

UK Chancellor of the Exchequer

There never was a time (1930s depression) when the need was greater than it is today for the application of the philosophy and principles of Henry George to the economic and political conditions which are scourging the world ... Permanent peace can only be established when men and nations have realised that natural resources should be a common heritage. 1st Viscount Philip Snowden, (1864-1937)

Will fall wholly on the landlords.

A land tax levied in proportion to the rent of land, and varying with every variation of rents . . . will fall wholly on the landlords. - Walker's Political Economy, page 413.

Identifies the current land tenure system as:

"the one great imperfection, the snag on which freedom catches." Richard Noyes New Hampshire State Representative editor Now the Synthesis: Capitalism, Socialism, and the New Social Contract

Worldwatch Oct. l988

According to a 1985 government report, 2% of landowners hold 60% of the arable land in Brazil while close to 70% of rural households have little or none. Just 342 farm properties in Brazil cover 183,397 square miles--an area larger than California.

Land Rush-A Survey of America's Land

- Who Owns It, Who Controls It, How Much Is Left. At best, a generous interpretation would suggest that about 3% of the population owns 95% of the privately held land in the U.S. Peter Meyer; Harpers Magazine, Jan.1979

How the Other Half Dies

The most pressing cause of the abject poverty which millions of people in the world endure is that a mere 2.5% of landowners with more than 100 hectares control nearly three-quarters of all the land in the world, with the top 0.23% controlling over half. Susan George, Penguin Books,1976, p.24

Agnes de Mille (1905-1993)

"We have reached the deplorable circumstance where in large measure a very powerful few are in possession of the earth's resources, the land and all its riches, and all the franchises and other privileges that yield a return. These monopolistic positions are kept by a handful of men who are maintained virtually with- out taxation . . . we are yielding up sovereignty."

Distraction from the economic No#2

Opening statement to the Paliamentary Inquiry into Local Government cost-shifting inquiry 5 September 2002: Canberra paragraph 20 There is a suggestion that local government's taxation base could be broadened. This option is certainly worthy of further consideration, but I suspect that there is something of a quid pro quo in that, if local government were to expand its tax base, our constituents-whom we share with the other levels of government-would expect that, if we were taxing for a function, there would be an offset and the other levels would not be taxing for that purpose. Councillor John Ross President (2000-02) Australian Local Government Association

Perry Prentice

In 1969 gave a figure of 526 Companies owned 22% of all privately owned land. past president of Time Inc

South Africa-PROPERTY RATES BILL, 2003

MEMORANDUM ON THE OBJECTS OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT: 1.2 Municipalities derive their power to levy property rates directly from the Constitution (see in this regard section 229(1) of the Constitution). "Property" is not defined in the Constitution and is construed in context to mean land including any immovable property on or in the land or under the surface of the land.

What is the General Rate ?

AS it is assessed to land values, not from a persons labour. The General Rate is not a tax as theory defines taxation. It used to fund part or all of activities that are of “public benefit” where no other direct source of revenue is identified as appropriate to cover the cost of the activities. A person enterprise, entrepreneurship, labour nor capital is fined in anyway.

Distraction from the economic No#1

“We simply cannot survive on rates alone,” Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey, Chair of the metropolitan mayors meeting in Wellington discussion on funding issues facing local government.

Shifting the Incidence of Taxation:

"If land is taxed according to its pure rent, virtually all writers since Ricardo agree that the tax will fall wholly on the landowner, and that it cannot be shifted to any other person, whether tenant, farmer or consumer... the point is so universally accepted as to require no further discussion." E.R.A.Seligman

An Introduction to Positive Economics

"The tax cannot be passed on to consumers." Richard G. Lipsey 5th edition, London, 1979, p.370

Eminent-Domain Battle Flares in Connecticut

...State House Minority Leader Robert M. Ward (R) called for a special session to enact a moratorium on property seizures, and homeowners vowed to continue fighting...Gov. M. Jodi Rell (R) and state lawmakers had urged local governments to refrain from seizing property for development. Rell also favors a special session on the issue, a spokesman said. A group that won a Supreme Court victory allowing it to seize property for development is telling residents to vacate their homes in the latest flash point in a nationwide controversy. ...Notices order to vacate within 30 to 90 days and start paying rent to the development corporation during that period, according to the Institute for Justice, a Washington-based group representing the homeowners. Associated Press Wednesday, September 14, 2005; Page A17

Invasion of the Reluctant Renters

...From San Antonio to St. Louis to Atlanta, the economies of these cities have chugged along in recent years, missing out on the booms and busts on the East and West Coasts. Yet there has long been a glut of empty apartments in these areas..."It's been a double-edged sword," said Mark Fogelman, president of Fogelman Management Group, which owns more than 5,500 apartments in the Memphis...Before Hurricane Katrina hit, Houston and Dallas had the two highest vacancy rates in the country, according to Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Brokerage Company, in Encino, Calif. More than 10 percent of apartments were empty in both cities. Memphis and Atlanta were not far behind...Nationally, the average vacancy rate is 6.5 percent. Memphis, Dallas and Houston were among the few big metropolitan areas in the country where rents were continuing to fall in the first half of 2005, according to Global Real Analytics, a San Francisco research company that publishes the National Real Estate Index. Landlords were often forced to offer a month or two of free rent during the first year of a lease. Office space was also sitting empty. Before the storm, nearly one in four square feet of office space in Dallas was vacant, according to Marcus & Millichap. By ERIC DASH and DAVID LEONHARDT Published: September 16, 2005 NYTimes.com

Shadow Government

We have to watch the redevelopment in New Orleans for a lot of reasons, and one of them is to make sure that the shadow government of the rich and the powerful does not end up abusing eminent domain to take property that belongs to poor people in order to get them out of the city. US Rep. Maxine Waters