Property bubble set for three-year deflation

Access Economics Director Chris Richardson Calls on the Reserve Bank not to raise interest rates. "Australia is the most interest-rate sensitive nation in the world". The Age.

Origin of the economologist

e·con·o·my   (-kn-m) n. pl. e·con·o·mies a. The system or range of economic activity in a country, region, or community... b. A specific type of economic system... An orderly, functional arrangement of parts; an organized system: “the sense that there is a moral economy in the world, that good is rewarded and evil is punished” (George F. Will). Efficient, sparing, or conservative use....The least expensive class of accommodations... Word History: ...The word economy can be traced back to the Greek word oikonomos, ... derived from oikos, “house,” and nemein, “to manage.” From oikonomos was derived oikonom, ... “public revenue of a state.” first recorded ... 1440, is “the management of economic affairs,” ... of a monastery. Economy is later recorded in other senses shared by oikonomi in Greek, ... current sense, “the economic system of a country or an area,” seems not to have developed until the 19th or 20th century. ogy or -ology suff. Science; theory; study: ie;. dermatology. Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. a): gist   (jst)n. 1. The central idea; the essence. 2. Law. The grounds for action in a suit. [From Anglo-Norman (cest action) gist, (this action) lies, third person sing. of gesir, to lie, from Latin iacre. See y- in Indo-European Roots.] b): gist Pronunciation: 'jist Function: noun Etymology: Anglo-French, in the phrase laccion gist the action lies or is based (on), from gisir to lie (of process), from Old French gesir to lie, ultimately from Latin jacere: the ground or foundation of a legal action without which it would not be sustainable. Source: Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Law, © 1996 Merriam-Webster, Inc. c): gist n 1: the central meaning or theme of a speech or literary work [syn: effect, essence, burden, core] 2: the choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience; "the gist of the prosecutor's argument"; "the heart and soul..."; "the nub of the story" [syn: kernel, substance, core, center, essence, heart, heart and soul, inwardness, marrow, meat, nub, pith, sum, nitty-gritty] Source: WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University Word History: Source: Economology is a branch of economics, which theory is to determine the factual indepth delineations of site values within a municpality for rating purposes. Rather than the pooling of economically dis-similar properties that hide or mis-represent the real consequences of taxation. Economology denotes public revenue from privileges. (titles, licences, patents, copyrights, together without taxation on production consumption or employment). This absence of land price and taxation is described as a site revenue society. (Site Rating Defence. Melbourne, Australia 2004)

The US City-Its Greatness Is at Stake!

The fact that an improvement leads straight to a higher tax assessment is the reason why slum landlords find it more profitable not to improve the buildings on their overpriced, under rated land. The profit motive is harnessed backwards’ and given a tax incentive not to eradicate slums. Landlords who permit their properties to deteriorate are rewarded with lower assessments. “Rewarding also by this revenue system are the speculators who, because of low rates on land can afford to hold land out of use until the city’s growth forces up its price. This is a direct cause of ‘urban sprawl,’ as developers reach out for lower-priced land while passing idle land that is closer to the city but whose owner is not ready to sell. Urban sprawl means that the city enjoys a less than economic density of population while suburbanites have to move farther out than they should. Lower taxes (if any) on improvements and higher rates on idle land would induce a more efficient use of all urban and suburban land. ...To attract the necessary funds, we need maximum participation by private investors and private builders and operators. LIFE Magazine, Dec 24, 1965

The Profitable Slums

...these tax policies make slums the most profitable of all housing investments; they often make it more profitable to let property decay than to keep it up or improve it; they often make it more profitable to misuse or under-use land than to put land to its optimum use; they give speculation in vacant land such preferential tax treatment that they set apart from the market action of supply and demand. ..ours is a tax-activated, tax-accelerated, tax-directed, tax-dominated economy. Every business decision has to be checked against its tax consequences; and when property owners check the tax consequences of using land better versus using land worse, or spending money for improvements versus letting properties decay, they find, too often, that our tax system penalises what is socially desirable and susidizes what is socially undesirable. ...here is the two-fold way our tax system harness the profit motive backwards in the building industry: The first way is that our system taxes the value of unimproved or under improved land so lightly that land owners are under no pressure to sell until they are offered many times what the land is worth; and so lightly that there is no tax restraint on its price. So the price of the land- which reflects the capitalised difference between the rent the land can be expected to earn and the taxes it must expect to pay-has soared clear through the roof. The home builders have voted three to one that this land price inflation is their number one problem in trying to meet this country’s need for better housing. ...the second way our tax system operates against our best interests is the manner in which it taxes improvements. Our system taxes improvements so heavily that it makes slums the most profitable of all real estate investments. And so our slums are still spreading faster than urban redevelopment can clear them out. Mayor’s Special Committee on Housing in New York. “The seemingly unstoppable spread of slums has confronted the great cities of the nation with chronic financial crises... The $2 billion public housing program has not made any appreciable dent in the number of slum dwellings... No amount of code enforcement until and unless the profit is taken out of slums by taxation. Architectural Forum Nov,1965

Origin of Site Value Rating:Australia

Site Value Rating was first raised in the 1901 Legislative Assembly by Arthur Robinson, the Member for Dundas, but frustrated by the Upper House opposition. Resurrected three times over the next twelve years, a bill giving municipalities the option of site value rating was finally passed in the Upper House in November, 1913, by a sixteen to six vote. A few extracts from the debate are worth quoting: Mr Hagelthorin, Minister for Public Works: “This proposal is widely supported by the A.N.A., the Chamber of Manufactures and the Rating Reform League.” William Angliss: “My firm will lose more than it will gain from this Bill, because it is compelled to keep vacant land on which to run stock; but I am voting for it in the interest of the people of Victoria.”

Red Tape Addiction

Written by Elma Lia Nascimento    Luís Carlos Ewald, a professor of Economics at PUC-Rio (Pontifícia Universidade Católica -- Pontifical Catholic University, wrote recently in Rio's daily Jornal do Brasil: "How many opportunities of generating new jobs were lost due to the discouragement of heroic entrepreneurs who gave up due to the unnecessary documents, negative or positive certificates, marriage and death certificates, medical and dental certificates, police clearance, vaccinations, pedigrees, CGCs (Cadastro Geral de Contribuintes -- Taxpayers' General Register), IPTUs (Imposto Predial e Territorial Urbano -- Urban Building and Land Tax), alvarás (licenses), permits, authorizations, collateral signatures, cadasters, criminal records, X-rays, insurance, paternity DNA, certified signatures, certificate of occupancy, proof of residence, IPVA (Imposto sobre Propriedade de Veículos Automotores -- Tax on Ownership of Automotive Vehicles), blood group, Rh factor, and so many more, all with certified photocopies." To start a sole ownership company, the individual faces a via Dolorosa of different places and assorted lines. He has to present a $35 Registro de Declaração de Firma (Business Declaration Record) obtained at the Junta Comercial (Board of Trade), a Fire Department Approval Certificate ($37), and a $208 Alvará de Localização (Localization License) issued by City Hall. For a business corporation, these documents must be accompanied by a certificate showing that the specific business name is not in use, as well as a Registro do Contrato Social (Certificate of Incorporation Registration). In 1995 alone, IOB, a publication of business tax information, published 3,800 pages related to changes made during the year in the rules for payment of taxes to the Union, the state, and the municipalities. This amounts to 15 changes per day! And while in the U.S. or Europe a person is able to start a business in as little as two days, in Brazil this process takes at least 40 days. Up to 96% of small businesses are not able to deal with the company's accounting without hiring an accountant. And business people spend 26% of their time dealing with official bureaucracy, according to a study conducted by CNI (Confederação Nacional da Indústria -- National Confederation of the Industry). With globalization, the Brazilian bureaucracy has become a turnoff for foreign companies looking to invest in the country. A just-released World Bank's comparative study between Chile, Peru and Brazil shows that in Chile a private firm's worker spends 0.5% of his time dealing with governmental bureaucracy, in Peru 4%, and in Brazil 5%. http://www.brazzil.com/content/view/9242/0/

Rent seeking in Ecuador

...The incoming Pres. Palacio has accommodated Gutierrez's leftist opposition by appointing Rafael Correa Delgado minister of the economy (Bloomberg). Min. Correa is an economics professor who criticized the decision in 2000 to adopt the US dollar as Ecuador's currency; however, he has said he has no plans to change the currency to something else soon. Financial markets have reacted vociferously, although I think Bloomberg may be overreacting to Min. Correa personally; I strongly suspect there was a lot of rent-seeking afoot in the planned liquidation of Petroleos Ecuador, and with Min. Correa coming to power, a group of sleazoids stormed out of the markets for the country's external debt in a huff. http://www.jamesrmaclean.com/archives/000787.html

The growing wealth gap

The booming economy has been a bust for millions of Americans. Most households have lower inflation-adjusted net worth now than they did in 1983, when the Dow was still at 1,000...Since the 1970s, the top 1 percent of households have doubled their share of the national wealth to 40 percent. The top 1 percent of households have more wealth than the entire bottom 95 percent... The top 1 percent of households have nearly half of all financial wealth (net worth minus net equity in owner-occupied housing), says economist Edward Wolff of New York University. Wealth is further concentrated at the top of the top 1 percent. The richest 0.5 percent of households have 42 percent of the financial wealth...the net worth of the household in the middle (the median household) fell from $54,600 in 1989 to $49,900 in 1997. Median financial wealth fell from $13,000 in 1989 to $11,700 in 1997...The percentage of households with zero or negative net worth (greater debts than assets) increased from 15.5 percent in 1983 to 18.5 percent in 1995—nearly one out of five households. That’s nearly double the rate in 1962 when the comparable figure was 9.8 percent—one out of ten households. The net worth of the poorest fifth of households averaged –$5,600 in 1997. That’s down from –$3,000 in 1983. Many households are deeper in debt. Debt as a percentage of personal income rose from 58 percent in 1973 to 76 percent in 1989 to an estimated 85 percent in 1997. Between 1983 and 1995, the median household net worth dropped 11 percent and the bottom 40 percent lost an incredible 80 percent. The top 1 percent, meanwhile, gained 17 percent. Between 1995 and 1998, S&P 500 stocks had an annualized return of 30 percent. Most of it went to the top 10 percent of households. Almost 90 percent of the value of all stocks and mutual funds owned by households is in the hands of the top 10 percent. According to Edward Wolff, an estimated 42 percent of the benefits of the increase in the stock market between 1989 and 1997 went to the richest 1 percent alone. The bottom 80 percent of households split 11 percent of the gains. Fueled by low mortgage interest rates, the U.S. homeownership rate hit a record 66 percent in 1998, but for people under age 55, the rates were actually lower in 1998 than in 1982...As the New York Times reports (January 10, 1999), for each dollar in tax savings from the mortgage-interest deduction “going to the average taxpayer making $200,000 or more, the average taxpayer in all lower income groups combined saves just 6 cents.” ...For the fiscal year ending September 30, 1999, the mortgage deduction will add up to about $53.7 billion. That’s $23 billion more than total 1998 federal spending by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (under $31 billion). The mortgage deduction costs 23 times as much as the credit for low-income housing investment ($2.3 billion). While tax subsidies for affluent homeowners remained high, federal funding for low-income housing was cut by 80 percent from 1978 to 1991, adjusting for inflation. By Holly Sklar, Chuck Collins, & Betsy Leondar-Wright

Housing Experts Wary of Bubble Fatigue: There's nothing selling!

...mortgage application activity fell 1.6 percent to 672.6 in the week ended April 15, 2005 Fixed 30-year mortgage rates averaged 5.83 percent last week, excluding fees, down 12 basis points from 5.95 percent the previous week, according to the MBA Douglas Duncan, chief economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association "Rates have been so low for so long. But if the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate passed the 7 percent mark any time soon, we may see a pause in housing," he said. "I hear things are cooling down significantly." Right now, it would take about 4.2 to 4.3 months to clear the current inventory. During the tough real estate times from about 1988 to 1993, inventory levels approached 13 months. Washington Post 16/4/2005

Russia 1995

It is the Mafia that is emerging as the controller of Russia’s troubled economy. It is the military that may have the only capability to control their activities, given what seems to be a continual breaking down of civil and social structures. Could a dictator with grand schemes of empire building satisfy both camps ? Zhirinovsky’s third great opportunity is the unprecedented level of land speculation now taking place within Russia. Such land deals and associated speculation, made possible only after World Bank advice to “privatise” land, have been well documented. Forbes reporter Paul Klebnikov described the “auction” of just one commercial building in downtown Moscow last year. The first stage of the privatisation was closed to outsiders. Here Moscow city sold the rights to auction off the building to five well connected criminal organisations for 1.5 million rubles. In turn, they organised a second auction, open only to those not-so-well connected, bribe paying developers, who paid 250 million rubles for the building. Within the space of two months, the building was then sold on the open market for 1.5 Billion rubles. Similar underhand deals occurred with the 1,777 room Cosmos Hotel, again in Moscow. The hotel, built for the Olympics, nets around ten million dollars a year. After bribing journalists from two influential business papers to publish poor financial details about the Cosmos, a certain Michail Kharsan then bought a 25% interest for $ 2.5 million. Guaranteed money back in just one year. Ordinary Russians are extremely angry at the present state of affairs, especially the land deals, in Russia. Ordinary Russians are tired of seeing organised crime gangs turfing old babushkas out of their long held apartments and then turning the buildings over to foreigners at a stupendous profit. Ordinary Russians know that more than one half of prime Russian real estate is now in the hands of Russian Mafia, former KGB operators or former communist bosses, adept at intimidation, deceit and rough tactics to get what they want. It is rumored that in Russia the Mafia – the new landed aristocracy, now control much of the speculative land deals, acting in unison with the old communist elite and armed forces. It is unlikely the armed forces will lead a revolt. The importance of eliminating land speculation, to bring the Russian economy back to some degree of normality cannot be overstated. It is not likely that much will be done of course. Vlad ZHirinovsky

Michael Jacques

Johannesburg adopted site value rating in 1918. Decades later it became the shining star in the arcane world of city finances, with its city valuer, John McCullough, a star on the world-wide municipal conference stage. Under his influence, and with the commercial success of Johannesburg as an example, many cities in the US and Australasia changed their rating systems, if not to pure site value rating at least to composite rating with a bigger emphasis on the site value. But Mason Gaffney, a professor of economics at the University of California, visited SA in 1992 for a conference on land value taxation at the University of Pretoria. He was astonished that Johannesburg existed at all, let alone become a commercial success. In a paper written after he returned to the US, he analysed every possible reason for this success and concluded that it was due mainly to site value rating. 1984 62 of the 112 largest towns were on site value. One of the main purposes of the bill is to standardise the method of rating in all municipal jurisdictions. The chosen method is the one that is the least used: flat rating on the market value of a property at the date of the valuation. Firstly, flat rating is not the easiest and least expensive method to administer and, historically, municipalities have always undervalued properties to avoid a mass of objections to the valuation roll. Johannesburg Oct 29 2003 SAPOA Online

Rowland Entwistle

The central theory of English law has never been changed through the centuries, it is this: the land is the property of the whole people, it is vested in the crown as trustee, and all holders (there are no owners) are tenants of the community. Judgement by Lord Darling 1924 Williams “Real Property”

125,854 Articles to go

Paths to Homelessness: Extreme Poverty and the Urban Housing Crisis Caught in the Mix: An Oral Portrait of Homelessness Moving to Nowhere: Children's Stories of Homelessness Braving the Street: The Anthropology of Homelessness Beside the Golden Door: Policy, Politics, and the Homeless Homelessness in the United States, Europe, and Russia: A Comparative Perspective Reading the Homeless: The Media's Image of Homeless Culture A Nation in Denial: The Truth about Homelessness Homelessness Amid Affluence: Structure and Paradox in the American Political Economy Gimme Shelter: A Social History of Homelessness in Contemporary America Something Left to Lose: Personal Relations and Survival among New York's Homeless $1 Million Project Aims to Curb Homelessness in the Suburbs Homelessness in Rural Areas Grows Disability Benefits for Drug Addicts to Be Cut off Today: Some Fear Rise in Homelessness Kinder, Gentler Homelessness Arise, Take Up Thy Mat, and Walk: Most Homeless Programs Fail Because They Protect Lifestyles That Produce Homelessness and Neglect the Moral and Spiritual Means to Overcome It Vulnerability Factors for Homelessness Associated with Substance Dependence in a Community Sample of Homeless Adults Images of Homelessness in Ottawa: Implications for Local Politics Homeless Fatigue Syndrome: The Backlash against the Crime of Homelessness in the 1990s Short- and Long-Term Homelessness and Adolescents' Self-Esteem, Depression, Locus of Control and Social Supports Who Goes Homeless? We Can't Begin to Solve the Problem of Homelessness until We Realize That It Isn't about Homes The Abolitionist: Bush's Homelessness Czar Has Some New Ideas. Will Liberals Listen? Are Shelters the Answer to Family Homelessness? Helping People off the Streets: Real Solutions to URBAN HOMELESSNESS Homelessness among the Young How Many Homeless? Outcasts on Main Street: Homelessness and the Mentally Ill The New Outlaws: Cities Make Homelessness a Crime U.S. Homelessness on the Rise, Says Study AIDS and Homelessness: Thousands May Die in the Streets Homeless - Not Hopeless Cities Get Tough with the Homeless Community-Based Treatment for Homeless Parolees Officer Joel Fay Helps Mentally Ill Homeless People Get off the Street and into Care Helping the Homeless Help Themselves

Transport and City Competitiveness

At the micro level, there are the environmental and distributional issues as well as changes in property and land values resulting from transport investment. There seems to be no comprehensive research methodology in this area. A proposed methodology has been developed (ARW and BSP, 2002), and it is currently (2003) being tested in the Croydon Tram corridor in South London. It covers the necessary conditions for measurable additional impacts are identifiable, such as land value increases, and how to measure them. It is the additionality (or latent demand) and measurability of these benefits that need to be analysed. Llewelyn-Davies, with Professor David Banister and Professor Sir Peter Hall of the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London p31 Jan 2004

J. Wilson

"Farm Security" expresses concern about security for farmers against subdivision and urges a stable rating strategy. Site value rating would meet these requirements. This delays urban sprawl by encouraging optimum use of already serviced land. It also encourages genuine farming, since improvements such as buildings are not subject to municipal rating. If planning provisions are required, it ensures that any resulting enhanced site values are taken for community purposes, rather than for private profiteering. The Mail 13/08/1998

Palmerston North

The introduction of CIV rating has not been welcomed going by our poll lanst week 85% of those who responded are in favour of retaining land value rating, 15% want CIV introduced. The Guardian 25/07/1990 Proposals for a change to CIV based rating systems have been dumped. Evening Standard 14/09/1990

Tokomaru to Manakau Councils

More than 850 ratepayers have so far gathered at packed meetings and while many have strongly opposed CIV rating, not one ratepayer has spoken out in favour of the change. The Cronicle 02/06/1990

Horowhenua Council

Not one speaker from the crowd (town hall/ratepayers) of about 500 supported the proposed move (to CIV). The Cronicle 29/05/1990

Dunedin City

Crowds swlled to over 1,000 to hear Rates Crisis Committee speakers tell the council in an emotion-charged meeting that the rating system must be changed. Otago Daily Times 16/08/1995

Habitat II Action Agenda

A Community Land Trust leasehold system may be the most beneficial way to secure land tenure for squatters and landless people. United Nations Center for Human Settlements

The Common Wealth

The unimproved value of Australia’s privately controlled land and resources currently stands at almost $2 trillion. A rental charge on this of 7.3 % would yield $140 billion – enough to finance current government commitments. Mind you, we already pay site rents and taxes out of our wages. This proposal simply replaces existing taxes on labour and exchange by diverting site rents from the private to the public coffers, and leaving wages in the hands of those who produce them. Consider the benefits of such a change; It would allow us to abandon a system that, paradoxically, penalises employment, enterprise and thrift by taxing them. The resulting resurgence in industrial and commercial activity would see wage levels rise and involuntary unemployment disappear. Its incidence is progressive, equitable and just. It is unavoidable. Sites can’t be hidden or spirited offshore. It is immune to cyberspace profit and currency manipulation. It would undermine the "cash economy" With an annual rentable value replacing "selling price", land speculation would be impossible. Poorly utilised land, currently hoarded by speculators, would be forced onto the market, increasing its availability for residential, commercial, industrial or agricultural purposes. Existing patterns of occupation and security of tenure would be unaffected; Options Australia - December 1999 Tony O'Brien

The growing wealth gap

The booming economy has been a bust for millions of Americans. Most households have lower inflation-adjusted net worth now than they did in 1983, when the Dow was still at 1,000...Since the 1970s, the top 1 percent of households have doubled their share of the national wealth to 40 percent. The top 1 percent of households have more wealth than the entire bottom 95 percent... The top 1 percent of households have nearly half of all financial wealth (net worth minus net equity in owner-occupied housing), says economist Edward Wolff of New York University. Wealth is further concentrated at the top of the top 1 percent. The richest 0.5 percent of households have 42 percent of the financial wealth...the net worth of the household in the middle (the median household) fell from $54,600 in 1989 to $49,900 in 1997. Median financial wealth fell from $13,000 in 1989 to $11,700 in 1997...The percentage of households with zero or negative net worth (greater debts than assets) increased from 15.5 percent in 1983 to 18.5 percent in 1995—nearly one out of five households. That’s nearly double the rate in 1962 when the comparable figure was 9.8 percent—one out of ten households. The net worth of the poorest fifth of households averaged –$5,600 in 1997. That’s down from –$3,000 in 1983. Many households are deeper in debt. Debt as a percentage of personal income rose from 58 percent in 1973 to 76 percent in 1989 to an estimated 85 percent in 1997. Between 1983 and 1995, the median household net worth dropped 11 percent and the bottom 40 percent lost an incredible 80 percent. The top 1 percent, meanwhile, gained 17 percent. Between 1995 and 1998, S&P 500 stocks had an annualized return of 30 percent. Most of it went to the top 10 percent of households. Almost 90 percent of the value of all stocks and mutual funds owned by households is in the hands of the top 10 percent. According to Edward Wolff, an estimated 42 percent of the benefits of the increase in the stock market between 1989 and 1997 went to the richest 1 percent alone. The bottom 80 percent of households split 11 percent of the gains. Fueled by low mortgage interest rates, the U.S. homeownership rate hit a record 66 percent in 1998, but for people under age 55, the rates were actually lower in 1998 than in 1982...As the New York Times reports (January 10, 1999), for each dollar in tax savings from the mortgage-interest deduction “going to the average taxpayer making $200,000 or more, the average taxpayer in all lower income groups combined saves just 6 cents.” ...For the fiscal year ending September 30, 1999, the mortgage deduction will add up to about $53.7 billion. That’s $23 billion more than total 1998 federal spending by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (under $31 billion). The mortgage deduction costs 23 times as much as the credit for low-income housing investment ($2.3 billion). While tax subsidies for affluent homeowners remained high, federal funding for low-income housing was cut by 80 percent from 1978 to 1991, adjusting for inflation. By Holly Sklar, Chuck Collins, & Betsy Leondar-Wright

Herbert Spencer, (1820-1903)

Equity, therefore, does not permit property in land. For if one portion of the earth's surface may justly become the possession of an individual, and may be held by him for his sole use and benefit, as a thing to which he has an exclusive right, then other portions of the earth's surface may be so held; and evetually the whole of the earth's surface may be so held; and our planet may thus lapse altogether into private hands. Observe now the dilemma to which this leads. Supposing the entire habitable globe to be so inclosed,it follows that if the landowners have a valid right to its surface, all who are not landowners have not right at all to its surface. Hence, such can exist on the earth by sufferance only. They are all trespassers. Save by the permission of the lords of the soil, they can have no room for the soles of their feet. Nay, should the others think fit to deny them a resting-place these landless men might equitably be expelled from the earth altogether. If, then, the assumption that land can be held as property, involves that the whole globe may become the private domain of a part of its inhabitants; and if, by consequence, the rest of its inhabitants can then exercise their faculties-can then exist even-only by consent of the landowners; it is manifest, that an exclusive possession of the soil necessitates an infringment of the law of equal freedom. For, men who cannot "live and move and have their being: without the leave of others cannot be equally free with those others. The world is God's bequest to mankind. All men are joint heirs to it... Our civilisation is only partial... co-heirship of all men to the soil is consistent with the highest civilisation... and... equity sternly commands it to be done. Social Statistics-The Right to Land 1851

Land price continue to fall in Japan except for Central Tokyo

According to Japanese government land prices fell for the 14th consecutive year in Japan: Residential land prices across Japan decreased an average of 4.6% in 2003, continuing the trend of a 5.7% in 2003. Commercial land prices fell 5.6% continuing the fall of 7.4% in 2002. the pace of decline was reduced this year with major towns in Japan Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka showing a pace of decline of only 3.2% against 5.8% in 2003 for commercial areas. However, land in the 5 central wards of Tokyo (Chiyoda, Chuo, Minato, Shinjuku and Shibuya) have seen an increase of 0.8% Eric Perraudin http://www.japanconsult.com/

Economics: Australian Edition

Pure land rent is in the nature of a "surplus" which can be taxed without affecting production incentives. Chapter 28 p.595 Paul A Samuleson Massachusetts Institute of Technology Keith Hancock, Robert Wallace - Flinders University South Australia

USA Bankruptcy's 2005

Bankruptcies have ballooned, now running 1.46 million a year. Los Angeles Times, 4 March 2005. p.A1

Local Government Board

The Board recommends that there be a clear division between the role and functions of the Council and the Executive and that this be given legislative force by inclusion in the Local Government Act. In establishing this division the legislation should include a broad definition of the role and functions of coucillors that...the responsibility for approving the budget, setting rates and charges and monitoring the overall financial performance remains with the councillors. Report 1995/06/21

Alan Jones

It's hard to believe that in a financially literate society, which we increasingly are, the best we ever seem to be able to talk about on the tax front is tax cuts. And yet again talk about it all this week. The Prime Minister hinting about more tax cuts in the May budget. Do politicians not listen to the electorate, or understand it. It's not tax cuts the public want, but overwhelming tax change. There are more than 10,000 pages to a Tax Act that's unreadable. There are regulations on regulations. Veritable fortunes are spent defining net taxable income before the Tax Office decides how much is to be taxed. The legal challenges to the tax system cost everybody the earth. The GST was meant to be a reform. It's a shambles. A recent survey of New South Wales small business found an average of 25 per cent of the principal's time was spent on tax compliance issues. The GST has created an accounting nightmare, nearly doubling if not quadrupling the tax work for the accounting profession. Then it's hurt a large bulk of the population, the elderly, by reducing the spending power of their savings. You've got tens of thousands of Australians signing up for laptop-operated foreign bank accounts...The battler in Struggle Street, the wage and salary earner who can't afford accountants and lawyers and is hunted down if he misses one tax beat, he pays/they pay, the battlers, 104 billion a year in tax. That's personal tax. Company tax...think for a moment of all those companies that come to mind .... they pay 41 billion in tax. It's not just that the Tax Act is unreadable. The whole system is incomprehensible. In January the former High Court Chief Justice Sir Harry Gibbs said that laws relating to income tax were a disgrace and getting worse. He said "The legislation is absurdly voluminous compared to our own earlier legislation and with other tax systems ... and the volume increases rapidly from year to year." He went on "Much of it's obscure to the point of being incomprehensible...it gives the ATO unacceptably wide discretionary powers ... many practising accountants no longer try to unravel the mysteries of the legislation by reading its provisions. Rather they rely on various documents and rulings of the ATO." Well how on earth in this climate, that's a former Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia...how on earth can you be talking about tax cuts. The whole system has to be changed. There's tax on income, tax on savings, tax on profit. We should tax none of them. But then there's payroll tax, stamp duty, land tax, gambling tax, vehicle tax, vendor tax, superannuation tax, petroleum tax, excises which are also tax, and then a GST. And individuals pay 80 times as much tax as foreigners. Foreigners own 90 per cent of our industry. We pay bureaucrats big money. What alternative tax models are they putting to the Government? 16 March 2005 2UE

Arthur Andersen

Australia’s current income tax system imposes relatively high levels of tax on foreign-sourced income. This discourages locally-based companies from expanding abroad and adds to the pressures on Australian businesses to relocate offshore. Philip Anderson and Alf Capito, 2000/9/5

Kaiser Committee

And the Presidents committee on Urban Housing is urging a similar tax study "with particular emphasis on the potential beneficial effect of shifting more of the relative burden from improvements to land. Heavier taxation of site values has the apparent advantage of discouraging speculative withholding of land from development and of enabling the public to recoup more easily the benefits it bestows on local land owners through improvements like roads and sewers.

Douglas Commission

Douglas Commission on Urban Problems is unanimously recommending that state governments vigorously explore the desirability and feasibility of placing new or differentially higher taxes upon land values.

Alfred E. Kahn

Absolute tax justice: shifting all taxation from production to land titles is a radical form of justice not easily won. (advisor to former President Richard Nixon)

Anon

Our society can put a man on the moon but is unable to put a man in a house.

James Michener

No nation can avoid land reform. All it can do is to determine the course it will take: bloody revolution or taxation. (General McAthur's economic aid)

Voltair

The fruits of the earth are a common heritage of all to which each person has equal rights. (1694-1778)

Carl F. Shaw

God did not designate brokers to sell land to the inhabitants of the world. Land was made for all of us without the need to buy from agents.

John Tallmaage

History is seldom written from the point of view of the land itself, for to do so is to challenge our hallowed notions of progress.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

But what of the land ? It seems to me that the earth may be borrowed and not bought. It may be used and not owned. We are tenants and not possessors.

Dundee

You see, the land does not belong to the Aboriginees, they belong to it. Crocodile Dundee

Henry George

For justice ot be done between men it is not neccessary for the State to take the land; it is only neccessary to take its rent.

Oliver W. Homes

Man's mind stretched to new ideas never goes back to its original shape.

Lewis Carroll

It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else you must run at least twice as fast. Alice in Wonderland

A BASIC INCOME

If the state does not assume its proper function as a landlord, it will more and more assume its improper function as an industrialist. Sir Daniel Hall

Economic History of the American People

The movement of the Constitution was not unnaturally supported by those men of property and position who found their wealth threatened and their economic opportunities lessened under the Articles of Confederation. Holders of depreciated public securities, speculators in western lands, merchants and shipbuilders whose trade was adversely affected by the unfriendly commercial legislation of European nations, manufacturers who wished protection against stay laws and paper money - all these desired a strong central government to safeguard their interests. According to John Adams, 'the Federal Constitution was the work of the commercial people on the seaport towns, of the slave-holding states, of the officers of the Revolutionary Army, and the property holders everywhere-(these interests finally secured its adoption in 1789 by a narrow margin. Bogart p.224 1946

UK Budget 1909

Agitation for land reform culminated in Lloyd George submitting a budget to the House of Commons in 1909. The budget called for a nationwide valuation of land, the first step leading to a shift in the tax base. Some 5000 land valuers were put to work to do this. The tax rate proposed was to be just 0.2% on the land’s market value. In addition there was to be a 20% charge on all increases in land value. Plenty of discussion and often vehement argument and vitriol went on prior to this. Churchill wrote that practically the whole of the Commons session for that term was devoted to the budget. “The most arduous session on record,” he called it. “Debate went for over seventy parliamentary days and nights; there were 554 divisions upon specific points of principle and difference.” Opponents had some success in watering down the bill, as it passed through the commons. And even though some would say the final bill was riddled with exemptions and other complications, the bill still proved too much for the House of Lords. After lengthy debate, the (Land) Lords took the unprecedented step of denying, (by veto), the passage of the budget bill. A constitutional crises arose. Churchill had this to say of their actions; “The House of lords, in rejecting the Budget which provides for the national expenditure of the year, are refusing, for the first time since the Rebellion, aids and supplies to the crown, and by that fact, and by their intrusion upon finance they commit an act of violence against the British constitution. There is no precedent of any kind for the rejection of a budget bill by the House of Lords in all the long annals of the British Parliament, or before that, in the still more venerable annals of the English Parliament” Rumour has it that in 1909, the Lords car park was, for the very first time, not big enough. A newly elected House of Commons set about ensuring that the Lords would no longer have the powers of veto. This new bill only passed the House of Lords after the King threatened to create as many peers as were necessary to ensure it did pass. As for the land valuation and various land taxes, their implementation was deliberately delayed until the eve of the first world war. With the Nation’s attention now focused in this direction, the valuations were shelved, then later killed off with the return of a conservative government after the war.

Winston Churchill, (1874-1965)

It is quite true that the land monopoly is not the only monopoly which exists, but it is by far the greatest of monopolies - it is a perpetual monopoly, and it is the mother of all other forms of monopoly. Nothing is more amusing than to watch the efforts of our monopolist opponents to prove that other forms of property and increment are exactly the same, and are similar in all respects to the unearned increment in land. The People’s Land The best way to make private private property secure and respected is to bring the processes by which it is gained into harmony with the general interests of the public. We are often assured by sagacious persons that the civilisation of modern States is largely based upon respect for the rights of private property. If that be true, it is also true to say that respect cannot be secured, and ought not, indeed, to be expected, unless property is associated in the minds of the great mass of the people with ideas of justice and of reason. It is, therefore, of the first importance to the country- to any country- that there should be vigilant and persistent efforts to prevent abuses, to distribute the public burdens fairly among all classes, and to establish good laws governing the methods by which wealth may be acquired. The best way to make private property secure and respected is to bring the processes by which it is gained into harmony with the general interest of the public. When and where property is associated with the idea of reward for high gifts and special aptitudes displayed or for faithful labour done, then property will be honoured. When it is associated with processes which are beneficial, or which at the worst are not actually injurious to the commonwealth, then property will be unmolested; but when it is associated with ideas of wrong and of unfairness, with processes of restriction and monopoly, and other forms of injury to the community, then I think that you will find that property will be assailed and will be endangered. I have made speeches by the yard on the subject of land value taxation, and you know what a supporter I am of that policy.

Ray Conwell

Australia's taxation laws are almost incomprhensible and farcical. Dep Commissioner for Taxation 1990

Paul Ormerod

Economic thinking out of touch with real world, says forecaster Economic thinking in the West was out of tough with the real world and forecasting was prone to serious error, Professor Paul Ormerod of the Henly Centre forecasting organisation told the meeting Little in standard economics text books was known to be true. The ability to predict events was “a fundamental test of the validity of any scientific approach to the world. ”He posed four questions to which he said, economics had no effective answer “why has unemployment risen so strongly in many Western economies in the past 20 years? Why has the unemployment experience of Western Countries been so diverse? What determines economic growth in the long term? What will be the rate of growth of the British economy over the next year? He criticised the pressure on eastern European leaders to move to free market economies as soon as possible. “This advice seems to be contrary to virtually the whole of economic history since the industrial revolution.” The Age 1992

Tax proposals would replace deductions with low rates

Source: Houston Chronicle Posted on 11.03.05 by R. Lee Wrights "Declaring the income-tax system 'has become a running joke,' a presidential panel recommended Tuesday rewriting tax laws by eliminating nearly every deduction and credit and replacing them with simpler benefits for more taxpayers. Treasury Secretary John Snow said he would study the report, issued by the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, and hoped to present formal recommendations to President Bush later this year." (11/01/05) Link: http://tinyurl.com/axxu9

Discovery of Gold

After the discovery of gold in 1850 the population rose dramatically and municipal problems multiplied. But the all important access to land was largely denied to many settlers because so much that was favourably situated or well watered and fertile had become locked up by the squatters, many of whom had gained possession, often illegally, of tracts as large as European principalities. Doug Herps past Deputy Valuer-General

The First

The province of New Plymouth gave effect to this principle, this being probably the first instance in modern times of the practical adoption by ratepayers of the system which became known as rating on the Unimproved Capital Value of land. 1855*

Introduced 1878

After provincial government was abolished in New Zealand, a national land tax was introduced which required that: all land shall be valued at the capital value thereof to sell, after deducting therefrom the value of all improvements thereon. 1878*

Samual Griffiths

Liberal-Conservative Coalition Government introduced the Valuation and Rating Act (Qld.), a measure which excluded improvements from local authority rating in both urban and rural areas and was the first legislation in Australia to impose rater (as opposed to land tax) on the unimproved capital value of land. 1890*

Inquiry 1896

A Queensland Royal Commission endorsed this concept and prompted a consolidating Act, the Local Authorities Act, which drew no distinction between rural and urban local authorities and confirmed the previously established principle of valuing land, excluding improvements, for local rating.

Platform Plank

The natural and inalienable rights of the whole community to the land - by the taxation of that value which accrues to the land by the presence and needs of the community, irrespective of improvements effected by human exertion.... and the abolition of our present unjust and injurious method of raising municipal revenue by the taxation of improvements effected by labour. Labor Party platform plank 13, 1891*

Roy Hendy

The City of Sydney adopted site-value taxation in 1916 by resolution of the City Council. There had been a continuous agitation directed against the taxation of improvements in the form of annual-value assessments on highly developed properties in particular as well as against the system in general. It was argued that no encouragement was given to the erection of modern buildings when faced with taxation calculated upon its total earning power. The removal of the rates on buildings encouraged their improvement as well as the erection of many fine new structures. Something in the nature of a transformation took place in the main business section where numerous large, modern office and other buildings were erected. The office buildings were well distributed. The system of rating on the unimproved capital value has encouraged the establishment of factory premises of all kinds. The eradication of large sections in slum areas has taken place because of the growth of industrialism in Sydney. The main factor, however, in this industrial growth has been that the City of Sydney has the greatest shipping port in the Commonwealth and has become its most important distribution centre. Town Clerk 1916*

Our Cities

State and local authorities should consider the reduction of the rate of taxation on buildings and the corresponding increase of such rates on land, in order to lower the tax burden on home owners and the occupants of low-rent houses, and to stimulate rehabilitation of blighted area and slums. Urbanism Committee of the National Resources Committee USA Our Cities, Their Role in the National Economy p.76 1937*

Inquiry 1945

The City Council appointed an independent committee of inquiry to examine complaints that there were inequities requiring attention. The committee reported in that the complaints were not justified and the majority recommended that no change should be made. This recommendation was adopted by the City Council. In its report to the Municipal Council the Independent Committee stated: Opposition to this site value taxation was, in some cases, inspired by the belief that it favoured the rich and was to the detriment of the poor...There are numerous properties in the city paying assessment rates on sites valued at tens of thousands of pounds. There is therefore, no justification for the claim that the taxation of site values favours the rich. On the contrary each class pays rates on proportion to the extent to which he uses the land and the contribution of the rich are, to considerable extent, expended...for amenities used almost exclusively by the areas within the municipality occupied by the so-called working classes.

Transvaal Chamber of Commerce

The Chamber gave evidence before the Transvaal (Province) Rating Commission in which it said: The Chamber believes that the site-rating system affords greater recognition of the principle of taxation in proportion to ability to pay than does any other rating system. 1948*

H.S. Mabin

The Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce strongly favours the rating of land values only. We are of opinion that this system has had a good deal to do with the development of Johannesburg into the premier industrial and commercial duty of the Southern African sub-continent, The secretary, Mr.H.S. Mabin, M.A. 1953*

Water Clause

Clause 165 of the Water Act 1958 gave powers to Water Works Trusts within municipalities rating Unim proved Capital Value to use that basis for water rates. The corresponding powers for sewerage rates were given by Clause 85 of the Sewerage Districts Act 1958. Water Trusts and Sewerage Boards in areas where the municipal council had adopted Site Value rating had optional powers to use Site Value as the basis for water and sewage rates.

A Three Pronged Attack

In 1958 the London Council, supported by several hundred municipal councils, and the Urbanism Committee of the National Resources Committee in the United States, the Canadian Federation of Mayors and Municipalites all pushed to seek power to reduce taxation of improvements and to increase rates on land values.

Fortune Magazine

Land is set apart from the market action of supply and demand by preferential tax treatment. There is evident inequity in a system that puts most of the tax burden on improvemnts whicle preserving an anachronistic tax incentive to land ownership. (1963)*

James Clarkson

Just correcting the gross underassessment of idle and underused land enabled us to reduce the taxes on many homes by as much as 22%. Mayor, Southfield Michigan. 1969*

Carl H. Madden

A powerful tool for rebuilding urban centers through private initiative lies in reforming the property tax. Higher taxation of location values and lower taxation of improvements would help push land into more effective use. Chief Economist United States of Chamber of Commerce. 1969

US Congressional Research Service

Higher taxes on land lower taxation of improvements would help stimulate development and redevelopment. Holders of sites in and around the center would be induced to develop their land or sell it to those who will, so there would be less leap-frogging out beyond the fringes. Reduced fringe development would reduce the cost of providing public services and increase the conservation of green areas and op0en space surrounding the city. *(1971)

Arthur P Becker

If improvements were untaxed and the whole weight of the realty tax were shifted to location values: Rents would come down as new construction eases the housing shortage.Urban redevelopment would be accelerated at no cost to the taxpayers. All municipal costs are multiplied by distance. Prof of Economics Univ. of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Chairman, Tax Committee National Tax Association 1973

Steven Cord

The American, in 1981 arrived at a figure of US $391.4 billion as the capital value of land in the United States - or 166% of the national income

Melbourne's Rail Loop

lt generally is not known that Melbourne's underground railway in 1982 was partly built and was maintained by a similar development fund, to Perth's (posted on Blog) although in this instance the development rate is imposed on the net annual value of land and improvements. Nevertheless the principle of paying for a large public work from the land values enhanced thereby is sound and much to be preferred to the ill-considered arrangements for funding by tolls.

Metropolitan Improvement Act (WA)

Those who are familiar with Perth will have noticed how clean and well-planned a city it is and how well served with parklands. This undoubtedly is due largely to its Metropolitan Improvement Act (WA) 1983 under which an annually increasing fund, amounting to $7 million is raised by a rate of a fraction of 1% on Perth's site values to defray the cost of providing roads, parks, open spaces and similar amenities within the Perth Metropolitan Region Planning Authority.

Doug Herps

A tribute to the integrity of his conclusion (A. Hutchinson 1975 ). If he had had the benefit of the land market information available to me and had used a market rate of 8% to convert the official valuations to a rental equivalent, he could have concluded that the apparent site rent was a little over 50% of total revenues collected in that year. George, however, together with the Physiocrats and Adam Smith, argued that the current market value of land represented only that part of economic rent left in the hands of landholders. The true potential rent of land is this figure plus all other taxation; that is to say, existing taxation diminishes rent and all taxation is ultimately at the expense of rent. If you wish to pursue and test this argument you will find it clearly expounded in Chapter I, Book VI of Progress and Poverty. My estimate of a capital value of $270 billions for Australian land represents 145% of this country's Gross Domestic Product. Deputy Valuer General NSW 1984

David Richards

In England, using 1985 United Kingdom Central Statistical Office figures, conservatively estimated that the capital value of land in the United Kingdom was £UK485 billlon, representing 183% of national income.

1896 to 1986

Since the Rating on Unimproved Value Act became law in 1896, under the right to demand a poll, by 1986 the citizens of 90% of New Zealand's municipalities voted in favour of land value rating.

NZ 1988 Poll provision removed

Central government removed the citizen's right to demand a poll, and through this subversion of the democratic process capital value rating has been imposed subsequently on the citizens of Christchurch, Dunedin and Wellington.

Collins Report on State Land Tax NSW 1988

Land tax be increased at the expense of payroll tax.

NZ Internal Affairs Coordinating Committee 1989

Undifferentiated Land Value Rating is the only rating system fully consistent with efficient resource allocation. It encourages an optimal use of high value sites because rates based on land value penalise inefficient usage of the site...a landowner is nonethelesws required to contribute financially to the community on the basis of that property's potential.

Month of Debate

During a month of public debate to review New Zealand's Waitakere City's land value rating system, there were less than 2,000 submissions in favour of capital value rating, and an overwhelming 16,000 against. The Council voted unanimously to retain land value rating in 1993.

Report Number 30

If improvements were included in the land tax base, both developed and redevelopment would be likely to be scaled down. To the extent that less building occurred overall, there could be a reduction in the areas of cities. This change would not be desirable unless such a reduction were an object in itself. A tax on improvements would be likely to result in more land remaining undeveloped for urban purposes. Using umimproved capital values as a rates base has the advantage that it does not unduly discourage site development. Industry Commission 1993, p.276

Business Editor, The Age

The answer is the divide between the east and west of Melbourne is getting worse, The unemployment rate in the north western region stretching from Brunswick through broadmeadows out to the shire of Bulla is still 16 per cent, according the latest regional Bureau of Statistics figures. In the outer western region- that's Altona and Sunshine out to Melton- it's 15.1 per cent...All this has the federal Deet searching for new options before the chasm in Melbourne employment opportunities reaches the proprtions of the north and south of Britain. To give an example, in the manufacturing industry in the morth-west of Melbourne from 1989 to 1994 there was a loss of 9,200 jobs. "Large numbers of companies have just closed down, they won't be back. That's again different from previous recessions. In the past they have put off a lot of people and kept going, this time around, given the overall industry restructuring, they just couldn't compete, so they have just closed down. *(west & north taxed east isn't). Stephen Dabkowski Business Editor Sunday Age 19/3/1995

How to Change to Site Value Rating

1) Any Councillor can give notice in writing to the CEO of his/her intention to move at the next meeting that the council carry a resolution to adopt Part (Number) Rating on Site Values of the Local Government Act and request that notice of such be included on the agenda. 2) By special resolution of the elected Municipal Council. What action follows such a resolution? The council gives each occupier or owner a notice setting out that particulars of valuation and comparing the rates payable under the two rating systems for his property. The council advertises in a local paper and the government Gazette 3) By a poll following presentation of a demand signed by the statutory number of ratepayers. The Council must take a poll and give effect to the result where a demand for such poll is presented to it signed by at least 10% of those whose names appear on the municipal roll. Coucnils ahve been known to ignore the law in this regard. Other Steps Ratepayers can elect Councillors favourable to Site Value rating to replace others opposed to it.

Jeffrey J Smith

Ending taxes on wages and interest lets individuals reap as they sow. Zero taxes on production lets us use labour and capital most efficiently. Full-value fees for possession impels us to put land to highest and best use.

Country Party

The collection of the unimproved land values rental, for all public purposes, and the ultimate abolition of all taxation. Country Party Committee of Inquiry, 1933.

Inquiry 1973

It will be clear that a rental leasehold system can capture both kinds of unearned increment merely by adjusting rates in proportion to the increase in land values, that is by charging economic rents at all times.” a) A rate on land is the most appropriate method of financing the services which council are authorised to provide under the LGA. b) The claim that ‘rates have reached saturation point’ is not established. Commission of Inquiry into Land Tenures, 1973

Housing Industry Association

Land Tax is a neutral tax. Affordability Index, 1989

Inquiry 1983

Land Tax assists economic growth, development and employment by forcing landowners to put their assets to their most effective use. Committee of Inquiry into Land Tax, 1983

Britain: Land Tax Historical.

One of the innovative schemes of the British government to increase revenue. Introduced in 1692, in the reign of William III and Mary, and finally abolished in 1963. Administered at the local level, and based on a tax quota for each parish which did not vary...Between 1772 and 1909 the rate remained at 4s. in the £. In 1798 properties valued at under 20s. per year were officially exempted from paying land tax. Australian Institute of Genealogical Studies

Les Blake

Diggers resented being treated as mere rent-producers without representation...Diggers could not modify laws in their favour; they could not unlock lands which would enable them to have freeholders’ voting rights...From a population of 83,627 in 1851, the colony increased its numbers to 148,627 by December next year. A man paid more in one year to fossick in his tiny claim for gold than a squatter paid to lease vast tracts of the country for his sheep and cattle...And who imposed the licence fee? The squatter-dominated Legislative Council, the only official form of government that the new colony had... Black told Hotham that, if a land sale was held, the best allotments were so big that few diggers could afford to buy them; they had to be satisfied with ‘smaller slices’ of the poorer land while squatters kept great tracts of land locked up simply by paying a ludicrously low annual licence. Peter Lalor The Man From Eureka

Thomas Nulty

James Fintan Lalor- brother of Peter Lalor of Eureka Stockade fame expressed the view that land rent should be paid to Government to be spent on the people’s behalf. Back To The Land p.9

Colin Clark

They correctly predicted the effect of Britain's entry would be to relegate this country to a position on the periphery where it would be likely to decline in importance relative to the other countries of Europe. They drew circles on maps to indicate the bands of economic growth potential, widening out from the small area of manufacturing high potential concentrated within the Rhine Valley of Western Germany, eastern Belgium, and south-east Netherlands....will migrate to the centre, to the detriment of the countries on the periphery. Industrial Location and Economic Potential in Western Europe Vol.3 pp197-212

John Shattuck

During the course of the 20th century, 175 million civilians were murdered by their own governments -- four times the total number of soldiers killed in all the century's international wars combined. "The souls of this monstrous pile of dead have created," in the words of noted genocide scholar R. J. Rummel, "a new land, a new nation, among us." This land of genocide and political murder would rank sixth in population among the nations of the world by the end of "the bloodiest century in history." The Globe 2/4/2004

Alan J Hunt

The problem with differential rating in an uncontrolled manner is that it seriously detracts from the valuation base, pointed out on 4/11/77. The usefulness of the ability-to-pay criteria is restricted on several grounds. It is extremely difficult to measure. Income data is insufficient to determine ability-to-pay, and net wealth data is not available. Committee of Inquiry into Rural Rating Hon. A.J Hunt L.G. Minister 1978

Leo Hawkins

Leo Hawkins The Layfield Report on Local Government Finance in England, published in 1976, identified two main causes for the rate revolt in that country. These were ignorance of the functioning of the rating system amongst ratepayers, and a widespread feeling that it is an inequitable tax. Last year (1984) the taxpayer’s revolt which spread across the U.S.A. from California also focused on taxes on property. Forward, Local Government Rates in Victoria Lecturer in Local Government Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology

Brian P Haratsis

Because the Rating System is rarely studied and even less rarely understood, political rating decisions are often illogical. Unfortunately the system perpetuates itself as the groups affected by illogical political decisions are unable to exercise their democratic right because they are either more ignorant of the system than the legislators or numerically and financially too weak to muster sufficient support to change the system. Differential rates used correctly may also be developed as a planning tool in discouraging certain types of development. It must be remembered however, that the cost of using differential rating to a greater extent may be higher. Commentary on the Jarvis-Gann CIV proposal, although proponents claim the average property taxation would be reduced by 64 per cent and a ceiling rise of 2 per cent in the market value of a home for tax purposes would be the desirable result, the undesired side effect is that it destroys a system of rating based on valuation. If this is what the community wishes, then it should be explicitly recognised, not lost in a heap of good intentions. Capital Improved Value as the name suggests this valuation includes all improvements to land and buildings. capital Improved Value is the market value of the whole property irrespective of encumbrances such as life tenants, uneconomic rents etc. Unfortunately C.I.V. is an unsatisfactory valuation base as it does not account for varying rates of return to similarly valued properties, for example, a homeowner does not expect a return, or rent, on his property as does an investment flat owner, shop owner, or factory owner even though similarly valued properties may use differing amounts of municipal services. p14 ..In general terms S.V. tends to favour those groups with a large expenditure on improvements to the land value (e.g. industry, investment flats and large house owners). p40 Local Government Rates in Victoria Hargreen Publishing Co.

Mr Bird

The land value base can be and is being made quite ineffective by local government bodies using differential rating and minimum rates...Some councils are using or seeking to use their differential rating powers to invert or reverse the effect of a general revaluation of land in their rating areas. This approach is designed to maintain and preserve the prevailing distribution of the rate burden between different classes of land. Such an approach completely negates the need for and purpose and land value rating system. Valuer General NSW Annual Report 1976 p.6

C.Lowell Harriss

Land deserves a prominent place in a tax system for reasons articulated long before tax evasion became a recognised problem...land is a productive resource whose total quantity does not depend upon the taxes imposed. The payment made for use does not go to reward the producer (creator) of the resources as will our payments for labour and man-made capital. Most of the value of land depends upon past and present community developments, not upon the efforts of past and present owners (as distinguished from buildings). Other reasons for using land as a tax base cumulate into an impressive total-to which one adds the merits of uniqueness among revenue sources as evasion-proof. President of National Tax Association Professor of Economics Columbia University August 1993

Gerald Dusseldorp

Mr. Dusseldorp’s evidence was strongly in favour of rating on the site value rather than the value of improvements. (11535) Q: Do you think that there would be any shortage of sites and buildings available for re-development under an annual value rating system as compared with an unimproved value rating system? A: I think that the tendency would be that....NAV would definitely pay an owner who is in no hurry to pay the rates and taxes without improving it, because the chance is that he would recover that plus, when the market is right, so that he can ride the “booms” and the “troughs.” If he misses one boom period he can just sit it out and wait for the next one and he is bound to recover more than he has paid out during the time, plus the fact that what he collects is tax free, yet his rates and taxes will be deductible during that period from any income that he might derive from other sources.” N.S.W. Royal Commission on Local Government Finance 1967 Chairman Lendlease

Australian National Priorities Review Committee

1992 Report: Ground Rent currently pays only 5% of taxes.

Perry Prentice

Land ownership is the most highly concentrated form of wealth. In Caifornia, one big company owns more millions of acres of land than all the home sites in the state! Nationwide, 568 big companies own 301,700,000 acres of land 13% of our total land area and nearly 22% of all privately owned land. Commeration Address past Vice President, Time, Inc

William Vickery

It guarantees that no one dispossesses fellow citizens by obtaining a disproportionate share of what nature provides for humanity. President American Economics Association,

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.”

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. 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.

Herbert Spence

Equity, therefore, does not permit property in land. For if one portion of the earth's surface may justly become the possession of an individual, and may be held by him for his sole use and benefit, as a thing to which he has an exclusive right, then other portions of the earth's surface may be so held; and eventually the whole of the earth's surface may be so held' and our planet mayt thus lapse altogether into private hands. Observe now the dilemma to which this leads. Supposing the entire habitable globe to be so inclosed, it follows that if the landowners have a valid right toits surface, all who are not landowners have not right at all to its surface. Hence, such can exist on the earth by suffferance only. They are all tresspassers...it is manifest, that an exclusive possession of the soil necessitates an infringement of the law of equal freedom. for, men who cannot "live and move and have their being" without the leave of others, cannot be equally free with those others. Social Statistics,1851-The Right To Land Ch 9

Terry Dwyer

In 1999 land-based revenues are indeed sufficient to allow total abolition of company and personal tax. At the current rate of growth, in 20 years time resource rents will be able to replace taxation at all levels of government. The Taxable Capacity of Australian Land and Resources p.40

Bryan Kavanagh

Of Australia's $180 billion in resource rents in 2002 only $19.2 billion was collected for public purposes, leaving $160.8 billion to be capitalised into higher land and resource prices. Whereas the incomes of labour and capital have increased only 1.58 times in real terns since 1972, taxation has grown 3.1 times. The Case For a Federal Charges on Land Values

E.R.A. Seligman

The incidence of the ground tax, in other words, is on the landlord. He has no means of shifting it; for, if the tax were to be suddenly abolished, he would nevertheless be able to extort the same rent, since the ground rent is fixed solely by the demand of the occupiers. The tax simply diminishes his profits. Incidence of Taxation, pages 244-245.

Bruce Willis

Armageddon (Movie). We don't want to ever pay tax again. Ever!

William D.Nordhaus

The striking result is that a tax on rent will lead to no distortions or economic inefficiencies. Why not? Because a tax on pure economic rent does not change anyone's economic behavior. Demanders are unaffected because their price is unchanged. The behavior of suppliers is unaffected because the supply of land is fixed and cannot react. Hence, the economy operates after the tax exactly as it did before the tax--with no distortions or inefficiencies arising as a result of the land tax. Economics, 16th ed., p. 250

Paul Samuelson

The striking result is that a tax on rent will lead to no distortions or economic inefficiencies. Why not? Because a tax on pure economic rent does not change anyone's economic behavior. Demanders are unaffected because their price is unchanged. The behavior of suppliers is unaffected because the supply of land is fixed and cannot react. Hence, the economy operates after the tax exactly as it did before the tax--with no distortions or inefficiencies arising as a result of the land tax. Economics, 16th ed., p. 250

Henry George (1839-1897)

For justice to be done between men it is not necessary for the State to take the land; it is only necessary to take its rent. Our primary social adjustment is a denial of justice. In allowing one man to own the land on which and from which other men must live, we have made them his bondsmen in a degree which increases as material progress goes on. A tax on land values is of all taxes that which best fulfils every requirement of a perfect tax. As land cannot be hidden or carried off, a tax on land values can be assessed with more certainty and can be collected with greater ease and less expense than any other tax, while it does not in the slightest degree check production or lessen its incentive. It is, in fact, a tax only in form, being in nature a rent - a taking for the use of the community of a value that arises not from individual exertion but from the growth of the community. For it is not anything that the individual owner or user does that gives value to land. The value that he creates is a value that attaches to improvements. This, being the the result of individual exertion, properly belongs to the individual, and cannot be taxed without lessening the incentive to production. But the value that attaches to land itself is a value arising from the growth of the community and increasing with social growth. It therefore properly belongs to the community, and can be taken to the last penny without in the slightest degree lessening the incentive to production. (Introduction to Protection or Free Trade) -- The way taxes raise prices is by increasing the cost of production and checking supply. But land is not a thing of human production, and taxes upon rent cannot check supply. Therefore, though a tax upon rent compels owners to pay more, it gives them no power to obtain more for the use of their land, as it in no way tends to reduce the supply of land. On the contrary, by compelling those who hold land for speculation to sell or let for what they can get, a tax on land values tends to increase the competition between owners, and thus to reduce the price of land. Progress and Poverty, Book 8, Chapter 3.

David Ricardo

A tax on rent would affect rent only: it would fall only on landlords, and could not be shifted. The landlord could not raise the rent, because he would have unaltered the difference between the produce obtained from the least productive land in cultivation and that obtained from land of every other quality. Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, Chapter 10, Sect 62.

Thorold Rogers

The power of transferring a tax from the person who actually pays it to some other person varies with the object taxed. A tax on rents cannot be transferred. A tax on commodities is always transferred to the consumer. - Thorold Rogers, Political Economy, 2nd edition, Chapter 21, page 285.

Agriculture subsidies do NOT save small family farms and Congress knows it:

Instead of keeping farmers on the land, these huge government payments to only the largest, most productive farms are forcing many small farmers out of business. Farm payments are based on production levels, so the bigger the farm, the bigger the government check. Large corporate operations are able to plant more crops, so they get the biggest slice of the subsidy pie. These large farms then turn around and use their outsized government checks to buy up even more farm land. Unable to compete, small farmers are left with no choice but to sell their land to the very operations that are putting them out of business. http://www.progress.org/2005/tcs176.htm

UN discovers property rights

Washington Times by Alejandro Chafuen "Even the United Nations on occasion does something right. So it's a shame the media and the public, understandably fixated at the time on Hurricane Katrina's impact on the U.S. Gulf Coast, missed it. The 'it' was the mid-September announcement that the United Nations was establishing a new commission that will focus on the legal hurdles people in the underdeveloped world face as they try to work their way out of poverty. Institutions like the United Nations typically create commissions as a substitute for actually doing something about a problem. Thanks to its leadership -- former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Peruvian economist Hernando De Soto -- the new 'High Level Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor' might actually accomplish some good." http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20051101-084856-5025r.htm

US Farm Subsidies 1998-2005

Since 1998, average annual farm payments have gone from $7 billion to $18 billion. The FY 2006 budget estimates 2005 farm subsidy spending will top $24 billion. Worse, farm payments have become increasingly concentrated, flowing to fewer and fewer individual farmers. According to the USDA, only 8 percent of producers receive 78 percent of subsidies. At the top of the subsidy food chain, huge corporate operations receive payments in the millions, while the average for 80 percent of farmers is under $1,000.

Mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: cluster sample survey

Making conservative assumptions, we think that about 100000 excess deaths, or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Violence accounted for most of the excess deaths and air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths. We have shown that collection of public-health information is possible even during periods of extreme violence. Our results need further verification and should lead to changes to reduce non-combatant deaths from air strikes. When CNN anchor Daryn Kagan did have the opportunity to interview the Al Jazeera network editor-in-chief Ahmed Al-Sheik—a rare opportunity to get independent information about events in Fallujah—she used the occasion to badger Al-Sheik about whether the civilian deaths were really “the story” in Fallujah. CNN’s argument was that a bigger story than civilian deaths is “what the Iraqi insurgents are doing” to provoke a U.S. “response” is startling. “When reports from the ground are describing hundreds of civilians being killed by U.S. forces, CNN should be looking to Al Jazeera’s footage to see if it corroborates those accounts—not badgering Al Jazeera’s editor about why he doesn’t suppress that footage.” (MediaWatch, Asheville Global Report) http://image.thelancet.com/extras/04art10342web.pdf

NAMIBIA: Key step in land reform completed

WINDHOEK, (IRIN) - The Namibian government has completed the valuation of commercial farmland in the country, a key element of its land reform programme. http://www.oneworld.net/external/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.irinnews.org%2Freport.asp%3FReportID%3D43457%26SelectRegion%3DSouthern_Africa%26SelectCountry%3DNAMIBIA

National Tax and Accountants Association

Looking for a way to get tax breaks on your home? It's not impossible. But you've got to have friends! Not friends in high places, but friends who are at the same stage as you in life — ready to buy a property. You can claim deductions for each one of you who buys a property, but rather than live in it, you rent it to the other. That way, you get upkeep of the property and take advantage of negative gearing. Frontpage Website

Sixty Days Later, Promises Remain Unfulfilled

Rebecca Brigham On June 9th, Guatemala was paralyzed by a nationwide strike organized by a diverse coalition of groups to protest recent evictions of indigenous families from disputed land, as well as a regressive tax proposal and the newly-signed Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). The protesters surrounded government buildings and blocked roads in 20 of the 22 departments of the country. The strike ended only eight hours after if had begun when President Berger offered to meet with the protesters and agreed to address the agrarian issue within ninety days. http://amlat.oneworld.net/article/view/91740/1/

Uncle Al's quote of the week

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." -- George W. Bush

If Bush Is Not A Liar

"Does the nation's poverty line accord with anyone's actual experience? Do not factors such as property values and cost of living vary according to location?" James Leroy Wilson: ; para.11 www.independentcountry.blogspot.com

Will our Children Ever Be Able to Afford a House?

In an article of considerable length, Ross Gittins succeeded in avoiding any reference at all to land and land prices. The Age

Assessing Tax Systems using a benchmark methodology

More recently, the World Bank has developed a website devoted to evaluating tax policy and administration, but this site does not include any international comparators, and it provides little basis for establishing specific, quantitative goals and targets, although it does discuss many of the institutional and resource matters that are discussed in this paper. Moreover, despite the website’s title, it offers very little substance for evaluating tax system performance. Mark Gallagher

Australian Quota Notes

March 2004 In both 1990 and 1998 incumbent federal governments were returned despite having a minority of the two-party preferred vote.

Taxes & Charges

Now total 27% of GDP, 22 billion more than in the last year of the Keating government. The Age Kenneth Davidson

House Price Averages

The ratio of home prices to average income has been at record highs in the USA, Australia and Britain, Ireland the highest with 190% increase, Japan the lowest with 30% fall. The Age

Editorial

Many young Australian couples have borrowed 97% or more of the price of a property in the past 12 months. They are probably on negative equity now - ie they owe more money on the house than the current market value. New Zealand Herald

Commissioned Report: Transport and City Competitiveness

p2. Improved city competitiveness is a much sought after property of most economies, however there remains little agreement either on what the term competitiveness means or on how policy intervention should try to enhance it. p31. At the micro level, there are the environmental and distributional issues as well as changes in property and land values resulting from transport investment. There seems to be no comprehensive research methodology in this area. A proposed methodology has been developed (ARW and BSP, 2002), and it is currently (2003) being tested in the Croydon Tram corridor in South London. It covers the necessary conditions for measurable additional impacts are identifiable, such as land value increases, and how to measure them. It is the additionally (or latent demand) and measurability of these benefits that need to be analysed. p34. Projected rateable values also give a good indicator of property values in both the residential and commercial markets, and a revaluation is currently being undertaken (to be completed in 2005). L Davies, Prof's D Banister, Prof Sir P Hall, Bartlett School of Planning, University College London

Bangladesh in Eviction Mode As Land Mafia Runs Riot

Sharier Khan OneWorld South Asia 05 January 2004 DHAKA, Jan 5 (OneWorld) - A new study says encroachers have occupied 3.3 million acres of public land in Bangladesh, including farmland distributed to the poor, triggering social unrest in the over-populated country:prompting the government to introduce land reforms. Economics professor at Dhaka University, Abul Barakat, who is spearheading the study titled Political Economy of Land Litigation in Bangladesh, remarks that "Land encroachment - and the subsequent disputes - is a major hindrance to Bangladesh's economic growth." http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/76116/1/

What Brazil Can Teach the World

Written by Guy Burton    Last weekend central London was host to a tax protest. The thousands who marched were campaigning against the council tax, a levy which every household must pay to help maintain local government finances. ...The tax has been in place since the early 1990s and supplements the grant ministers make to municipal authorities. Meanwhile the Liberal Democrats, the third force in British politics after Labour and the Conservatives, have begun a campaign to abolish the property value-based council tax and replace it with a local income tax. ...But replacing the council tax with a local income tax won't address this problem. All it will do is swap one form of tax collection and may well maintain the disconnection many voters feel that they have any stake in the way their taxes are spent. http://www.brazzil.com/content/view/1639/51/

John C Lincoln

The Natural Source of Revenue for the Government. An Economic Study by John C Lincoln" Exposition Press, New York 1957 The Lincoln Foundation was Founded to get people to see that ground rent belongs to the community and that it will be possible to abolish the taxation of wealth if it was collected by the community for community expenses. [Trustees of The Lincoln Foundation need to re-visit the great industrialist's express wishes as expressed in the unalterable purpose clause of the corporation's Articles, instead of financially supporting individuals and bodies often at odds with that purpose clause. Indeed, those trustees who no longer support Lincoln's principal aim have absolutely no place on the Lincoln Foundation.]

Last word on econometrics

"With every step that we have taken to define this equilibrium model more strictly, the closer has become its resemblance to the old static (or even stationary) equilibrium model; its bearing upon reality must have come to seem even more remote. It has been fertile in the generation of classroom exercises; but so far as we can see, they are exercises, not real problems. They are not even hypothetical real problems, of the type `what would happen if' where the `if' is something that could conceivably happen. They are shadows of real problems, dressed up in such a way that by pure logic we can find solutions for them." We both survey the creators' skepticism and inquire how a discipline can continue when its own creators doubt its relevance. J.R. Hicks

Alan Greenspan

Marginal Tax Rate The tax rate at which the last dollar of income is taxed. High marginal tax rates are a disincentive towards work and productivity. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=marginal+tax+rate

Elbert Hubbard

Of all modern prophets and reformers, Henry George is the one whose arguments are absolutely unanswerable and whose forecast is sure.

United Nations - 2002

Food & Agricultural Organisation of The United Nations Series on Land Tenure Studies - 5.Rural property tax systems in Central and Eastern Europe Table 1 Comparison of base assessement. p.25 1. CV – redevelopment value is ignore. 2. RV – Rarely worth considering. 3. SV - Well tried basis of assessment that often works well. It can have administrative advantages and be a cheap system to run. p.48 A site value basis for valuation usually suffers from there being very little evidence (compiled). This can seriously detract from the credibility of the assessments produced.

Making Amends

Written by Administrator The Brazilian Agrarian Reform Association disagrees  with the manner in which the number of land settlements realized between 1997 and 1999 is presented and the World Bank's market-based agrarian reform program. Points cited by the FAO as positive are shown to be far from reality. 
 The ABRA (Associação Brasileira de Reforma Agrária—Brazilian Agrarian Reform Association (ABRA) is contesting what the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has to say about agrarian reform in Brazil in the FAO's "State of the World of Food and Agriculture - 2001." According to the Association, certain passages of the report "are a far cry from the scientific care and political neutrality that characterize the report as a whole." ABRA wrote to the FAO director general, Jacque Diouf, asking that corrections be made. According to the letter from ABRA, the FAO report "reproduces, in various moments, data and discourse from the Brazilian government about the supposed merits and achievements of the Agrarian Reform program." The FAO report says that the Fernando Henrique Cardoso administration has done the most for agrarian reform in the country, when that "was the exclusive result of the intensification of struggles of Brazilian rural workers, augmented with the internal and international repercussions of the massacres at Corumbiara and Eldorado de Carajás." Another point that ABRA regards as incorrect is in regards to the Rural Land Tax (ITR). The 1996 ITR legislation, cited as coercive and punitive for the large landowners' properties, is milder than the previous 1994 law. The proposed revenue from the tax for 2002 is $99 million, while in the last year of the 1994 legislation $114 million was raised. In other words, this year's ITR revenue will be 47.5% less than that of the previous law if corrected for inflation. ABRA also disagrees with the manner in which the number of land settlements realized between 1997 and 1999 is presented and the World Bank's market-based agrarian reform program. These two points, cited by the FAO as positive, are shown to be far from reality. The Cédula da Terra program, for example, has various irregularities, such as the precarious nature of the technical reports, the over-valuing of land and productivity on unproductive large land holdings. The ABRA letter demonstrates these and other errors in specific cases in Bahia, Minas Gerais, Maranhão and Pernambuco. Upon receiving the FAO report, the Cardoso administration published congratulatory ads with the headline, `Even the United Nations praises Agrarian Reform in Brazil' in major Brazilian newspapers. According to the ABRA letter, "besides the publicity in the press, the Internet pages of the Ministry of Agrarian Development and INCRA (National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform), continued to celebrate the `approval of the UN' of the agrarian reform program. They published the section on Brazil in the FAO document. However, as usual, two types of fraud were detected in the material: 1) the FAO text was not reproduced in its entirety; passages that did not interest the government's propaganda were eliminated; 2) the unfaithful translation of certain passages in the report, changing words and expressions from the original text, in ways that would amplify the supposed merits of the government." http://www.brazzil.com/content/view/6821/39/

Series on Land Tenure Studies. 2002

Food & Agricultural Organisation 5. Rural property tax systems in Central and Eastern Europe. p.25 Table 1: Comparison of base assessment. Capital Value – redevelopment value is ignore Rental Value – Rarely worth considering (Melbourne has 6 municipalities using this base) Site Value - Well tried basis of assessment that often works well. It can have administrative advantages and be a cheap system to run. A site value basis for valuation usually suffers from there being very little evidence. This can seriously detract from the credibility of the assessments produced. p.48

Kathleen Norris:

Anyone who really fears a revolution in America ought to re-read Henry George's "Progress and Poverty", one of the great social documents of our time....I have never known his premises to be shaken in the least.

Bumpy Road

Written by Brazzil Magazine    Monday, 01 April 2002 
By Brazzil Magazine Until the 1880's, the tax revenues of the central government were approximately 4.5 times larger than those of the provincial governments. The central government's share in total public-sector expenditure was even larger, for the central government had much greater access to foreign and domestic borrowing. Likewise, the tax revenues collected by local governments in nineteenth-century Brazil were a small fraction of total public-sector revenues. One possibility is that the vision of implementing a rational public-investment policy was distorted by the lens of Brazilian politics. The large landowners had considerable influence in Brazilian politics during the nineteenth century, and they are generally not considered to have been a very "progressive" or "development -oriented" group. In fact, what was needed in this context was not an interest in development but an interest in wealth maximization. Brazil's landowners displayed ample evidence of such an interest. Thus, responding to the prospect of favorable returns, Brazilian planters allocated sufficient resources—even to products with a long gestation period, for example, cocoa in Bahia and coffee in São Paulo—to make possible sharp increases in output. Further, far from explaining the failure of Brazil's governments to provide large infrastructure investments, an interpretation that emphasizes the role of the large landowners in Brazilian politics only sharpens the question. For, following Joseph Schumpeter's insight concerning the convergence of monopoly and socialism, one would expect large landowners to be especially energetic in pressing for public investment. This is because landowners with extensive holdings and market power can internalize and appropriate most of the social benefits of infrastructure investment. Therefore Brazil's internal political conditions should have led to large government investment in economic infrastructure. ...Between 1830 and 1885, some 70 percent of the government's revenues came from taxes on imports and exports. As this number indicates, generalized taxes on agricultural land were not an important source of government revenue in nineteenth-century Brazil. In this respect, Brazil contrasted notably with countries otherwise as diverse as India and Japan in the nineteenth century. Not only would the administrative costs (including a cadastral survey) of generalized land taxation have been high, but the revenue prospects of such an effort were meager. An important difference with India and Japan was Brazil's abundance of land and the ensuing low ratios of labor to land in the domestic agricultural sector. With little pressure of population on land, Ricardian rent, the basis for land taxation, was small. These conditions, which made for high transactions costs and a low economic surplus in the domestic agricultural sector, meant that the net fiscal yield of generalized land taxation would have been small....In the latter case, production was mainly in the form of small-scale family farming under the overlordship of a large local landowner. With labor scarce relative to land, cultivation was land-extensive. This text was excerpted from How Latin America Fell Behind—Essays on the Economic Histories of Brazil and Mexico, 1800-1914, Edited by Stephen Haber & re-edited by JKennedy Bennett, Stanford University Press, 1997, 316 pp (economics in economics weighting: LOWEST)

The electoral reform society of South Australia

At the 2001 federal elections, 88% of Australian electors found that their votes elected a senator, while only 54% found that their votes elected an MHR. 1.77 million Loberal Party votes and 2.17 ALP voters found that their votes did not elect anyone to the House of Representatives.

True & False Economics

13.50 Taxation, on the other hand, is no part of economics, Despite what many orthodox economists mistrakenly teach. It is not part of production, exchange or distribution. It is a levy by governments on the products of labour after both production and economic distribution are finished. 189.96 As there must be a Treasury for the collection of the rent, the Treasury will replace the taxation departments. Most likely the munciipal councils will collect the whole rent and pay it over to the national treasury, 5.33 This does not mean that harmful products, such as drugs or armaments or pornography should not be discouraged. That is a matter for moral action or social philosphy, But not for economics.. When a proposed action involves a choice between ethics and economy ethics must prevail. "Life is more than meat". But the economy principle is never in conflict with ethics. 63.148 (a) Production and trade are matters of associated individual economic effort and enterprise, and governments act uneconomically when they interfere with and try to regulate trade, or even become concerned with economic matters. This means that one plain implication of economics is to encourage trade but even more to establish free trade. (b)Economic rent is produced by the whole economic community, and not by any land-holder or individual producer. The ethical and political implication of this is that governments are ethically obligated to see that the rent is collected by the community and used for the community. 63.149. The chief link between economics and ethics is therefore rent, the most obvious and striking of economic phenomena and the greatest source of good to the community (if rightly handled) and of evil (if wrongly handled). It is said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions well we know that the bridge to prosperity is the appreciation of rent for pubic revenue and not for private enrichment. W Arthur. Dowe

Prosperity for the Next Generation

Oakleigh Times August 15, 1995 'Oakleigh & Waverley can expect increased development and an influx of young people in about 10 years, according to an economist. Site Rating Defence Economist Phil Anderson believes (City of) Monash's recent decision to remain with the Site Value Rating System will significantly benefit the area..... City Economic Development Strategy - Major Business Types p1 Monash's (Oakleigh & Waverley) Economic Position within Melbourne's South East Region. From the November 2001 report entitled 'Prosperity for the Next Generation', "Monash has the largest number of both businesses and jobs among the 11 municipalities. It performs a key role in providing employment to people living in other parts of the region, particularly in the newly established and growing suburbs of the outer south-east. As a result, of all the 11 municipalities, Monash is the most influential provider of household disposable income to residents in neighbouring municipalities. Unlike some municipalities that provide jobs and therefore household income primarily to their own residents, Monash is a key Provider of income to the residents of Greater Dandenong, Casey, Knox, Cardinia, and Kingston. There is a high level of interdependency between Monash and the other 10 municipalities in the region. Not only is it an important jobs hub, but Monash also is a major generator of wealth in the region. After Kingston, it has the highest export output per capita of all municipalities in the region. It also is the least dependent local government area in the region on government transfer payments to residents, indicating on average a high degree of employment and wealth among its residents.

The Devil's Dictionary

"LAND, n. A part of the earth's surface, considered as property. The theory that land is property subject to private ownership and control is the foundation of modern society, and is eminently worthy of the superstructure. Carried to its logical conclusion, it means that some have the right to prevent others from living; for the right to own implies the right exclusively to occupy; and in fact laws of trespass are enacted wherever property in land is recognised. It follows that if the whole area of terra firma is owned by A, B, and C there will be no place for D, E, F and G to be born, or, born as trespassers, to exist." Ambrose Bierce

Dr JFN Murray

Valuation is the most important subject in the social sciences, but it has always been outside the scope of economics as taught in the universities.... It is maintained that a re-integration of the theory of valuation with the main body of economic theory would lead to an advancement of learning and to a soundly-based national economy. Australian real estate valuer

Globalization and Appropriate Governance

Professor Jagdish N Bhagwati delivers WIDER December 2000 Annual Lecture Firstly there is the ‘tyranny of the missing alternative’. The triumph of capitalism, and the collapse of a practical alternative with the final demise of the Marxist and Soviet models, has led to great dissatisfaction among idealistic youth... ...Finally, within international agencies, the question of ‘listening to the voices of civil society groups - unelected as they are, and grossly disproportionate in their funds and influence between the rich and the poor countries and constituting a massive form of ‘non-economic’ globalization - must be addressed as well. Jagdish Bhagwati is the Arthur Lehman Professor of Economics and Professor of Political Science, Columbia University, New York This aricle is base on the 2000 WIDER Annual Lecture given by Professor Bhagwati on 27 Nov 2000 in Helsinki. Comment "Non-economic globalisation must be addressed ?" A so called economist is arguing that where 80% of the worlds population is living in conditions which are non-economic !, Than what is the economic term for a non-economic society for the hundreds of millions of people? Surely you the reader must realise that any condition where the wealth of the producer (the labourer) is not retained by the producer because of taxation and land price, which steals the wages from the mouths of his and her children is non-economic. The economic profession must begin to redress the corruption in their discipline. No condition is economic when the rent of land is not returned to the government for the provision of security of tenure which it grants. No condition is economic when the labourer does not receive the untaxed wages he or she has earned for selling their labour. And the capitalist should not be taxed either for the provision of valuable equipment to produce wealth. Why is this so difficult for economists to grasp?