French government agrees air tax

Wednesday, 23 November 2005, 16:50 GMT The French government has approved plans for a new tax on airline tickets to boost aid for the world's poor. The tax, which needs parliamentary approval, would range from one to 40 euros depending on the distance travelled and type of ticket. Levied on every passenger boarding a flight in France, it could raise up to 210m euros ($248m; £144m) a year. President Jacques Chirac has been campaigning for an international air tax to help fight global poverty. He first raised the idea during the Word Economic Forum in Switzerland last January, saying an international tax of one euro should be charged on the 3 billion airline tickets issued each year. He has the support of the UK government, which has agreed to divert revenues from its existing Air Passenger Duty. In Chile, a $2 surcharge will be added to tickets on all outgoing flights from January 1 2006. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4463204.stm

House Cuts Food Stamps for More than 220,000 Vulnerable People While Poised to Cut Taxes for Wealthy

WASHINGTON - The House of Representatives passed a budget bill yesterday that changes eligibility requirements for the Food Stamp Program, cutting benefits for approximately 220,000 to 250,000 vulnerable people. The budget reconciliation bill aims to cut the Food Stamp Program by $675 million. "We are disappointed that the House made cuts to the Food Stamp Program and are poised to cut taxes for the wealthy. Their choice takes food from families struggling to make ends meet and puts more money in the pockets of those who need it the least," said Rev. David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World. "This is morally wrong and will make Thanksgiving bleaker for hundreds of thousands of hard-working families." ..."With hunger on the rise and the forces of nature exposing poverty anew, plans to cut this vital, proven program make no sense. House leaders should be ashamed of trying to preserve tax cuts for our nation's wealthiest people at the expense of basic assistance for working families struggling to put food on the table," Rev. Beckmann said. Last month the U.S. Department of Agriculture released the statistics on hunger and food insecurity for 2004. The number of people living in food insecure households has risen by nearly 2 million people (from 36.3 million individuals in 2003 to 38.2 million in 2004). More than 13 million children live in food insecure households. The number of people who live in households that suffer from outright hunger rose from 9.6 million to 10.6 million. These increases in hunger and food insecurity are sharper than in previous years. http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/1118-01.htm

Redistributing the Land, Hugo Chavez Style

Published on Monday, November 14, 2005 by the Toronto Star Analysts say president's land-expropriation plan a world away from disastrous Zimbabwean program by Jens Erik Gould The privately owned, 1,200-hectare Santa Isabel farm has grown sugar cane for decades, but Antiaga says the Venezuelan government will help him use the land to grow pumpkins, beans and squash. Under a land redistribution campaign led by President Hugo Chavez, thousands of rural poor like Antiaga are being granted rights to farm arable land traditionally concentrated in the hands of wealthy landowners. But Artiaga isn't waiting for the government to take the lead. He and other farmers are slashing the Santa Isabel cane with machetes and laying claim to land they say is rightfully theirs. "We're obligated to take this land because it is state land," says Antiaga, clad in a torn shirt dirtied by the rich soil. "Commander Chavez is with our movement." Venezuela's land-reform campaign has won support from the rural poor but has sparked criticism that it could infringe on private property rights. "In Yaracuy, there is no rule of law," says Santa Isabel owner Vicente Lecuna, who accuses state officials of encouraging peasants to settle on his property. He says farming co-operatives like Antiaga's have destroyed 40 per cent of his sugar cane. Chavez insists his government respects private property rights and contends that the land expropriations are being carried out only for public use or for social necessity in a country where most non-state land is owned by a small elite. In the latest stage of what he calls the "new socialism of the 21st century," Chavez has called on state officials to take over private land deemed "idle" or lacking property titles dating back to 1848. Soldiers have enforced some of the takeovers, at times denying owners and workers access to the land. In recent months, the government has extended its campaign to corporate-owned land. One state government expropriated an idle tomato processing plant from U.S.-based H.J. Heinz Co. and another seized a silo installation from Empresas Polar, Venezuela's largest food company. The state government paid Heinz $256,000 (U.S.) for its seized plant, distinguishing Venezuela's reform from Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's massive land redistribution effort, which has not reimbursed thousands of white landowners for their seized farms. While critics say both the Venezuelan and Zimbabwean governments are giving land to peasants with little agricultural experience, Venezuela offers farming loans while Zimbabwean farmers severely lack resources to develop their land. With agriculture a small player in Venezuela's oil-dependent economy, it is unlikely that a fall in food production would cause the kind of food shortages and other crises it has in Zimbabwe, notes Orlando Ochoa, an economics professor at Andres Bello Catholic University in Caracas. Mugabe's reform also seized farms on the basis of race, targeting land owned by white farmers, while Caracas focuses on productivity and property titles, Ochoa says. Critics argue that the Venezuelan expropriations are concentrating more power in the government by giving peasants farming licences for — rather than ownership of — the land they farm. But Carlos Escarra, a constitutional lawyer and professor at the Central University of Venezuela, rejects this common criticism, saying peasants actually become property owners who lack only the right to sell their land. Chavez says that having co-operatives like Antiaga's farming on expropriated land will lessen Venezuela's dependence on imports by satisfying domestic deficits in food. And the government has launched a campaign to plant more than 200,000 hectares of new sugar cane and cassava to produce sugar-based ethanol gasoline. Yet Yaracuy farm owner Vladimir Rodriguez says it is ironic that the same government has not prevented co-operatives and extortionists from destroying more than $15 million worth of sugar cane on 33 farms in his state alone, according to his statistics. A state-run agrarian fund known as Fondafa also grants loans for farming machinery to co-operatives that have taken over private property without state permission and uprooted sugar cane crops. In one case of extortion, local delinquents — who farm owners say posed as landless peasants — murdered sugar cane farm owner Antonio Vieira after he refused to pay them to not destroy his crop. Yaracuy state secretary-general Col. Angel Yarza, who called on the government to take over 48 ranches, denied in an interview that he had seen large quantities of destroyed sugar cane. He assured that the state does not encourage land invasions, but will not intervene to protect privately owned farms. Antiaga says Yarza and other state officials are helping his group's long fight to take land away from owners like Lecuna, who for him represent a system of traditional land ownership that prevent the rural poor from acquiring farms or landing sustainable jobs. "We're human beings, too, and we have to eat," he says. But for farm owners, seizing private property and issuing loans to poor farmers is no solution to poverty and unemployment. "(The co-operatives) just want credits that they won't pay back," says Lecuna. "They're not going to produce." Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited

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. Introduction: Protection or Free Trade 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. Progress and Poverty 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. Book 8, Chapter 3.

11,000 Brazilians Keep US$ 93 Billion Abroad, Mainly in Tax Paradises

Written by Stênio Ribeiro Friday, 04 November 2005 A survey by the Central Bank found that 11,245 Brazilians possessed US$ 93.243 billion in foreign deposits, investments, and business assets as of December 31, 2004. This amount represents an increase of 12.8% over the US$ 82.692 billion declared a year earlier. This information was provided Thursday, November 3, by the head of the Department in charge of Combating Illegal Financial Assets and the Supervision of Exchange and International Capital, Ricardo Liao. Liao attributed the increment to the increased global insertion of the Brazilian economy, stimulated by the growth in exports in recent years and the variation in the number of individuals and firms that filed declarations of Brazilian Foreign Capital Assets (CBE). The number of declarations this year, referring to calendar year 2004, rose by 623 in relation to the number filed in 2004, referring to calendar year 2003. According to Liao, the US$ 10.6 billion increase in this year's declarations was heavily influenced by mergers between domestic and foreign firms, as well as a US$ 5 billion increase in inter-company loans and the enhanced market value of Brazilian companies abroad. Liao said that, as in previous years, the greatest concentration of Brazilian assets was detected in the so-called tax paradises, due to the "facility offered by these countries for movements of capital." The largest sums of Brazilian capital have traditionally transited through the Cayman Islands, the Bahamas, the British Virgin Islands, and Luxembourg.

Soldiers are the state

anti-state.com by Joel Wilcox "I find it strange, to say the least, that among those who call themselves anarchists, anti-statists, radicals and individualists, there are so many who are quick to defend soldiers who fight for the state while condemning those who take joy in the soldier's demise. The most common arguments are that we cannot blame the soldiers for the wars they fight because most of them are young and impressionable, brainwashed, impoverished or otherwise well-intentioned. It is demanded that the state is squarely to blame and, in fact, the soldiers themselves are additional victims. For this, we should compassionately give our sympathy and support to those who fight while reproaching that which they fight for. Now, I would expect these arguments from a dyed-in-the-wool statist or even a minarchist but again, from a self-described enemy of the state, such arguments are bizarre." http://tinyurl.com/bbskb

The myth of a social contract

Strike the Root by Jim Davies "Ever since monarchs first felt the rumblings of discontent, they reached for a way to justify their miserable existences in the eyes of those upon the product of whose labor they lived in luxury; for many centuries the 'Divine Right' theory did the job. ... The entire establishments of both State and Church did very nicely out of this scam for centuries. It began to unravel when a few bright minds began to wonder whether the underlying myth was supported by rational fact, and found it wanting; that enlightening process began in the 18th Century and came to full fruit in the 20th, by when few monarchies remained and none of those are more than figureheads (observe Charles and Camilla, currently on a US visit.) Alas, however, the dictators were replaced by an even more insidious myth: that of the 'Social Contract,' the idea that all members of a society have in some way agreed to bind themselves to certain standards and laws for the common good." http://www.strike-the-root.com/52/davies/davies7.html

Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)

If I were to re-write this book, I would offer a third alternative - the possibility of sanity - Economics would be decentralist and Henry Georgian. foreword to Brave New World

Samuel Gompers (1850-1924)

I believe in Land Value Taxation. I count it a great privilege to have been a friend of Henry George: First President American Federation of Labor:

Confucius 551-479 BC

Once, natural resources were fully used for the benefit of all, and not appropriated for selfish ends. This was the age of the Great Commonwealth of peace and prosperity.

William Blackstone: 1723-1780

The earth, therefore, and all things therein, are the general property of all mankind, from the immediate gift of the creator. ...there is no foundation in nature or in natural law why a set of words upon parchment should convey the dominion of land. Commentaries

Avoid a VAT

Ernest S. Christian/Gary Robbins Our current tax system runs to more than 60,000 pages of laws, regulations and rulings. It's so confusing that many, if not most, Americans mail their return with no idea whether or not they've filled it out properly. ...However, a handful of tax reforms would do more harm than good....The proponents of this scheme (the so-called two-track system) propose a high-rate, value-added tax (VAT) of the type used in Europe, which is a hidden tax on wages, dividends and consumer purchases. ...the two-track system is a prescription for enormous expansion of government and escalating tax rates. The increasing taxes will especially burden the minority of voters subject to income taxes as well as the VAT. .... It would place a surtax on hard work, productivity and success. It would penalize Americans who have already succeeded and discourage others from even attempting to succeed. That's because even if they worked harder and more productively, they'd know that income taxes would take a large bite out of their earnings. A reasonable person near the income-tax threshold would likely decide that the increased income wasn't worth losing his exemption from the income tax and, in his view, having to start "paying taxes" for the first time. The Washington Times: Commentary

What you put online may be used against you!

...An alarming trend is developing at many universities where officials are searching Facebook profiles and Webshots accounts for incriminating photos to use against students. By Heights Editorial Board

GOP Plan to Tax You Out of House & Home

Chuck Muth ...the Jeffersonian notion that the nation would be stronger if more citizens owned their own homes, Congress in the early 1900s created the ìgovernment-sponsored enterpriseî known popularly as Fannie Mae (short for Federal National Mortgage Association). Fannie Mae - and its sibling, Freddie Mac (Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp.), created in 1970 - are private companies which do NOT get direct money from taxpayers, but which DO enjoy some favorable treatment by the federal government in return for making home ownership more available to more Americans. The essence of these GSEs is this: They dont lend money directly to you, the home-buyer. Instead, once a bank lends you the $100,000 to buy your house, Fannie and/or Freddie buy your new mortgage from the bank. This is what is called the ìsecondary mortgage market,î and it immediately frees up that $100,000 lent to you for the bank to lend to another potential home buyer. This is an extraordinary benefit if you were #11 on the bankís lending list. Their purpose, then, is to help moderateñ and low-income families obtain the American dream of home ownership. ...Their purpose, then, is to help moderateñ and low-income families obtain the American dream of home ownership. ...In the old days,î before Freddie Mac, the 30-year fixed mortgage was almost unheard of in the home-lending market. Today, somewhere around 70 and 80 percent of such home mortgages are issued under such terms. The 30-year mortgage, combined with relatively stable and lower interest rates, have made monthly home-loan payments affordable for millions of average-income citizens who otherwise would still be renting instead of buying. ...once Fannie or Freddie buys your mortgage from the local bank, they generally do one of two things with it: They turn around and sell it to investors (often overseas investors who see the U.S. real estate market as a safe bet and want a piece of the action), or they retain the mortgage in their own portfolio, allowing Fannie and Freddie share-holders and investors to reap the profits from the interest you pay on your home loan. ...Franklin Raines (a former Clinton official; go figure), OVER-stated its earnings to shareholders by a whopping $11 billion. ...Rather than merely assuring accurate accounting, these members of Congress are considering an active role in actually manipulating the market and picking new winners and losers. opinion editorials.com guestcontributors

Lands of Catastrophe: The Case of India and Pakistan

Jayant Bhandari ...For imperialist rulers, it is the land — not people — that matters. ...Millions suffer every year in the subcontinent from a cycle of horrible floods and water shortages. Millions die of easily and cheaply treatable diseases. Hundreds of thousands die like flies — and nature gets the blame. ...Facts will continue to come to light..is really the result of human arrogance and stupidity...To "make the nation strong," the state of India controlled the cement industry. ...Cement houses were far less insulated and, in a final irony, they needed more wood for heating. So much for saving the trees...While the "environmentalists" and the state destroyed the natural order, the void in the construction industry was filled by corrupt bureaucrats...Kashmir is one of the world's most militarized zones...To enable them to prepare for war, Pakistan and India spend 3.9% and 2.5% of their GDPs respectively...The total deployed troops are a million strong. Lessons: ...the people in these countries should have learned long ago is that when the crisis strikes, the state disappears...human stupidity has no limits...the media will romanticize whatever they can...Millions will continue to die, suffer, and live in utter misery, and the people of these countries will keep electing the same rulers. The culprits and the victims are the same; they only change positions. ...Leftists in the West will keep blaming globalization and the free market for all these problems. http://www.mises.org/story/1951

What's So Eminent About Public Domain?

Tim Lee Or consider the newly formed Property Rights Alliance (a project of Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform) which sponsored a panel at last month's State Policy Network meeting in which lobbyists from the movie and recording industries shared the podium with grassroots activists fighting eminent domain abuse. The Alliance's founding press release lamented that "recent Supreme Court decisions gutting physical and intellectual property rights have left little choice but to unify and organize." ...The Eldred decision is a good example. Until 1909, an author could receive copyright protection for no more than 56 years, after which the work would fall into the public domain. But thanks to industry lobbying, Congress extended the terms in 1976, and again in 1998. As a result, no copyrights have fallen into the public domain since the 1970s unless their owners chose not to renew them. There's every reason to think Congress will grant another extension around 2018, when the current terms begin to expire. Despite the Constitutional requirement that copyrights be "for limited times," Congress has effectively made them perpetual, one extension at a time. ...By lumping together the very real threat of the government taking people's land with an imaginary threat of IP anarchists abolishing intellectual property, the copyright industry and its allies hope to portray themselves as defenders of traditional property rights. http://www.reason.com/hod/tl103105.shtml

USA: Huntington could become the first city in West Virginia to pass a payroll tax.

City council will meet next week to debate whether to impose the 1 percent tax on people who work in the city. The fee would replace Huntington's $2-a-week service fee, similar to Charleston's $1-a-week user fee. Instead of paying for police officers and street services, the payroll tax revenue would go toward paying down Huntington's skyrocketing employee pension debts. "Nobody's going to be happy with any tax. I'm aware of that," said Huntington Mayor David Felinton. "But I think this is a lot more fair than the user fee. You look across the border and you see all these other states have the ability to do things like this, but it's just brand new in West Virginia. I think all cities need more flexibility to do this." Cities like Pittsburgh, Columbus and Cincinnati have for years charged people up to 2 percent in payroll taxes for working there. Parts of surrounding states like Kentucky and Virginia also charge the fees. Until recently, West Virginia cities and towns had no authority to tax the income of their workers. Instead, places like Huntington and Charleston have adopted user fees, the across-the- board fee that generally helps pay for road repairs and police services. Payroll taxes, on the other hand, vary depending on a person's income, and the tax typically brings in a lot more money than $1- or $2-a-week service fees. Huntington, however, is the only city in West Virginia right now that's eligible to pass a payroll tax. State lawmakers approved a plan just last year to allow cities to charge the tax only if their employee pension plans are severely under-funded. Huntington is the only city so deeply in debt, with reserves to cover less than 3 percent of its future pension obligations. It has pension liabilities that top $117 million. "This (tax) is probably the most viable option the city of Huntington has, other than some sort of increased property tax," said Mark Muchow, fiscal policy director for the state Department of Revenue. The tax would affect any person or family in Huntington earning $10,000 or more a year. A household making that much would pay $100 annually, whether.the money supports one person or four. Someone with an income of $50,000 would owe $500, and someone making $250,000 would have to pay the city $2,500. If the tax passes, most people who work in the city will end up paying more than the $104 now charged for the service fee. Felinton said revenue from the tax would amount to about $8 million a year, all of which would go to pension payments. The city's service fee is bringing in $3 million a year, which helps pay for police and street services. If the payroll tax passes, those services would get some added support from money now being used to pay off pension debts. Felinton has brought up the possibility of passing a payroll tax in the pass, but other city leaders have shot it down in favor of other alternatives. Now, those options seem to be running out. Felinton said the city is likely to miss a state deadline in December to reconfigure its pension payments, a plan that would have allowed it to start a new contribution plan for new hires. "This is a bit tougher to sell," Felinton said. "This scenario isn't as good as (our other options were), but we have to do something and we have to do it sooner than later." Cities around the state have been examining several new funding options, like the payroll tax, that lawmakers approved last year. While most places don't have a choice of adding a payroll tax right now, cities do have the option of abandoning a business and occupation tax in favor of adding their own sales tax in order to boost revenue. Charleston City Council Finance Chairman Bobby Reishman said city leaders here aren't talking about changing the tax structure any time soon. The city has for two years charged a $1-a-week service fee for anyone who works in Charleston, and Reishman said that plan is working out well. "Some of those taxes have been set up for cities that are in real trouble, and we're in good shape," Reishman said. "We're collecting more than we used to, and we certainly don't want to raise taxes any more than we have to." Felinton plans to bring up the payroll tax at the Oct. 24 council meeting, and council members could vote on the option early at a meeting in mid-November. Contact writer Kris Wise at 348-1244. J Kennedy Bennett response to the Editor & K Wise. This regressive revenue measure was drafted by your city's privileged few, who do not receive the bulk of their income from wages but from tenant rents & monopoly interest payments. It will further alienate the wealth of the Produces and shift it to vested interest in land. Your article quotes Mayor of Huntington David Felinton as saying "Nobody's going to be happy with any tax. I'm aware of that." And then offering an alleged counter argument as "But I think this is a lot more fair than the user fee." Neither is fair nor economic and yet his first assertion is true. Nobody is happy with any tax because tax is theft it maybe legal but it is not moral nor economic. The economic alternative is to rate the value of land which the Mayor allegedly governs. None of your cities do this let alone the States or Federal Government. Taxation can only occur after wealth is produced and is therefore external to the economic transaction of its creation. The rent of land is the return for its use and is integral to the economic use and production process and is the just base by which public revenue should be raised. As the value of production and consumption is stored in the land on which it occurs land is traded in a monopoliconomy for a price which is capitalised rent. Fewer and fewer Americans are securing titles to the land. Due to the rising monopoly ownership laws. So that your cities are becoming wage slave centres of compliance and regulatory nightmares for the dispossessed and your public administrations are exporting these policies around the world. The debate is council should rate land via valuation notices with incremental increases in the dollar as all other imposts are struck off until the the single source of revenue achieves a site revenue society with the absence of land price and taxation a consequence. Poverty crime homelessness terrorism would all disappear with it. PS. In a revenue analysis, I am able to quantify what the magnitude is, of the amount of suppressed economic activity by the impost measure herein proposed. If I were to obtain the city's valuation data of all property values (which the Huntington Council should have.) I then can advise as to what the revenue base formulae is, for the highest economic integrity. To replace this proposed slum facilitating measure.

Woodrow Wilson, (1856-1924)

All the country needs is new and sincere thought, coherently, distinctly and boldly uttered by men who are sure of their ground. The power of men like Henry George seems to me to mean that.

Throw Away the Key: Thousands of U.S. Children Serving Life Without Parole

Haider Rizvi OneWorld US NEW YORK, Oct 12 (OneWorld) - While most nations have abolished laws on sentencing children to life without parole, the United States remains one of the few countries in the world where minors are still regularly condemned to spend their lives behind bars, a new report released by two leading rights advocacy groups points out. Currently, there are more than 2,000 child offenders in U.S. prisons serving life-without-parole sentences for crimes they committed before the age of 18, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International, an independent group based in Britain. Entitled, "The Rest of Their Lives," the 157-page report is the first-ever national study on the practice of trying children as adults and sentencing them to life in adult prisons without the possibility of parole. While many children in prisons are now adults, about 16 percent were between age 13 and 15 at the time of committing crimes, say authors of the study, which also reveals that nearly 60 percent of children are serving life sentences for committing a crime for the first time. "Kids who commit serious crimes shouldn't go scot-free," says Alison Parker, senior researcher with HRW and author of the report. "But if they are too young to vote or buy cigarettes, they are too young to spend the rest of their lives behind bars." Parker notes that states are increasingly handing down life sentences to children at a time when fewer children are committing serious crimes such as murder. In 1990, for example, 2,234 children were convicted of murder, and nearly three percent sentenced to life without parole, she points out. By contrast, in 2000, only 1,000 children were convicted, but nearly nine percent of them were sent to jail for life. "Untie the hands of state and federal judges," says Dr. William Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International-USA. "Give them options other than turning the courts into assembly lines that mass produce mandatory life without parole sentences for children." In 26 states, the sentence of life without parole is mandatory for anyone who commits first-degree murder, regardless of age. Currently, outside the U.S., there are only 12 children facing life imprisonment without parole, say researchers, noting that the International Convention on the Rights of the Child forbids life sentencing without parole. The treaty has been endorsed by every country except for the U.S. and Somalia. Over 90 percent of children serving life sentences are convicted of committing murder, according to official figures. But researchers say they found that at least 26 percent of those convicted did not personally or directly cause the death. Citing an example, they say 15-year-old Peter A. was sentenced to death without parole for "felony murder." Peter had joined two acquaintances of his older brother to commit a robbery. He was waiting outside in a van when one of the acquaintances botched the robbery and killed two people. "I never shot or killed anyone," Peter told researchers in an interview. The report says a vast majority of children currently serving life sentences belong to Black or Latino families, estimating that Black children, for example, are 10 times more likely than white children to receive a life-without-parole sentence. The study also points out that many children in prisons are sexually abused by criminal gangs run by adult inmates. Challenging the notion that life sentencing without parole could be helpful in reducing the juvenile crime rate, the authors say they see no evidence of such a correlation. "For example, Georgia rarely sentences children to life without parole, but it has youth crimes rates lower than Missouri, which imposes the sentence on child offenders far more frequently," says Parker who asserts that public safety can be protected without subjecting children to "the harshest prison sentence possible." David Berger, a lawyer with Amnesty International, agrees with Parker. "Children who commit serious crimes still have the ability to change their lives," he argues. "It's now time for state and federal officials to take positive steps by enacting policies that seek to redeem children, instead of throwing them in prisons for the rest of their lives." In addition to seeking an end to the practice of life sentencing without parole, the human rights organizations are calling on the U.S. government to grant child prisoners immediate access to parole procedures.

Land records to be computerised in Kenya

All land records of Kenya will be computerised soon. "Kenyans can rest assured that the question of missing files is now a thing of the past," said Land and Housing minister Amos Kimunya yesterday as all rent cards will be available online." To begin with, information from three million land rent payment cards will be captured in a computer by December 2005. He said Nairobi title deeds; maps and letters will be available in digital form by next year at an initial cost of Sh18 million. The time taken to transact business will be reduced by half once all the data gets digitised." The ministry, after being fully computerised expects to collect Sh5.8 billion in land rates, up from Sh1.8 billion collected last year. Mr Kimunya said records already captured indicated that only 10 per cent of property owners paid their rent regularly.

Old figures to blame for wonky values

By Darren Goodsir and Bonnie Malkin October 5, 2005 (NSW) The State's property valuers are using outdated sales data to make land calculations and there was "insufficient time and resources" to check their determinations, the Ombudsman's report has concluded. The eight private firms instructed by the Valuer General's Office to assess properties in the 152 local government areas were charging as little as $1.77 per valuation and their analysis was often threadbare and cursory. The "contestable contract" system, introduced in 1996, had reduced the cost of performing valuations in real terms. But the Ombudsman, Bruce Barbour, said "the productivity savings arising from the deployment of reduced resources has started to impact on the quality of valuations …" This "may have reached the point where the costs cannot be driven down further without seriously undermining the methodology." Poor valuations had been arrived at because of a gap between the time sales data were received and when calculations were made. In a sample of 44 districts, the Ombudsman found 44 per cent of sales figures were between two and six months old and 25 per cent were six to 12 months old. Staff had no training in statistical anomalies or in the potential effect of data fluctuations, and this had compounded the errors. The report upheld the integrity of the Valuer General's complaints handling process, which it said was "far more thorough than many people believed". "However, there is still room to make it more transparent, consistent and accountable," the report said. Mr Barbour said the Valuer General failed to give property owners the most relevant comparable sales used to value their property unless requested. "It is unacceptable that the Valuer General failed to analyse objection trends and outcomes as his own 'health check' of the valuation system and had not implemented standard objection procedures to guide decision making," he said. The Sydney lawyer whose complaints prompted the Ombudsman's inquiry, David Singer, said the report uncovered such abuses of the system that it demanded a judicial inquiry. He said the "unholy mess" would continue to cause political disquiet. "This is only the beginning of the huge abuse of proper conduct in the valuation office in this State," he said, adding that the Government would come under pressure to drop the 1.7 per cent tax on land value or risk being accused of gouging. Philip Jenkyn was one of more than 20,000 property owners who contested the valuation they were given in 2003. Mr Jenkyn's three-bedroom house in Hunters Hill was considered to be worth $950,000, even though it was heritage-listed and could not be extended or extensively renovated. "The Valuer General valued the property that I own plus some adjoining properties without taking into account the fact that they were heritage-listed properties," Mr Jenkyn said. "I wrote a letter to the Valuer General saying they should have taken that into account and they had the typical response: get lost." The Land and Environment Court eventually ruled that the Valuer General should take into account the heritage aspect of the house. An independent valuation said the property was worth $650,000, a figure the Valuer General accepted. http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/old-figures-to-blame-for-wonky-values/2005/10/04/1128191720175.html#top

Bodgie values to force up land tax bills

By Bonnie Malkin Urban Affairs Reporter October 5, 2005 Many property owners face higher land tax bills - and every NSW property will have its value re-assessed - after an Ombudsman's report attacked a culture of bodgie valuations and cost cutting which has resulted in 650,000 properties being under-valued. Despite widespread criticism that the Valuer General had routinely inflated land values, the report actually found 80 per cent of errors were linked to properties being under-valued. About 35 per cent of 2.4million valuations investigated contained errors more than 15 per cent outside a proper valuation. A spokesman for Mr Iemma, Ben Wilson, said it was too early to determine the precise fallout but added: "Obviously, if some properties are being under-valued [for land tax] this will have budgetary implications." The 1.7 per cent land tax is levied on residential investment properties and all commercial and industrial properties. However, from January a $330,000 tax-free threshold will be reinstated, meaning 350,000 property owners will escape the tax. In his special report to Parliament, the Ombudsman, Bruce Barbour, criticised almost all aspects of the land valuation process, saying no uniform standards applied. The report found the Valuer General's office failed to take enough time to check the accuracy of valuations made by contractors, which led to "an unacceptable risk of error". As a result, 35 per cent of valuations had a margin of error of more than 15 per cent. One in 10 valuations had discrepancies of more than 40 per cent, with 20 per cent of all errors involving over-valuations. Mr Barbour said it was likely the mass under-valuation meant land tax would rise but "people wanted to have a fair system in place". "People will have more confidence in the system, it will be fair and they will know it's a much more reliable valuation when they get it," he said. The errors had occurred because the Valuer General had failed to hold a systematic review of baseline valuations for 16 years, despite international standards recommending reviews every six years. Mr Barbour said a property-by-property review was "well overdue". The investigation also revealed a quarter of all objections to valuations had been upheld. "This reflects poorly on the general standard of accuracy currently being achieved through the mass valuation process," he said. Mr Barbour also criticised the objection process for not giving property owners clear guidelines on how to lodge a complaint, although he said the overall complaints handling procedure was fairer than many critics had suggested. The Valuer General, Philip Western, said he had accepted all the Ombudsman's 38 recommendations, and some changes had already been introduced. "The valuation system is sound but there needs to be more checks and balances and I'm in the process of implementing that." Mr Western said only 1 per cent of the 2.4 million valuations were contested each year. The Leader of the Opposition, Peter Debnam, said the report proved the system was flawed. "The Ombudsman has pointed out time and time again the land tax valuations were inaccurate." Unsound land valuations affect councils - and council rates - as well as individual property owners. Earlier this year, Hornsby Council was forced to buy a quarry it valued at $3million but the Valuer General said was worth $26million. Hunters Hill Council had a similar problem when a small piece of waterfront land was valued at $2.5million. The council expected it to be worth $1million, took the case to the Court of Appeal but lost. HOME TRUTHS The worst-hit areas NORTH SYDNEY: Valuations out by more than 25% on 44.1% of sales, and by more than 40% on 23.5% of sales. MOSMAN: Valuations out by more than 25% on 53.2% of sales, and by more than 40% on 21.3% of sales. LEICHHARDT: Valuations out by more than 25% on 30% of sales. CITY OF SYDNEY: Valuations out by more than 25% on 29.5% of sales, and by more than 40% on 10.6% of sales. http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/bodgie-values-to-force-up-land-tax-bills/2005/10/04/1128191720172.html#

Tenants Union Report 1992

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

Seven Nobel Prize Winners Endorse.

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

John Kenneth Galbraith

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

Noam Chomsky

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

Thucydides

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

Amira Hass

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

Rev. Dr. Matin Luther King, Jr.

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

Clare Short UK International Development Secretary

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

Henry Thomas Buckle, (1821-1862)

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

William Penn (1644-1718)

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

Richard Cobden, (1804-1865)

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

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)

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

UK Chancellor of the Exchequer

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

Will fall wholly on the landlords.

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

Identifies the current land tenure system as:

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

Worldwatch Oct. l988

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

Land Rush-A Survey of America's Land

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

How the Other Half Dies

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

Agnes de Mille (1905-1993)

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

Distraction from the economic No#2

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

Perry Prentice

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

South Africa-PROPERTY RATES BILL, 2003

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

What is the General Rate ?

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

Distraction from the economic No#1

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

Shifting the Incidence of Taxation:

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

An Introduction to Positive Economics

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

Eminent-Domain Battle Flares in Connecticut

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

Invasion of the Reluctant Renters

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

Shadow Government

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

USA:Friends Services Committee - New census poverty figures mandate closer look at proposed federal budget cuts.

Eliminating Safety-net Programs for the Poor in Favor of Tax Cuts for the Rich -- while 37 million live in poverty -- is immoral, Group Says Philadelphia, PA — August 30 — Responding to the release of new Census Bureau poverty figures today, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), an international social justice organization, calls on Congress to adopt a moral budget that helps people meet their basic needs. In its Current Population Survey, the Census Bureau reports that over one million more people lived in poverty in 2004 than in the previous year. Data also show that nearly six percent of the U.S. population lived in extreme poverty, defined as below 50 percent of the poverty threshold. “Today’s Census Bureau report should be a wake-up call for our nation,” said Roberta Spivek, AFSC’s national representative for economic justice. “At a time when at least one in every eight people in our country lives in poverty, Congress is poised to cut $35 billion from survival programs like Food Stamps and Medicaid. At the same time, it is considering $70 billion in tax breaks that will mainly benefit the most affluent households.” African Americans, Native Americans, and indigenous peoples of Alaska had the highest extreme poverty rates of people surveyed. People who were foreign born were more likely to live near the poverty threshold or in extreme poverty than were those who were native born. Nationwide, 37 million people, including 13 million children, live below the official poverty line of $9,643 for one person and $19,311 for a family of four. Nearly one in five U.S. children is poor. AFSC is conducting a Save Our Services (SOS!) campaign that calls attention to inequities in the federal budget. The campaign urges Congress to avoid cutting essential services and to reject tax cuts that benefit a few, when it completes its work on the fiscal year 2006 federal budget this fall. “How our nation responds to poverty is a moral issue,” emphasizes Kathryn Kurtz, associate director of the AFSC community relations unit. “Congress can either adopt tax and budget policies that will increase income inequality and poverty, or it can choose policies that promote the common good and the values of dignity and equality.” “Many experts believe the official poverty threshold is too low, and seriously underreports the true extent of U.S. poverty,” Spivek adds. The Service Committee is also campaigning for an increase in the minimum wage and working to keep Social Security a public, not private, program. Social Security is widely regarded as one of the most effective U.S. anti-poverty programs. For information on AFSC’s Campaign see, SOS! The Census Bureau report is available at www.census.gov

Asia's Children Pay for Skewed Priorities, Report

Marwaan Macan-Markar BANGKOK, Aug 22 (IPS) - Asian countries have failed their children, charges a leading development agency in its report that reveals a staggering 600 million children in the region condemned to a life of abject poverty and deprivation. The denial of such basics as food, safe drinking water, health and shelter to these children exposes a failure of the region's much vaunted economic growth rates and rapid development, states Plan International in the report, 'Growing Up in Asia,' released Monday. ''We will be judged by future generations, future centuries, when they write the history and compare us, maybe, to the holocaust,'' Michael Diamond, head of Plan's Asia division, said here at the launch of the 88-page report. ''This is truly catastrophic''. ''We sat on our hands when HIV began and we see the result of inaction,'' he added. ''We are doing little about it (child poverty in Asia)''. Such a dismal reality for nearly half the region's children comes despite the general availability of food in most countries, adds the report pointing to South-east Asia, which has enjoyed rapid economic growth. ''The proportions (of malnutrition) remain disturbingly high even in South-east Asia. This is surprising since in most of these countries there is no absolute shortage of food''. Currently, close to 47 percent of children in South Asia are malnourished, while South-east Asia has 29 percent malnourished children, according to a United Nations report released earlier this year. In sub-Saharan Africa, by contrast, 31 percent of the children are malnourished. The still high child- mortality rates are another indicator of ''economic growth and globalisation'' failing to touch the lives of the region's most vulnerable, states the Plan report. ‘'Millions of children in Asia are still dying before reaching their fifth birthday, usually from a combination of malnutrition, preventable diseases and injury,'' according to the report. Consequently, countries across South Asia, East Asia and the Pacific will fall short of the targets they pledged to meet by 2015 for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), it states. Under the MDGs, governments agreed to pursue eight time-bound targets. They include halving the number of people living in extreme poverty, reducing by two-thirds the under-five mortality rate, achieving universal primary education, improving maternal health and halting the spread of HIV/AIDS. In South Asia, that would mean trying to bring down the under-five mortality rate to 43 per 1,000 live births by 2015, as opposed to the 2001 figure of 99 children under-five dying for every 1,000 births. In East Asia and the Pacific, it called for reduction in the under-five mortality rate of 20 for 1,000 live births by 2015, as against the 2001 figure of 44 under-five children dying for every 1,000 live births. In 1990, which serves as the base year for the MDGs, there were 129 children under-five dying for every 1,000 live births in South Asia and an under-five mortality rate of 59 for 1,000 live births in East Asia and the Pacific. The report also took to task countries for depriving children of basic sanitation. ''The most severe deprivation, in terms of number of children affected, is a lack of access to sanitation. South Asia and East Asia levels are the worst in the world''. In South Asia, only 34 percent of the population had access to sanitation facilities, while only 46 percent of the population in East Asia and the Pacific had access to sanitation. Among the factors that have contributed to this grim reality are rapid urbanisation, bad governance and corruption, states the report. ''The consequences of urbanisation for the poor are severe. It hinders development of rural areas where the bulk of the population still lives''. The domination by elites, ranging from landlords and industrialists to bureaucrats and army officers, has resulted in the ''concentration of the gains from any economic growth with the elites''. In addition, the report notes: ''Public expenditure is generally diverted away from the needs of the poor, in the name of economic growth towards tertiary education, military expenditure; privatisation initiatives (and) debt servicing''. The Indian government, for instance, spent close to 0.9 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on health in 2000, while spending 2.5 percent of its GDP on its military that year, states the report. Neighbouring Pakistan spent 0.9 percent of its GDP on health in 2000, while spending 4.5 percent of GDP on its military expenses that year. And at the local level, ''corruption plays a large role in the lives of the poor,'' it states. ''Public services which are meant to be free, such as drinking water, education, health and law enforcement, are subject to bribes and delays, keeping many, and especially the poorest, from receiving them''. http://www.oneworld.net/external/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ipsnews.net%2Fnews.asp%3Fidnews%3D29982

Pledge to lower cost of housing

Tanya Giles Herald Sun p25 A whole generation was at risk of being forever locked out of the housing market, the nation's leaders were warned yesterday. ...locazl state and federal governments yesterday reached a agreement to tackle the shortage of affordabel homes. The joint Ministerial Council of 20 planning, housinhg and local government ministers, chaired by Victorian Housing Minister Candy Broad, met in Melbourne yesterday to develop a national plan ...The latest research shows shows no houses in Melbourne were affordable for households with the lowerst 40% of income in 2003, as they only had enough money to buy a property worth less than $152,173...With avg 7yrs to pay HECS debt....expected to get bigger...& casualised jobs without security.

Ten Thousand Commandments

Clyde Wayne Crews, Jr ...Reports that regulatory costs exceed all pretax corporate profits ($745 billion) and all personal income taxes ($765 billion). The number of pages in the Federal Register, where new regulations are published, has increased 6.2 percent to 75,676 pages-an all-time record. ... On the basis of estimates from the Weidenbaum Center and the Mercatus Center, agencies spent $36.3 billion merely to administer and police the regulatory state in 2004. Counting the $877 billion in off-budget costs, that brings the total regulatory burden to $913 billion. Annual Snapshot of the US Regulatory State

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.