Whose Land is it anyway?

The Guardian newspaper recognizes the predictability of the land value cycle following Henry George's principles

2012-01-14T09:20:00.000-08:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jan/11/skyscrapers-china-india-recession

China's skyscraper craze 'may herald economic crash'

Tall-building boom may indicate impending disaster in China and India, claims report by Barclays Capital

Phillip Inman
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 11 January 2012 14.17 EST

China could be the next country to go bust, if its headlong rush to build ever-taller skyscrapers is a guide to its future economic health.

According to a study by Barclays Capital, the mania for skyscrapers over the last 140 years is a sure indicator of an imminent crash.

It points out that the construction boom that threw up New York's Chrysler and Empire State buildings preceded the New York crash of 1929 and Great Depression.

More recently, Dubai built a forest of skyscraping offices, hotels and apartment buildings, including the world's tallest, the Burj Khalifa, before it got into terrible financial difficulties. In 2010 Dubai had to be bailed out by its neighbour, Abu Dhabi, to avoid going bankrupt.

Bar Cap's report said: "Thankfully for the world economy, there is not currently a skyscraper under construction that is planned to overtake the height of the Burj Khalifa."

However, BarCap said the "unhealthy correlation" between construction of the world's tallest buildings and economic crashes was likely to ensnare China, which is home to half of the world's skyscrapers currently under construction.

India, which has just two skyscrapers, sometimes defined as buildings over 240 metres (787ft) tall, is also on the radar after giving the go-ahead to its first skyscraper building boom, with 14 under way, including the world's second-tallest tower in the financial capital, Mumbai.

Andrew Lawrence, director of property research at Barclays Capital in Hong Kong, said: "Building booms are a sign of excess credit."

Lawrence said that historically, skyscraper construction had been characterised by bursts of sporadic, but intense activity that coincided with easy credit, rising land prices and excessive optimism, but often by the time the buildings were finished, the economy had slipped into recession.

China is already showing signs of fulfilling the prophecy. Its largest quarterly business survey showed that confidence among property developers had collapsed to a point where it was worse than the lowest point in the 2008 recession.

More worringly, the same survey revealed that confidence among construction firms, while a little down on the previous quarter, remained bouyant. Capital Economics, the independent analysts, said Beijing's decision to pump hundreds of billions of dollars into construction projects, bypassing private developers, has prolonged the building boom and potentially stored up a bigger crash.

Even funds pouring into residential schemes are at risk following years of high-rise developments near factories and businesses dependent on the west for trade. A recession in Europe that drags the rest of the world into a period of lower growth will hurt Chinese exporters, jobs and demand for property.

BarCap said signs of trouble were escalating in China and India. China had the dubious distinction of being the world's "biggest bubble builder," as it erected ever more and higher towers, it said.

Home to 53% of the 124 skyscrapers now under construction globally, China is primed to increase its stock of them by 87%. About 80% of new buildings are going up in cities away from developed coastal areas of the Pearl river delta and Yangtze river delta, which Barclays called "evidence of the expanding building bubble".

Lawrence, who was lead author of the report, said China's property market is already wobbling.

The number of residential property sales had decreased by 40-50% in Beijing and Shanghai and developers had slashed prices by 5-20%, he said.

India, which has just two skyscrapers but is building 14 more, takes top honours for hubris: The second tallest building in the world, the Tower of India, is now under construction in Mumbai.

Nonperforming loans in India — a substantial number of them to real estate ventures — grew by nearly a third in the first half of this fiscal year, more than triple the average annual growth rate since 2006, according to the Reserve Bank of India.

BarCap said: "If history proves to be right, this building boom in India and China could simply be a reflection of a misallocation of capital, which may result in an economic correction for two of Asia's largest economies in the next five years."

A branch of economics founded by followers of US economist Henry George has charted property collapses over the last 100 years and found that booms create the conditions for a downturn around every 18 years.

Fred Harrison, a Georgist and research director of the Land Research Trust, wrote in his 1997 book The Chaos Makers that "by 2007 Britain and most of the other industrially advanced economies will be in the throes of frenzied activity in the land market … Land prices will be near their 18-year peak … on the verge of the collapse that will presage the global depression of 2010."

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New Facebook Page

2011-09-29T19:53:00.000-07:00

I started a new Facebook page, called "Triangle Land Justice".

It's at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Triangle-Land-Justice/174940372586236

You're certainly welcome to visit and to comment.

Tax on Work does not Create.....

2011-09-06T06:06:00.000-07:00

Inspired by the energy, rhythm and tune of Kristin Andreassen’s Crayola Doesn’t make the Color of your Eyes or another version from Prairie Home Companion, I wrote this (the accents indicate the beat in the music):

I wént to sée the wíse one
our tówn was súch a méss
the lóngest línes to gét in
were át the DSS

He sáid, I cánnot fíx your tówn
But here’s sómething yoú can dó
máke a líst and flésh it óut
Of why your tówn is ín a stéw

Well, wé build róads; we rún the bús,
We try to cóntrol cróoks.
We buíld the párks and sídewalks
We gíve our stréets good lóoks

To dó these thíngs, we néed some wéalth
And so we táx the thíngs we sée
We táx the buíldings and whát you éarn
We hit búyers and séllers with a fée.

(refrain)
I guéss I réalízed,
shoulda cóme as nó surpríse
that táxes on wórk do nót creáte
a góod envíronmént.
Whát we táx, that we redúce
lét’s not kíll our jóbs,
Táxes on wórk do nót creáte
a góod envíronmént.

We’ll táx the lánd; that helps ensúre
that lánd is nót a wáger
It lówers the cóst to thóse who úse it
to creáte more jóbs per ácre

Collécting lánd rents méans
That the thíngs we as commúnity dó
are bénefíting éveryóne and
gó to áll, not tó the féw.

And whén a pérson wánts to wórk
she réaps the resúlts of her lábor
The bénefits of whát she dóes,
Not the óut-of-town land spéculátor

(refrain)
I guéss I réalízed,
shoulda cóme as nó surpríse
that táxes on wórk do nót creáte
a góod envíronmént.
Whát we táx, that we redúce
lét’s not kíll our jóbs,
Táxes on wórk do nót creáte
a góod environment.

So máybe we’ll shíft the táxes óff
The lábor yóu and I dó, you sée
And pút it on the lánd so nóne

can squeéze the blóod from yoú and mé.

That wáy they’ll bé more jóbs for thóse
who pút their bácks and bráins to wórk
We wóuldn’t háve to work so lóng,
To put a róof and wálls on Gód’s good dírt.

We woúldn’t need two jobs to féed
The móuths that we begét,
To hóuse and clóthe them and oursélves
And where we néed to gó, we’d gét.

(refrain)
I guéss I réalízed,
shoulda cóme as nó surpríse
that táxes on wórk do nót creáte
a góod envíronmént.
Whát we táx, that we redúce
lét’s not kíll our jóbs,
Táxes on wórk do nót creáte
a góod environment.

A cómpact tówn means we could wálk aróund
to get to shóps, to méet, to wórk for gáin
And éven walk to párks nearby
where quíet, jóy, and beauty réign.

We wouldn’t need a big back yárd,
or frónt ones with their láwns to mów.
We’d háve a sháre in cómmon lánd,
Where our sóuls, spírits, and bódies grów.

I thínk we’ll solve the próblem of unemplóyment línes
of bárely éarning whát we néed.
We máy not háve the hárvest yet,
But wé have sówn the séed.

(refrain)
I guéss I réalízed,
shoulda cóme as nó surpríse
that táxes on wórk do nót creáte
a góod envíronmént.
Whát we táx, that we redúce
lét’s not kíll our jóbs,
Táxes on wórk do nót creáte
a góod envíronmént.

Bait, does it work?

2011-03-02T18:50:00.000-08:00

The movie "Inside Job" won the Oscar for best documentary feature in 2011. The winner of the Oscar made the comment that no bank executives have been arrested for their role in the recent economic collapse. A question we need to ask is "How do we prevent such a tragedy in the future?" One response is that we have more surveillance over the banking industry. But then we have to ask "Who is going to appoint a commission to do this surveillance?" The effectiveness of such a commission would depend, among other things, on who was appointed. Presumably, at a national level, the commission would be appointed by the current or future US president. Obviously this would be influenced by the appointing president's emphases and politics. Also such a commission would be looking for anomalies in books, for illegal actions, and could only act after the crime had been committed.

It seems to me that a better approach would be to see what bait we leave for those seeking to profit at some else's expense. The biggest bait is the expectation of profit on land, either by extracting from the renters a fee for the use of the land, or in the expected increase in value of the land. Most of the shenanigans in the recent economic implosion has to do with mortgages on land. By shifting our tax basis from work to land, we shorten the time that a person has to work to gain access to a given piece of land, since the person who really needs it is already paying a previous landowner, and that previous landowner really hasn't done anything to increase the value of the land (the building, yes, but not the land. The community increases the value of the land with infrastructure improvements, and by improving the neighborhood.

Leaving bait for land profiteers makes about as much sense as leaving a bike unlocked where thieves are known to operate.

Who Benefits? Who Pays? Who Decides?

2011-03-01T03:27:00.000-08:00

Whenever we need to think about a program, especially a public program, these three questions (Who Benefits? Who Pays? Who Decides?) can be very helpful. It will help us discover if there are any social costs, or any unintended consequences to our actions or proposals. An example would be a city mandating that house lots be of a certain minimum size, as is often the case with zoning. The people who would benefit form such legislation would be the ones who think that they need to preserve a certain lifestyle that existed when there were fewer people on this planet. The people that would pay would be young people who have limited incomes and could not afford to buy or to pay rent on the larger houses that would be built on the larger lots that are mandated by such zoning. And, the decision would be taken out of the hands of the younger or poorer people and placed in the hands of the more influential and wealthier people.

Another example would be activities that pollute. If I perform an activity that pollutes, even though I may not want it, I will cause expense or difficulty to another person. My driving a vehicle which consumes petroleum releases noxious fumes into the atmosphere. This has a detrimental effect especially on people whose bodies are sensitive to pollutants. Also my driving a larger vehicle at higher speeds means that people who walk, who bike, who are or even others who drive need to pay a cost for my driving. Certainly driving a car is convenient, and fast, but it is not efficient with respect to energy, land use or pollution. This needs be remembered when there is talk of limiting the gas tax. If we limit or reduce the gas tax, we will need to do at least one of three things: we will need to cut government programs, we will need to increase other taxes, and/or we will need to increase the debt.

One activity that does not have negative effects on anyone is the exchange of labor. If I can wire a house for someone and that person can fix the plumbing for me, an exchange of labor is beneficial for both parties. That is one reason that the so-called fair tax has so many negative consequences. It is a tax on new goods and services, including food, clothing, medical services, and building materials which are needed for shelter. On the other hand, Land Value Tax, the land portion of property tax excluding improvements, encourages frugal use of land, which leave more land available for others.

An example of what a shift to Land Value Tax could do would be to compare two properties, one of which is has only a destroyed building on it and another next to it that has an active shopping center on it. Since the destroyed building has zero value on the tax roles, the unused lot pays less tax than the active, job-producing shopping center. This discourages job creation, which is should be a priority of any public policy. If the unused property were to pay the same tax per acre as the well-used property, you can be sure that the holder of the unused property would either build a job-producing facility on that property or sell it to someone who would. This would certainly reduce unemployment.

What's a good economy?

2011-02-15T18:41:00.000-08:00

I find it ironic when I hear that the economy is improving, but the unemployment situation is not getting better. I think we need a new measure of "Good Economy". I'm going to propose two measures: How many hours does it take a person of average skills (High School education) to earn money to buy a piece of land of a given size in a given area? The lower the number of hours, the better the economy. The second measure: How many hours of work does it take for that same person to earn money to pay for an hour's work of a person similarly skilled, but in a different area. It seems that the if the government taxes work, via sales tax or wage tax, that the hours of work necessary to do either of these two things will go up; if the government taxes land value, and reduces the tax on work, that the hours of work necessary will decrease. What do you think?

More Jobs per Acre

2010-10-05T17:39:00.001-07:00

If we want to solve the problems of unemployment, under-employment, and poverty, we need to look at two different components of material wealth. One component of wealth is God- and/or Nature- given, such as land, clean water, clean air, and radio spectrum. These are things which no human creates. Another component of wealth is work or what humans do with a share of nature to produce the things we need for life, starting with food, clothing, and shelter. Every material thing outside of ourselves is a product of these two components.
How do we create an environment the allows a working person person to earn sufficient income in order to acquire those things we need in order to live in a dignified way? We must look at these two components and and ask what our public policy must be, especially our tax policy.

If we want to maximize the opportunities to work we must not tax work, or the creation of work. This means that sales taxes, goods and services tax, Value Added Tax, and wage taxes are barriers to a person exchanging his or her work for the work of another person. Such taxes mean that a person must labor more hours to meet their needs.

We must also be sure that the God-given natural resources are not hoarded or titled in such a way that land-ownership is a way to wealth without work. We must not allow this vestige of slavery to be the pathway to riches for the few and poverty for the many in this world.

The way to do this is by a tax shift, starting with lowering the part of property tax on buildings and increasing the part on land. This has been done in many jurisdiction on the US, especially in Pennsylvania, in Australia, with the result that the number of empty and underused lots is greatly reduced. It reduces the burden of working and of providing work. It reduces the bait to speculate on land which means that home and farm buyers do not need to bid against land speculation. This tax shift results in More Jobs Per Acre. Who doesn't want more jobs per acre?

For more information, check out: http://wealthandwant.com/ or http://progress.org/

How will I get there?

2010-05-10T08:52:00.000-07:00

How will I get there?

How will it be?

Will it be one wheel?

Or will it be three?

One wheel is unstable,

I'll probably fall;

Three wheels is too wide,

I'll never get there at all!

I know how I'll get there!

I know what I'll do!

The right number of wheels, for one person,

is two!

Downstream or Upstream

2010-05-09T13:13:00.000-07:00

When we confront the multitude of problems that our country and our world face: Pollution, Unemployment, Homelessness and Lack of Affordable Housing, and Environmental Disasters, for instance, there are two ways of trying to solve them: I call them Downstream and Upstream.

For instance, do we solve the problem of polluted rivers by trying to rid the rivers of pollutants after they get in the river by trying to cleanse the river downstream after it's polluted? or do we control the pollution of the river upstream by limiting the use of pollutants near that river? It would seem much more sensible to limit to control pollution before it gets to the river.

In the same way, we can tackle unemployment, or a least some of its results, by providing unemployment benefits after a person is unemployed. The would be trying to solve the problem downstream. Or we could change the tax system so that a person is not penalized with increased taxes when they work, or provide work. This would be an upstream solution.

With homelessness and lack a affordable housing, we can set up a means test, that is, an income or asset criterion, which would decide if a person would be eligible to receive a subsidy for housing, which would be collected from other people who do not meet this criterion. Those who are just on the other side of this criterion would have to contribute to this subsidy through taxes or other government mandates, either direct or indirect. A downstream solution. Or we could change our tax system so that it increases effective wages and lowers the land portion cost of housing. That would be an upstream solution.

The recent oil spill suggests that this could have been prevented by more controls over those who produce oil (upstream solution). The questions arise:

Who would appoint the watchers? Probably, whichever government is in office at the moment.
Would those who appoint the watchers be influenced by those who profit from lack of control? You can answer that one.

The alternative would be to reduce the demand for oil by eliminating the subsidies on driving, such as socialized parking (provided by the local governments, and mandated by local governments on those who want to provide jobs or housing. Also eliminating the exemption that motor vehicles and motor fuel have from paying sales tax here in North Carolina, and I presume in other states. Also, zoning which mandates that a certain size lot or house is the only one allowed in certain areas could be struck down. (Upstream solutions)

For all the aforementioned issues the solution of Land Value Taxation needs to be examined, especially in its long-term effects. References are available on this blog.

What happens when you go for a job interview?

2010-04-02T18:07:00.000-07:00

What goes on when you interview for a job? I think the first thing the interviewer has in mind is: "What can this person do for our company?" They size you up and guess that you can contribute a value to the company that they convert to dollars per hour. Then, assuming that they calculate a positive value, they have to figure out what it will cost them to hire you. Some of the costs will be the furniture you need, the share of the building you will need, and the share of the land that building occupies that you will need, and the additional taxes they will need to pay if you are hired. All of these things can be calculated in term of dollars per hour. They then have to figure: this person is worth, say, $20 per hour to our company; it will cost about $1 per hour for furniture, $3 per hour for building and tool rent and $3 an hour for land rent (including parking) and $3 an hour in extra taxes our company will pay. So that means that the most I can offer this person is ($20 - $1 -$3 - $3 -$3) or $10 per hour, and not lose money on them. See the graphs here and here. Now, what if, the government collected the land rent as tax, rather than taxing work activities. That would mean that the employer would pay the land rent and the tax concurrently. (kind of like serving a two jail sentences concurrently) This is possible because the person who is now collecting land rent is not producing anything, he is just a title-holder, an idle noble. So if the government takes over this function, it can not only give you back more of the benefit of your work, but will reduce the burden on this person who is thinking about hiring you. In that case the employer can offer you $20 - $1 -$3 - $3 or $13 per hour.

Often the person or organization which owns that land is also the one that owns the building and the tools, but the effect is the same as if it were two people: as building owner he is receiving compensation for something he has provided or has traded his labor with someone for, but as land owner he is getting something for producing nothing, since land is a gift of Nature/God/Higher Power, not the result of any human effort.

If you think that the fact that land value is close to building value seems inaccurate, I took the numbers from the relative value of an office building in Cameron Village in Raleigh: the building is valued at $1.7 million, the land at $1.5.

What you produce belongs to you; what no human produces belongs to everyone.

The graph can be downloaded as Powerpoint or Open Office (Simpress) so you can slide the Tax and Land-rent parts together. Open Office is free, available here.

Integrated, Neighborhood Schools; possible?

2010-03-08T05:33:00.000-08:00

I just realized that one of my favorite authors, Jane Jacobs, in her book, "The Death and Birth of Great American Cities", stated that the one of the biggest obstacles to affordable, integrated, housing and integrated cities is the combination of zoning laws and neighborhood covenants. I would add to this Socialized Parking supported by Parking Requirements.

For a start, check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Jacobs#The_Death_and_Life_of_Great_American_Cities

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_and_Life_of_Great_American_Cities

You can also see comments on her book at:

http://books.google.com/books?id=F4NHAAAAMAAJ&q=jane+jacobs&dq=jane+jacobs&ei=Z_-US8LCEYqukASRroDiDQ&cd=1

Integrated Schools or Neighborhood Schools?

2010-03-07T17:10:00.000-08:00

There has been a great deal of discussion in our county on whether the Wake County should abandon the program that buses children from their neighborhoods to schools in other neighborhoods in order to maintain balance of children from more well-to-do families and those from less well-to-do families.

I believe that it is possible to work for Integrated Neighborhood schools. That would imply that we have neighborhoods that are integrated economically. So the question is: what is it that keeps neighborhoods segregated economically? One of the factors is zoning and neighborhood covenants. Many of these mandate that only certain lot sizes or certain house sizes and that houses and business be built with parking privileges attached to them.

Things that need to be discussed are:
What is the purpose of zoning?
Why is it necessary?
Who is in favor of it?
Does it shut out the working poor from living in much of the city/county?
Does it, in effect, segregate?

Whose Parking do you want to Pay for?

2009-04-23T18:15:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest uses of public land is for transportation. Since transportation is used directly or indirectly by everyone, there is usually a public policy to subsidize transportation. Usually people don't think of this subsidy, unless they are talking about mass transit: the subsidy to transit is mentioned, while the subsidy to private automobiles is ignored. Some of the examples of subsidy to private automobiles are: the land used for roads and parking is not taxed; the pollution and congestion that automobiles cause is not paid for by the motorist, but by the population in general, whether they so pollute or not; the tax on new cars (at least here in NC) is less than the tax paid on other items.

Another large subsidy to automobiles is mandated parking: a person who wants to build a house or business must provide parking, usually for the worst case that that business or house would need. This ensures that many businesses do not open and many houses are not built, because the owner or builder doesn't have the land available to provide it, or cannot afford to provide the $15,000 or so per parking space that a parking deck would cost. Those who do provide this mandated parking simply add that cost to the cost of their product, so that everyone who patronizes that business or buys that house, has the cost of parking added to their bill, whether they use the parking or not. This ensures that people will drive even if they could walk, bike, car-pool, or take transit, because they perceive that driving is so cheap. This in-turn creates more demand for street widening, and subsidized parking.

So the question is: whose parking do you want to pay for? If we have mandated parking requirements for businesses or residential units, this will mean that you will pay for everyone's parking, whether you use it or not. Worse than that, mandated parking means that housing is less affordable, because the price of a parking space is included in the unit, whether the person needs it or not. The has a disastrous effect on people of lower income, who see the cost of housing increase as more requirements are put on housing.

Donald Shoup has written extensively on this topic; he has spoken here in Raleigh and his talk is available here.

The Jubilee

2009-02-21T19:07:00.000-08:00

One of the most interesting concepts of the Bible is that of the Jubilee. It's an event that happens every fifty years, and is found in the book of Leviticus Chapter 25. The chapter expresses a concern, not about "Law", but about People, especially those who are apt to be taken advantage of. Two main points are Freedom for Slaves, and return of Land to its original owners. These two concepts are related. The person who has control over the land that another person works, or lives on, has partial control over that person; a partial slavery. The idea is that Land is very different from selling the work of our labor for several reasons: Land is a Gift from God, and Land is Forever. The Jubilee is, in effect, a kind of continual land reform. Land is not a commodity that can be bought and sold. It is an inherent right of all people. Interesting that this concept is several thousand years old, yet has been mostly ignored in the living out of religious values.

Land Value Taxation is a way of accomplishing this continual Land Reform, by making sure that all people have a share of the land, or its income. The Jubilee also warns us against thinking that we can abuse our environment: the land is to rest every seven years.

What is the goal of (Landsharing, Geonomics, Land Value Taxation) ?

2009-01-25T18:54:00.000-08:00

The purpose of shifting taxes from taxes on buildings, wages, sales, to a tax on land, is to give all people an equal share of the earth's land or the rental income from that.

One way to think of it is that there are two pies.
One pie consists of all the land in the world, in the sense of all natural opportunities, including land, air, water, radio spectrum. The land has a rental value. This rental value for land, for example, can be found out by seeing what someone is willing to pay for a given parcel of land. This is often done with long-term leases. Air has a social cost which is the cost to battle the effects of pollution of that air. This "pie" is a gift of God/Nature which belongs to everyone in the world. If someone uses more than their share, they are indebted to the rest of humankind for that use. If we collected all the rent in an area (precinct, city, county, country) and divided and distributed it to all the permanent residents of that area, that would satisfy that debt. One effect of this tax or land rent collection would be to encourage frugal use of land, leaving more for others and for Nature to rejuvenate itself and protect our environment. It also allows communities to set up parks and beaches for the recreation of all.

The other pie represents what humans produce. Examples would be a worker's labor, a doctor's services, the production and showing of a movie, food. This "pie" is due to the individual's or organization's efforts and should not be taxed or divided. It takes nothing away from the common good. It does not need to be taxed. This encourages all people to work efficiently.

The folly of Socialism and Communism is that they try to divide both pies, taking away incentive to work. To the extent that democratic governments tax wages, buildings, and other work, they also destroy incentive to work. To the extent that governments leave land untaxed, they encourage land speculation and they encourage attempts to acquire more land than we need, leaving less for those who need it.

This does not have to be done in the whole world or entire country at once. Many cities in this country and others have instituted a two-tier real estate tax, whereby land is taxed at a higher rate than buildings. Examples are Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Sydney, Australia. The result has been an increase in economic activity and the presence of more affordable housing. See: http://www.progress.org/geonomy/geono05.php

Social Cost

2009-01-17T19:06:00.000-08:00

One of the concepts that we need to understand is that of social cost, that is the cost of certain activities that is born not born by the person doing the activity, but by the public in general, particularly the public in the area where the activity take place. An example of this would be the cost of pollution, which is often not born by the polluter, but by those who live in the area, especially people who are most exposed to the pollution.

One way to discourage this is by shifting taxes from being based on what people earn, spend, or have, to being based on what we pollute. Sometimes these are called green taxes, Pigovian; an example would be a carbon tax.

A land tax is an example of a green tax. It discourages buying land only for speculative purposes, since those who don't use it by building on it, or employing people one it, would have to pay more tax that what they do now. That means that taxes could be lowered on those who do use the land by building and/or employing. Land tax is also green because it encourages frugal use of land, resulting in compact growth, which means that more trips are walkable, bike-able, or would require shorter driving or transit trips.

Some other sites which advocate for Land Value Tax rather than Tax on Work are:
http://www.savingcommunities.org/
http://www.henrygeorge.org/
http://www.landreform.org/

Introduction

2009-01-10T06:08:00.000-08:00

Since we are somewhere in a recession, maybe the beginning, maybe the middle, maybe the end, it's important that we try to find out what is going wrong. Most people say it's the lack of regulation of the banking and financial markets that have allowed a few to profit at the expense of the many.

I believe that the problem is that we don't differentiate between the wealth that we've earned (the fruits of our work) and the wealth that God/Nature has given us as a society.

Some others have done a lot of work in this regard and you can find their efforts online at:

http://www.progress.org
http://www.whatwouldjesustax.com/
http://www.wealthandwant.com

We know that if something is taxed, it will be reduced: if we tax beer, beer sales will go down. In the same way if we tax work, wages and employment will go down.

If we tax land, the amount of land does not go down, but the demand for it will go down, because only those who want to use it will buy it, land speculators will not want it. If that happens, the purchase price of land will go down, by the law of supply and demand. The purchase price goes down because speculators (those who believe they can profit from the ride up the bubble) don't bid up the price so high.
This makes housing more affordable.
Untaxing work means that workers' wages are higher and that employers are motivated to create more jobs.

(to be continued)