Black Lives Matter; the economics of it.

There was a great article from The Nation on the need for tax reform to end the injustice which is ruining our economy, especially in the Black community:
http://m.thenation.com/article/194313-economic-program-blacklivesmatter

At the Eno Festival

I'm planning to have a Land-Sharing booth at the Festival for the Eno in Durham, NC.  The booth is titled "Triangle Land Justice" and is sponsored by the Robert Schalkenbach Institute.  It should be bey the River Stage.

Fred Harrison has published another great book, "The Traumatised Society".  He shows how taking away access to God-given Nature hurts not only individuals, but also societies, and eventually brings about their downfall.

Friend Walt Rybeck has written an article on Breaking the Boom and bust cycle, that is also a component of peaceful resolution of conflicts over natural resources, the principle cause of wars. The article is at:http://webapps.icma.org/pm/9407/

He's also written a book "Resolving the Economic Puzzle" http://www.amazon.com/Re-solving-Economic-Puzzle-Walter-Rybeck/dp/0856832812 which deals with the issues of Poverty and Progress.

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

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."

-- 

New Facebook Page

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.....

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.