The comments in the LVTC Blog are a personal view of our Hon. Secretary Henry Law and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of the Campaign.
This is a place for personal observations and comments on politics, economics, current affairs, on-going discussions on the potential for LVT to remedy some of the current ills, and the impact on Society of any of the above.
Please read and enjoy, and feel free to respond to Henry if you have any thing you would like to add.
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Monday, 08 February 2010 10:00
Henry Law
 Is it the roof, the bricks or the drains?
"Unaffordable housing" The term still keeps cropping up. Which part of a house is not affordable? The roof? The bricks? The drains? The roofing tiles?
The plumbing system? The amount builders have to be paid to put it all
together? Go into any builders' merchant and check the prices. They are
all very affordable. It costs, at most, £100k to build a decent house.
Which is very affordable when spread over 40 years - £50 a week. So what is going on to make houses unaffordable? I have asked
this question many times over the past 30 years. Usually, the response
is a yawn, so the resulting problems, are in a sense a richly
deserved reward. Too
many have
stood aside, not watched what is going on in the world and failed to
try and make sense of it. Hence the talk about "unaffordable house
prices" Anyone who uses the phrase "unaffordable house prices" without
further explanation is guilty of extreme mental laziness. Which is most
of us, and now we are living with the consequences of our neglect. This
of course includes the Nationwide Building Society, which would do
everyone a good turn if they scrapped their so-called House Price Index and
replaced it with a housing land price index.
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Sunday, 07 February 2010 23:48
Henry Law
From a discussion group... "Land isn't a primary factor in a knowledge based, high
technology economy. It's a primary factor in an agricultural economy.
You are a few hundred years behind the times." Why does this idea keep popping up?
Read more...
Sunday, 07 February 2010 07:37
Henry Law
 This old story was told me by Vic Blundell, who for many years ran the various Georgist groups in Vauxhall Bridge Road.
A prosperous landowner is
riding though his country estate. He comes across a notorious poacher with a brace of pheasants under his arm.
Landowner: "You're trespassing! Get off my land!"
Poacher: "Your land? How did you get this land?"
Read more...
Monday, 25 January 2010 23:10
Henry Law
The Earl of Cadogan, owner of 90 acres of land around Sloane London, has get himself into the papers by announcing that he would not renew a lease after he went into a restaurant and disliked the food.
The Earl, 72, said after dining there in May 2008: "I didn't like the food and the prices are far too high. I can tell you that we won't be renewing their lease when it expires in two years' time. We are going to have a new development there."
The Old Etonian, whose family's wealth is estimated at almost £3billion, has now followed through with his pledge and the French brasserie will close on February 26. Local residents have launched a petition.
Actually, as we have pointed out, on many occasions, land is not wealth, but this episode makes me wonder if we have not been wrong all along.
Read more...
Sunday, 24 January 2010 06:58
Henry Law
Feelings of wrath against bankers continue to grow, but what exactly is the crime they have committed? The proper function of banks is to
arrange credit, provide cash handling and payment transfer facilities,
and safe custody of deposits. The proper purpose of credit is to facilitate production, for
example to enable the farmer to buy seeds and support himself until the
crop is harvested and sold, when the credit is extinguished. Provided
that the ancient prohibition on usury is adhered to, there is no
problem. Bankers can be paid for their professional services and risks
can be insured, and thus there is no necessity for the charging of
interest on such credit.
Banking goes wrong initially when the activity turns into a
machine directed primarily to making money for its own sake, and the
fundamental professionalism of bankers is degraded and thought of as a
market, selling financial "products".
Thursday, 17 December 2009 09:26
Henry Law
Bullseye! One of our members drew my attention to an old issue of our publication Practical Politics in which the editor, David Mills, had said that of the next slump "the seeds are being sown now", and giving his prediction that it would occur "probably about seven years hence". As this was in July 2002, his forecast turned out to be a bullseye hit. Is there a prize for the first and best prediction and can we claim it?
Thursday, 10 December 2009 12:04
Henry Law
This comment on the Guardian's Comment is Free this morning set me thinking. Financial services are the lifeblood of any economy (and
a million miles from being "socially useless" - sorry, that's just
ignorance) and for the UK to specialise in this area is just about the
greatest stroke of genius going. Finance is labour intensive and offers
high wages for all (even a City secretary earns £40-50k). Hmm!
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