Blog - Land Value Tax Campaign

Hindhead tunnel – profit at both ends

Written on 28 July 2011. Posted in Public Transport.

If ever there was a perfect example of how improved infrastructure increases land value in the surrounding area it must be the Hindhead road tunnel on the A3 trunk road in Surrey. Transport Secretary Philip Hammond officially opened the tunnel yesterday. It will be the longest non-estuarial twin-bore tunnel in the UK, and has been built to tackle congestion and improve safety on this busy route...

The squeezed middle

Written on 12 July 2011. Posted in History.

The FT today has a collection of articles on how the middle classes are being squeezed as societies around the world are polarising into the very rich and the rest. This is precisely what the theories we are working from would predict. Monopoly, originally called The Landlord’s Game, was devised by our predecessors to demonstrate this. In most countries today, the Monopoly game is being played...

A cursory rhyme

Written on 21 June 2011. Posted in General.

There was an old womanWho banked with the Euro.She had so little moneyShe didn’t know how toPay her billsAnd feed her children. She was up to her neckIn millions of debt.She was strapped for cash andHer economy?Trash!

Believe this if you like – 1

Written on 3 June 2011. Posted in General.

“Wealth is created when Capital is invested to give a higher return than putting it in the bank, and for that you need to take a risk.”

House prices to soar by 16%

Written on 31 May 2011. Posted in Home-Owner-Ism.

So screams the main headline on the front page of today’s Daily Express, over an article quoting a study by a think-tank called the “Centre for Economics and Business Research”. Reading down the article, it is evident that this is attributable to what is referred to as loose monetary policy – in other words inflation. The article goes on to assure readers that it is not...

Railways debate erupts again

Written on 22 May 2011. Posted in Public Transport.

The McNulty committee has produced a 350 page report on whether Britain’s railways give value for money and how things might be improved. Proposed changes to fares have naturally received the most attention and comment. Matters are, however, more subtle. The railways have suffered from a series of bad technical and engineering decisions since the mid-1950s, in part due to political interference....

Down to brass tax

Written on 13 May 2011. Posted in General.

The Latin dictionary defines the verb, taxo, taxare, as to estimate, rate, appraise the value of anything. In modern English, this is still the meaning in the courts of law, where a taxing master is one who taxes costs by examining them and allowing or disallowing the various component items claimed. A wider use of the word has largely taken over from the strict, etymological meaning, so that taxation...

How the land of England got enclosed

Written on 18 April 2011. Posted in History.

The hedges and walls characteristic of the English landscape are taken for granted but they are mostly of quite recent origin. Perhaps hedges and walls on the ground give rise to hedges and walls in the mind. Or perhaps it is the other way round. Before enclosure, the landscape would have looked something like that in the picture. How the situation came about is described here. The article, in the...

Tax haven explosion

Written on 16 April 2011. Posted in Tax Justice Network.

A video on the website of Tax Justice Network, from Democracy Now, goes into lots of detail about the damage done by tax havens, pointing out that both Britain and the UK are themselves important players in this game. The only thing is that the speakers fail to draw the most obvious of conclusions – that there must be something wrong with the tax systems themselves if they leave all these...

Spare a thought for the poor landowner

Written on 14 April 2011. Posted in Home-Owner-Ism.

[Photograph by John Digney] The correspondence in the FT has been continuing, with a letter from a landowner in a National Park who claimed that his estate was costing him money. A response from Carol Wilcox was published – she suggested, in irony, that perhaps we ought to pay landowners and put a few estates up for auction to see if they really were worth less than nothing. I thought we already...

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