Something strange is going on in China with ghost cities being built in the middle of deserts. This sounds like some form of mad land speculation. But real resources have been wasted in the process. We have always been told that land value taxation would cause this problem but it seems to happen in the absence of this tax.

The UK pound has not done well against most currencies, even including the shaky Euro, but who realises that for the past two months it has been tumbling down against the Zimbabwe Dollar? Should Osborne and Mervyn King be asking for advice from Harare?

Just two years ago we predicted that unemployment would soon rise about two million. It now stands at 2.8 million, so our estimate was evidently on the cautious side. Nobody in a position of power and influence has so far made the connection between unemployment and land tenure.

The G20 consensus that public spending should be reigned in has been criticised by, among others, Paul Krugman, who are resurrecting the ideas put forward by Keynes. What are we to make of this?

The town council has some retail units in the town hall which it lets to traders. On advice from estate agents, it has jacked up the rent to the point that the tenants have had to go. Councillor Julian McGhee-Sumner, chairman of the finance and general purposes committee, told The Wokingham Times the town council reduced the figure the agents had suggested to offer tenants a discounted rate. He...

According to free market theory, if supply exceeds demand, then prices fall to market-clearing levels. As it obviously is not happening in this town in a prosperous part of the south of England, there must be something wrong with the theory. Read more about the story here

Where is the Euro going? The coins and notes are nicely designed and it is convenient not to have to keep bags of different currencies when travelling abroad. That is of course trivial; the real benefit of the Euro is that trade within the Eurozone takes place without the burden of the cost of currency exchange and the associated risk of changes in exchange rates. Neverthless, we have always been...

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...

An article by Stephen Bayley in the Times today has nothing to do with LVT. We commend it nevertheless because there is a connection with LVT. The author argues that making real products is far superior to having a lust for quick returns. It recognises the crucial link between effort and reward. The reform we advocate would indeed help to support a culture in which effort was fully rewarded and...

Who benefits from the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy? It is not farmers, but regular followers of this site will know the answer. Landowners.