Comment - Land Value Tax Campaign

End of road in sight for fiscal policies

Written on 25 March 2009. Posted in Economics.

We have been opposed from the start to the policy of trying to stimulate the economy using fiscal means to re-ignite a consumer boom and re-inflate the house price bubble. The notion is intellectually and morally bankrupt. It now seems to be approaching the end of the road. But things may now be rolling unstoppably towards the precipice of sterling collapse. A few commentators are forecasting a...

A to Z of Tax Havens

Written on 23 March 2009. Posted in Taxation.

The United States Government Accountability Office has been investigating tax havens and found that 83 per cent of the largest US companies have tax haven/ secrecy jurisdiction subsidiaries. Following on from this, The Tax Justice Network, with the help of Alternatives Économiques in France and SOMO in the Netherlands, has just produced a new report, “Where on Earth”, with information...

Why the Tartan Tax flopped

Written on 23 March 2009. Posted in Banking.

The LibDems are nothing if not persistent in their push to replace “the unfair” Council Tax by local income tax (LIT). Despite the collapse of the Scottish proposals in February, LIT is still a LibDem policy and was not dropped at the party’s Spring Conference. They would do well to examine the Scottish experience, which was summarised in an article in The Scotsman.

A little arithmetic

Written on 23 March 2009. Posted in Taxation.

EMPLOYERS’ BURDEN OF TAX This diagram illustrates the shocking truth about how the burden of taxation really falls on employers, despite appearances to the contrary.

Rail link lifts property value hopes

Written on 21 March 2009. Posted in Economics.

House values near the Channel tunnel rail link stations are predicted to rise by a total of £1.6bn after fast domestic services start to operate later this year.

Banking review published

Written on 18 March 2009. Posted in Banking.

The Turner Review – a regulatory response to the banking crisis – has just been published. It is a highly technical and densely written 120 page analysis which needs to be gone through carefully. Anyone lacking the necessary background knowledge will be unable to grasp much of the detail. All we can say about it is to point out yet again that the primary cause was a credit-fuelled land...

45 percent of world’s wealth destroyed

Written on 12 March 2009. Posted in Banking.

Private equity company Blackstone Group LP CEO Stephen Schwarzman said on Tuesday that up to 45 percent of the world’s wealth has been destroyed by the global credit crisis. “Between 40 and 45 percent of the world’s wealth has been destroyed in little less than a year and a half,” Schwarzman told an audience at the Japan Society. “This is absolutely unprecedented in...

Scapegoating the tax havens

Written on 12 March 2009. Posted in Taxation.

It seems as if the world’s political leaders are determined to avoid examining the role of the land market in causing the boom/bust, which every day shows signs of being even worse than that of the early 1930s. The technique is to keep on finding excuses and scapegoats. The latest target is tax havens.

Greenspan: Fed could not have stopped US housing bubble

Written on 11 March 2009. Posted in Banking.

Former US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan has defended his policies against an increasing number of critics who argue they are largely responsible for the current financial and economic crisis. Greenspan, who chaired the US central bank between 1987 and the beginning of 2006, said in today’s Wall Street Journal that keeping the so-called federal-funds rate – or overnight lending...

Big risks for the insurer of last resort

Written on 5 March 2009. Posted in Banking.

FT journalist Martin Wolfe takes the same view as us of the government’s bank insurance scheme. He writes… “The UK government looks increasingly like a python that has swallowed a hippopotamus. In acting as insurer of last resort to the British-based banking system, it is taking on huge risks on behalf of taxpayers. If this turned out to be a global depression, with huge losses...

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