Comment - Land Value Tax Campaign

Negative growth

Written on 24 October 2008. Posted in Economics.

“Negative growth” means contraction. The UK economy shrank by 0.5% in the 3rd quarter of the year. Who has become worse off and in what way? Some people have lost their jobs, their homes, or their life savings. Things seem set to get worse.

Choosing Recession

Written on 22 October 2008. Posted in Economics.

A recession is coming, says Governor of the Bank of England Mervyn King, and there will be pressure on sterling. We have been, say commentators, living beyond our means. This does not altogether add up. Are we about to be subjected to an economic storm, blown in from the Atlantic like a weather system? Recession is a loosely used term which suggests a decline in the total size of the economy. Leaving...

The economic forecast

Written on 20 October 2008. Posted in Economics.

In its autumn forecast, the Ernst and Young ITEM Club says that the UK is entering inevitable recession, with GDP forecast to shrink by 1% over 2009, followed by a slow recovery to just 1% growth over 2010. Even if recent government rescues have pulled us back from the brink, a lot of damage has been done and the availability of credit will improve only very slowly. Corporate profitability has...

Will Hutton on unemployment

Written on 19 October 2008. Posted in Economics.

It is astonishing how long-running Observer journalist and former Labour Party adviser Will Hutton manages to miss the point about the economy. Sadly he is at it again today. It is a pity because in his position he could shed light on what his happening and help people understand. Instead, he just adds to the fog of confusion. Will Hutton – Smoke clears to reveal the monster of rising un...

Mass unemployment returns

Written on 16 October 2008. Posted in Economics.

Very soon there will be a couple of million involuntarily idle people. There will also be a rash of derelict sites as vacant commercial buildings are demolished to avoid the business rate. There is a connection between the two. Whilst Britain’s flexible labour market has been much vaunted, there has no attempt to make Britain’s land market flexible. On the contrary. Increased demand...

Are things going to be all right now?

Written on 15 October 2008. Posted in Economics.

Now that the immediate problems with the banks look as if they have been solved, is everything going to be all right? None of the commentators seem to agree, so we shall not venture to make predictions. The continuing wild fluctuations on the stock market suggest that nobody has a clear idea about how things will go. What is being done does not sound right but we could be wrong. We can only wait...

Paul Krugman wins Nobel Prize for economics

Written on 14 October 2008. Posted in Economics.

Paul Krugman, New York Times columnist and University of Princeton professor, has been awarded this year’s Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. His speciality is spatial economics, and one might have thought that he would be strong on Ricardo’s Law of Rent and possibly even an advocate of land value taxation. But whilst, unusually amongst economists,...

Was ist die Bodenwertsteuer?

Written on 9 October 2008. Posted in Non-English.

Die Bodenwertsteuer ist eine Methode mit welcher die oeffentlichen Staatseinnahmen mittels einer jaehrlichen Steuer auf dem Rentenwert des Bodens erhoben werden. Sie wuerde die bestehenden Steuern ersetzen, nicht diesen hinzugefuegt werden. Wenn richtig angewendet, wuerde eine Bodenwertsteuer eine ganze Reihe von sozialen und wirtschaftlichen Initiativen unterstuetzen, einschliesslich der Wohnungsbereich,...

Qu’est-ce que la taxe sur la valeur du sol?

Written on 9 October 2008. Posted in Non-English.

La taxe sur la valeur du sol (TVS) est une méthode permettant d’augmenter les revenus publics au moyen d’un prélèvement annuel sur la valeur locative d’une parcelle. Cette taxe remplacerait, mais ne se rajouterait pas à toutes les taxes actuelles. Etant bien appliquée, la TVS serait utilisée pour financer un grand éventail d’initiatives sociales et économiques, y compris...

British bank rescue

Written on 8 October 2008. Posted in Banking.

The latest £50 billion bail out of the British banks may be unavoidable. But to judge by the stock market reactions and the comments made on press and radio, few seem convinced, even after several days. There seems to be no real understanding of what is going on and what the effect of any particular policy will be. We make no claims either in this regard, but making credit more readily available...

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