Comment - Land Value Tax Campaign

Unintended consequence of Stamp Duty holiday

Written on 9 September 2008. Posted in Taxation.

Buy-to-let property investors, who have long been elbowing first-time buyers out of the housing market, have emerged as unexpected beneficiaries of the stamp duty holiday announced this week.In an attempt to ease affordability for first-time buyers and re-energise the housing market, the government waived the 1 per cent stamp duty for properties under £175,000 for the next year. Is there no limit...

Propping up the housing market

Written on 9 September 2008. Posted in Economics.

Nearly every day brings a fresh twist to the housing market crisis. Stock exchange response to the US government’s action on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has been positive but that was an immediate reaction. As the implications sink in, sentiment is likely to change. Reports suggest that the UK government is also about to do something to “kick start” the housing market. Meanwhile,...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac nationalised

Written on 8 September 2008. Posted in Economics.

Henry Law has made a comment about this on the LVTC blog.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac nationalised

Written on 8 September 2008. Posted in Economics.

It is curious how people with an absolute faith in the free market have suddenly turned into socialists now that things have turned nasty. But the market points to a reality – that US housing values (in reality, the price of the land that houses stand on), was just a bubble value. Either the price must adjust to reality or the currency must be debased to the point that inflation has the same...

Ekonomiska frihetsförbundet

Written on 6 September 2008. Posted in Non-English.

Ekonomiska frihetsförbundet grundades år 1909. Målet var lösningen av jordfrågan och borttagning av dåvarande skatter. Ni kan läsa förbundets ursprungliga annons här

Achieving political change

Written on 6 September 2008. Posted in Politics.

The difficulties of achieving profound political changes are discussed in a recent article by Johann Lindvall, Samuel Finer Post-Doctoral Fellow in Comparative Government at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Lincoln College. It is titled The Politics of Purpose. There is good advice here. LVT advocacy needs to take account of the distinction...

House price fall accelerating

Written on 5 September 2008. Posted in Economics.

The Halifax Building Society reports that “house prices” were falling at the fastest rate since it started its monthly survey in 1983. This has been widely reported, for example in this Daily Telegraph article. Elsewhere, comparisons are now being made with the collapse in the 1930s. Of course, what is falling is what had been bubbling up until 2007 – land prices. But nobody seems...

Conservatives doomed without new ideas

Written on 5 September 2008. Posted in Politics.

Without new ideas, the Conservatives are doomed, says John Kampfner in the Daily Telegraph today. At the heart of the problem, he says, is that the centre-Left is running out of ideas. The policy wonks’ cupboard is bare. The underlying problem is that economic theory stopped developing in the 1880s, when it had reached the point where the privileges of powerful vested interests would have...

Interest rates to remain at 5% in classic stagflation trap

Written on 4 September 2008. Posted in Banking.

The Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee has decided to leave the interest rate at 5%, unchanged for the past five months. Is this the right figure? Some say it is too high and will make the forthcoming recession worse. Others say it is too high and will aggravate inflation. Both views are correct.

Hur skapades Monopol

Written on 4 September 2008. Posted in Non-English.

Föregångaren till Monopol hette “The Landlords Game” och skapades av Lizzie J Magie som en del av en kampanj för beskattning av jord. Spelet skulle påvisa att rådande egendomsförhållanden ledde till en stigande koncentration av makt och resurser. Som nu.

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