Comment - Land Value Tax Campaign

Land Value Taxation campaigning pitfalls

Written on 4 September 2008. Posted in History.

The Campaign holds to the concept of Land Value Taxation as proposed by Henry George in Progress and Poverty. This is not out of quasi-religious reverence for the words of a great prophet. It is simply that deviation from that concept will lead to failure. At one time, most LVT supporters were familiar with the underlying theory. This seems to be less the case now.

Scottish Local Income Tax announced

Written on 3 September 2008. Posted in Taxation.

Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish National Party has long advocated a Local Income Tax instead of the Council Tax and has now announced that it will be included in the next legislative programme. The belief is that it is based on “ability to pay”. That notion is a delusion (see below). It has been widely condemned, for example in this article which appeared in The Scotsman in September...

What should the government do about the economy?

Written on 2 September 2008. Posted in Economics.

What is the public’s level of understanding about economics? Following the Chancellor’s comments and predictions about the state of the British economy, a BBC discussion forum invited members of the public for their suggestions. There are over 100 pages to be viewed, but it is only necessary to scan through a few in order to get the flavours. They are worth looking at since they provide...

Who owns London?

Written on 31 August 2008. Posted in History.

In the seventeenth century, London was the City of London. As the eighteenth century progressed, aristocratic land owners started to develop their land; the Earl of Bedford was first, with Covent Garden, then came the Earl of Southampton with Bloomsbury Square, and the Earl of St Albans with St James’s Square. The 1760s saw the development of the Bedford Estate in Bloomsbury and the Portman...

Instituto Henry George

Written on 13 August 2008. Posted in Non-English.

Instituto Henry George A Spanish language site based in Nicaragua.

Factories demolished to avoid empty property rates

Written on 13 August 2008. Posted in Taxation.

An article in The Independent reports that buildings are already been knocked down to avoid having to pay rates after the government abolished rates relief on vacant property. Anyone familiar with the theory behind LVT could have warned the government that this would happen, but in any case, have they forgotten how the Window Tax led to bricked-up windows? However, given that this is being done...

UK joblessness set to rise for sixth month

Written on 11 August 2008. Posted in Economics.

An article in The Times today reports that “the deteriorating employment outlook is emphasised by a survey today from the Royal Bank of Scotland, which suggests that numbers in work fell in every region of the UK last month, and at the fastest rate since late 2001, as most parts of the country suffered a fall in economic activity. The steepest falls in employment levels were in Wales, the...

Labour returns to Keynesian roots

Written on 10 August 2008. Posted in Politics.

An article in the Sunday Telegraph accuses Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Chancellor Darling of reverting to a default Keynesian option. One of the commentators says that he does not recall an economist who forecast the bust. Regular visitors to this site will know, of course, that as long ago as 2005, Fred Harrison, wrote a book called “Boom Bust: House Prices, Banking and the Depression...

Banks losing money right, left and centre

Written on 9 August 2008. Posted in Banking.

The loss of money by the banks is a wonder to behold. How many boardroom members have lost their jobs as a result of this monumental blundering? Nobody in charge can really say they did not know they were taking a huge risk. At the root of the trouble is that the banks have been lending money for people to buy land. LAND IS NOT WEALTH. The primary value of land is its rental, which is a residual...

House prices back to 2006 and still falling

Written on 8 August 2008. Posted in Economics.

“Foundations of bricks and mortar boom are shifting” announces another article on the drop in house prices. This one is in The Times. However, too much notice should not be taken of particular sets of results, as the different indices are collected in different ways giving slightly different pictures. The Financial Times has an article explaining why the various sets of data do not agree;...

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