News

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p054fmbm

A party that wants to replace all taxes
The Young People's Party wants to legalise drugs, brothels and fox-hunting, with plans for a radical tax shake-up.

The party's Thomas Hall said: "We believe that land value tax is the fairest tax of all" and he said such a policy would have the support of Winston Churchill and Adam Smith.

He was speaking to Daily Politics presenter Jo Coburn and Conservative guest Michael Gove.

Release date: 30 May 2017

The Experts are almost unanimous is asserting that Britain will suffer once the Brexit deal has been struck with the European Union. Fear is the overriding emotion of those who want to reverse the 2016 referendum, in which people exercised their democratic right to redefine the future of their country. The psychology which frames the Brexit negotiations is calculated to deliver a bad outcome for both the UK and the EU.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6Ib0NnI_cw&feature=youtu.be

“Place one hundred men on an island from which there is no escape, and whether you make one of these men the absolute owner of the other ninety-nine, or the absolute owner of the soil of the island, will make no difference either to him or to them.”

Background Music: The Travel Agency by Nobuo Uematsu from Final Fantasy X

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibe...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_l...
http://geolib.pair.com/essays/sulliva...

In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith wrote, “As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed and demand a rent even for its natural produce.” By land, Smith and the “classical” economists who followed him meant all natural resources. The landlords were the ruling class, heirs of the conquerors of the territory, deriving their “rent” from the mere privilege of having titles granted and protected by the state.

RETHINKING THE ECONOMY LECTURE SERIES

Friday, December 1st, 4-7pm

Simon Fraser University

Segal Centre Room 1430 - Harbour Centre (515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver)

www.schalkenbach.org

HENRY GEORGE- Book Launch Vol. II, Progress and Poverty

Second in a series of lectures and discussions on the The Annotated Works

of Henry George (1839-1897), an influential American economist and social

reformer. Presentations by professor Francis Peddle and Brendan Hennigan

(The Henry George Foundation of Canada).

by Paul Finch, treasurer of the B.C. Government and Service Employees’ Union and Jared Melvin, vice-president; and Harpinder Sandhu a regional director of CUPE 1767

Vancouver and B.C. have been gripped by a housing affordability crisis that has deprived an entire generation of the ability to rent or own housing that fits their needs. Working people are seeing their discretionary income plummet due to rising real estate prices, which dwarf rising wages or savings on lower taxes and cheaper consumer goods.

The major parties' policies are unlikely to resolve New Zealand's socio-economic issues unless they tax land, argue Zbigniew Dumieński and Nicholas Smith

The 2017 election is less than five weeks away and the key policy battles largely revolve around inequality, housing, transport, and education.

Pricing property
BY JOHN LORINC
POSTED OCTOBER 3, 2016
The promise and peril of land value taxes

The craziness of Vancouver’s real estate market, now the subject of frantic political attention, has revealed a rare kind of metric in dense urban environments.

Catherine Cashmore

Prosper Australia President Catherine Cashmore was interviewed by Michael Bleby in the weekend Australian Financial Review. The interview stepped behind the intrigue of Henry George and Land Value Tax.

https://www.prosper.org.au/2016/02/16/prosper-president-in-the-news/

Economic thinkers don’t often draw large crowds, but George did. “Thousands on thousands” of people filled the streets upon the death of the man whose text Progress and Poverty reportedly outsold the Bible in 19th-century America, the New York Times recounted.

Saturday, 16 January, 2016, Dominican University College, 96 Empress Avenue, Ottawa

Reception 3:30 - 5:00pm

The Annotated Works of Henry George, Our Land and Land Policy and Other Works
Francis K. Peddle and William S Peirce, Volume I, Series Co-Editors

You are invited to the inaugural launch of the first in a six volume series of the The Annotated Works of Henry George, with a presentation by Francis K. Peddle, series co-editor, and Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy at Dominican University College.

Paraic Lally

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKaHfbN7WSI

According to: http://povertythinkagain.com/controve...
Georgism, Capitalism, and Socialism
Some people have mistakenly called Henry George either a capitalist or a socialist, but he was not either, at least not in any simple sense. One might say that George’s philosophy mixes capitalism and socialism, but it is more accurate to say that it is a distinctive philosophy that is neither capitalist nor socialist.
The central principles of capitalism in its purest form are
1) free exchange of goods in an unregulated market;

There are now over 170 Community Land Trusts in England and Wales, half of which formed in the last two years. The CLT owns the land so the rise in land value is held in common by that community.

http://www.communitylandtrusts.org.uk/what-is-a-clt/about-clts

Provincial and federal budgets loom: taxation is a hot topic.

The price of living in a modern, civilized nation, it nevertheless rankles when part of our earnings are deducted leaving less to spend on our families, every purchase incurring sales tax making life more expensive and shrinking our purchasing power, every enterprise paying what feel like fines for success.

Some pundits perennially complain of being taxed into the poorhouse, even as they drive fancy convertibles or build expensive home studios.

by David S. D’Amato
An overview of the life, work, and influence of Henry George, who famously argued that the only justifiable tax was a property tax on land.

http://www.libertarianism.org/columns/singular-henry-george-insights-inf...

The new government of Thailand plans to introduce new taxes before the beginning of the new fiscal year, which starts next month.

Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-ocha said, “Tax collection in this new fiscal year will be broadened to boost state revenue and promote fairness. This will include inheritance and land taxes. This would have a limited impact on low-income earners, while tax benefits that favour the rich will be eliminated.”

Land Rents
September 10, 2014

This 2014 excerpt of PostMag, Spt 7, is by Larred Macfarlane. This article was first published in Scotland 44: Ideas for a New Nation.

Australians are routinely being told that hefty mining taxes would hinder the country’s exports of coal and iron ore. However, mining giant BHP Billiton recently increased its profits by 83% to US $8.1bn. In spite of this enormous growth, the company only paid US $29m in minerals resource rent tax (MRRT). As it stands, the tax is in no way making BHP uncompetitive.

Imagine a new streetcar or subway line were built and extra money started magically appearing in cash registers of businesses along it; along the route, especially at stops, landlords suddenly got a cash bonus with their monthly rent cheques....

Transit can pay its own way with Land Value Capture

http://www.erichthegreen.ca/2013/12/transit-can-pay-its-own-way-with-lan...

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Total Resource Rents of Australia

The Total Resource Rents of Australia report finds the complete removal of income, company and sales tax is possible by replacement with a tax on monopolies such as water trading, cyber squatting, taxi licenses and land.

“Economists have for hundreds of years pointed to a more efficient system by harnessing the naturally rising value of scarce resources as the tax base. Few reports have calculated if this is actually possible” said report author Karl Fitzgerald.

- Press Release: http://www.prosper.org.au/2013/12/03/harnessing-monopoly-to-finance-gove...

Agnes de Mille

New video produced by Earthsharing Canada:

A short history and profile of 19th century American economist Henry George, based on the writings of Agnes de Mille, George's granddaughter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmKZthN50fs

http://www.henrygeorge.org/agnes.htm

Funding: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation http://schalkenbach.org/