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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).

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.

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;

Expensive farmland close to millions of people is best suited for school kids on field trips, families on farm vacations, and young people learning about agriculture, and for growing labour-intensive crops like organic vegetables, fruit, meat and eggs, not low-value crops like corn and soy.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkXEM7fgGDc

New taxes on sales, gas and HOV lanes may be “fair and balanced” but they will be aggressively opposed and politically damaging to any government imposing them.

A far more politically defensible way to finance Toronto transit is Land Value Capture. The Ontario and municipal governments should finance the new transit by collecting the rise in land value that the new projects produce — a process that makes transit self-financing, with no need for other taxes.

Google the following:
Land Value Capture as a Tool to Finance Public Transit Projects in Canada

Letters:
Tolls, Taxes: Globe and Mail: April 19, 2013

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is right to forge ahead with Toronto-area transit upgrades, even over the complaints of parochial mayors. However, instead of new taxes and tolls – which will pit suburban dwellers against downtown residents and businesses – the new transit should be financed by collecting the rise in land values that the new infrastructure itself will generate.

Land-value capture makes warranted transit “self-financing,” with no need for politically unpopular new tolls or taxes.

The Finance Ministry is vowing to push forward the land tax bill, stalled for a decade, and may increase the tax ceiling, says the Fiscal Policy Office (FPO).

Director-general Somchai Sujjapongse said the FPO is now amending details of the draft. Once the amendment version is completed, it will arrange a public hearing.

The major amendment is the tax ceiling rate. http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/economics/296036/long-stalled-land-…

Under the current draft there are three tax rates depending on the purpose of land usage.

Toronto Star, Saturday, May 19, 2012

There’s really only one way to make Toronto housing affordable for everyone — including young families. But the City can’t do it alone; the provincial government will need to help out.

Step one: the Ontario government would need to instruct the Municipal Property Assessment Corp.(MPAC) to ignore buildings and assess only the land under buildings.

Step two: Toronto would then apply the municipal tax to the lot values alone, also ignoring buildings.

Watch video: Land Value Taxation and the Built Environment

The main benefits of LVT (revenue-neutral municipal tax sifting off buildings onto the land below the buildings) are:

1. LVT doesn't punish businesses, landlords or home owners for fixing up, expanding, renovating, or re-purposing their buildings;

On the invitation of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, Frank de Jong visited Calgary, Regina, Winnipeg in November, speaking on the multiple benefits to urban design when municipal property taxes are shifted off buildings and onto land value alone.
Interviews -- audio, text: http://www.fcpp.org/media.php/1882

I take issue with the final sentence in the below New York Times op-ed. Not only did Georgism account for greed, it was essentially designed as a system to dampen or ameliorate greed, which I would think means the desire (and collection) of more wealth than one deserves.

Greed, in economics, is almost synonymous with rent-seeking. Georgism neutralizes rent seeking (provided new forms of rent are identified and taxed as the greedy invent them). As long as assessment is accurate, greed becomes very difficult to act upon.

A 30-minute interview where Earthsharing Canada's Frank de Jong argues that governments should finance programs like health care, education by collecting economic rent in lieu of taxing jobs, businesses and consumption.

30-minute interview

The property tax is actually a combination of two taxes: one on the land and one on the buildings, but there are multiple benefits to urban design when municipal property taxes are split in two and shifted off buildings and onto land value alone. When municipalities collect a percentage of the community-created land value (economic rent), instead of taxing improvements (buildings), walkability and infill occur naturally, reducing municipal taxes and improving the quality of life for all. By employing economic rent capture as a market mechanism, municipalities can generate sufficient revenue pl