Not entirely, Keith. The biofuels madness reminds me that "Those whom the Gods would destroy . . . . ." If the US returned the corn fields to food, the global corn food crop would increase by 14%. Subsidies and other government largesse are responsible for rising farm land-values. I remember the Duke of Westminster got 3 million pounds over 10 years, but perhaps he needed the money. The Economist had a bit about the UK subsidies to "farms". Apparently land is acquired not to grow things but to apply for a subsidy and there is a brisk trade in drinking from the cash cow. In the US farm subsidies run into the billions. The Sugar quota alone which quietly makes Americans pay 2-3 times the world price of sugar has raised land-values in the north-east so high that farmers can't afford land to grow soya (which is desperately needed). The idiots grow subsidized rice in California's central valley where summer temperatures reach the 100's. One scientist calculated that the water lost to evaporation was sufficient to supply all the water needs of the city of Los Angeles. Meantime, US rice undercuts unsubsidized rice from elsewhere and probably puts real farmers out of business. The farmers of the central valley get artificially cheap water through their government granted "water rights". We pay some 200-300 times as much for water as they do. Their artificially cheap water is why, as you drive through the central valley in the hot summer, you see irrigation machines spraying water through the air, rather than using drip irrigation or something more economical. This points to the difference between us over Malthusianism. You adopt the reasonable view that we are banging against the limits of survivability. I think that if the 1,001 instances of government bungling were ended we would still have a very large cushion between us and starvation and its interim shortages. Proper use of the land is essential to our survival and completely changing the allocation of resources over to the free market would work wonders. However, land doesn't have a free market. The idea of collecting land-values has, as a principal effect, the turning over of land to the control of the free market price mechanism. Proper allocation of land by the free market can efficiently take place while the controlled economy people are still choosing a committee chairman. At the moment, across the globe, land is beset by monopoly ownership, speculation, hoarding, and vicious rents that keep generations of peasants in thralldom, along with its corollary - low production and little innovation. The community collection of land-rent would end this tragic situation. However, if one merely looks at the consequences of the present mess, it is easy to become a Malthusian (with its complete lack of any solution other than megadeaths). As you know, I've suggested it would be "Better to collect Rent and throw it in the sea, than not collect it at all." Although the Rent could be used to support the infrastructure of the city with no taxation - a pretty good thought - much more important are the economic consequences of the collection. So, think less of the income from Rent collection and more about the effect it will have on our economic well-being. Harry ****************************** Henry George School of Los Angeles Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 (818) 352-4141 ****************************** From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Keith Hudson Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2011 12:49 AM To: [email protected]; RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Subject: Re: [Futurework] 28% homeowners owe more on mortgage than home worth Harry,
At 02:26 19/05/2011, you wrote: It's land values falling that is responsible for the drop, not "home values". Harry True, but not quite. At present, good agricultural land is going up in value because of world over-population and the growing of biofuels. In fact, if you were to do a cross-sectional walk through a major city in most advanced countries, land price would drop as you entered the suburbs and proceed through most parts of the city where the bulk of the population live. Land prices would then rise steeply as you came to small pockets in some living/retailing/restaurant/office parts of the inner city where the rich spend most of their time. This is where I strongly agree with you Georgists. We won't have any sensible system of taxation until land values are directly taxed. The rich -- with the notable exception of Warren Buffet! -- always want to reflect their wealth in the precise locations where they live and work. Even rich criminals with incomes that are unknown to the tax authorities need to show their status publicly. Rich people know that they already pay over the odds when they buy goods and services, so even they wouldn't want to try and evade land taxation by living in a hovel because it would reduce their status. Instead, and motivated by popular envy, we have become stuck in a system of personal taxation which is punitive to the entrepreneurial (and also to the middle-class family man these days) and easily avoidable by the very rich who employ clever accountants and lawyers. Keith ****************************** Henry George School of Los Angeles Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 (818) 352-4141 ****************************** From: [email protected] [ mailto:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> ] On Behalf Of D and N Sent: Friday, May 13, 2011 7:35 PM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Subject: [Futurework] 28% homeowners owe more on mortgage than home worth http://www.cnbc.com/id/42955097 CNBC - U.S. home values fell in the first quarter at the fastest rate since late 2008, real estate data firm Zillow said on Monday, suggesting that a bottom will not be seen until 2012 at the earliest. Zillow said its home value index fell 3 percent in the first three months of the year from the previous quarter, and was down 8.2 percent year-over-year. The number of homeowners under water- or, those who owe more on the mortgage than their house is currently worth -amounted to 28.4 percent of single-family homeowners, representing a peak since Zillow began calculating the data in 2009. ..... Almost all of the 132 markets covered by Zillow saw home value declines. Only Fort Myers in Florida, Champaign-Urbana in Illinois, and Honolulu, Hawaii, managed quarterly increases. _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/05/
_______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
