Harry,
I largely agree with your analysis. However, as
we both know, there is one big difference between
us -- the Malthusian question.
<<<<
[HP] 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.
>>>>
But you still refuse to grasp the point that the
crucial factor in world food production is a
shortage of freshwater that we need for crop
spraying and irrigation in addition to rainfall
-- with or without government intervention. Due
to massive abstraction, major rivers are drying
up before they reach the sea and aquifer water
levels are lowering. Government bungling --
though it exists in many instances -- doesn't
come into the whole picture. The world is just
about at maximum possible food production. I'll
grant you that it would be possible to augment
production quite significantly if the rain
forests of Amazonia, central Africa and parts of
south-east Asia were to be hacked down and given
over to grain. But this would only delay the
over-population crunch that we are already
facing. The fact that we can't escape from is
that, as sizeable portions of the poorest in the
world raise their living standards, such as in
China, India and Brazil already, then they are
going to buy more enjoyable protein food. This
requires several times more grain acreage than
that which is presently available -- even if we
threw in Amazonia, etc. A family that presently
survives on, let us say, an acre of rice paddies
for their exclusive carbohydrate diet would need
anything between five and ten acres in order to
have a surplus of grain to feed enough chickens,
cows, fish, etc. and thus approach the typical
diet of us in the West. If all the present world
population were to eat the same diet as Europe,
America and, maybe, another billion or so as at
present, then we would need the equivalent of
five more earths growing grain alone.
Henry George lived at a time when city
populations were relatively small and, in
America, where thousands of square miles of land
were given over to grain production, the prospect
for both economic growth and population growth
would have seemed boundless to him. He had no
access to the world data we have today. He
couldn't see the whole picture. For example, he
would have had no idea that, even as he was
writing and preaching, the population of India
was leaping upwards (due to Western medicine)
while its grain production remained largely
static. (Today its population is four times what
it was then.) I think Henry George will have his
rightful place as a major economist in due course
(land taxation seems inevitable to me at some
stage in the future) but, like all fallible thinkers, he had his lapses.
Keith
At 18:38 23/05/2011, you wrote:
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 cant afford land to grow soya (which is desperately needed).
The idiots grow subsidized rice in Californias
central valley where summer temperatures reach
the 100s. 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 doesnt 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, Ive 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:
Its 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:
<mailto:[email protected]>[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>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
<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]
https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
<http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/05/>http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/05/
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/05/
_______________________________________________
Futurework mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
