Comments for The IU» The IU | The International Union For Land Taxation

Comment on CEJ Meeting, 21st July, London by David Chester

David Chester — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 10:13:01 +0000

I wish to draw members attention to what Nick Klegg is doing on the government website “number10″.

This site encourages the opinions about how government should be changes and in particular about which laws need to be changed.

Under “Tax Land Values–Stop Land Lords Living off Our Tax Payments” I have presented the case for LVT. By regestering on this site you can vote in favour of the various proposals. Please give me your support.
My proposers name as always is “Macrocompassion”.

Comment on Call for IU Project Submissions – by JUNE 10th 2010 by admin

admin — Mon, 31 May 2010 14:12:57 +0000

Thanks Ian. We have added the link. We are hoping to partner with them on future projects.

Comment on Call for IU Project Submissions – by JUNE 10th 2010 by Ian Hopton

Ian Hopton — Fri, 21 May 2010 18:05:24 +0000

I’m surprised that ‘Tax Justice Network’ Doesn’t appear in your list of links. Although their main purpose is the abolition of Tax Havens, they have considerable sympathy towards the ideas of Land Value Taxation, and if one perseveres with their website one can find a link to Labour Land Campaign.

Also ‘Centre for Cities’ , have advocated the american system of Tax Increment Financing, which, although limited to local projects, recognises that this can be financed from the returns on increased land values. They might well be open to more Georgist ideas.

Comment on Call for IU Project Submissions – by JUNE 10th 2010 by David Chester

David Chester — Thu, 20 May 2010 09:54:49 +0000

In connection with the request for ideas about how to attract more public attention by means of new Georgist projects I wish to add the following remarks:

I have suggested two “informal” ways that new Georgist projects might be used to get more attention, but it seems to me that there is a big difference between what a group of Georgists migh manage together as a co-ordinating body and what a (contracted) individual with limited office/management resources and a budget can do. In the later case, which is what is being requested here, I find that the formality of preparing such a budget distracts from the subjective need for the particular activity being proposed.

How can I (for example) estimate how much it would cost to prepare a legal case against the British Government that as signatories to the UN Declaration of Human Rights this government has never attempted to provide its citizens with the degree of equality of opportunity, that this document requires? It would need several meetings with lawyers and their baristers plus an series of preliminary hearings before the total budget could possibly be estimated.

Similarly my second proposal for the setting up a autonomous region which operates its taxation along Georgist lines, to be one that is imposible to prepare a budget for, prior to the choice and agreement of a suitable place.

With best wishes, David Chester.
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Comment on Call for IU Project Submissions – by JUNE 10th 2010 by Henry Law

Henry Law — Wed, 19 May 2010 17:53:04 +0000

People who visit the IU site might find it useful to have a link to ours. We have one to yours.

Thanks.

Comment on Oxfam America – Follow the Money animation by David Chester

David Chester — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 14:40:13 +0000

As an active Georgist, who helps with editing, I think most of our activities are based on very limited kinds of thinking. The wider subject that we should be understanding is macroeconomics. This includes the big picture of our social structures and all about its complete activities, including numerically how it works. We should be studying and teaching much more and not only what it is but how it actually works. Yet we are concentrating on only a small part of it, to do with land ownership and land use (or non-use) and we miss out an awful lot of the more general implications.

unfortunately many other institutions who do work with this greater subject are also politically constrained, so that they too do not really manage to properly explain how the whole system works. Not only do we join with these institutions with our limited vision in common with theirs, but we actually allow them to continue without criticsm in supporting their limited programs and agendii. I suppose this is because in practice we are no better than they are, although we certainly like to think so.

What we ought to be doing is developing some general macroeconomic theory which is so correct and obvious that it is almost irrefutable. With our superior knowledge of more of the system, we should be able to do this easily. I can certainly supply many ideas. Then it should be possible for us to challange the institutions for higher learning with a scientific means for explaining how macroeconomics functions, which they cannot deny, and which will demonstrate (amongst a host of other problems and principles) theoretically why LVT is the best way for governments to run their tax collection. programmes.

Comment on Glasgow’s Stolen Birthright by Derek Pretswell, Resource Use Institute

Derek Pretswell, Resource Use Institute — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 14:01:27 +0000

You are so right, we have lost our realtionship with the land. ‘Sustainable Development’ has become a bit like the old television advert about the bank that likes to say Yes, to which was added – but doesn’t understand the question. Sustainable is now used as an adjective to describe jobs, housing and business by people who don’t understand the question, mainly politicians, civil servants and business leaders.
SD requires the integrated devlopment of economic, social and environmental factors but the paramount factor is environmen, without this we cannot survive. Unfortunately our business model does not change the economic parameter, which has become paramount, and the other two are forced through the rigid economic hoop. We need to recognise a number of things; The soil/vegetation complex is the primary resource, THERE IS a carrying capacity and there is no need to take that to the limit, economic models should seek to optomise rather than maximise (biological versus economic) and that we are all in this together and that by working together we can reduce costs and become more efficient. Land Rental Value is a leap in the right direction, if we can bring about this we can change the rest.

Comment on Victoria Coach Station by A way forward (Part 1) « This is my chaos

A way forward (Part 1) « This is my chaos — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 21:38:18 +0000

[...] The question becomes, is it just that the benefits of Economic Rent should flow to a private landowner, to which LVT supporters say the answer is no, because it is not the landowner who created those benefits. If economic rent goes to the private landowner, then the landowner essentially gets free money forevermore (for both an amusing fictional and a scarily real life example of this see these videos – “Robinson Crusoe” and “Victoria Coach Station”) [...]

Comment on Rent! The final economic frontier by David Chester

David Chester — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 20:21:32 +0000

Much as we all would like to see peace in the Middle East between Israelis and Palestinians, it will not come about just because of the land issues. There is too much interference and politics involved from outside parties. So it seems to me that Professor Foldvery is unreasonably using this situation as a means to promote his agenda towards LVT.

The use of LVT for elimination of poverty and subsequently in stabilizing national progress as well as increasing it are far better reasons for taking this line than to apply it directly to the problems of politics and Middle-East peace, much as this ideal is of international importance and value.

Comment on The Silver Bullet by David Chester

David Chester — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 20:07:08 +0000

In my opinion the way this book starts antagonizes the reader with the attitude it takes to another prominent speeker about poverty. To beging by writing about a disagreement between economists is not the best way to make clear the way that our movement and its advise on social justice can be introduced. Why be so anti at the beginning when there is so much positivism in the Georgist message about eliminating poverty?