“This quarterly update includes Q1 of 2026. The blue curve (turnover by number) is looking distinctly bearish. Its departure from the red curve (lending by value) is explained by supposing that the red curve is delayed by one quarter relative to the blue, in which case the red curve will be looking similarly bearish next quarter.

The more recent figures, although less comprehensive, are even more bearish: –

https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2026/06/australias-auction-market-sinks-to-fresh-low/“

…. IS UNDOING US.

Australia’s $10 trillion in land prices is on the turn!

We’ve been unable to maintain the average increase of 12.1% pa that we’ve experienced since 1971.

Watch out, folks!

Dr Gavin Putland

Andy Burnham is considered an advocate for land value taxation, having frequently proposed shifting the tax burden away from labor and toward property and wealth.

Following Sir Keir Starmer’s resignation on June 22, 2026, Burnham has emerged as a frontrunner for the Labour leadership and has positioned structural property tax reform as a central piece of his economic vision. He has publicly criticized the current UK council tax system as “highly regressive” and has long pushed for a system that targets land hoarding and asset wealth. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Burnham’s Stance on Land and Property Taxation

• Land Value Tax (LVT) Advocacy: Burnham has consistently argued that land in the United Kingdom is undertaxed. He supports an annual levy based strictly on land value to incentivize productive land use and penalize developers or individuals who “hoard” undeveloped land. [1, 2, 3, 4]
• Abolishing Stamp Duty and Council Tax: He has campaigned on the concept that a formal LVT or proportional asset tax should completely replace both stamp duty and council tax. He argues this would lower the barrier to homeownership for young and lower-income buyers. [1, 2, 3]
• Backing Fairer Share: Burnham has thrown his support behind the Fairer Share campaign group. The group advocates for a “Proportional Property Tax,” which would levy a flat 0.48% annual tax on a home’s value, while charging higher rates (0.96%) for second homes, foreign buyers, and empty properties. [1, 2, 3]
• Long-Term Policy Continuity: This is not a new position for Burnham; he originally championed the introduction of a land value tax during his first bid for the Labour leadership back in 2010.

oooOOOooo

Hey! Maybe a return to original labour policy?

21^st Century Shibboleths

1. Governments need to borrow their own currency for spending.
2. ‘Printing money’ for government spending generates inflation.
3. (a) Incomes should be taxed. (b) Purchases should be taxed.
4. There is no relationship between land prices and inflation.

Believing the above-listed nonsense accounts for faltering world economies.

Mainsteam media is more likely to explain economies on the verge of collapse in terms of international events, rather than question the voodoo economics we’re continuing to practice.

oooOooo

The real, but ‘invisible’, inflation.

We’re getting crackpot politicians thrown up as potential leaders because mainstream parties have proven to be so indebted to their financial backers that they’re not up for instituting necessary political change.

Despite a few of the societal problems being ‘manufactured’ by Pauline Hanson and Nigel Farage, they otherwise do hit a nerve in pointing out the litany of issues that we’re facing.

I don’t know whether people who read this page agree that from next year on we’re about to experience a financial depression. Seeing collapse in myriad areas, many prophets of doom have emerged. However, I trust readers see a difference between my doomsaying colleagues and what I provide. It’s good news. I propose a quick-exit strategy that I’ve nominated ‘VIMMLBUTT’. Treasury bureaucrats aren’t likely to go for it, though, because it’s not sufficiently complex, nor tethered to ‘academic wisdom’.

So: –

When the crunch does occur, we’ll need to introduce a universal basic income (UBI) – and it shouldn’t be too basic! It will assist people and business through incredibly troubled years.

If people understand the principles of modern monetary theory (MMT), they’d know that this approach is not inflationary! (And could it be, anyway, during a depression?)

Then, let’s start slowly to dismantle an atrocious tax regime that by taxing our earned incomes has rewarded asset speculation at the expense of real wealth creation. This cannot be done by lowering income tax and increasing the GST. That’s simply another cover for status quo. Both need to be reduced, as ‘land value taxes’ (LVT)–represented by the the rents of all of our natural resources including spectrum rents–are increased at federal, state and local government levels.

So, in the last three paras, we have UBI, MMT and LVT. They run nicely together in the acronym remedy for the depression, namely, VIMMLBUTT.

It’s a lonely term, but it’s out there!

~~~oooOooo~~~

Yes, governments don’t know what to do.

However, they could deliver a very decent universal income–without having to borrow!–to carry people and business through the terrible deflationary period. It would not be inflationary during a depression.

Then, gradually reduce income and sales taxes, and institute a land rental system, in the broader sense of ‘land’–i.e. all natural resources–as Fred Harrison mentions.

That would get real wealth production happening again, and end the speculative activity in assets that is bringing world economies to their knees.

Too simple? You bet!

The rapidly increasing popularity of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party in Australia mirrors Donald Trump’s success within the Republican Party in the USA and of Nigel Farage’s Reform Party in the UK.

The right wing political phenomenon is clearly a protest vote against failure of the longstanding political parties to address rising social unrest, and has been reported as such. However, rarely has it been sheeted home to the parties having rewarded extreme asset speculation at the expense of the general citizenry.

There’s a reason for pulling up short in the political commentary, of course. The American economist, Henry George wrote about it in “Progress and Poverty”, “Social Problems” and “The Science of Political Economy”: it offends powerful vested interests. The first-mentioned of these provides a hint in the sub-title: “An inquiry into the cause of industrial depressions and of increase of want with increase of wealth …. The Remedy“.

We’re not really into remedies for the many ills stemming from asset speculation, though. We prefer not to offend banking, real estate and mainstream media interests, such that we repeat these cycles of boom and bust every eighteen years, nominating them as “the natural business cycle“.

Napoleon and the French Revolution were products of the eventual finality of a repetitive series of these so-called business cycles; namely, a severe financial depression. Adolf Hitler rose to fame as a potential saviour in the wake of the Great Depression, in much the same way, if in a far more radical manner, than Donald Trump, Nigel Farage and Pauline Hanson’s response to the current preliminaries.

The famous Austrian foreign correspondent, Bruno Heilig, recounted Adolf Hitler’s failure to apply Henry George’s remedy to Germany’s issues aring from WWI and the Great Depression. As this also led to persecution of Jews and to WWII, we really do need to learn the lessons of history!