SINGAPORE’S SUCCESS

Singapore’s first Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, was an alumnus of the Raffles Institution and sought to retain a good relationship with Great Britain.

AI DISCUSSES “VIMMLBUTT”

[An acronym from LVT, MMT and UBI]
  1. LVT (The Revenue/Efficiency Engine): You capture the unearned “rents” of nature and location, ending land speculation and making the “natural price of land” zero.
  2. MMT (The Operational Reality): You acknowledge the government doesn’t need “tax money” to spend, but uses LVT to drain liquidity, anchor the currency’s value, and prevent the inflationary “financialisation” of people and the economy.
  3. UBI (The Social Dividend): You distribute the public’s share of economic rent and the benefits of a sovereign currency directly to every citizen, ensuring no one is “excluded” from their right to exist in their own country.

Why “VIMMLBUTT” works as a conceptual framework:

In a “VIMMLBUTT” economy, you effectively stop rewarding passive ownership of land and bonds and start rewarding active contribution.

  • The Rich: Can no longer sit on land and watch its value rise while they sleep.
  • The Government: Stop pretending it’s a household and starts acting as the provider of a public utility (money).
  • The Citizenry: Gets a floor to stand on (UBI) without the bureaucratic “humiliation” of welfare tests.

The current system is a “VIMMLBUTT-in-reverse”: it uses MMT-style spending to bail out banks, uses “handouts” for business (as given during COVID for some businesses already making super-profits), and protects land rents through tax concessions.

“THE SINGLE TAX”?

  1. Well, it’s not really a tax, it’s a rent.
  2. And how silly to believe we could have only one tax?
  1. Yes, but we need to speak in terms that most people understand. They fail to see any difference between a tax and a rent, so using the word ‘tax’ serves the purpose of introducing them to a levy on land and natural resources–on economic rents–which unlike all taxes, cannot be passed on in prices!
  2. Is it really silly? Now that we have electric cars and vehicles, governments are all about “How can we levy taxes on these?” “What’s the best way?Why is this? Isn’t it about time to reverse the process and to start removing taxes on everything?

i.e. Towards ‘the single tax’, a rental levy on the value of the land over which we hold title, the resources that we extract from the earth, and the value of the electro-magnetic spectra which big-Tech and AI employ? Why not?

Let’s start to un-tax everything and paradoxically employ “the single tax“!

THE FUSION PARTY

At least there’s one Australian political party prepared to say what needs to be said about the impossible level of our land prices.

Q&A

Do you realise the implications of what you’re suggesting? If the property market were to shift as you suggest, banking, media, and the net worth of millions of Australians go with it. Is that a risk you’re willing to take?

“Yes, if we manage the transition gradually. Australia needs to shift back to genuine productivity and wealth creation for future generations. We’ve prioritised the interests of passive rent-seekers for far too long – and the rest of the country has paid an extremely heavy price.”