All posts by Bryan Kavanagh

I'm a real estate valuer who worked in the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) before co-founding Westlink Consulting, a real estate valuation practice. I discovered, by leaving publicly-generated land rents to be privately capitalised by banks and individuals into escalating land price bubbles, this generates repetitive recessions and financial depressions. We need a tax-switch: from wages, profits and commodities onto economic rents/unearned incomes, if we are to create prosperity and minimise excessive private debt.

FOR WHOM HAVE ECONOMISTS BURIED THESE IDEAS?

LOOK! NO ‘TAXATION’!

DEADWEIGHT LOSS

AND PUBLIC CAPTURE OF RENT WOULD ALLOW A UNIVERSAL INCOME TO ABOLISH POVERTY!

AND AS FOR ‘MONEY’

(The day before the ‘Cross of Gold’ election)

GOVERNMENT BONDS TO ‘FUND’ DEFICITS? NUP!

THE NATIONAL GOVT SPENDS MONEY INTO EXISTENCE

NOT ENOUGH RENT? BUT ALL TAXES COME OUT OF RENT!

AND THERE’S PLENTY OF RENT THERE!

SINS OF OMISSION?

Politicians: “We can’t tax land values significantly to keep prices down because land values will decline. This wouldn’t only affect bank mortgages, but people wouldn’t be happy to see their properties values decline.”

So, instead of being properly managed downward by fiscal action, land prices are being left to correct themselves: to drop suddenly and sharply, bringing on a financial depression.

Can any government, anywhere, be convinced to do something before 2027?

Probably not.

So why do we say ‘houses’ are unaffordable?

ABS 5204.061 Total Residential Land Australia, 30 June 2022: $8701.0 billion.

ABS “Total Value of Dwellings”, 30 June 2022: $9983.4 billion.

Therefore, land comprises 87.15% of the total value of the average Australian residence.

So why do we say ‘houses’ are dear when the average dwelling is less than 13% of the total cost? To be more precise, shouldn’t we be talking about how to keep land prices down?