A nice article by Toby Lloyd.  (Almost there, Toby!)

LAND AND FREEDOM VOL. XXVII No. 1  January/February, 1927

Where Senator Richards Errs

JOHN J. EGAN

SENATOR EMERSON RICHARDS recently delivered an address before the Newark Real Estate Board on the financing of State highways. He advocated a gasoline tax and the quadrupling of the annual license tax on commercial motor vehicles, his idea being that those who use highways should pay for this use a revival of the obsolete toll-road system. The Senator touched but lightly upon the fact that there are others than road users who benefit from the establishment and upkeep of paved highways. He did not, as he well might have done, explain that the only values to be created or increased by the substitution of good roads for poor ones are location or site values.

The Senator knows very well that municipalities assess the cost of highway improvements against contiguous lot holders, this course being legally and morally justifiable. It may well be asked why this Senator, other legislators and the Governor himself do not turn their attention to the possibility of establishing a system by which a large part of the cost of paved highways may be drawn from the holders of locations that are especially benefited, making the assessment levies payable over a period of five or ten years.

There is no reason why New Jersey should follow the bad example of other states in penalizing transportation, industry and trade by a gasoline tax or by the imposition of heavy commercial license fees. Equity demands a revision of our methods of financing highway construction, and the responsibility is upon our legislators to contrive that the revision be in conformity with common sense and good morals rather than with the practice or customs elsewhere. We of New Jersey are entitled to the best system of financing highways that can be devised.

The revision of highway financing should be deferred until there can be a full inquiry into the possibility of accompanying new highway construction with a State system of assessing abutting and contiguous land holders on the basis of the Site-Value created by improved roads.

New Jersey’s Governor

GOVERNOR A. HARRY MOORE of New Jersey, in his first annual message to the 1927 Legislature, after discussing several methods of financing new highway construction, said: “Lastly, I might suggest to you the wisdom of assessing some part of the cost of the road system upon the land specially benefited thereby, as is the practice in municipal improvements. A striking illustration of what might be regarded as an evil of having the State at large pay for major improvements and the land peculiarly benefited by the improvements escape, except in so far as it shares its proportions of the state’s expenses, is in the increase of land values in Bergen county, which came as a result of the projected Hudson River Bridge.”
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From Herbert H Asquith, Prime Minister United Kingdom 1908 – 1916:

The value of land rises as population grows and national
necessities increase, not in proportion to the application
of capital and labour, but through the development of the
community itself. You have a form of value, therefore, which is
conveniently called ‘site value,’ entirely independent of buildings
and improvements and of other things which non-owners and
occupiers have done to increase its value – a source of value
created by the community, which the community is entitled to
appropriate to itself. …In almost every aspect of our social and
industrial problem you are brought back sooner or later to that
fundamental fact.

ISN’T WIN/WIN BETTER THAN WIN/LOSE?

It was with a great sense of frustration after watching Barrie Cassidy’s interview with Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) secretary, Dave Oliver on “Insiders” this morning, that I dashed off the following thoughts to the program:-

When labour relations are discussed on “Insiders”  it is incredible that it is reduced to two options only: (a) the conservatives who would wind back wages and/or penalty rates, or (b) the ACTU and Labor Party who fight this without introducing valid proposals that might widen the debate.

The Henry Tax Review recommended abolishing 115 of Australia’s 125 hopelessly inefficient taxes that raise only 10% of our revenue.

If these 115 taxes were to be abolished, wouldn’t BOTH business and workers reap enormous benefits from their removal – with all their collection costs and the vast deadweight they impose on the economy? 

“Insiders” needs to see industrial relations discussion is being terribly restricted.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/australians-living-beyond-our-means-says-gina-rinehart-20140307-34ar9.html

Hello,

I’m originally from Europe and moved to Australia in 1998. Since then I have noticed the constant obsession with property in terms of the media, news on TV and constant bombardment of building programs. All of these programs are mostly about speculating on property and seeing how much money can be made.

I’m a bit baffled by this obsession to “get rich and go for dreams” through property as all I read and I hear about now is “mortgage stress and rental traps” at the same time mixed in with the word “dreams”???

It is conflicting information and it appears many people are brainwashed.

As a first world country it is a disgrace that we cannot even get the basics of affordable shelter, food and clothing right. This is the foundation of any decent society. Every person should have an equal right to have affordable housing. Also this concept of “renting trap” is foreign to me as renting allows for freedom and flexibility and costs less than buying, however getting on the property ladder is the only way it appears you are going to make progress or are making it in Australia. How bizarre?

The choice to rent or buy is an equal proposition and people in Europe for centuries have the choice to rent their whole lives and many have a high quality of life. Most people who buy houses are actually poorer ie. UK,Spain, Greece – as compared to Germany or Switzerland where quality of life is a priority not quantity of life. These people are not described to be in traps. The question is at what cost and is it really progress when one is a few paychecks away from losing a job and when under massive mortgage stress. How can this ever be described as a dream? Whose dream is it really? A few guys at the bank or real estate who are profiting from ordinary people’s hard labor with million $$$ paychecks?

It does not make sense that people need to spend the greatest share of their income on having a roof over their head?? You cannot eat or take property to your grave, so why get so obsessed and worked up by getting on property ladders??? What purpose will this serve? Also what is this government doing to help the people instead of having policies that favour banks and real estate?

In Europe you will never hear such superficial nonsense such as housing dreams and this kind of propaganda to brainwash people. This concept has been created by those that profit from it most (ie. Government, banks, real estate). The only way this country will learn is when there is a significant downturn in property to bring everything back to earth for the benefit of the masses that are suffering. Speculation only creates a ponzi scheme through greater and greater debt with a few winners and not the majority of people. This will be the best solution for the people and expose government, bank and real estate irresponsibility over many years.

– name withheld

Well done, publishing Prosper Australia’s submission to the Senate on Housing affordability, MacroBusiness!

Quotes about land value capture from various economists