On 9 November 2001, Senator Marise Payne kindly responded to an email of mine. On receipt, I interspersed my thoughts:

At 11:55 AM 9/11/01 +1100, you wrote:

>Dear Mr Kavanagh

>Thank you for your email of 23rd September 2001. I apologise for >the lateness of this reply.

That’s no problem at all, Senator. Thank you for the courtesy of a reply.

>In your email you state “…bailouts just do not work. Not only are >they pernicious, but it is morally wrong that business privatises its >profits but seeks to socialise its losses.” I could not agree more with >this statement.

>Recent calls for the Federal Government to intervene in the Ansett >fiasco are indeed very misplaced. Governments cannot be held >responsible for every firm that goes out of business. Recently Ross >Cameron MP, Member for Parramatta made the comment that >small businessmen in his electorate would never be bailed out if >their businesses went bust.

We’re on common ground here, Senator!

>With regards to your other comments on the possibility of Land >Tax being used by the Federal Government as a way of depressing >the housing market at times when interest rates are reduced, I am >very much of the opinion that this could have many deleterious >effects on the economy. I have never agreed with Land Tax in any >case, as it is in essence a punishment for owning property. The >reason why I believe that it is wise for us to pursue lower interest >rates, is that while the price of land may fluctuate according to land >price speculation, the only way that we can actually directly assist >home buyers is through seeking to reduce the amount they have to >pay to the bank in mortgage repayments.

I am afraid that isn’t possible in the longer term, Senator.  My paper concerning forthcoming economic depression (published in the British magazine Geophilos) makes the case that short term interest rate cuts feed directly into higher and higher land prices and ever-escalating mortgages. Mind you, you’re certainly not alone in your views; I doubt that anyone on any side of politics favours the re-introduction of the federal land tax, such is the lack of knowledge about its virtues when used to curb land price escalation, speculative activity, and replacing taxes on productivity.

>I hope that this letter has given you a clear understanding of where >I stand on these issues.

Yes, Senator: you stand beside every other politician in Canberra – that is, in favour of escalating taxes and land prices, both of which are directing us towards global depression.  Maybe we can speak again when people start looking for a way out of the depression?

I didn’t post this response. My bet is on world property markets peaking in 2026 (viz, 1954-1972-1990-2008-2026) and breaking into an enormous financial depression because we didn’t want to employ the land tax weapon against skyrocketing land prices. I was wrong about Beazley and Crean; I hope I’m wrong about the depression.

The blurb says: “Can you imagine a better Australia?
House prices are rising faster than wages. Our taxation system is torturous. The Global Financial Crisis and have left us with a debt that we will never be able to repay. There is a feeling that something is not right but the solution eludes us.
If you have ever pondered these things then this book is for you.“

It most certainly is!

Over the weekend, I read Anthony Gill’s “The Luckier Country: Recovery, Reform and Prosperity“. It’s the modern “Progress and Poverty”, incredibly insightfuland constructed with logic, humour and humanity. It’s a wide-ranging questioning of the status quo, without at all getting bogged down in economic terminology.

Such are the times, and such is the quality of the book, “The Luckier Country” merits being the program for Australia’s incoming government!

If you haven’t yet got my gist, I highly recommend it.

An incomplete list

1. No universal income delivered from the 50% of the economy available as economic rent but taken by rent seekers
2. Unemployment
3. Centrelink
4. 60,000 ‘charities’
5. Poverty
6. Homelessness
7. High land prices
8. Unaffordable ‘housing’
9. Increased mortgage debt
10. Lower wages
11. Lower non-rent profits
12. Greater monopoly
13. Obscene wealth for a few
14. Higher taxes
15. Inadequate infrastructure
16. Unions calling for wage increases
17. Businesses calling for a reduction in wages

We elect representatives who will ensure that we continue not to tax land values.

THE RESULT OF AUSTRALIA FAILING TO TAX LAND VALUES

You’ll need to click on Mr Tritch’s chart and save it, if you want to see it properly. It has proven to be accurate in establishing cycles in economic activity that have effectively turned out to be 18-year real estate cycles (which have lesser mid-term deviations).

Big post-WWII real estate peaks show up at “B“: 1953, 1972, 1989, 2007, (2026?), with smaller collapses from the lesser intermediate peaks of 1965, 1981, 1999 & 2019 at “A“.

So, don’t be too fussed about any 2023 downturn next year, folks, because the 2026 peak is the next “biggie”. What will follow the bursting of the extended land price bubble to 2026 promises to be our next financial depression.

This particular outcome will be the direct result of taxing workers and businesses—and accomodating all the corruption, skullduggery and games of mates that this produces—instead of taxing land values, or as Georgists would have it, publicly capturing the publicly-produced annual ground rent.

We are incredibly foresworn to property speculation and misgovernment, and in this respect academic economics has proven not only to be useless, but complicit.