THE REMEDY FOR LAND PRICE DISEASE
Land prices, like a toxin, poison the body economic at regular intervals. When land prices surge to critical levels, economies fall into a coma. Administering intravenous credit may briefly ease the pain, but with vital organs already weakened by excessive debt, this treatment has failed patients.
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An approach once favored by many economists, involves starving the body to purge surplus credit. Known as “austerity measures,” this method—akin to strangulation—has proven deadly and is now widely discredited.
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Combining the “credit drip” with austerity’s starvation approach has also failed to combat the land price pandemic which continues to ravage world economies.
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The pathology of land price coma is often misdiagnosed, leading to slow economic decay and collapse. Despite a few clear-eyed economists—such as Professors Mason Gaffney, Michael Hudson, and Fred Foldvary—who have accurately identified the disease and proposed effective remedies, the profession still clings largely to ineffective credit infusions or austerity cures.
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These so-called ‘heterodox’ economists trace the land price virus to two primary sources: tax systems that incentivize speculation, and banking practices that generate and fuel profits of billions under the guise of ‘ignorance’.
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Many elected officials remain captured by the ideas of the economic charlatans dominating the profession, peddling toxic tax and banking policies. Some politicians are unaware of the proven interventions championed by heterodox economists, while others actively enable the “Mr Bigs” of the land price trade who proclaim that “Rising land prices are good for us!”
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A dedicated group of Georgists economists has long advocated for the taxing of land values whilst abolishing other taxes. Arguing this is the only effective cure for deadly land price outbreaks, they offer a robust prescription for economic health.
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The economics profession and political leaders need to embrace this proven remedy. Without it, the prognosis for the global economy is terminal.
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