Have you noticed how we talk about the cost-of-living crisis?

We lament soaring grocery bills, skyrocketing gas and electricity prices and expensive “housing”. But we’re missing the elephant in the room; the skyrocketing cost of the land itself.

In Australia, land makes up about 80% of a home’s total price, yet policymakers, economists and the media completely ignore this. Instead they push the comforting narrative of a “housing supply shortage”, protecting the vested interests of banks and real estate agents who profit from rising land prices.

This willful blindness isn’t new, but it’s incredibly dangerous.

On this website, I argue that skyrocketing land prices measure a country’s socioeconomic illness. Paradoxically, as owners, we celebrate this growing pathology because we believe it increases our personal wealth.

Right before the Great Depression, a young (brash?) Robert Gordon Menzies warned that inflated post-WWI land prices might trigger an economic collapse — and he was right.

History proves that ignoring land speculation invites socioeconomic disaster. It seems we’re too afraid to face this truth again?

__ooOoo__

Want to see excellent research on the need for public capture of publicly-generated land rent? Take a visit to the Prosper Australia website. Click below.