… provides some home truths.

Not related, but I note The Economist concedes Henry George had a point.

Why are you pushing the GST, guys?

Has it stopped the cash economy as is was going to do?

Doesn’t it adversely affect poorer people who have no propensity to save?

Can’t businesses claim it back?

Study it.  It’s a travesty.

With tax reform in the air again, maybe it’s time to re-release an excellent paper by colleague, Dr Gavin Putland.

“We must conclude that land prices are determined not in the property market, but in the financial market — not by any rational relationship between prices, rents, interest and capital gains, but by the capacity of the financial system to create credit against land. ”

Problem: the ‘rational’ price of land is infinite; solution: abolish income tax.

Michael Pascoe in THE AGE

http://www.prosper.org.au/2015/03/30/treasury-unearths-a-beautiful-tax/

You’ll find nothing about why we’re having this depression, i.e. because of land price bubbles that have nothing to do with supply and demand and everything to do with inadequate public capture of community-generated land rents.

…. we don’t.

Meanwhile, in Bangkok  … (Can’t help themselves!  I guess it’s easier to be a leeching parasite than to work?)|

Housing Bubble Australia

Saudi housing costs to halve with new land tax

Saudi Arabian real estate shares dive