# News & Current Events > Economy & Markets >  Robin Hood Tax ?

## Origanalist



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## EcoWarrier

A Robin Hood tax means a one-off tax that taxes the rich to aid the poorer.  It is best to have an economic system that does not make poor people in the first place and fairly distributes wealth - Geonomics.

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## CaptUSA

Um, I can't view the tube here, but this is ironic.

Contrary to popular belief, in the legend of Robin Hood, he did not steal from the rich to give to the poor.  He stole from the tax collectors to give back to the people.

Huge difference.  So a "Robin Hood Tax" doesn't even make sense.

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## Travlyr

LOL... "It is not a tax on the people"...

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## Seraphim

Exactly, Robin Hood was stealing back what was already stolen. Ergo, neither theft nor tax, but justice.




> Um, I can't view the tube here, but this is ironic.
> 
> Contrary to popular belief, in the legend of Robin Hood, he did not steal from the rich to give to the poor.  He stole from the tax collectors to give back to the people.
> 
> Huge difference.  So a "Robin Hood Tax" doesn't even make sense.

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## Origanalist

> Um, I can't view the tube here, but this is ironic.
> 
> Contrary to popular belief, in the legend of Robin Hood, he did not steal from the rich to give to the poor.  He stole from the tax collectors to give back to the people.
> 
> Huge difference.  So a "Robin Hood Tax" doesn't even make sense.


No, it doesn't, or the video. It's just another wealth redistribution scheme with a new name.

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## TheTexan

They lost me at "poor people need homes"

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## TheTexan

If you want a robin hood tax... tax the Federal Reserve every time it prints money.  And that tax would be paid in gold, to the american people

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## Origanalist

> If you want a robin hood tax... tax the Federal Reserve every time it prints money.  And that tax would be paid in gold, to the american people


I fully support this tax.

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## EcoWarrier

> Exactly, Robin Hood was stealing back what was already stolen. Ergo, neither theft nor tax, but justice.


England went to taxing the values of land (LVT) and not the people to great successs.

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## Zippyjuan

> If you want a robin hood tax... tax the Federal Reserve every time it prints money.  And that tax would be paid in gold, to the american people


The Federal Reserve doesn't own any gold.  They do store some for the government but they don't own it- officially it belongs to the Treasury.

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## TheTexan

> The Federal Reserve doesn't own any gold.  They do store some for the government but they don't own it- officially it belongs to the Treasury.


Well, they're already stealing from us, the people.... I don't imagine they'd have any qualms about stealing from the government, either

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## MoneyWhereMyMouthIs2

> England went to taxing the values of land (LVT) and not the people to great successs.


My parents were recently taxed out of a house they "owned."    I guess it depends on how you define success.

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## EcoWarrier

> My parents were recently taxed out of a house they "owned."    I guess it depends on how you define success.


But that was not Land Value Taxation that drove your parents out of their house. It would not occur using LVT - no Income and Sales taxes or property taxes (tax on the building, which is as silly as taxing your washing machine)

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## Zippyjuan

From the way LVT has been described, it certainly CAN price people out of their homes. If the value of land goes up, then the taxes demanded go up.  It could rise enough to force some people to sell- just as property taxes can do today. I have not heard of any provisions that the value of the land is locked in at what you paid for it (which the state of California does with its property taxes- the assessed value of the property only gets raised when it gets resold- this helps prevent people from getting taxed out of their homes). 

Sorry to hear that, MoneyWhereMyMouthIs2.  To work hard to purchase your own place at a price you could afford and to lose it because later tax raises made it eventually unaffordable.

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## EcoWarrier

> From the way LVT has been described, it certainly CAN price people out of their homes. If the value of land goes up, then the taxes demanded go up.


That occurs right now. They can sell at a top price and downsize or move to lower tax area. If old then they can be exempt. If the House is worth a fortune then the tax can be deferred until sale of house or death.  Should the state allow an old lady live in a house that is worth a fortune who will leave it to her kids?  mmmmmmmmmmm

What you are on about Winston described as the "*Old Widow bogey*" which has been debunked regularly over the past 130 years. The landed bring this one out every now and then as it is the only angle they think they have - well they think they can con the hard of thinking using it.

If she wants to stay there, fine, she can roll up the tax to be repaid on death (which is another reason why it is vitally important that Inheritance Tax is scrapped as well). If we replaced as many taxes as possible with LVT, then people would have more disposable income during their working lives, so mathematically, they could easily build up a fund to pay the LVT in retirement in the same way as people build up a fund to pay for food or electricity or anything else in retirement.

Winston Churchill described that argument as having been repeated to "exhaustion" over 100 years ago!


_But when we seek to rectify this system, to break down this unnatural and vicious circle, to interrupt this sequence of unsatisfactory reactions, what happens? We are not confronted with any great argument on behalf of the owner. Something else is put forward, and it is always put forward in these cases to shield the actual landowner or the actual capitalist from the logic of the argument or from the force of a Parliamentary movement.

Sometimes it is the widow. But that personality has been used to exhaustion. It would be sweating in the cruellest sense of the word, overtime of the grossest description, to bring the widow out again so soon. She must have a rest for a bit; so instead of the widow we have the market-gardener..._

The LVT tax doesn't "need" exemptions - it's the Poor Old Lady who wants to stay in a big house who's demanding the exemption, so we offer her a kind of state-sponsored equity release scheme.

Anyway the house is just unspent or unspendable income. The opportunity cost of the capital locked up in the land of this house is the reason that she is a poor widow. This is where good equity release schemes could work well in tandem with LVT. It would encourage the widow to access the income locked up in her land and wean herself of winter fuel payments and the like. It might also make her think about how best to transfer her wealth to her children and it would wean them off treating the house as a golden goose. Good. Why should the rest of us pay for their inheritance?

There is also the universal individual excemption fro LVT. It has all been thought through.

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## Origanalist

> It has all been thought through.


It's utopia just waiting to be implemented. C'mon people, get on the LVT train!

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## EcoWarrier

> It's utopia just waiting to be implemented. C'mon people, get on the LVT train!


That is about the only sensible thing you have ever wrote.

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## Origanalist

> That is about the only sensible thing you have ever wrote.


And it was a joke. (go figure )

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## Zippyjuan

> That occurs right now.


So in this respect, LVT would not be an improvement over the current property tax system. 




> Should the state allow an old lady live in a house that is worth a fortune who will leave it to her kids? mmmmmmmmmmm


So I guess the state should steal it instead- for the good of the community of course (even though she is also a member of that community).  If I have something of value, I should not be able to give it to my children if I so desire? 





> If we replaced as many taxes as possible with LVT, then people would have more disposable income during their working lives, so mathematically, they could easily build up a fund to pay the LVT in retirement in the same way as people build up a fund to pay for food or electricity or anything else in retirement.


Wrong.  If you replace one tax with another, mathematically you have exactly *zero* more dollars to save or spend. You are still paying the same amount of your income in taxes. And actually, most people would end up paying more since 46% of income tax filers last year owed no net income taxes and would now be responsible for LVT being added to property they either own or rent (land owners who rent the land out and are paying LVT will include the LVT in the rents they charge just as they currently do with other taxes like the property tax).  That leaves them with LESS money to save for future tax assessments.

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## Zippyjuan

As for replacing taxes- what might those taxes be?  Let us assume that we take the current US budget and balance it at current spending levels- which according to Wiki involves $3.796 trillion in spending. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Un...federal_budget by only having a Land Value Tax. 

Now let us look at land available to tax. If we include every square inch of land- reguardless of use including mountains, deserts, parks (state, local, national) lakes, farms, cities, etc. we have a base of 2.3 billion acres.  http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications...tin/eib14.aspx 




> The United States has a total land area of nearly 2.3 billion acres. Major uses in 2002 were forest-use land, 651 million acres (28.8 percent); grassland pasture and range land, 587 million acres (25.9 percent); cropland, 442 million acres (19.5 percent); special uses (primarily parks and wildlife areas), 297 million acres (13.1 percent); miscellaneous other uses, 228 million acres (10.1 percent); and urban land, 60 million acres (2.6 percent).


So if you wanted to pay all our bills by taxing every acre, each would owe $1650 an acre per year. (Who pays the taxes on unowned or government owned lands?) 

How about if we went to the extreme and only taxed urban lands? Urban areas only cover 60 million acres. That would require an annual tax of $63,267 per acre per year.  As I said, this would be an extreme figure.  It is about 50% higher than the median income- before any taxes. 

Next, lets add in agriculture areas (442 million acres) and grasslands and rangeland (587 million acres).  Now our taxable base is up to 1.089 billion acres.  Now it is $3,485 a year per acre.  This assumes that a farm has the same land value as city land though. In general, city land is more costly than farmland or grassland. Those in cities would be paying more than that and the majority of people live in urban areas (about 80% of the US population http://www.theatlanticcities.com/nei...ly-mean/1589/# ).  And once again as a reminder, currently about half the people currently pay zero in income taxes. 

What is farmland worth?  According to 2010 figures, the average farmland in the US was worth (in real estate terms) $2,140 an acre. http://www.bigpictureagriculture.com...-per-acre.html 


> Agricultural land values vary across States and regions depending on the inherent quality of the land for agricultural production, and on competing demands for other uses, such as development. As of January 2010, the Northeast farm production region had the highest average value of farm real estate, at $4,690 per acre, due in large part to the expected value of agricultural land for future nonagricultural uses. Rhode Island had the highest average value of any State, at $13,600 per acre. At the other extreme, farmland values in New Mexico, which contains large amounts of low-value rangeland, averaged $480 per acre. *The average for the coterminous 48 States was $2,140*.




 If we used the LVT tax rate I calcuated above at a tax of $3,485 an acre, that amounts to *a tax rate of 162%* of the value of that land- and is due every year. Range land is usually worth less so its effective tax rate would be much higher (according to this source, http://usda01.library.cornell.edu/us...08-04-2010.txt it is worth $1,070 an acre also for 2010 so less than half of farmland and the effective tax there would be *326% or more than triple the value of the land itself*). That tax would drive people away from farming and lower our food production greatly and also greatly increase the costs of all of our food we buy. 

But if we exempt farmland and rangeland, then the average LVT is greater than the average before tax income of people. That will drive people out of the cities which would bid up the price of farmland and again decrease acerage devoted to food production and raise the costs of food again.  Either way, an LVT will end up costing most people more money.

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## Roy L

> My parents were recently taxed out of a house they "owned."


Oh?  How?  Did they not know they had to pay property taxes when they bought it?  Could they have bought it for its purchase price if they _didn't_ have to pay property taxes on it?



> I guess it depends on how you define success.


It does indeed.  For most people, it seems to be defined as success at getting something for nothing.

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## Roy L

> So in this respect, LVT would not be an improvement over the current property tax system.


If you are going to have taxes, you have to have some way to collect them.  If you are going to require people to pay for what they are taking, you have to not let them take it if they don't pay.  Same as a bakery: if someone is walking out with a loaf of bread, they have to either pay or put the bread back.  This isn't rocket science.  You are just used to walking out of the bakery with the bread, but _without_ paying.  So now when we say, "You have to pay for what you are taking," you come off all shirty, and say you have a right to take the bread because you paid a previous bread thief for his racket.  The problem is, he wasn't the baker.  He was just another greedy taker, like you.



> So I guess the state should steal it instead- for the good of the community of course (even though she is also a member of that community).


It is the landowner who is stealing, as I have already proved to you:

_THE BANDIT

Suppose there is a bandit who lurks in the mountain pass between two countries. He robs the merchant caravans as they pass through, but is careful to take only as much as the merchants can afford to lose, so that they will keep using the pass and he will keep getting the loot.

A thief, right?

Now, suppose he has a license to charge tolls of those who use the pass, a license issued by the government of one of the countries -- or even both of them. The tolls are by coincidence equal to what he formerly took by force. How has the nature of his enterprise changed, simply through being made legal? He is still just a thief. He is still just demanding payment and not contributing anything in return. How can the mere existence of that piece of paper entitling him to rob the caravans alter the fact that what he is doing is in fact robbing them?

But now suppose instead of a license to steal, he has a land title to the pass. He now charges the caravans the exact same amount in "rent" for using the pass, and has become quite a respectable gentleman. But how has the nature of his business really changed? It's all legal now, but he is still just taking money from those who use what nature provided for free, and contributing nothing whatever in return, just as he did when he was a lowly bandit. How is he any different now that he is a landowner?

Is any other landowner charging rent for what nature provided for free any different?

Do the merchants, by using the pass when they know the bandit is there, agree to be robbed?

If there were two, or three, or 300, or 3 million passes, each with its own resident bandit, would the merchants' being at liberty to choose which bandit robs them make the bandits' enterprise a competitive industry in a free market?
_



> If I have something of value, I should not be able to give it to my children if I so desire?


Not if it's a privilege of robbing others, or pocketing their taxes.



> Wrong.  If you replace one tax with another, mathematically you have exactly *zero* more dollars to save or spend.


Wrong.  You have the taxes you previously paid, because now when you pay a landowner for land, the landowner has to pay your taxes for you.



> You are still paying the same amount of your income in taxes.


Right.  But you are no longer also paying to keep a rich, greedy, parasitic landowner in idle luxury.



> And actually, most people would end up paying more since 46% of income tax filers last year owed no net income taxes and would now be responsible for LVT being added to property they either own or rent (land owners who rent the land out and are paying LVT will include the LVT in the rents they charge just as they currently do with other taxes like the property tax).


We've been through this.  LVT can't be passed on to tenants, employees, consumers, or anyone else.  It is borne exclusively by the landowner.  This is a fact of economics that has been known for 200 years, and is not disputed by any competent economist.



> That leaves them with LESS money to save for future tax assessments.


No.  For all but the top few percent of landowners, LVT would save them money.  In most cases, it would save them a LOT of money.  It would release the productive from the treadmill that powers the landowners' escalator, stopping them both, and turning them into staircases that each person would be able to climb according to their own efforts.

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## Roy L

> As for replacing taxes- what might those taxes be?  Let us assume that we take the current US budget and balance it at current spending levels- which according to Wiki involves $3.796 trillion in spending. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Un...federal_budget by only having a Land Value Tax.


That might not be possible.  LVT can't raise more revenue than the full market rent of the land, and there is some disagreement about the effect it will have on land rents.  Some economists say rents would rise as land use became more advantageous, others claim the flood of idle land onto the market would reduce land rents dramatically.  Historical experience with partial implementations of LVT indicates that land rents might decline a bit at first, but would then grow rapidly along with the economy.



> Now let us look at land available to tax. If we include every square inch of land- reguardless of use including mountains, deserts, parks (state, local, national) lakes, farms, cities, etc. we have a base of 2.3 billion acres.  http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications...tin/eib14.aspx 
> 
> So if you wanted to pay all our bills by taxing every acre, each would owe $1650 an acre per year. (Who pays the taxes on unowned or government owned lands?) 
> 
> How about if we went to the extreme and only taxed urban lands? Urban areas only cover 60 million acres. That would require an annual tax of $63,267 per acre per year.  As I said, this would be an extreme figure.  It is about 50% higher than the median income- before any taxes. 
> 
> Next, lets add in agriculture areas (442 million acres) and grasslands and rangeland (587 million acres).  Now our taxable base is up to 1.089 billion acres.  Now it is $3,485 a year per acre.  This assumes that a farm has the same land value as city land though. In general, city land is more costly than farmland or grassland. Those in cities would be paying more than that and the majority of people live in urban areas (about 80% of the US population http://www.theatlanticcities.com/nei...ly-mean/1589/# ).  And once again as a reminder, currently about half the people currently pay zero in income taxes. 
> 
> What is farmland worth?  According to 2010 figures, the average farmland in the US was worth (in real estate terms) $2,140 an acre. http://www.bigpictureagriculture.com...-per-acre.html 
> ...


This is all la-la-land.  LVT is no more than the market rent.  Someone is willing to pay it by definition.  All your calculations of acreage are meaningless because LVT recovers the market rent of each parcel of land, not an average rent for a whole category of land.



> But if we exempt farmland and rangeland, then the average LVT is greater than the average before tax income of people.


Completely ridiculous.  Most city dwellers use far less than an acre of land exclusively.  Your numbers are just absurd fabrications.



> That will drive people out of the cities which would bid up the price of farmland and again decrease acerage devoted to food production and raise the costs of food again.  Either way, an LVT will end up costing most people more money.


No.  LVT can drive good land into use, and poor land out of use, but not good land out of use.

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## EcoWarrier

> Some economists say rents would rise as land use became more advantageous, others claim the flood of idle land onto the market would reduce land rents dramatically. Historical experience with partial implementations of LVT indicates that land rents might decline a bit at first, but would then grow rapidly along with the economy.


 Denmark was the only western country ever to use LVT comprehensively at national level from the late 1950s to the early 1960s. They thought land values would fall. They rose as LVT promoted enterprise and created demand for land. This of course would level out and keep land value stable with no boom & busts which we have now. I posted a comprehensive post on Denmark based on Danish academic research. Search on it.

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## Zippyjuan

> This is all la-la-land. LVT is no more than the market rent. Someone is willing to pay it by definition. All your calculations of acreage are meaningless because LVT recovers the market rent of each parcel of land, not an average rent for a whole category of land.


It is a valid look at what the average rent would be on the average property.  Yes, each property would be different but that does not make an average irrelevant. It is useful to see how it would impact a typical person (and an average farm is considerably bigger than one acre which means the average farmer would be paying significantly more than that).

To keep things simple (urban land and density on average is difficult to calculate since it varies so much), lets stick with farm lands for now. 

How big is the average farm and how much money do they make per acre?  (How much of a tax could they absorb)? 

According to this site http://www.agclassroom.org/gan/timel...rmers_land.htm  the average farm was 435 acres in 1998. If the LVT was $3485 an acre per year as calculated above, that would cost the average farmer $151,597 a year.  A year. Every year.  That would put a lot of farmers out of business.  What could they possibly absorb in an LVT?

According the the US Department of Agriculture, the average farmer earns about $81,000 a year. 
http://www.ehow.com/facts_6929764_av...e-farmer_.html



> A farmer brought an annual income of $81,480 in 2004 according to a study run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. These earnings stem from a combination of sources with 24 to 30 percent not coming from farm production.


 




> In 2007, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated that *the average farmer's net income after all expenses have been subtracted from revenues is $35,000.* Many farmers supplement their earnings with off-farm income. Typically, an additional $50,000 comes from renting land, leasing equipment or facilities, pension plans, social security or a part-time job.
> 
> Read more: What Is the Average Annual Income of a Farmer? | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/facts_6929764_av...#ixzz25zm05bQ4


That does not leave much margin for being able to absorb any additional taxes and being able to stay in business. 

If he is making $35,000 a year after expenses and he owns 435 acres, that comes out to only $81 an acre (some costs will be fixed- things he has to pay reguardless of how many acres he has so the income from adding one or subtracting an additional acre will be lower than that)  so even a tax of $100 an acre will excede his revenues and if costs exceed revenues, you are going to shut down. 

Or even if we include his supplemental income sources and take the $81,000 figure, that comes out to $187 an acre so $200 an acre tax closes him down.  Unless he can pass those costs along in the prices of what he sells which would mean higher food prices for everybody.  If he closes, the supply of food goes down and the price goes up there as well.

How much revenue could you generate?  Let's use the $200 an acre tax and apply that to all urban areas, farmlands, and grazing lands.  As the figures above show, that would give you 1.089 billion acres to tax and would generate $217.8 billion dollars. That would just about cover one third of either Social Security or one third of defense spending.  Nothing else.

If you added that tax on top of all of the other taxes we currently pay, the deficit for the year would still be about $800 billion. And most of your farmers would be gone.

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## idiom

> Oh?  How?  Did they not know they had to pay property taxes when they bought it?  Could they have bought it for its purchase price if they _didn't_ have to pay property taxes on it?


Same way it happened to the indigenous Taiwanese. Invaders showed up, implemented LVT and then seized land when the tax couldn't be met.

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## Roy L

> Same way it happened to the indigenous Taiwanese. Invaders showed up, implemented LVT and then seized land when the tax couldn't be met.


That didn't happen to the indigenous Taiwanese, and it didn't happen to his parents, either.

I've noticed that you are remarkably consistent in always makin' $#!+ up.

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## awake

Do we have to put up with a 1000 post thread by Eco-RoyL pushing how land  value *taxation* is liberty from the government? It has been torn apart by some of the brighter forum members here to reveal the emperors glaring backside.

Give it up. Taxation by any name is theft and slavery.

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## Roy L

> It is a valid look at what the average rent would be on the average property.


No, it's not.



> Yes, each property would be different but that does not make an average irrelevant.


It makes an average that you aren't even talking about irrelevant.  You're shrieking about farmers not being able to afford an "average" LVT based on urban land values, then shriek about urban dwellers not being able to afford "average" LVT based on rural levels of area usage.  It's fallacious, absurd and dishonest from start to finish.



> It is useful to see how it would impact a typical person (and an average farm is considerably bigger than one acre which means the average farmer would be paying significantly more than that).


It's absurd because it completely ignores the fact that LVT is always affordable by definition: it can't exceed the land rent someone is WILLING TO PAY to use the land.



> To keep things simple (urban land and density on average is difficult to calculate since it varies so much), lets stick with farm lands for now.


<sigh>  Here we go again...



> How big is the average farm and how much money do they make per acre?  (How much of a tax could they absorb)?


Wrong question.  The ONLY number that matters is the market rent of the land.  The LVT can't exceed that amount.



> According to this site http://www.agclassroom.org/gan/timel...rmers_land.htm  the average farm was 435 acres in 1998. If the LVT was $3485 an acre per year as calculated above,


Which calculation I already proved was absurd...



> that would cost the average farmer $151,597 a year.  A year. Every year.  That would put a lot of farmers out of business.  What could they possibly absorb in an LVT?


The market rent of the land, WHICH PLENTY OF FARMERS ARE ALREADY PAYING, WITH _NONE_ OF THE DIRE CONSEQUENCES YOU PREDICT.



> According the the US Department of Agriculture, the average farmer earns about $81,000 a year. 
> http://www.ehow.com/facts_6929764_av...e-farmer_.html


Another irrelevant number.  The ONLY number that counts is the land rent.



> That does not leave much margin for being able to absorb any additional taxes and being able to stay in business.


LVT is not an additional tax.  It replaces unfair taxes that harm the economy.



> If he is making $35,000 a year after expenses and he owns 435 acres, that comes out to only $81 an acre (some costs will be fixed- things he has to pay reguardless of how many acres he has so the income from adding one or subtracting an additional acre will be lower than that)  so even a tax of $100 an acre will excede his revenues and if costs exceed revenues, you are going to shut down.


Worthless garbage.  You are conflating farmers (who earn those low incomes) and landowners (who would pay the LVT).



> Or even if we include his supplemental income sources and take the $81,000 figure, that comes out to $187 an acre so $200 an acre tax closes him down.  Unless he can pass those costs along in the prices of what he sells which would mean higher food prices for everybody.  If he closes, the supply of food goes down and the price goes up there as well.


Someone is willing to pay the LVT to use the land by definition.



> How much revenue could you generate?  Let's use the $200 an acre tax and apply that to all urban areas,


See how dishonest you always have to be?  It's never any different.  Fabricating fallacious and absurd objections to LVT (and there have never been any other kind, and never will be) ALWAYS requires dishonesty.  ALWAYS. 



> farmlands, and grazing lands.  As the figures above show,


The figures above are absurd fabrications by you, and show nothing of the sort.



> that would give you 1.089 billion acres to tax and would generate $217.8 billion dollars. That would just about cover one third of either Social Security or one third of defense spending.  Nothing else.


Because you took a number for rural land that had nothing to do with LVT, and applied it dishonestly to urban land.

It's not rocket science, Zip.  The economy is largely urban, so urban land accounts for most land rent.  How much?  Well, most real estate value is land value, so think of what a typical city or suburban dweller pays in rent, take half of that, and multiply by the number of city and suburban dwellers in the country.  That will be roughly half the total land rent.  Ballpark: $1000/month rent for a typical two-person household.  So $250/month ($3K/yr) residential land rent per person.  Multiply that by 250M urban dwellers and you get $750G.  Double that to account for non-urban and non-residential urban land rent, and you get to total potential LVT revenue of $1.5T.  That's just for locations.  Add mining royalties, oil royalties, spectrum rents, etc. and you get to around $2T.  And some economists think it will rise a lot as other taxes are removed.



> If you added that tax on top of all of the other taxes we currently pay, the deficit for the year would still be about $800 billion. And most of your farmers would be gone.


Nope.  Pure fabrication.  Everything you have said on this subject has been fallacious, absurd and dishonest.

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## awake

Eco-RoyL stop trying to sell a better moustrap to the mice.

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## Roy L

> Do we have to put up with a 1000 post thread by Eco-RoyL pushing how land  value *taxation* is liberty from the government?


It's not liberty from the government (liberty can't exist in a modern society without government), but from stupid, unfair, corrupt, economically destructive government.



> It has been torn apart by some of the brighter forum members here to reveal the emperors glaring backside.


That is a fabrication.  All objections to LVT raised on this forum -- and everywhere else -- have been demolished, utterly.



> Give it up. Taxation by any name is theft and slavery.


It is the depredations of landowners that are theft and slavery in the name of the Great God Property, as already proved.

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## Roy L

> Eco-RoyL stop trying to sell a better moustrap to the mice.


We're showing you the treadmill you're on, how it powers the landowners' escalator, and how to stop them both.

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## awake

> It's not liberty from the government (liberty can't exist in a modern society without government), but from stupid, unfair, corrupt, economically destructive government.
> 
> That is a fabrication.  All objections to LVT raised on this forum -- and everywhere else -- have been demolished, utterly.
> 
> It is the depredations of landowners that are theft and slavery in the name of the Great God Property, as already proved.


Government just needs the right people eh? Government is, and can never be but stupid, unfair, corrupt, and economically destructive.

I reject your attacks on the foundation of civilization in property rights. Nationalization of all land through taking of the total price of land purchase is simply land communism. And once again you are not making any converts here. You don't understand liberty at all...It shows in your 'we need government ' line.

----------


## Origanalist

> Government just needs the right people eh? 
> 
> I reject your attacks on the foundation of civilization in property rights. Nationalization of all land through taking of the total price of land purchase is simply land communism. And once again you are not making any converts here. You don't understand liberty at all...It shows in your 'we need government ' line.


It's like trying to talk to a recording, does not register.

----------


## awake

> We're showing you the treadmill you're on, how it powers the landowners' escalator, and how to stop them both.


BS...You are simply antagonizing with your messianic LVT nonsense.

----------


## awake

Actually I believe there is a thread currently floating looking for some remedies for a bout of gout. I think LVT might just be the miracle cure for that form member seeking assistance. On second thought, no need to have gout and a migraine too.

----------


## Steven Douglas

"What? Another thread hijacked and flown into the LVT rabbit hole?" I said to nobody in particular, while feigning surprise. 

Back to the OP's topic.  ::: slapping thread terrorists senseless and tossing them out of the cockpit :::




> Originally Posted by CaptUSA
> 
> 
> Contrary to popular belief, in the legend of Robin Hood, he did not steal from the rich to give to the poor.  He stole from the tax collectors to give back to the people.
> 
> Huge difference.  So a "Robin Hood Tax" doesn't even make sense.
> 
> 
> Exactly, Robin Hood was stealing back what was already stolen. Ergo, neither theft nor tax, but justice.


Yep, Robin was loyal to King Richard the Lionhearted (analogous to the "Constitution"), and hating of Prince John (analogous to what we have now) and his arrogant, greedy police state sheering of the sheep through the Sheriff of Nottingham under color of law. 

Even Disney knew and used the famous quote from Friar Tuck, one of history's original libertarians:

----------


## Steven Douglas

I'm not at all a fan of Monetarist Milton Friedman, but he did make some extremely good points about the Robin Hood myth in politics.

----------


## idiom

> That didn't happen to the indigenous Taiwanese, and it didn't happen to his parents, either.
> 
> I've noticed that you are remarkably consistent in always makin' $#!+ up.


Ah, right, all those histories about the ejection of the aboriginal Taiwanese are just fascist fictions designed to make LVT look flawed when implemented.

----------


## Roy L

> Government just needs the right people eh?


No, you are again just lying about what I have plainly written, as always.

It needs to implement policies that actually fulfill its legitimate function of securing and reconciling the equal rights of all to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of their labor.



> Government is, and can never be but stupid, unfair, corrupt, and economically destructive.


That's clearly just another stupid, infantile "meeza hatesa gubmint" whine from you, as the contrasts between Slovenia and Somalia, Switzerland and Swaziland, and Canada and Cameroon prove.



> I reject your attacks on the foundation of civilization in property rights.


BWAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!!  

Read and learn, dumpling:

When the emancipation of the African was spoken of, and when the nation of Britain appeared to be taking into serious consideration the rightfulness of abolishing slavery, what tremendous evils were to follow! Trade was to be ruined, commerce was almost to cease, and manufacturers were to be bankrupt. *Worse than all, private property was to be invaded* (property in human flesh), the rights of planters sacrificed to the speculative notions of fanatics, and the British government was to commit an act that would forever deprive it of the confidence of British subjects.
Patrick Edward Dove, The Theory of Human Progression, 1850

What nice ideological company you keep: apologists for slavery.

The foundation of civilization is property in products of labor, not in land, as history proves so very conclusively.  Hong Kong has NO private landowning, and it is not only highly civilized and prosperous, but routinely tops lists of the world's freest societies.  The earliest foundation of Western civilization in Egypt's Old Kingdom ran on a land tax that came close to LVT, and collapsed after it abandoned that tax system.  The great foundation of Western democracy and culture, ancient Athens, raised a large part of its public revenue by renting out common lands, as did Rome.



> Nationalization of all land through taking of the total price of land purchase is simply land communism.


BWAHAHAHAHHHAHAAAAAAA!!

I guess that must be why KARL MARX HIMSELF called it, "capitalism's last ditch."

I guess that must be why dozens of eminent Western economists, including four (count 'em, FOUR) Nobel laureates publicly urged the XSSR to retain land in public ownership as it transitioned from communist rule to a market economy.

You are really good at finding new ways to make a fool of yourself.



> And once again you are not making any converts here.


You don't know that.  Others may be more willing to think than you are.



> You don't understand liberty at all...It shows in your 'we need government ' line.


"To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men..."

Jefferson and the other Founders understood liberty, dumpling.  You do not.  When they wrote the Articles of Confederation, they made a LAND TAX the SOLE SOURCE of federal government revenue.  If they had had the will to resist the landowner sabotage and greed that almost wrecked the union and resulted in the Constitution, the world would today be a far freer, fairer and wealthier place.

----------


## Roy L

> Ah, right, all those histories about the ejection of the aboriginal Taiwanese are just fascist fictions designed to make LVT look flawed when implemented.


Quote and link...?  Of course not.  We've already seen your idea of supporting your claims: quotes of material that flatly contradict them.

----------


## Steven Douglas

Roy, would you and Eco mind very much confining the stench of LVT to the threads already hijacked?

----------


## angelatc

> Roy, would you and Eco mind very much confining the stench of LVT to the threads already hijacked?


I suggested in another thread that we start reporting them for their relentless thread hijacking.  It has no place in the movement - as it is certainly not a liberty position, but if they take it over to philosophy they can keep the anarchists amused.

----------


## idiom

> Quote and link...?  Of course not.  We've already seen your idea of supporting your claims: quotes of material that flatly contradict them.


Typically the conversation has gone thusly:

Idiom: I Assert A occurred.
Citation 1: A Occurred.
Citation 2: A Occurred
Roy:_ Your_ *Statements* are contradictory and *full of lies!!!!!!one*

Sometimes you even support it with:

Roy: Yes A Occurred but...
Citation 1 cont.: A Occurred, B also occurred.
Roy: _See you lied!!!11_

----------


## Zippyjuan

> It's not liberty from the government (liberty can't exist in a modern society without government), but from stupid, unfair, corrupt, economically destructive government.
> 
> That is a fabrication.  All objections to LVT raised on this forum -- and everywhere else -- have been demolished, utterly.
> 
> It is the depredations of landowners that are theft and slavery in the name of the Great God Property, as already proved.


Changing what you tax does nothing to change what government does with the money or how they behave.

----------


## awake

How to demolish a LVT fanatic...see here

----------


## Zippyjuan

I think it is time to try to starve the beast- I quit feeding it for a while but was bored this weekend.  Cheap entertainment.

----------


## silverhandorder

No no no keep feeding it I like your replies to him. Now if you grow bored with feeding him then that is another matter.

It seems the discussion about LVT is pointless since even if we had LVT we would argue whether we need government or not. Roy L and Eco would be demanding government and would be with democrats in that respect.

----------


## idiom

I don't know if anyone is familiar with shows like Babylon 5 or other shows about very large Space Stations...

These shows tend to portray 'realistic' economies, economies similar to earth ones.

LVT considers that these shows are highly unrealistic. Due to the lack of land, economies on very large space stations should be naturally much more Utopian due to nobody having any land to possess.

When you ponder this it clarifies how unintuitive the LVT theory is, despite its claims to be intuitive. A simple counter-factual makes it look stunningly mistaken.

Or more simply, look at Seasteading:




Again with nobody holding claim to natural resources, Seasteads would have no tax and automatically have stable utopian economies Ceteris Paribas.

----------


## Roy L

> Changing what you tax does nothing to change what government does with the money or how they behave.


Yes, it does.  If government has to spend money on things people want in order to get revenue, that's what it will do.  Recovering the value government creates to pay for the things that create it aligns government's financial incentives with the public interest.

----------


## Origanalist

> Yes, it does.  If government has to spend money on things people want in order to get revenue, that's what it will do.  Recovering the value government creates to pay for the things that create it aligns government's financial incentives with the public interest.


Nice inverted backwards somersault.

 Impressive.  (not)

----------


## silverhandorder

> Yes, it does.  If government has to spend money on things people want in order to get revenue, that's what it will do.  Recovering the value government creates to pay for the things that create it aligns government's financial incentives with the public interest.


But there is nothing stopping government in LVT from spending on things people don't want.

----------


## idiom

When did the Government Start Creating Value?

Its the GVT now?

You should be taxed because the government gave you the money in the first place? If we got rid of the government then we could get rid of the tax.

The Government wouldn't be creating any value any more, so it wouldn't need tax.

----------


## Roy L

> But there is nothing stopping government in LVT from spending on things people don't want.


True.  Just as there is nothing stopping Ford from sending its new cars to the shredder.

----------


## Roy L

> When did the Government Start Creating Value?


When it made the land within its jurisdiction more economically advantageous by its spending on desired services and infrastructure.



> Its the GVT now?


Google "Henry George Theorem" and try to at least minimally inform yourself on the issue.



> You should be taxed because the government gave you the money in the first place?


Is there something wrong with that idea that I'm not getting?  Isn't that better than taking the money people have earned by their own productive contributions?



> If we got rid of the government then we could get rid of the tax.


Yes, indeed.  And live like Somalis and everyone else in the history of the world who has not had a government to secure their rights.  Some feudal propertarian $#!+-for-brains are so stupid and dishonest, they actually cite Somalia as an example of the advantages of not having a government.



> The Government wouldn't be creating any value any more, so it wouldn't need tax.


Correct.  And the land would be worth as much as it is in Somalia.  But landowners don't want that.  They want government to tax other people so that they can pocket those taxes.  So they disingenuously say, "I should not have to pay any taxes because we shouldn't have a government," because they know that not having a government is not an option.  They thus continue to pocket other people's taxes.

----------


## Roy L

> Nice inverted backwards somersault.
> 
>  Impressive.  (not)


How much less impressive, then, is your non-response?

You just have to refuse to know the facts, because you have already realized that they prove your beliefs are false and evil.

----------


## Roy L

> I don't know if anyone is familiar with shows like Babylon 5 or other shows about very large Space Stations...
> 
> These shows tend to portray 'realistic' economies, economies similar to earth ones.


??  Joke, right?

Oh, no, wait a minute, you must be the author of that new book I've been hearing about, "Everything I Know About Economics I Learned by Watching Babylon 5."



> LVT considers that these shows are highly unrealistic.


Duh.



> Due to the lack of land, economies on very large space stations should be naturally much more Utopian due to nobody having any land to possess.


Oh, I don't know.  They could always just have slavery instead of landowning.  Not much difference -- and greedy, evil filth have to have SOME way to rob and enslave the productive.



> When you ponder this it clarifies how unintuitive the LVT theory is, despite its claims to be intuitive.


Run that one by me again, but without the drugs.



> A simple counter-factual makes it look stunningly mistaken.


...to the soap-bubble creatures from Planet Zondo.



> Or more simply, look at Seasteading:


The surface of the ocean is also a natural resource (i.e., land, in economic parlance), though one with no current exchange value as it is so abundant and disadvantageous to use.



> Again with nobody holding claim to natural resources, Seasteads would have no tax and automatically have stable utopian economies Ceteris Paribas.


The ocean's surface is a natural resource; but it is so economically disadvantageous even compared to desert, tundra or mountaintop land that it has no exchange value, and thus would not be taxed.  The cost of making it habitable would tend to make such economies stable at a very low level without massive subsidization.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Originally Posted by silverhandorder
> 
> But there is nothing stopping government in LVT from spending on things people don't want.
> 
> 
> True.  Just as there is nothing stopping Ford from sending its new cars to the shredder.


The assumption there, of course, being that revenues collected are all on the basis of value given, and that government will want to give even more of that value in return so that it can get even more revenue in the future.  In reality, government can successfully siphon value, as a parasite that does nothing but drain life blood  from its host without giving much at all in return, beyond a heavier requirement for consumption.  

To a parasite, "increased productivity" of a host is a natural result of an artificial requirement for increased energy consumption and output requirements of its hosts, who are put into an enhanced state of stress.  But the "giving back" paradigm is convenient, because any successful adjustments that private individuals and firms make as a result of LVT will all be conveniently attributed to LVT, and existing infrastructure, in whatever condition it is in, as if government actually "gave" something in return. 

Tapeworms consume nutrients that are taken in by their host.  But even though they often kill their hosts, they manage to survive and propagate as a species.  Do they give something in return? In a manner of speaking, yes, if we spin it thusly: The host must now work harder and increase its consumption beyond what the tapeworm can consume.  It is a death spiral, of course, because as the host grows, so does its tapeworm. It is in this way that the tapeworm only inflicts a net drain on the life and energy of "less productive" bodies, who cannot consume enough for both tapeworm and themselves. The survival rate of the healthier hosts can be used as evidence that the tapeworm actually "gave back" something to _more productive bodies_, who prove "more productive" (to the tapeworms, and therefore more deserving, albeit from their perspective only).  

So, Roy, by giving you tapeworms, I am actually _giving_ you something. I am testing your productivity, and giving you added strength! So come, Roy, let me provide you with some added strength. 




> When it made the land within its jurisdiction more economically advantageous by its spending on desired services and infrastructure.


That's one of the most presumptuous of all the geo-collectivist lies: that economic opportunities and advantages can be attributed primarily to government services and infrastructure. 




> Google "Henry George Theorem" and try to at least minimally inform yourself on the issue.


The "Henry George Theorem" -- wherein a coincidental correlation is found between private land rents and the amount a government spends (not _needs to spend_), but only under certain conditions, if you hold the economy up to a certain light and view it "just so". 

What the "Henry George Theorem" suggests is that there are two tapeworms with equal appetites in the economy. This may only indicate that the appetite of the government tapeworm only tracks evenly with the appetites of the private ones.  In other words, the government may only be following suit, taking what it already sees the market will bear. 

GeoVampires are not interested in relieving any hosts already afflicted (Roy's non-existent UIE bandaid notwithstanding). They are only saying, in effect, *Let The Right One In*. 




In reality geotapeworms don't want anyone free of Land Tapeworms; they just don't want competition, and no exceptions to the tapeworm rule. There is only room in LVT Dodge for one kind of tapeworm. They want the tapeworm paradigm left intact, with the logical conclusion that we should just turn everyone into a host for the biggest tapeworm of all.  Note that in Roy's Geocommunist rationale, the renter's situation does not change. The renters all still have landlords, and still must pay rents, only the landlord is now "the right kind". 




> Is there something wrong with that idea that I'm not getting?  Isn't that better than taking the money people have earned by their own productive contributions?


That's just it, my fine slippery tapeworm advocate.  All LVT is paid for by productivity of end users, who are not necessarily the landowners.  There is no such thing as LVT that did not originate from, and was not ultimately siphoned from, productivity.

What the Henry George Theorem suggests to the doubly and triply evil statist vampires (the majority, who are not "single taxers" at all), is that with the _addition_ of LVT state siphoning of private land rents, government spending can effectively DOUBLE, based on what the market already has proven it can bear.




> ...greedy, evil filth have to have SOME way to rob and enslave the productive.


Which, ironically, is precisely what LVT would accomplish.  Greedy, evil, filthy way to rob and enslave the productive, thy name is Geoism.

----------


## Roy L

> Roy, would you and Eco mind very much confining the stench of LVT to the threads already hijacked?


I will continue to champion liberty, justice and the truth in threads where they are relevant.

----------


## Origanalist

> I will continue to champion liberty, justice and the truth in threads where they are relevant.


A true inspiration to human kind you are Roy.

----------


## Origanalist

> How much less impressive, then, is your non-response?
> 
> You just have to refuse to know the facts, because you have already realized that they prove your beliefs are false and evil.


Muhahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!

I am the evil mastermind of the *UNIVERSE!!!!!!*

----------


## Roy L

> The assumption there, of course, being that revenues collected are all on the basis of value given,


No, taken from others.



> and that government will want to give even more of that value in return so that it can get even more revenue in the future.


Yes, that's what, "incentives matter" means, duh.



> In reality, government can successfully siphon value, as a parasite that does nothing but drain life blood  from its host without giving much at all in return, beyond a heavier requirement for consumption.


Yes, but only an undemocratic, unaccountable government that doesn't use LVT.



> To a parasite, "increased productivity" of a host is a natural result of an artificial requirement for increased energy consumption and output requirements of its hosts, who are put into an enhanced state of stress.


Right.  Parasitism is a universal characteristic of societies that support a wealthy, idle, greedy, landowning overclass.  Part of the reason for ancient Egypt's high agricultural productivity was the increasing parasitism of the landowning priestly overclass as more and more land accumulated in its hands, and the farmers had to support more and more spending on monumental temple architecture as well as feed themselves and their families.



> But the "giving back" paradigm is convenient, because any successful adjustments that private individuals and firms make as a result of LVT will all be conveniently attributed to LVT, and existing infrastructure, in whatever condition it is in, as if government actually "gave" something in return.


Steven is trying to prevent himself and his readers from knowing the fact that people are willing to pay for access to government services (schools, police and fire protections, sanitation, Medicare and Medicaid, etc.) and infrastructure (roads, airports, water and sewer systems, etc.), but it is greedy, parasitic private landowners whom they are forced to pay for such benefits, not the government that actually provides them.



> Tapeworms consume nutrients that are taken in by their host.  But even though they often kill their hosts, they manage to survive and propagate as a species.


That describes landowners, who provide nothing in return for land rent, but does not describe government, which provides valued and desirable services and infrastructure.



> Do they give something in return? In a manner of speaking, yes, if we spin it thusly:


Tell the truth.



> The host must now work harder and increase its consumption beyond what the tapeworm can consume.  It is a death spiral, of course, because as the host grows, so does its tapeworm.


This describes the effect of landowner privilege in gradually destroying societies that submit to it.



> It is in this way that the tapeworm only inflicts a net drain on the life and energy of "less productive" bodies, who cannot consume enough for both tapeworm and themselves.


Just as only the less productive are unable to survive landowner parasitism.



> The survival rate of the healthier hosts can be used as evidence that the tapeworm actually "gave back" something to _more productive bodies_, who prove "more productive" (to the tapeworms, and therefore more deserving, albeit from their perspective only).  
> 
> So, Roy, by giving you tapeworms, I am actually _giving_ you something. I am testing your productivity, and giving you added strength! So come, Roy, let me provide you with some added strength.


The irony here is staggering, and hilarious.  Steven is describing very precisely what landowners do, and how they rationalize it.



> That's one of the most presumptuous of all the geo-collectivist lies: that economic opportunities and advantages can be attributed primarily to government services and infrastructure.


It is not a lie.  It is self-evident and indisputable fact, as proved by the invariable poverty of every government-"free" society that has ever existed.  You just have to find some way not to know that fact, and to stop others from knowing it, as you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil.



> The "Henry George Theorem" -- wherein a coincidental correlation is found between private land rents and the amount a government spends (not _needs to spend_), but only under certain conditions, if you hold the economy up to a certain light and view it "just so".


You obviously have no idea of what the Henry George Theorem says, or means.



> What the "Henry George Theorem" suggests is that there are two tapeworms with equal appetites in the economy.


No, it identifies the fact that there is exactly one tapeworm, and it is the landowner.  The producer pays taxes to fund government services and infrastructure; the government receives the taxes and spends the money on the desired services and infrastructure, netting nothing; the landowner then charges the producer full market value for access to the desired government services and infrastructure the producer's taxes just paid for.  The producer has therefore been forced to pay for government _twice_ so that the landowner can pocket one of the payments in return for absoutely nothing.  Government ends up providing back the value it receives in taxes; the landowner gets to take produced value in return for nothing; the producer is robbed of part of the value he produces by having to pay for government twice.

You cannot alter these facts no matter how much you twist and evade and lie.



> This may only indicate that the appetite of the government tapeworm


Refuted above.



> only tracks evenly with the appetites of the private ones.  In other words, the government may only be following suit, taking what it already sees the market will bear.


Refuted above.  It is the landowner and the landowner only who simply takes what the market will bear, and must always function as a tapeworm.



> GeoVampires


That's just more of your usual evil, dishonest filth.  It is in fact the landowner who is the vampire, and the analogy is a remarkably accurate one: the landowner feeds on the lifeblood of the producer -- the product of his labor -- and gives nothing back; after repeatedly being forced to submit to the vampire's vile, putrid feedings on his body, the producer (assuming he is strong enough, and does not succumb) will, in sheer self-defence, buy some land and turn vampire himself, feeding on the lifeblood of other producers.  Thus the evil infection spreads until a majority of people -- _even the majority of producers_ -- are vampires.  In their evil sickness of greed for human blood, the latter can no longer perceive that even as they feed on the remaining innocent producers, their blood is in turn being consumed by bigger vampires who are not producers.



> are not interested in relieving any hosts already afflicted (Roy's non-existent UIE bandaid notwithstanding).


You must always lie about what I have plainly written.  ALWAYS.  LVT unambiguously liberates all from the depredations of the vampires, and the UIE ensures that no one need ever pay anyone just for the opportunity to work and live.



> In reality geotapeworms don't want anyone free of Land Tapeworms;


It is LVT that frees everyone from the tapeworms, as there is no longer any opportunity for parasitism: all the transactions are voluntary, market-based, beneficiary-pay, value-for-value transactions, and no one gets something for nothing -- except their rights to life, liberty and property in the fruits of their labor.  



> they just don't want competition,


Competition is impossible, as land is a canonical example of monopoly.



> and no exceptions to the tapeworm rule.


But in fact, no exceptions to the "NO tapeworms" rule.



> There is only room in LVT Dodge for one kind of tapeworm.


There can be no tapeworms with LVT, as no one gets something for nothing.  You just always have to lie.  ALWAYS.



> They want the tapeworm paradigm left intact, with the logical conclusion that we should just turn everyone into a host for the biggest tapeworm of all.


Lie, as proved above.



> Note that in Roy's Geocommunist rationale,


You always have to concoct stupid lies to tell.  It's just despicable, evil filth.



> the renter's situation does not change. The renters all still have landlords, and still must pay rents, only the landlord is now "the right kind".


Right: the kind that produces value in return for commensurate value consensually rendered.



> That's just it, my fine slippery tapeworm advocate.


You are the one rationalizing the depredations of tapeworms, Steven, as I have proved to you above, for the hundredth time.



> All LVT is paid for by productivity of end users, who are not necessarily the landowners.


Lie.  The landowner pays, and no one else.  What the end user pays in LVT is just the same amount the landowner would have charged him.  As he loses nothing, he cannot possibly be the one paying.  You know this, but are deliberately lying about it.



> There is no such thing as LVT that did not originate from, and was not ultimately siphoned from, productivity.


Another lie.  LVT means the producer need only pay for government once, instead of twice.  The only loser is the landowner, who is no longer privileged to get something for nothing.  LVT cannot be siphoned from productivity, as the productive are precisely the ones who benefit most by it.



> What the Henry George Theorem suggests to the doubly and triply evil statist vampires (the majority, who are not "single taxers" at all), is that with the _addition_ of LVT state siphoning of private land rents, government spending can effectively DOUBLE, based on what the market already has proven it can bear.


Yes, in what some people may think of as Steven's "mind," our motive for proving that current taxes are grotesquely unjust, destructive and evil is that we harbor a secret agenda to keep and even increase them...



> Which, ironically, is precisely what LVT would accomplish.


Absurd lie.



> Greedy, evil, filthy way to rob and enslave the productive, thy name is Geoism.


Despicable, dishonest and disgraceful beneath all contempt.

I have proved that the greed, evil and filth are all characteristic of landowner privilege and those who dishonestly (as there is no other possible way) try to rationalize it.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Government ends up providing back the value it receives in taxes...


"back"? To whom?  Let's put our minds into your goofy frame of reference, wherein we pretend for a minute that the government would not behave as it always has with regard to spending, and that the government is only spending revenue, in the spirit of "giving back" (i.e., actually providing necessary public services and nothing more).  If I am a landowner who is renting out to those who actually do pay the tax to the state, the renters will pay me rents on my capital improvements, even as they pay the state for the rents on my land (which makes that a wash for me). Whatever infrastructure and other government services are provided inure _primarily_ to my benefit, as the landowner/developer, as I rent out my capital improvements! So I benefit from the LVT treadmill that ONLY end users must tread as they pay to support it, but which powers MY landowner/developer escalator.  




> The landowner pays, and no one else.  What the end user pays in LVT is just the same amount the landowner would have charged him.


Blatant self-contradiction.  Condensed, that sentence reads: *The landowner pays...what the end user pays in LVT*.  You say "What the end user pays in LVT"...but then insist that only landowners are paying it. The fact that the landowner does not keep that particular portion of the rents does not mean that the landowner is the one paying them. He is neither paying the land rents himself, nor is he pocketing the land rents paid by others.  The LVT portion of the rents passes *directly from the renters' pocket* to the state, with the landowner acting only as the collection arm intermediary of the state in your State+Landowner/Developer LVT Alliance Scam.  

The ONLY landowners who actually pay ANY LVT would be those who also happen to be end users of that land, with no rents charged to anyone else. In other words, "productive" landowners. 




> LVT cannot be siphoned from productivity, as the productive are precisely the ones who benefit most by it.


Wrong, as proved above, unless by "the productive" you mean landowners and developers, and not those they rent to, in their state/owner/developer rental alliance. Like the leaseholder/developers who benefit most in Hong Kong, LVT would benefit landowner/developers the most.  The actual productive end users would foot the bill at all times for all of that, but they would not be the beneficiaries of your tapeworm tax. As proved.

----------


## Roy L

> "back"? To whom?


Those who must pay landowners for access to the services and infrastructure government spending pays for, of course.  You know that.  That's why you own land: so you can pocket everyone else's taxes.



> Let's put our minds into your goofy frame of reference, wherein we pretend for a minute that the government would not behave as it always has with regard to spending, and that the government is only spending revenue, in the spirit of "giving back" (i.e., actually providing necessary public services and nothing more).


I'm assuming democratic accountability, of course.



> If I am a landowner who is renting out to those who actually do pay the tax to the state,


What do you mean by "actually do pay"?  In economics, the actual payer of a tax is considered to be the one who has less money as a result of the tax.  If introduction of a tax leaves someone's financial position unchanged, then they aren't paying that tax.  The ones paying it are the ones whose financial positions are made worse by it.  You don't seem to be clear on that.



> the renters will pay me rents on my capital improvements, even as they pay the state for the rents on my land (which makes that a wash for me).


Right.  It is now a wash instead of you getting to keep the money your tenants are paying for access to the services and infrastructure government provides.  You now have less money, not your tenants.



> Whatever infrastructure and other government services are provided inure _primarily_ to my benefit, as the landowner/developer, as I rent out my capital improvements!


No.  Your term, "landowner/developer" is a dishonest attempt to pretend that owning land is the same thing as building improvements.  That is of course a lie, as you know.

As the landowner, you do not have and are not renting out capital improvements, but simply charging the developer for access to the benefits of government services and infrastructure.  As the developer, you are renting out your capital improvements to tenants, charging them land rent for the advantages of the location, and paying that land rent to the landowner for access to the same advantages.  The land rent is the market's measurement of that advantage.

The fact that a given individual might be functioning as both landowner and developer does not mean they are the same thing, any more than a given priest being a pedophile means they are the same thing (OK, maybe that wasn't such a good example....).  Would you use the term, "priest/pedophile" to refer either to priests or pedophiles?  Of course you wouldn't, because you are not reliant on lying about the relationship between priests and pedophiles for the preservation of your false and evil beliefs.  You ARE reliant on lying about the relationship between landowners and developers.



> So I benefit from the LVT treadmill


No.  LVT stops the producers' treadmill by ensuring that they need only pay for government once instead of twice.  It is their current double payment for government, with one of the payments being given to landowners in return for nothing, that puts the productive on the treadmill and landowners on the escalator.



> that ONLY end users must tread as they pay to support it, but which powers MY landowner/developer escalator.


No.  The escalator is only for landowners, not developers -- who, as producers, are automatically consigned to the treadmill.  LVT stops both the landowners' escalator and the producers' treadmill.  When, under LVT, the end users need only pay for government once, and get the benefits of the services and infrastructure they are paying for, they are no longer on a treadmill but on a fixed ramp, climbing as fast as their own productive efforts will carry them.



> Blatant self-contradiction.


No.  You just don't know -- and refuse to learn -- any economics.



> Condensed, that sentence reads: *The landowner pays...what the end user pays in LVT*.  You say "What the end user pays in LVT"...but then insist that only landowners are paying it. The fact that the landowner does not keep that particular portion of the rents does not mean that the landowner is the one paying them.


YES, IT DOES, as explained above.  The tenant is no worse off, so he can't be the one paying the tax.  The landowner is the ONLY one who is worse off, so he IS the only one paying the tax.



> He is neither paying the land rents himself, nor is he pocketing the land rents paid by others.  The LVT portion of the rents passes *directly from the renters' pocket* to the state, with the landowner acting only as the collection arm intermediary of the state.


Instead of pocketing the rent.  Right.  No longer being able to pocket that money *means* that he is paying that money as a result of the tax.  I don't know any clearer way to explain that to you.



> The ONLY landowners who actually pay ANY LVT would be those who also happen to be end users of that land, with no rents charged to anyone else. In other words, "productive" landowners.


No, you are equivocating on the word, "pay."  Maybe I enabled you to confuse yourself by trying to go along with your terminology in my previous message.  Let's try again:

The end user pays land rent for access to government services and infrastructure.  With LVT, that payment is remitted to the government instead of being pocketed by the landowner.  LVT therefore does not make the end user worse off, but does make the landowner worse off, so it is actually the landowner who is paying the tax, not the end user, NO MATTER WHOSE NAME IS ON THE CHECK.

Clear?



> Wrong, as proved above,


"Proof" refuted above.



> unless by "the productive" you mean landowners and developers,


You know that the developer is producing something and is therefore productive, while the landowner is not and therefore is not.  Why pretend that they are the same?  (As if we both don't know very well why...)



> and not those they rent to,


Tenants are consumers of developers' improvements, but many of them are also productive.  In the cases where the tenant is not productive (e.g., is simply occupying a residence), the developer is.  The landowner qua landowner never is.



> in their state/owner/developer rental alliance.


Meaningless noise.



> Like the leaseholder/developers who benefit most in Hong Kong, LVT would benefit landowner/developers the most.


No.  HK does not recover all the land rent, so leaseholders there can cream off some of it -- but rarely as much as a landowner in the USA.  In general, the longer a lease has been in effect, the more rent the leaseholder can cream off.  But a full implementation of LVT leaves no rent in the landowner's pockets at all, and they are the only losers.  As producers, developers would certainly benefit from LVT, but probably the biggest beneficiaries would be the landless working poor, who would be lifted into the middle class virtually at one stroke.



> The actual productive end users would foot the bill at all times for all of that,


Nope.  Disproved above.  As they are not made worse off, they can't be footing the bill.  I'm not sure there is any clearer way to explain that to you.



> but they would not be the beneficiaries of your tapeworm tax.


I have proved they would benefit from LVT, as it is the landowner alone who is the tapeworm.  See above.



> As proved.


ROTFL!  You only proved you either don't know any economics, or are lying.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> That's why you own land: so you can pocket everyone else's taxes.


No, the reason that I own land (and want everyone else to as well - my objective) is so that we can all be FREE from paying ANY RENTS at all (property OR land), which you, *in circular question begging form*, refer to as "_everyone else's taxes_".  




> In economics, the actual payer of a tax is considered to be the one who has less money as a result of the tax.  If introduction of a tax leaves someone's financial position unchanged, then they aren't paying that tax.


Thank you for Roy's Personal Spin Theory of Tax Incidence under color of "in economics".  Nice quick-change artist. You took a renter, who has _less money_ as a result of paying rents-_which-were-not-taxes_, and by simply calling those rents "taxes", can magically declare that he is no _worse_ off because, his financial position was unchanged.  Ideally, my objective would be to make it possible for _no individual_ to ever pay rents to anyone, public or private, so that their positions would be _better off_, not "_no worse off_". 




> The ones paying it are the ones whose financial positions are made worse by it.  You don't seem to be clear on that.


Your simplistic verbal sleight of hand did not say anything about how tax incidence is determined. You don't seem to be clear on that. But that's understandable, because neither is it clear to economists who hotly debate tax incidence to this day. 

A private individual who is whipping a man in chains is stopped by the police. The police keep that man in chains and proceed to whip him with exactly the same intensity, only this time on behalf of the state.  Since the victims' pain position is "made no worse by it", can we say that he is not the one "paying the price"?   Can we say that the private individual who was doing the whipping before somehow "bears the burden", based on his inability to whip anyone personally?  




> It is now a wash instead of you getting to keep the money your tenants are paying for access to the services and infrastructure government provides.  You now have less money, not your tenants.


Since LVT is not in place, and since LVT _on individuals_ is not the only way to pay for services and infrastructure, we are not buying into your arrogating presumption that he is "pocketing" infrastructure taxes that do not exist from that source, or stealing from some geocommunistic community that also does not exist.




> Your term, "landowner/developer" is a dishonest attempt to pretend that owning land is the same thing as building improvements.


That is only your dishonest attempt at a strawman argument for something that was not claimed.  A landowner/developer is only meant to distinguish a particular type of owner. A SUBSET.  

As a collectivist macro-aggregate-only thinker, you have definite problems wrapping your head around the concept of subsets and sets, trees versus forests, individuals versus community, and other important distinctions.  




> As the landowner, you do not have and are not renting out capital improvements, but simply charging the developer for access to the benefits of government services and infrastructure.


Let's be a little more clear, and not so mushy fuzzy obfuscating with disingenuous question-begging compound statements. 

Under an LVT regime, *the land rents portion of total rents* (on land plus capital improvements plus land) is charged to the developer landowner, who in turn charges this tax to the end user who is actually paying the rents for access to the benefits of government services and infrastructure.  

Since the LVT portion of rents is effectively a surcharge for land rents that is proportionately and uniformly applied to all lands, the tax burden can never fall to anyone who is not an end user of land. IF the landowner/developer has no renters, that burden falls ultimately to him (as HE is then the end user). The only question is _which end users_ will benefit most from the tax, versus who will bear the greatest _tax incidence_, or burden.  Entities other than end users of land are the ultimate beneficiaries, as they are completely free of all taxes. 

The *tax incidence* (the party on whom the true burden of the tax falls) *cannot be properly assessed without knowing the use of the tax revenues*. It will fall on whomever pays the most tax but receives the least amount of benefits for those revenues when they are spent, while the least tax incidence (greatest beneficiaries of the tax) will be those who pay the least tax but receive the most benefits -- again, depending on how the revenues are spent. 

The most financial benefit in the case of LVT will be to a) landowners who are b) developers who are c) not also end users. They pay ZERO tax, and receive by far the most benefits from that tax.

Example:  A corporation headquartered in the Cayman Islands buys a hi-rise apartment complex on a parcel of the most valuable downtown land in a metropolitan LVT community, and proceeds to further develop vertically (increasing its ratio of capital improvements/economic activity to land rents). That corporation is not an end user of any of that land, but only charges rents on its improvements plus a mandatory LVT surcharge.  This surcharge, which is paid by the end user, affects owner equity, but it does not represent an actual burden to the landowner if he is not an end user.  

LVT is assumed to be uniformly applied to all lands as relative proportionate values. So any increase in LVT beyond the annual rental value of the land would affect all owner equity, but the actual burden would not be felt in equal proportion by all landowners. It would (by design) have the greatest impact on owners with the lowest land-to-economic-activity ratio (the "efficiency" of land use much touted as desirable at all costs by geoists). So such an increase would result in a greater tax incidence, or economic burden, to landowner/end users with the least efficient use (i.e., lesser or even no economic activity on their land).    

Thus, the greatest burden would fall, in the following order, on:

1) end users of land -- renters -- who are not landowners (who pay the combination of rents on capital improvements to the private owner and land rents to the state)
2) landowners who are end users only, with no economic activity on their land. They own their capital improvements outright, so are assumed to be free from paying any taxes on them, but must still pay the land rents to the state
3) landowners who are not also developers, who may still rent out their capital improvements at a profit, but have the least ratio of improvements, or activity, to land, in contrast to large developers and others who have the greatest economic activity-to-land ratio. 

The clear winner, with the very least burden of LVT, is the landowner who is also a developer, who is not an end user (and therefore pays no tax), but who has the greatest ratio of economic activity to land.  That is the entity that literally benefits the most, pays no tax whatsoever, but receives the greatest economic advantages out of everyone.  If you increase the tax, the greatest effect of equity destruction is on those with the least efficient use (least amount of economic activity). They are the first to be taxed out of existence. This only serves to drive people inwardly, toward The More Walmart-ish ("most efficient") Landowning Developers.   




> As the developer, you are renting out your capital improvements to tenants, charging them land rent for the advantages of the location, and paying that land rent to the landowner for access to the same advantages.


Nope. You $#@!ed up.  Really bad. Let's fix that:

As the developer, you are renting out your capital improvements to tenants (or even selling them in the case of condos). _Period_. That is all you can benefit from, regardless of location. _In addition_, you are charging tenants land rent _on behalf of the state_ for the advantages of the location *of the land only, not the capital improvements*. It is _the land rents portion only_ which does not inure to your benefit as a landowner, because while you are serving as the tax collector for the state, you are not pocketing any of those taxes. Thus your renters/buyers/end users are not _paying that land rent portion to you at all_. That portion was never yours, as it all passes directly *through you* and goes directly to the state.  Not your benefit, but also not your problem or your burden at all, and only because you are not the end user.  The end user might pay a tax once for the land value only, based on location, but you as a landowning _developer_ _don't pay a tax at all_. 

The land rent is said to be the market's measurement of that LAND (_never capital_) location advantage, but to whom, and for which advantage(s)? The renter who is renting from a landowner-who-is-also-a-developer has certain economic advantages *from the location of the land*. That's what they are paying LVT for. But the developer who owns the improvements _on which there can be no taxes_ enjoys a separate class of advantages *from the location of the capital improvements on, in or above the land*.  That is NOT being charged for. And that's where the landowning land developers (a tiny fraction of the "producers" of the world) are the clear winners.  A luxury hi-rise apartment next door to a discount hi-rise apartment, both using the same amount of land and both filled to capacity, will have the exact same land rents, but not the same economic activity.  Biggest Advantage: Bigger/better Developer, who incurs NO LVT to himself, but only charges it to end users on behalf of the state.  All the rents on the capital improvements, including their location, are pure gravy to the landowning developer.  




> The fact that a given individual might be functioning as both landowner and developer does not mean they are the same thing, any more than a given priest being a pedophile means they are the same thing (OK, maybe that wasn't such a good example....).


Funny you should say it wasn't such a good example, then proceed to use it as your only example.  The fact that *a given individual* can be described a landowner (TRUE), OR a developer (EQUALLY TRUE) DOES mean that *that given individual* is the same thing. It DOES NOT mean that the terms themselves are synonymous or interchangeable (which is where you are being utterly obtuse, and intellectually dishonest), nor does it mean that ALL landowners are developers, or vice versa. 




> You ARE reliant on lying about the relationship between landowners and developers.


You are the only one lying about it, Roy, as you cannot conceive that this relationship *for a given individual* can be one and the same. You are reliant on keeping the relationship separate at all times, even within the same individual - because that strokes your *Us vs. Them* mentality.  Landowners are not necessarily -- but can be simultaneously -- developers.  That is the relationship you are lying about when you say that they cannot be the same thing. 




> LVT stops the producers' treadmill by ensuring that they need only pay for government once instead of twice.


That's another one you don't get a pass on. You haven't defined "producers", and you haven't identified the fact that_ not all producers_ even pay for ANY government at all under your regime. Any producer who is not an end user of land in an LVT community would not pay for anything at all, but WOULD be able to take advantage of economic opportunities and advantages, including government services and infrastructure. A "producer" of hi-rise apartments who is not an end user of the the same wouldn't pay any LVT either. An off-shore "producer" of financial services in an LVT community wouldn't necessarily need any land at all, and would not necessarily need to pay any LVT, giving him free access to all opportunities, including services and infrastructure.  A "producer of goods and services" (a laborer renting better lands), on the other hand, would pay whatever LVT wasn't covered under your UIE (if in fact it was ever implemented).




> The escalator is only for landowners, not developers -- who, as producers, are automatically consigned to the treadmill.


Your greatest misapprehension (another subset problem that you won't be willing, let alone able, to wrap your mind around) is the fact that *only end users of land bear the burden of LVT*.  They MIGHT also be landowners, but that is not necessarily the case. In either case, it is not the fact of landownership, but only its exclusive use (owner or not), that determines who will bear the burden of the tax.   So not all landowners are end users, and not all end users are landowners, but ONLY END USERS bear the burden of the tax.  




> LVT stops both the landowners' escalator and the producers' treadmill.


LVT stops the urban sprawl SPECULATORS' escalator only, at the expense of putting END USERS ONLY on a treadmill that powers a STATE escalator.  But speculation only shifts, with rent-seeking taking on other forms. It does not go away, as DEVELOPERS (*all developers are producers, but MOST producers are not developers, your bad*), along with others who have the least reliance on land for their economic activity, are free to create their own economic escalators.  End users of land (most of whom are producers, but not developers) are enslaved to the extent that their existence relies on LAND USAGE.  Their choice is now only a question of who is demanding the least amount of rents: the government, for land, or the private owners of vertical capital who take the lion's share of rents, as land rents are divided up and shared by a collective hive.

Your problem is not that you "don't know any economics", Roy. It's that you torture and pretzel it into complex unrecognizable obfuscating shapes to fit your agenda.

*Wanda:* But you think you're an intellectual, don't you, ape? 
*Otto:* Apes don't read philosophy. 
*Wanda:* Yes, they do. They just don't understand it.

----------


## Steven Douglas

I have your LVT by the cajones now, Roy.  Thank you for the education, speaking as the only one between us that has really profited from these endless rounds.  

I had never even heard of LVT before debating it with you. Your ridiculously overly-complex web of linguistic machinations and tortured interpretations used to describe your LVT Emperor's Clothes made it very difficult (at first) to even see where you were coming from.  So it has been a learning curve for me, Roy, not you. Your ad nauseam turing machine responses (including all the screed comprised of nothing but righteously indignant denouncements) have not changed a whit since your arrival. Meanwhile, my understanding has done nothing but grow; not for understanding economics in general, but for understanding WHICH pieces of economics you have been applying, misapplying, or simply fabricating altogether to make your Roy's complex and intricately woven LVT Tapestry. I have studied your loom, and have seen your tapestries. I know exactly where you zig and where you zag now, and exactly why and where your most ideal implementation of LVT fails miserably, even by your warped, distorted standards and ideals, and why it really is tantamount to nothing more than human enslavement. 

Get ready for a bumpier ride.

----------


## awake

I can see why you hate the Austrians...They are the only ones who have the silver bullet to your werewolf in sheep's clothing.

_"Classical economy erred when it assigned land a distinct place in its theoretical scheme. Land is, in its economic sense, a factor of production, and the laws determining the formation of the prices of land are the same that determine the formation of other forms of production._"

_"Thus the term labor includes all human exertion in the production of wealth, and wages, being that part of the produce which goes to labor, includes all reward for such exertion. There is, therefore, in the political-economic sense of the term, no distinction as to the kind of labor, or as to whether its reward is received through an employer or not. ..."  Mises_

"The paradox is that, on the one hand, you say that an individual cannot  own land because he did not produce it, and, on the other hand, you say  that the community owns the land, though the community did not produce  it either. My question is: how did the commuity become the owner of the  land?"

"Even if we could magically alternate, we still could not determine at  what price an individual values the [transformed or] untransformed land, as we would need  a market transaction know anything about the value individuals place on  something, which would require him to sell it to someone else. However,  even a sale does not necessarily tell us how much the seller valued the  property in monetary terms. It merely tells us that that price was one  price in a range of prices at which the seller was willing to sell."

"Only when considering the moral dimension of man as well as the economic  dimension can we allow for the possibility that a seller may refuse to  sell at that high bid price (or will give it to the buyer for less than  that absurd bid). The value the seller ascribed to his property would  necessarily be the lowest price at which he would be willing to sell the  untransformed property. So, the only way the Georgist tax-collector  could determine what to peg the LVT at would be to read the mind of the  current land-owner, in never-never-land where we can alternate between  transformed and untransformed land."

"you cannot determine the value of the untransformed land...even in the case of completely untransformed land, you cannot determine  how much an individual values it unless you can read his or her mind  (that is, you can’t tell the absolute lowest price at which he’d be  willing to sell, or the absolute highest price at which he’d be willing  to buy). And you also run into the practical problem of determining the  highest value placed on the property by any individual (thus, it’s  highest valued use)."

"...you can’t magically alternate between transformed and untransformed  land. I will also say that it’s immoral to do that, as it would require  forcing a sale of property by the owner, which constitutes the  initiation of aggression. Also, by forcing the owner to sell, you’ve  changed what would otherwise be the price of the magically untransformed  land on the free market, because you’ve created a pressure on him to  sell, which will drive the price down. Thus, you have defeated your own  objective, and will almost necessarily underestimate the price at which  the untransformed land sells on a free market without coercsion (by  coercing the owner to sell, you’ve lowered the price). Thus, you have  under-estimated the land-value tax."


Get rid of the state and taxes can't go to "parasite" landowners...seems that gets beyond you.

----------


## awake

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Steven Douglas again...

----------


## ClydeCoulter

> You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Steven Douglas again...


Covered you

----------


## Roy L

> I have your LVT by the cajones now, Roy.


<yawn>  Tell it to the many great economists, philosophers and other great thinkers, including Nobel laureates in economics, who advocate LVT.  The notion that you understand it better than they do is cretinous.



> Thank you for the education, speaking as the only one between us that has really profited from these endless rounds.


Ain't that the truth...



> I had never even heard of LVT before debating it with you.


Or economics.



> Your ridiculously overly-complex web of linguistic machinations and tortured interpretations used to describe your LVT Emperor's Clothes made it very difficult (at first) to even see where you were coming from.


No.  I have been very clear, and have expressed myself in simple, grammatical English.  The economic relationships are a bit subtle, and IME most people can't understand them, but your main difficulty is that you have to refuse to know all facts that prove your beliefs are false and evil, and that requirement makes any clear identification of those facts incomprehensible to you.



> So it has been a learning curve for me, Roy, not you.


It has actually been a learning _circle_ for you: you have not learned a damn thing, and are right back where you started: totally ignorant of both taxation economics and land economics, and determined to remain so.



> Your ad nauseam turing machine responses (including all the screed comprised of nothing but righteously indignant denouncements) have not changed a whit since your arrival.


Because the fallacies, absurdities and lies have not changed.



> Meanwhile, my understanding has done nothing but grow;


It has not grown at all.  You didn't know any land or taxation economics at the outset, and you still don't.



> not for understanding economics in general,


No $#!+...



> but for understanding WHICH pieces of economics you have been applying, misapplying, or simply fabricating altogether to make your Roy's complex and intricately woven LVT Tapestry.


I did not originate LVT.  It's a policy whose benefits have been known for over 250 years, and are not disputed by any competent economist.



> I have studied your loom, and have seen your tapestries.


Sounds more like you've been doing 'shrooms.



> I know exactly where you zig and where you zag now, and exactly why and where your most ideal implementation of LVT fails miserably, even by your warped, distorted standards and ideals, and why it really is tantamount to nothing more than human enslavement.


Idiocy lacking any basis in fact, logic or economics.



> Get ready for a bumpier ride.


It hasn't been the bumps that have been making me sick.  It has been the unutterable dishonesty of everything you have written.

----------


## MattintheCrown

> I can see why you hate the Austrians...They are the only ones who have the silver bullet to your werewolf in sheep's clothing.


But, of course, they don't.




> _"Classical economy erred when it assigned land a distinct place in its theoretical scheme. Land is, in its economic sense, a factor of production, and the laws determining the formation of the prices of land are the same that determine the formation of other forms of production._"


Nope.  Land, unlike products of labor, cannot be produced.




> _"Thus the term labor includes all human exertion in the production of wealth, and wages, being that part of the produce which goes to labor, includes all reward for such exertion. There is, therefore, in the political-economic sense of the term, no distinction as to the kind of labor, or as to whether its reward is received through an employer or not. ..."  Mises_


Right, but wages do not include a return to advantages stemming from location.




> "The paradox is that, on the one hand, you say that an individual cannot  own land because he did not produce it, and, on the other hand, you say  that the community owns the land, though the community did not produce  it either. My question is: how did the commuity become the owner of the  land?"


Strawman.  The community doesn't own the land.  No one owns the land.  Individuals privileged with exclusive use of land owe rent to the community because the community is forcefully deprived of their equal liberty to use the land.




> "Even if we could magically alternate, we still could not determine at  what price an individual values the [transformed or] untransformed land, as we would need  a market transaction know anything about the value individuals place on  something, which would require him to sell it to someone else. However,  even a sale does not necessarily tell us how much the seller valued the  property in monetary terms. It merely tells us that that price was one  price in a range of prices at which the seller was willing to sell."


The market values land, not individuals.




> "Only when considering the moral dimension of man as well as the economic  dimension can we allow for the possibility that a seller may refuse to  sell at that high bid price (or will give it to the buyer for less than  that absurd bid). The value the seller ascribed to his property would  necessarily be the lowest price at which he would be willing to sell the  untransformed property. So, the only way the Georgist tax-collector  could determine what to peg the LVT at would be to read the mind of the  current land-owner, in never-never-land where we can alternate between  transformed and untransformed land."  
> 
> "you cannot determine the value of the untransformed land...even in the case of completely untransformed land, you cannot determine  how much an individual values it unless you can read his or her mind  (that is, you can’t tell the absolute lowest price at which he’d be  willing to sell, or the absolute highest price at which he’d be willing  to buy). And you also run into the practical problem of determining the  highest value placed on the property by any individual (thus, it’s  highest valued use).


"Rent is the difference between production on some given land, versus identical production on marginal land.




> "...you can’t magically alternate between transformed and untransformed  land. I will also say that it’s immoral to do that, as it would require  forcing a sale of property by the owner, which constitutes the  initiation of aggression.


Nope.  Ownership of land constitutes, in the first place, an initiation of aggression.




> Also, by forcing the owner to sell, you’ve  changed what would otherwise be the price of the magically untransformed  land on the free market, because you’ve created a pressure on him to  sell, which will drive the price down.


Question begging.  This assumes the market allows the initiation of force that is land ownership in the first place, which is of course at the heart of the argument.




> Thus, you have defeated your own  objective, and will almost necessarily underestimate the price at which  the untransformed land sells on a free market without coercsion (by  coercing the owner to sell, you’ve lowered the price). Thus, you have  under-estimated the land-value tax."


Complete nonsense.  Even if this were true, the tax would be continually adjustable, so that it would jibe with market valuation.  Mises embarrasses himself here.




> Get rid of the state and taxes can't go to "parasite" landowners...seems that gets beyond you.


Get rid of the state, and such issues are the least of your problems.

----------


## Roy L

> I can see why you hate the Austrians...They are the only ones who have the silver bullet to your werewolf in sheep's clothing.


Oh, please.  Do you really think I haven't demolished all the Austrian School's stupid anti-LVT garbage a hundred times?  Read and learn:



> _"Classical economy erred when it assigned land a distinct place in its theoretical scheme. Land is, in its economic sense, a factor of production, and the laws determining the formation of the prices of land are the same that determine the formation of other forms of production._"


Problem is, that's just objectively false.  Unlike capital, land's supply is fixed, and it has no cost of production.  Therefore, even if its price declines to zero, it's all still available.  That is not true of capital or labor.



> _"Thus the term labor includes all human exertion in the production of wealth, and wages, being that part of the produce which goes to labor, includes all reward for such exertion. There is, therefore, in the political-economic sense of the term, no distinction as to the kind of labor, or as to whether its reward is received through an employer or not. ..."  Mises_


How is that relevant?



> "The paradox is that, on the one hand, you say that an individual cannot  own land because he did not produce it, and, on the other hand, you say  that the community owns the land, though the community did not produce  it either. My question is: how did the commuity become the owner of the  land?"


The community does not own the land.  It merely CONSISTS OF the people whose rights to use the land the landowner is abrogating.  Similarly, the community does not own the atmosphere.  But if someone starts pumping poison into it, the community has every right to stop him by force.



> "Even if we could magically alternate, we still could not determine at  what price an individual values the [transformed or] untransformed land, as we would need  a market transaction know anything about the value individuals place on  something, which would require him to sell it to someone else. However,  even a sale does not necessarily tell us how much the seller valued the  property in monetary terms. It merely tells us that that price was one  price in a range of prices at which the seller was willing to sell."


What any individual thinks the land is worth is irrelevant.  Its value is what it would trade for in the market, not some subjective opinion of the owner (or anyone else).  The owner can set a floor on its value by refusing to sell for some offered amount, but that's all.  He can't make it worth more than the highest offer.



> "Only when considering the moral dimension of man as well as the economic  dimension can we allow for the possibility that a seller may refuse to  sell at that high bid price (or will give it to the buyer for less than  that absurd bid). The value the seller ascribed to his property would  necessarily be the lowest price at which he would be willing to sell the  untransformed property. So, the only way the Georgist tax-collector  could determine what to peg the LVT at would be to read the mind of the  current land-owner, in never-never-land where we can alternate between  transformed and untransformed land."


Refuted above.  The owner's subjective opinion does not define the land's market value.



> "you cannot determine the value of the untransformed land...even in the case of completely untransformed land, you cannot determine  how much an individual values it unless you can read his or her mind  (that is, you cant tell the absolute lowest price at which hed be  willing to sell, or the absolute highest price at which hed be willing  to buy). And you also run into the practical problem of determining the  highest value placed on the property by any individual (thus, its  highest valued use)."


That is just Austrian "subjective theory of value" garbage.  Value is not subjective.  It is what an item would trade for in the market.  That requires two people's opinions, which by definition makes it not subjective.  The plain fact is, real estate appraisers determine the unimproved value of land all the time, and the standard error of their estimates, when compared with actual transaction prices, is less than 5%.  It would be even less in a jurisdiction that used LVT, as there would be no speculative froth in the prices.



> "...you cant magically alternate between transformed and untransformed  land. I will also say that its immoral to do that, as it would require  forcing a sale of property by the owner, which constitutes the  initiation of aggression.


Blatant question begging fallacy.  It is the land"owner" who initiates aggression by forcibly excluding others from the land.  If some stupid swine parks his car on the sidewalk in front of your house, you will rightly say, "Move it or lose it," because your liberty right to use the sidewalk has priority over his property right in the car.



> Also, by forcing the owner to sell, youve  changed what would otherwise be the price of the magically untransformed  land on the free market, because youve created a pressure on him to  sell, which will drive the price down.


Irrelevant.  That pressure to sell is exactly what makes the land market more efficient and the values easier to determine.



> Thus, you have defeated your own  objective, and will almost necessarily underestimate the price at which  the untransformed land sells on a free market without coercsion (by  coercing the owner to sell, youve lowered the price). Thus, you have  under-estimated the land-value tax."


That is utter garbage.  Land value is net of taxes in any case.  The "pressure to sell" just represents the free market's normal incentive for efficient allocation of resources.



> Get rid of the state and taxes can't go to "parasite" landowners...seems that gets beyond you.


Wrong.  Get rid of the state while retaining landowning, and the parasitic landowner simply imposes taxes himself.  It's called, "feudalism."  Seems that gets beyond you.

----------


## awake

The state under our current conditions and the state under LVT is essentially the same. A privileged group claiming the monopoly of violence coercing another group of individuals to give money to it under the pretense of protecting their freedom to have property. I have said it before, your whole LVT argument is built on sand as the state is the problem at the root and the monopoly it holds is the source of the corruption...Whether the state feeds with its right paw (taxing incomes and goods) or its left (LVT), is of no concern to the devoured.

You claim land ownership is parasitism and skip over the state with a gun taking property and claiming to protect property as not in the least parasitic. Funny contradiction.

Since land contains the elements of every scarce good in our society, which is transformed by capital and labor over time. The state would become the controller of all property, it would logically have to. The renter/transformers of these elements from the public controlled land could keep the fruits of their labor, but for how long. Up until the same stupid argument that property owners are denying non property owners their "right" to use any other persons property at their leisure.

Any thief could make the argument that property rights in general impede his right to use any and all goods he wishes to use. Since owning land is violation of others right to use it freely, it isn't that much of a stretch to make the case that anything derived from the land you rent as being interfering with the right of all others to use what was derived from the unownable land.

Crackpot-ism at its best.

Since property renters and property owners treat capital value in property differently, you would have two very distinct outcomes. You should put some thought into this.

Your red rep gang of aliases can't change this.

----------


## awake

Bit of a thought experiment...

  On the island of Geomania, there lives Person A, Person B and Person C. A rule is suggested: No one can own any land but must rent it from a Government so that each person is free to go anywhere on the island whenever he wishes without any restriction. All three agree government will be selected by annual majority vote. Following a democratic vote, the government consists of Person A, elected by Person A and Person B, C did not vote for A. Person A now controls all land for rent and divides equally the island In 3; 1 equal plot for each person. A grants 2 of the three plots for use of land to both Person B and Person C for 50 coconuts each per year. He grants the final plot to himself. Land rent (coconuts) is to be paid to an account under the direction of Person A. All coconuts collected will be used toward the protection of the island from exterior threats and protecting each from the theft of “land use” by the others. A, being the elected government, naturally declares himself the final judge in all disputes between all parties involving land rents, even those involving himself. Naturally this authority would include deciding rent amounts and proper possession.

  Since A and B constitute the elective majority governing power and C is the minority who did not vote for A. B has expressed his wish to use C’s land and says he will not vote with A in the next election if he does not get a lower than market assessment on C’s land so that he may rent it to gain the resources of coconuts on it for a larger gain… A, fearing his loss of power to possibly C or B, gives into this pressure and rents Cs land to B against C’s wish for 40 coconuts instead of the assessed 50 coconuts. C is left landless while B has accumulated more land at a under assessment price. A receives B’s vote and retains majority power.

----------


## Roy L

> No, the reason that I own land (and want everyone else to as well - my objective) is so that we can all be FREE from paying ANY RENTS at all (property OR land),


No, it's not, because you know that's impossible.  Any rent you don't pay in taxes you have to pay the landowner either periodically for use of the land while he retains ownership, or in advance when you buy the land from him.  That is what the Net Present Value Equation MEANS.



> which you, *in circular question begging form*, refer to as "_everyone else's taxes_".


Land rent arises primarily from government spending on desired services and infrastructure (which also make possible the community's creation of desired opportunities and amenities, and enables advantageous use of the physical qualities nature created).  That fact is neither circular nor question begging.  It is just an indisputable fact of economics that you have to refuse to know, because you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil.



> Thank you for Roy's Personal Spin Theory of Tax Incidence under color of "in economics".  Nice quick-change artist.


It's not my personal spin, stop lying.  It's a known and accepted fact of economics.  It is merely a fact of economics that is not known to *you* because you do not know any economics.



> You took a renter, who has _less money_ as a result of paying rents-_which-were-not-taxes_,


But were the same amount of money as he now pays in taxes, and paid for the same thing.



> and by simply calling those rents "taxes", can magically declare that he is no _worse_ off because, his financial position was unchanged.


There is nothing magical about it, stop lying, because it is self-evidently objectively correct.



> Ideally, my objective would be to make it possible for _no individual_ to ever pay rents to anyone, public or private, so that their positions would be _better off_, not "_no worse off_".


But that is impossible, as proved above.  And you know it.



> Your simplistic verbal sleight of hand did not say anything about how tax incidence is determined. You don't seem to be clear on that.


There was no verbal sleight-of-hand, stop lying.  It was "simplistic" because the facts are simple, self-evident, and indisputable.

Steven, you have accused me of being repetitive, and it is true that I have stated to you MANY TIMES that tax incidence is determined by the elasticities of supply and demand.  You have now chosen to make yourself the most despicably dishonest person who has ever lived by claiming I "don't seem to be clear on that," purely because I did not repeat it for you AGAIN.



> But that's understandable, because neither is it clear to economists who hotly debate tax incidence to this day.


It is completely clear, stop lying.  All competent economists are aware that tax incidence is determined by elasticities.  What is hotly debated is the *magnitude* of those elasticities, because they usually can't be measured empirically.



> A private individual who is whipping a man in chains is stopped by the police. The police keep that man in chains and proceed to whip him with exactly the same intensity, only this time on behalf of the state.  Since the victims' pain position is "made no worse by it", can we say that he is not the one "paying the price"?


The price of what?  The police intervention?  Of course he isn't.



> Can we say that the private individual who was doing the whipping before somehow "bears the burden", based on his inability to whip anyone personally?


The burden of being deprived of the opportunity to be evil?  Yes, he clearly does, just as under LVT, the landowner bears the burden of being deprived of the opportunity to be evil.



> Since LVT is not in place, and since LVT _on individuals_ is not the only way to pay for services and infrastructure, we are not buying into your arrogating presumption that he is "pocketing" infrastructure taxes that do not exist from that source,


Since LVT is not in place, he is pocketing other people's taxes no matter what the source.



> or stealing from some geocommunistic community that also does not exist.


The existence of the land's unimproved value proves the existence of the community that the landowner is depriving of the land.  There is no other way it could have that value.



> That is only your dishonest attempt at a strawman argument for something that was not claimed.  A landowner/developer is only meant to distinguish a particular type of owner. A SUBSET.


No, it is meant to pretend that landowner and developer are the same thing.



> As a collectivist macro-aggregate-only thinker, you have definite problems wrapping your head around the concept of subsets and sets, trees versus forests, individuals versus community, and other important distinctions.


<yawn>  Steven, do you know what the GRE is?  It is a standardized qualification test for people intending to enter graduate studies.

A few weeks ago, I wrote the GRE.

Yesterday, I got my scores in the mail.

170 in verbal ability, 168 in quantitative ability.

In the new GRE scoring system, 170 is a *perfect score*.

Do you understand, Steven?

Only *one prospective GRADUATE STUDENT out of 50* achieved a GRE score in quantitiative ability higher than mine, and *NO ONE HAS EVER* ACHIEVED A GRE SCORE IN VERBAL ABILITY HIGHER THAN MINE, AND NO ONE EVER WILL.

That is why I am the one schooling you in economics, logic, history and honesty, and why you always have to resort to fallacious, absurd and dishonest crap in order to have anything to say at all.



> Let's be a little more clear, and not so mushy fuzzy obfuscating with disingenuous question-begging compound statements.


Clarity is the one thing you cannot permit, which is why you had to produce the following mushy fuzzy obfuscating with disingenuous question-begging compound statement:



> Under an LVT regime, *the land rents portion of total rents* (on land plus capital improvements plus land) is charged to the developer landowner, who in turn charges this tax to the end user who is actually paying the rents for access to the benefits of government services and infrastructure.


No.  The LVT does not affect the supply of or the rental demand for the land, and thus does not affect its rental price.  The landowner CANNOT charge the tax to the end user, except to the extent that he reduces the amount of rent he pockets for himself.  The tenant is not willing to pay any more, and will just leave.



> Since the LVT portion of rents is effectively a surcharge for land rents that is proportionately and uniformly applied to all lands, the tax burden can never fall to anyone who is not an end user of land.


No.  LVT does not affect either supply or demand, and therefore cannot affect price.  The landowner simply keeps less rent.  He has no choice, as raising his tenants' lease payments will simply make them leave.  If all landowners try to increase lease payments, tenants will just use less land, leaving some landowners out in the cold.  They will then reduce their lease amounts to the market level, driving all the other landowners to do likewise.

You have not understood the effect of fixed supply.



> IF the landowner/developer has no renters, that burden falls ultimately to him (as HE is then the end user).


It falls on him whether he has renters or not.



> The only question is _which end users_ will benefit most from the tax, versus who will bear the greatest _tax incidence_, or burden.  Entities other than end users of land are the ultimate beneficiaries, as they are completely free of all taxes.


I see.  So, in whatever it is that you use in place of a brain, when a comatose landowner's land declines in exchange value from $1M to $0 as a result of LVT, that makes him the ultimate _beneficiary_ of LVT because his tenant is paying all the taxes!



> The *tax incidence* (the party on whom the true burden of the tax falls) *cannot be properly assessed without knowing the use of the tax revenues*. It will fall on whomever pays the most tax but receives the least amount of benefits for those revenues when they are spent, while the least tax incidence (greatest beneficiaries of the tax) will be those who pay the least tax but receive the most benefits -- again, depending on how the revenues are spent.


No, you are just pretending tax incidence and spending benefit are the same.  They are not the same, any more than landowning and developing are the same (which is another favored pretense of yours).

I don't have the stomach to read the rest of your absurd and dishonest garbage now.  Maybe later.

----------


## Steven Douglas

*LVT - STATE-ENCOURAGED AND ENFORCED FEUDALISM* 

One of the biggest foundational lies of LVT is the conflation of landowners with end users (i.e., the assumption that landowners would also be the de facto end users of land). Sometimes the landowner would in fact be the end user. But not always. _Mostly not_ under LVT.  Conflating landowners with end users as if they were always one and the same is a convenient but necessary delusion for LVT proponents, because in fact it is the end users alone who would bear the entire burden of the tax, as _all currently existing taxes_ are shifted onto the _end users of land only_ - the vast majority of whom _would not be landowners_ under LVT. 

Part of The Big Geoist LVT Lie is based on a one-degree-of-separation _invoice-laundering_ game by the state, as private landowners become, in effect, the deputized agents of the state for collecting LVT from end users on its behalf.  Only the landowner's name appears on the LVT levies originating from the state, just as only the landowner's name again appears on the invoices for rents, the revenues of which _always_ originate from end users, for both land and the capital improvements thereon.  

Thus, as the lie goes, only the landowners are seen as "paying" the tax (as they are writing out the checks to the state), just as the same landowners are seen as "charging rents" to their renters, which only happens to include LVT. Even if the state appears as an itemized charge on an invoice (i.e., like state, local or federal itemized surcharge on a utility bill), only one name will appear on the header of the invoice, and that is all that most people will pay attention to. 

Because the state's financial interests are _aligned with the landowning developers of land_, all is well as long as the state's gets its cut off the top (which appears to be "off the bottom", since it's land we're talking about).  "That's OK", say all the landowning developers, "We are taking the lion's share of profits from all our improvements only, and would be more than happy to take the heat for the land rents as well, except that we will have an army of Geoists and classical economists who will all claim, with straight faces, that we are the only ones bearing the 'burden' of the tax anyway."  

*LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION*

The landowners are said not to profit from the land rents. That is for the value of the annual rents _of the unimproved land only_.  From the point of view of the state only, this is absolutely true. The state would actually be profiting from the capture of these land rents *of the land only* through LVT, as it charges rents on the basis of services and infrastructure (past, present and future, but mostly past). LVT is profit to the state, because it includes revenues over and above, and long after, its actual costs have been recovered.  That part - that profit to the state for _the value of the land rents only_ - does not represent any economic advantage whatsoever to landowning developers.  But that does not mean that the entire _value of the location_ was captured by the state.  

While the state profits from _the rent value of the unimproved land only_, the landowning developers are more than free to profit from the economic advantages of _the value of the location of their assets_, or capital improvements. That is NOT part of LVT, as the rents and sales of assets by developers, regardless of their location, are not said to be taxed _in any way_. Thus, the end user of those assets is paying rents or sales prices for the value of _both_ the location of the land (to the state) and the location of the assets on that land (to the landowning developer). 

The reason this is feudalism (hardcore), is the landownership title itself, in as few ("most productive", or developing) hands as possible. In Hong Kong, leaseholds actually expire, and must be periodically renegotiated.  Under LVT (which HK does not have) so long as the LVT is being paid to the state, there is ZERO expiration, no renegotiation with the state required, and NO obligation on the part of the landowner to sell. 

The economics of LVT presumes a *macroeconomic-only*, demand-only driven, fixed supply of land, with all individual landowners presumed, in the aggregate, to have no choice but to sell at the prevailing market price (of surrounding lands of equivalent value). The reality under LVT is that a landowner is not legally obligated to sell to anyone (assuming no Eminent Domain, predatory zoning manipulations or other acts of aggression against landowners that actually do force them to sell).  Under LVT, owners of superior land locations may actually have no requirement OR incentive to sell. The speculative rent-seeking behavior is condensed, re-channeled inward, as landowners can make deals with developers for a cut -- not for any profits arising from land rents, or the value of the location of the unimproved lands, which is indeed captured by the state, but as a cut on the profits _arising from the location of its future capital improvements_. The resulting increased economic activity will place upward pressure on land values of surrounding lands, but that will be a fraction of the economic value of the assets from that location, which are also driven up. The only losers in that scenario are those landowning developers whose economic activities could not keep pace with the capital improvements of their neighbors.

Under LVT a title-holding landowner can act as nothing but a broker between developers and the state, even for no profit, and even if for no other purpose than to retain that title. So long as the state gets its _fractional cut_, which may never be the lion's share of the economic opportunities and advantages in the first place, a landowner can hold onto the title of valuable lands indefinitely, and can pass that title onto others.   

Under LVT, a landowner can enter into the same long-term leasehold arrangements with developers that exist in Hong Kong now between the state and leaseholders, only under LVT the landowner can act as the issuing lessor, or feudal state within a state.  In reality, however, developers would be incentivized to want non-developing landowners out of the picture altogether. They would not want them to be in a position to capture any part of the rents on their capital improvements. This is because ONLY landowners pay LVT, but that is for land rents only. They can charge whatever rents the market will bear, albeit _on capital improvements only_.  So there was something (A Very Big Lion's Share of Something) left on the table -- by the state, to its now-_feudal landowning developers_.  But that still puts the non-developing landowner of truly valuable lands in the cat-bird's seat. This is because future rents _on the location of the assets_ would still have economic value, over and above LVT liability, which is not captured by the state, and which does give the non-developing landowner an economic advantage. So long as the landowner has the staying power to keep current with the LVT for the land rents only, he can sell that _asset location advantage_ (let's call it ALA) to a highest bidding competing developer -- who would become the new feudal lord of that particular parcel of land.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> The LVT does not affect the supply of or the rental demand for the land, and thus does not affect its rental price.


You are referring to unimproved land only, of course, and only as it relates to demand for its _unimproved value_. So what? In the real world only developers are interested in paying for unimproved land, and most people are not paying for rents for unimproved land, except as a finished good from developers. The rents on capital improvements, which are NOT fixed in supply or demand (even in the macro-economic sense) are not even taxed -- not specifically, and not even based on their location. 

The landowner cannot charge more for (earn a profit on) the LAND VALUE TAX *ONLY* portion to the end user. That is indeed pooled by the end users and simply passed along directly to the state.  If it was only unimproved lands, any increase *in land rents only* could indeed only encourage an end user to substitute *other unimproved lands*. And even that is only to a practical extent.  Someone might save money on house rents by moving to a more rural area, but that cost savings might be eaten up in a zero-sum game by a longer commute.  Likewise with agricultural land that requires more development, or is too far out for the same economic benefit once LVT is factored in.  So he stays put, or else deludes himself into thinking that he has saved money, rather than lost time, fuel, and wear and tear on his vehicle.  But that's irrelevant to the point that a landowning developer can and WILL charge more rents _for his improvements_ on the land, the supply and demand of which are ELASTIC, not fixed, and which really is ultimately the lion's share of the "land-related" profits under LVT, and does indeed affect the rental price _of the capital improvements only_, which he pockets for himself.  

The higher the ratio of capital improvements (economic activity) to land becomes, the more irrelevant the land value tax on that parcel of land becomes as it relates to rents on its capital improvements. The greatest economic advantage goes to superior developers, who pay the least FRACTION of LVT relative to the total supply of capital improvements.  So with vertical development, the sky (along with engineering limitations) is the limit.   




> LVT does not affect either supply or demand, and therefore cannot affect price.


You're referring to land only, of course. So what? That is overcome by capital improvements, the price of which is not determined by LVT, and the market rules of supply and demand for which are only distorted by LVT, as people are driven to increase the profits of only the most efficient capital improvement (not "land") developers.




> ...when a comatose landowner's land declines in exchange value from $1M to $0 as a result of LVT, that makes him the ultimate _beneficiary_ of LVT because his tenant is paying all the taxes!


Are we still talking about unimproved land only?  If the landowner's land declines in exchange value from $1M to $0 as a result of LVT, then there is no LVT for the landowner to pay, let alone collect from end users.  That's the risk for the state, LVT proponents and land developers. If the exchange value of unimproved land did indeed fall to zero, it means only that neither the state nor the landowning developer is collecting _any rents_ - not on the land or its capital improvements.

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## MattintheCrown

> *LVT - STATE-ENCOURAGED AND ENFORCED FEUDALISM* 
> <snip>


LOL, none of that makes any sense at all.  It's so self-evidently ridiculous, it'd be a waste of time to refute it (assuming anyone not seeking laughs bothers to read it, which is doubtful).  Kudos on the anti-geoist magnum opus of complete and utter descent into inanity.

Edit: by the way, I love this new angle you're working re: land location v. capital location.  As if there's some distinction!  LOL!  Do you even manage to fool yourself with this nonsense?

----------


## MattintheCrown

> Bit of a thought experiment...


Oh lord.




> On the island of Geomania, there lives Person A, Person B and Person C. A rule is suggested: No one can own any land but must rent it from a Government so that each person is free to go anywhere on the island whenever he wishes without any restriction. All three agree government will be selected by annual majority vote. Following a democratic vote, the government consists of Person A, elected by Person A and Person B, C did not vote for A. Person A now controls all land for rent and divides equally the island In 3; 1 equal plot for each person. A grants 2 of the three plots for use of land to both Person B and Person C for 50 coconuts each per year. He grants the final plot to himself. Land rent (coconuts) is to be paid to an account under the direction of Person A. All coconuts collected will be used toward the protection of the island from exterior threats and protecting each from the theft of land use by the others. A, being the elected government, naturally declares himself the final judge in all disputes between all parties involving land rents, even those involving himself. Naturally this authority would include deciding rent amounts and proper possession.
> 
>   Since A and B constitute the elective majority governing power and C is the minority who did not vote for A. B has expressed his wish to use Cs land and says he will not vote with A in the next election if he does not get a lower than market assessment on Cs land so that he may rent it to gain the resources of coconuts on it for a larger gain A, fearing his loss of power to possibly C or B, gives into this pressure and rents Cs land to B against Cs wish for 40 coconuts instead of the assessed 50 coconuts. C is left landless while B has accumulated more land at a under assessment price. A receives Bs vote and retains majority power.


Uh, ok.  What is the point of this nonsensical "thought experiment?"  Other showing that a representative democracy makes no sense when there's no one to represent, of course.

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## Steven Douglas

> It's so self-evidently ridiculous, it'd be a waste of time to refute it...


Which is another way of saying....

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## MattintheCrown

> Which is another way of saying....


It's self refuting.  It's literally comical.

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## Steven Douglas

> It's self refuting.  It's literally comical.


And that, class, is what "cajones in a vice" looks like on these here innernets. 

Backhanded surrender accepted.

----------


## Roy L

> Bit of a thought experiment...
> 
>   On the island of Geomania, there lives Person A, Person B and Person C. A rule is suggested: No one can own any land but must rent it from a Government so that each person is free to go anywhere on the island whenever he wishes without any restriction.


Self-contradiction.  What would it mean to rent land that others can still go on without restriction?



> All three agree government will be selected by annual majority vote. Following a democratic vote, the government consists of Person A, elected by Person A and Person B, C did not vote for A. Person A now controls all land for rent and divides equally the island In 3; 1 equal plot for each person. A grants 2 of the three plots for use of land to both Person B and Person C for 50 coconuts each per year. He grants the final plot to himself. Land rent (coconuts) is to be paid to an account under the direction of Person A. All coconuts collected will be used toward the protection of the island from exterior threats and protecting each from the theft of land use by the others. A, being the elected government, naturally declares himself the final judge in all disputes between all parties involving land rents, even those involving himself. Naturally this authority would include deciding rent amounts and proper possession.
> 
>   Since A and B constitute the elective majority governing power and C is the minority who did not vote for A. B has expressed his wish to use Cs land and says he will not vote with A in the next election if he does not get a lower than market assessment on Cs land so that he may rent it to gain the resources of coconuts on it for a larger gain A, fearing his loss of power to possibly C or B, gives into this pressure and rents Cs land to B against Cs wish for 40 coconuts instead of the assessed 50 coconuts. C is left landless while B has accumulated more land at a under assessment price. A receives Bs vote and retains majority power.


Well, aside from self-evidently not being about LVT (there being no attempt even to measure, let alone charge, the market rent, nor to secure exclusive tenure in return for it), let alone LVT + UIE, what on earth did you erroneously imagine the point of that little thoughtless experiment to be?

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## MattintheCrown

> And that, class, is what "cajones in a vice" looks like on these here innernets. 
> 
> Backhanded surrender accepted.


Oh, Steven.  You are resourceful, I'll give you that.  Seeing now that you are utterly unable to rationally dispute our claims, you've now moved on to making increasingly long and inane posts, figuring that no one will have the time or inclination to comprehensively refute them in the manner of all of your previous claims, at which point you will declare victory.  Not the first time I've encountered this, but few are willing to put so much time and effort into refusing to learn.  So I'll doff my chapeau on that account.

Still, for the forum's benefit, I'll give a taste of just how ridiculous your post was.  You said:



> While the state profits from the rent value of the unimproved land only, the landowning developers are more than free to profit from the economic advantages of the value of the location of their assets, or capital improvements. That is NOT part of LVT, as the rents and sales of assets by developers, regardless of their location, are not said to be taxed in any way. Thus, the end user of those assets is paying rents or sales prices for the value of both the location of the land (to the state) and the location of the assets on that land (to the landowning developer).


Here, you've invented a concept: location of improvements.  But it's just patently obvious that the location is a property of the land, not the improvement.  The value of location is what developers would be paying for; their aim would be to make improvements which exploit the benefits inherent in a given location, which would in turn benefit all of society, as it would provide amenities that are in demand in locations where they are demanded.

Every "point" you make is equally ludicrous, but that serves as a nice example.  Really, your making this argument proves you are either comprehensively ignorant of basic logic, or are being wildly disingenuous, and in either case it means that you don't have much to contribute to the discussion.

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## awake

Why is the state under LVT better than the state under the current tax regime?

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## Steven Douglas

> ...it's just patently obvious that the location is a property of the land, not the improvement.


The location is a property of _whatever is in that location_, which of course includes land. But location is not a property that is exclusive to land. It is also a property of ALL IMPROVEMENTS WHICH ARE STACKED ON THAT LAND. How could that not be completely and utterly obvious to you, let alone anyone with a lick of common sense?  Take ANY massive object in the universe, let alone the economy, and ONE of its properties will be its location.  LVT does not account for locational advantages of capital (not directly, anyway) - _only unimproved land_.  

Under LVT, once the land value tax is paid for the location advantages of _only the unimproved land_, the quantity and value of goods that I can stack on that land are _pure gravy_.  Only the land rents belong to the state, remember? The rents on capital located on that location are the sole, non-taxable property of the owner. Remember? The location of the capital *is not taxed*. Only the unimproved land (_sans capital improvements_), is taxed. Remember? And that is without regard to quantity, value OR location _of those improvements_.  That is why an empty lot incurs the SAME LVT as a next door neighboring hi-rise on the same-sized parcel of land.

----------


## awake

My final response to hopeless fanatics...

"Some Georgists lay great emphasis on the fixity of land: the supply
of land sites is fixed and so increased population raises land values;
again, horses are not fixed in supply but land is. Rebuttal to this is in
two parts: (a) land sites may be fixed, but so are Rembrandts. Why
not confiscate Rembrandt value? (b) physical land may be fixed, but
the service of supplying the land is not; it is the productive service
by the site-owner that generates value, and it will be gravely discouraged
by taxes on land values. A 100 percent tax on land values will
generate chaos in land and therefore in production generally; a lesser
degree of taxes will inflict lesser damage, but damage there most
certainly will be.
Finally, many Georgists have, by inference, accused me of wishing
to levy taxes on production, and have expounded on the beneficial
effects that would flow once such taxes were lifted from the
economy. I have great respect for many aspects of Henry George;
and none more than for his passages on the benefits that would ensue
once taxes were removed from production. Our difference is that I
believe that land value taxation would also blight production, and,
further, be unjust rather than the contrary. If we wish to establish
justice and remove taxes from production, some other means than
land value taxation will have to be found." _Rothbard_

Now

----------


## Roy L

> LVT does not account for locational advantages of capital (not directly, anyway) - _only unimproved land_.


More absurdity intended to enable commission of atrocities.

1. LVT is not based on unimproved land.  It is based on the value land would have *IF it were* unimproved.

2. That value *IS*, directly and precisely, the locational advantage that the capital and labor best suited to that land *would* enjoy there.



> Under LVT, once the land value tax is paid for the location advantages of _only the unimproved land_, the quantity and value of goods that I can stack on that land are _pure gravy_.


I.e., what you produce there, and the products you locate there -- contributions to the wealth of the community -- are not taxed.  Right.



> Only the land rents belong to the state, remember? The rents on capital located on that location are the sole, non-taxable property of the owner. Remember? The location of the capital *is not taxed*.


<sigh>  The location of the capital is taxed because that is precisely what gives the land its unimproved value: the economic advantage the user enjoys by deploying, at that location, the capital and labor best suited to it.

Remember?



> Only the unimproved land (_sans capital improvements_), is taxed. Remember? And that is without regard to quantity, value OR location _of those improvements_.  That is why an empty lot incurs the SAME LVT as a next door neighboring hi-rise on the same-sized parcel of land.


Right.  And both are taxed according to the advantage the user would enjoy by deploying on them the capital and labor best suited to them.  Meaning the vacant lot doesn't stay vacant for long.

----------


## MattintheCrown

> The location is a property of _whatever is in that location_, which of course includes land. But location is not a property that is exclusive to land. It is also a property of ALL IMPROVEMENTS WHICH ARE STACKED ON THAT LAND.


Sigh.  Only if they're on that land, obviously.




> How could that not be completely and utterly obvious to you, let alone anyone with a lick of common sense?  Take ANY massive object in the universe, let alone the economy, and ONE of its properties will be its location.  LVT does not account for locational advantages of capital (not directly, anyway) - _only unimproved land_.


Capital doesn't have locational advantages: locations do.  Duh.  Locations are part of unimproved land.  In fact, they define unimproved land: what is the land _in some specific location_ worth, minus improvements?




> Under LVT, once the land value tax is paid for the location advantages of _only the unimproved land_, the quantity and value of goods that I can stack on that land are _pure gravy_.


Right, that's the point:  because owners of land are charged the full rental value of their location, they are induced to use it as productively as they can, as doing so is the only means to make money, instead of losing money.  End result?  Society allocates capital more efficiently, and everyone gets more wealth for less work.  That's what economizing is all about.




> Only the land rents belong to the state, remember? The rents on capital located on that location are the sole, non-taxable property of the owner. Remember?


You're equivocating with the word "rent" here.  The returns to capital that developers get for use of their improvements isn't a rent, but is "profit" or "interest."

Assume an LVT and imagine two identical McDonalds restaurants, in two different locations of a city.  When they were built, the land in the two locations was of comparable value.  Each McDonalds paid the same tax, and they got roughly the same amount of business.  Now, imagine that the area near one of the sites becomes a growing district of the city for some reason or another; more businesses move in, and there's more people in that end of town in general.  Now, that McDonalds will get way more business due to the increased number of potential customers: but it will also pay more tax.  The advantage of being located in the busier area is taxed away.  And that's fair, as the increased revenue had nothing to do with anything the McDonalds did, but was a result of a greater social trend.




> The location of the capital *is not taxed*.


The location is taxed.  The capital has no separate location to tax.  Are you claiming that a building can have a location independent of the site it's on?  You're talking nonsense.




> Only the unimproved land (_sans capital improvements_), is taxed. Remember? And that is without regard to quantity, value OR location _of those improvements_.  That is why an empty lot incurs the SAME LVT as a next door neighboring hi-rise on the same-sized parcel of land.


Riiiight.  And?  Again, there is no separate "building location"; there's just location, and the benefits of a location are taxed.  Giving landowners incentive to use their land productively is a good thing, as it ensures society will have adequate accommodations where such accommodations are desired.  You *want* capitalists competing with each other to supply fixed improvements to land; that makes everyone richer.

----------


## Roy L

> My final response to hopeless fanatics...
> 
> "Some Georgists lay great emphasis on the fixity of land: the supply of land sites is fixed and so increased population raises land values; again, horses are not fixed in supply but land is. Rebuttal to this is in two parts: (a) land sites may be fixed, but so are Rembrandts. Why not confiscate Rembrandt value?


While both Rembrandts and land are in fixed supply, and thus have the same monopolistic market characteristics, and it would consequently make sense to tax Rembrandts if we were only concerned about the economic effects (it would stimulate the optimum amount of exhibition to the public), it does not make moral sense to tax them for three reasons:

1. The value of Rembrandts doesn't come from government spending, it comes from Rembrandt, and however indirectly, the current owner of the painting paid him for it.

2. Rembrandts are not something people would otherwise be at liberty to use, so no compensation is owed for stopping others from using them, or for being stopped.

3. Unlike land, Rembrandts are easily destroyed or lost, and do not naturally recover their value when left alone, so reducing their value by taxation could lead to their permanent loss through neglect.



> (b) physical land may be fixed, but the service of supplying the land is not;


The "service of supplying land" is indisputably fixed, at zero.  There is no such thing as a "service of supplying the land," because the supply of land is fixed, and cannot be increased or decreased by the site owner.



> it is the productive service by the site-owner that generates value, and it will be gravely discouraged by taxes on land values.


There is no such service, never has been, and never will be.  The site-owner does nothing whatever but pocket the rent, which he can do just as well while comatose.  He is a pure parasite, and contributes no value whatever.  This is proved by the fact that removal of the owner and everything he has ever done has no effect whatever on the availability or unimproved value of the land.



> A 100 percent tax on land values will generate chaos in land and therefore in production generally; a lesser degree of taxes will inflict lesser damage, but damage there most certainly will be.


That is just a stupid lie that Murray Rothbard told because there is no way to contrive objections to liberty, justice and truth other than by telling stupid lies.  He decided to oppose LVT, and therefore decided, at the same moment, to tell stupid lies, and proceeded to tell them.  It's always the same.  We have seen it here in this thread and in all the other threads where LVT has been discussed: there are no honest objections to LVT, never have been, and never will be, only stupid lies.



> Finally, many Georgists have, by inference, accused me of wishing to levy taxes on production, and have expounded on the beneficial effects that would flow once such taxes were lifted from the
> economy. I have great respect for many aspects of Henry George; and none more than for his passages on the benefits that would ensue once taxes were removed from production. Our difference is that I
> believe that land value taxation would also blight production,


But never provided any logical or factual basis for that belief.



> and, further, be unjust rather than the contrary.


Again, that is indisputably contrary to fact.  Any injustice is associated with the transition, and is easily handled by appropriate temporary measures.



> If we wish to establish justice and remove taxes from production, some other means than
> land value taxation will have to be found." _Rothbard_


No other method is possible, has ever been possible, or ever will be possible.



> 


Exactly how I pictured you....

----------


## MattintheCrown

> Why is the state under LVT better than the state under the current tax regime?


Because the state's interests and society's interests are better aligned under an LVT than under the current tax regime.  Right now, the state taxes people based on what they provide to society; under the LVT, the state taxes people based on what they take from society.

As we all know that taxes act as a disincentive to a particular activity, it's easy to see why a state where monopolizing land is discouraged is better than a state where producing wealth is discouraged.  We want the former, and don't want the latter.  Our current tax regime puts wealth producers at odds with the state, whereas under the LVT, producers would be untaxed, and people would only pay based on the services they receive (namely, exclusive use of a given site).

Edit: I forgot to add another very important reason.  In a democratic state, the government is a reflection of the society it governs (albeit, a distorted reflection).  As a result, states that are poor and have widespread poverty, and have huge contrasts between the rich and poor are invariably rife with corruption; states that are wealthy, have little poverty, and have a lesser gap between the haves and have-nots typically have government that is much more accountable, and functions far better.  As a society under the LVT would be incomparably more wealthy and less poverty-stricken than any we know today, it follows that the state that governed it would tend to be much more effective for that reason alone.




> My final response to hopeless fanatics...
> 
> "Some Georgists lay great emphasis on the fixity of land: the supply
> of land sites is fixed and so increased population raises land values;
> again, horses are not fixed in supply but land is. Rebuttal to this is in
> two parts: (a) land sites may be fixed, but so are Rembrandts. Why
> not confiscate Rembrandt value? (b) physical land may be fixed, but
> the service of supplying the land is not; it is the productive service
> by the site-owner that generates value, and it will be gravely discouraged
> ...


(a) Because Rembrandts are products of labor.  It's true that taxing them won't cause any deadweight loss, just like a tax on land, but unlike land, no one has any right to use of Rembrandts (or, put another way, people who by Rembrandts *do* have a legitimate right to restrict others from using the painting, as there's presumably a chain of custody going back to the producer himself).

(b) There is no such thing as a service of supplying land, as it was supplied by nature.  Site owners do not generate the value of their sites; Rothbard is simply talking nonsense on that score.

----------


## Roy L

> Oh, Steven.  You are resourceful, I'll give you that.


"Dogged" would be the most flattering term for it.



> Every "point" you make is equally ludicrous


True.  And his less inventive dittoheads give him + reps for them, too...

----------


## Steven Douglas

> 1. LVT is not based on unimproved land.  It is based on the value land would have *IF it were* unimproved.


Thanks for the quasi-honesty, as that is exactly what geoists are proposing. What you failed to distinguish, but it's in geonomics anyway, is "WHICH" lands.  But you did say "if 'it' were unimproved. Meaning the land in question *only*.  Land would not have the same economic value if you took away ALL private improvements in the community.  An entire community area with nothing but vacant unimproved lands, even with infrastructure magically in place (police, fire, roads, everything ready to go except private improvements and private economic activity), would have SOME value. But not the same value as it would with everything and everyone already in place.  So the space would fill up, no question about that, but land rents would start out much lower, and would only grow through bootstrapping, as private individuals were finally enticed to come and fill the private economic voids.  

The unimproved value is for _a given parcel of land only_, and only relative to the value of all the other marginal IMPROVED lands, _which value includes the value of someone else's capital improvements and prior existing economic activity_ (i.e, OTHER'S capital and labor), which are factored into the land rents, or unimproved value of *that land only* (all neighboring lands).  




> 2. That value *IS*, directly and precisely, the locational advantage that the capital and labor best suited to that land *would* enjoy there.


And that pace, that "land rents value bar" for an empty lot, is established by all neighboring lands and their capital improvements, labor and other economic activities _that are already in place_.  And there's your *Great Developers Race* in a nutshell.  Just as the banks and first users of Fed-system-created currency are the clear winners in a currency-debauching regime, under an LVT regime, the first users (growing firms on lands of initially low value) grow naturally, as they enjoy paying the very lowest land rents, in increments they can automatically afford, as *they are the ones setting the bar*.  

They are not paying on the basis of some crystal ball future vision of their own future successes.  They are only paying based on the _past successes of the surrounding lands_.  So they are profitable "from the ground floor", so to speak (pun intended), as *they drive the floor of the marginal rents of empty neighboring lots upward*.  FIRST GROWING USERS OF LAND, and nobody else, get all the enormous benefits of that ground floor. They alone capture all the rental values _of their own_ capital improvements. They are NEVER taxed on the basis of the capital improvements of their poorer neighbors.  It is the other way around. Their re-assessments always occur after-the-fact, with new bars (for everyone) set on the basis of their proven abilities only. 

So the worst thing that can happen to you under LVT is that a WEALTHY MEGA-FIRM DEVELOPER ON STEROIDS plops its ass next door to you, because it is as good as an occupancy repellent to you. That is because ALL ITS ECONOMIC ADVANTAGES, an activities from ITS CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS, will be charged...to you.  That is because ALL economic advantages that would otherwise have existed without LVT, are being charged to you, whether you take advantage of them or not.  




> I.e., what you produce there, and the products you locate there -- contributions to the wealth of the community -- are not taxed.  Right.


And yet "what you produce there, and the products you locate there -- contributions to the wealth of the community", etc., are all responsible for driving up the LVT on marginal unimproved lands. So...*somebody is being taxed based on the existence of that capital (which is being counted as LAND RENTS!). Somebody is bearing the burden of somebody else's capital improvements.* 

And there's the rub. And the lie.  It is impossible for a late-comer to "grow" a business on an empty lot in the same way as a first-comer who grew theirs on a neighboring parcel of land.  Any newcomers will have to pay _as if they were already a going concern_, just like their neighbors that drove up the land rents in the first place.  And that's Survival of the Fittest Developer time under LVT -- a race between neighbors, as the most successful cause an erosion of the equity of all the rest -- because the economic activities related to ONE PERSON'S capital improvements (which you erroneously believe are are not taxed) become a very basis _for someone else's tax_.

That "locational advantage" is only really being enjoyed by someone who is already established and profitable, and whose capital improvements and other marginal economic activities were able to grow naturally, but were in turn _responsible_ for artificially driving the value of neighboring lands.  As a first-comer, MY capital, MY economic activity, is the very basis, in part for someone else's land value tax!




> <sigh>  The location of the capital is taxed because that is precisely what gives the land its unimproved value:


That had to make you sigh, given it's a blatant self-contradiction. 

"the capital" doesn't yet exist for an empty lot with an already incredibly high LVT -- only "the location" on which to put future capital" is taxed. But not because of that _as-yet nonexistent capital_. The unimproved value of that location is taxed because of *the location and existence of someone else's capital*, which drove those values up.  Without someone else's capital in place, already in existence, the economic activities that drive "unimproved land values" would not be the same at all.

Thus, LVT is, in substantial part, *a tax on capital* -- your neighbor's capital! Not land. _Capital_. 

Your own capital COULD be yours to keep, but only to the extent that you set the equity-eroding bar for your neighbors. That is the ONLY WAY to avoid a direct tax on everyone else's capital -- that is charged to you!

----------


## Roy L

> Why is the state under LVT better than the state under the current tax regime?


It's more efficient, more just, more prosperous, more honest, more stable, etc.  Instead of paying for government twice so that landowners can pocket one of the payments in return for nothing, the productive only pay for it once, when they voluntarily pay for the economic advantages government and the community give to land.  Landowners no longer own part-shares in millions of part-time slaves called, "taxpayers."

----------


## MattintheCrown

> Thanks for the quasi-honesty, as that is exactly what geoists are proposing. What you failed to distinguish, but it's in geonomics anyway, is "WHICH" lands.  But you did say "if 'it' were unimproved. Meaning the land in question *only*.  Land would not have the same economic value if you took away ALL private improvements in the community.  An entire community area with nothing but vacant unimproved lands, even with infrastructure magically in place (police, fire, roads, everything ready to go except private improvements and private economic activity), would have SOME value. But not the same value as it would with everything and everyone already in place.  So the space would fill up, no question about that, but land rents would start out much lower, and would only grow through bootstrapping, as private individuals were finally enticed to come and fill the private economic voids.  
> 
> The unimproved value is for _a given parcel of land only_, and only relative to the value of all the other marginal IMPROVED lands, _which value includes the value of someone else's capital improvements and prior existing economic activity_ (i.e, OTHER'S capital and labor), which are factored into the land rents, or unimproved value of *that land only* (all neighboring lands).


Right.  And there was never any confusion on this point.  In fact, it's been explicitly pointed out that land value is the product of three categories:

1) the natural qualities of the land itself provided by nature
2) the opportunities and amenities provided by society
3) the services and infrastructure provided by government

All land value arises from a combination of these three sources.




> And that pace, that "land rents value bar" for an empty lot, is established by all neighboring lands and their capital improvements, labor and other economic activities _that are already in place_.  And there's your *Great Developers Race* in a nutshell.  Just as the banks and first users of Fed-system-created currency are the clear winners in a currency-debauching regime, under an LVT regime, the first users (growing firms on lands of initially low value) grow naturally, as they enjoy paying the very lowest land rents, in increments they can automatically afford, as *they are the ones setting the bar*.


As the value rises, the amount they pay rises.  That's what Roy means when he says it's a value-for-value exchange: landowners pay for the privilege of exclusive use of a site, whatever the benefits of use of that site may be.




> They are not paying on the basis of some crystal ball future vision of their own future successes.  They are only paying based on the _past successes of the surrounding lands_.  So they are profitable "from the ground floor", so to speak (pun intended), as *they drive the floor of the marginal rents of empty neighboring lots upward*.  FIRST GROWING USERS OF LAND, and nobody else, get all the enormous benefits of that ground floor. They alone capture all the rental values _of their own_ capital improvements. They are NEVER taxed on the basis of the capital improvements of their poorer neighbors.  It is the other way around. Their re-assessments always occur after-the-fact, with new bars (for everyone) set on the basis of their proven abilities only.


And that's problematic how?  Under the current system, first comers are at a far greater advantage: if their land increases in value due to the efforts of others on neighboring land, they are simply enriched.  They get to pocket the increment.  They don't even have to be productive and exploit that advantage to any societally-beneficial use; they can just let their improvements go to waste, and cash out when the land value has risen sufficiently for their liking.

To the extent you have a point here, your point is far more damning of our current system; the LVT undercuts this phenomenon to a great extent.  Thanks for pointing out why justice requires the LVT.




> So the worst thing that can happen to you under LVT is that a WEALTHY MEGA-FIRM DEVELOPER ON STEROIDS plops its ass next door to you, because it is as good as an occupancy repellent to you. That is because ALL ITS ECONOMIC ADVANTAGES, an activities from ITS CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS, will be charged...to you.  That is because ALL economic advantages that would otherwise have existed without LVT, are being charged to you, whether you take advantage of them or not.


But, if you're actually productive, you can exploit those benefits.  That's the point: if land owners are given incentive to be productive, and to use their land as productively as they can, all of society benefits.  Society saves resources, allowing more wealth with less labor.




> And yet "what you produce there, and the products you locate there -- contributions to the wealth of the community", etc., are all responsible for driving up the LVT on marginal unimproved lands. So...*somebody is being taxed based on the existence of that capital (which is being counted as LAND RENTS!). Somebody is bearing the burden of somebody else's capital improvements.*


Nope.  They're not bearing the burden, because even as they're being charged extra, they're also enjoying the benefit of being located next to such improvements.  If I own a sandwich shop in a city, and the surrounding area is developed more intensely, it's true that I will end up paying more tax, but it's also true that my potential customer base is expanded.  The rent I pay is just a reflection of the benefit I enjoy of being so located.

That's why the LVT improves efficiency, and is fair: landowners pay for the benefits they enjoy, and producers go untaxed.  We *want* more capital.  We *want* more goods.  What the LVT does is ensure that locations where goods and services are in demand are supplied with goods and services.  This saves time, effort, and resources, and thus makes all of society that much wealthier.  The LVT eliminates rent-seeking behavior: people who want to make money are forced to be productive, and to supply goods and services commensurate with demand in that area.




> And there's the rub. And the lie.  It is impossible for a late-comer to "grow" a business on an empty lot in the same way as a first-comer who grew theirs on a neighboring parcel of land.


Not at all.  Any prospective entrepreneur goes into the endeavor knowing what his tax burden will be, and what benefits he will enjoy.  Some might choose to locate in low land-value areas, pay little tax, and build small-time businesses, whereas others may choose to locate in high land-value areas, pay a lot of tax, and build large businesses.  In either case, newcomers are more or less on equal footing with established business -quite contrary to our existing system, where established businesses are privileged to pocket the benefits society bestows on their sites.  This obviously makes competition more intense, and thus allocates resources more efficiently.




> Any newcomers will have to pay _as if they were already a going concern_, just like their neighbors that drove up the land rents in the first place.  And that's Survival of the Fittest Developer time under LVT -- a race between neighbors, as the most successful cause an erosion of the equity of all the rest -- because the economic activities related to ONE PERSON'S capital improvements (which you erroneously believe are are not taxed) become a very basis _for someone else's tax_.


You're confusing life under the LVT with life now.  Right now, newcomers are at a huge disadvantage, because existing businesses are not charged for any increments in locational benefits they enjoy: on the contrary, they're privileged to charge others for them.  They don't even have to be productive; they can rest on their laurels, and just watch their land increase in value.  Meanwhile, their competition has to pay the new, high cost for the land.  In a down year, the latter are at a massive disadvantage, as the former has built up "equity" and can wait them out.  As it stands now, established, less efficient producers are in the position to drive newer, more efficient producers out of business, as they have the advantage of not having to pay for the increased benefits their site provides.  The LVT eliminates that advantage, and puts all producers on equal footing.  Again: you're arguing *for* the LVT.




> That "locational advantage" is only really being enjoyed by someone who is already established and profitable, and whose capital improvements and other marginal economic activities were able to grow naturally, but were in turn _responsible_ for artificially driving the value of neighboring lands.  As a first-comer, MY capital, MY economic activity, is the very basis, in part for someone else's land value tax!


Hahah.  You don't realize how effectively you're arguing in favor of the LVT.   




> That had to make you sigh, given it's a blatant self-contradiction. 
> 
> "the capital" doesn't yet exist for an empty lot with an already incredibly high LVT -- only "the location" on which to put future capital" is taxed. But not because of that _as-yet nonexistent capital_. The unimproved value of that location is taxed because of *the location and existence of someone else's capital*, which drove those values up.  Without someone else's capital in place, already in existence, the economic activities that drive "unimproved land values" would not be the same at all.


In some cases.  Refer to my three sources of land value above.




> Thus, LVT is, in substantial part, *a tax on capital* -- your neighbor's capital! Not land. _Capital_.


Nope.  No one is taxed on capital.  They're taxed on the benefits stemming from capital, which is not the same thing.  Taxing capital would reduce the incentive to supply capital, whereas taxing land has the opposite effect: it makes it so that owners of the land have to supply capital, lest they lose money on their land.  The LVT literally incentivizes capital production.




> Your own capital COULD be yours to keep, but only to the extent that you set the equity-eroding bar for your neighbors. That is the ONLY WAY to avoid a direct tax on everyone else's capital -- that is charged to you!


It's not a tax on everyone else's capital: it's a tax on the benefit of proximity to everyone else's capital.  And that's a very real and obvious benefit.  Take my McDonalds example from a couple of posts back if you're not clear on why that is.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> 1) the natural qualities of the land itself provided by nature (the rents of which are said to "belong" equally to every geocommunist in the geocommune)
> 2) the opportunities and amenities provided by society  (the benefits of being near private economic activities of others which are also arrogated by the geocommune) 
> 3) the services and infrastructure provided by government (which are rented out for a profit regardless of initial cost recovery)
> 
> All land value arises from a combination of these three sources.


...the rents of which could rightly be captured from fictitious commercial entities and other non-Citizen entities, foreign and domestic, but which rightly belong, in my mind, to individual Citizens as a matter of right.

1) privately held lands do not 'belong' to everyone in the community -- unless "foreigners" are in the mix competing with those who have actual rights.
2) the economic rents, or benefits of owning land near increases in private economic activities _should_ inure to the benefit of private individuals with rights.
3) government services and infrastructure are NOT for profit where private individuals with unalienable rights.   




> As the value rises, the amount they pay rises.  That's what Roy means when he says it's a value-for-value exchange: landowners pay for the privilege of exclusive use of a site, whatever the benefits of use of that site may be.


No, you are creating is a *diseconomy of agglomeration*, with artificial values tug-o-wars, as the natural benefits of locating near one other (division of labor, specialization, variety of suppliers of various scales in competition) are all taxed away by the state. This works as a disincentive for average firms which distorts economies of scale in a way that favors only the heaviest-hitting developers, who are in a no-lose economic advantage situation every time.  

If MegaDeveloper generates a ton of economic activity _for itself_, and not necessarily its neighbors, it nonetheless causes assessed neighboring land values to rise (on the *simpleton's presumption* that there must necessarily be economic advantages that arise from simply being next door).  This initially makes neighboring firms (which have not necessarily figured out how to exploit all those juicy *putative* advantages) *less profitable*.  It also clears out everyone who cannot afford the new LVT assessments associated with being MD's neighbor.  Bye bye, so long, sorry you weren't more efficient, say the geofascist. $#@! off.  If, over time, however, it is revealed that there really are no economic advantages to being next to MD (as nobody else can afford to the LVT levied and the lands remain vacant), the land values eventually must fall again until the land vacancies finally refill.  ("oopsie" and "oh well" to those who lost their shirts or went belly-up or had to move in the process).  Meanwhile, MegaDeveloper could always afford the rents, but _never, ever_ pays more than what his _next highest paying_ neighboring pays.  That is the CAP on MD's LVT. So an additional advantage comes from being the biggest developer fish in a little developer pond. The sky is now the limit for MegaDeveloper, because his LVT has also gone down, and will never go higher than his next highest-paying landowner neighbor. 




> And that's problematic how?  Under the current system, first comers are at a far greater advantage: if their land increases in value due to the efforts of others on neighboring land, they are simply enriched.  They get to pocket the increment.


Yay, individual Citizens with actual rights. Their windfall, baby, that's their unalienable rights at work, good for them.  Not so Yay in my mind when it comes to speculators and Megadevelopers, like fictitious entities, foreign and domestic, who have no rights in my mind, but only conditional privileges, and only as their activities and existence serve the common good.  That is the difference between your system, the current system, and the one I envision.  I'm not against a Land Value Tax, generically and not geocommunistically speaking, and more than I'm against any tax. As long as it doesn't touch real individual human beings who exist and behave as as a matter of right, I see it as a valuable tool.  

But geofascists?  They're the stuff of Hellbound Hellraiser, with oh, such sights to show us.  They have little humanity, as they don't really know or respect the difference between a real individual Citizen with actual rights and the fictitious entities that exploit them. Geofascists don't give a $#@! enough to know the difference, because when it comes right down to it they were all about the security of the state, and those who suckle from it.  If that means turning a handful of mega-developers into economic feudal overlords, so be it. It will be good for everyone so long as those suckling from the state get theirs -- kind of like what we have now, only on land value crack. 




> To the extent you have a point here, your point is far more damning of our current system; the LVT undercuts this phenomenon to a great extent.  Thanks for pointing out why justice requires the LVT.


No, not as you have it envisioned, that's for sure. That's a nightmare for individuals and an automatic windfall for the largest land developers only. All backwards.  Under your system, real individual Citizens with real human rights are all thrown into a mish-mash diseconomy of agglomeration, equated as being on equal rights footing with $#@!ing developer sharks and other capital-advantaged fictitious entities that are treated as being on par with real people, but who are actually FAVORED by the state, until those entities, those developers, become the new feudal lords. JUST LIKE HONG KONG.

----------


## Roy L

> The state under our current conditions and the state under LVT is essentially the same.


Only to those who refuse to understand the difference.



> A privileged group claiming the monopoly of violence coercing another group of individuals to give money to it under the pretense of protecting their freedom to have property.


You are describing landowners.



> I have said it before, your whole LVT argument is built on sand as the state is the problem at the root and the monopoly it holds is the source of the corruption...


That's objectively false, as Somalia and every feudal society prove.



> Whether the state feeds with its right paw (taxing incomes and goods) or its left (LVT), is of no concern to the devoured.


LVT is a voluntary, beneficiary-pay, market-based, value-for-value transaction.  That is just not good enough for you, because you are accustomed to riding up on the escalator courtesy of the people on the treadmill, and being privileged to steal from the productive.  That greed for unearned wealth through landowner privilege is the only basis on which anyone ever opposes LVT.



> You claim land ownership is parasitism and skip over the state with a gun taking property and claiming to protect property as not in the least parasitic. Funny contradiction.


You have not understood that LVT doesn't take anyone's property, and doesn't threaten to put anyone in jail.  It simply requires payment of the market rent of land to the government and community that create its rental value, to defray the cost of the services and infrastructure that create it.  It is a value-for-value transaction, like paying for the groceries or putting them back on the shelf.  You are merely accustomed to walking out of the store with groceries without paying for them, so you think you have a right to do so, and accuse the supplier of the groceries of stealing when he tells you to either pay for what you are taking or do without it.  You don't have any right to take from others without paying, and your complaints are the squalling of a greedy little brat.



> Since land contains the elements of every scarce good in our society, which is transformed by capital and labor over time. The state would become the controller of all property, it would logically have to.


No, that claim is just stupid garbage with no basis in fact or logic.



> The renter/transformers of these elements from the public controlled land could keep the fruits of their labor, but for how long.


Forever.



> Up until the same stupid argument that property owners are denying non property owners their "right" to use any other persons property at their leisure.


You have to lie about the fact that land would otherwise be available for others' use, while products of labor would not.  And so you lie about it.



> Any thief could make the argument that property rights in general impede his right to use any and all goods he wishes to use.


But that claim is objectively false, as he would not otherwise be at liberty to use the products of labor, as they would not exist without their producers having produced them.  Land would.  You are essentially saying that you cannot tell the difference between a thief claiming a right to use the products of your labor and you asserting your right to breathe atmospheric air without paying rent for it.



> Since owning land is violation of others right to use it freely, it isn't that much of a stretch to make the case that anything derived from the land you rent as being interfering with the right of all others to use what was derived from the unownable land.


Yes, it is: there can be no right to the impossible.



> Crackpot-ism at its best.


Always a good fallback position when you have been comprehensively and conclusively proved wrong.



> Since property renters and property owners treat capital value in property differently, you would have two very distinct outcomes. You should put some thought into this.


I've put a couple of orders of magnitude more thought into it than you have, and moreover my thought has been clear, informed, and effective.

----------


## MattintheCrown

> ...the rents of which could rightly be captured from fictitious commercial entities and other non-Citizen entities, foreign and domestic, but which rightly belong, in my mind, to individual Citizens as a matter of right.


What?




> 1) privately held lands do not 'belong' to everyone in the community -- unless "foreigners" are in the mix competing with those who have actual rights.
> 2) the economic rents, or benefits of owning land near increases in private economic activities _should_ inure to the benefit of private individuals with rights.
> 3) government services and infrastructure are NOT for profit where private individuals with unalienable rights.


1) No land 'belongs' to anyone.  The privilege of privately holding land demands compensation to those thereby deprived its use.
2) Which private individuals?  Why?
3) Does not parse.




> No, you are creating is a *diseconomy of agglomeration*, with artificial values tug-o-wars, as the natural benefits of locating near one other (division of labor, specialization, variety of suppliers of various scales in competition) are all taxed away by the state.


There's nothing artificial about it.  You pay for the benefits you enjoy.  What you're saying is like saying that hotels tax away all the benefits of their rooms by charging customers.  But obviously, that's just stupid.  




> This works as a disincentive for average firms which distorts economies of scale in a way that favors only the heaviest-hitting developers, who are in a no-lose economic advantage situation every time.


Nope: it just directs differently-sized firms to locate in areas suited to their needs.




> If MegaDeveloper generates a ton of economic activity _for itself_, and not necessarily its neighbors, it nonetheless causes assessed neighboring land values to rise (on the *simpleton's presumption* that there must necessarily be economic advantages that arise from simply being next door).


There's no presumption: the land value arises to the extent *there actually are benefits, and others are willing to pay for them*.  If there are no such benefits, or no one's willing to pay for them, the tax doesn't rise.  Duh.




> This initially makes neighboring firms (which have not necessarily figured out how to exploit all those juicy *putative* advantages) *less profitable*.  It also clears out everyone who cannot afford the new LVT assessments associated with being MD's neighbor.  Bye bye, so long, sorry you weren't more efficient, say the geofascist. $#@! off.  If, over time, however, it is revealed that there really are no economic advantages to being next to MD (as nobody else can afford to the LVT levied and the lands remain vacant), the land values eventually must fall again until the land vacancies finally refill.  ("oopsie" and "oh well" to those who lost their shirts or went belly-up or had to move in the process).


Which, of course, couldn't happen, as explained above.




> Meanwhile, MegaDeveloper could always afford the rents, but _never, ever_ pays more than what his _next highest paying_ neighboring pays.  That is the CAP on MD's LVT. So an additional advantage comes from being the biggest developer fish in a little developer pond. The sky is now the limit for MegaDeveloper, because his LVT has also gone down, and will never go higher than his next highest-paying landowner neighbor.


When is it not advantageous to be the big fish?  Your whole line of argumentation is idiotic.




> Yay, individual Citizens with actual rights. Their windfall, baby, that's their unalienable rights at work, good for them.


What right is that, pray tell?  Why should anyone get to charge his fellow citizens for access to benefits provided by the government and other citizens?




> Not so Yay in my mind when it comes to speculators and Megadevelopers, like fictitious entities, foreign and domestic, who have no rights in my mind, but only conditional privileges, and only as their activities and existence serve the common good.  That is the difference between your system, the current system, and the one I envision.  I'm not against a Land Value Tax, generically and not geocommunistically speaking, and more than I'm against any tax. As long as it doesn't touch real individual human beings who exist and behave as as a matter of right, I see it as a valuable tool.


Meaningless.




> But geofascists?  They're the stuff of Hellbound Hellraiser, with oh, such sights to show us.  They have little humanity, as they don't really know or respect the difference between a real individual Citizen with actual rights and the fictitious entities that exploit them. Geofascists don't give a $#@! enough to know the difference, because when it comes right down to it they were all about the security of the state, and those who suckle from it.  If that means turning a handful of mega-developers into economic feudal overlords, so be it. It will be good for everyone so long as those suckling from the state get theirs -- kind of like what we have now, only on land value crack.


Utter rot.




> No, not as you have it envisioned, that's for sure. That's a nightmare for individuals and an automatic windfall for the largest land developers only. All backwards.


Ridiculous reasoning disproved above.




> Under your system, real individual Citizens with real human rights are all thrown into a mish-mash diseconomy of agglomeration, equated as being on equal rights footing with $#@!ing developer sharks and other capital-advantaged fictitious entities that are treated as being on par with real people, but who are actually FAVORED by the state, until those entities, those developers, become the new feudal lords. JUST LIKE HONG KONG.


How is Hong Kong anything like you describe?  Oh, that's right, it isn't, and you're just pulling this from your rectal duct.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> 3) government services and infrastructure are NOT for profit where private individuals with unalienable rights.
> 			
> 		
> 
> 3) Does not parse.


I think you're being obtuse. Add "are concerned" to the end (as I'm sure most did already, given that it was more than obvious) - and to further clarify, add "to the state" after the words "for profit", such that it reads, and will parse as:

*Government services and infrastructure are NOT for profit to the state where private individuals with unalienable rights are concerned.*

Clear enough? Could you parse that? 




> Why should anyone get to charge his fellow citizens for access to benefits provided by the government and other citizens?


What an absolute load of nebulous, collectivized and narrowed assumptions, with flagrantly presumptive compound question begging. To wit:

*Only "fellow citizens" are considered*. The word "anyone" could have applied to any commercially acting entity, *real or fictitious, foreign or domestic, public or private*. However, you specifically wrote "_his fellow citizens_", which deliberately constrains your meaning of "anyone" to any individual fellow citizen _only_ - singular (foreigners, the state, corporations which are fictitious entities created by the state, etc., are not "fellow citizens"). 

We can table your deliberately constrained bull$#@! question for the moment, as we make other, equally narrowed (but also equally inclusive) distinctions that begin to flesh out the realities of a much larger geoist picture. For example, you could just as easily have asked, as a narrowly focused compound question:

*"Why should a foreigner get to charge Citizens of another country for access to benefits provided by those Citizens via the very government that was created by them to serve on their behalf, and to protect their interests?"*

The above sentence applies equally to your geoist paradigm. But it would also be a very differently loaded question, which I would answer very differently, given the status of each of three entities involved.  Note the deliberate omission of "_access to [privately owned] benefits provided by [private] Citizens_", which can be considered separately, as a matter of principle. 

The answer to the question as I phrased it above is a resounding, "Good question, with a very easy answer.":  

*"Foreigners should NEVER have the power to charge Citizens, individually or collectively, for access to benefits provided by those very Citizens through their government."*

And did you see how I removed government as a "provider"? We can toss out that question-begging bull$#@! as well. *Our government provides nothing* except as a servant, agent, and _extension_ of all its individual Citizens, on whose behalf of it exists and acts.  If a government can be viewed as truly separate from its Citizens, or seen in any other light, there is no legitimacy for that government that I would accept. 

Your compound question was ridiculously loaded in other ways, as it was as nebulous and ill-defined in some areas as it was deliberately constrained in meaning in others (e.g., the words "charge", and "access to" and "benefits").  

We can continue to dissect and drill down into what those mean, and how and to whom they would apply, but let's see how well we do with what I have written thus far. Before we get a rational rephrasing of your compound question so that it really can be answered, answer mine:

*"Why should a foreigner get to charge Citizens of another country for access to benefits provided by those Citizens in their country via the very government that was created by them to serve on their behalf, and to protect their interests?*

If you think my version contains question begging that you don't accept, just say so as well, and we can debate that as well.

----------


## kylejack

> The Federal Reserve doesn't own any gold.  They do store some for the government but they don't own it- officially it belongs to the Treasury.


Since they won't permit an audit, there's no way to know if they do or don't own gold.

----------


## MattintheCrown

> I think you're being obtuse. Add "are concerned" to the end (as I'm sure most did already, given that it was more than obvious) -


It wasn't obvious at all.  Here's a hint, Steven: unlike you, we readers do not have access to your mind.




> and to further clarify, add "to the state" after the words "for profit", such that it reads, and will parse as:
> 
> *Government services and infrastructure are NOT for profit to the state where private individuals with unalienable rights are concerned.*
> 
> Clear enough? Could you parse that?


Not really.  It'd be better if you just rephrased it, because I still don't know what you're talking about.  Profit has nothing to do with anything; I merely stated that a portion of land rent arises from government supplied services and infrastructure.  I can see why you'd try to muddy the waters with nonsense about profit, but it's a really simple point.




> What an absolute load of nebulous, collectivized and narrowed assumptions, with flagrantly presumptive compound question begging. To wit:
> 
> *Only "fellow citizens" are considered*. The word "anyone" could have applied to any commercially acting entity, *real or fictitious, foreign or domestic, public or private*. However, you specifically wrote "_his fellow citizens_", which deliberately constrains your meaning of "anyone" to any individual fellow citizen _only_ - singular (foreigners, the state, corporations which are fictitious entities created by the state, etc., are not "fellow citizens").


I was going to use the word "society," but I felt that someone might once again challenge the existence of society, so I felt it was better to use "fellow citizens," as that would prevent anyone from avoiding the point.  Sadly, I was wrong, and you've still managed to avoid the point, by way of this useless diversion.




> We can table your deliberately constrained bull$#@! question for the moment, as we make other, equally narrowed (but also equally inclusive) distinctions that begin to flesh out the realities of a much larger geoist picture. For example, you could just as easily have asked, as a narrowly focused compound question:
> 
> *"Why should a foreigner get to charge Citizens of another country for access to benefits provided by those Citizens via the very government that was created by them to serve on their behalf, and to protect their interests?"*
> 
> The above sentence applies equally to your geoist paradigm. But it would also be a very differently loaded question, which I would answer very differently, given the status of each of three entities involved.  Note the deliberate omission of "_access to [privately owned] benefits provided by [private] Citizens_", which can be considered separately, as a matter of principle.


Not really.  You've created another sentence that doesn't parse.  I challenge the forum to determine what you were trying to say.  I've read that 3 times now, and have only the foggiest of notions what you're trying to say.

Thing is, you're perfectly capable of creating a sentence; it's just that the nonsense you've descended to has you flailing to produce sentences that convey the nonsensical message.  They probably don't parse because there's no sense to be had of it outside your mind.




> The answer to the question as I phrased it above is a resounding, "Good question, with a very easy answer.":  
> 
> *"Foreigners should NEVER have the power to charge Citizens, individually or collectively, for access to benefits provided by those very Citizens through their government."*
> 
> And did you see how I removed government as a "provider"? We can toss out that question-begging bull$#@! as well. *Our government provides nothing* except as a servant, agent, and _extension_ of all its individual Citizens, on whose behalf of it exists and acts.  If a government can be viewed as truly separate from its Citizens, or seen in any other light, there is no legitimacy for that government that I would accept.


Sigh.  Again, no idea.  Why don't you just answer my question?

Oh, right.




> Your compound question was ridiculously loaded in other ways, as it was as nebulous and ill-defined in some areas as it was deliberately constrained in meaning in others (e.g., the words "charge", and "access to" and "benefits").


It was very simple.  There was nothing indirect or sneaky about it.  A 5 year old would have understood it very well.




> We can continue to dissect and drill down into what those mean, and how and to whom they would apply, but let's see how well we do with what I have written thus far. Before we get a rational rephrasing of your compound question so that it really can be answered, answer mine:
> 
> *"Why should a foreigner get to charge Citizens of another country for access to benefits provided by those Citizens in their country via the very government that was created by them to serve on their behalf, and to protect their interests?*
> 
> If you think my version contains question begging that you don't accept, just say so as well, and we can debate that as well.


To the extent I even know what the hell you're talking about, I'd say they shouldn't.  But obviously I'm misunderstanding you, because from what I can tell, you're asking the same question I asked, only applying it to a foreign country, which obviously doesn't make any sense for you to do.   If I had shown you this post of yours two years ago, I'd be you'd have been astounded, and claimed you would never craft something so ridiculous.  But that's what opposing truth does to people, and here you are.

----------


## Zippyjuan

> Since they won't permit an audit, there's no way to know if they do or don't own gold.


Their books are audited every year. 

http://www.federalreserve.gov/public...tem-audits.htm



> The Board of Governors, the Federal Reserve Banks, and the Federal Reserve System as a whole are all subject to several levels of audit and review.
> 
> The Board's financial statements, and its compliance with laws and regulations affecting those statements, are audited annually by an outside auditor retained by the Board's Office of Inspector General.
> 
> The Reserve Banks' financial statements are audited annually by an independent outside auditor retained by the Board of Governors. In addition, the Reserve Banks are subject to annual examination by the Board. As discussed in the chapter "Federal Reserve Banks," the Board's examination includes a wide range of ongoing oversight activities conducted on site and off site by staff of the Board's Division of Reserve Bank Operations and Payment Systems.
> 
> The OIG also conducts audits, reviews, and investigations relating to the Board's programs and operations as well as to Board functions delegated to the Reserve Banks, and Federal Reserve operations are also subject to review by the Government Accountability Office.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Profit has nothing to do with anything; I merely stated that a portion of land rent arises from government supplied services and infrastructure.


You really are being obtuse.  LVT is levied, due and payable, without regard _any expenditures_ by the state, and regardless of what services and infrastructures are provided, past, present or future.  That means that the state is behaving no differently than any for-profit, profit-maximizing, rent-collecting corporation.  It does not provide services and infrastructure "at cost", because it continues to charge future rents on infrastructure long after its initial costs are recovered, and without regard to the actual common needs of the people it ostensibly serves.  Thus, the state is a growth industry in itself, taking in actual profits which inure the benefits of whomever is the beneficiary of redistributed revenues. 




> I was going to use the word "society," but I felt that someone might once again challenge the existence of society, so I felt it was better to use "fellow citizens," as that would prevent anyone from avoiding the point.  Sadly, I was wrong, and you've still managed to avoid the point, by way of this useless diversion.


Just as you failed, as you name only "society" or "fellow citizens", without acknowledging that you have included foreigners, corporations, etc., on equal footing in that mix.




> Why don't you just answer my question?
> 
> Oh, right.
> 
> It was very simple.  There was nothing indirect or sneaky about it.  A 5 year old would have understood it very well.






> Why should anyone get to charge his fellow citizens for access to benefits provided by the government and other citizens?


A 5 year-old wouldn't have the slightest idea of what you were talking about. And your sentence cannot be answered without being taken out of its fuzzy question begging compound form, with ill-defined terms clarified and defined, such that EACH resulting question could be answered independently. 

By "anyone", you obviously meant a "fellow citizen", but why did you constrain that when more than just citizens are involved, who are not?
Why did you conflate what government provides with what citizens provide? 
How, exactly does a citizen "charge for access to benefits provided by other citizens"?  WHAT benefits, and HOW are those "charged for", exactly?  Can you answer that without arguing from a circular geoist premise that nobody here except geoist accepts? 

If I put a rope or a fence around your business and "charge" others a fee for access to the benefits YOU PERSONALLY are offering, let me know so I can stop that, as that would wrong. 

What do you mean by "charge"? What is/are that/those _charge_ mechanism(s), exactly?
What do you mean by "access to"?
What do you mean by "benefits"? What benefits, specifically?
What do you mean by "provided"?

Your compound question might produce a nice, generally indignant feel-good response in the guts of geoists, but you're going to need to be more specific if you want it to have any meaning for anyone else not already part of your choir.

----------


## MattintheCrown

> You really are being obtuse.


No, I'm not.  What you wrote simply had nothing to do with what I said.  Again, I simply pointed out that some portion of land value is attributable to the services and infrastructure provided by the government.  Full stop.




> LVT is levied, due and payable, without regard _any expenditures_ by the state, and regardless of what services and infrastructures are provided, past, present or future.  That means that the state is behaving no differently than any for-profit, profit-maximizing, rent-collecting corporation.  It does not provide services and infrastructure "at cost", because it continues to charge future rents on infrastructure long after its initial costs are recovered, and without regard to the actual common needs of the people it ostensibly serves.


No, it charges current rents.




> Thus, the state is a growth industry in itself, taking in actual profits which inure the benefits of whomever is the beneficiary of redistributed revenues.


Not really, because the state is a democratic institution which has no shares, and provides no dividends.




> Just as you failed, as you name only "society" or "fellow citizens", without acknowledging that you have included foreigners, corporations, etc., on equal footing in that mix.


That simply makes no difference to my point.




> A 5 year-old wouldn't have the slightest idea of what you were talking about.


Yes, he or she would.




> And your sentence cannot be answered without being taken out of its fuzzy question begging compound form, with ill-defined terms clarified and defined, such that EACH resulting question could be answered independently.


Yes, it could.  There was no question-begging.




> By "anyone", you obviously meant a "fellow citizen", but why did you constrain that when more than just citizens are involved, who are not?


I didn't constrain anything.  You're just appealing to semantics.




> Why did you conflate what government provides with what citizens provide?


I didn't, of course.




> How, exactly does a citizen "charge for access to benefits provided by other citizens"?


By owning land and leasing it to others, or selling it.




> WHAT benefits, and HOW are those "charged for", exactly?  Can you answer that without arguing from a circular geoist premise that nobody here except geoist accepts?


The benefits fall into the three categories I've already named.  Their degree and extent are measured by the market as land value.




> If I put a rope or a fence around your business and "charge" others a fee for access to the benefits YOU PERSONALLY are offering, let me know so I can stop that, as that would wrong.


That's effectively what landowners do to land, only instead of me offering the benefits, it's society, nature, and government.

Of course, the landowners don't put the "fence" up: government does.  Government currently privileges landowners with exclusive use of part of the land that comprises the state, and allows the landowners to charge others for the benefits provided by nature, society, and the state.




> What do you mean by "charge"? What is/are that/those _charge_ mechanism(s), exactly?


Selling or leasing.




> What do you mean by "access to"?


Use of, via proximity.




> What do you mean by "benefits"? What benefits, specifically?


The benefits are manifold.  The benefit of being located where there is a large supply of laborers and consumers, the benefit of being located near to public transportation, etc.  




> What do you mean by "provided"?


www.dictionary.com




> Your compound question might produce a nice, generally indignant feel-good response in the guts of geoists, but you're going to need to be more specific if you want it to have any meaning for anyone else not already part of your choir.


Nonsense.  The simple fact is that you know you have no reasonable answer to the question, so you're trying to find ways to avoid answering it.

You know you're wrong, Steven.  Why keep it up?  I was like you once, of course.  I tried every way I could to prove geoists wrong; I'll even admit resorting to dishonest arguments and making absurd arguments.  But I didn't keep it up long; eventually, I set out to read _Progress and Poverty_ and find the exact point where George went off track.  Thing is, he didn't.  He's right.  Being proved wrong is unpleasant, sure, but being right is ultimately more important.  Your ideology doesn't define you.

----------


## ClydeCoulter

You LVT guys are comical, in a drunken sort of way.

----------


## MattintheCrown

> You LVT guys are comical, in a drunken sort of way.


Well, that's a helpful comment.  As a fellow Hoosier, perhaps you can set me straight.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> ...some portion of land value is attributable to the services and infrastructure provided by the government.  Full stop.


So is some portion of candy bar value, hooker value, crime value... all full stop.  Why, you could go on all day and create War & Peace sized tome that listed nothing but goods and services, the value of which can attributed in part to common infrastructure-_provided-by-the-people-through-their-lowly-servants-the-government_.

So I guess in that blitheringly meaningless sense every citizen gets to charge for what the people, through their government, provided in common, through government services and infracture.  Innat neat? Innat swell?  




> No, it charges current rents.


Try again.

"Current rents" under LVT only means _tax equal to the annual rental value of a given parcel land if that parcel was unimproved_.  Part of that annual rental value of unimproved land is attributable to things which have *zero cost* (namely, the unimproved land itself), as well as infrastructure, the costs of much of which has long since been been captured. 




> Not really, because the state is a democratic institution which has no shares, and provides no dividends.


Oops! There goes Roy's Universal Individual Exemption down the geotoilet, as well as many geoists thoughts regarding wealth redistribution in the form of dividends. 




> That simply makes no difference to my point.
> 
> Yes, he or she would.
> 
> Yes, it could.  There was no question-begging.
> 
> I didn't constrain anything.  You're just appealing to semantics.
> 
> I didn't, of course.


Unresponsive X 6.  




> How, exactly does a citizen "charge for access to benefits provided by other citizens"?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 			
> 				By owning land and leasing it to others, or selling it.


Cool, so anyone who owns land, but does not lease or sell it to others, has not charged for access to benefits provided by other citizens?  

Either way, you still didn't connect the dots for landowners who do lease or sell their land to others.  How, exactly, is leasing or selling owned land tantamount to charging for "access to benefits provided by other citizens"? What benefits? Which citizens?




> That's effectively what landowners do to land, only instead of me offering the benefits, it's society, nature, and government.


Nature is initially free, but not when privately owned. Government is a servant that provides only necessary common benefits _at cost only_ (no perpetual rents charged over its own costs). And "society", economically speaking, does not exist.  That is a fictional abstraction. And if you were really saying "private sector market" -- that's none of your business, unless you are talking about entities without rights.  Not all entities in the market have the same legal status, nor does the state (or any extension thereof) have any rightful entitlement to rents arising from the private sector.  




> Of course, the landowners don't put the "fence" up: government does.


Exactly.  




> Government currently privileges landowners with exclusive use of part of the land that comprises the state


...only in a geocommunist, geofascist framework, wherein ALL LAND, including privately owned land, is considered _commonwealth_.  $#@! that. 




> ...and allows the landowners to charge others for the benefits provided by nature, society, and the state.


See above re: nature, society, and the state. 




> The benefits are manifold.  The benefit of being located where there is a large supply of laborers and consumers, the benefit of being located near to public transportation, etc.


Lucky landowners, good on them.  But luckier consumers under LVT, including foreigners.  They also have access to those benefits. Anyone who comes in does. They are taking advantage of (and even wearing out) services, amenities, and infrastructure like anyone else.  _Why do they get a free ride?_ Where's the $#@!ing land rents cover charge for other market participants who are using all these things? Is it free to them because they only use it up and wear it out, but not exclusively?  Why no toll booths at all roads, and especially those leading to the juicier busier markets, charging a BENEFITS ACCESS USE TAX to all those freeloading bastards who come in to suckle off of all that _access to benefits_ that you're so keen to charge only to end user landowners?  They aren't the only ones with access to benefits - but somehow they are the only ones expected to pay for them.   

Could it be that you have embarrassed yourself before others by erroneously buying into a simplistic simpleton's model of land and landowners as being "*the source and location of all economic supply and its value*", while non-landowners are presumed to be the source of something entirely different and special where "access to benefits" is concerned? 

You know you're wrong, Matt.  Why keep it up?  You were never like me, of course.  You claim to have tried every way you could to prove geoists wrong, and got sucked in, when a little critical thought could have served you better. And since you admitted to resorting to dishonest arguments and making absurd arguments already, there is no reason to believe that has changed. I also read _Progress and Poverty_, and listened to geolibs embarrassingly ad nauseam rants and preachings. It was not so much find out the exact point where George and all the rest went off track, but rather the source of their credulity, and how it was they all appeared to have lost their collective minds.  And thing is, I did find it.  Being proved wrong is unpleasant for you, sure, but being right is ultimately more important.  Your ideology may define you now, but it doesn't have to.

----------


## MattintheCrown

> So is some portion of candy bar value, hooker value, crime value... all full stop.  Why, you could go on all day and create War & Peace sized tome that listed nothing but goods and services, the value of which can attributed in part to common infrastructure-_provided-by-the-people-through-their-lowly-servants-the-government_.


Because land is provided by nature, and secured by government.




> Try again.
> 
> "Current rents" under LVT only means _tax equal to the annual rental value of a given parcel land if that parcel was unimproved_.  Part of that annual rental value of unimproved land is attributable to things which have *zero cost* (namely, the unimproved land itself), as well as infrastructure, the costs of much of which has long since been been captured.


Nope.  Such infrastructure must be maintained.




> Oops! There goes Roy's Universal Individual Exemption down the geotoilet, as well as many geoists thoughts regarding wealth redistribution in the form of dividends.


Nope.  Citizens don't get a share of revenue, they get an exemption.




> Unresponsive X 6.


Nonsense.




> Cool, so anyone who owns land, but does not lease or sell it to others, has not charged for access to benefits provided by other citizens?


They have the ability to do so, which ability you defined as a "right."




> Either way, you still didn't connect the dots for landowners who do lease or sell their land to others.  How, exactly, is leasing or selling owned land tantamount to charging for "access to benefits provided by other citizens"? What benefits? Which citizens?


I've already explained, as you well know.




> Nature is initially free, but not when privately owned.


Question begging.  In what sense is the land privately owned?




> Government is a servant that provides only necessary common benefits _at cost only_ (no perpetual rents charged over its own costs). And "society", economically speaking, does not exist.


Society exists, period.  Economically or otherwise.




> That is a fictional abstraction. And if you were really saying "private sector market" -- that's none of your business, unless you are talking about entities without rights.  Not all entities in the market have the same legal status, nor does the state (or any extension thereof) have any rightful entitlement to rents arising from the private sector.


Land rents are the product of the three factors I've named.




> ...only in a geocommunist, geofascist framework, wherein ALL LAND, including privately owned land, is considered _commonwealth_.  $#@! that.


You cannot, of course, provide valid justification for private ownership of land.




> See above re: nature, society, and the state.


Owned.




> Lucky landowners, good on them.


This proves you a liar.  Previously, you complained about newcomers in society, claiming how the LVT would disadvantage them relative to established landowners under the LVT.  Yet, here you are, claiming that there's *no problem whatsoever* with existing landowners reaping benefits provided by others.

You have no principles.  All you're concerned with is opposing the LVT.




> But luckier consumers under LVT, including foreigners.


Luckier pretty much anyone: producers, consumers, etc.




> They also have access to those benefits. Anyone who comes in does.


Nope, they have to pay landowners for them.




> They are taking advantage of (and even wearing out) services, amenities, and infrastructure like anyone else.  _Why do they get a free ride?_ Where's the $#@!ing land rents cover charge for other market participants who are using all these things? Is it free to them because they only use it up and wear it out, but not exclusively?  Why no toll booths at all roads, and especially those leading to the juicier busier markets, charging a BENEFITS ACCESS USE TAX to all those freeloading bastards who come in to suckle off of all that _access to benefits_ that you're so keen to charge only to end user landowners?  They aren't the only ones with access to benefits - but somehow they are the only ones expected to pay for them.


Be honest: do you oppose the LVT because it doesn't go far enough?  If "no," you don't have a point.




> Could it be that you have embarrassed yourself before others by erroneously buying into a simplistic simpleton's model of land and landowners as being "*the source and location of all economic supply and its value*", while non-landowners are presumed to be the source of something entirely different and special where "access to benefits" is concerned?


Doesn't parse.




> You know you're wrong, Matt.  Why keep it up?  You were never like me, of course.


I'm smarter, that's true.




> You claim to have tried every way you could to prove geoists wrong, and got sucked in, when a little critical thought could have served you better. And since you admitted to resorting to dishonest arguments and making absurd arguments already, there is no reason to believe that has changed. I also read _Progress and Poverty_, and listened to geolibs embarrassingly ad nauseam rants and preachings. It was not so much find out the exact point where George and all the rest went off track, but rather the source of their credulity, and how it was they all appeared to have lost their collective minds.  And thing is, I did find it.  Being proved wrong is unpleasant for you, sure, but being right is ultimately more important.  Your ideology may define you now, but it doesn't have to.


It's just a plain lie that you've read _Progress and Poverty_.  You can tell it, of course.  No one can stop you.  Just ask yourself why you should be compelled to tell such a lie.  Other than that, I can't help you.  If you're shameless, you're shameless.

----------


## kylejack

> Their books are audited every year. 
> 
> http://www.federalreserve.gov/public...tem-audits.htm


The Fed isn't required to disclose all its financials, so auditing the financial statements that it _is_ required to disclose doesn't tell you much about what it isn't required to disclose.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Because land is provided by nature, and secured by government.


Yes, for private ownership, and rights of property in land.  Howzat for question begging? See the difference between your government and mine? 




> Nope.  Citizens don't get a share of revenue, they get an exemption.


Exemptions are a separate issue, and are not required for a Land Value Tax to be implemented. That's a fictitious plum you're dangling - the spoonful of rent-free sugar promise to help everyone to swallow the LVT medicine, basically on the idea that "little people" won't actually be swallowing it (yeah right).  

Without some kind of separate exemption promise, LVT stands even a lesser chance in hell than it already has, and that should be a hint and a half to geosocialists.  Aside from those suckling from the teats of state, no other individual in their right mind wants to be enslaved in a land where a state controls all land allocations, and where land rents are charged by a landlord state as the rule.  So a "value" (not area) exemption is advanced by some geoists. 

*PACKAGED DEAL FALLACY*

LVT is always put forth in a way intended to suggest that exemptions are a packaged deal, and somehow an integral part of LVT. In fact, some geoists would like the very term LVT to be thought of as synonymous with geoism. It is not. LVT is nothing more than a basis for a tax, regardless of rationale, and can be applied without a hint of geoism involved. 

Likewise, in the Packaged Deal Bundle Fallacy mindset, proponents of LVT also want the tax itself thought of as a single tax, even though that is only their objective - their goal - which has nothing to do with the nature of the actual tax. LVT can exist just fine alongside any other tax, and could (and likely would) end up being just one more tax leg in the state's "x-legged tax stool".   

STATE: How do I love thee and thy taxes? Let me count the ways. 




> Cool, so anyone who owns land, but does not lease or sell it to others, has not charged for access to benefits provided by other citizens?
> 			
> 		
> 
> They have the ability to do so, which ability you defined as a "right."


So what? If they are not exercising that ability, nobody is harmed, right?  No LVT applies, since the landowner/occupier, who neither leases nor sells, is not "charging for access to benefits provided by other citizens".  It is more than easy to know if someone is doing that. There is no valid reason to assume that because a capacity is there, that everyone is exercising it. 




> In what sense is the land privately owned?


In the sense that My Good Government uses the same aggression and force as Your Evil People-Enslaving Landlord Government would.  The ONLY difference is who is presumed to be entitled to capture land rents on privately owned lands.  With My Good Government there would be recognition, enforcement and protection of unalienable rights of private tax free landownership up front. Your Evil Government would only recognize private land as taxable Common Property, which can be owned only on condition of payment of a tax on land rents to the state. With My Good Government private land would be treated as property in a free market that does not enslave everyone to perpetual rents to the state, under color of "liberating" people from all the so-called evils of private individual landownership.  




> Society exists, period.  Economically or otherwise.


Yeah, so does water vapor. 




> Land rents are the product of the three factors I've named.


Not one of which is a valid justification for perpetual land rent capture by a geofascist state. 




> You cannot, of course, provide valid justification for private ownership of land.


Of course I can: Giving all private Citizens (who are only one part of the land market) the opportunity to attain individual economic sovereignty that comes from being completely free of paying rents to _anyone_, public or private.   In other words, The People Themselves Are Free, and enjoy automatic economic advantages over all other entities, regardless which wealth or factors of production are considered.  All others can tremble before the state that protects only the private interests and opportunities of its individual Citizens. Everyone else's interests are protected _only_ to the extent that they do not interfere in any way with private interests of individual Citizens, and _only_ as they contribute to the common good.  

See that? Unlike you, Matt, I can and do distinguish between the rights of the private human individual Citizen and the privileged existence and behavior of all the other players in the market which should never be on par, as having equal rights and opportunities. It's that simple, and that is the crucial distinction that explains the fatal flaws in all oppressive politico-economic models and paradigms.  Including yours.

Owned.




> Previously, you complained about newcomers in society, claiming how the LVT would disadvantage them relative to established landowners under the LVT.


The disadvantage of your LVT implementation (on everyone, regardless of legal status), would ultimately be magnified many times over what we have even now, as LVT actually punishes low development and rewards only the biggest developers. The biggest difference, and the most pernicious part, is that right now there is at least a pathway to freedom from paying any rents to anyone, public or private, through private landownership. Under LVT there would be absolutely NO pathway to such freedom. _All end users of land_ would be enslaved. And spare me your separate, wholly fictitious, worthless exemption, which is little more than an empty promise for "discount" on the rule that everyone is considered a land renter from the landlord state). 




> Yet, here you are, claiming that there's *no problem whatsoever* with existing landowners reaping benefits provided by others.


The way you defined "_benefits provided by others_"? Hell yes. I have absolutely no problem with existing [private, individual, Citizen] landowners reaping ANY benefits from the land they own, free of all taxes, including LVT. THAT IS WHO THE $#@!ING BENEFITS ARE FOR! 

You have no principles, Matt. Especially not where individual liberties are concerned.  All you're concerned with is advancing LVT.




> Be honest: do you oppose the LVT because it doesn't go far enough?  If "no," you don't have a point.


I am opposed to LVT (YOUR VERSION) because it goes way too far, in that it includes individual landowner Citizens, especially residents of privately owned land, who exist and behave as a matter of unalienable right. They are _the only entities on Earth_ who are entitled to PAY NO TAXES. NOT ONE. NOT EVER. Every other commercial entity, real or fictitious, exists and behaves as a matter of _conditional privilege_, not unalienable right.  Those entities can be taxed out of existence, should the profit-maximizing state be stupid enough to do that.  Not real human individuals, who are the ONLY entities worth giving a $#@! about, and should be IMMUNE. PERPETUALLY.

----------


## ClydeCoulter

> Well, that's a helpful comment.  As a fellow Hoosier, perhaps you can set me straight.


Nah, I've been there with other subjects that had similar evangelists.  You guys aren't interested in "being set straight".  You talk in circles in hopes of wearing your victim down.

I do enjoy reading these threads from time to time, and Steven does a good job revealing the circle jerkiness of LVT

----------


## MattintheCrown

> Nah, I've been there with other subjects that had similar evangelists.  You guys aren't interested in "being set straight".  You talk in circles in hopes of wearing your victim down.
> 
> I do enjoy reading these threads from time to time, and Steven does a good job revealing the circle jerkiness of LVT


Steven's been comprehensively demolished at every turn.  You know you would to, so you avoid it.  Simple.

----------


## James Madison

Soooooo....under this LVT does the government owe taxes to...itself? Since it's using land for private gain.

----------


## MattintheCrown

> Yes, for private ownership, and rights of property in land.  Howzat for question begging? See the difference between your government and mine?


Once again, I don't know what you're trying to say.




> Exemptions are a separate issue, and are not required for a Land Value Tax to be implemented. That's a fictitious plum you're dangling - the spoonful of rent-free sugar promise to help everyone to swallow the LVT medicine, basically on the idea that "little people" won't actually be swallowing it (yeah right).


No, it's just a common-sense rule, and one similar to the individual income-tax deduction.




> Without some kind of separate exemption promise, LVT stands even a lesser chance in hell than it already has, and that should be a hint and a half to geosocialists.  Aside from those suckling from the teats of state, no other individual in their right mind wants to be enslaved in a land where a state controls all land allocations, and where land rents are charged by a landlord state as the rule.  So a "value" (not area) exemption is advanced by some geoists.


Of course, no one has proposed the state "control" land allocations, and that's just something you made up, because you have no arguments.




> *PACKAGED DEAL FALLACY*
> 
> LVT is always put forth in a way intended to suggest that exemptions are a packaged deal, and somehow an integral part of LVT. In fact, some geoists would like the very term LVT to be thought of as synonymous with geoism. It is not. LVT is nothing more than a basis for a tax, regardless of rationale, and can be applied without a hint of geoism involved.


How is that supposed to be a fallacy?




> Likewise, in the Packaged Deal Bundle Fallacy mindset, proponents of LVT also want the tax itself thought of as a single tax, even though that is only their objective - their goal - which has nothing to do with the nature of the actual tax. LVT can exist just fine alongside any other tax, and could (and likely would) end up being just one more tax leg in the state's "x-legged tax stool".


Again, that's not a fallacy.  We're proposing reducing other taxes in favor of a LVT.  It could happen that a LVT was levied without other taxes being reduced, but that's simply not what we're proposing.




> STATE: How do I love thee and thy taxes? Let me count the ways.


Just stupid "me hates gubmint" nonsense.




> So what? If they are not exercising that ability, nobody is harmed, right?


Wrong.  Everyone who would otherwise be at liberty to use the land is harmed.




> No LVT applies, since the landowner/occupier, who neither leases nor sells, is not "charging for access to benefits provided by other citizens".  It is more than easy to know if someone is doing that. There is no valid reason to assume that because a capacity is there, that everyone is exercising it.


They effectively are, because the land increase in value nevertheless.




> In the sense that My Good Government uses the same aggression and force as Your Evil People-Enslaving Landlord Government would.  The ONLY difference is who is presumed to be entitled to capture land rents on privately owned lands.  With My Good Government there would be recognition, enforcement and protection of unalienable rights of private tax free landownership up front.


On what basis?  How would people come to own land?




> Your Evil Government would only recognize private land as taxable Common Property, which can be owned only on condition of payment of a tax on land rents to the state. With My Good Government private land would be treated as property in a free market that does not enslave everyone to perpetual rents to the state, under color of "liberating" people from all the so-called evils of private individual landownership.


Nope.  My government would recognize equal rights for all, and would therefore demand those *privileged* with exclusive use of some part of the land that makes up the nation to compensate those who are thereby deprived its use.  Yours would simply gift away the commonwealth, dividing citizens into a privileged class, and underclass.




> Not one of which is a valid justification for perpetual land rent capture by a geofascist state.


All of which are a valid justification for the state to levy a tax on the benefits provided by people other than the owners of land.




> Of course I can: Giving all private Citizens (who are only one part of the land market) the opportunity to attain individual economic sovereignty that comes from being completely free of paying rents to _anyone_, public or private.


How?  How does that come about?  And, what of the rights of those who have no land?  Where are they to live?




> In other words, The People Themselves Are Free, and enjoy automatic economic advantages over all other entities, regardless which wealth or factors of production are considered.  All others can tremble before the state that protects only the private interests and opportunities of its individual Citizens. Everyone else's interests are protected _only_ to the extent that they do not interfere in any way with private interests of individual Citizens, and _only_ as they contribute to the common good.


But the people aren't free, Steven: they have nowhere where they have the right to exist.  They must purchase the right to exist from others.  They're enslaved, and forced to buy their freedom.




> See that? Unlike you, Matt, I can and do distinguish between the rights of the private human individual Citizen and the privileged existence and behavior of all the other players in the market which should never be on par, as having equal rights and opportunities. It's that simple, and that is the crucial distinction that explains the fatal flaws in all oppressive politico-economic models and paradigms.  Including yours.
> 
> Owned.


You're owned, as your system enslaves the landless, and compels them to purchase their freedom from landlords.




> The disadvantage of your LVT implementation (on everyone, regardless of legal status), would ultimately be magnified many times over what we have even now, as LVT actually punishes low development and rewards only the biggest developers.


Nope.  The biggest developers would develop the most valuable land; smaller developers would develop land of lower value.  It's actually the same as it is now, only land would be allocated more efficiently and faster.




> The biggest difference, and the most pernicious part, is that right now there is at least a pathway to freedom from paying any rents to anyone, public or private, through private landownership.


No, not a pathway to freedom: a pathway to privilege.  Currently, there is a means by which to compel one's fellow citizens to labor for your benefit, without providing any value in return.  You acknowledge this, and call it a right.




> Under LVT there would be absolutely NO pathway to such freedom. _All end users of land_ would be enslaved. And spare me your separate, wholly fictitious, worthless exemption, which is little more than an empty promise for "discount" on the rule that everyone is considered a land renter from the landlord state).


Nope.  One need not occupy land that has value, even disregarding the exemption. 




> The way you defined "_benefits provided by others_"? Hell yes. I have absolutely no problem with existing [private, individual, Citizen] landowners reaping ANY benefits from the land they own, free of all taxes, including LVT. THAT IS WHO THE $#@!ING BENEFITS ARE FOR!


Not really.  When a government, say, builds an interstate, the benefit is intended to be for all of society.  But in fact, landowners reap the benefit, and are enabled to charge others for the increased utility of being located near an interstate.




> You have no principles, Matt.


Haha!




> Especially not where individual liberties are concerned.  All you're concerned with is advancing LVT.


You hate individual liberties.  Your system would have every individual buy his freedom from another citizen.




> I am opposed to LVT (YOUR VERSION) because it goes way too far, in that it includes individual landowner Citizens, especially residents of privately owned land, who exist and behave as a matter of unalienable right.


Of course they don't.  The only reason they own the land is because the state opted to gift away the privilege of exclusive tenure of some part of the land that makes up the state.  There was no legitimate basis for the state to do that.




> They are _the only entities on Earth_ who are entitled to PAY NO TAXES. NOT ONE. NOT EVER.


No one is entitled to that.  Being part of society means you get rights, but you also have obligations.  I know you want to reap without sowing, but too damn bad.  Stop being so greedy.




> Every other commercial entity, real or fictitious, exists and behaves as a matter of _conditional privilege_, not unalienable right.  Those entities can be taxed out of existence, should the profit-maximizing state be stupid enough to do that.  Not real human individuals, who are the ONLY entities worth giving a $#@! about, and should be IMMUNE. PERPETUALLY.


Stupid garbage.  Rights confer obligations: there cannot be one without the other.  You have no idea what you're talking about.

----------


## MattintheCrown

> Soooooo....under this LVT does the government owe taxes to...itself? Since it's using land for private gain.


Sure.  Many LVT proponents believe the government should pay the LVT on government-owned land.  That way, citizens can weigh the costs and benefits of such endeavors.

----------


## James Madison

> Sure.  Many LVT proponents believe the government should pay the LVT on government-owned land.  That way, citizens can weigh the costs and benefits of such endeavors.


How does governmet acquire the funds? And to whom are they payed to?

----------


## MattintheCrown

> How does governmet acquire the funds? And to whom are they payed to?


Tax revenues.  The state.

----------


## James Madison

> Tax revenues.  The state.


The state pays taxes to itself? Since I use my land for personal gain and the state uses its land for personal gain, can I just pay the LVT to myself?

----------


## MattintheCrown

> The state pays taxes to itself? Since I use my land for personal gain and the state uses its land for personal gain, can I just pay the LVT to myself?


Sigh.  The state doesn't use land for its personal gain.  The state is an instrument of society.  It's supposed to represent its constituent members.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> Steven's been comprehensively demolished at every turn.


One of the most entertaining things about arguing with statists (and especially the Don Quixote-like geoist zealots), is watching them behave as if they really were the lone arbiters of just how successful or convincing are their own arguments.  Indeed it is the only way they can win.  No need to poll anyone. Just ask the Slayers of Windmills themselves how many dragons they have dispatched.  The answer, of course, will be, "All of them."

----------


## MattintheCrown

> One of the most entertaining things about arguing with statists (and especially the Don Quixote-like geoist zealots), is watching them behave as if they really were the lone arbiters of just how successful or convincing are their own arguments.  Indeed it is the only way they can win.  No need to poll anyone. Just ask the Slayers of Windmills themselves how many dragons they have dispatched.  The answer, of course, will be, "All of them."


One need but glance at the absurdities contained in your posts for proof, Steven.

----------


## Steven Douglas

> One need but glance at the absurdities contained in your posts for proof, Steven.


Oh...is that all "one" need do? lol

----------


## MattintheCrown

> Oh...is that all "one" need do? lol


Yep.  Many of your posts opposing LVT are so absurd that they don't parse.  To the extent you can even be understood, you propose a system where no one has any rights, and must purchase their very right to exist from some landowner.

----------


## James Madison

> Sigh.  The state doesn't use land for its personal gain.


Yes, it does. In order for the state to function it must be provided with income to pay those it employs, those who profit from the state's existance. 



> The state is an instrument of society.


An instrument to punish any who disagree with the majority opinion.




> It's supposed to represent its constituent members.


I don't support the LVT. Yet if such a tax were adopted I would be forced to pay it. How is this representation?

----------


## Steven Douglas

> ::: whinging about a failure to comprehend plain English when it is not aligned with geofascism snipped :::
> 
> ...you propose a system where no one has any rights, and must purchase their very right to exist from some landowner.


You mean as opposed to forever renting a conditional privilege to exist instead from the state? How is that rarified air up there in Backwards Vacuum Land? Here is what you are either misapprehending, or else deliberately and disingenuously failing to acknowledge: 

*With or without LVT*, there is no question of whether or not someone must pay for exclusive use or ownership of land. Under *either* regime, the ONLY questions regarding payment(s) are a) to whom, b) for how much, and c) _for how long_.

The last time I checked (this afternoon, actually), all kinds of land was available on the market, and for actual sale, in all fifty states.  And when you pay a private owner for a parcel of land, *you actually own it* (at least to the extent that it is not taxed).  Under LVT, landownership (the actual right to exist) is not even an option (regardless how a title is labeled). 

It is under YOUR proposed system that no one has any rights, as *they cannot even purchase the right to exist from anyone, let alone the state*. They can only *rent a conditional privilege* to exist, as everyone is forever presumed to be a perpetual renter of land from the landlord state.

----------

