Robin Hood Tax ?

[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 fucked 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.

 

[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.