Taxes Avoided by the Rich Could Pay Off the Deficit

[Roy L]

The inserted text was in parentheses and is apparent in the original at the link.

You didn't give the link, and the inserted text was a fabrication by you.

I should probably have used square brackets,

You should probably have tried to be honest.

Only a severely poor reading would find that the Japanese had used LVT.

No, it's what you plainly and dishonestly tried to imply.

They had used devastating policies, just not LVT ones. LVT does not have a monopoly on devastating minorities.

The Taiwanese aboriginals don't look devastated to me.

The entire point stands however.

No, it's been proved a fabrication.

You see nothing wrong with moving people off their ancestral lands as long as you think it is for their own good.

I don't care if it's for their own good. Landowning doesn't get any less evil if aboriginals do it.

Was Australia's policy of taking aboriginal children from their families and placing them in white homes justified by outcomes?

I really couldn't say. What does that have to do with the thread?

 

[Steven Douglas]

Nope. You just still refuse to know the fact that LVT is a voluntary, market-based, beneficiary-pay, value-for-value transaction.

Yeah, once we get past that little detail of the involuntary, non-market-based, non-beneficiary-pay, non-value-for-value transaction called, "The state has a monopoly claim on all land rents". Once we get past that little coup that many would see as theft, it's all voluntary sailing after that! Why, after that, we're all just shopping in Roy's Progressive LVT Land Rent Store! YAY! All voluntary, doncha know. If you don't want to pay (perpetual, never-ending rental fees to the state) for a resource, don't use that resource! See? It's all voluntary! WAHOO!!!

Why, once we establish that it's just One Big Happy Collectivized Monopolistic Land Rent Store, we can then reason that "People would have no reason to avoid "high taxes" on land any more than they avoid paying for the groceries they want."

Forget that it's a moronic analogy, as groceries are perishable and NEVER RENTED OUT. And forget that there would be no option to grow the "land=groceries" you need (not simply want) should the Monopolistic State Land Grocer decide to get gross with his Groceries=Land Rental Prices.

They would simply voluntarily pay the public treasury the exact same amount of money they would otherwise voluntarily be paying a private landowner for doing nothing.

And forget that if everyone was a private landowner, there would be no "voluntary" payment due to any "fellow" private landowner in the first place.

IOW, LVT can be abandoned. Of course LVT can be abandoned. If it's short of revenue, the government can also round up all the blonde, 12-year-old girls and sell them as sex slaves in Bangladesh. See what atrocities LVT would cause?

Oh yeah, I can see the atrocity of slavery as a result of LVT, but not directly, and certainly not as a result of rounding up 12 year-old blondes. The state does not have a history of rounding anyone up and selling them anywhere as sex slaves of which I am aware. Does it?

But do tell me, Mr. Argument-By-Strawman-Ridicule Salesman, do you have anything more in the state's historical size and color we could look at? You know, a shoe that actually fits? Something more in the realm of absolute probability, not just possibility, based on actual present behavior and past history of the state? Any real precedences that might give us an idea of what the state would likely do in such a case?

Restricting supply can make the value of SOME land rise at the expense of other land (which is why private landowning parasites corrupt local governments to get use restrictions placed on other people's land), but it can't make total land value rise, any more than an art collector can increase the total value of his collection of Picassos by burning a few canvases.

That's where your macroeconomics head in the vacuum has failed you, as you obviously don't know anything about the economics of art, or long term demand with respect to rare and unique works. Hell, for that matter, you don't even believe that value is subjective! Worse yet, you're trying to reckon art using a standard commodity supply and demand model. It doesn't work that way, Roy. Your example of an art collector who tries to increase the value of his Picasso (of all artists!) collection, by "burning a few canvasses" was truly pathetic. Anyone who has dealt in the worlds of art and collectibles, and I have, knows that art value follows the economics of scarcity -- anything rare, unique, in finite supply and high in demand. It is entirely subjective, completely unpredictable, and the lower the supply and greater the demand, the more difficult, if not impossible, it is to model. It certainly does not follow a typical commodity supply and demand curve.

If a thousand wealthy collectors of a certain specific collectible genre are all aware that only three of a certain unique work, already high in demand within that genre, are known to exist, those particular pieces have greater value (IN THE EVER-SUBJECTIVE MINDS OF CERTAIN COLLECTORS), precisely because there are only three. Then comes the knowledge that two of these extant works were recently destroyed (we'll say in a fire, accidentally and not deliberately), such that every collector is now absolutely certain that only ONE piece remains. It is ENTIRELY conceivable that the one remaining piece could be valued, and ultimately priced in exchange at many times the sum total prior exchange rates of the original three works, had all three have survived. That could be for no other reason than the prestige in owning THE ONLY ONE, and only because ONE COLLECTOR felt strongly enough about it to outbid the THREE OTHER COLLECTORS who were also willing to pay handsomely for that same prestige.

 

[idiom]

Sorta like the Soviets did in Eastern Europe?

Chiang was heavily influenced by the soviets yes. He got a lot luckier with his timing though.

Absurd claims with no basis in fact.

One Analysts thoughts:

Banks are now in the late stages of their credit cycle. After over a decade of loose lending, Taiwan faces the prospect of a bursting housing bubble and a crisis in tech, where the companies are turning into zombies and refusing to die. Credit tightening should accelerate the seasoning process. We reiterate our SELL recommendations on all the market’s banks, especially since earnings should be front-loaded this year. For those who must be in the sector, we suggest Chinatrust for its credit-card franchise and prudent credit policy.

Easy access to credit over 2000-10 led to overinvestment in commodity-tech such as Dram, panels, LED and solar. Housing now faces poor affordability and oversupply. Property prices rose 133% over the past 10 years, but vacancies increased from 13% to 19% over the same period.

Though the timing of the bust is hard to predict, credit tightening should accelerate the seasoning process. It will not only trigger failures and financial restructuring in tech, but also pressure mortgage borrowers and property developers. Tightening will lead to increasing demand for consumer-credit and home-equity loans, while trends in the unorganised money-market rate (ie, loan sharks) and dishonoured cheques suggest signs of trouble.

Earnings should be front-loaded this year, with revenue peaking in 1H12 before credit costs start to catch up. Revenue will contract as loan-pricing competition intensifies. NIMs are set to fall as unding costs increase due to an unfavourable change in the deposit mix. Provisions will rise due to the worsening tech and property outlook, higher reserve requirements and lower recoveries.

Though the sector looks well capitalised under current regulations, it would need to raise NT$260bn (US$9bn) if it implemented IFRS 4, the new provision policy and Basel 3 today. Banks like Chang Hwa Bank, First and Taishinare under the most pressure to recapitalise.

We reiterate our SELL recommendations on all the market’s banks: consensus remains far too optimistic. Although the risk from tech lending is well known, the market has yet to appreciate the impact of credit tightening on property. For investors who need to be in the sector, we suggest Chinatrust for its credit-card franchise and prudent credit policy.

 

[idiom]

While we are here...

What people have a natural liberty right to do is USE land, not to appropriate it.

If capital starts off as land, and we can't appropriate land, how does capital come to exist as property, not subject to LVT?

Also, if the landowners are somehow forcing the rest of the community to increase land values then wouldn't the more precise mechanism be a 100% capital gains tax on land?

Next, the notion of using land rent to get people change how they use land seems eerily similar to deliberately debasing currency in order to stop people 'hoarding' cash.

 

[EcoWarrier]

"The state has a monopoly claim on all land rents".

The land rents are commonly created wealth and do not belong to the landowner. They are reclaimed to pay for public/common services and leave people's private income alone. Giving them the freedom to spend all the money they earned as they please.

 

[idiom]

Henry George argues that self-ownership is the moral basis of ownership of any property.

What constitutes the rightful basis of property? What is it that enables a man justly to say of a thing, "It is mine!" From what springs the sentiment which acknowledges his exclusive right as against all the world? Is it not, primarily, the right of a man to himself, to the use of his own powers, to the enjoyment of the fruits of his own exertions? Is it not... the fact that each particular pair of hands obey a particular brain and are related to a particular stomach; the fact that each man is a definite, coherent, independent whole -- which alone justifies individual ownership? As a man belongs to himself, so his labor when put in concrete form belongs to him.

You disputed this here:

Garbage. Self-ownership is a logical contradiction.

Ownership includes four distinct powers, one of which is the power of dispostion or transfer. You can't transfer yourself to anyone else, because you are immutably inside your own body. No one else can operate your body, perform labor with it, etc.

What is your alternate moral basis for ownership?

I am being more careful with citations so that you will hopefully not infer things that are not in the text.

 

[torchbearer]

I no know what to do

 

[EcoWarrier]

Henry George argues that self-ownership is the moral basis of ownership of any property.

You are some sort of air-head. Henry George DID NOT say what you wrote above. Henry George wrote, "which alone justifies individual ownership? " Note the question mark.

George was saying land ownership is not justified where the value and resources are privately appropriated. He did say all you work for with your mind and hands is 100% yours. FREEDOM in its purest form. Appropriating the value and resources of land is FREELOADING.

Boy are you slow. I now see why you post colorful pictures now.

 

[EcoWarrier]

I no know what to do

Look up Geonomics.

 

[idiom]

You are some sort of air-head. Henry George DID NOT say what you wrote above. Henry George wrote, "which alone justifies individual ownership? " Note the question mark.

Meet the Rhetorical Question. The entire passage is composed of them.

The context was not land, but self-ownership.

What, then, ecowarrier, is the moral root of ownership?

 

[matt0611]

I don't want to pay off the deficit I want the government to stop spending money we don't have.

 

[idiom]

Nope. Wrong again. The exemption is for actual use, not notional use (i.e., citizens who were not using their exemptions elsewhere would actually have to be living there), and is by value, not area.

Living above or behind your business is pretty common the world over.

Even if your enterprise took up most of a skyscraper, if you filled the lower floors or basements with rooms for interns, and used some of the top floors as executive penthouses, your entire business would be running tax free.

Why wouldn't you want to live near where you work.

So... the entire weight of government falls on those who use to much land to game with exceptions, like farmers who would mystically not be able to charge more for produce and so would go bust. There's a useful outcome.

The more interesting distortion would be the people living in shacks on top of big box stores and malls.

 

[EcoWarrier]

I don't want to pay off the deficit I want the government to stop spending money we don't have.

The government can make as much money as it likes.

 

[EcoWarrier]

Meet the Rhetorical Question. The entire passage is composed of them.

The context was not land, but self-ownership.

What, then, ecowarrier, is the moral root of ownership?

Henry George was NOT against ownership - you and other air-heads have continually been told this. He was against landowners appropriating commonly created wealth that crystalize as land values and appropriating common resouces in land.

 

[MattintheCrown]

Unlike you, I already knew what microeconomics meant. Here's a clue: this debate centers around a macroeconomic issue.

Oh, you wish it was, and that's how you're desperately trying to frame it, as that would appeal to your collectivist sensibilities. That is also the only way you can insist on referring to land supply as fixed and perfectly inelastic - seeing everything only "economy-wide", in the collective -- with the more controversial aggregate demand and aggregate supply (as if that meant anything at all, since virtually everything, productive and non-productive, used and non-used, can be counted as part of "the economy").

LOL! Honestly, what is one to say here? Here we're talking about a tax, and you're claiming that I'm somehow nefarious for considering the macroeconomic implications of the tax! Macroeconomics is what's used to consider tax policy, Steven.

You were off in the woods before, Steven, but you now reside somewhere beyond this solar system. You have descended into pure absurdity.

Inelasticity of land supply for "the economy", in the aggregate, breaks down utterly and completely when you pull your head out the aggregate "economy-wide" ass void, and view land strictly from the level of the individual and/or competitive firm, and also examine supply in terms of "availability to use" (e.g., zoning laws on the public sector control side, or industry-specific use on the private firm side). The ONLY way that you can even begin to examine and explore heterogeneity of supply and demand in a way that allows us to predict actual behavior is through microeconomics.

We're not considering the particular behaviors of individuals and firms; we're considering the overall impact on the economy. That's what matters.

And that's where you, as an aggregate thinking collectivist, unwilling or incapable of reasoning at the level of the individual, continuously fail.

LOL, I'm perfectly capable of reasoning at the level of the individual; it's just that I'm aware doing so will not give the full picture.

Gibberish. Obfuscating geo-gibberish, as you focus on the idea of production as if that was the locus, or prime determinant for the supply of all goods.

LOL! Obviously, it is!

And once again you did it -- you focused on "the sale of land", and not "the supply of land" (which requires no sale, but only availability at a given price).

All land is available at a given price. By definition!

Which price? Market price?

Obviously.

Demand price? Supply price? Tell me you're not pulling a Roy-semantics game by conflating every usage of the word price as if it means "past tense" market price exclusively. Either way, you're so dead wrong it's pathetic. Market price absolutely requires and is affected by, a consummation of both supply and demand. Supply price is just a theoretical construct - as it is the lowest theoretical price at which a given quantity of commodities will be offered under given conditions.

The supply of land is fixed. Prices are determined by demand.

In theory, yes, but who gives a shit about potential when we have the more important reality; one where we can observe that not every owner is a seller at all times, and certainly (and even more importantly) not at all prices.

So what? All land is sold at some price, and therefore all land counts as supply.

Only because you don't know what supply is.

You don't know what supply is. Clearly.

Yes, that is one consequence of a market-distorting tax, no differently than shortages created by farmers who will DESTROY CROPS or give them away rather than sell them in the case of price controls, or the hidden tax inherent in hyperinflation. The supply is destroyed in those cases because the commodity is perishable, or can be destroyed.

Or sometimes it's not destroyed, but less is simply produced. That happens more frequently.

And in the real world, there are people who walk away from LAND to avoid paying mortgages and taxes they can no longer afford.

Right. But, conspicuously, that doesn't reduce supply.

QUESTION BEGGING STRAW MAN ALERT:

You stupidly think that the date trees only constituted supply if the owners of them were actively trying to sell them, but in reality, the supply of date trees was what was in existence, because others could possibly buy them from their owners...

Could you be any more wrong? The owners were not selling transplanted date trees. The trees that were taxed WERE NOT FOR SALE. In essence it was the land that was taxed, on the basis of how many date trees it it had thereon. That was, regardless of the condition of each tree, and without regard to whether they even produced anything at all. A similar tax was placed on the produce, along with compulsion that dates be sold to Ali at prices which he determined.

No, it was a tax on the trees. Cutting them down in fact allowed them to avoid the tax. Whether the trees were "for sale" (which, for you, seems to mean the owners were actively pursuing buyers) or not, they count as supply.

You stupidly think that all owners are automatically sellers, and that anything in their possession is part of "supply", given that others "could possibly buy them".

That's what supply is.

That's both moronic and far from reality. The landowners who were unfortunate enough to have date trees in that time were never WILLING AND ABLE to sell the trees separately from their land in the first place.

Of course they were willing and able. Are you saying that if someone offered the equivalent of a $1M per tree they wouldn't have sold them? That's nonsense.

And even if they could sell them, it would only be to those who were willing to undergo the same compulsory SLAVERY to a market-distorting tax based on ownership of a resource.

The tax is irrelevant to the fact that the amount of trees in existence constitutes supply. Trees, not being fixed in supply, will increase in supply when demand for them is high, and decline in supply when demand for them is low. Land, being fixed in supply, just sits there and exist regardless of how much people are willing to pay for it.

Ask Pat if you can buy a clue, because your definition of supply is still whack.

When they cut those trees down, the supply was not reduced, because those trees were never part of any supply in the first place.

Yes, of course they were. As dates were in demand, people planted and kept trees to supply the demand for dates. It's utterly bizarre for you to claim that trees planted for production somehow don't constitute supply.

...for those who actually economically benefit, you mean -- like those who actually sell their land and take a profit. It may be a NUISANCE to others, based on their preferences, tastes and values.

No, I mean for those who are willing and able to use the land productively, and avail themselves of the benefits inherent in use of the land.

Well, you're obviously not a entrepreneur, that's for sure. That is the beauty of it all -- the big difference between economists and theorists in a vacuum, and risk-taking entrepreneurs in the real world. Demand is not just "an existing pie", nor is it fixed, inelastic or homogeneous. It really is, in many cases a "Field of Dreams". Like pet rocks, or Casinos in the desert, or even Personal Computers. Demand from the Entrepreneur Supply Side (in a free market) is all about risk, enticement, momentum, gravity and critical mass, and whole volumes of HUMAN BEHAVIOR factors that most economists are incapable of comprehending, and haven't the first clue how to accurately describe.

People don't build hundred-million dollar buildings that way. Or, at least, not for long.

Strawman. Setting aside DUBAI (which thoroughly falsifies your claim), I never claimed that, as a rule, hundreds of millions of dollars was spent on a skyscraper in the hope that someday anything would occur. You're the one that has the genesis completely ass-backwards, as a matter of absolute fact, because you don't see that it's lock-step.

How's that working out for Dubai, by the way? They had enough cash to try it, but it's pretty apparent that is not a sustainable strategy. Thanks for providing an example that proves you wrong.

Imagine a stop-motion video of New York, Hong Kong, and Las Vegas, going from the distant past an on into the present. Large skyscrapers are preceded by smaller skyscrapers, which are preceded by buildings several stories high, etc., - the initial investment is made, the economic activity that follows feeds that investment, and fuels the growth of those buildings, no differently than trees. That is not due to the "land values", which are only a consequence of the economic activity that resulted from all the initial improvements.

Sigh. Land values are just a reflection of the benefit of owning a particular location. Tall buildings are built because lots of people want to avail themselves of the benefits of living and or working in a particular area.

Yeah, when you live in a market that was built in a rabbit hole economy, all kinds of distortions occur. The one thing that does attract and appeal to elites and elitists where vertical concrete hive monstrosities are concerned - Penthouse Apartments. Being high in the sky, and "above" everyone else. In other words, NOT MOST PEOPLE.

Yet, strangely, most Americans live in major metro areas. Hmmmm....

I have lived in Manhattan and Shanghai, and can appreciate what those of actual means see in them. I can also see the mundane and the nightmare elements for those who are of limited means living in those cities. So you're happy to party in "fucking awesome" Manhattan, I see it. But you also sound like a typically clueless liberal to me -- someone with a sociopathic disregard for the sacrifices required by all the millions of little worker bees who shoulder the real burdens that were never necessary in the first place.

They live there because that's where the opportunities are. It's sad that they live in dwellings that are of a much lower quality and much higher price than need be, and that they must put up with all the problems associated with poverty, but that's the system you fiercely defend. Some of us want to do something about it.

Bullshit. LVT would make BUYING a home less expensive -- just like date trees on Ali's turf would have been less expensive - TO BUY. LVT would not make OWNING a home less expensive. Quite the opposite, because the very mechanism by which the price did drop was through an artificially increase in THE COST OF OWNERSHIP. The smart money didn't want to be on that economic treadmill either.

FAIL.

It'd make buying them and owning them cheaper. People would no longer have to pay for the land and pay taxes on top of it; their payment for land would be their tax burden. With more efficient usage and allocation of land, more dwellings would be supplied, which would reduce the cost of dwellings. Additionally, as I mentioned before, they'd avoid a good deal of interest -not only would they no longer pay interest on the land portion of real estate, but they'd also pay less interest due to dwellings being cheaper.

 

[MattintheCrown]

Living above or behind your business is pretty common the world over.

Even if your enterprise took up most of a skyscraper, if you filled the lower floors or basements with rooms for interns, and used some of the top floors as executive penthouses, your entire business would be running tax free.

Why wouldn't you want to live near where you work.

So... the entire weight of government falls on those who use to much land to game with exceptions, like farmers who would mystically not be able to charge more for produce and so would go bust. There's a useful outcome.

The more interesting distortion would be the people living in shacks on top of big box stores and malls.

Which part of "the exemption is by value, not area" are you having trouble understanding?

 

[EcoWarrier]

Which part of "the exemption is by value, not area" are you having trouble understanding?

Oh No!!! Do not try and get him to think.

 

[matt0611]

The government can make as much money as it likes.

Of course it CAN, it can also nuke as all today if it likes.

 

[Steven Douglas]

Macroeconomics is what's used to consider tax policy, Steven.

How is that working out for us, Matt?

We're not considering the particular behaviors of individuals and firms; we're considering the overall impact on the economy. That's what matters.

There is no "the economy". That's a blanket term used to hide the artificially selected winners and losers in statist-distorted micro-economies. Whenever you see terms like "the economy" and "economy-wide", think whose. Always. If you and I comprised "the whole economy", and I owned half the wealth and you owned the other half, I could slit your throat and assume ownership of your half, and "the overall impact on the economy", which you say is all that matters, is a zero sum gain, since 100% of "the economy" is still there and doing just fine. If you say that "the economy" has lost your productivity in the process, I will say that is not even a problem, let alone a minor one, as "the economy" can recover from the loss of you just fine by making superior substitutions, as I can always bring others into "the economy" to make up for that. I can say that one individual needed to go "for the greater good", because after all, Matt, the overall impact on the economy is all that matters, right?

LOL, I'm perfectly capable of reasoning at the level of the individual; it's just that I'm aware doing so will not give the full picture.

Reasoning at the individual level(s) is the ONLY way to get the full picture. Not blurring millions of microeconomic pictures into one nebulous, collectivized shape-shifting blob with no regard for the individual.

All land is available at a given price. By definition!

Change "is" to "was", and you will be correct. By definition.

The supply of land is fixed. Prices are determined by demand.

You are referring to the "stock", or overall inventory of land on Earth. The actual supply of a given quantity of land is determined by the price that sellers are both able and willing to sell. The number of sellers is always finite for any given price, and is never all-inclusive of all owners, since some have no price. OR, you can plot their price, for their quantity, at "infinity".

So what? All land is was sold at some price, and therefore all land counts once counted as supply for that time at that given price.

There, I fixed it for you for greater accuracy.

Of course they were willing and able. Are you saying that if someone offered the equivalent of a $1M per tree they wouldn't have sold them?

I wouldn't be so arrogant or presumptuous as to answer for someone else either way. To know the answer to that question, you would have to actually make such offer, to see whether or not that particular individual was WILLING to sell at that particular price (thus making it part of supply at that price, for that particular time), wouldn't you?

Land, being fixed in supply, just sits there and exist regardless of how much people are willing to pay for it.

Gibberish. There is absolutely nothing real world or meaningful about what you just wrote.

Land that is already owned just sits there alright...as each landowner's possession. Buyers' desire, as a function of ability and and willingness to pay for a given quantity of land is nothing more than a finite spectrum of specific buyers and specific bid prices on the demand side. They don't control the supply. PROOF: If a given prospective buyer offers .25 cents, he will quickly learn that the supply (available to him), for that price, is a finite quantity - fixed for that price. Since supply is a function of willingness of an owner to sell a given quantity at a given price), the supply of land at .25 cents is likely to be ZERO.

Now, keep increasing the bid upward from .25 cents, and eventually MORE SUPPLY (the quantity which some owners will become willing sellers at that given price) will increase.

The supply is whatever land actually is made available by owners-who-choose-to-become-sellers, of a given quantity, at a given bid price. The past market price (always in the past) MIGHT serve as a guide for both buyers and sellers, but it does not dictate the future "market price" for a given parcel of land to either of them. The New Market Price (of that parcel) is not established until an owner is willing to sell and a buyer is willing to buy, and ONLY at a point where the supply and demand prices equal one another.

As dates were in demand, people planted and kept trees to supply the demand for dates. It's utterly bizarre for you to claim that trees planted for production somehow don't constitute supply.

Nice slippery "planted for production" qualification. What is utterly bizarre (albeit consistent with how you think) is that you would automatically think they do constitute supply.

A man plants and cultivates an orchard of walnut trees on ten acres of land. The only "supply" from that orchard is whatever quantity of a thing that the owner demonstrates (or declares) he is willing to make available to the market at a given price. It is not the trees, but only the fruits therefrom. The trees (and the orchard/land itself even) MIGHT be considered supply on their own, as part of a different market. But we wouldn't know that unless a) the owner offered the trees/wood/land/etc., for sale (i.e., did become a seller, by definition), or b) an offer was made and accepted by the owner, and/or c) a counter-offer of a different asking price was made. Until then, we have not established a specific "supply" for anything but the walnuts that are already being supplied.

No, I mean for those who are willing and able to use the land productively, and avail themselves of the benefits inherent in use of the land.

That's your collectivist, economies-manipulating geoinsanity speaking.

How's that working out for Dubai, by the way? They had enough cash to try it, but it's pretty apparent that is not a sustainable strategy. Thanks for providing an example that proves you wrong.

Hardly. You are the one who made the claim that people don't just invest hundreds of millions of dollars into skyscrapers hoping that something would eventually happen. Dubai proved you absolutely wrong on that point. They can, and do. I didn't say it was a good idea, or even that it would work for them. Their risk, their reward. You're the only one who gives a shit about that, as you are the only one between us that has a desire to manipulate whole economies through state arrogation of rents for an entire factor of production. Not me.

Yet, strangely, most Americans live in major metro areas. Hmmmm....

Yes, just like most Americans use debauched fiat currency, and for some strange reason, don't save. Hmmmm...

It'd make buying them and owning them cheaper.

Bullshit. It would make buying them, not owning them, cheaper. By design. Something that is "bought" can actually be "paid for". In full. Under LVT, the concept of "owning them" is not "cheaper, because it is not ownership at all. That concept is fully distorted, as it can NEVER be bought and paid for in full. Thus, "ownership" is nothing but a rental, as the cost of "ownership" imposed by the tax, as a condition of "ownership", is tantamount to a rental fee for usage only, paid to the state - the entity you want permanently enthroned as the ultimate owner under a geocommunist regime.

People would no longer have to pay for the land and pay taxes on top of it; their payment for land would be their tax burden.
With more efficient usage and allocation of land, more dwellings would be supplied, which would reduce the cost of dwellings. Additionally, as I mentioned before, they'd avoid a good deal of interest -not only would they no longer pay interest on the land portion of real estate, but they'd also pay less interest due to dwellings being cheaper.

That's where you went completely goofy-loopy, and completely blind. Under LVT, people would still pay for improvements, just like now. Those can be paid for in full, just like now. Their "payment for land" would be a tax shift of all taxes, as they are shifted to LVT, and paid in perpetuity. They would pay less interest on the dwellings, even as the land itself is treated exactly like an interest-only, variable interest rate loan -- the worst and most predatory of all loans, because there is absolutely no path to ownership, no ability to escape the artificial treadmill imposed, no control over the "interest rate" (the actual mill rate multiplier of the assessed land value), and no economic security that comes from true ownership. For anyone. So no, whatever principle and interest they no longer pay to a previous owner is more than made up for on crack in perpetual interest payments to the state.

 

[Roy L]

Henry George argues that self-ownership is the moral basis of ownership of any property.

No. And even if he did argue that (he doesn't), I neither call nor consider myself a "Georgist," and thus don't feel obliged to defend his arguments.

What the passage you quoted (and -- surprise! -- altered) said was that a man BELONGS to himself, not that he OWNS himself. The term "individual ownership" refers to property ownership BY individuals, not OF individuals. That is clear from the context you edited. A man's self-belonging is not ownership of property, because it is immutable as a matter of physical fact: he can't transfer himself to anyone else.

What is your alternate moral basis for ownership?

I have already stated it. You own the fruits of your labor (and the fruits of others' labor that you obtain in consensual transactions) because that does not deprive anyone else of anything they would otherwise have, while if someone took it from you, that WOULD deprive you of something you would otherwise have.

I am being more careful with citations so that you will hopefully not infer things that are not in the text.

How about just quoting the text as it is? What a concept!