The Single Tax - Land Value Tax (LVT)

[Roy L]

You are referring to the supply curve as it relates to production, of course.

Any supply curve.

That doesn't change the definition of supply itself, which is much broader in scope, and happens to encompass production, or the fact that supply curves are also used for land, whether developed or undeveloped lands as factors of production, to wit:

http://www.wcrer.wsu.edu/resource materials/ResearchSummaries/clarkgma01_execsum.pdf

Are you serious?

Figure 1 shows how the land supply curve becomes steeper as the quantity of developed
land in a market (QD) expands toward the UGB supply constraint (QT). This means that we
expect land supply to become more and more price inelastic over time as development
occurs within a constrained geography. Greater supply price inelasticity means that land
price can be expected to grow at an accelerating rate even though the need for developed
land may only grow at a constant rate. This effect is illustrated in figure 2.

Like dead artists' works, land area is finite and cannot be produced. If supply is fixed to mean the aggregate total in existence (the maximum quantity possible), why are these Land Supply curves NOT vertical?

They aren't land supply curves. You obviously can't even be bothered reading the crap you provide as "sources," let alone understanding it.

In theory it is often argued that the supply curve would TEND to go vertical, but only as available land is exhausted (or artificially constrained). However, it is erroneous to suggest that the aggregate quantity of land in existence is equal to the "supply", which is PRECISELY what you are claiming - and only by virtue of the fact that it cannot be produced, while completely ignoring the fact that PRODUCTION is only a means by which something NEWLY PRODUCED can be made available as supply, and can then CIRCULATE in the case of a non-perishable, non-consumable good which can then enter an re-enter a supply curve many times.

Like the works of dead artists. Which are a canonical example of fixed supply.

It does not matter whether you are talking about oranges, widgets, works of dead artists, or land.

Yes, it does, as oranges and presumably widgets can be produced.

At all times supply is still defined as "the quantity an owner is willing to make available at a given supply price (or range of all possible prices)"

No, it is not.

-- NOT THE AGGREGATE TOTAL IN EXISTENCE, given that some quantities CAN AND ARE excluded from being made available by owners at any price.

Evidence? Of course not.

If a thing is withheld from the market (by any mechanism and for any reason such that the owner is unwilling to make a quantity or area available at any price), it doesn't matter whether the total quantity in existence is fixed - it is still NOT SUPPLY, which will always be some quantity less the total quantity in existence.

Garbage.

Take the case of gold, and say, hypothetically, that we had finally mined/exhausted all gold available on or in the Earth. No more mining will produce even one more ounce of gold. The total quantity in existence is now fixed, but NOT the total supply that now circulates - which is ONLY defined as the quantity owners are willing to make available at a given price, or range of all possible prices in the case of a supply curve, at a given period of time. The fact that they cannot affect the MAXIMUM TOTAL EXTANT (or maximum possible available for sale) does NOT mean they cannot affect the maximum total that IS available for sale at a given price at a given time.

Yes, it does, because whatever the price, that is what it sells for. You still haven't really understood that.

 

[Roy L]

http://www.mises.org/rothbard/mes/chap2c.asp

With arrival at equilibrium, the exchanges have shifted the goods to the most capable possessors,
and there is no further motive for exchange. The market has ended, and there is no longer an active
“ruling market price” for either good because there is no longer any motive for exchange.
Yet in our experience the markets for almost all goods are being continually renewed.
Man, Economy & State, by Murray N. Rothbard
​

What you often refer to ever-so-loosely as "supply", Murray N. Rothbard referred to as "stock".
Further down:

Tell me, was Rothbard making up a bunch of crap?

Well, his embarrassingly fallacious, absurd, wrong-headed and dishonest attack on LVT was certainly a bunch of crap he made up, as I've already demonstrated. In this case, Rothbard is actually explaining to you why I am right and you are wrong. You just don't understand the implications of his concept of "reservation demand." Rothbard is just telling you what I told you: the goods an owner has in his possession are available to the market because they are available TO HIM. He is a person whose demand for the good is being satisfied.

 

[Steven Douglas]

Rothbard is just telling you what I told you: the goods an owner has in his possession are available to the market because they are available TO HIM. He is a person whose demand for the good is being satisfied.

That's one way of spinning it.

 

[Roy L]

No, it's not either/or and never was.

Yes, it is.

Don't conflate value with demand, supply or even equilibrium price, which is where supply and demand intersect.

When supply is fixed, price depends exclusively on demand.

Again you blew it in the absolute, Matt, because you are failing to understand that it is the economics definition of supply at work in that sentence.

No, you are.

Here it is as a tautology of what you wrote, replacing the word you used with its definition -- which shows your sentence to be technically accurate, while proving nothing about your entire premise (that supply is fixed because the total quantity in existence is fixed).

TAUTOLOGY OF YOUR PREMISE:

But the fact is, land and such artwork are fixed in supply the quantity an owner chooses to make available to the market at a given price.

No, you're lying. That is not the definition of supply.

This quantity (a time-dependent dynamic variable and the only thing "supply" means) is NOT, nor is it necessarily equal to, the entire quantity in existence.

That is not the only thing supply means. It is only the definition you are trying to substitute for the economic definition.

What about Aggregate Supply?

Again, using your sentence:

But the fact is, land and such artwork are fixed in supply the aggregate quantity the aggregate owners choose to make available to the market at a given price.

That is not the aggregate quantity in existence, nor does it include the amounts NOT made available at any supply price.

Same fallacious attempt to substitute your own definition for the economic definition.

Can the total supply equal the total quantity in existence?

Yes. Of course. That's when the aggregate owners are willing to make all quantities in existence available at the same time at the same supply price.

Nope. It doesn't matter what their supply prices are, because they can't supply any more at any price.

If even ONE owner is unwilling to make a SINGLE unit available at any price, then the total supply cannot equal the total quantity in existence.

Even if that were the case, a claim you have made but offered no evidence to support, supply would still be fixed, because that item would still have a supply of zero at all prices.

GET IT????

 

[helmuth_hubener]

All supply curves are vertical, short term. There's only so many cans of soup on the shelf. Etc. The demand curve can move about however it likes, it cannot get more than the 5 cans that exist on the shelf. Not until the next shipment.

Most supply curves are sloped upward (they're also not really curves, but putting that aside) in the long term. Demand goes up, more soup will be ordered next time. More soup will be produced. New farms producing soup ingredients will be opened up. Etc.

Some items cannot be produced. The supply of Rembrandts does not respond to price (One hopes. If it does, it's called "forgery"). These exceptions have a vertical supply curve even in the long term.

Natural resources are not one of these exceptions. When the demand for a resource goes up, expansionary measures will tend to be taken to increase the supply of that resource. When demand goes down, a contraction will tend to occur.

Obviously a thing or abstraction off by itself somewhere, in the absence of any owner, or indeed of any human at all, is not part of supply in any economic sense. Oil 200 miles below the surface is not part of the supply of oil, nor is an asteroid's mineral wealth a part of the gold supply.

 

[Steven Douglas]

That is not the only thing supply means. It is only the definition you are trying to substitute for the economic definition.

Same fallacious attempt to substitute your own definition for the economic definition.

Which actual economic definition, specifically, would that be? Not your opinion, not your paraphrase or explanation. The actual sourced definition.

 

[Roy L]

Which actual economic definition, specifically, would that be? Not your opinion, not your paraphrase or explanation. The actual sourced definition.

The one in post #734, which does not say, "Whatever amount owners decide to sell."

 

[Steven Douglas]

The one in post #734, which does not say, "Whatever amount owners decide to sell."

I didn't ask what you thought it wasn't. Just an actual specific definition. You couldn't just quote it? You know -- forthright, direct. Verbatim?

"supply represents the entire relationship between the quantity available for sale and all possible prices charged for that good."

Is that the economic definition of supply you are referring to and accept?

 

[Roy L]

All supply curves are vertical, short term.

Wrong again, as usual. Financial markets, for one, sometimes have a schedule of ask prices and associated quantities of securities that have not yet been issued, but will be if prices rise above the current market price (e.g., stock options that issuers will immediately redeem in stock if the holder exercises them).

There's only so many cans of soup on the shelf. Etc. The demand curve can move about however it likes, it cannot get more than the 5 cans that exist on the shelf. Not until the next shipment.

ROTFL!! Thank you for conceding the whole argument. You obviously know there are people who currently have cans of soup they intend to eat, but would sell to someone else if the price were high enough. That additional soup DOES NOT INCREASE SUPPLY, because it is simply being swapped from one owner to another. ONLY ADDITIONAL SOUP increases the supply, not just an owner selling an existing can to someone else. AND THE EXACT SAME IS TRUE FOR LAND.

Most supply curves are sloped upward (they're also not really curves, but putting that aside) in the long term. Demand goes up, more soup will be ordered next time. More soup will be produced. New farms producing soup ingredients will be opened up. Etc.

More accurately, these things happen in response to price going up, not demand.

Some items cannot be produced. The supply of Rembrandts does not respond to price (One hopes. If it does, it's called "forgery"). These exceptions have a vertical supply curve even in the long term.

Natural resources are not one of these exceptions.

Yes, they most certainly and indisputably are.

When the demand for a resource goes up, expansionary measures will tend to be taken to increase the supply of that resource.

Nope. Natural resources, by definition, cannot be produced by human labor, and there is consequently no way to increase their supply in response to increased demand or price.

When demand goes down, a contraction will tend to occur.

LOL! It's not only a small world, it's a smaller world!

Obviously a thing or abstraction off by itself somewhere, in the absence of any owner, or indeed of any human at all, is not part of supply in any economic sense.

Wrong. History is full of examples of land off by itself somewhere, in the absence of any owner or human, being appropriated as property. The Hudson's Bay Company charter is one egregious example.

Oil 200 miles below the surface is not part of the supply of oil, nor is an asteroid's mineral wealth a part of the gold supply.

Equivocation fallacy. The "supplies" of oil and gold refer to the relevant products of labor, not the precursor natural resources, whose supply is indeed fixed, and includes all of them in existence, owned or not, known or not.

 

[Roy L]

I didn't ask what you thought it wasn't. Just an actual specific definition. You couldn't just quote it? You know -- forthright, direct. Verbatim?

"supply represents the entire relationship between the quantity available for sale and all possible prices charged for that good."

Is that the economic definition of supply you are referring to and accept?

I'd say, "available to the market" rather than "available for sale," and I believe I quoted a sourced definition to that effect earlier in the thread.

 

[Steven Douglas]

More specifically - since it's from a page you already accepted:

What Supply Is:

Economists have a very precise definition of supply. Economists describe supply as the relationship between the quantity of a good or service consumers will offer for sale and the price charged for that good. More precisely and formally supply can be thought of as "the total quantity of a good or service that is available for purchase at a given price."

http://economics.about.com/od/supply/p/supply.htm

Anything wrong with that? Is there some other definition that you're using that I'm not aware of, or does this one pretty much cover it?

 

[Steven Douglas]

I'd say, "available to the market" rather than "available for sale," and I believe I quoted a sourced definition to that effect earlier in the thread.

I don't care what "you'd say" or what "I'd say". Just a specific definition. No ad hoc modifications or repairs - just existing definitions.

 

[Roy L]

More specifically - since it's from a page you already accepted:

No, I only showed you why even if YOU accept it, it doesn't say what you claimed it says.

Anything wrong with that? Is there some other definition that you're using that I'm not aware of, or does this one pretty much cover it?

For one thing, consumers qua consumers don't offer things for sale, so your source is already showing that it is a bit confused and/or careless.

 

[Roy L]

I don't care what "you'd say" or what "I'd say". Just a specific definition. No ad hoc modifications or repairs - just existing definitions.

??? ROTFL!! You're one to talk about ad hoc "modifications and repairs," after all the ludicrous misstatements and misapprehensions you have been trying to pass off as economics!

 

[Steven Douglas]

No, I only showed you why even if YOU accept it, it doesn't say what you claimed it says.

For one thing, consumers qua consumers don't offer things for sale, so your source is already showing that it is a bit confused and/or careless.

THEN GIVE YOUR DEFINITION OF SUPPLY. Don't be slippery and allude to it without actually providing it, then deny it when I quote it. PROVIDE IT.

Be specific. Quote your favorite definition of supply and cite your source.

 

[Roy L]

You are referring to the supply curve as it relates to production, of course. That doesn't change the definition of supply itself, which is much broader in scope, and happens to encompass production, or the fact that supply curves are also used for land, whether developed or undeveloped lands as factors of production, to wit:

http://www.wcrer.wsu.edu/resource materials/ResearchSummaries/clarkgma01_execsum.pdf

Figure 1 shows how the land supply curve becomes steeper as the quantity of developed
land in a market (QD) expands toward the UGB supply constraint (QT). This means that we
expect land supply to become more and more price inelastic over time as development
occurs within a constrained geography. Greater supply price inelasticity means that land
price can be expected to grow at an accelerating rate even though the need for developed
land may only grow at a constant rate. This effect is illustrated in figure 2.

Like dead artists' works, land area is finite and cannot be produced. If supply is fixed to mean the aggregate total in existence (the maximum quantity possible), why are these Land Supply curves NOT vertical?

Have you figured out yet why (even aside from the fact that your source switched Figure 1 and Figure 2, which you did not notice because you either did not read your source or did not understand what you were reading) those are not land supply curves?

 

[Steven Douglas]

Why are evading the question? It was simple enough. Provide an economics definition of supply!


How about this, since you're floundering - I'll throw you a bone here. Would you say that the following is true from Harper College?

SOURCE: http://www.harpercollege.edu/mhealy/eco212i/lectures/s&d/s&d.htm

Supply is NOT the quantity available for sale. This is the way the term is often used in the popular press. Supply is the whole schedule with many prices and many quantities.

Just like with demand, there is a difference between a change in quantity supplied and a change in supply itself. So, if the price increases what happens to supply? The best WRONG answer would be "supply increases", but it doesn't. Price does not change supply, it changes quantity supplied, because supply means the whole schedule with various prices and various quantities.

Do you accept that? Because I do.

 

[Roy L]

THEN GIVE YOUR DEFINITION OF SUPPLY. Don't be slippery and allude to it without actually providing it, then deny it when I quote it. PROVIDE IT.

Be specific. Quote your favorite definition of supply and cite your source.

"Definition of 'Supply'
A fundamental economic concept that describes the total amount of a specific good or service that is available to consumers. Supply can relate to the amount available at a specific price or the amount available across a range of prices if displayed on a graph."

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/supply.asp#axzz1tNUuxUja

I'm sure I posted this before.

 

[Steven Douglas]

"Definition of 'Supply'
A fundamental economic concept that describes the total amount of a specific good or service that is available to consumers. Supply can relate to the amount available at a specific price or the amount available across a range of prices if displayed on a graph."

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/supply.asp#axzz1tNUuxUja

I'm sure I posted this before.

Actually, that was me that posted it, but I accept it, just as I accept this definition from Harpers (same link as before):

Definition
Supply is a schedule which shows the various quantities businesses are willing and able to offer for sale at various prices in a given time period, ceteris paribus.

SOURCE: http://www.harpercollege.edu/mhealy/eco212i/lectures/s&d/s&d.htm

For me there is nothing contradictory between the definition you cited and the one I just cited above. Is there a conflict there in your mind? Is there anything wrong with Harper's definition that you can see?

 

[Roy L]

Why are evading the question? It was simple enough. Provide an economics definition of supply!

I already have, and Matt has, and you have promptly rewritten them to say, "Whatever amount owners decide they want to sell."

How about this, since you're floundering - I'll throw you a bone here. Would you say that the following is true from Harper College?

SOURCE: http://www.harpercollege.edu/mhealy/eco212i/lectures/s&d/s&d.htm

Do you accept that? Because I do.

Yes, that is correct. But before you go off the rails again, do try to remember: EVERY PRICE, BY DEFINITION, IS AGREEABLE TO BOTH BUYER AND SELLER. Lower amounts than a price are merely "bids," higher amounts are merely "hopes."