What do you think of Land Value Tax (LVT)

[eduardo89]

You cannot refute anything I have said, so you just post some silly garbage to make yourself feel like a man.

Your own arguments, tone, and worldview refute your posts on their own.

 

[redbluepill]

That's actually not a correct characterization of my view. Do you think you could, with a bit of effort, restate my view more accurately?

You are being given the opportunity to defend your views. Thats what this forum is for.

That depends on what you mean by "value", now doesn't it?

No, thats exactly what value means.


val·ue/ˈvalyo͞o/
Noun:
The regard that something is held to deserve; the importance or preciousness of something: "your support is of great value".
Verb:
Estimate the monetary worth of (something): "his estate was valued at $45,000".
Synonyms:
noun. worth - price - cost - merit - rate
verb. appreciate - evaluate - estimate - appraise - assess

 

[helmuth_hubener]

You are being given the opportunity to defend your views. Thats what this forum is for.

I'm not defending it. Just vaguely wondering if you're able to restate it. People like that. Shows reading comprehension/intelligence. http://www.analytictech.com/mb119/reflecti.htm

If not, I might as well be typing to a Turing Machine.

No, that's exactly what value means.

So you think things you'd be willing to pay money for are the only things which have value? No, I give the benefit of the doubt that you, like all of us, understand there are many different ways to look at value. Depending on your philosophy, you may also feel that there are certain actions, virtues, or qualities which have intrinsic value, or perhaps objective value, even if an individual actor may not comprehend and accept its value to him. I see value as a very large and multifaceted subject to dive into.

 

[redbluepill]

I'm not defending it. Just vaguely wondering if you're able to restate it. People like that. Shows reading comprehension/intelligence. http://www.analytictech.com/mb119/reflecti.htm

If not, I might as well be typing to a Turing Machine.

Why should I restate it when that is exactly what you believe? In your mind its finders keepers.

So you think things you'd be willing to pay money for are the only things which have value?

Things you'd be willing to pay for are examples of things with value.

No, I give the benefit of the doubt that you, like all of us, understand there are many different ways to look at value. Depending on your philosophy, you may also feel that there are certain actions, virtues, or qualities which have intrinsic value, or perhaps objective value, even if an individual actor may not comprehend and accept its value to him. I see value as a very large and multifaceted subject to dive into.

How does this contradict anything I've said?

 

[Steven Douglas]

Well, I have to say this thread has been fun, as well as informative. Good to know how other people think. The fact that LVT is being attempted in different parts of the world makes it in my interest to learn about, even if I don't agree with the principles or precepts involved.

My objective would never be on how to align state interests with commerce. That puts the state "on the take" - something I think is precisely what is destroying the world now, and even what gave rise to the Federal Reserve system.

I don't want a state that is ever growing and on the take. I want it to be the ever servant and champion for the individual liberties required to make small commerce an ever present and continuous competitive threat to large commerce, with no artificial advantages that attempt to reward or give any artificial preference whatsoever to ANY larger enterprise. Failure is A Very Good Thing in a free market, as it creates opportunity, and nobody is Too Big To Fail.

I see an LVT as a mechanism that makes the state the artificial auctioneer over an equally artificial state-controlled monopoly on land. ALL states are notorious for doing whatever they can to MAXIMIZE revenues, by whatever means are at their disposal. Because revenue would dependent on land value under an LVT "single tax" system, the state would have a very, VERY powerful incentive, and would also be in an all-powerful position (as it is even now), to do whatever it can do to continue to artificially increase the value of lands - through zoning laws and withholding land from wider public usage which would cheapen the value of land, in order to collect on higher Scarcity Rents.

Artificial zoning laws and artificial scarcity rents are an enormous part of what keeps land values, and therefore prices, artificially high. This automatically favors large commerce, with its capital advantages and immediate proven capabilities, over small commerce, as those who bid the most gold are automatically given preference to the best lands, but only out of those made available by the government itself, which controls the availability of all land, including that land on which the market does not operate.

It is easy to see why LVT appeals to environmentalists so much, who would all love to have their say in such a system, because it really does give the state incentive to withhold land from "those who would otherwise be at liberty to use them" (with or without so-called "just" compensation). I don't give a crap about such "compensation". I don't want an exemption or dividend from commerce I can't compete with for lack of land usage, and I DO NOT WANT THEIR LAND. I want use of unused lands that are being withheld, by both the state and wealthy land speculators, for no other reason than to artificially increase the value of the already limited available lands.

I agree that being forced to pay rents to private landowners can be economically devastating (to the only real "economies" that actually count), and all for lack of opportunity to have access to exclusive use of lands of their own. The solution, to me, is not to change landlords so that the same rents can be charged, only now it is somehow "recovered" fer da' people. The solution is to break ALL monopolies on land, including and especially state monopolies, so that land really is available for "free usage" (i.e. OWNERSHIP), given its value is not artificially determined, publicly or privately, in the first place.

Now there's a good use for Eminent Domain laws. Big Corporate Speculator buys up an enormous tract of land, and just holds onto it, as property values rise. Screw the speculators, including homeowners who want the values to go up, and SCREW THE ZONING COMMISSION for its market manipulating complicity. Force Big Corporate Speculator to sell its land at "fair market" value, based on projected FALLEN land values, as land becomes LESS SCARCE.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

Why should I restate it when that is exactly what you believe? In your mind its finders keepers.

I am gladdened to hear you know with such exactness what I believe. I am confused when this confident and exact knowledge seems to be at variance with what I had thought I believed, especially since I had presented it multiple times fairly clearly and further clarified it after questions.

But, what do I know?

I thought you were not a pure rhetorical agenda-bot. You were able to comprehend sentences and reply to them in an interesting and relevant way which I could not necessarily anticipate in advance. Now you're acting like just another Roy. Oh well! Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good Night!

 

[heavenlyboy34]

I am gladdened to hear you know with such exactness what I believe. I am confused when this confident and exact knowledge seems to be at variance with what I had thought I believed, especially since I had presented it multiple times fairly clearly and further clarified it after questions.

But, what do I know?

I thought you were not a pure rhetorical agenda-bot. You were able to comprehend sentences and reply to them in an interesting and relevant way which I could not necessarily anticipate in advance. Now you're acting like just another Roy. Oh well! Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good Night!

Happy Festivus and Happy New Year, sir!!

 

[Roy L]

Appeal to [your own] authority, with no counter-argument. My argument stands.

You didn't make any argument, Steven. You just made a fallacious, absurd and dishonest claim, which I demolished. There are no "accounting ramifications" of LVT, Steven. That notion is the distilled essence of pure absurdity.

Argument by ridicule. My argument stands

ROTFL!!! Ah, no. Reductio ad absurdum has been known to be a conclusive refutation for thousands of years Steven. That fact just isn't known to you, because you do not know any logic. The only way any of your "arguments" stand is as monuments to absurdity and dishonesty.

Argument by ridicule. My argument stands

As above. Your non-argument has been comprehensively and conclusively demolished.

Ad Hominem attack, no counter-argument. My argument stands.

Your "argument" was idiotic, Steven. Identifying that fact is not an ad hominem attack.

Ad Hominem attack, no counter-argument. My argument stands.

You didn't make any argument, Steven. You just made a false, absurd and dishonest claim with no basis in fact or logic.

Argument by ridicule. My argument stands.

As an eternal monument to absurdity and dishonesty. Right.

If that same store held a monopoly on all food, or anything else vital to life itself, then the "force" involved is in having to deal with that store in the first place, with no alternatives (aka "choice") - not the "choices" offered by that Ridiculously Presumptuous Monstrosity, once I am fully trapped into and forced to deal within its confines.

And on your planet, that bizarre fantasy might even be relevant. Here on earth, not so much.

Choices are also given to gladiators, cocks and dogs thrust together into fighting arenas. Technically, nobody is forcing them to fight. They can all just lie down if they want to.

Gladiators are not given a choice, that is a lie. If they don't fight, they are killed. Cocks and dogs fight because it is inherent in their nature, just as apologists for landowner privilege lie.

You are like the sociopath Jigsaw from the SAW movies, Roy.

You are like a lying apologist for greed, privilege, injustice and evil, Steven.

You want to play a game.

Liberty and justice is not a game.

Your game is one of "Let's you and him fight over who is going to pay me the biggest land rent payments".

?? You are merely falsely accusing me of seeking to do what LANDOWNERS ALREADY do, Steven. Re-read the account of the Quakers in India, and try to find a willingness to know the facts it identifies. There is no prospect that I, personally, would be pocketing others' land rent payments under LVT. Landowners, by contrast, DO pocket others' land rent payments under the current system.

That certainly has the element of competition that you would find in a free market, but it is anything but a "free market".

No, it is very much a free market, Steven, stop lying. What is not free about it? You don't have to deprive others of their liberty. You just want to take others' liberty from them and not be required to repay the value of what you take. You want to profit by thieving and parasitism, like any landowner.

Appeal to ridicule. My argument stands.
Appeal to ridicule. My argument stands.
Ad hominem appeal to ridicule with no counter-argument. My argument stands.

ROTFL!! I see. So, in what you are no doubt pleased to call your "mind," by making self-evidently ridiculous claims, claims so absurd they can't even meaningfully be addressed, you have constructed "arguments" that can never be refuted! Brilliant!

Well, sometimes land appraisers come from...government. You know, that sometimes other "market participant"?

Evasion. The fact that appraisers serve a market need independently of government stands, and your whole "argument" consequently fails.

WRONG.

No, my statement is objectively correct: market participants already measure land rent for their own purposes.

You couldn't be more dead wrong, and I mean that along with an absolute dismissal of Georgist economic theory of Land Rent, and your blithering nonsense about Publicly Created Value, as if it really was that, and as if the "Public" had any rightful claim to such a fiction.

It is not a fiction. That is just a lie. The fact that land rent is publicly created is an established fact of economics.

When I draw a crowd to my theater, that is not value that is CREATED BY the public. It is value I TAKE FROM the public IN EXCHANGE FOR what I have provided in my theater, which is 100% PRIVATELY CREATED VALUE. You see, how it works, Roy, is the public pays me to get into my theater, because I have enticed them to come. And not everyone was forced to come. Those who do come give me money, I give them a show, and everybody goes home happy. But the crowd did not draw itself. I DREW THAT CROWD.

Did you imagine that had something to do with land value?

Oh, wait a minute, that's right, it did:

YOU ONLY BUILT YOUR THEATER AT THAT LOCATION IN THE FIRST PLACE BECAUSE THE PUBLICLY CREATED LAND VALUE -- THE OPPORTUNITY TO DRAW A LARGE CROWD FROM THE SURROUNDING COMMUNITY, BY MEANS OF TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE PROVIDED BY GOVERNMENT -- JUSTIFIED IT.

Furthermore, I also PAID for my share of the infrastructure, public and private, that got all of us there.

No, you did not, Steven. That is a lie. You are LYING. The only way you could possibly have paid your share of the publicly provided infrastructure is through a land value tax on the site of your theater.

All paid for, Roy! Nobody profits from that.

No, that is a lie, Steven. You are lying. The landowner profits from it, as absent LVT, he pockets the value it creates in return for nothing.

The "public" (the state) is not a Market Participant.

Yes, it is, sorry. Your claims are all objectively false.

We really do own the infrastructure. That alone is what we share FREELY in common.

No, we must pay landowners for access to it.

That's why cities, counties and states can't charge admission fees by virtue of their existence,

Landowners charge the admission fees.

and have to work very hard to even justify toll roads and toll bridges.

Because landowners want the larger welfare subsidy giveaway that free roads and bridges imply. Churchill explained it for you this way:

"Some years ago in London there was a toll bar on a bridge across the Thames, and all the working people who lived on the south side of the river had to pay a daily toll of one penny for going and returning from their work. The spectacle of these poor people thus mulcted of so large a proportion of their earnings offended the public conscience, and agitation was set on foot, municipal authorities were roused, and at the cost of the taxpayers, the bridge was freed and the toll removed. All those people who used the bridge were saved sixpence a week, but within a very short time rents on the south side of the river were found to have risen about sixpence a week, or the amount of the toll which had been remitted!"

Landowners who charge rent are not always charging for "LAND RENT". Las Vegas proves that.

No, it does not. The landowner qua landowner charges only land rent, which is easily separable from whatever he may be charging for in capacities other than that of landowner.

They are just entertainers in the middle of the desert, providing the only PRIVATELY CREATED VALUE that really counts.

No, that's just another stupid lie from you. Entertainers in the middle of the desert die of thirst. Las Vegas is not desert because it has government-provided water supply, roads, airport, and tons of other infrastructure and services that make it possible for entertainers to make a lot of money there -- even after paying the local landowners a fortune in land rent for the opportunity. Your claims are just idiotic.

Roads and bridges to nowhere don't count any more than roads and bridges that lead to Privately Created Value.

Stupidity. Roads and bridges to nowhere create the land value that makes the nowhere turn into somewhere -- as Las Vegas did when it got water, roads, an airport, etc. from government.

Argument by ridicule. My argument stands

As a monument to absurdity and dishonesty.

Sure do. In a free market, it is my ability to place bets, as a hedge against my own losses.

OK, so you agree that you were LYING when you claimed we don't want to find out how much we are willing to pay for hurricane damage. Good. It's always good to confess when you have lied.

Well, in the case of a County Tax appraiser, you get a nice little bill from a tax collector, saying PAY THIS BILL OR FORFEIT YOUR PROPERTY.

That doesn't make you willing to pay it, Steven. That only shows how much you are being asked to pay.

I repeat: HOW will you determine how much you are willing to pay to keep the property? Who will tell you whether it is worth your while to pay? Who will tell you, and on what basis, if the tax bill is too much to pay?

Blank out.

See above re: Jigsaw.

See above re: evil, lying filth.

I'm not a "willing" participant of the Federal Reserve System either. Is anyone holding a gun to my head there?

Ignoratio elenchi fallacy.

Equally meaningless non-counter-argument.

Refusal to know facts.

Ad hominem attack with no counter-argument. My unanswered argument stands.

As a towering monument to irrelevancy.

Ad hominem appeal to ridicule in a circular framework.

The "circular framework" would be the trash can your idiotic evasions belong in.

Incoherent non-response.
No counter-argument. My argument stands.
Ad hominem attack with no counter-argument. My unanswered argument stands.

<yawn> Your refusal to know facts does not alter them, Steven.

You are the only one who believes, and has asserted, but has not established or proved, that mere owner-occupation of land, without charging any rent, constitutes a "collection privilege", to which the public has a rightful claim.

Of course I have proved it: the owner-user is depriving others of their liberty, and the publicly created advantages of the land, just as much as the owner-rentier.

You weren't there, Roy, but we can state with certainty that humans, like so many other mammals, have always been decidedly territorial.

No, that's just garbage. Homo sapiens is not territorial. Period. Here is a typical article about territoriality that talks about dozens of territorial species, and DOES NOT MENTION human beings:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territory_(animal)

That is part of our INDIVIDUAL nature. We provide for ourselves and those we call "our own", even as families compete with families. Always have, always will.

But that's not territoriality. So you fail. Your "argument" fails.

They most certainly did "exclude each other from use of land",

Only on a community, societal or tribal basis. Not as individuals, the way genuinely territorial species do.

and your hunter-gatherer agrarian fantasy falls flat on its face at worst, or at best remains moot.

Blatant oxymoron and contentless gibberish.

'No True Scotsman' fallacy.

LOL! Garbage. You have no knowledge of logic. None.

Of course it is, assuming a permanent structure is built on that land.

No such assumption is made or warranted, and your claim is self-evidently false, absurd and dishonest.

He has every right to the land and what he built on it, and every right to "deprive me of my liberty" to use it.

No, that's just a self-evidently false claim with no supporting facts or logic. You are baldly claiming the landowner has a right to deprive others of their rights. That is blatantly self-contradictory. If he can remove others' rights, they can just as rightly remove his. But that means no one has any rights, including rights to remove others' rights.

You are destroyed.

You claim that I would otherwise be naturally at liberty to use that land if he did not exist.

That is an indisputable fact of objective physical reality. But you have already realized that it proves your beliefs are false and evil, so you have to deny it.

His existence, and therefore the land and shelter he required,

Blatant fabrication and non sequitur fallacy. Which land and shelter? You are just makin' $#!+ up again.

RIGHTFULLY precluded any claim I might "otherwise have had" on such liberty - all as a matter of his right of existence.

No, that's indisputably another non sequitur fallacy. You simply haven't provided any argument for such a claim, Steven, and you will not be doing so. There is no sense in which another's existence removes your right to liberty. Such claims are absurd, self-contradictory, and idiotic.

That he 'could' live elsewhere, or under other circumstances, is true.

And proves that you lied, above.

However, being forced to live elsewhere, or under other circumstances, is not liberty - as Native Americans know only too well.

I see. So, in what you are no doubt pleased to call your "mind," it is not liberty if the community forces one soi-disant land "owner" to live elsewhere and under other circumstances in order to secure the equal rights of all to life and liberty, but it somehow IS liberty if that one landowner forces the whole community to live elsewhere and under other circumstances in order to rob and enslave them...?

Somehow, I kinda figured it'd be something like that...

Your perceived right to liberty of use of his exclusive space does not trump his right to remain in his space - because that would violate HIS right to liberty.

"His" "space"? Blatant question begging fallacy.

And I haven't claimed my liberty right trumps his, only that his does not trump mine. The only way to reconcile our conflicting rights to liberty while enabling exclusive use of space, therefore, is through compensation: only by A paying B more to vacate a given space than B will pay A can A rightly claim exclusive use of it.

Not unless you can imagine what liberty would be like without his existence in that place, and convert that FICTION into a real claim that actually nullifies his right to exist (in that place).

Nonsense. The FACT of natural liberty could not possibly nullify the right to life, as all rights are inherently compatible with all facts. You are simply lying that a landowner's right to life necessarily implies a right to secure ownership of "his" land as "the space his body occupies." But of course, that is just an infinitely stupid lie on your part.

The total absence of even the concept of private landowning from hunter-gatherer and nomadic herding societies proves there cannot possibly be any human right to own land as private property. Period. Private property in land is purely a legal fiction.

YOU are Crusoe, Roy.

ROTFL!! No, you are lying, Steven. It is not I who seeks to enslave others by depriving them of their liberty to use what nature provided for all. It's you.

Friday is Steven. Friday doesn't want to rule over the whole island. Only Crusoe does.

Wrong AGAIN. As a hunter-gatherer, Friday doesn't claim to own any land. Crusoe does. That proves you are lying, Steven, and YOU are the Crusoe in the case, I am the Friday.

You are the one trying to school ME in the LVT economics of having to comply with a strange system that demands payment for my exclusive occupation of land of my choice, or else face a musket that forces me to move.

Nope. Wrong. As a hunter-gatherer, Friday makes no claim of exclusive occupation, so that is another proof that you are just lying when you try to claim Friday's mantle of moral innocence.

You actually believe that an "exemption" should mean something to me.

No, I am fully aware that facts, logic, liberty, justice and truth do not mean anything to you.

I don't require an exemption, because Friday does not acknowledge the fictitious debt Crusoe imagines should be the Rule of the Island.

LOL! If you don't want your right to liberty restored, that's your prerogative. Just don't bitch when the productive outbid you for all the good land.

Friday sees Crusoe build a hut on one side of the island and demands nothing from him. Friday can build his own hut, and coexist. That is in Friday's nature.

Because he does not claim to own the land. Crusoe does. That is what makes you Crusoe and me Friday, Steven, rather than the other way around as you so ludicrously and dishonestly claim.

Only LVT Roy Crusoe is not happy with that arrangement, once he looks across and later realizes that Friday actually has a much better place on the island. So covetous, greedy, murderous, enslaving, controlling bastard in his heart that he is,

LOL! You're projecting, Steven.

Crusoe imagines how much more liberty he would have on the island if Friday did not exist!

Which is an indisputable fact, so you of course deny it.

LVT ROY CRUSOE: "Friday is depriving me of what I would naturally be at liberty to use if he did not exist, just as I as I am depriving him of the same. We therefore have a just and rightful indisputable claim on one another. Friday's land obviously has much more value than mine, which means he owes more to the public treasury than I do."

And if the bids in the market confirm LRC's opinion, then Friday does indeed take more from society than LRC, and does indeed consequently owe more compensation in repayment for what he takes.

This would be Crusoe's desire; to rob and enslave Friday to obtain unearned wealth, in typical parasitic Island-owner fashion.

By George, he's got it!

Except, of course, that Steven has concocted some stupid lies to tell himself to prevent himself from actually getting it.

Like the stupid lie that government provision of the services and infrastructure that create land's value is "parasitic," and does not earn that value.

Like the stupid lie that requiring Friday to repay what he takes from society "robs and enslaves" him, rather than simply and JUSTLY requiring him to repay value he is taking, value that was never rightly his in the first place.

Like the stupid lie that recovery of publicly created value for public purposes and benefit through voluntary, value-for-value transactions is the same as private appropriation of publicly created value through forcible removal of others' rights.

And it all begins with Crusoe COVETING.

One of the most evil things any lying apologist for greed, privilege and injustice can do is to accuse those who oppose injustice of envy for its beneficiaries, because only by such viciously evil, despicable, disgraceful and dishonest means can two Holocausts a year be rationalized and justified.

Sorry, but prolonged exposure to evil makes me physically ill, so I can't respond to any more evil lies tonight. In fact, I think I'll make a New Year's Resolution to stop participating in forums, as the constant, vicious, stupid, evil lying just makes me sick.

 

[Steven Douglas]

Evil, lying apologists for greed, privilege and injustice, blah blah blah...

I don't care if it's a government as a monopoly speculator or wealthy private interests buying up and hoarding land on spec. As landlords with monopolies, they can all, every one of them, and you, kiss my greedy, libertarian, exclusive land-owning/land-using, land-rent-keeping, propertarian butt.

Go enslave someone else with your sick, twisted, convoluted, communistic, collectivist, ugly step-cousin of Marxist rent-seeking crap, Crusoe.

No need to return liberty or value to "the people" that wasn't stolen or robbed from them in the first place by any evil entity that steps up and declares "That was the Bad Landlord. I am the Good Landlord, so PAY UP." Oh, and someone else's land, and exclusive use thereof - that does not necessarily constitute a wrongful deprivation to anyone, nor are others entitled to land rent in the economic (non)sense, by the thoroughly demented collectivist reasoning of "publicly created value" or that others "would otherwise have been at liberty to use it".

And here -- :::: throwing a massive wad of paper out the door and to the winds ::::

Take your worthless, conscience assuaging exemptions and dividends with you. Use them to build a fire, or else to construct a shelter of your own, on your own land. And word to the wise: Be sure to buy that land, so that you're not a slave to rent-seeking by government or private interests. Try North Dakota sometime after June. I hear the Pharoah and his priests there have been put on notice, by the people, to Let My People Go.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

I don't care if it's a government as a monopoly speculator or wealthy private interests buying up and hoarding land on spec. As landlords with monopolies, they can all, every one of them, and you, kiss my greedy, libertarian, exclusive land-owning/land-using, land-rent-keeping, propertarian butt.

Go enslave someone else with your sick, twisted, convoluted, communistic, collectivist, ugly step-cousin of Marxist rent-seeking crap, Crusoe.

No need to return liberty or value to "the people" that wasn't stolen or robbed from them in the first place by any evil entity that steps up and declares "That was the Bad Landlord. I am the Good Landlord, so PAY UP." Oh, and someone else's land, and exclusive use thereof - that does not necessarily constitute a wrongful deprivation to anyone, nor are others entitled to land rent in the economic (non)sense, by the thoroughly demented collectivist reasoning of "publicly created value" or that others "would otherwise have been at liberty to use it".

And here -- :::: throwing a massive wad of paper out the door and to the winds ::::

Take your worthless, conscience assuaging exemptions and dividends with you. Use them to build a fire, or else to construct a shelter of your own, on your own land. And word to the wise: Be sure to buy that land, so that you're not a slave to rent-seeking by government or private interests. Try North Dakota sometime after June. I hear the Pharoah and his priests there have been put on notice, by the people, to Let My People Go.

Very important points there. Those condemning "rent seekers" are neglecting the fact that an LVT is, in practice, a type of rent-except it goes to a government (or some "super" agency).
Also, land is not fungible, as you've alluded to here and several other places. The geoist view, as described in this thread, attempts to "prove" land land to be fungible (though usually tacitly). Non-fungible goods are always unique from each other. For example, my parcel is different than every other parcel. The act of taxing non-fungible goods necessitates a considerable amount of tyranny and unfairness. I imagine the "wealthy" would buy up cheap land that the poor would otherwise use (and pay rent for) and live out of the country. (effectively a tax shelter) This will force the "unlanded" into becoming "rent slaves" anyway.

 

[Steven Douglas]

Yep.

“Illiterate they may be, but they are not blind. They see no reason to give their loyalty to rich and powerful men who simply want to take over the role of the British in the name of freedom." - Gandhi (1982), speaking of the people of India regarding Indian Home Rule

...which is pretty much what happened in India.

Just change that to "...collectivist-minded politicians who simply want to take over the roles and revenues of private landlords..." and you have the raw essence of LVT in a nutshell.

That particular camel's nose shouldn't just be pushed out of the tent. That nose should be chopped completely off, so that it lacks the capacity to even smell such things.

 

[Warrior_of_Freedom]

Paying tax on net worth is wrong. if I don't have a job, but at least have a house to live in, what happens if I can't pay my tax? How can you tax me on money I did not make that year? That's not tax, it's a fee.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

Paying tax on net worth is wrong. if I don't have a job, but at least have a house to live in, what happens if I can't pay my tax? How can you tax me on money I did not make that year? That's not tax, it's a fee.

Hey! No inconvenient truths in Georgist Fantasy Land!!!11!!

 

[Steven Douglas]

Paying tax on net worth is wrong. if I don't have a job, but at least have a house to live in, what happens if I can't pay my tax? How can you tax me on money I did not make that year? That's not tax, it's a fee.

That's why Roy proposes a theft exemption for individuals. Of course, if the value of your current land exceeds your exemption amount, you'll still have to pay or get the hell out - make room for the 'more productive hands'. Can't have non-productive hands like yours standing in the way of state revenue real productivity. No rest for the weary, as the state's interests are not aligned with yours. They are perpetually aligned only with those who have more ability willingness to pay than you.

OK, I know - if you had more you might be willing to pay more, but you don't have more, so it's all about ability now. Besides, you got bought off with your individual exemption. Now quit complaining and go find suitably dense land that actually aligns with your standard exemption amount somewhere on the Lesser Valued Lands Reservation. (yes, Native Americans were less productive hands as well, and had to be relocated - but we gave them a nice exemption, with suitable lands to live on, so there's that)

He should have proposed an LVT. That would make the king the sole landlord, and his word magicians could make it illegal to refer to that as ownership. They could just make statements like, "The land is not owned because land is un-ownable". Plus, if a few wings were added to a few leading universities, along with some "grants to study the matter", a few thousand papers later there could be a "mountain of evidence" and an "overwhelming consensus" that would positively, scientifically, academically show this to be indisputably correct.

 

[Luciconsort]

I don't like a tax where if unpaid, they can take your land. It's my land, and they should have no power over any of it. All property taxes should be abandoned.

ding ding ding.... that is the correct answer lol

 

[eduardo89]

Did this thread die?

 

[Steven Douglas]

Self-evidently and indisputably.

 

[Roy L]

Did this thread die?

I thought Steven's post #1494 was as honest and accurate as his contributions were likely to get, and didn't want to spoil his concession speech. Despite his ham-handed attempts to malign LVT ("theft exemption," etc. -- <yawn>), he was forced to admit that it is the revenue solution that aligns government's financial interests with the market's judgment and the people's interest in efficient land allocation to maximize liberty, justice and prosperity. It just doesn't sacrifice liberty, justice and prosperity to landowner privilege and parasitism, so Steven has to oppose it.

 

[Roy L]

Paying tax on net worth is wrong.

LVT is not a tax on net worth. It simply recovers the value the landholder takes from society by depriving others of use of the land.

if I don't have a job, but at least have a house to live in, what happens if I can't pay my tax?

You yield the land to a more productive user and seek accommodation better suited to your needs and means.

How can you tax me on money I did not make that year?

By levying a tax that is not an income tax. You seem to be unaware that people who "did not make" any money "that year" still pay sales tax, excise tax, gas tax, etc., as well as property tax. They just pay it out of their assets.

That's not tax, it's a fee.

LVT is a fee for the benefits society provides, and of which you are depriving others, correct.

 

[eduardo89]

The troll is back...