AK Haart alerts us to Google's Ngram viewer. I chose the three words you'd expect me to choose, and as we'd expect, "land" and "rents" are being gradually brushed under the carpet and people are encouraged to talk about "tax" instead, despite the fact that land values and land rents have risen just as much as publicly collected taxes over the same period. Click to enlarge:
Compare and contrast: "I don't understand your obsession with land values; we're not an agricultural society any more so land isn't important" and "We need house prices to go up to prevent banks going bankrupt, to create wealth, to stimulate the economy etc.". These statements completely contradict each other, so at best one of them is correct (actually neither is).
The other foolish claim is "Most people are owner-occupiers and don't pay rent, rent isn't important any more.". What are mortgage payments if not rent? What are land values if not capitalised rents? What is the point of owning land other than to enjoy/consume the rental value?
Monday, 5 March 2012
Google Ngram Viewer
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2 comments:
Thanks for the link. I see the word "cow" is increasing quite sharply.
AKH, my pleasure. Use of "cow" has fallen by half since 1940 and is back to 19th century levels.
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