From today's Pravda:
HOUSING WOES
My fact of the day is the collapse in the US homeownership rate, now at a 16-year low of 65.4 per cent. It peaked at 69.4 per cent in mid-2004. Sub-prime lending was a deliberate policy dreamt up in Washington by Democrats and endorsed by Republicans. Too many people who couldn’t afford to buy were pushed into mortgages; at first, the homeownership rate shot up but now all of the gains have been reversed. A property owning democracy is great – but only if it is not artificially inflated by politicians.
Typical Blue Socialism. They don't really mean "a [land] owning democracy" at all, the dream of these people (and our nightmare come true) is a powerful government, imposing high taxes on earned income, run by and for the benefit of landowners and banks, with a fig leaf of a reasonable number of voters who think that they own land to keep voting them back in.
The "demos" owns little or no land, what it does own is approximately half of people's earned income; what we have, as a matter of fact, is an "other-people's-labour-and-capital owning democracy", which is a bit like slavery except more subtle.
And there's always a "but", isn't there? We could, of course, move to a 100% full-on land-owning non-slave owning democracy overnight if we wanted, where everybody owns a share of the land rents as of right; for life; and inalienably, but that's no good to the landowners and banks.
Sounds Like, For Once, It Went Right!
3 hours ago
8 comments:
Good one. Especially on the slave quote. ;)
More widespread homeownerism means less chance of LVT. The more who think they collect rent or the more who think they will one day(tenants) or the more who actually collect rent, matters little.
The first politician (me) to call for socialised rents and privatised earnings will be sent to the cross by all of them.
The great pyramid selling scam of modern civilisation. Only the first ones in (the conquerors) win. Everyone else loses. They are slaves.
Wish me luck on Thursday.
"We could, of course, move to a 100% full-on land-owning ... democracy overnight if we wanted, where everybody owns a share of the land rents as of right; for life; and inalienably ..."
Naughty sleight of hand there Mr W. From "100% full-on, land-owning" to "everybody owns a share of the land rents" in just nine words.
The two are different. Land ownership includes the right to collect rent (if another occupies it in exchange for rent) but it also involves far more than that.
Indeed, it involved far more than that when you were a landowner before you cashed-in the bubble value you are now so keen to decry and stuck a great wad of cash in your bank account (without acting according to your principles by paying voluntary additional tax equivalent to the bubble value).
As usual your hypocritical obsession with LVT causes you to look at land ownership as nothing other than a balance sheet. Because there is potential to receive rent you assume, quite absurdly, that every landowner actually receives a benefit equivalent to the potential rent he or she could enjoy.
Part of the irrationality of your argument is illustrated by the sleight of hand described above.
Mr Smith makes the point perfectly. Once you have fooled yourself that land ownership is about rent, you move to the concept of "socialised rents", that is nothing other than the nationalisation of all land.
Please don't waste time saying all land is nationalised because of the legal fiction that all title derives from the Crown, that is just an analytical device. It is not a reflection of the reality of land ownership anymore than your theory that land ownership carries with it perpetual rental value reflects the position of Mr & Mrs Ordinary in their two-up two-down house they finally paid for a quarter of a century after they moved into it.
At that point it is theirs.
Not the government's, not the State's, not the Crown's and no rental income accrues; it is just the little plot in which they live. And thank goodness for that because it costs no one else a penny for them to live there, unlike under the twisted Utopia of "socialised rents".
If everyone paid the same amount to get the same amount (equal access), some land would undoubtedly be free. Yet, "socialized rent" would still be a fair description of that situation, since only collecting publicly, the return to land ownership (in scientific terminology, 'rent') can achieve equal access.
TFB, are you really that brainwashed or do you do this for sport? You just make yourself look stupid when you try and make yourself look intelligent by re-hashing these Home-Owner-Ist lies:
1. "Land ownership includes the right to collect rent (if another occupies it in exchange for rent) but it also involves far more than that."
If one man is collecting rent, or the bank charging interest, then somebody else is paying it, and the person who is paying it clearly does not own land, so the Home-Owner-Ist ideal reveals itself to be that the ideal level of owner-occupation is a lot less than 100%.
2. "Because there is potential to receive rent you assume, quite absurdly, that every landowner actually receives a benefit equivalent to the potential rent he or she could enjoy."
Well they do receive and enjoy rent, that's a simple fact. It is amazing that you Homeys can deny this. If you have an apple tree in your back garden which grows apples, are those real apples or not? Does the fact that you haven't paid for them mean that they are not real apples and that you cannot and do not enjoy them? If the rental value of your house means nothing to you, would you be happy to give away your house and live in a tent?
3. "Once you have fooled yourself that land ownership is about rent, you move to the concept of "socialised rents", that is nothing other than the nationalisation of all land."
a) Land ownership IS about rent. Your claim #1 today was that "Land ownership includes the right to collect rent". So at least make up your mind which lie you are going to peddle.
b) If you call taxation of community-generated land rents "nationalisation", then what do you call taxation of privately-generated earned income and profits?
4. "Not the government's, not the State's, not the Crown's and no rental income accrues; it is just the little plot in which they live. And thank goodness for that because it costs no one else a penny for them to live there, unlike under the twisted Utopia of "socialised rents"."
Ah, diddums, another fucking diagonal comparison so beloved of liars and policitians.
a) You started off by saying that land ownership means you can "collect rents" (by implication in cash, in other words, somebody owns more land than he needs) and then that you deny that Mr & Mrs Ordinary enjoy any benefit from owning their little plot (enjoying "rent") and then you use these two as human shields to argue that nobody should pay LVT when you know perfectly fucking well that if they own a small plot they would not pay any tax as it falls below the personal allowance.
b) And it is of no shitting relevance WHEN they bought the plot or how long it took them to pay off a mortgage, yet again, you bring in entirely irrelevant factors into things.
c) You wail that "it doesn't cost anybody else a penny" that they live there, well the simple fact of the matter is, it does. There is a limited amount of valuable land, and if once it is all occupied, the next people to arrive have to pay more money simply for somewhere to live than if they had turned up a few decades earlier. every single land owner imposes a burden on 'everybody else' (including other land owners) which is approx. equivalent to the rental value of his site, that's basic maths and logic (which you don't do).
You are a barrister and cheerfully admit that you have spent your working life telling lies on behalf of other people for money, it appears that you know do this as a hobby.
5. As a final thought, if we are arguing over what's best for Mr & Mrs Ordinary on their small little plot , under a sensible LVT-only system, they would have paid their mortgage a whole lot quicker (land much cheaper); their CI would have easily covered their LVT bill and they'd never have had to pay a penny in income tax, VAT etc.
And you're arguing that they'd be better off? Can you explain that in maths, please? Or admit that you were lying?
"TFB, are you really that brainwashed or do you do this for sport?"
Mark, calm down, he does it for sport. I think you should refer to him as TFT, The Fat Troll. Anyway, this blog wouldn't be half so fum without him and the likes of Sarton Bander (I wonder if he's any relation to Hastings).
B, I've been as polite as I can be for the first five years of blogging, I've tried talking reasonably and calmly to every existing political party and have got nowhere (except maybe Scottish Greens and Mark Drakeford AM), so f- em all, I don't care what Homeys think any more, you cannot reason with them etc.
And if TFB really wants an intellectual challenge and to wind people up, why doesn't he go and argue with the Home-Owner-Ists in real life? What is the point in trolling me? It's getting stupid and boring and he can f-ing well grow up a bit, he's clearly intelligent and everything.
"What is the point in trolling me? It's getting stupid and boring and he can f-ing well grow up a bit, he's clearly intelligent and everything."
Because it winds you up and you show it instead of just banning him. Just ignore him, then you will still get material for KLNs or he will get bored and go away. As you say, he's clearly intelligent, hence all his misunderstandings of your various arguments are obviously wilful.
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