Investments

Left-wingers love to talk about "investment" but rarely talk about what investments they want. I wrote on this before, but here's 2 ideas for government investments that have been knocking around in my head:-

1. Dual-carriageway across Wales. Actually, a bit more than Wales. Link up from Gloucester to say, Aberyswyth including Hereford. About 100 miles, total cost, around £700m. Reduces the journey time from around 2.5 hours to 1.5 hours. Opens up new avenues for tourism and for business to trade better with the rest of the UK. Much better idea than shaving a tiny amount off Birmingham to Manchester by rail. Might also want one from say, Stoke to the same point, but I've not worked it out.
2. A container railway, linking the ports with major cities. Fully enclosed, automated high-speed trains, Containers are loaded at ports and do most of the work getting them to cities where they can be unloaded and locally distributed. No idea of cost and benefit, but seems like a better idea than having lots of small lorries being driven around.

Low tech valuation

Reading this post at Tim Worstall´s, and the first comment by Neil Craig:

Then add Heinein’s twist – that the owner gets to set the value of his land – on condition that anybody who wants can buy it t 3 times the owner’s valuation.

- got me thinking about the whole valuation thing.

MW reminds us often enough that it´s absolutely within the grasp of professionals to do reasonably good valuations. That´s fine. But let´s slip into utopia-mode, and devise a system where this can be done in a transparent way. Where rental value of land can be derived as a direct result of market transactions (preferably purchases), instead of a system of assessing the whole of market transactions/rents*, that can be "hidden":

• We want a system where the full value of the land can be collected, and the full value of improvements, as judged by willing sellers and buyers, to belong to those who own them.
• We, or I anyway, wouldn´t want a system where any landowner is obliged to sell anything, as opposed to some of the self-valuation schemes that people have proposed.
• Bids: can a correct price for both rental value of land, and capital value of improvements, be achieved in a system where both the improvements and the rental value of the land is bid for separately? How would such a system look like without a tendency to overbid one or the other? Or underbid for improvement values if land values is what wins out.

Just thinking out loud. Anyone with ideas/links for a conceptual scheme is welcome to put it out there.

* Obviously, for rental value on land to move on properties not "on the market", other market transactions would still have to affect those land values.