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Let me rephrase that then. If you do not wish me to come to the conclusion that you are simply a contrary buffoon, you must be more specific. If you have no care of my conclusion of you, the wisest course would be to simply ignore me.
For what? You are the one who declared how simple it all was and then proceeded with your demonstration that you do not understand with you examples having conflated the classic economic inputs of labor, capital and rent. Your automobile example was a prime example which in classical economics would likely not have a rent unless their were some iron monopoly involved and it certainly does not address the Georgian concept of essentially nothing but the occupation of the social spaces and not Ricardian resource rents . What point it their to debate say, Adam Smith with someone who has not bothered to read him.
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You sure do take a lot of words to say that you are not going to converse with someone you perceive to be ignorant of the subject. Again, a wiser course would be to simply ignore me.
I have little patience for people who declare the simplicity of the subject when in fact it is the simplicity of the understanding.
And as to who is in the running for the "contrary buffoon" of the thread:
I do understand, it is not complex. I simply do not agree with you. The distinction you make between land and other property is a false one and silly.
I would consider myself lucky to not to be dismissed before the talent completion in the pursuit of becoming queen with the statement above. And then, as usual, you are shocked, shocked I tell you, when you expect to be treated with respect.
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So you are saying that it is in principle a tax on land. Ok, we all got that bit. A tax paid by the land owner due to their ownership of said land. Yes? Land is assumed to have value but how that value is to be assessed is conveniently left abstract. You may explain the implications with which you disagree, or you may ignore me. That choice is yours, not mine.
If henceforth you aim to cease sniping and discuss the subject then that choice is now yours since I have merely so far reacted.
Actually no, it is not a tax on land that is the primary principle. It would be to a strict Georgist ,but it is more akin to a pragmatic attempt to apply the concept. Land value is a value that is created by law. Thus any object of value not created by labor is a legal creation. A public beach is worthless while a private one could be worth millions. All it takes is the stroke of a pen. A valuable domain name with a common English language word is also a "rent" in the parlance of classical economics. The value is created by assigning an owner which is enforced by the state. Why would a million dollar plot in San Fransico be worth anything unless it were for the ability to toss anyone else off the land?
The governmental nature is easily demonstrated in any Robinson Crusoe exercise. If one person is land owner of 99% of an island they are little different than a sovereign. Nor is it difficult to see who really benefits from the state since a land owner is of no use to an invader , but a butcher baker and a candlestick maker create assets with labor, not law thus the worst they may become are slaves rather dead land owners.
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Being the ignorant fellow that I am, I do tend to base my conclusions and opinions on how I perceive people actually behaving, not how some classical theory or another predicts that they should behave.
Then leap for joy because ignorance has a cure. However the theories we are speaking about have seductive simplicity when merely glancing at them. All I can say is by my observation few have isolated all the means by which government distributes wealth with bot the left and the right blind to some portion of it.
I would love to hear the thermodynamic theory behind that one! But perhaps you are being poetical
Land value is the same as any other property value - it is based on what someone will give you for it if you own it and they want it. Same as a car, same as a house, same as little shiny coins or pretty rocks.
Well I suppose its all stuff. Apples are stuff. Rocks are stuff. Snow is stuff , and yachts are stuff. If you are a botanist then you work with stuff. If a zoologist , you work with stuff.
Yeah its so simple when any sort of classification is discarded. You must be a big fan of Sartre.
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My concluding thusly is based upon having bought and sold all of those things. To the great unwashed, like myself, you are talking non-sense. Perhaps it is different in the UK, but that is the way of the world here in the US.
No wonder people think Americans are arrogant and stupid.
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Now I am not saying that a tax system based solely on a land tax could not be workable, any more or less than one based solely on a sales or use tax, or one based on income, land, and use - which is what we have here in the US. I am saying just that there is no difference between one type of property and another when it comes to valuation.
You can try to dress it up as something else, but the practically minded will see through it every time. Only a few of us have the time and inclination to argue the point with you.
Then why have an opinion if no qualified to make one?
The market in the US contradicts this quite easily.
Given two identical plots of land, a house on one will increase it's value. A particularly desirable house increases it more than a run of the mill house. A completely run down wreck of a house will reduce the value of the plot relative to vacant land - because potential buyers know that time and expense will be involved in removal or repair of the derelict structure.
Now I do not attempt to speak of the UK (where I am assuming you reside). This is how it works in the US. Go ask any real estate agent here and they will tell you the same.
And what will happen to the value of the land next to it? If I allow a house to become a dilapidated wreck next to yours, will the value of your plot rise or fall?
Let me rephrase that then. If you do not wish me to come to the conclusion that you are simply a contrary buffoon, you must be more specific. If you have no care of my conclusion of you, the wisest course would be to simply ignore me.
If you want to see his point you need to go back in time. Land can be a monopoly. Back in the day a very small part of the population owned most of the land. With this condition they were in the position of setting rents from a monopolistic position not a fare competition position. They charged as much rent as the renter could bear. It completely stymied economic growth. The wealth was concentrated in the hands of a very few and everyone else struggled to survive. If you were born into wealth things were great. If you were born into poverty they weren't and there was very little you could do about it.
I don't completely agree with this view but it is useful to keep in mind.
Economic rent is debt. Why bother owning land directly just own the debt on it. Student loans are indentured servitude, you can't declare bankruptcy on them. They own you for life.
Same with credit cards.
Land doesn't play the role it once did. The role of land rents hasn't gone away though it has been updated.
If you want to see his point you need to go back in time. Land can be a monopoly. Back in the day a very small part of the population owned most of the land. With this condition they were in the position of setting rents from a monopolistic position not a fare competition position. They charged as much rent as the renter could bear. It completely stymied economic growth. The wealth was concentrated in the hands of a very few and everyone else struggled to survive. If you were born into wealth things were great. If you were born into poverty they weren't and there was very little you could do about it.
I don't completely agree with this view but it is useful to keep in mind.
Economic rent is debt. Why bother owning land directly just own the debt on it. Student loans are indentured servitude, you can't declare bankruptcy on them. They own you for life.
How is economic rent debt? If I found a stick on the ground that you wanted and I picked up and claimed to own, its a rent. Where is the debt? Unless you mean debt is an economic rent.....Then we agree.
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Same with credit cards.
Land doesn't play the role it once did. The role of land rents hasn't gone away though it has been updated.
No of course not since it has all become financial. Much of the real estate has turned into financial rents.
....da guberment says ya own it...
....da speculator buys it
....da bankers and da speculators lobby for property tax relief.
....da guberment lowers taxes on it.
....da asset rises in price.
....da bank prints up bigger, fatter loans....
...cash $$$$$ for da big fatty loans surge into da economy....
...nothing was created.....
....people whine uncontrollably about inflation while trillion in da mortgage fatty loans spew like a barrel full of whale oil spilled onto greasy hands
den, da guberment needs to replace its falling tax revenues....with income and sales taxes....
What point it their to debate say, Adam Smith with someone who has not bothered to read him.
I am not attempting to debate Adam Smith. I am, however, resisting the urge to correct all your typos
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Originally Posted by gwynedd1
And then, as usual, you are shocked, shocked I tell you, when you expect to be treated with respect.
I have no interest in being treated with respect, I would have to value your good opinion to desire your respect. I needle you because your responses are so entertaining
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Originally Posted by gwynedd1
Land value is a value that is created by law. Thus any object of value not created by labor is a legal creation.
Land ownership is created by law - land value is created by your owning it and another desiring it.
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Originally Posted by gwynedd1
A public beach is worthless while a private one could be worth millions. All it takes is the stroke of a pen.
Again, a question of ownership.
If that beach is privately owned, yet it is never offered for sale, it has value that has not yet been determined. By your argument, would not the law that creates the value also have to specify what that value is?
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Originally Posted by gwynedd1
The value is created by assigning an owner which is enforced by the state. Why would a million dollar plot in San Fransico be worth anything unless it were for the ability to toss anyone else off the land?
The owner is not assigned by the governing authorities, but ownership is enforced by the state. The owner is assigned by the previous owner who exchanged ownership of the land for ownership of something they desired more - other land,
cash, food, whatever.
Why would the ability to toss a person off some land set it's cash value? That makes no sense. Perhaps land value simply means something very different to you than it does to me. While it is certainly possible to have a land value defined by something other than cash, it makes little sense to attempt to correlate that value to cash value - as you seem to have done with the million dollar plot in SF.
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Originally Posted by gwynedd1
Well I suppose its all stuff. Apples are stuff. Rocks are stuff. Snow is stuff , and yachts are stuff. If you are a botanist then you work with stuff. If a zoologist , you work with stuff.
No, I mean that if he meant that to be taken literally it is absolute non-sense. From a physical point of view, the verb "crystallize" means something quite specific and not applicable to land values. I do not really think he meant it literally, however.
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Originally Posted by gwynedd1
No wonder people think Americans are arrogant and stupid.
Yeah, that's roughly what we think of the Brits too. To that I will also add irrelevant.
If it is any consolation, we too will soon be getting a taste of irrelevancy.
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Originally Posted by gwynedd1
And what will happen to the value of the land next to it? If I allow a house to become a dilapidated wreck next to yours, will the value of your plot rise or fall?
It will fall of course. Potential buyers, who set the value by what they are willing to pay, are likely to be turned off by an ugly and perhaps unsanitary wreck next door. The seller can attempt to induce them to overcome their reservations about the neighboring property by reducing the price. Homo sapiens love a deal.
How is economic rent debt? If I found a stick on the ground that you wanted and I picked up and claimed to own, its a rent.
Not if you keep it and I say pass on ownership.
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Originally Posted by gwynedd1
Where is the debt?
Not in your example but in this one. A small economy, one worker one owner, the worker makes something the worker uses but the owner doesn't how does the owner make a profit? By loaning the worker the difference between his wages and the price of the stuff he made.
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Originally Posted by gwynedd1
Unless you mean debt is an economic rent.....Then we agree.
Land rent is currently dead, it may be making a comeback and that needs to be addressed, but debt is the enslavement not land rent per se.
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Originally Posted by gwynedd1
No of course not since it has all become financial. Much of the real estate has turned into financial rents.
....da guberment says ya own it...
....da speculator buys it
....da bankers and da speculators lobby for property tax relief.
....da guberment lowers taxes on it.
....da asset rises in price.
....da bank prints up bigger, fatter loans....
...cash $$$$$ for da big fatty loans surge into da economy....
...nothing was created.....
....people whine uncontrollably about inflation while trillion in da mortgage fatty loans spew like a barrel full of whale oil spilled onto greasy hands
You left out where the printing press was located. It was foreign central banks that did the printing to finance their trade surpluses.
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Originally Posted by gwynedd1
den, da guberment needs to replace its falling tax revenues....with income and sales taxes....
And the jobs to pay those debts went to China. China printed the money to finance the purchases with. We have sold ourselves into slavery and the position of being a colonial economy by greed for cheap goods and Ronald Reagan's Supply side economics.
If you want to see his point you need to go back in time. Land can be a monopoly. Back in the day a very small part of the population owned most of the land. With this condition they were in the position of setting rents from a monopolistic position not a fare competition position. They charged as much rent as the renter could bear. It completely stymied economic growth. The wealth was concentrated in the hands of a very few and everyone else struggled to survive. If you were born into wealth things were great. If you were born into poverty they weren't and there was very little you could do about it.
I don't completely agree with this view but it is useful to keep in mind.
Economic rent is debt. Why bother owning land directly just own the debt on it. Student loans are indentured servitude, you can't declare bankruptcy on them. They own you for life.
Same with credit cards.
Land doesn't play the role it once did. The role of land rents hasn't gone away though it has been updated.
Now see, that makes sense. I'm more to your way of thinking on it, that this is more of historical interest that modern application, but at least that is a straight forward description.
That is kind of what I was getting at in the last post, suggesting that the same words meant different things to each. But you have provided a more complete description of it.
I am not attempting to debate Adam Smith. I am, however, resisting the urge to correct all your typos
Ah right, I should quote someone that hates you without taking responsibility for it.
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I have no interest in being treated with respect, I would have to value your good opinion to desire your respect. I needle you because your responses are so entertaining
A small principle does indeed breed little interest.
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Land ownership is created by law - land value is created by your owning it and another desiring it.
Almost. There is that matter of buying power which has recently been lavishly provided.
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Again, a question of ownership.
If that beach is privately owned, yet it is never offered for sale, it has value that has not yet been determined.
By your argument, would not the law that creates the value also have to specify what that value is?
Only in terms of a tax assessment. However there is a much easier way. Simply nationalize the mortgage industry and turn mortgage interest into the main tax base. Then the rent flows back to the very thing that created it, and its seamless....except people might notice not paying income and sales taxes. However the only problem I have with it is that its the ground rents that we should be after not the value added capital improvements.
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The owner is not assigned by the governing authorities, but ownership is enforced by the state. The owner is assigned by the previous owner who exchanged ownership of the land for ownership of something they desired more - other land,
cash, food, whatever.
The owner is assigned by another owner, and both merely act as agents of the state, "Eminent Domain" is the real boss. Thus in the model I use a land owner is a sub municipal government. An apartment complex can even have some of its own by-laws like kids, pets and landscaping. The power over land is essentially an instrument of government.
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Why would the ability to toss a person off some land set it's cash value?
You have to asked people that have suffered home invasion to answer that in the proper visceral way, given the absurdity of the statement.
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That makes no sense. Perhaps land value simply means something very different to you than it does to me.
Yes, that was why I suggested I not even bother with it given that it is impossible to deprive a Brony of his pink little muse of fantastical wonderlands. An oasis in a desert that I decided to own while you died of thirst would mean very different things to us. For me it would mean I would bathe with the pliant, supple members of my seraglio while your dessicated carcass would catch the breezes. Or in a Hobbesian sense, we would be in a state of war if you objected to my flag plantings.
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While it is certainly possible to have a land value defined by something other than cash, it makes little sense to attempt to correlate that value to cash value - as you seem to have done with the million dollar plot in SF.
You throw around ill defined abstractions like "value" so I suppose anyone getting down to measurable specifics is quite a jolt to you. Quite simply , the state is nearly involved in everything including all those free privateers. The only reason why anyone can charge for access on a plot of land is because of the force of da guberment. Thus real estate is essentially the buying and selling of government force. It is one thing to find this in some way acceptable(which it certainly can be so long as a user fee model is maintained), but quite another to pretend that the courts, police and military do not essentially form one end of the bargain while the rest of the society builds up its value under a tax burden that has little basis for it. The blindness is so deep that I would have so enjoyed that da guberment got out of Microsoft's business during the anti-trust lawsuit. Indeed, simply do not enforce patent and copyrights and see how they prosper.
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No, I mean that if he meant that to be taken literally it is absolute non-sense. From a physical point of view, the verb "crystallize" means something quite specific and not applicable to land values. I do not really think he meant it literally, however.
Yeah, that's roughly what we think of the Brits too. To that I will also add irrelevant.
If it is any consolation, we too will soon be getting a taste of irrelevancy.
Well I suppose you have some merits if we can agree that the British have been an American curse since the revolution.
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It will fall of course. Potential buyers, who set the value by what they are willing to pay, are likely to be turned off by an ugly and perhaps unsanitary wreck next door. The seller can attempt to induce them to overcome their reservations about the neighboring property by reducing the price. Homo sapiens love a deal.
Thus the basic problem with a tax system that does not go after rents is that people are rewarded and/or punished for doing nothing. BF skinner should be considered the last classical economist who simply suggested that good things should be rewarded, and bad things should be punished. If taxes were based on ground rents then it is the one who allows the home to become a wreck that is primarily punished while those that build it up are primarily rewarded. However in a land of fat slugs, I can certainly see the appeal of making others suffer the consequences.
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But perhaps you are being poetical 
