THE GEORGIST NEWS

The only way a movement moves - new people carry the banner forward - is happening. People fresh to the idea of using land value for public benefit, or at least fresh to the movement, are doing the work of convincing others in Virginia, Milwaukee, and the UK. Plus, researchers are admitting to land's weight. Not to mention thoughtful readers who provide book reviews. Enjoy!

CONTENTS: (to return here just click the headline)

  1. August 11th and 12th, Frederick, Maryland
  2. UK Tories to consider LVT
  3. Mission to Milwaukee makes mark
  4. Some in Congress try to plug oil rent leak
  5. Milton Friedman's recent "geo-lib" statements
  6. Take back our beaches
  7. Patriotic press cites Henry George
  8. Fed admits land gets spendy
  9. Tube stops push site value way up
10. Candidate for U.S. House vs. Bush Republican a Georgist
11. The American Muslim periodical
12. New book, Money - A Mirror Image of the Economics
13. New edited and abridged edition of Progress and Poverty
14. History News Service
15. Mozy Weekly Newsletter on Monopoly and George
16. School of Cooperative Individualism updates
17. American Monetary Institute update
18. Tom Greco site update
19. Help illustrate new book
20. Letters to Editor
21. Next Month's Georgist News
22. AT THE MARGIN: Quips and Quotes
23. About The Georgist News

1. August 11th and 12th, Frederick, Maryland

Welcome and Invitation

Last year we had a very successful APA trip to Harrisburg, PA, where we discussed Land Value Tax (LVT). Many of us believe that this is an extremely important tool in creating and sustaining successful communities. There are further reasons for coming to Frederick on Friday the 11th and also Saturday the 12th, as the boards of two national foundations devoted to education and implementation of LVT (www.urbantools.org), the 26th Annual Meeting of the Center for the Study of Economics (CSE) and the 80th Annual Meeting of the Board of Directors of the Henry George Foundation of America (HGFA) will take place in Frederick. The City of Frederick is pleased to have the MD-APA, CSE, and HGFA Boards here on August 11th-12th and looks forward to hosting a tour of our recently completed Carroll Creek Park Project in historic Downtown Frederick.

2. UK Tories to consider LVT

Plans to replace a myriad of unpopular taxes, including council tax, with a flat-rate 1% levy on the value of all homes are to be considered by the Conservative Party. The influential Conservative Bow Group submitted the proposals to the party's Tax Reform Commission. Under its "land value tax", wealthy homeowners in London and the South East would see their annual bills rise, and would pay more than the rest of the country. The author of the report, Mark Wadsworth, British Chartered Tax Adviser (gmwadsworth@gmail.com), would simplify both taxes and subsidies. His Recommendation Number Five, Land Value Tax, would replace Council Tax, Stamp Duty Land Tax, Capital Gains Tax on disposals of land and buildings, Inheritance Tax and the TV licence fee, which might remove a geonomic fee. His "Land Value Tax" of 1% per annum on the value of all residential properties would exempt the first £70,000 in value per household, which could cover most built value. He'd spend the revenue on such programs as Child Benefit and Nursery Funding, a Basic Cash Benefit for adults not in paid work or earning less than £11,000; i.e., a non-contributory, non-means-tested, non-taxable Basic Cash Benefit (BCB) of £80 per week, and a Citizen's Pension that would replace the BCB as people age, à la Tom Paine. Recently Wadsworth has exchanged many emails with Georgists. According to Georgist Brit, Tony Vickers, "We now have leading figures in all three main parties here publicly extolling the virtues of progressive taxation. Over the next couple of days (July 26 ...), The Times published letters from Georgists, Charles Bazlinton in England, an author who endorsed a citizen's income, and Bryan Kavanagh, Director, Land Values Research Group, Melbourne, Australia. Thanks to Carol Wilcox (carol.wilcox@labourland.org) for forwarding them.

3. Mission to Milwaukee makes mark

Thanks to Tom Calloway, Dave met the mayor, and we had lunch with Bob Greenstreet and Ann Beier of the mayor's staff. We talked to County Supervisor, James White, chair of the County Board Transportation Committee, and the two top executives of County Transit. Dave even charmed a jammed elevator in the courthouse - and these are the grimmest elevators in the city. Rep. Jeff Stone, a Republican representing Greenfield in the Wisconsin Legislature, is on the powerful Finance Committee and is very interested in transit that works. I believe our breakfast meeting with him was helpful. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter, Larry Sandler, who does the "Take Five" column, interviewed Dave. Tom Calloway took Dave and Jeff to meet professors in planning and transportation engineering at UW-Milwaukee. About sixty public citizens gave up a balmy summer evening to listen to tax talk. Dave told some splendid stories about his own life and how he was drafted to do the mayor's work in transportation. Jeffery Smith spoke about his work in Portland. I was indeed privileged to spend so much time with these brains and hear stories of their experience. I have put down a few simple links for resources and comments made July 24th at http://milwaukeerenaissance.com/LandValueTaxation. Let's make this a community effort and shine the bright light that Dave Wetzel brought to Milwaukee. Another activist, James Godsil (cmtyroof@execpc.com), adds, "What a treat to meet you, David Wetzel, and Mark Monson! And how cool is the power of the internet? I look forward to a mighty collaboration with you and yours! You all stirred up Milwaukee! Bill Sell concludes, in reference to my pithy email pitch that kicked off the whole she-bang, "We were looking for the original email, and have enshrined it at: EmailPower". How cool is that?

4. Some in Congress try to plug oil rent leak

While some in Congress have traditionally behaved like serfs of Big Oil - a few oil companies in recent quarters grossed $10 billion - there has been a mini-revolt. In May, the House of Representatives, led by Reps. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.), voted to attach an amendment to the Interior and Environment spending bill, forcing oil companies to either renegotiate the leases signed in 1998 and 1999 - and ensure taxpayers receive the $10 billion in oil royalty revenues they should be paid for these two years - or be barred from buying new oil and gas leases in the Gulf. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is also aggressively investigating the contracts signed in 1998 and 1999, and introduced legislation preventing oil companies, led by Kerr-McGee, from accessing federal courts to pursue a potential $60 billion lawsuit challenging the Interior Department's authority to place limits on royalty relief. On the Senate side, members of the Senate Appropriations Committee also won in a skirmish with Big Oil. Sens. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) offered an amendment to the Interior and Environment spending bill that mirrored the Hinchey language. The amendment succeeded 15 to 13, with support from Republican Senators DeWine (Ohio) and Bennett (Utah), while Democrat Mary Landrieu (La.) opposed.

5. Milton Friedman's recent 'geo-lib' statements

"The first step following the 2003 invasion of Iraq should have been the privatization of the oil fields. If the government had given every individual over 21 years of age equal shares in a corporation that had the right and responsibility to make appropriate arrangements with foreign oil companies for the purpose of discovering and developing Iraq's oil reserves, the oil income would have flowed in the form of dividends to the people - the shareholders - rather than into government coffers. This would have provided an income to the whole people of Iraq and thereby prevented the current disputes over oil between the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds, because oil income would have been distributed on an individual rather than a group basis."

6. Take back our beaches

"Think of this long Independence Day weekend as the weekend we begin freeing our beaches. Is there anything more obnoxious than a 'private, no trespassing' sign on a stretch of sandy beach? People who come from civilized places - that is, almost anywhere else - can't understand the concept. The ocean is our Grand Canyon; it belongs to everyone. It's wrong to fence it off. The attorney general's office has produced a dandy little pamphlet explaining the rights of property owners and the public when it comes to the beaches. What I want is an attorney general who will get my rights back. To win, we'll need creative thinking, looking for whatever leverage we can find, whether it is eminent domain or something else. And we'll need to be as persistent and organized as those who think they can expel us from the beaches. We can't go away after Labor Day."

7. Patriotic press cites Henry George

Neil Baldwin, a poet-turned-biographer, appointed distinguished visiting professor of history at Montclair State University, explores the provenance and legacy of ten inherently American ideals in his book, [The American Revelation] out in paperback this month (St. Martin's Press, $14.95). Along with marquee thinkers, Baldwin also offers up lesser-known idealists like Pierre Eugène Du Simitière, a French immigrant and artist who selected the national motto, E Pluribus Unum (Out of many, one); Henry George, a San Francisco writer and self-taught economist whose "Progress and Poverty" argued that a single-tax system on land would remedy the gap between the haves and have-nots (and made him one of the most famous men in the last 19th century); and pioneering black historian, Carter Godwin Woodson.

8. Fed admits land gets spendy

Housing prices in big U.S. cities have increasingly reflected underlying land value, rather than building value since the mid-1980s, and that trend is likely to continue; according to a Federal Reserve study released June 20. Even when using their method of measuring land prices as the residual after subtracting the value of the structure - instead of vice versa - most major metro regions have land accounting for at least half of property value. In cities on the West Coat, land accounts for two-thirds, and three-fourths, and even four-fifths of total residential property value. In their sample, 39 of the 46 cities have experienced a clear peak in the real residential land price index, and in many of these cities it has taken 10 years or more for land prices to fully recover from their previous troughs. A high land component means "possibly larger swings in home prices" or big losses for some and a full recession for many.

Richard Biddle - hgsphila@gmail.com - offers to send a copy of the complete report with some commentary.

9. Tube stops push site value way up

TfL has studied land value increases around two of the new stations on the London Underground's Jubilee Line Extension. This study, conducted by consultant property experts in the UK (Jones, Lang LaSalle), concluded that the land around just two stations (Southwark and Canary Wharf) increased by £2.8billion. The whole new extension with eleven new stations cost only £3.5bn to build! It was at the CGO in London, Ontario, Canada that Bill Batt and Ted Gwartney helped me to insert the land value study in a meaningful way into the brief for this study.

10. Candidate for U.S. House vs. Bush Republican a Georgist

"Speaking of taxes, land, labor and capital, I prefer Henry George's Land Value Tax (LVT) just like you, instead of the outrageous taxes on labor or capital. LVT is the most economically sensible and ethical form of taxation that simultaneously benefits the environment with what I have personally been describing as a sort of 'Tetris' effect toward 'ground zero' that minimizes sprawl. Normally I have been calling myself a Jeffersonian Democrat. But this forces me, on this issue, to call myself a 'Georgist.' Unfortunately, most don't know what this means, so I have to keep it simple. I have blind-copied Democrats on this Email.

11. The American Muslim periodical

Those who generate wealth in reliance on the natural resources provided by the Creator in the ground must pay a tax of 20 percent on their total wealth. The rationale for the high tax rate on natural resources is based on the concept that God, not human labor and ingenuity, created these resources... The aim of the Georgists is the justice of equality, but the abolition of private property, even if only in land, in actual fact might result in the opposite by further empowering the government (the state), the defective institutions of society, and their self-serving economic and political supporters.

12. New book, Money - A Mirror Image of the Economics

The latest work by Dr. J. W. Smith of Arizona argues that exclusive rights should be replaced by conditional rights, implying that their holders pay to the public purse an annual fee, being the annual market values of the rights. The revenue of these payments of user licenses, instead of taxes on productive activities, should finance public tasks, among which are issuing of money and putting money into circulation. JWS proposes abolition of the current practice that money is put into circulation as loans against interests by which people will have to repay more money than has been circulated. We should also abolish the demand for reserves as basis for money put into circulation. It should be possible to put money into circulation locally; such money should be valid only within small regions. The same authority that put money into circulation should have the responsibility to suck up from circulation excessive money and destruct it soonest possible, in order to avoid inflation. JWS visualizes that the present western economies will get the worst of it in competition with the economies of the rest of the world when they - intelligent people ready to deliver plenty of cheap manpower with access to plenty of natural resources - use the means proposed by Henry George. It may lead to Western leaders' panic decisions of using weapons and waging war, though there is no reason for believing that that will change the falling off of Western economics. JWS points to the fact, however, that Henry George's rules of law used within the Western economy will have the capacity to bring the Western world into the future in a decent manner.

13. New edited and abridged edition of Progress and Poverty

Bob Drake has taken several years and enlisted the help of many Georgist friends. This book, which is less than half the size of Henry George's original masterpiece, is written in clearer, modern English, with shorter sentences more attuned to Time magazine than George's 19th Century original. Hopefully, with your help and encouragement, this work will spread George's truth to a whole new audience of those millions of people of goodwill who are trying to improve conditions for humankind on this planet. Bob and his colleagues have created a wonderful tool for us to use; now the baton passes to us. So buy your copy now - no, buy three copies and give away to friends!

For purchase details contact: www.schalkenbach.org.

14. History News Service

Georgists might find useful the History News Service by Joyce Appleby (appleby@history.ucla.edu) (Phone: 310-470-8946) and others. She was on BookTV CSpan2 on the IN DEPTH segment, which went on for three hours. Jefferson's belief in usufruct came up in the first hour. At Franklin's grave, I recently discovered a relatively new marker with three quotes; one is from Washington, the other two are from the French Physiocrats, Turgot and Mirabeau. Of course Adam Smith, whose patron, the Duke of Buccleuch, a large landowner - who's descendant recently topped the 21st Century charts for the wealthiest man in the UK, even above the Duke of Westminster, - studied under the Physiocrats.

15. Mozy Weekly Newsletter on Monopoly and George

The origins of the game can be traced to a Quaker from Virginia named Lizzie Magie, who patented a game named The Landlord's Game in 1904. Lizzie actually made the game to illustrate the evils of oppressive land owners. She was a Georgist, which means that she adhered to Georgism, a philosophy and economic ideology that basically says if you create it, you own it, but if it's natural, then everyone owns it. This explains why Lizzie would make a game about the evils of owning something and then patent it so she could exclusively own it. Other notable Georgists include Winston Churchill and Mark Twain.

16. School of Cooperative Individualism updates

Some of you receive my periodic email updates regarding the School of Cooperative Individualism project, which are sent out about once a month. If you are not familiar with the project, I invite you to take a look (www.cooperativeindividualism.org). New material pertinent to the taxation of land values and to political economy generally is continuously added to the library of materials. If you would like to be added to these updates, just send me your email address.

17. American Monetary Institute update

A couple of weeks ago we were asked by some serious governmental people in Washington, DC whether the Federal Reserve was a part of our government or not. Rather than give an off the cuff answer, I wrote a short paper demonstrating the Fed's private status, including the overwhelming evidence that it is not operating in the public interest. That paper is at our website, as is "The Need For Monetary Reform" and the working text of the Monetary Transparency Act. It's been described by one economist as "deceptively innocuous." Please take a look and send comments. All the links but one of the reviews of The Lost Science of Money are now functioning at www.monetary.org. The AMI 2006 Monetary Reform Conference is going well; consider joining us in Chicago, Sept. 21-24.

18. Tom Greco site update

My slide show presentation, Complementary Currency and Exchange: The Movement to Reinvent Money, was given at the June 8 Complementary Currency conference in Burlington, Vermont. Watch it at www.reinventingmoney.com/documents/CCMovement.ppt.

Theo Megalli and I recently completed An Annotated Précis, Review, and Critique of Prof. Tobias Studer's book, WIR and the Swiss National Economy (English translation by Philip H. Beard, Ph.D.). Because of its size and long-term success, the Swiss WIR Bank is an extremely important case study. A careful reading of Prof. Studer's book, while providing enormous insights into the history and operations of WIR, raises some further questions, and reveals some possible flaws in the way WIR is currently operated. These are thoroughly discussed in our critique at www.reinventingmoney.com/documents/StuderbookCritique.pdf.

All of the Riegel books may now be found on our website at www.reinventingmoney.com/riegel.php.

My new blog is Beyond Money, at http://beyondmoney.blogspot.com/, focusing on news relating to money, banking, economics, and exchange innovations; while Tom's News and Views deals with a broader range of topics from geo-politics, health, and humor at http://tomazgreco.wordpress.com/.

19. Help illustrate new book

I am going to finish writing a new Korean book introducing Progress and Poverty, and the life and thoughts of Henry George by the end of August. The book is for general readers and college students. The publisher wants many photos and illustrations to be included. Could R. Schalkenbach Foundation provide appropriate items? I find the Henry George cd published by Lincoln Institute contains interesting visual items provided by Mr. Kenneth Wenzer and others. Could I use them? I wrote the Lincoln Institute several weeks ago but have gotten no response yet.

20. Letters to Editor

"The 29th successful land tax was introduced in South Africa as perpetual quitrent tenure. It was very successful, as it enticed Englishmen who had lost their land to Enclosures to settle in South Africa under rental tenures. Once they had all arrived, they decided to redeem the quitrents for freeholds - for a song no doubt! Here is the copy of a quitrent deed.  So, should South Africa be second on the list?  Or is it Tasmania where quitrents were optional as the attachment?"

From Paul Justus  geotopia2020-pfj@yahoo.com

"If there is one message I would like to impart to the Georgists, it is that we need to do outreach and not spend so much time being an internal debating society. As a 'planner', I believe we need to set a goal. I suggest 'Geotopia 2020', which implies that we will have a geotopian society by the year 2020. Of course we need to define 'geotopian'."

21. Next Month's Georgist News

22. AT THE MARGIN: Quips and Quotes

Knowledge is a process of piling up facts. Wisdom lies in their simplification.
- Martin H. Fische

How can it be easier to assent than to dissent but harder to ascend than to descend?
- Crazy English by Richard Lederer

His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
- Miss Snark

Bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night.
- Rodney Dangerfield

23. About The Georgist News

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