Merry Summer Solstice and welcome to the June issue of The
Georgist News. Read how the press reacted to the RSF film in Cannes.
And big thanks to reader Bryan Kavanagh for inviting all his
Australian cohorts to subscribe to this newsletter. May his outreach
be a model for others to get friends and co-workers on board, too.
Meanwhile, may your Father's Day be safe and sunny.
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CONTENTS:
* CGO 2008 conference
1. News: Press notes RSF film shown in Cannes; Latest stories at
the movement's daily site.
2. Good Press: Australian newspapers; Others cited in the daily
site stories
3. Numbers: See articles published at the Progress Report
4. Movement Progress: Australian radio; Nicaraguan school and
Spanish text
5. Letters: RSF moved; Compendium book finds publisher; Make it
thinner; Speaker seeks work; Are speculators bailed out?
Make a movie to do what?
6. Obituaries: Dick Netzer, 79; James Busey, 1916 - 2007
7. Likable link: RSF on its new movie and other noble efforts
8. What You Can Do: Attend CGO conference; Host proselytizer
9. At the Margin: Quips and Quotes
10. Publication affairs: Contributors, About the Georgist News
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* CGO 2008 conference to explore what's the matter with taxes
-- and not
The 2008 CGO annual conference will be in Kansas City Missouri, this
July 9-13. Native son Thomas Frank wrote the bestseller, What's the
Matter with Kansas? He described the influence of major corporations
headquartered there (perhaps why the airport's initials are MCI),
contrasting their success with the impoverishment of heartland
America. Want to know what could go right with Kansas and the rest
of America? Attend the KC conference. The deadline for registering
is June 13th. Price for a full package is just $420. We are looking
forward to seeing you and sharing experiences during the past year.
For more information, contact Sue or Scott Walton, sns at
swwalton.com. To see the conference brochure on the web, visit
www.cgocouncil.org. A web-quality version and a print-quality
version are on line at:
http://savingcommunities.org/cgo/conference08/
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1a. News: RSF Film Shown in Cannes
While we missed Cannes this year and can't give a firsthand account
of the movie being jointly produced by the Robert Schalkenbach
Foundation and Cinema Libre Studio, "The End of Poverty?", the press
took note. Here's a sample from The Hollywood Reporter (THR) by
Charles Masters, May 21, via Heather Remoff:
The inclusion of the documentary "The End of Poverty?" in the
Critics Week sidebar -- a sort of "An Inconvenient Truth" for global
economics -- no doubt further pricked the consciences of those who
saw it. The film asks one simple question: With so much wealth in
the world, why is there so much poverty?
"There's something a bit wrong about sitting in a room full of
people with tuxedos watching a film about social deprivation,"
German director Andreas Dresen, whose "Cloud 9" unspooled in Un
Certain Regard, told THR.
Here's another quote from
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20080522/...
"The most important thing for us is to raise awareness. Ten years
ago no one talked about climate change. After 'An Inconvenient
Truth' it's now talked about all over the place," Diaz added."
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1b. News: To keep up to date, see the Progress Report
For all the news relevant to movement progress, please visit the
Progress Report at www.progress.org daily. Read it with your morning
coffee! Here are some recent articles full of crucial facts hard to
find elsewhere:
* Gen X is deeply in debt and Jared Bernstein, EPI, nails the YOYO
economy -- but can the Left correct it? It's Our Turn Now
* Can't afford to reduce your waste? Or can't afford to miss the
opportunity to increase your profit? USA Today lists the win/win
cases. Companies discover going green pays off
* In the old days, they stole our wealth. Now they accept our waste,
Ms Napoleoni writes, and dump it at sea for billions.
Pirates of Rubbish
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2. Good Press: The main newspapers in Australia
The Canberra Times of April 5th cited HG, our main man, in its
editorial, "Plan with real promise for poorer home buyers". To read
this persuasive article and other encouraging endorsements of the
geoist reform -- forego taxes in favor of recovering rents -- please
visit the Progress Report daily.
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3. Numbers: Housing dip biggest yet this cycle
While the mainstream media reports the biggest drop in home prices
yet recorded, you need to turn to us to put the stats in the proper
perspective of the 18-year land-price cycle. For example, did you
catch the following in the Progress Report?
Want to understand economese? Senior Editor Fred Foldvary explains
the meaning of a major new report on rents. New York Fed Studies NYC
Land Values
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4a. Movement Progress: Australian radio
By Karl Fitzgerald , k2 at earthsharing.org.au, May 28, 2008
The world's only Georgist radio show, the Renegade Economists, can
now be podcast automatically onto your computer/ipod so you can
listen to an Aussie interpretation of geo-political events whilst
you wash the dishes. Recent interviews include Frank de Jong and
local artist David Short on his insightful 'Land Inspection Now'
exhibition. Full instructions on how and where to set this up can be
seen on the new earthsharing website.
Both the www.prosper.org.au and www.earthsharing.org.au websites
have now been refreshed with a new modern look and receive regular
commentary, which you can add to your RSS feed.
Bryan Kavanagh recently received a back page spread in the Age
Business section on his article "Property Bubble leads to Crash
Landing": http://business.theage.com.au/...
Sydney vacancies make the press -
www.earthsharing.org.au/2008/05/27/...
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4b. Movement Progress: Nicaraguan school and text
By Paul Martin, Instituto Henry George, nssmga at ibw.com.ni
May 6, 2008
I hope that with the publication of the IHG's new version of
Progress and Poverty and the opening of our building in the
Nicaraguan capital, the IHG message will be able to gain more
credibility. In order to further the consideration of a tax reform
based on the LVT in Nicaragua, towards the end of this year, we will
be calling on some of you for assistance with a visit to our fair
(if troubled) capital, to promote LVT, to consult on LV assessment
government entities, and to witness and support the formation of a
national Georgist reform movement and organization in Nicaragua.
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5a. Letters: Major NYC foundation moved
Robert Schalkenbach Foundation and The American Journal of Economics
and Sociology moved their offices from Midtown down to what's left
of the financial district in the oldest part of New York (Mahattan):
90 John St, #501, New York, NY 10038-3202. The rest of their contact
data remain the same. We thank you for bearing with any
inconvenience this may cause you.
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5b. Letters: New book editor happy the sequel
Last issue, we offered copies of an article on geonomics that
pleased book editor Martin Keogh. His work-in-progress includes such
authors as Michael Pollan, Barry Lopez, Vandana Shiva, Barbara Marx
Hubbard, Alan Weisman, and Diane Ackerman. The Linda Literary
Chester Literary Agency has sent out a well-crafted book proposal
and publishing houses are responding with interest. A couple of our
readers took us up on our offer, including Charles Michael. Anyone
else like a peek? Just ask jjs at geonomics.org.
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5c. Letters: How to make print versions thinner, greener
By John C. Massam, Pres, Georgist Education Assoc. Inc
john.massam at multiline.com.au
By re-formatting The Georgist News to narrower margins, and to 12pt
Times New Roman type, and replacing the blank line between each
paragraph by just indenting three spaces, I cut the paper (our paper
is bigger than American) from nine pages to just six pages. It is
attached to show you, in Rich Text Format, which is supposed to work
on any Operating System and every computer. (Ha, Ha :-) There is a
serious problem with waste in this world, so this idea is meant to
help. Great issue!
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5d. Letters: Great speaker has tongue, will travel
By Dave Wetzel, davewetzel42 at googlemail.com, May 2, 2008
Our Labour mayor has just lost the election. I have been uniquely
honored by the newly elected Conservative mayor. Boris Johnson
personally contacted me and made me the only Ken Livingstone
appointee to be instantly fired without notice on City Hall's first
working day after his election. I'm now looking for a job. I'm not
yet so desperate that I have to accept teaching English in a Chinese
University for $190 per month. But if I did accept, it would just be
a coincidence that the text books I used would not be Shakespeare
but that other beautiful writer in English, Henry George! Seriously,
if you need a speaker or a consultant (anywhere in the world) on:
local government issues, transport policy, public financing, or land
policy (including Location Benefit Levy, Site Value Rating or Land
Value Tax), please contact me.
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5e. Letters: Speculators to dip into Florida treasury?
By Dale L. Gillis, Sept 13, 2007
The Governor of Florida, Charlie Crist, a Republican, wants a $50
million annual subsidy for first-time homebuyers. He wants grants
for local government to spend another $25 million for the same
purpose. Crist is asking for "down payment assistance and mortgage
rate assistance for low-income first-time homebuyers." I'm wondering
if this program amounts to anything more than a subsidy for
speculators. Most businesses in Highlands County are feeling the
pinch of the down-turned housing market.
Editor's note: I suspect you're right that any such spending would
turn out to be another subsidy for land speculators.
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5f. Letters: Make a movie on problem or solution?
By Paul Martin, Instituto Henry George, nssmga at ibw.com.ni
May 6, 2008
About your news article: "News: Cannes picks poverty flick." Am I
the only one who sees that the RSF is acting like the Emperor with
his new invisible clothes? Does it seem absurd to anyone else that
the RSF, whose charter specifically calls for promoting the
dissemination of the understanding of *Georgist* ideas, principles,
as presented by *Henry George* would produce and promote a film
whose potential box office success they proudly attribute to the
fact that it really does nothing of the kind?
When I was told that the RSF had privatized its (morally) communal
responsibilities and had reinterpreted it's charter so that they
didn't have to be bothered by grant requests from smaller Georgist
organizations, I went online and read their charter mission
statement which specifically said they were supposed to support
Georgist educational organizations and projects, e-mailed it to the
RSF's main promoter of the new doctrine, Mr. Cobb, so he could see
that they were contradicting their own mission statement and
historical precedents, and he wrote back something like, "Whoops, we
forgot to disappear that."
Cobb (and presumably the RSF's governing body)'s assertion that the
RSF had found out that they were an "operating foundation," and that
that meant that they could or should no longer support other
Georgist organizations or projects, seemed a to me a dereliction of
duty where the trustees of the charter are allowing the misguided
appropriation of what had formerly been earmarked as funds intended
for educational efforts of the Georgist community at large.
This appropriation of communal funds to the control of a very
limited group of self-interested individuals within the Georgist
community, making such funding unavailable to the community at
large, seems ironically analogous to communal land rent being
privatized by landlords for their own private ends.
Mr. Shalkenbach, being a true Georgist who appreciated the
importance of the meaning of the written word, must have written the
mission statement with much care and forethought. I think he
recognized that concentrating the funds of his foundation in the
hands of a well meaning few could eventually corrupt their judgment
and create the kind of dynamic that we have seen for some time at
the Lincoln Foundation, and which seems to be now occurring at the
RSF. That is why he intended, and those who administered his will
declared for decades afterwards, that the funds were to be available
to support any and all worthy educational activities in the Georgist
circle, especially outside of the Foundation itself. But above all,
any and all activities funded by the RSF, be they inside or outside
the Foundation, were supposed to directly promote the ideas of
*Henry George* to the public. A simple formula, as is George's
remedy itself.
So, what is happening in the RSF, that they can arrive at
effectively closing off communal funding to truly worthy Georgist
efforts, which have always been specifically supported as called for
in the RSF charter, and then divert those funds to the making of a
film whose claim to fame is that it is acceptably mainstream and
"NOT INTENDED TO BE AN EXPLICATION OF GEORGIST PHILOSOPHY"?
To argue that the production of a film which doesn't present the
Georgist socioeconomic paradigm and solution is a pragmatic strategy
to reach audiences with George's message in a gradual way, strikes
me as being as ludicrous as would be deciding to strategically
attack an opposing army by circumventing the globe to arrive at
their rear.
The Georgist community can best be defined as a group of diverse and
thoughtful individuals whose only uniting factor is that we are
willing and able to promote the Georgist paradigm of human existence
because we recognize that it, like the paradigm of a round world
versus a flat world, is a truth which must be honored, spoken, and
acted upon. That we "Georgists" may sit by and applaud the diversion
of funds communally earmarked for that purpose, as they are diverted
to the making of a proudly non-Georgist film whose very existence
denies the reality of the importance, relevance and provocative
cinema-worthiness of the Georgist paradigm, is a modern version of
"The Emperor's New Clothes."
For those of us who may be working in the penny pinched trenches of
the struggle to *liberate mankind from economic slavery* (or do I
overstate?), it is a slap in the face, and a public expression of
the RSF's lack of support for the kind of efforts that have
characterized a century of sacrifice and hard-earned progress toward
the Georgist ideal.
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6a. Obituaries: Dick Netzer, 79, Municipal Finance Expert
By Bruce Weber, the New York Times, May 17, 2008, via Wyn Achenbaum
My husband spotted this. Dick was part of TRED, the Committee on
Taxation, Resources and Economic Development. Sue Walton adds: Dr.
Netzer was the keynote at the 1993 CGO Conference (held in LA)
banquet.
Dick Netzer, an economist who advised mayors of New York City and
governors of New York State and served on the first board of the
Municipal Assistance Corporation, which pried New York City out of
bankruptcy in the 1970s, died on May 7 in Manhattan. He was 79 and
lived in Brooklyn and in East Hampton, N.Y. His death came after a
long illness, his wife, Carol, said.
Mr. Netzer, who spent much of his career at New York University and
became dean of its Graduate School of Public Administration (now the
Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service), was an expert
in public finance, especially as it pertains to state and local
government. He wrote widely and voluminously on the arcana of how
people are, should be, and should not be taxed and how the
government should, should not, and does spend the money. In the
1950s he wrote about tolls, toll roads and highway finance. In the
1960s he wrote a comprehensive analysis of property tax.
In the 1970s, his book about public support of the arts, "The
Subsidized Muse" (Cambridge University Press, 1978), argued that
government arts financing was generally a good thing but needed to
be applied prudently, that money simply flung at arts organizations
was both fiscally and culturally irresponsible.
He served, in the late 1960s, as an adviser to Mayor John V.
Lindsay, in the 1970s, to Mayor Abraham D. Beame and Gov. Hugh L.
Carey, and in the 1980s, to Gov. Mario M. Cuomo. From its inception
in 1975 to 1995 he served as a director of the Municipal Assistance
Corporation, an agency with the power to issue bonds backed by
portions of the city sales tax. Mr. Netzer's deep academic
background provided a fiscally conservative anchor for the
Corporation.
"He provided continuity and perspective and placed the crisis [of
1975] in terms of both the city and state's long term financial
evolution," said Peter Goldmark, who was the state budget director
at the time. "The thing about Dick is that he was a continuing
iconic figure. When I first went to work with Mayor Lindsay, Dick
Netzer was a god. He was the guy we all looked up to. And he was
still that guy in 1985 and 1990."
Dick Netzer, who was named for his mother, Sue Dick, was born in
Brooklyn on May 14, 1928. His father, Solomon, was a doctor who
specialized in the treatment of tuberculosis. He attended New York
City public schools and the University of Wisconsin and earned a
Ph.D. in economics from Harvard. He served stateside in the Army
during the Korean War.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by a sister, Ellen Lane of
Los Angeles; two daughters, Jenny Netzer, of Cambridge, Mass., and
Katherine M. Bunger of Newtown, Conn.; and six grandsons.
In recalling the fiscal crisis of 1975, Dall W. Forsythe, a
professor at the Wagner school who was the state budget director
from 1988 to 1991 under Governor Cuomo, said that "Dick was
horrified at what the city had done, and he was absolutely delighted
to be part of the solution." Now on the Municipal Assistance
Corporation board himself, Mr. Forsythe said that the last of the
bonds it issued are to be paid off next month, and that the agency
will be dissolved, essentially having succeeded itself out of
existence.
"The city now has a double-A credit rating," Mr. Forsythe said.
"It's a great success story. It's too bad Dick didn't make it
another month and a half. He could have come to the closing party."
John Tepper Marlin comments: Few economists have been as involved in
the life of their city as Dick Netzer was. His work on land value
taxation (LVT) and subsidy of the arts are especially noteworthy.
The first reference that comes up when you Google Netzer's name is
his work on LVT, something that preoccupied his contemporaries at
Columbia, C. Lowell Harris and the late William Vickrey. Another
contribution he made was to the problem of subsidies to the arts, a
natural continuation of the work of William Baumol and William Bowen
on cost disease in the arts. At NYU, he bravely attacked the problem
of NYU's money-losing engineering school at a time when shedding it
appeared to be the only and inevitable option for NYU - although it
was a loss to New York City, the loss has been offset by NYU's
adoption of Brooklyn Poly.
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6b. Obituaries: James Busey, 1916 - 2007
By Nadine Stoner, nadstoner at aol.com, May 14, 2008
Earlier this month James Busey's widow Marian advised Sue Walton
that Jim Busey had died in late July, 2007.
Dr. Busey hosted the Council of Georgist Organizations conference
held in Santa Fe, NM in 1990 at The College of Santa Fe.
He was president of the Colorado Incentive Tax Association when he
co-founded the Interstate Single Tax Association (ISTA) in 1985.
ISTA functioned from 1985 to 1995 until the death of Earl Hanson.
During that time ISTA had over 100 members, held 4 conferences, and
published a newsletter called Intermountain Frontier.
In 2000 Jim Busey founded ISTA II with Sr. Josep Soler i Corrales, a
Georgist leader in Barcelona, Spain. ISTA II had 60 members, 40 of
them from Spain.
Jim Busey contributed several articles to GroundSwell, including a
"The Georgist Remnant in Catalonia, Spain" in the May-June 1996
issue, and "Poverty and Land in Latin America." in the Sept.-Oct.
1995 issue. He also wrote a book, the Latin American Political
Guide, twentieth edition, published in 1995 and available from
Schalkenbach Foundation.
Dr. Busey was born in Seattle and grew up in Alaska. He earned his
graduate degree at Ohio State University, and had a lengthy career
teaching political Science at the University of Colorado. He taught
at UC Boulder from 1952-1965, and founded the political science
department at UC Colorado Springs, where he taught from 1965-1980.
He remained a professor emeritus until his death.
According to the note from Marion Busey, she met Jim in Xochimilko,
Mexico and they were married the following year. They were long time
residents of Manitou Springs, CO, and have a son, Phillip, who lives
in Fort Lauderdale, FL.
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7. Likable link: RSF on its new movie and other efforts
For the scoop on what the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation is up to,
including their update and background on the movie being produced
with Cinema Libre Studio, visit
http://www.progressandpoverty.org/formmail-iv4.php
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8a. What You Can Do: Register for summer CGO Conference
By Sue Walton, sns at swwalton.com, February 15, 2008
For more information about the 2008 CGO conference and/or to
register, please contact Sue or Scott Walton by email or at
847/475-0391.
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8b. What You Can Do: Host peripatetic brand of proselytizing
Two groups in England have asked your editor for talks on geonomics
this summer: in Oxford, at the Green Economics conference on what to
say to business (July 17-19), then in London in a series of symposia
hosted by the Institut Francais (July 20). All are welcome to
attend.
I'll be in London July 14-16 and the 19-20, and in Oxford July
17-19. Can anyone recommend any places to stay, ranging from free to
cheap? Much obliged.
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9. At the Margin: Quips and Quotes
What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector?
The taxidermist takes only your skin.
- Mark Twain, who met Henry George when both lived in San Francisco,
is purportedly the author of "Archimedes", which promotes a tax on
land.
War involves in its progress such a train of unforeseen and
unsupposed circumstances that no human wisdom can calculate the end.
It has but one thing certain, and that is to increase taxes.
- Thomas Paine, who advocated both a tax on land and a sharing of
the rent a century before Henry George.
Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.
- Oliver Wendell Homes, who seems to have overlooked how uncivilized
war is, a project of the state, paid for by taxes, which perhaps
coincidentally also funded the judge's salary; perhaps he referred
to the affluent, who derive the greatest benefit from "civilized
society" yet constantly complain about taxes and frequently find
ways to avoid them.
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10. Publication affairs: Contributing to this issue
Along with those acknowledged above with each blurb,
Editor: Jeffery J. Smith
Assistant Editor: Caspar Davis
Archivist: Stewart Goldwater
Owner: The Robert Schalkenbach Foundation
Founder: Adam Monroe
Send your news and other interesting material to the Georgist News
at jjs at geonomics.org or gn at progress.org
The deadline for the next issue is June 25.
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ABOUT THE GEORGIST NEWS
The Georgist News, a project of the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation,
is an email newsletter brought to you free of charge. Its purpose is
to keep you updated on the latest news, citations, events, and
initiatives of relevance to people who, like Henry George, seek a
world free from special privilege and the causes of poverty.
Do you know someone who'd enjoy reading the GN? Please forward them
an issue and ask them to subscribe, or send us their eddress. As
always, it's free. Thanks.
The Georgist News is also available on line at
http://www.georgist.com/
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The Georgist News, Volume Ten, Number Twelve, June 1, 2008