Prosper Australia

Letter rejected by the Age (Melbourne)

As the Federal Government is planning an emissions trading scheme — not a carbon tax — why will households foot the bill? (”Householders to bear brunt of trading scheme”, the Age, June 25.)

Answer: An emissions trading scheme is a carbon tax payable not to the government, but to private polluters. As carbon credits become scarcer relative to demand, producers who need to purchase carbon credits will pay higher prices, which they will pass on to you and me. And who will be the beneficiaries? Obviously the sellers of carbon credits — who in the main will have received their credits as rewards for causing greenhouse emissions before the scheme was introduced!

An honest carbon tax would go entirely to the Federal Government, so that taxpayers might be compensated by cuts in other taxes. But polluters’ profits from carbon credits will be taxed as discounted capital gains, so that the rest of us will have far less opportunity for cuts in Federal taxes but will still pay the private tax.

Housing Affordability- How will the crisis end?

Alan Moran from the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) touted earlier this year on ABC’s Difference of Opinion that Australia should subdivide more on the urban fringe to free up land and bring prices down, but according to the Land Values Research Group (LVRG) this will bring increased crime to Australian suburbs.

St Louis, Missouri, the model for the IPA’s recent recommendation to subdivide further urban fringe land, has the highest crime rate in the USA.

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Fri June 15th, 7.15pm

The launch of Bryan Kavanagh’s (LVRG) groundbreaking report

Bryan Kavanagh will take us through his world leading statistics, analysing economic trends over the 34 years the report covers. He will deliver insights on how the property market is actually the lead indicator of the economy.

Bryan is an experienced property valuer of 32 years. He is one of the world’s leading analysts on the inter-relationship between land and the economy. Did you know that Australia has probably the most accurate land value records in the world? Mr Kavanagh’s Land Values Research Group, is the only agency to collect national land value data. The findings will raise eyebrows!

Hear how the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party has run amok with our tax system, costing rich and poor alike many millions.

How does the sharemarket affect the property market and vice versa? What should the true role of the Reserve Bank be?

• Entry: Gold coin donation. Reports available at $10.
• Level One, 27 Hardware Lane, Melbourne, 7.15pm

Rudd Innovative on Housing Affordability but will it get to the source of the problem? (02/06/07)

Opposition Leader Rudd’s innovative move to mimick the low tax rates for super and apply it to First Home Owners Savings is commendable but as with most housing policy, runs aground when applied to economic principles. The extra purchasing capacity such policies will deliver can only result in yet higher housing prices.

Who will it subsidise in the end? Younger generations with an economics background must be very angry at little johnnie’s admittance that the FHOG only added to land prices. His advisors would surely have assured him in the first place that the FHOG was really a subsidy for land owners.

Will Rudd be doing the same in years to come? (more…)