The bluntness of Interest Rates is again in the news: Average Pay Wont Buy a Home. Whilst we hear again that mortgage payments are taking an increasing share of our pre-tax income (now 37.4% to service a median home), the Opposition Treasurer Malcolm Turnbull proposed that the real pressure on inflation was global prices for [...]
Make sure you watch this 7 minute expose on the Tax Clawback scam. Some of you may recognise Ross Ashcroft from our Comics of Economics night earlier in the year. Check Earthsharing’s YouTube channel to keep in touch with Australia’s latest. We have a few goodies coming up soon too.
Thursday March 13th, 7.00pm, Frank Halkyard Library, Prosper Australia rooms in conversation with Bryan Kavanagh Join leading economics commentator Steve Keen as he discusses his new report Deeper in Debt. (PDF, 1.5MB) Assoc Professor Keen, author of Debunking Economics, will outline the perils we face from excessive borrowing. He has leading research on how Australia [...]
An article summarising the National Housing Conference in Sydney yesterday called for all the usual policy reforms: cull negative gearing & First Home Owners Grants, reform capital gains tax and rent assistance. ‘These are measures that add to demand for housing without boosting supply’ says AHURI researcher Tony Burke. Thankyou Tony, we have been pushing [...]
Tim Colebatch’s interesting article today on Investors’ Housing Splurge shows how dominant the speculative dollar is over the genuine developer’s dollar. Colebatch says “Only one in every 12 dollars lent to investors was used to build something.” This must arouse a few questioning minds to ask if such loans are for any productive purpose? If [...]
Can you believe that Moscow now has the world’s most expensive real estate? Georgists can challenge themselves to read between the lines: Russia’s great leap forward into a world that few can afford The article provides a prompt on how oil rents have been capitalised into higher land prices. Russia’s foreign investment laws strongly limit [...]
Leading Georgist author Fred Harrison was interviewed on 3CR’s Renegade Economists radio show on Wed Jan 30th. The discussion was so good we had to get it online. Download it here (MP3, 16.54 min, 15.5 MB) Fred systematically explains why the top 10% own 80% of the earth. Check Fred’s books here, he’s writing up [...]
Tune in today to the Renegade Economists on 3CR from 5 – 6pm Wednesdays. Hosts Karl Fitzgerald & Rayna Fahey will interview David Bollier, acclaimed author and editor of www.onthecommons.org. He will discuss how the ‘commons’ movement is developing, where some of the latest areas of development are occurring and just how far copyright law [...]
Finally Victoria’s Churches are opening up their massive landholdings, seeing land rightfully as a place for homes not speculation. In Churches’ radical plan for cheap rental housing, we hear that Victorian Churches own 2100 properties, some that have been vacant for over a century. Hopefully the Churches look at the Community Land Trust model. This [...]
Media Release 01/02 Prosper Australia is elated to hear that the Brumby government is returning to its senses by recognising Land Value Capture as the most efficient way to raise public revenue. However, the progressive tax tiers need to be rolled into a flat tax. “Land Tax is the most efficient of all government revenue [...]