Archive for January, 2009

Over Valuations and the GFC

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

photo credit: rsepulveda The property industry lobby’s reliance on ‘friendly valuations’ is often a source of contention in the valuation industry. The Australian today raises issues with Experts Question Boom Lending Property analyst Michael Matusik yesterday joined the chorus against the proposal yesterday. He said it was unreasonable for taxpayers to be forced to bail [...]

Centenary of “The People’s Budget”

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

An occasional commentary on the economic depression # 3 5 January 2009, New Year Insights There’s amazing synchronicity in the centenary year of the “People’s Budget”, delivered in the UK under the Liberal Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, that never so much since as now has the world needed fiscal policy capturing a greater part of [...]

Ineffective Demand

Wednesday, January 28th, 2009

# 2 12 December 2008 Ineffective demand: a picture of a tax-induced economic depression In the 2nd of this most important series of commentaries warning of the looming depression, Bryan Kavanagh interprets one of his most important graphs. Mr Kavanagh lists the reasons why the GFC has occurred via an overview of recent tax trends. Essential [...]

Property Market ‘Over-Hyped’

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

photo credit: Derek Farr ( DetroitDerek ) Earthsharing Australia, our sister organisation, had its I Want to Live Here report quoted today in the Age article Agents accused of hyping up real estate crisis. Social justice group Prosper Australia analysed residential meter readings over six months and found more than 7 per cent of properties [...]

The Depression – A Running List of Warnings

Friday, January 23rd, 2009

photo credit: funadium Over the next few posts we will bring you a series of reminders about how we and our colleagues have been warning about the impending financial peril for many years. The Depression An occasional commentary (for Australia’s federal politicians)      #1 4 December 2008 ASTONISHING EVENTS? At last night’s Lowy Institute lecture in [...]

Casino Capitalism

Wednesday, January 21st, 2009

Fred Harrison’s latest

The Secret Life of Real Estate

Tuesday, January 20th, 2009

If you think economics is boring, you haven’t met the real pirates of the Caribbean yet. Phil Anderson’s recently published book The Secret Life of Real Estate is both exciting and timely. It provides detailed insight on how the addiction to land speculation became the foundation of the United States of America, as we know [...]

Land Values and Location

Wednesday, January 14th, 2009

Following another reference to our history via the boardgame Monopoly on ABC radio (originally named the Landlord’s Game), John Poulter of the Henry George Club called and was soon interviewed on the origins of the Single Tax. John sums up the principles behind our movement in a few short minutes. ABC Interview

Corporate Pirates’ Colonial Tax Havens

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009

photo credit: Cayusa Following on from the excellent ANP short film featured yesterday, George Monbiot recently wrote about the link between colonial interests and tax havens entitled Pin Striped Pirates: Over a quarter of the world’s tax havens are British property. More than half of Britain’s colonial territories and dependencies are tax havens. Strip out [...]

Tax Havens Added to GFC

Monday, January 12th, 2009

The plot thickens. What policy would deem tax havens irrelevant?