photo credit: Nicholas Erwin At the moment, Victoria’s Metropolitan Fire Brigade and Country Fire Authority are funded by the Fire Services Levy, a charge added to fire insurance. But the FSL gives a free ride to uninsured property owners – they don’t pay for the level of fire cover provided. Free riders increase the cost [...]
photo credit: Schaffner Sometimes the ignorance of experts makes my blood boil. Why can’t they do the arithmetic, the sums plainly before them? The Victorian Transport Plan will cost $38 billion and produce benefits of $180 billion, according to a state-commissioned report by Ernst and Young. If these numbers are right, the Plan [...]
photo credit: jcarter The Commonwealth of Australia was built on the sound principle natural resources are part of every Australian’s endowment. The Henry Tax Review recommended and the Rudd government has accepted a new tax system for mining that builds on this idea. The Super Profits Resource Tax (SPRT) provides the community a share [...]
photo credit: Zach K The Melbourne versus Sydney rivalry has been reignited – Melbourne’s population is growing faster and is projected to overtake Sydney by 2037, a new report predicts. Going Nowhere, a report by BIS Shrapnel for a property developer lobby group, shows Melbourne building new homes at twice the rate of [...]
photo credit: Stuck in Customs On the first anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, this piece sums up the cause to the GFC, as predicted by 5 economists who subscribe to the line of economic thinking we promote: land rent theory. Dirk Bezener, the academic who collated the 12 economists who predicted the GFC, [...]
Leading financial economist and historian Professor Michael Hudson will be touring Australia October 12 – 27. Download the tour flyer See the Hudson Tour Multimedia Highlights Professor Hudson was one of twelve economists recognised for predicting the GFC. He is a government advisor to many nations, and is fast gaining a reputation in policy circles [...]
photo credit: Dystopos The Brumby government’s haphazard manner in dealing with Melbourne’s ‘urban sprawl forever’ attitude is straining government revenues. The desperate actions following from this with the $95,000 Growth Areas Infrastructure Contribution (GAIC) are the result of the ignorance of more efficient and equitable revenue raising systems. The GAIC has been called a Land [...]
# 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 [...]
Saturday’s Age article on Melbourne’s rental growth outstripping all other states is reflective of current government policy at all levels – local, State and Federal. When combined with record immigration levels, property flipping will continue unabated. Prosper Australia spokesman Karl Fitzgerald was quoted in another Age article on Home Buyers Lose out in Tax Change. [...]
The Swan Federal budget was limited in its’ vision, giving with one hand in the old welfare game but taking away with the other by providing further subsidy to propertied interests. Whilst it is widely reported that the wealthy were hit by means testing, fellow Georgists were busy joining the dots between the $40billion worth [...]