Latest News & Commentary

Time to stop rewarding economists for bad behaviour

Reprinted from The Conversation. Since the beginning of the global financial crises in 2007, there have occurred numerous economic and financial crises around the globe, plunging often prosperous nations into hardship and even near bankruptcy. These crises, typically...

LVT and Land Use

Frank de Jong highlights how the privatisation of the naturally rising value of land plays out on a city and the developments that both do and don't result because of this. A great learning piece.

Tidal Race

Tidal Race. Definition: a stream of exceptionally fast tidal flow created when the tide is forced through a constriction. Australians are saving like mad and quickly paying down debt. But we stand in a Tidal Race, where the water rises faster than a person can run....

Understanding Cause and Effect

Reposted from Bryan Kavanagh's thedepression.org.au, an excellent source of dissident economic analysis. It helps that he is correct. If you jump off the top of a tall building, you’ll go splat at the bottom: that’s simple physics. We are told economic laws are not as...

Another loser renovation

Corrected at 1730 to adjust (upward) the renovation figure. Many thanks, Steven Shaw for pointing out my error. Toby Johnstone is out again in the SMH recording how two brothers wasted nearly two years of their lives and endless toil renovating a Cleveland Street...

Land Rent = Job Creation

A nifty clip from our South African colleagues Karen Cooper and Peter Meakin. Of note is their useful method comparing 300Rd p/m in land rent to the 60,000Rd we currently pay to banksters.

Tax reform and climate change

The Productivity Commission has just released a draft report on climate change adaptation for public comment. The report examines economic reform options in two broad categories: adaptations to uncertain future climate trends with benefits only under certain climate...

Muck in Marrickville

Today's Sydney Morning Herald has a breathless article about a flipper couple who bought, renovated and have for sale a Marrickville terrace. The underlying message: there’s profit in the renovation game. My back-of-envelope calculations based on the article’s figures...

Ride for free or pay the fine

In his second budget, Victorian Treasurer Kim Wells is aiming for a surplus of $155 million, of which $109 million is due to increased fines. The Government has budgeted for $662.5 million in total fines, including $306 million from road-safety cameras, in 2012-13....

Subscribe to our newsletter

Be the first to hear about our latest research, campaigns and upcoming events.

Subscribe

Support our work to shift tax away from the productive parts of our economy and towards unearned streams of income.

The power of revenue policy to create a fairer and more sustainable economy is significantly underestimated, and this is what we seek to change.