by Phillip Anderson, Editor of Cycles, Trends and Forecasts Events around the world don’t happen in a vacuum. They have causes. They’re usually linked back to rent and the corruption and self serving nature of government. Indeed, the biggest problem around the world...
BLOG: economic rent
A ‘capital gain’ is a private tax
By Dr. Gavin Putland - crossposted from the Land Values Research Group The noisiest campaigners for lower taxes complain only about public taxes while ignoring or defending the unrequited tributes collected by private agents under the guise of market transactions. The...
Political cowardice, bad taxes and the FIRB furball
The Australian people are being distracted from the main game by a mad side-show over foreign nationals buying our land. The sheer scale of this buying is further inflating our sorely overheated property market, imposing great costs on first-time buyers, giving a free...
Attention Joe: Not All Taxes Are Equal
Cross Posted from Warwick Smith at The Guardian Joe Hockey recently said “I don’t like higher taxes; I am philosophically opposed to higher taxes … because if you increase taxes you’re just collecting someone else’s money.” As usual, the reality is not as simple as...
Australia’s land price conundrum
by Bryan Kavanagh reposted from On-Line Opinion Whilst in Newgate Prison (1827-1830) for the abduction of heiress Ellen Turner, Edward Gibbon Wakefield had a great idea. If you kept land prices high in the new British colonies, people could be forced to work like...
PARI Launch event
Thursday, May 21, 6.30 - 8pm LSX, 285 Lennox Street, Richmond RSVP The launch of the Prosper Australia Research Institute (PARI) is nearly here! Science can elaborately finance research into the God Particle, we can boast about new advances in Quantum Computing, but...
Carnegie’s endowment
Prominent Australian investor Mark Carnegie has called for tax reform to end the policy and financial straight jacket we find ourselves in – pointing to land tax, a resources tax and a lift in the GST to 15 per cent. He labelled the Abbott Government’s upcoming White...
The Climate Fund Under Our Feet
Thursday February 26th, 6.30pm Level 2, 22 Punch Lane, Melbourne Presenter: Karl Fitzgerald RSVP Last year was Australia’s 3rd hottest on record. The likelihood of a radical future grows with each day we do not take action. The need for greater economic flexibility is...
The FIRB’s new milk teeth
The report of the parliamentary committee inquiry into the Foreign Investment Review Board is out. The inquiry has been conducted with great fanfare to edify the Liberals’ rising star and MHR for Higgins Kelly O’Dwyer. And what are its findings, once the...
Australia’s twin economic diseases
Australia has two infections that compromise our economic health. Their remarkably similar symptoms – fever, delirium, impaired judgement - muddy diagnosis and hamper effective treatment. Most are familiar with ‘Dutch disease’, where a resource bounty – in Holland’s...