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Tag Archives: Henry George

Making News: (Re)Unveiling a Revolutionary U.S. Tax Policy Proposal

21 Saturday Nov 2020

Posted by Alan Tonelson in Making News

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CCP Virus, coronavirus, COVID 19, deficits, fiscal policy, Henry George, Henry George School of Social Science, InsideSources.com, Land-Value Tax, LVT, Making News, municipal finance, recession, taxes, Wuhan virus

And now for something completely different. (Apologies to the Monty Python crew.)

As some of you may know, when I’m not blogging here at RealityChek or Tweeting like a house on fire, I’m serving as a Trustee of the Henry George School of Social Science. This economic education institution seeks to apply some of the truly revolutionary insights reached by George, a Gilded Age/Progressive Era American economist about issues of his day, that strongly resemble some of the biggest challenges of our own times – for example, the rise of economic inequality amid extraordinary wealth creation and technological progress, the replacement of so much productive activity with financial speculation, and the weakening of competition throughout American business as enormous industries grow more monopolistic.

George’s signature proposal was a “land-value tax” (LVT), which he wrote boasted great potential to penalize casino-type finance; reward productive investment and thereby foster production-based, broadly shared prosperity; and break up economically and politically dangerous concentrations of wealth.

Folks associated with the School and with “Georgism” have advocated for this proposal ever since, but we believe that the LVT creates yet another advantage that’s especially important today: Its adoption could place the finances of state and cities devastated by the CCP Virus-induced recession and collapse of tax revenues on a healthy, sustainable footing.

As a result, we’ve launched an effort to show exactly how the LVT could eliminate budget gaps in states and localities across the country, and I’m pleased to announce that the first of these offerings has just been published (as an op-ed I’ve co-authored) by the news syndicate InsideSources.com). Here’s the link.

Moreover, we’ve recently issued a policy brief containing much more data relating to New York City and New York State that you can read here. And in the coming weeks and months, we’ll be sending off locally customized versions of this piece to news organizations in dozens of financially squeezed regions, including detailed projections of exactly how much revenue entirely affordable LVTs could raise.

So keep checking in with RealityChek for info on these articles, and news of other upcoming media appearances and developments.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Crisis and Illusion

12 Saturday Sep 2015

Posted by Alan Tonelson in (What's Left of) Our Economy

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Franklin D. Roosevelt, Henry George, Henry George Birthplace, Henry George School of Social Science, redistribution

I’m hoping that the conference I participated in last Thursday at the Henry George Birthplace in Philadelphia is available in webcast form soon. The breadth and novelty of many of the ideas unveiled and batted about at the session would have, I think, pleased George himself – a late 19th century analyst who is one of the great figures in American political economy, and who has much to teach us about our leading economic problems today.

Less edifying, however, was the discussion about where the economy actually does stand today. That’s worth exploring because, at least in my view, much of the handwringing that seemed to be the majority view in the room stems from serious misconceptions that paradoxically have been major obstacles to urgently needed reform, not spurs.

The issue was joined when talk turned to the question of why even the best ideas advanced in recent years for curing what ails the American economy have made so little headway. According to many of the participants and most of the small but articulate audience we attracted, the answer is obvious: powerful, moneyed interests control American politics and policy, and they’re determined to preserve a status quo working beautifully for them. Yours truly disagreed.

Not because I believe the economy is healthy and improving. Far from it. And not because I doubt the political power wielded by the wealthy. What I did object to was the claim that the nation’s oligarchs are blocking demands for change that are being voiced loudly by that huge majority of the public that’s been driven to the edge of desperation. In fact, I stated, the overwhelming share of the public is reasonably happy with their current circumstances, and displays no interest whatever in overturning the established order, or even in major overhaul, because this level of content is entirely understandable.

After all, the vast majority of Americans who are in the market for work are gainfully employed, their inflation-adjusted wages and broader earnings keep staying ahead of many living costs, and an even greater majority of the populace is consuming goods and services at historically respectable levels. They’re obviously not ecstatic about the state of the nation, but every major survey we have shows that their levels of confidence in the economy and in their own prospects are reasonably strong. And I’ve seen no evidence of historically strong support for the kinds of redistributionist policies clearly favored by our most of the Philadelphia attendees. Indeed, evidence has emerged that exactly the opposite is true – especially among black Americans. 

Whatever anger the public in general is showing – as evidenced by support for “outsider” presidential candidates like Donald Trump and even for Vermont Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders – seems motivated largely by disgust with endless and ineffectual bickering, posturing, and double-talking in Washington and other levels of government that’s preventing institutions and networks they depend on in their daily lives (like schools and transportation infrastructure) from working acceptably – even as taxes seem to keep rising.

Unquestionably, many specific villains are targets of varying and fluctuating degrees of public ire – Wall Street, Big Business in general, and the broader “one percent,” government unions and bureaucrats, illegal immigrants. But none of this anger ever seems to coalesce into powerful and persistent calls to punish comprehensively or tightly shackle (or deport en masse) any of the culprits. If there’s anything close to a consensus response, it’s for better value for taxes paid, for less flagrant gaming of the political system by selfish interests, for more equitable enforcement of existing laws and regulations, for stronger incentives for economically productive and socially constructive behavior, and for less encouragement, deliberate or not, of their pathological evil twins.

None of these public attitudes, though, refutes the notion that the American economy is in deep trouble. But they are sending a powerful message that all reformers urgently need to hear and internalize thoroughly: These woes are anything but obvious in the sense of that “one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished” scale so movingly described by former President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his second inaugural address, during the worst economic catastrophe ever experienced by Americans. Instead, they’re insidious, churning deep beneath a surface kept tranquil by massive entitlement and other welfare state spending, as well as by the greatest flood of cheap credit unleashed in human history.

As a result, the main political barriers to reform are much more powerful than the policies and practices aimed expressly at protecting plutocrat privileges. They’re the measures that seek to calm those economic waters that can be seen, and to project an image of muddling through even as the currents of genuine wealth-creation continue weakening.

Reform forces can’t be legitimately blamed for feeling intense frustration at how well these can-kicking approaches have worked, and at how fiendishly they complicate the task of justifying wholly new economic strategies. But they also can’t keep crying wolf despite all the contrary evidence instead of pressing the more sophisticated case for an economic course correction that circumstances do justify. That’s a formula for squandering precious credibility – and for getting mired in illusions of their own.

Blogs I Follow

  • Current Thoughts on Trade
  • Protecting U.S. Workers
  • Marc to Market
  • Alastair Winter
  • Smaulgld
  • Reclaim the American Dream
  • Mickey Kaus
  • David Stockman's Contra Corner
  • Washington Decoded
  • Upon Closer inspection
  • Keep America At Work
  • Sober Look
  • Credit Writedowns
  • GubbmintCheese
  • VoxEU.org: Recent Articles
  • Michael Pettis' CHINA FINANCIAL MARKETS
  • New Economic Populist
  • George Magnus

(What’s Left Of) Our Economy

  • (What's Left of) Our Economy
  • Following Up
  • Glad I Didn't Say That!
  • Golden Oldies
  • Guest Posts
  • Housekeeping
  • Housekeeping
  • Im-Politic
  • In the News
  • Making News
  • Our So-Called Foreign Policy
  • The Snide World of Sports
  • Those Stubborn Facts
  • Uncategorized

Our So-Called Foreign Policy

  • (What's Left of) Our Economy
  • Following Up
  • Glad I Didn't Say That!
  • Golden Oldies
  • Guest Posts
  • Housekeeping
  • Housekeeping
  • Im-Politic
  • In the News
  • Making News
  • Our So-Called Foreign Policy
  • The Snide World of Sports
  • Those Stubborn Facts
  • Uncategorized

Im-Politic

  • (What's Left of) Our Economy
  • Following Up
  • Glad I Didn't Say That!
  • Golden Oldies
  • Guest Posts
  • Housekeeping
  • Housekeeping
  • Im-Politic
  • In the News
  • Making News
  • Our So-Called Foreign Policy
  • The Snide World of Sports
  • Those Stubborn Facts
  • Uncategorized

Signs of the Apocalypse

  • (What's Left of) Our Economy
  • Following Up
  • Glad I Didn't Say That!
  • Golden Oldies
  • Guest Posts
  • Housekeeping
  • Housekeeping
  • Im-Politic
  • In the News
  • Making News
  • Our So-Called Foreign Policy
  • The Snide World of Sports
  • Those Stubborn Facts
  • Uncategorized

The Brighter Side

  • (What's Left of) Our Economy
  • Following Up
  • Glad I Didn't Say That!
  • Golden Oldies
  • Guest Posts
  • Housekeeping
  • Housekeeping
  • Im-Politic
  • In the News
  • Making News
  • Our So-Called Foreign Policy
  • The Snide World of Sports
  • Those Stubborn Facts
  • Uncategorized

Those Stubborn Facts

  • (What's Left of) Our Economy
  • Following Up
  • Glad I Didn't Say That!
  • Golden Oldies
  • Guest Posts
  • Housekeeping
  • Housekeeping
  • Im-Politic
  • In the News
  • Making News
  • Our So-Called Foreign Policy
  • The Snide World of Sports
  • Those Stubborn Facts
  • Uncategorized

The Snide World of Sports

  • (What's Left of) Our Economy
  • Following Up
  • Glad I Didn't Say That!
  • Golden Oldies
  • Guest Posts
  • Housekeeping
  • Housekeeping
  • Im-Politic
  • In the News
  • Making News
  • Our So-Called Foreign Policy
  • The Snide World of Sports
  • Those Stubborn Facts
  • Uncategorized

Guest Posts

  • (What's Left of) Our Economy
  • Following Up
  • Glad I Didn't Say That!
  • Golden Oldies
  • Guest Posts
  • Housekeeping
  • Housekeeping
  • Im-Politic
  • In the News
  • Making News
  • Our So-Called Foreign Policy
  • The Snide World of Sports
  • Those Stubborn Facts
  • Uncategorized

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Current Thoughts on Trade

Terence P. Stewart

Protecting U.S. Workers

Marc to Market

So Much Nonsense Out There, So Little Time....

Alastair Winter

Chief Economist at Daniel Stewart & Co - Trying to make sense of Global Markets, Macroeconomics & Politics

Smaulgld

Real Estate + Economics + Gold + Silver

Reclaim the American Dream

So Much Nonsense Out There, So Little Time....

Mickey Kaus

Kausfiles

David Stockman's Contra Corner

Washington Decoded

So Much Nonsense Out There, So Little Time....

Upon Closer inspection

Keep America At Work

Sober Look

So Much Nonsense Out There, So Little Time....

Credit Writedowns

Finance, Economics and Markets

GubbmintCheese

So Much Nonsense Out There, So Little Time....

VoxEU.org: Recent Articles

So Much Nonsense Out There, So Little Time....

Michael Pettis' CHINA FINANCIAL MARKETS

New Economic Populist

So Much Nonsense Out There, So Little Time....

George Magnus

So Much Nonsense Out There, So Little Time....

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