Recent content by lev_lafayette

Increases in interest rates are applied by central banks when increases in financial wealth are not matched by increases in productivity. Basically, they're a lever to tell investors - and particularly the government - to slow down and put their capital in something that improves the economy.

The Housing Industry Association have been putting out publications on the comparative increases between land and housing prices for some time now (go to the Economics Group section of their website) As I rather notoriously pointed out in another thread ;-), land supply is relatively fixed...

That part is true; however it is even more the case now than say, fifty years ago. That part is not. The Gini coefficient of land ownership, which measures its distribution (1 = one person own all, 0 = everyone has the same) has increased over time rather than decreased. As a proportion of...

Of course their applicable. Economic principles are universal. If you increase tax something you increase the disincentive to supply it. If you reduce tax on an item, you increase the incentive to supply. It doesn't matter if one is in Australia or Zanzibar in the 9th century, the same applies...

As empirical examples, I can cites Steven Bourassa's (Professor of Economics, Memphis State University) study which was published as: "Land Value Taxation and Housing Development, Effects of the Property Tax Reform in Three Types of Cities, from the American Journal of Economics and Sociology...

Unimproved land value is not just when it is vacant, but the vacant ("unimproved") value. The cost cannot be passed on in a market economy because neither the supply nor demand of the good has changed. In produced goods and services, because the cost of production has changed then supply falls...

Must say, first thing that came to my mind was Carrum.

Indeed! You should call, how long has it been etc (now I sound like a Jewish grandmother) There are three ways the relative scarcity can be changed. a) A decline in population, as you suggest, reducing demand. b) The Commonwealth and State governments releasing more land, increasing...

As mentioned numerous times in this thread, you cannot pass on a land tax to the renter; it's already incorporated in the rental value. If you try to increase the rent of a property due to an increase in land tax and a neighbouring landlord with a vacancy does not, what do you think will happen...

That is exactly the case for renters; the site-rental value of land will always be independent of the owner. The question is whether this is accumulated privately (which leads to higher land prices) or publically (which reduces land price). After all, they don't call it "real estate" for...

But... but.. That's Tanya Plibersek a member of the hard Socialist Left faction. You know, with horns and cloven hooves! (Tongue firmly in cheek; it's actually a great article) Do you rember the Tweetle-Beetle battle? No doubt about it, one of the finest rhyming authors of the twentieth...

Seeming that the first paragraphs of the first post started with such "philosophy" (indeed, the discussion is very much about practical implications), I hardly see the difference except perhaps, in presentation of an alternative opinion to original post. If you're bored by the discussion perhaps...

Increase on the unimproved value of land with a contingent reduction in all other taxes on useful labour and capital and especially those related to housing first. As mentioned in the first post I made, there is some justification for taxes on cigarettes, alcohol etc however (i.e., incorporating...

I must ask you why you are posting your messages twice in this thread and why you don't use the quote button to automatically generate inline quoting? The sheer number of people who own an investment property tells us very little about the distribution of investment properties as a very...

I have read some of Ayn Rand as well. She never actually presented arguments for the common good, indeed she claimed that altruism was intrinsically evil. Nevertheless she did make some headway in distinguishing between land and capital and, as Dan Sullivan's essay points out, she almost...