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  • I like the idea of a carbon tax and rebate

    I think taxes should be based on net cost to society, rather than net profit to oneself, which makes a carbon tax (and other Georgist taxes) a better option than taxes on labor, capital, and trade. So I would give this idea an enthusiastic thumbs-up, even in the face of certain criticism by others on Slate (grin). However, if you are going to ...
    Posted to Hey Wait a Minute by Snarfangel on July 24, 2009

  • If you want to end poverty -- here or abroad ...

    If you want to end poverty, here or abroad, you need to first understand the structural cause of poverty. The best book I know on the topic is not new. It was written in 1879 by Henry George, and it is called ''Progress & Poverty.'' His ideas were inspiring to Winston Churchill, Mark Twain, Sun Yat-Sen, Leo Tolstoy, Bill Buckley, Michael ...
    Posted to My Goodness by LVTfan on April 8, 2009

  • You need one more line on the housing graph -- land prices

    Home prices are a combination of land prices and the value of improvements on the land. Trying to chart home prices versus building costs is missing a pretty important factor. As for the legacy of this particular bubble, I hope it is that government starts looking really hard at shifting taxes from labor, capital, and trade, over to land. That ...
    Posted to Newmans Own by Snarfangel on March 3, 2009

  • The solution to the "housing" bubble is land value taxation

    The misnamed housing bubble was actually a bubble in the price of the land houses sat on. One problem with trying to find a solution to this particular bubble is that people conflate the two -- ''If I invest in a house now, I can sell it for a profit in two years and buy somewhere else!'' But it isn't the price of physical improvements that ...
    Posted to Moneybox by Snarfangel on February 28, 2009

  • Re: President Obama should propose a Georgist solution

    I did a quick calculation to figure out what the effect would be with the above suggestion. If someone received a $500,000, 30-year loan at 7% in January 2006 (I didn't consider PMI or anything but loan and interest), they would be paying $3326.51 per month, or $39,918.12 per year. By January 2010, they will have paid $22627.27 on their ...
    Posted to Politics by Snarfangel on February 21, 2009

  • President Obama should propose a Georgist solution

    Henry George was an American political economist from the 19th century that proposed a 100% land value tax -- a tax equivalent to the full rental value of bare property, minus improvements -- and no other taxes or tariffs. For obvious reasons, he called this the ''Single Tax.'' In other words, he wanted to shift all taxes to those on land value, ...
    Posted to Politics by Snarfangel on February 21, 2009

  • Re: Pigovian taxes and Adam Smith

    Bravo! You said it well! For more about these ideas, you might explore wealthandwant dot com, and read Michael Hudson's ''Tax the Land'' in the November issue of Harper's.
    Posted to The Big Idea by LVTfan on November 2, 2008

  • Pigovian taxes and Adam Smith

    Jacob Weisberg says Government redistributes wealth to some extent by its very existence, since it's impractical for citizens to pay for or benefit from it in equal proportion, even if that were desirable. However, you don't have to make sure everyone pays or benefits the same, only that people pay (as far as practicable) for the societal cost ...
    Posted to The Big Idea by Snarfangel on November 1, 2008