Welcome to the September issue of The Georgist News.
Welcome to new subscribers, John F. Williams, Jr., ex-mayor of Oregon
City, OR, and to Il Lyong Hwang. Below, we find the press citing
venerable thinker, Henry George, and decrying waste at home and
corruption abroad — is there really a difference? — while urging support
for everyone. The news enlightens us about hidden costs of inequality,
hidden gains at airports, and the power of taxation on behavior. The
latest data show the land-price cycle on track. Kucinich and WorldWatch
turn to geoist thinkers. Plus the links and conferences let readers
continue their involvement. A lot of meat here — get chewing!
CONTENTS:
1. Good Press: Inquirer on board; Kiwi, W. Virginia writers cite HG;
Friedman for traffic pricing; CSM, NYT, LAT rail against subsidies;
Times of India against cronyism; Reich for air-share; Slovak President
for BIG
2. News: Inequality hurts birds; Gates not the richest; Corrupt guards
and cops; De-regulating didn't work; Taxing smoking did; Rent found
at airports
3. Numbers: Productivity up; Housing down
4. Movement Progress: Kucinich taps geoist; WorldWatch runs geoist;
Press spots geoist; Next year's conference
5. In memoriam: John Strasma; Brian Hodgson
6. Likable links: Progress Report; Foldvary reviewed; HG online;
Dove online; Nica report; The Guardian; Video on oil rule
7. What You Can Do: Propose to BIG; Attend monetary conference
8. Letters: Know any Indianans?
9. At the Margin: Quips and Quotes
10. Publication affairs: Contributors, About the Georgist News
==================================================================
1a. Good Press: Editorial: Rising Property Values, A taxing transition
By The Philadelphia Inquirer, Aug. 19, 2007
The reform commission proposed the better ideas in 2003: A new citywide
valuation at full market value (instead of the current, wildly confusing
fractional system) and a gradual move to a two-tiered system of taxing
land more aggressively than the buildings on it. This "land-value
taxation" encourages smart growth while discouraging speculators and
slumlords... these changes need to happen to give Philadelphia a fairer,
more stable tax system.
==================================================================
1b. Good Press: New Zealand Spies and Revolutionaries
By Scoop News, August 3, 2007
Scoop is serializing the first 1,000 words of each chapter of author
Graeme Hunt's latest book, Spies And Revolutionaries — A History of New
Zealand Subversion
Other commentators also left their mark, in particular English
philosopher, John Stuart Mill, and American economist, Henry George,
both of whom favored taxing the "unearned increment" of land value
increases to address social and economic ills, beliefs that led to a New
Zealand government in 1878 imposing land tax and efforts by later
governments to break up big estates to end the so-called "land monopoly"
and eliminate "privilege."
==================================================================
1c. Good Press: Mann Talk: Gleanings from Years of Reading
By Perry Mann, regular columnist for the Huntington News Network,
August 6, 2007
...From Henry George I ascertained that often the increase in the value
of one's unimproved land is the result of the work of others and that
the appreciation should be taxed heavily, if not confiscated, for the
benefit of all the people. From him I perceived that the chief reason
for great wealth juxtaposed with extreme poverty is the monopoly of land
and the rise of rent, without further improvements, upon a greater
demand for the use of the land, a demand often created by capital and
labor.
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1d. Good Press: Making roads like poetry — less traveled
By Thomas L. Friedman International Herald Tribune, July 16, 2007
The more U.S. cities adopt congestion pricing, the more U.S. companies
will quickly develop the expertise in this field, which is going to be a
huge growth industry on a planet where more and more people will be
living in cities. Congestion pricing is the only way to make them
livable without trillions of dollars of new infrastructure.
Editor's Note: The more people get used to paying for occupying space
while moving, the closer they may come to accepting paying for occupying
space while residing or doing business.
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1e. Good Press: Put farm subsidies out to pasture
By Brian M. Ried, Heritage Foundation, Christian Science Monitor,
August 1, 2007
[Farm subsidies] cost Americans $25 billion in taxes and an additional
$12 billion in higher food prices annually. Eligibility is restricted to
growers of only a few crops. Once a farmer's eligibility is established,
subsidies increase with the size of the farm. This makes farm subsidies
just another narrowly targeted corporate welfare program. Most farmers
are not poor; the average farm household earns $81,420 annually and
enjoys a net worth of $838,875 — both well above the national average.
Lawmakers could guarantee every full-time farmer an income of 185% of
the federal poverty level ($38,203 for a family of four) for under $5
billion annually — one-fifth the current cost of farm subsidies.
Editor's Note: Good to have a conservative critique corporate welfare,
but he overlooked what one farms on: land. Smaller subsidies would still
inflate farmland prices, albeit less, unless and until government
recovers land values, putting landowners into competition among
themselves, keeping the price of farmland uninflated.
==================================================================
1f. Good Press: NYT farmer columnist rails against agro-subsidies
By Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times, August 2, 2007,
via Alanna Hartzok
One measure of the inanity of our national farm policy is that you, as a
taxpayer, are paying me not to grow crops here in Oregon. But at least
I'm alive. The Government Accountability Office last month found that
the government had handed out $1.1 billion over seven years to dead
farmers. In one case, payments were made continually to a farmer who had
died in 1973. Maybe uninsured American children who can't get adequate
health care could masquerade as cotton plants or cornstalks. Then the
farm bill would shower them with money and care. Farm subsidies are a
cancer on rural America itself. The subsidies have raised land costs,
driving out small farmers and undermining the family farm by encouraging
consolidation.
==================================================================
1g. Good Press: Axe subsidies to Logging, Inc.
By The Los Angeles Times, August 21, 2007
One of the silliest deals taxpayers were ever dealt is the subsidized
logging industry in Alaska's Tongass National Forest. Thanks to the
House Appropriations Committee, the subsidy is gone from this year's
budget — if the Senate manages to tame Republican senator Ted Stevens'
continuing grab for federal funds to prop up his state's economy. Close
to $40 million a year goes to building costly roads and other services
to bring loggers closer to old-growth trees in the nation's largest
national forest — also the world's largest temperate rain forest.
Without the subsidy, the logging industry couldn't compete with cheaper
lumber from Canada and Russia. The Tongass logging and milling industry
sustains just a couple of hundred workers and is never expected to turn
a profit. According to a recent analysis by the National Geographic
Society, the government could just as well pay each worker $146,250 a
year to stay home. By contrast, close to 6,000 people are employed by
the burgeoning tourism industry in that area of Alaska — an industry
that can only be harmed by environmental damage to the forest.
==================================================================
1h. Good Press: Cut out the cronyism
By The Times of India, August 18, 2007
With economic liberalization, one would have expected crony capitalism
to recede. But today there are more crony capitalists at work than
during the license era. How does one explain the nexus between business
and politics in India?
Multi-party democracy has led to the mushrooming of political parties at
regional and national levels. The need for increasingly greater funds
for elections has perpetuated cronyism. Crony capitalism is aggravated
by the propensity of the state authorities to be corrupt.
The current NDA government had established a separate ministry for
disinvestment for privatizing public-sector units. In many instances the
government was alleged to have had grossly undervalued assets of public
agencies and relaxed several rules to favor certain parties. In some
cases the sale was undertaken when there was a single bidder.
[See Slim - item 2c below.]
It is not surprising that nine of the ten richest Indians have made much
of their wealth from mining, metals, land or telecom, areas which
require government concessions. In stark contrast, the billionaires in
the West made their fortunes through innovation and astute branding.
[Too kind; little do they know!]
Monopolies and oligopolies exist in industries that should be
characterized by competition. Skilled entrepreneurs who lack the
political connections are at a disadvantage. Under cronyism, a
government's commitments are valid only as long as it is in power. So
crony capitalists are motivated to operate only in the short term;
long-term investments suffer. Crony capitalism, therefore, leads to
economic inefficiency.
The government has acted as a proxy for business houses by acquiring
land from reluctant farmers... it is a move to make a quick buck out of
real estate, from which businesses and politicians stand to gain.
There is an urgent need to strengthen the regulatory framework so that
discrepancies come to light.
Editor's Note: There's an even more urgent need to recover rents, the
coveted object of both crony capitalists and corrupt government
officials, then parcel it out equitably.
==================================================================
1i. Good Press: Reich, latest for an air rent share
US BIG, July 31, 2007, via Karl Widerquist
Robert Reich, U.S. Secretary of Labor under President Clinton, and
Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley,
on his own blog: "The best idea I've heard so far to deal with global
warming is not a carbon tax.... The best idea I've heard is described as
a carbon auction. Companies would have to bid for the right to pollute.
And, most ingeniously, the money raised in the auction would be shared
equally by all citizens in the form of yearly dividend checks — just
like the residents of Alaska now get yearly dividends for their share of
the state's oil revenues. I mean, it's our atmosphere, right?" Reich
also mentioned the plan in a commentary, which aired on National Public
Radio on June 20, 2007.
==================================================================
1j. Good Press: A European president for a basic income for all
US BIG, July 31, 2007, via Karl Widerquist
Janez Drnnovsek, Slovenia's President since 2002, after being its Prime
Minister from 1992 to 2002, has a blog on which he expresses his
sympathy for a universal basic income.
Editor's Note: Like many, this president did not say what should be the
proper source of a social salary, which should be social surplus — or
economic rent.
==================================================================
2a. News: Latest subsidy accelerates NW logging
Michael Milstein, The Oregonian, August 09, 2007
Northwest national forests are hurriedly boosting federal logging to the
highest levels in years with a new infusion of money, even as they close
campgrounds and other recreation sites because money for them is drying
up. The funds for plotting timber sales, road-building, marking trees
and other work to make way for cutting flowed from a legal deal between
the Bush administration and timber industry.
Editor's Note: Rather than yield us rent, timber corporations get public
revenue from taxpayers, a complete 180 degree reversal of geonomic
sense.
==================================================================
2b. News: Income Equality Is For The Birds
Posted by Eric de Place on The Daily Score, the blog of Sightline
Institute, August 1, 2007
It's increasingly well documented that income inequality matters for a
variety of reasons: among them, it has negative effects on public health
and social capital. So it was interesting to read a recent study from
researchers at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. They found
that income inequality is also linked to biodiversity loss. Examining 45
of the US states and 61 countries, they concluded: Among both countries
and states, we found striking relationships between income inequality
and biodiversity loss... societies with more unequal distributions of
income experience greater losses of biodiversity... a 1% increase in the
Gini ratio is associated with an almost 2% rise in the number of
threatened species. (From "Economic Inequality Predicts Biodiversity
Loss" by Gregory M. Mikkelson, Andrew Gonzalez, and Garry D. Peterson)
A Gini ratio, by the way, is the most common measure of income
distribution. Naturally, it remains to be seen whether there is a causal
link between the two factors. Still, it'd be interesting to see more
research in this avenue. If income inequality does, in some sense, cause
biodiversity loss, it might suggest that conservation strategies go hand
in hand with development strategies. (Hat tip to Kevin Connor, who clued
me in to this article.)
Editor's Note: To spare the earth, let's share her worth.
==================================================================
2c. News: Privileged Mexican, Slim, overtakes privileged Gates
By Reuters, August 6, 2007
Mexican telecom billionaire, Carlos Slim, has overtaken Microsoft
founder, Bill Gates, as the world's wealthiest man with riches of $59
billion. Slim, the son of a Lebanese immigrant, owns Latin America's
largest cell phone company, America Movil. Slim's companies, ranging
from a restaurant chain to a bank, made up a third of the Mexican stock
market, and his family's holdings represented more than 5% of Mexico's
gross domestic product last year.
Editor's Note: We were living in Mexico when the government gave
Mexico's phone system to Slim. The press speculated what happened behind
the scene for Slim to so successfully position himself. In the cases of
both Slim and Gates, the key is not making a better mousetrap, so much
as it is having a monopoly granted (via licenses, patents, copyrights,
etc.) and defended by government.
==================================================================
2d. News: The Rip-off in Iraq: How Low the War Profiteers Have Gone
By Matt Taibbi, RollingStone.com, posted August 30, 2007,
also found at AlterNet.
According to the most reliable estimates, we have doled out more than
$500 billion for the war, as well as $44 billion for the Iraqi
reconstruction effort. And what did America's contractors give us for
that money? They built big steaming shit piles, set brand-new trucks on
fire, drove back and forth across the desert for no reason at all and
dumped bags of nails in ditches. For the most part, nobody at home
cared, because war on some level is always a waste.
But what happened in Iraq went beyond inefficiency, beyond fraud even.
This was about the business of government being corrupted by the profit
motive to such an extraordinary degree that now we all have to wonder
how we will ever be able to depend on the state to do its job in the
future. If catastrophic failure is worth billions, where's the incentive
to deliver success? There's no profit in patriotism, no cost-plus angle
on common decency. Sixty years after America liberated Europe, those are
just words, and words don't pay the bills.
Editor's Note: Assuming Rolling Stone has younger readers, as more take
an interest in public spending, may they eventually come around to
taking an interest in public getting, too. And look below; how do you
tell the two sides apart?
==================================================================
2e. News: Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps, Inc.
By Mehdi Khalaji, Washington Institute, PolicyWatch #1273, August 17, 2007
Apart from being a military force with naval, air, and ground components
organized in parallel to the conventional Iranian military, the
Revolutionary Guards are the spine of the current political structure
and a major player in the Iranian economy. They operate legal
businesses, register themselves as foreign companies, and engage in
illegal smuggling. In July 2007, the Ministry of Energy agreed that
Revolutionary Guards contractors would operate all public-infrastructure
projects involving water, electricity and bridges in western Iran. All
contracts were awarded on a no-bid basis in violation of Iranian law on
open bidding processes. The Revolutionary Guards have used force to
assume control of large economic projects. What was once a revolutionary
guard is now a mafia.
Editor's Note: Contrast the above with Bush's description of those
Guards, ignoring the economics, focusing solely on the political veneer.
==================================================================
2f. News: Give over rent to these guys?
By Elizabeth Mwai, East African Standard, distributed by AllAfrica
Global Media, August 21, 2007
The Kenya Bribery Index 2007 shows that the police force remains the
most corrupt public institution, a new report by Transparency
International says. The report also accuses lawyers of being conduits of
corruption within the judiciary and ranks them among the most corrupt
professionals. When the right to justice is only obtainable by those who
can afford bribes and the right to demand accountability from your MP is
denied, there can be no equity in justice and no equality in
development. The average number of bribes paid doubled to 2.5 from 1.5
per person. However, the average size of bribe paid declined from
Sh1,700 to Sh1,236, indicating an increase in soliciting for smaller
amounts. Job seekers were now paying 42% more bribes to employers and
potential employers. The bribe paid to get a job has increased from the
previous Sh5,000 to Sh7,000, while business-related bribes have risen
from Sh400 to Sh3,000.
Editor's Note: When we advocate handing all rent over to government, we
might remember some government is corrupt, and rewarding corruption
makes we agents of rent-delivery seem naïve at best.
==================================================================
2g. News: Deregulating electricity did not lower prices
By USA Today, August 10, 2007
While average electricity prices rose 21% in regulated states from 2002
to 2006, they leapt 36% in deregulated states where rate caps expired.
Now several deregulated states, fearing a public backlash, are turning
back the clock and reinstating some form of electricity regulation.
Virginia reregulated its power industry in July.
Editor's Note: The deregulation was partial, applying only to what
utilities could charge consumers; states still regulated the generation
of power and the improvement or construction of new power plants and
transmission lines. To get lower prices, get more competition among
suppliers. Ideally, each power plant would be owned separately, while
the power grid would be publicly owned, just as private truckers compete
while using public highways. And let the clean and green producers
(solar, wind, etc.) compete, too, by charging polluters, making
non-polluters relatively less costly.
==================================================================
2h. News: Taxes do alter behavior — at least sin taxes do
By USA Today, August 10, 2007
Higher state taxes on smokers have produced sharp declines in
consumption. The amount of decline in smoking is directly tied to the
size of the tax increase. Cigarette sales fell 18% in North Carolina
last year after the tax was raised in two steps to 35 cents from a
nickel. Connecticut increased its tax to $1.51 from 50 cents per pack in
2002; since then, per capita consumption of cigarettes has fallen 37%.
New Jersey raised its tax to $2.40 from 80 cents in 2002; smoking has
dropped 35%. California raised its cigarette tax to 87 cents per pack in
1999 but hasn't changed it since; smoking is down 18% since the tax
increase. By comparison, South Carolina has kept its
lowest-in-the-nation cigarette tax at 7 cents since 1977; cigarette
consumption there has fallen 5% since 2000. The number of cigarettes
smoked fell last year to 1,293 per capita from a peak of 2,095 per
capita in 1976. Smoking falls 2.5%-5% for every 10% increase in the
price of cigarettes.
==================================================================
2i. News: Rent is not counted until it's missed.
By Business Wire, August 9, 2007
Dayton airport operating revenues fell 2% in 2007. The drop stemmed from
the closure of the airport's cargo hub, when UPS moved from Dayton to
Louisville, KY's airport. UPS had contributed approximately $3 million
in annual landing fees and $675,000 in ground rent for their large
facility. While the landing fees are lost, UPS maintains a lease on the
facility through 2030 and is current on all ground lease payments.
Outside the US, Toronto Pearson International Airport in the first half
of 2007 processed 15.3 million passengers, reported revenues of $562.6
million, operating expenses of $272.6 million, which included $74.7
million in ground rent paid to the federal government (CNW, August 13,
2007)
Editor's Note: In the US, there are dozens of airports, if not hundreds,
as busy as Dayton's. Both landing fees and ground rent are rents in the
sense of payment for an area and both may contain "economic rents" in
the sense of surplus. Both need to be counted — which would top several
billions in the US — if an accurate picture of our rent flows is ever to
be painted.
==================================================================
3a. Numbers: Workers do more with less
By The Associated Press, Aug 7, 2007
Worker efficiency rose at an annual rate of 1.8% in the April-June
quarter, more than double the 0.7% pace of the first three months of the
year. Meanwhile, unit labor costs rose at a 2.1% rate, marking the
second consecutive quarter that wage pressures have eased. For the 12
months ending in June, unit labor costs are up by 4.5%, the highest
year-over-year increase in nearly seven years.
Editor's Note: So, if you, as a worker, are more productive, can you
cash in your improved output as time off from toil? If not, why not?
==================================================================
3b. Numbers for Housing (home sites, actually) for Q2:
By The Associated Press, Aug. 15, 2007
Existing home sales fell nearly 11% in the second quarter from last
year's levels. Median home prices dropped 1.5% from $227,100 in the same
quarter last year to $223,800.
By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch Aug 28, 2007
Home prices fell at a faster rate in Q2, down 3.2% compared with the
same period in 2006. It marked the largest year-over-year decline ever
recorded in the 20-year history of the Case-Shiller home price index. A
year ago, home prices were rising at a 7.5% pace nationally. Prices fell
4.1% in 10 major cities through June. It's the largest year-over-year
decline in the 10-city gauge since 1991 July. After the 1990-91
recession, it took more than eight years for home prices to return to
their previous peak.
By Mark Trumbull, staff writer, The Christian Science Monitor,
August 31, 2007
By one index, home prices are down 3.2%. Clear-cut gauges of US home
prices only go back through the 1970s, but that decline probably exceeds
any price drop since the Depression, except for one year during World
War II.
Home prices are notoriously "sticky," since owners are very reluctant to
sell for less money than they paid. Indeed, by the index by the Office
of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, home prices haven't fallen yet
at all but were 0.1% higher than in 2007 Q1. But this index doesn't
include high-priced homes. [Nor does it include subprime loans.] And it
includes price data from home refinancings based on appraisals rather
than just new purchases. None of these numbers adjust for inflation, a
step that would amplify the price slump.
For all the turbulence, the long-term picture remains intact: housing
has generally appreciated [that'd be location appreciating].
Numbers for May: Home price drop most in 16 years.
By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch Jul 31, 2007
Home prices in 15 of 20 major U.S. cities were lower in May compared
with the previous May. The Case-Shiller 20-city index fell 2.8% compared
with a year earlier. That's the biggest decline in the seven-year
history of the index. In 10 major cities, prices were off 3.4% from the
previous year, the largest decline since 1991. A year ago, prices were
rising at close to a 10% pace.
Numbers for July: Starts and prices down, inventories up
By AP, August 16, 2007
Construction of new homes in July fell dropped 6.1% from June and 20.9%
from a year ago, the slowest pace since 1997January. Applications for
building permits fell 2.8% in July to their lowest since 1996 October.
Housing has not slowed this much since the recession in 1990-91.
By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch, Aug 27, 2007
Inventories of unsold single-family homes increased by 2.2% to 3.85
million in July, sending the inventory in relation to sales to the
highest level in 16 years. Resales of single-family homes and
condominiums fell 0.2% to the slowest since 2002 November. Sales of
single-family homes fell for a fifth straight month by 0.4% to a
five-year low. Sales were down 9% compared with a year earlier but were
essentially unchanged from June. The median sales price fell for a
record 12th consecutive month to $228,900, down 0.6% since last July.
==================================================================
4a. Movement Progress: My new position with Kucinich
By Michael Hudson, August 2, 2007
I have just been named Chief Economic Advisor to the Kucinich
presidential campaign. The Kucinich people had read my article in
Harpers two years ago warning against Social Security privatization,
then another of mine more than a year ago on housing. Then, they heard
me give a speech in Chicago about the capitalization of land values into
mortgage credit, heard me on FM — I'm on KPFA and other shows — and they
liked what I was able to do in Latvia. My main task right now is to put
together a tax program for him, and to put together a group of
economists and business leaders who will endorse it. Polly Cleveland,
Ted Gwartney, and Jeff Smith are on board, and I've invited others.
The best tax is no income tax for most people. We propose to
re-introduce the original idea of a tax threshold. Only people earning
over $60,000 a year will be subject to the income tax. We propose to
restore the same tax rate for capital gains that is applied to normal
income. And for normal income, we will restore the progressive income
tax that made America so rich for nearly a century. Full lease charges
for the broadcasting and communications spectrum, etc. will be in our
plan. Another good idea is the Citizens Dividend. We want to make a
policy document that Dennis Kucinich can use in his campaign.
==================================================================
4b. Movement Progress: World Watch liked and printed Dodson's letter
World Watch Magazine printed a long letter by Edward J. Dodson in the
current issue (September/October 2007). He noted, "But there was little
relationship between the accuracy of individual forecasts and the
academic backgrounds of particular forecasters." Ed urges readers to
follow up with letters of their own. Address email to Thomas Prugh,
Editor, tprugh at worldwatch.org. World Watch asks you to include your
hometown, country, and phone number for confirmation purposes; they do
not print your telephone number.
==================================================================
4c. Movement Progress: Press spotlights geoist activist, Citizen Young
Kudos to Greg Young of Missouri who was the subject of a lengthy
interview in the Columbia Tribune by staff writer, Terry Ganey, July 22,
2007, which brought out his strong sense of justice and commitment to
winning a better world for all. Greg is our man in the field organizing
next year's CGO.
==================================================================
4d. Movement Progress: Never too early for a good time
By Sue Walton, phone 847-475-0391; efax 775-248-8630;
email sns at swwalton.com
If you did not make the CGO's 2007 conference, you missed a very unique
dialogue! Please mark your calendars now for the 2008 event. The dates
are July 9-13, 2008; the location will be Kansas City, MO. The 2008
Planning Committee consists of Greg Young, Paul Justus, John Huebert,
Eloise DeSilva and the members of the CGO Executive Committee (Ted &
Toni Gwartney, Ed Dodson, Pia DeSilva, Lindy Davies and Dan Sullivan),
and the CGO Administrators, Scott & Sue Walton, are already hard at work
on the conference program.
==================================================================
5a. In memoriam: John Strasma
Via Sue Walton, August 23, 2007, then Nadine Stoner
John Drinan Strasma, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural and Applied
Economics, University of Wisconsin, died on July 13, 2007 at the age of
75. His obituary appeared in the Madison newspapers on July 18. He
completed a Ph.D. in economics at Harvard University, which included a
Fulbright scholarship in Chile. He worked on questions of land tenure
reform with the Rockefeller and the Ford Foundations under the three
presidents of Chile who preceded President Pinochet. He worked with the
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, the Peruvian Ministry of Finance, the
United Nations institute in Senegal and the UN Secretariat in New York.
In Wisconsin he had also been active in environmental issues and mining
legislation questions. He made a presentation on "Land and Tax Success
Stories Around the World" to the 1993 CGO conference in Los Angeles.
==================================================================
5b. In memoriam: Brian Hodgson
By Tony Vickers, August 20, 2007
A very good friend of many activists in ALTER (Action for Land Taxation
and Economic Reform), Brian Hodgson, died of a heart attack on Saturday.
Brian was co-chair with Margaret Godden of the Oxfordshire County
Council Land Value Taxation Study Working Group, which set up and
steered a study in the Vale of White Horse (near Oxford). The report was
published in early 2005 and the County Council resolved to recommend a
"full," that is, a tax-raising trial of LVT just before the General
Election that year. Unfortunately Brian lost his seat at the county
council elections on the same day. However, Brian continued to be very
active in the cause as Chair of Labor's Land Campaign and a member of
the Professional Land Reform Group.
==================================================================
6a. Likable link: Each day, The Progress Report
Do you read The Progress Report daily? It's how to keep up-to-date with
news from sources everywhere. Title of articles from August include:
* "Brazil Files WTO Complaint Against US Welfare Handouts"
* Our Economy is on an Artificial Life-support System
[which was picked up and passed on by globalcirclenet;
thanks to Alanna Hartzok for noting]
* "Collecting The Cost of Gas Guzzling"
Read them and more at www.progress.org.
==================================================================
6b. Likable link: New Foldvary book reviewed
By Walter Horn, August 17, 2007
I have just posted a review of Fred Foldvary's latest book on my blog.
The address is blog.myspace.com/waltosworld.
==================================================================
6c. Likable link: P&P Digitized
By Howard Kronish, Portland, August 26, 2007
One can find Henry George's Progress and Poverty online at
http://www.econlib.org/Library/YPDBooks/George/grgPP.html
==================================================================
6d. Likable link: Patrick E. Dove, digitized
By Stewart Goldwater, http://janusg.co.nr
The html version of the above work by Patrick Edward Dove (one of the
precursors of HG) is now "finished" and can be found at:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/janus-g/dove.zip (~370k). It seems that
this work is seeing a resurgence of interest because of his use of the
term "Intelligent Design." See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Edward_Dove
==================================================================
6e. Likable link: IHG Nicaragua News, July
By Paul Martin, Director Instituto Henry George,
http://www5.ibw.com.ni/~ihg
Below are the headlines of newly uploaded news stories on the IHG
Managua website, updated statistics of our popular "Comprender la
Economia" course, and some interesting accompanying photos:
* 36th CE Economics Course Graduates
* 37th CE Course Suspended Due to Extended Power Crisis
* IHG CE "Maestria" Course Peters Out; Lessons Learned
* IHG Plans PR Education Campaign for the Fall
* Nicaragua Faces Growing Recessionary Pressures (pending)
==================================================================
6f. Likable link: New Guardian out
By David Brooks, August 1, 2007
The August 2007 issue of Guardian is available at:
http://people.aapt.net.au/~radical/Guardian.html
It is in pdf format, approx 129 Kb.
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6g. Likable link: Engaging video on petro-rule
By Richard Biddle, HGS-Philadelphia
This is very good! The video, "Robert Newman's History of Oil," made
April 21, 2006, lasts 45 min, 23 sec. As shown on Ch4 and repeated
several times on More4, available at IndyBay on the web and many other
places, now on google video but not great video quality. Robert's
stand-up act examines the history of the last 100 years or so by putting
oil on center stage. Brilliant!
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7a. What You Can Do: 7th BIG Congress Call for Papers and Panels
By Karl Widerquist, July 30, 2007
The USBIG Network will hold its Seventh Congress at the Boston Park
Plaza Hotel on March 7-9, 2008. The Keynote Speaker will be Philippe Van
Parijs of Harvard University and Catholic University of Louvain, Author
of Real Freedom for All (1995). Another speaker is Eduardo Suplicy, a
senator in Brazil. The Congress will be based on the theme, What Next:
Framing a BIG Discussion for the Next Election and Beyond. Scholars,
activists and others are invited to propose papers, and organize panel
discussions on topics related to the distribution of wealth and income.
All points of view are welcome. Please submit either an abstract of your
paper or panel proposal to the chair of the organizing committee,
Michael A. Lewis, mlewis at notes.cc.sunysb.edu. Deadline is October
29th, 2007.
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7b. What You Can Do: Some candidates for monetary reform
By Stephen Zarlenga, AMI, August 19, 2007
The 2007 AMI Monetary Reform Conference at Roosevelt University,
September 27-30th, will discuss the present banking system. Presidential
candidates in both the Republican and Democratic Parties are identifying
the problem. Republican Presidential Candidate, Ron Paul, has challenged
the existence of the Federal Reserve System. Congressman Paul is also a
strong advocate of ending the Iraq war. Cleveland Congressman, Dennis
Kucinich, who is seeking the Democratic Nomination for President, said,
"We need to have government take the power, the money-lending power that
the banks have right now." There is still time to sign up to attend the
conference, with special discounts for Students and activists.
http://www.monetary.org/2007schedule.html
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8. Letters: Know any Indianans?
By Chuck Metalitz, taxpayer at pobox.com, August 2, 2007
Are there any Georgists or sympathizers with any connection to
Rochester, Indiana? (From there? Friends there? Want to visit there? Own
land there?) A developer involved in a project there thinks it might be
neat to restore a Henry George Cigar sign he found on the side of a
building. But there needs to be some local interest, not to mention a
few $$ may be needed.
Editor's Note: Would be good to have some balance. Indiana is one of the
states debating abolishing the property tax.
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9. At the Margin: Quips and Quotes
The closest we will ever come to an orderly universe is a good library.
— Ashleigh Brilliant
Treeware — Hackers' slang for documentation or other printed material. —
via Caspar Davis
To teach is to learn twice. — Joseph Joubert (1754 - 1824), French
moralist and essayist who never published a word in his lifetime.
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10a. Publication affairs: Contributing to this issue
Richard Biddle, David Brooks, Ed Dodson, Stewart Goldwater,
Alanna Hartzok, Walter Horn, Michael Hudson, Howard Kronish,
Paul Martin, Chuck Metalitz, Mark Monson, Nadine Stoner,
Tony Vickers, Sue Walton, Stephen Zarlenga.
Editor: Jeffery J. Smith
Assistant Editor: Caspar Davis
Copy Editor: Enzo Piccone
Archivist: Stewart Goldwater
Owner: The Robert Schalkenbach Foundation
Founder: Adam Monroe
Send your news and other interesting material to the Georgist News at
jjs at geonomics.org or gn at progress.org
The deadline for the next issue is September 25.
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ABOUT THE GEORGIST NEWS
The Georgist News, a project of the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation,
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The Georgist News, Volume Ten, Number Three, September 1, 2007