The Geonomist Volume Thirteen Issue Three

Geonomics is …
... a manual. The world did not come without a way for people to prosper, and the planet to heal and stay well; that way is geonomics. Economies are part of the ecosystem. Both generate surpluses and follow self-regulating feedback loops. A cycle like the Law of Supply and Demand is one of the economy's on/off loops. Our spending for land and resources – things that nobody made and everybody needs – constitutes our society's surplus. Those profits without production (remember, nobody produced Earth) can become our commonwealth. To share it, we could pay land dues in to the public treasury (wouldn't oil companies love that?) and get rent dividends back, a la Alaska's oil dividend. Doing so let's us axe taxes and jettison subsidies. Taxes and subsidies distort price (the DNA of exchange), violate quid pro quo by benefiting the well-connected more than anyone else, reinforce hierarchy of state over citizen, and are costly to administer (you don't really need so much bureaucracy, do you?). Conversely, land dues motivate people to not waste sites, resources, and the ecosystem while rent dividends motivate people to not waste themselves. Receiving this income supplement – a Citizens Dividend – people can invest in their favorite technology or outgrow being “economan” and shrink their overbearing workweek in order to enjoy more time with family, friends, community, and nature. Then in all that free time, maybe we could figure out just what we are here for.

Sri Lanka's parliament has voted to reintroduce a 100% tax on land purchases by foreign nationals. The legislation was proposed by the Marxist party, the JVP, which is a key component of the governing coalition. Proponents of the tax have argued that foreigners buying land, often for holiday homes, have priced Sri Lankan nationals out of the market. The previous government revoked the tax in 2002, saying land purchases by foreigners were boosting the economy. Many of the purchases have been of land along Sri Lanka's attractive southern coast. Proponents of the tax also say that some sites of historical interest have been sold. The tax would apply to foreign individuals but not to foreign-owned companies or joint ventures. (BBC NEWS, Spt 7, via Anne O'Rourke). It's similar to Mexico prohibiting foreigners from owning coastline and to Namibia taxing white farmland more than black. And if 100% seems high, it's not, since all land value is a social value, generated by not by owners but by neighbors. In Sri Lanka, both political sides are right, but neither yet sees rising site value as a boon for everyone, since neither is picturing using the revenue to fund a dividend to everyone. By sharing the economic value of nature, we could close the income gap, empowering more people to afford the loveliest locations.

“Never before have we produced so much wealth and never before has there been such widespread awareness that poverty and misery are the lot of the majority of the inhabitants of our planet.” So began the lead editorial of Spain's El Pais (Spt 18, my translation). “Never before”? Over a century ago, one of America's greatest thinkers, Henry George, labeled his master-piece, Progress and Poverty. The two go together, as someone else always rediscovers. Figuring out how to actually resolve the dilemma lags behind, but not as far behind across the pond. The old country is willing to examine new ideas. Ideas new to most people, and newly re-christend with names like “geonomics” and “liberation ecology”. But the ideas are old, maybe older than humanity. Logical solutions, in Bucky Fuller's analogy, are our manual for operating Spaceship Earth that came with the planet. Most of us never lift its cover, hobbled by doubt and acceptance of known devils. Yet enough of us seek what works that, if it's framed compellingly, then it'll break thru. Hence I tumble about new terms, new phrases, new paragraphs, until one formulation dresses up this remedy so stylishly that nobody could miss its perfect figure, a gift for all sea-sons. Happiest of holidays.

Venezuela President Hugo Chavez announced: "We are no longer going to give our oil away for reasons that no longer exist, if they ever did." His administration increased the royalties paid by foreign oil companies from 1% to 16.6%. (Progress Report, Oct 11) Presumably, the percentage is of the world price of a barrel for that quality of oil. If 16% seems high, that's how much oil companies had paid a few years ago. They pay up to 90% for oil under Indonesia and Malaysia. It all depends on global demand, the oil's lightness, its nearness to surface land, and how well the nearest government negotiates. Maybe if there were more oil companies competing more eagerly among themselves, a government need not legislate royalty rates but merely hold auctions and thereby get the fairest proportions for both sides.

On the other side of the Caribbean, Castro evicted the dollar from Cuba, whose people, after the end of Soviet aid, had used the currency in place of their own peso in order to purchase imports like oil (Oregonian, Oct 27). Still using dollars to combat inflation are Panama, Peru, and Ecuador.

In China, which is communist and thus imbued with the notion of material equality, minor events, such as a fight or a traffic accident between haves and have-nots, quickly escalates to involve from 500 to 10,000 rioters. It has happened repeatedly in recent years. Many of China's 800 million rural peasants are angry at local, though not yet central, government. It is only party officials and their friends and family who enjoy the new good fortune, built by the usual formula of real estate development, corruption, and use of police force. Of those filing grievances, only 2 out of every 1,000 people who stand in line for days to file ever get a reply. The lack of formal dialogue between the people and the one-party state does not bode well. Unlike others in Asia, notably South Korea where strikes and protests are frequent, the Chinese, at a far deeper psychological level, fear any loss of order. (Christian Science Monitor, Nov 22) Since they believe progress is supposed to benefit everyone, would they embrace the notion of sharing land value equitably? The grandfather of modern China, Sun Yat-sen, tried to put it into practice.

In Great Britain, 158,000 families, 0.6% of the popu-lation, own 41 million acres, 69% of land, while the rest of the Brits – 24 million families – live on just four million acres. This lopsided distribution of land, more than any other factor, causes Britain's chronic housing shortage and high prices that prevent so many from buying homes. The only nation more skewed in Europe is Spain where 70% of the land is owned by 0.2% of the populace. In England and Wales, roughly 35% of the land remains unregistered. Their Land Act was never debated in the House of Commons. Responsibility for debate was abdicated to the House of Lords, where the law was passed without discussion. One of the reasons landowners are so resistant to change, and to registering just how much land they own, is that they receive huge subsidies, funded by British taxpayers through the European Union, simply for owning land designated agricultural that is often not farmable. The magazine The New Statesman launched a campaign to end this feudal system. (New Statesman Cover story, Spt 20) If society were to levy land dues, that'd impel owners to let go of their excess. It has worked before, five times: Denmark, California, Australia, New Zealand, and Taiwan.

For art dealers, European Union regulations to harmonize taxes and trade procedures have created a deluge of complex paperwork. The red tape bears most heavily on small businesses – what most art and antique dealers are. The sum of all the regulations and taxes – perhaps small in themselves – results in one big problem. Levying VAT on works of art, introduced in 1995, has reduced the EU's share of the global market – about $40 billion annually – by 7% and raised the US's share by 7%. For sales at $33,000 and up, a European vender would save by doing business out of Switzerland, still not a member nation in the EU. (Financial Times, Spt 26)

Blood tests conducted thru-out the US and Europe show that the vast majority of residents of industrialized nations are carrying several pollutants – such as mercury, dioxin, and PCBs – in their bloodstreams at any given time. Doctors have linked these common chemical pollutants to at least 200 different human diseases. The study, which compiled data from hundreds of previous studies, shows strong correlations between common pollutants and a wide range of diseases: asthma, testicular atrophy, cerebral palsy, kidney disease, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, dermatitis bronchitis, hyperactivity, deafness, sperm damage, and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. Pollutants also were linked to 37 different types of cancers. Pollution does not usually cause the disease but acts as a trigger on a person's genetic predisposition to developing a particular disease. (E Magazine, Nov 23)

And when it doesn't trigger a disease, it can kill. A small increase in the average smog level over seven days can lead to a small but measurable rise in deaths – 0.5% – many from heart and lung disease, on the seventh day. The study, drawing on data from 1987 through 2000, is the largest single investigation of the health effects of smog. Its analysis ruled out the possibility that the deaths were caused by heat, different kinds of pollution, or other causes. The Environmental Protection Agency says that smog levels above 84 parts per billion threaten public health. Yet even below that level, an increase of only 10 parts per billion leads to more deaths. Smog levels in many urban areas exceed 90 parts per billion on sunny summer days. Nearly 160 million people — more than half the US population – live in counties that don't meet the federal government's smog goal. (USA Today, Nov 17)

All that pollution is legal yet not necessary; there are cleaner, safer methods of industry and transport. And corporations would use them if their liability were not limited. Liability limits make the corporate charter a license to, if not kill, at least commit negligent homicide. We could abolish limits on culpability – they didn't exist until the Industrial Revolution – and let manufacturers buy insurance and clean up their act. Then we'd no longer have to witness a kid's hair fall out from radiation treatment. We all could breathe quite a bit easier.

About one in 10 Americans — nearly 29 million — live within 10 miles of a military hazardous-waste site. The Defense Department is responsible for more than 10% of the 1,240 total sites listed for priority cleanup. The Pentagon is taking steps to limit their accountability for a 50-year legacy of pollution; top brass wants to cut its $4 billion a year in environmental costs — less than 1% of their spending. Since W took office in 2001, Pen-tagon officials have stalled cleanups at scores of military sites where contamination from training and manufac-turing has fouled soil and water. They've used their clout to sidetrack new regulations that could force them to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more to deal with the pollution. And they've challenged state and federal regulators' power to make the military obey exis-ting environmental laws. At the same time, the Environ-mental Protection Agency backed off its oversight of the military. The EPA inspects military sites less often – down 26% – and cut the use of legal orders and fines to force the armed forces to clean up pollution – down 25%. When fines are mulcted, they tend to be far smaller, down 64%. Spending to clean up polluted military sites is down 20%. Now the administration is pushing Congress to exempt military land from major environmental requirements. Four years ago, W pledged to make the military “comply with environmental laws by which all of us must live.” (USA Today, Oct 14)

Swing states made out like bandits in this year's campaign. In Florida, Southern Company received $235 million to subsidize a clean coal energy plant. Florida received $4.9 million for self-propelled passenger rail cars between Miami and West Palm Beach. In New Mexico, another clean coal plant got $20 million. In Ohio, a $207 million grant went to plant grass filter strips, riparian buffers, and hardwood trees as part of an effort to keep the drinking water in Columbus safe. In Cleveland, Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta, announced an $82 million grant to build the Euclid Corridor Bus Rapid Transit system. Bush's administration distributed $12 million for Brownfield redevelopment in Ohio, Oregon, and Pennsylvania. EPA administrator Mike Leavitt went to Wisconsin and Michigan to promote a $45 million plan to clean up the Great Lakes. In Oregon, Bush announced $15 million in funding to deepen the Columbia River channel. However, W didn't include the money in his budget to pay for it. He lied – which may be his way of dealing with his record budget deficits. (Taxpayers for Common Sense via The Progress Report) Entrusting politicians makes subsidy abuse is so easy. Instead, channel public revenue into a dividend for everyone and let citizens fund their own mistakes. We'll mend our ways faster than the pork-barrelers ever could.

According to the FBI, borrowers are defrauding lenders much more often, as the volume of mortgages has swelled with record high prices and low interest rates in the past few years. In 2001, mortgage companies and banks reported 4,220 instances of suspicious activity – such as getting the property to be bought over-assessed in order to qualify for a larger loan – and the FBI had 102 mortgage fraud investigations. Thru the first nine months of 2004, lenders have reported more than 12,100 suspicious tactics and the FBI has 533 investigations pending. Potential losses to banks and other businesses could be $3 billion or more. (CBS News, Spt 18, via Al Date) High land values sure bring out the greedy. There must be a better way to acquire some of the revenue from real estate. And there is – geonomics. The money we spend on sites (and resources) is ours; the value of locations is generated not by owners but by nature and society. For a typical 2200 square foot home, the price difference between La Jolla CA and Mino ND is over $1.5 million (Sunday Oregonian, Oct 17). That's locational value, something no lone owner can create. Recover it via land dues and share it among us all via “Rent” dividends.

Older Americans who had or almost had their homes paid off instead borrowed against them when their value skyrocketed (actually, the value of the underlying land; the homes got older, more worn out). As time goes on, the devil wants his due. For typical homeowners ages 65 to 74, the balance left on their mortgage was in 1989 only $12,000; twelve years later in 2001, it swelled to $44,000. During the same period, bankruptcies rose as well: in 1991, about 180,000 people over 50 filed for bankruptcy; eleven years later in 2002, 450,000 people did. (AARP Bulletin Online, September) Instead of trying to capture land value individually, we could corral it together. That is, instead of taking on a second mortgage or selling out, moving on, and breaking up the old neighborhood, we could all pay land dues in and get rent dividends back. Because most of us don't own an oil field or a downtown parcel, most of us won't pay nearly as much as we now pay in taxes. And because the ratio in site value from downtown to the boonies is usually 2000 to one, those few owners of the most prime sites will be the ones to pay more. Recovering and sharing all those land values would grant seniors security in their homes.

Suburbs have grown and so have suburbanites. Dependent on cars, Americans of all ages are fatter than ever. Compared to the early '60s, adults are 25 pounds heavier; 10 year-olds are 11 pounds puffier. (The Oregonian, Oct 28) Pudgier, richer, and poorer. For the first time, the number of poor people in the suburbs almost equals the number in cities at the center of metropolitan areas. The stronghold of middle-class America for more than 50 years, suburbs now are home to a growing number of the very poor and the very rich. In the two decades from 1980 to 2000, the percent-age of people living in poor and affluent suburbs increased; the portion of suburbanites living in middle-income neighborhoods dropped from 75% to 61%. Suburbs have more jobs than central cities, but sky-rocketing costs for housing and gasoline – and public resistance to mass transit and housing for low-wage employees – are pushing many working people to the brink of poverty. Twenty years ago, land values were low enough that developers could build a lot of starter homes that a family with a modest income could afford. Not anymore. Nearly a fifth of suburban St Louis residents have almost no chance of purchasing a home. One suburban county relaxed zoning to allow homes on smaller lots. (USA Today, Oct 18) But only Aspen Colorado has turned escalating site values into a benefit for residents in general. Any locality could use a tax, fee, or dues to recover location value – a product of society – then use the revenue to fund a Housing Voucher for all residents, rich, poor, and in between.

From the (Oregon) Corvallis Gazette-Times (Oct 10): "This fall Linn County cities imposed $21,392,177.33 in property taxes. Of that, Albany alone imposed property taxes of $14,968,792.74. For 2004, Weyerhaeuser is again the biggest taxpayer in Linn County. The company has 595 tax lots with an assessed value topping $300 million. Its tax bill is just under $3.5 million. The next nine biggest taxpayers in the county are the Fort James Operating Co., with a bill of just under $1.4 million; followed by Pacific Power, Wilmington Trust Co., Qwest Corp., Dayton Hudson Corp., Northwest Natural Gas Co., Wah Chang Albany Corp., Oregon Metallurgical Corp., and Entek Manufacturing Inc. Together, the top 10 taxpayers, all parts of big corporations, cover about $9.3 million of the total Linn bill." The biggest property owners are big businesses. Most are involved in extraction or development. Most of the value of their property is not in the improvement (a forest has improvements?) but in the land. So, if you switch from taxing buildings to taxing only locations, you still don't lose any revenue. And if you raise your tax rate quite a bit, you hit the biggest the hardest. You'd even collect enough to pay residents a dividend. Now, what will a monthly dividend check do for you compared to for Mr. Weyerhaeuser? By running the numbers, you can see how a higher rate on land value is progressive. And because no one made nature and we all make her economic value, you can see why land dues are fair.

In his Great Wave, David H. Fischer correlated crime, bastardy, and other social ills with inflation thru-out the centuries. What's changed? Now people borrow mainly to buy homes, and the Bushies borrow to wage war above oil; Congress raised its debt ceiling again, this time by $800 billion (Oregonian, Nov 19). So the economy is awash with new money that never existed before. When energy suppliers bid up oil, it can stay up and haul up all other prices with it. In October, inflation jumped 1.7%, its highest spike since early 1990. Adding fuel to the fire, the Fed raises its rate, which ups the cost of doing business, thus less business gets done, and fewer people get jobs. So, how long can conventional crime – crime in the streets, not the suites – keep falling even as job prospects do, too? Since 1999, violent crime nationwide has fallen 3.3%. However, the murder rate has started back up, 6% since 1999, to 16,500 homicides in 2003. Gangs of male adolescents – the demographic facing the highest unemployment rate – accounted for much of the bump up in killings. (The Oregonian, Oct 26) Over the years, two places that largely escaped frequent violence were Pittsburgh and a neighborhood in Chicago. Both places had long-tenured residents, due to affordable housing in Pittsburgh and public housing in Chicago. Whereas Chicago depended on subsidies, Pittsburgh taxed land values. That spurred owners to shun withholding their land whether for speculation or procrastination and instead put their lots to best use, which kept the supply of housing ample and its price affordable. It even earned Pittsburgh the title of America's Most Livable City back in the late '80s.

Chambers of Commerce of Ireland proposed a site-value tax, albeit at quite a low rate, on all land except sites beneath one's principal dwelling, noting it would improve the housing market (BUPA Ireland, Oct 13) The Irish Green Party applauded the stance, noting the site-value tax encourages developers not to sit on zoned land. Such a tax would be easier and cheaper to administer, would raise revenue, be fairer, more transparent, and would involve fewer conflicts of interest. (The Irish Politics Website, politics.ie, Oct13)

Sean Healy (Nov 11): “We in CORI (Conference Of Religious of Ireland) Justice Commission have been proposing the introduction of a site-value tax rather than a specific tax on housing. A number of papers presented at our recent policy conference on taxation addressed the why and how of such a proposal.”

“The time has come for all political parties to rethink fundamentally this balance. We should gradually shift from taxing labor to levying taxes on the use of original resources. It would encourage us to conserve and replenish the source and to be creative and innovative in our use of original material.” (Rev James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool, The Guardian, Nov 22)

“A tax on land values can dampen the cycle of boom and bust in British property prices by discouraging the hoarding of land during price upswings. It can make a crucial contribution to the financing of social improvements. It can shift private incentives so that areas do not fall into unfashionable disuse because of blight.” (op-ed by Christopher Huhne, Liberal Democrat, Spt 27)

“Regulatory frameworks that enable governments to effectively manage urban development can facilitate the use of land-based and other forms of taxation in mobilizing financial resources for service delivery and other essential functions by local authorities.” The Urban Housing Manual, Geoffrey Payne & Michael Majale, p 38, 2004, Earthscan

“Every time the shift to land value taxation has been tried - in Australia, Denmark, South Africa, and most spectacularly in Hong Kong and Taiwan - it has achieved the same kind of success.” (op-ed by Lindy Davies, director of the Henry George Institute, Spt 27)

“A 'special benefit assessment district' is an extraordinary property-taxing entity that funds improvements or operations in a specified district. Since property owners in the district benefit from a given activity, they pay an assessment above the normal property tax. There may be as many as 1,000 special assessment districts in the US in more than 38 states. (New York City has 25 such districts, including the oldest.) Assessments employ the user fee principle: those who benefit most pay most. But beneficiaries usually prefer to spread costs to the larger community.” (National Conference of State Legislatures, “Eight Ways to Finance Transit”, 1994)

If the US auctioned off the spectrum each year, it'd bring in $38 billion a year. While this supra-surface natural resource is not as valuable as a sub-surface resource like oil, every little bit helps. The most valuable part of the spectrum – and also the most underused – is the lower part of the range from a bit under 100 megaherz to about 2 gigaherz. Signals in this range can pass through dense objects such as forests and buildings. This range includes broadcast telephone and cellphones. Higher frequencies have such uses as WI-FI or garage door openers. Instead of auctioning the spectrum, Congress gives it away, as it does with minerals and grazing fields and did centuries ago with farmland. Then it was to a large group of insiders; now it's to a small cadre of elite investors. Spectrum holders argue that their monopolies prevent broadcast chaos. However, new "smart" radio technology makes it possible for large numbers of users to broadcast and receive in the same spectrum without interfering with one another. ("The Citizen's Guide to the Airwaves", the Spectrum Policy Program of the New America Foundation, via Chuck Metalitz) In The New Yorker (Oct 18) in a one-page article, "Free Air", James Suroweicki argues for the public collection of the economic rent generated by the electromagnetic spectrum (via Heather Remoff). Let's.

“Congress is turning the war on terrorism into a vehicle for distributing pork back home. The Senate boosted Homeland Security's budget by $3 billion for drought aid, mostly for the Midwest and Great Plains, where many states are in play in the presidential race. The Senate rejected efforts to spend more on helping likely urban targets of terrorism.” (Spt 24)

At the Heritage Foundation's annual Resource Bank meeting, The Yes Men, masquerading as a right-wing think tank, took the stage and called the administration's war in Iraq, "crony corporate welfare" and "market distortion on a fairly gigantic scale." "The Iraq war was history's biggest illegal trade subsidy. One thing we'll be trying to do in the months ahead is lodge an official complaint about this with the WTO in Geneva." "In a free market, companies like Halliburton and Exxon should be funding their own market expansion projects instead of depending on the Federal government for it.” (Yes Men website, May 8)

Pennsylvania governor, Ed Rendell, blasted the current administration for its failure in Iraq and pointed out that we should have made some payment from Iraq's oil revenues to each Iraqi citizen. He claimed that it didn't have to be much and felt as little as $20.00 each would send a strong message to the citizens that we viewed it as their oil, not ours. (interview by Chris Mathews in Philadelphia, via Heather Remoff)

In Barcelona at the Forum where this editor also spoke, Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz: “A new accent should be put on the distribution of wealth.” Paul Krugman in the same interview rejected a return to protectionism and proposed heftier aid to the poorest nations. (El Pais, Spt 25, my translation)

“All the inequalities must end; all the surplus wealth must be equitably distributed. Until then we are still only some kind of gibbering monkey, and humanity, as we usually like to think of it, does not yet exist.” (p 475) “Thus we can look at the world we live in, and say, these things (racism, sexism, ageism, and urbanism [city vs country]) are residual laws from the age of the Four Great Inequalities, still binding us. They must go. On the other hand we can look at more unfamiliar elements of our time, like China's communal ownership of land, and say, perhaps these are emergent qualities that will be more prominent in the future; they look helpful.” (p 740, The Years of Rice and Salt, 2002, reviewed in TNYT Book Review, by Kim Stanley Robinson, award-winning science fiction writer who lives in Davis CA)

Steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, the richest or second richest man of his era, in his Problems of Today (1908): "In all other English-speaking countries, the people work the land; in Britain the landlords work the people. When the interests of the masses of the people require change in land tenure, the few owners can justly be required to forego their preferences, or submit to increased taxation if they decide to enjoy privileges injurious to the community as a whole. The greatest amount of wealth created in any branch comes from enhanced values of real property. The obvious creator of this wealth is not the individual, but the community. No other form of wealth should contribute to the nation so generously.”

The venerable term "Citizen Dividend" should be understandable. It appeared in Robert Heinlein's Beyond This Horizon, which was originally published as a two-part serial in Astounding Science Fiction in April and May of 1942 under the byline of Anson MacDonald, then revised, expanded and published in book form in 1948. His C.D. was paid out of monetary manipulation rather than from site revenue. (Scott B, Nov 9)

Prior to 1975, Montana's coal severance tax was assessed on a cents-per-ton basis. In 1975, the Legislature enacted the highest severance tax in the nation, based on percentage of the mine-mouth price of the coal. The percentage was tied to the heating quality of the coal: 30% for subbituminous and 20% for lignite. This tax system remained in place until 1988. The Coal Council didn't mention bituminous – possibly Montana doesn't yield enough to worry about taxing it, but plenty of other states do – but that coal does have a higher heating value than lignite or subbituminous, so if one followed the schedule, a 40% tax on bituminous would be about right. With this coal “Rent”, Montana invests in its Permanent Coal Trust Fund, which has a present value of $674,311,139. It doesn't pay dividends like Alaska's Permanent Fund does, tho'. Montana also levies a "resource indemnity trust tax" at 0.4% of contract sale prices for a particular resource for the privilege of extracting any of Montana's nonrenewable resources; in 2003, this tax collected just under a million dollars. (via a new reader, Anonymous Anonymous)

You got an idea you want to get across to society at large but are having a hard time? George Lakoff in his latest book (2004) notes people can't process info if they don't have a shared frame of reference. Anthropologists tell us that when Columbus arrived on the shores of Cuba, Indians could not even see his ships on the sea. It wasn't that they thought they were hallucinating, they literally could not see them. Similarly, most people today cannot see what it is we're talking about. Hence, we must create a common frame. His book is short and readable but repetitive. You'll get the main points in just the first chapter, if you're in a hurry. But you may miss some telling data about how the right wing, after losing so disastrously with Goldwater in '64, turned to psycho-linguistics and framing – then went on to win big time. There was also some inside story about Enron winning the California gubernatorial for Schwartzenegger. Main thing is something we linguists have been saying forever. To rescue your land, first you must reclaim your language. Even Confucius said, he who defines the terms, wins the debate. So, how do we create a common frame for commonwealth?

Last issue's review could not tell all. Author Mark Zepehauer (2004) covers every way the federal budget benefits those who don't need it: cash grants like the S&L bailout, sweetheart deals like military contracts (the biggest waste by far), and tax breaks. Worth $280b, tax breaks make up over a third of subsidy abuse (at $800+ billion, twice the deficit). Most people want to close the loopholes and claw the billions back. Yet there wouldn't be any tax loopholes to open or close if there weren't taxes. And there wouldn't be any unearned billions if not for us. Why shove the lion's share of our money into very few pockets, making them very deep, then try to tax it back later (and get annoyed if we can't)? That's like giving milk to tiger cubs then later trying to milk the full-grown mama tiger. Spare yourself; don't deepen very few pockets in the first place. If you lose taxes, you needn't lose $280 billion; just turn to what's already ours. Forget income and pay attention to spending. What do people spend trillions on yet are not products of labor? Parts of creation and privileges from the state: everything from resource leases to spectrum licenses, from the limit on liability via corporate charters to the banking establishment's power to issue brand new money. All totaled, eight major privileges are worth so many trillions – it'd put your calculator into a coma. They dwarf the other favors for insiders: the breaks, grants, and contracts. And this is just federal favors. Here in Oregon, farmland that could sell for $15 billion gets assessed at $2.3b (Oregonian, Nov 7). Under assessment is routine in every state. Replace that gift with a Rent dividend and everyone comes out ahead.

For hunting licenses, states charge non-residents much more than residents; for big-game tags, the price difference escalates. In Nevada, an out-of-state elk tag costs $1,000 more than a resident tag. So out-of-staters claim residence in states where they don't live. Even law enforcement officers do it. A former Nevada state wildlife commissioner and his son pleaded no contest to providing false information to obtain a resident hunting license for the son, who lived in Utah. In Wyoming, a top prosecutor for Salt Lake County, Utah, pleaded no contest to 10 wildlife license violations. One hunter in Utah applied for big-game tags using the names of more than a dozen people, many of them old girlfriends. (USA Today, Oct 13) A dispute over hunting ground in Wisconsin was settled the old-fashioned way when one gunned down eight, wounding two and killing six. Here in Oregon a few years back, mushroom pickers murdered each other over the fungus. While not lethal, homeowners do vote to cap the property tax. Here in Oregon, they voted to compensate landowners any time any rule to protect nature lowers a parcel's selling price. People still think wildlife, land, and land value are not for sharing. Once they learn otherwise and accept this ancient perspective – the words “own” and “owe” used to be one same word – then there'd no longer be any rationalization for battling over prey or ground or its value. To raise this issue, propose land dues in lieu of taxes coupled with rent dividends in lieu of subsidies.

So land no longer matters in great fortunes? Billionaire Marvin Davis, who died recently, made his first fortune in oil then poured that into real estate and later added entertainment, largely copyrights on others' ideas. Why is Sears buying Kmart? For their locations away from malls, closer to where people live (NYTNS, Nov 21). Now the next generation wants to make land out of space. The Space Settlement Initiative claims we have the power to create a "pot of gold" on the Moon; just attract and reward whatever companies that can be the first to assemble and risk enough capital and talent to establish a "space line" and lunar settlement. How? By making it possible for settlers to claim and own – and re-sell to those back home on Earth – the product that has always rewarded those who paid for human expansion: land ownership. Lunar and Martian real estate is currently worthless. But that real estate will acquire enormous value after there is a settlement, regular commercial access, and a system of space property rights. Lunar or Martian property ownership could then be bought and sold back on earth, raising billions of dollars. (http://www.spacesettlement.org/ via Todd Boyle) Our VP Gary Flo appends, “land claims in space, great! ;-) The prelude to war in space.” Actually, titles might be OK, as long as claimants figured out the proper people to pay to create property, which would be those whom their claims displace: you, me, Martians, ET aliens, and other space people.

Fleet St on pending bubble

Since 1997, property prices in the US have risen 53%, in the UK, a smallish island, they've risen 116%, in Ireland, an even smaller island, 174%. On the other hand, in Japan, another crowded island, you can buy a house for 22% less than seven years ago. In Germany, where buyers need to come up with a down payment of 40% of the purchase price, the typical house sells for 3% less than in 1997 (Daily Reckoning, Nov 12) Houses go up when more people have more money to spend on them. But American families have little spending power and owe more than ever. Since the 2001 recession, the economy has shed nearly 900,000 jobs. What makes prices go up now? More credit. Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan pooh-poohs worries over record highs for prices and debt (Oregonian, Oct 20). However, the housing market has all the makings of a bubble: many mortgages, artificial government stimula-tion, ballistic price increases, and a widespread belief that prices can't fall. Yet they do. According to research by HSBC, "Declines occurred in 1975, 1979-82 and 1989-94, using the OFHEO House Price Index. In the past 116 quarters that we have data for (1975Q2-2004Q1), real prices rose 73 times and fell 41 times and were flat twice. In other words, real prices declined 35% of the time." This time, the run-up in prices was unprecedented. Will we soon be able to add housing to the long list of great bubbles in American history, along with canals, railroads and all the rest? (Christopher W. Mayer, editor of Fleet Street Letter for The Daily Reckoning, Oct 21) Bank on it, if the land price cycle of 18 years holds; expect the bubble to burst in 2007, and keep bursting for a few years, before picking back up again.

Mark Sullivan (Secretary & Acting Executive Director, Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, August 16): "Empathy, I think, includes regarding people, animals, trees, etc. (labor and land), as other than, or more than, exploitable means to our own ends. Perhaps it's in the nature of things (those drives you mention) to treat others as means to our own ends, at least most of the time. Perhaps empathy is a luxury only a few can afford. Perhaps we are better advised to cultivate gratitude – gratitude to the people, animals, plants (etc) upon which our wellbeing depends. Feeling grateful might actually lead to acting grateful! In fact, paying the single-tax on site value is a fiscal expression of gratitude: we thank the community for the land and public services we are given the opportunity to use.”

Many, frequently: “The GDP favors the formal economy and ignores the informal economy – eating out vs. eating in – and grows even as society decays, so it's a useless measure of wellbeing.”

Editor: Yes, the GDP does tally up all exchanges to-gether, it does not distinguish between paying doctors to prescribe pills for your smog-poisoning vs. paying nurses to deliver babies. The GDP does not measure wellbeing, but economic activity, and thus economic opportunity. When you eat in, you don't spend money and don't give anyone (the people running the restaurant where you'd dine) a chance to make money, which we all need. The more that cash circulates, the better chance you have to dip in and catch some for yourself.

To measure wellbeing, we can do better than GDP; we can use leisure. Time-off from work with no loss in standard of living measures how well an economy delivers. Why else have one? Already, 86% of US employees say work/life balance is their No. 1 career priority, and more than half of US companies offer flexible schedules (The Oregonian, Spt 26). That's a start.

Another distinction that GDP and everyone fail to make is trade vs. transfer, between getting something for something and getting something for nothing, necessitating others to get nothing for something. Both types of transactions are treated the same by GDP, by economists, and even by wanna-be reformers, making reform difficult. Over 1/3 of an economy is not trades but transfers, transfers of socially generated values from everyone to a lucky few. That is, the value of land and of privileges like corporate charters, we pay those trillions to a few holding powerful pieces of paper. In metro Portland for land along a freeway, six years ago developers paid $2/sq.ft and now $8-10 (Oregonian, Oct 27) to individual owners, not to those who paid for and use the freeway. If instead we paid ourselves, we could enjoy more leisure, measure our economies better (as if we'd still care), and let GDP go its merry way.

The Oregonian, Portland's main daily on Nov 8 Monday (when us sports fans read about the Sunday games [those of us who can read]) ran my letter (p B7), “A better way on property taxes”.

The Mercury, the local paper in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, did a long article by journalist Gabi Mocatta on Geonomics, “Capitalism, but better”, Oct 22 before their recent election; interviewing supporter Leo Foley, consultant to the state on forestry, she claimed Henry George coined the term (you know who really did).

Maurie Fabricant, Aussie manufacturer (Oct 25): “I've just read your piece 'After the Housing Bubble Bursts, Fix It!' in The Progress Report Oct 19. I like it. More strength to your arm ... or whatever. All the best, mate!” Diana E Forrest, UK (Oct 20): “Concerning the Housing Bubble article: Lot of sense here. I'm sick of the media telling middle class airheads that the economy is fine because house prices are going up.”

John Watkins, Editor of Simple Solutions, (Nov 8): “The Road to Empowerment: Benefits of a Citizens' Dividend. One of our advisors, Jeffery Smith, is an ardent advocate of collecting rent on the common wealth and distributing it in equal shares he calls a citizen's dividend. I've been advocating adoption of a human-empowerment system that helps everyone achieve their full potential, both individually and in community with others. The two ideas, taken together, have enormous power to give every individual the freedom to choose how to invest their time, develop their personal capabilities, and fulfill their responsibilities to society. Here are just a few of the benefits of getting a citizen's dividend.” Reminiscent of Henry George's last chapter in Progress and Poverty where he talks about all the wonderful things that government could spend rent on, Watkins goes on to note all the decent endeavors that individuals could spend their social salary on, and how it'd benefit the rest of society.

At annual conferences of 100 or more in Italy, outside Milano at the Environmental Taxation and in Spain's Barcelona at the Basic Income Earth Network, presented geonomics and recruited contributors to my textbook with publisher Edward Elgar, Inc, which sells 1000s in the UK, US, India, and China. While there, the Spanish press gave a full-page obit to Aaron Director, economist, noting his critique of anti-trust, his influence on Milton Friedman, who married his sister, and other Nobel laureates such as Ronald Coase, and his childhood in Oregon. Is that worth a full page in section A in the US? In Portland in a downtown church for Take Back Your Time Day before 65, told how to: share society's surplus. The first Tuesday of the month we gathered to consider geonomic logic; even with The Oregonian and all other calendars announcing our series, we numbered from 6 to 16.

Neil Gilchrist, Australian (Nov 22): “Jeff, EcoPlan, Paris published your paper, 'Financing Transit Systems Through Value Capture: An Annotated Bibliography', in LandCafe. I guess he had your permission. I would like to publish it a www.railnow.org.au. While not exactly a great read it provides an excellent reference for those seriously considering financing transit systems through value capture.” Mason Gaffney on that work (Nov 30): “This is a most useful piece.”

Stan Frederiksen, Exec. Direct. Emeritus, Public Revenue Education Council of Greater St Louis (Nov): “You may remember me from my handling the logistics here in St. Louis at the 1985 CGO Conference. Currently, I just enjoyed your fine article on 'The Citizens' Dividend' in the Sept/Oct Groundswell. Great work. I'm a nut about getting rid of all taxes and replacing them with a charge (it's not a tax) on location values (not land values). We're 'shooting ourselves in the foot' every time we advocate a 'tax', no matter that it's on land or land values. We're going to have to change our language.”

Erik Sten, Portland City Councilor (Spt 13): “As to tax reform, I'm not certain what I can do to help you at this time. Your proposal is intriguing but until this state gets serious about overall tax reform I'm not certain how to get folks to take a fresh look at the tax structure. I am still very interested in finding a permanent revenue source to support affordable housing efforts. I may be a bit more active in Salem this session, so we should stay in touch.”

Syed H. Loton, Secretary General, RADOL, Member and Secretary, NSC, Ministry of Housing & Public Works, Bangladesh (Oct12): “Your Geonomics would be highly appreciated in our country as most people are in need of housing, and a substantial number of people are living in slum and squatter settlements. Most would like to build affordable houses with low tax and other payments as well. Hope that your Forum on Geonomics would certainly play a key role in mitigating the problem of housing with our joint efforts.”

Keith Wilde, Canadian prof (Oct 21): “I read your paper while having lunch. Very persuasive. In reviewing some of our exchange with Jeff Gates five years ago I see that you have thoroughly persuaded me. (Oct 22): I am nonetheless incorrigibly Malthusian at heart and strongly inclined to the scarcity perspective as an economist. It therefore takes quite a jolt to shake me out of the 'no free lunch' point of view. But you and Frankman, plus some of the other BIEN veterans did it to me. I now see that I have been blindly stupid, or stupidly blind, to the magnitude and import of economic rents – and especially their variety. ”

Gary Flo, our VP and U Vermont researcher: “Common Assets and New America are heavily involved in spectrum issues.” Plus, New America offers a funny “Cartoon Guide to Federal Spectrum Policy” and Common Assets even got a Ford grant! But would Ford pitch in if both nonprofits got bold enough to include land and resources in our commons?

Wendy Rockwell, Costa Rican Geonomist (Oct 29): “We sold the bookstore and I am doing politics full time. We have written a law which I hope to present to the National Assembly. It is a rewriting of the Costa Rican property tax law. I will attach it. You do help me. Just knowing that Jeff Smith is out there, tirelessly, spreading the gospel. That is inspirational.”

The Robert Schalkenbach Foundation made possible my participation in the conferences abroad (above), covering the costs of registration, lodging, and travel, and follow-up with contacts made; the Henry George School of New York supported our classes this academic year, covering the costs of research, preparing materials, lobbying curriculum czars, extra promotion, actual teaching and follow-up. Our autumn Geonomist elicited enough renewals and newals to cover the costs of copying and postage, including: supporter Karen Harding, sustainers Wayne Luney, John Morales, and Bruce Oatman, and double stalwarts Mel Leasure and Artie Yeatman. Big thanks to all for re/joining, donating, and granting. If you don't see your name on this list and know it belongs there, just send a check. We'll know what to do with it.

Coming up in December is a tour of California with Anne O'Rourke of Australia, lawyer, professor, and trade treaty negotiator, speaking before universities, Green Parties, and others. At winter's end in New York City is the annual confab in the annual confab of the Eastern Economics Assoc.

Greg Young, Missouri caregiver (Aug 18): “I have permission to set up a literature table at the Land Instittute's Prairie Festival. Could you send me 50-100 old issues of The Geonomist plus single copies of your favorite articles for photocopying?”

Todd Boyle (Spt 9): “If you're ever in Seattle I would like to invite you to speak to our peace and justice group. We seldom hear anything about these basic fundamental ideas of land and property that control so many of the outcomes in our society.”

Deanna B., Steering Committee, Gorge Local Currency Cooperative (herself@deannab.info, Oct 30): “I finally had the opportunity to read the geonomics newsletter and check out the website. I got more excited the more I read. Perhaps in Hood River we could schedule a series of forums.”

Is there a geonomic T-shirt in your future? Would you be caught alive wearing one of these? They're supposed to catch the eye, raise a smile, to make others think, even approach you with a question. Do any of these ideas work for you? Can you think of any better ideas? Can you draw?

I, Fruit of the earth. Art: An Earth fruit hangs from a tree with other Earth-fruits, smaller, farther away; below, at the base of the tree, three people lounge on their backs, arranged in a peace symbol, arms folded, hands behind heads, looking up. Caption: Once we share the worth the earth, being overworked and underpaid is over.

II, Lording it over others. Art: On each mountain peak, sit gurus in lotus positions, bearded, one on a peak higher than all the others who look up at him. Caption: "Since your location beats ours, mate, you owe us compensation.”

III, Monopoly Corner. Art: At the Monopoly board corner of “GO” before a fancy gate, a fancy-dressed porter hands out cash to passers-by. Caption: When neighbors pay each other for nature.

DoughNation Services is a way to clear out your home and help the Forum on Geonomics. Donate the good quality clothing and electronic gear you no longer use and get tax deductions worth up to 10 times the fee for service. At www.doughnationservices.com, click on Fall Specials, then on us. Thanks for the support.

John Morales, rtrd from Panal Canal Commission (Spt 11): “Here's my yearly donation, $50 to be a sustainer plus free bumper sticker and T-shirt. Try to convince the big landowners that they too will eventually benefit by 'Sharing Earth's Worth'!” I will, this being Christmas and all. I just got to find a forum for the discussion. Meanwhile, big thanks for sustaining us! May others as well. Readers, realize your fondest dream, a world working right for everyone, where sharing society's surplus is the norm. Join us. Merry Solstice.

THE GEONOMIST

Vol. 13, No. 3
Editor: Jeffery Johnson Smith

THE GEONOMIST

Vol. 13, No. 3 Editor: Jeffery Johnson Smith

Vol. 13, No. 3
Editor: Jeffery Johnson Smith