The Geonomist Volume Thirteen Issue Four

Geonomics is …
one of many words I coined over 20 years ago: geoism, geonomics, geonomy, geocracy, etc – neologisms that later others came up with, too. CNBC once had a Geonomics Show, and Middlebury College has a Geonomics Institute. If “economy” is literally “management of the household”, then geonomy is “management of the planet”. The kind of management I had in mind is not what CNBC was thinking – top-down. My geonomics is not hands-on, interfering, but hands-off, organic. It'd strive to align policy with natural processes, similar to what holistic healing does in medicine, what organic farming does in agriculture. Geonomics attends to two key components: One, the crucial stuff to track is fat -- or profit, especially profits without production, such as rent, or all the money we spend on the nature we use. Society's surplus is the sine qua non for growth, needed to counter death – not merely more, but sustainable development, more from less. Two, the basic process to respect is the feedback loop. These let nature maintain balance automatically and could do the same for markets, if we let them. Letting them would turn our economies, now our masters, into a geonomy, our servant, providing us with prosperity, eco-librium (to coin a term) and leisure, time off -- a hostile environment for economan but a cradle for a loving and creative humanity.

So far this year, four states have introduced geonomic bills: Connecticut, Maryland, Minnesota, and Oregon. In Oregon, it was the first Senate Joint Resolution of this session. Sen Ryan Deckert of Bearverton, a suburb of Portland, introduced it, spurred on by Rep Jackie Dingfelder and at the request of both last year's Senate Interim Committee on Revenue and of the Portland Development Commission. If passed, SJR 1 would go on the ballot at the next regular general election. If passed by voters, it would amend the Oregon Constitution to allow cities and counties to replace the uniform ad valorem property tax with one having different tax rates for land and for buildings. A local taxing district could set the rate on improvements at zero, creating a pure site-value tax in lieu of the conventional property tax. It could take up to five years to shift their rate on buildings down and their rate on sites up. This measure would exempt site-value taxes from the current constitutional limits imposed on property taxes and property assessments. Any tax on sites would fall on the real market value of the site. A jurisdiction would have to submit the shift to local voter approval. To win over a majority, SJR 1 needs to be revised so that the exemptions that property owners lose – and not long ago voted for overwhelmingly – would be replaced by a per capita rebate. That is, some portion of the revenue raised by taxing land would be returned to all Oregon taxpayers as a dividend. Oregon once had renter rebates (as did California) and now has its “kicker” – a constitutional requirement to divide up any surplus public revenue among taxpayers. This guaranteed apportionment would make the kicker a fixture.

In the sunshine and flowery fragrance of a spring sprung six weeks early, I read of an American nun who spent decades in northern Brazil, fighting efforts by loggers and large landowners to expropriate lands and clear large areas of the Amazon rainforest; she worked with a price on her head. Riding to a morning meeting, Dorothy Stang, 74, was shot in the face three times. In 1988, rubber tapper Chico Mendes was also shot dead there for the same causes. Loggers and landowners also threaten local farmers with death. (AP, Feb 12) People have not clearly grasped, and we few proponents have not made clear, that the worth of Earth belongs to us all to share. In the Third World, the privileged kill for good land. Here in the First World, we merely vote to cap, repeal, defeat, or exempt ourselves from taxes on land. Doing so, we foster the attitude that land value can be taken and hoarded, owing no one anything. We fail to set the example of people, living cooperatively in society, sharing the values, which we create, of land, which we did not create. To that extent, the elderly nun's blood is on our hands.

The news and views in these little pages one can read in the mainstream press – outside America. In New Zealand, Auckland's Herald titles an article not “Home Values Buoy the Economy” but “Dream of own home becoming nightmare: Average NZ house now worth 6 1/2 times the average salary” (Jan 28). When reporting the government's official statistics, the reporter writes, “the Consumer Price Index is effectively a national lie; when mortgage rates rise, they are not reflected in the CPI at all.” And, “The values of financial assets such as homes and share investments generally rise faster than inflation. Own them and inflation means money in the bank.” (Sunday Star-Times, Jan 23) Refreshing. If you can't avail yourself of the Kiwi press, enjoy these pages.

The US dollar has long been the world's de facto common currency, but with it declining in value against the Euro, it is beginning to lose favor with some cash connoisseurs. It's not just central bankers who're holding more of their reserves in Euros, less in dollars, but also global drug dealers. The greenback has long been the favorite of drug dealers, black marketeers, arms dealers, and anyone else who would like to keep his transactions off the books and his assets in liquid form. More than half of the $700 plus billion in circulation is held outside the US, according to the Federal Reserve. But for the last two years, the number of Euros in circulation has been expanding faster than the supply of dollars, and it is becoming the currency of choice for those lovers of liquid cash. Part of the Euro's new appeal to the underground economy is its strength relative to the declining dollar. But equally important is the fact that while the largest US denomination readily available is the $100 bill, the European Central Bank has started in recent years to print 200- and 500-Euro notes. With a 500-Euro note worth $682 at today's rates, better those big Euro notes than bulky dollars. (Grant's Interest Rate Observer in Slate.com at Progress Report) One way global bangers and foreign bankers unload dollars is by buying American stocks, bonds, and real estate. While some fret about the changing nationality of our overlords, at least the land beneath factories, offices, and homes is not about to go anywhere, remaining liable for taxation by local government.

Over a century ago, big oil founded banks that later formed the US Federal Reserve. Today, without even spinning off that venerable institution of credit creation, they are taking on business traditionally performed by banks – that is, taking bets on which way the price of oil and the stock of oil companies will fluctuate. If insider knowledge is any advantage at all, then the oil giants should easily out perform the best of the bankers – as if the geyser of oil profits were not enough! How much this new sideline of futures and derivatives brings in, the oilsters are not telling. But recall from these pages that GM, which we think of as a car company, actually makes more money from car loans and home mortgages. So far, the matriarch of the Seven Sisters oil companies – Exxon – has remained aloof, leaving the field to the European titans: BP, Shell, and Total of France.

The Russian monopoly, Yukos, created by aggressive insiders who made former public assets their own private company, branched in an even more novel direction. Recall their founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, one Russia's sometimes richest man (several of the oligarchs trade the top spot back and forth) had told an interviewer before he was jailed by President Vladimir Putin: "If we rank all the fields of man's activity by profitability, politics will be the most lucrative business. When we see a critical situation in the government, we draw lots in order to pick out a person from our milieu for work in power." (Counter Punch, Feb 17, via Alanna Hartzok) To protect itself from dissolution, Yukos filed for bankruptcy in a US court in oil-rich Texas, home of the Bushes. The judge accepted the plea, declaring her court had jurisdiction because Yukos had an American lawyer. (Financial Times, Dec 20) If this becomes a precedent, American Chapter 11 will become as standard for the wealthy as the mute Swiss bank account, the third-party Lebanese ship registry, and the tax-free Cayman Island incorporation.

In May 2002, Carme Porta, of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), a pro-independence, leftist and republican party, and José Luis López Bulla, of Iniciativa per Catalunya Verds (ICV), an eco-socialist and leftist organization, presented a Basic Income Bill to the Catalan Parliament. Since the end of 2003, ERC and ICV have formed part of the tri-partite government of Catalonia with the Socialist Party (PSC). Last January, Joan Puigcercós and Joan Tardà (both ERC), members of the Spanish Parliament, presented the same bill slightly updated. It proposes a Basic Income of Citizenship for all residents of Spain. This “social salary” should be at least the same amount as the poverty line. Soon the Spanish Parliament shall debate the bill. (From BIEN in the USBIG Network Newsletter, Jan/Feb) To fund this extra income, the bill would redirect pensions and raise tax rates on income. Would it have a better chance of passing if it didn't try to redirect income downstream but redirect people's spending upstream? That is, like everyone everywhere, the Spanish must spend money on land – on sites, resources, and ecosystem services. Why not redirect that flow of money into a dividend for all Spanish citizens?

In 1861 weathermen began keeping records. From 1900 to 1975, the planet warmed at a rate of roughly 1 degree per century. But the warming has accelerated in the last 25 to 30 years to 3 degrees per century. Nine of the 10 hottest years on record occurred in 1995 or later. The last four years were among the five hottest; the hottest was 1998. October 2004 was the warmest October on record. Such warming intensifies hurricanes, raises sea levels that will swamp low-lying coastal areas, and brings heat waves longer and more frequent. Japan and southern Europe suffered through summer heat waves that brought record or near-record high temperatures. Eight named tropical storms formed in the Atlantic Ocean in August, a record for the most named storms in that month. Natural disasters in 2004 will cost the insurance industry more than $36 billion worldwide, making 2004 the industry's most expensive year. Six hurricanes and three tropical storms affected the USA and accounted for the bulk of those costs. Burning of gasoline, coal and other fossil fuel creates carbon dioxide gas, which rises into the atmosphere and traps heat. (USA TODAY, Dec 15) People burn less fuel when city layouts are efficient and buildings well insulated. To encourage owners to in-fill metro areas and to construct quality buildings, don't tax buildings but do recover land's rental value; the higher overhead for holding sites spurs owners to hold less and use that wisely.

Fetuses are more susceptible to DNA damage caused by air pollution than their mothers are, despite protection by the placenta. Smog and secondhand smoke make the child's cognitive development a problem and cancer more likely. The study examined 256 nonsmoking African-American and Latina women and their newborns in New York City. Levels of cotinine, which measures tobacco smoke exposure, were higher in newborns than in mothers. (E Magazine, Nov/Dec) Meanwhile, as making ends meet gets tougher, more people grow willing to let environmental standards slide and polluters grow bolder to push standards down. Yet clean cars and efficient power plants would dominate the market – on a level playing field. The problem is not a lack of technology but of self-esteem. We don't demand that polluters pay, but subsidize drivers and utilities. We don't demand that land users pay, but accept the speculation which sprawls out cities. We excuse users and abusers, but tax goods and income. Reverse that. De-tax earnings and recover the rental value of sites and resources; investments will flow the other way into techno-progress and owners now holding prime sites vacant will begin to in-fill cities with quality, well insulated buildings. And replace subsidies with a dividend to residents; they could work less and smooth out rush hour, the single biggest source of air pollution.

Nearly half of American households have given money to help victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami. Charities confirm an outpouring from individuals, businesses, and foundations that they say is a record for a disaster overseas. The Chronicle of Philanthropy tallied $245 million in private donations within two weeks of the calamity which are on track to top the $350 million in taxpayer money the Bush administration has pledged. About half of donations to charities are being made online. The American Red Cross says its average online donation is $153. Per capita, citizens in some other countries are giving more: Britons have raised $146 million, Germans $130 million, Swedes $60 million, and Australians $58 million. The Red Cross, which tops US charities with $119 million in tsunami-relief pledges, says its donors gave $51 million when Hurricane Mitch smashed Central America in 1998; $35 million for Balkan refugee relief in 1999; $25 million for Ethiopia's famine in 1984-85; $20 million for Mexico City earthquake relief in 1985; and $15 million after a 2001 earthquake in Gujarat, India. After 9/11, Americans gave charities $2 billion for families affected by the terror attacks. (USA TODAY, Jan 7) This makes me feel better about my compatriots. If not asking too much, two more gifts from us to them: quit taxing imported cotton, which would let Sri Lanka and other poor nations develop while saving us money; and give the gift of a good example – how to treat the value of land and resources, which is, to share it.

People earning the federal hourly minimum wage of $5.15 could afford to pay rent and utilities on a one-bedroom apartment in only four of the nation's 3,066 counties. A two-bedroom rental is even more of a burden, requiring the typical worker to earn at least $15.37 an hour. By affordable the government means spending no more than 30% of gross income on rent and utilities. About 36 million homes in the United States are rented. Roughly 80% of renter homes are located in nearly 1,000 counties in which a family must work more than 80 hours a week – more than two full-time jobs – at minimum wage to afford the typical two-bedroom apartment. California topped all states in the hourly wage needed to afford a two-bedroom apartment, at $21.24. Least affordable was the San Francisco metropolitan area; in Marin, San Francisco, or San Mateo counties, rent and utilities for a one-bedroom apartment required a wage of least $22.63 an hour; a two-bedroom rental needed $29.60 an hour. The West Coast was followed by the Northeast: Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland, and New York. The most affordable were states with more residents in rural areas. Over the past year, hourly wages rose about 2.6%, slower than the 2.9% rise in rents. The federal minimum wage has not been changed since 1997. (AP, Dec 24 via Heather Remoff) So collect the high land values and share them.

A hot real estate market has pushed property taxes up. Eventho' local governments are leaving the tax rate alone, many are reassessing homes every year to keep pace with surging sales prices. The higher assessments mean higher tax bills. State and local property taxes in the first nine months of 2004 totaled $204.5 billion, up 7.9% from the same period in 2003 and 30% since 2000. In reaction, property owners in at least eight states are urging legislators to limit increases in property taxes, which finance everything from police and fire services to parks and schools, yet residents also demand better schools, roads, and other services. (Voters in California's Contra Costa voted down more parks to avoid more taxes – San Francisco Chronicle, Dec 7.) Instead of property, landowners propose taxing income or sales or business. (USA TODAY, Jan 25) All those other taxes up costs and discourage enterprise, making staying afloat financially harder, while capping the property tax would further inflate the bubbly value of land. The way out is to drop taxation in favor of dues that would tap the value of land. Land values peak so steeply in downtowns and chi-chi neighborhoods that it makes land dues steeply progressive; most residents would pay less than all the taxes they pay now. And land value is so much that, once collected, even after funding desired local government there'd be enough to fund a dividend to residents.

Multi-millionaire actor and Catholic fundamentalist Mel Gibson lost his bid to have a portion of his Connecticut estate classified as a farm. The director of "The Passion of the Christ" asked to have 17 of his 75.7 acres in Greenwich taxed as farmland. The town's assessor (and Forum on Geonomics member), Ted Gwartney, ruled that Mel's farm animals were for personal use, not for making money as a farmer, and rejected the request. If granted the exemption for owners of working farms, Gibson would have saved about $10,000 per year in property taxes on his $17.7 million estate. His annual property tax bill is about $137,000. Besides a 28-room mansion, pool, tennis court and two guesthouses, the property includes a barn where Gibson has kept sheep, donkeys, and possibly chickens. (AP, Jan 16, via The Georgist News of Forum member Hanno Beck; Hanno's site also hosts “Dr. Quiggly's Museum of Tax Oddities”, which Forbes magazine cited Feb 16.) Better than any loophole for anybody is to rebate a dividend. Mel would get his $10k per year that way, as would everyone else, but his land dues for his 75.7 acre spread would be a good 50% higher.

It's not really news, since the story comes out each year, albeit with different numbers. Here they are for recent years: during Bush's first term, 82 big corporations paid no income tax in one or more of those four years; indeed, many of them got money back – to the tune of almost $13 billion. (Citizens for Tax Justice, http://www.ctj.org/corpfed04pr.pdf) But why the outrage? If you don't want rich people to have the money, why give it to them in the first place? Fighting back after you grant your opponent all the advantages is a steep uphill battle, rarely won. It's like the tarantula, which has one mortal enemy, a huge wasp that stings it then lays her eggs in the paralyzed spider. Each species of this tarantula hawk prefers a certain species of the spider. It alights on a potential victim, explores the body to find out if it's the right kind. The tarantula permits all this fondling. If there's no match, the wasp flies off and keeps searching. If there is a match, the wasp attacks and the spider fights back, but by then it's too late; the battle always ends in the death of the tarantula. Yet not immediately; the wasp eggs eat all the insides but the heart until the end when they're ready to hatch and come out, predators for other tolerant tarantula prey, repeating the fatal drama over and over. History has not yet ended. And it won't until we forget about taxing thems that's gots and concentrate on collecting and sharing our common wealth before any insider has a chance to snatch it for themselves.

If it's always darkest before dawn, perhaps it's also brightest before dusk. Expecting prices for housing (actually, locations) to balloon out forever, more people jump in – just as the market begins to top out.

Students are signing up for courses in real estate finance and development and colleges are adding new programs. Ten years ago, about 30 colleges offered real estate degrees; now 62 do. Gerry Mildner, who spoke at the 1998 Geonomics Conference in Portland, set up the one at Portland State. By the time today's students graduate, their newly acquired skills may be in less demand. (The Christian Science Monitor, Jan 18)

With their eyes on the prize, builders started more homes than ever in January, mostly in the more affordable South. Nationwide, housing starts hit 2.159 million units in January, up 4.7% from a 2.063 million unit pace in December. The January total was the highest pace in 21 years, since 1984 when housing starts hit 2.260 million in February. (USA Today, Feb 16) But will builders get their asking price?

In 2004, US house (er, land) prices rose 13% in the year to Q3, leaping 42% in Nevada, 27% in California, and 23% in Washington DC. Over the last seven years on the coasts, prices gained 134% in California, 103% in Massachusetts, 92% in New Jersey, and 89% in New York. Yet inland, towns like Ellsworth, Kansas (pop 2,900) offer land free to anyone who agrees to build a home on it plus $1k for each kid in school (USA Today, Feb 9). Despite the rural affordability, the nationwide home site average price is up 65% since 1997.

Can the rise continue? In 2004, Americans bought more new homes than ever, 1.18 million, up 8.9% from 2003, the fourth straight annual record. But purchases in December barely budged, up only 0.1%, after a big drop the previous month, down 13.1% in November. It looks like sales have plateaued. Prices are next, followed by starts. Then, the deluge – in a couple years yet.

American workers again increased their productivity, this time 4.1% for 2004. During the last three years, worker efficiency climbed at the fastest pace in a half century. When employees produce more in the same amount of time, then employers can raise their wages. However, in the fourth quarter of last year, wages rose 0.7%, the smallest gain in almost six years, and behind inflation. The portion of the labor force that's working or seeking work, continuing a four-year trend, fell to 65.8% in January, the lowest since 1988.

Automation and globalization leave American workers little leverage. In its peak in the 1950s, organized labor represented 35% of all American workers. However over the past 4 1/2 years, America has trimmed off three million factory jobs, once a stronghold for unions. Hence the portion of all workers in unions dropped 300,000 down to 15.5 million, from 12.9% in 2003 to 12.5% in 2004. In Oregon, unionized workers fell from 15.7% all the way to 5.2%. While losing jobs, wages, and unions, workers might take a peek at an income apart from labor – a share of the rent for land.

Last year, Americans increased their spending by 4.4%. That rise in GDP exceeded the 3% growth of 2003 and marked the biggest gain since the 4.5% of 1999. Neither rising spending nor productivity has trickled down to greater prosperity and time off.

Most of those purchases were on credit. The four years to mid-2004, borrowers added to private debt $2.4 trillion per year. Loans let the Fed pump new money into the economy, too much of which inflates prices. So do Warren Buffett and foreigners trading in their dollars for Euros. In the fourth quarter, inflation rose 2.5%, nearly double the 3Q inflation rate of 1.3%.

Rising consumer prices with flat wages will stretch some homebuyers past the breaking point, into default. As bankruptcies pile up, it won't be easy for others to keep employed and in business. Many businesses needing cash in a hurry could raise the short-term bond rate over the long-term rate – a sure sign of recession around the corner (p 8).

This boom/bust cycle could be flattened into a climb/glide cycle. If we recovered and shared rents, we'd redirect investment from things not produced – like land – into things we must produce – like food, clothing, and shelter. Getting a share of recovered rents would keep the basic necessities always affordable.

Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of the Anglican Church of South Africa and a leader of the anti-apartheid movement in November in Johannesburg at the Nelson Mandela Foundation (via US BIG Newsletter): “We should discuss as a nation whether BIG (basic income grant) is not really a viable way forward… We cannot glibly on full stomachs speak about handouts to those who often go to bed hungry… It is cynical in the extreme to speak about handouts when people can become very rich at the stroke of a pen. If those are not massive handouts, what are?” BTW, Mandela also believes that “poverty is not natural; it is manmade and can be overcome and eradicated.” Sharing society's surplus would do that.

In The South African Star (Dec 10 via Mark Monson), Rev Dr Theo Simpson: “According to the government, the Basic Income Grant and a major shift in land ownership are both desirable but unaffordable. If land (rather than any developments of or on the land) were treated as ultimately the property of the whole community, on the lines proposed, for example, by the Henry George Foundation of America (and by African tradition), this would legitimize a land tax (or land rental) which could be used for a negative income tax scheme – a classic example of hitting two birds with one stone!”

San Diego Union-Tribune (Dec 12, via Bill Grennon): “Adam Werbach, 31, served as the Sierra Club's youngest president, in 1998-99. He is now the executive director of the Common Assets Defense Fund and a member of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. Werbach argues that environmentalism is endangered because the commons are threatened. By commons, he means the assets we inherit as a community, rather than as individuals. These assets include the atmosphere, oceans and rivers, our democratic political system, roads, wilderness, our financial systems, the Internet and more.” Leaves out “rent” – all the money we spend on the nature we use, profits without production – which is the scariest demand politically, but his list is a rookie's good start.

Many Zimbabweans are of Greek origin. In Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has confiscated farmland owned by whites and given it to certain blacks, a few high up in his party. The European Union extended sanctions against Mugabe and his government officials for their “Land Reform Program”. Greek Ambassador to Zimbabwe Dimitri Alexandrak: "Greece accepts the principle that land has to be fairly distributed" and will work hard to convince other countries in the EU to accept the Land Reform Program. (China View, Feb 28, via Mark Monson) Better to convince both sides to honor land titles yet recover and share land rents.

Green Euro-MP Caroline Lucas (their press release Jan 25, via The Georgist News): “Existing but empty homes should be brought back into use by implementing an effective empty homes policy, including scrapping Council Tax in favor of a Land Value Tax."

The Guardian's Polly Toynbee (Jan 26 via MM): “Social housing will be a place for none but the most helpless claimants and their ever-more-excluded children. This will cost a lot of money – but money is there for the taking from the huge unearned profits we homeowners have made: it is money taken straight out of the life chances of those who watched housing soar beyond their reach. Land-value taxation is part of the answer, taxing empty land the same as built-on land, forcing developers to release it fast for building.”

LinuxInsider's Paul Murphy, “Pricing an Imaginary IPO” (Dec 2 via Mark Monson): “The core idea here is that municipal land taxes should be based on the value of the land, not the value of the 'improvements' (mainly buildings) on it. The traditional system penalizes people who put up skyscrapers while rewarding those who hold parking or tenement lots downtown waiting for the price to rise while the land-value tax approach rewards builders and penalizes speculators. An acre in Manhattan is worth more, not because it will grow more crops or make a nicer park, but because society as a whole has decided to build a city around it. Land-value taxation is, therefore, held to be fairer than improvement taxation because it merely takes back for society part of the extra value society has created without any effort on the part of the taxpayer.”

Declaration of Buenos Aires: “Empower the role of land taxation in public finance to promote urban development.” (Lincoln Institute's Landlines, Jan)

In The Oregonian's My Turn (Feb 3), John F. Williams Jr, former mayor of Oregon City: “Ballot Measure 37 decrees property owners can collect for value lost by government regulations or actions, sometimes referred to as "takings." How about we also do the reverse, call it, say, Measure 73? Landowners would pay the government when regulations or actions increase the value of their property. Call it "givings." Henry George promoted a plan like this in his epic 'Progress and Poverty'".

Washington Business Journal (Nov 26 via Josh Vincent): “Robert Puentes, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, authored a report, 'Washington's Metro: Deficit by Design.' It's no secret that businesses have already benefited from situations such as joint development agreements (JDAs) around Metro stations. Puentes says Metro could consider instituting a land-value tax on projects around the train stations to recover some money from developers who cash in on property they own near transit centers.”

Australian Financial Review's Economics editor Alan Mitchell (Dec 8 via Anne O'Rourke): “Land tax has enormous potential, particularly if governments are willing to offer higher education contribution scheme-style loan arrangements so that people can put off paying the tax until their property is sold or transferred to a new owner.” Yet such deferments gum up the land market; they'd be obviated by rebating an equitable share of all the recovered rents from all sites and resources. Alan again (Jan 5): “Suggestions that Australian governments should reintroduce general wealth taxation will raise fears that people will react by investing their savings overseas. For that reason, it is likely that governments will turn back to one of the oldest forms of revenue raising: the taxation of the unimproved capital value of land. The Carr government's decision last year to broaden its land tax base could be the start of something very big.” BTW, Keith Mcilroy, Aussie Green, notes that their National Balance Sheet lists their land value as of 2002 June at $1.1 trillion and total income tax collected at $100 billion. So a 10% land tax would enable Aussies to wipe out their income taxes.

In The Los Angeles Times, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, writers for The Economist (Jan 10): “Alongside food products, textiles offer one of the best industries for the developing world; they account for half of Sri Lanka's exports, for example. But like agriculture, they are subject to heavy tariffs by Western countries. This suits American textile workers and the US Treasury (which picks up several billion dollars a year in tariffs). But it helps to keep countries like Sri Lanka mired in poverty.”

In The Arab News (Nov 8 via Mark Monson), Abdelmenem Jamil Addas, professor of financial markets at the College of Business Administration in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia gave the Georgist intro lesson of terminology and the argument against taxes: “Tho' the Saudi government is awash in revenue, owing to the high oil prices, it levies taxes: import's tariffs, the payroll taxes (10%) that go to GOSI (General Organization for Social Insurance), and high electricity and telecommunication charges. The government also restricts the business community. For GOSI, bureaucrats, not private investors, pick the corporate beneficiaries and, therefore, corporate losers. No firewall between the government the and pension manager is thick enough to forestall corruption.”

USA TODAY (Feb 6): “A corporate-welfare handout': Since its creation, the federal government's Advanced Technology Program – subsidies to corporations for cutting-edge, high-technology research – has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $2 billion. More than 40% of the money has gone to Fortune 500 companies such as IBM, General Electric, and General Motors, who could have afforded to finance the projects themselves. Federal spending last year was $412 billion more than federal tax revenue.”

The Oregonian ran National Review editor Rich Lowry (Feb 8): “Family farms aren't big enough to garner the largest subsidies and are squeezed by the way the federal payments increase land values and stimulate overproduction. The biggest farms receive 60% of the subsidies. The feds could guarantee every full-time farmer an income of $35,000 a year at a cost of 'merely' $4 billion. Subsidies now run roughly $15.7 billion annually. Roughly half of American agriculture – fruits, vegetables, nuts – is not subsidized and does fine. Welfare dependence is as bad in red states as it is in the blue.”

Another subsidy to target is war. For occupying Iraq, Halliburton won contracts without other companies being allowed to bid. Not satisfied, Dick Cheney's old company overcharged for gasoline, billed for meals they didn't serve soldiers, and lost (or resold?) millions of dollars of equipment. So far, the Bush buddies' company has gone over $10 billion in billing to the US taxpayer (Sacramento Bee, Dec 10). They talk about drafting labor – soliders – why not draft capital – the arms and equipment suppliers? Then the profiteers might not be so eager to push the public into war.

After Henry George, the Prophet of San Francisco and author of Progress & Poverty, died in 1897, some of his followers figured the political route to replacing taxes with the recovery of site rents would take too long if not forever. They tried other tactics that they thought would culminate with land rent reform, some of which are better known today. Early last century, some founded model colonies such as Free Acres NJ, Arden DE, and Fairhope AL. In Europe, bold men inspired by George launched other strategies. Ebenezer Howard, the father of town planning, founded the Garden Cities, which swept Europe; Letchworth still is a model. Silvio Gesell began local currencies. MacLaren founded Practical Philosophy, a teaching method now used by a chain of elementary schools around the world. And George Bernard Shaw and the Fabians founded the London School of Economics, Mick Jagger's old school.

Buddy Bill Batt on John Perkins' Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (2004). While earlier forms of empire relied upon military power, today US rulers use financial leverage. To help sell spendy projects such as electrification programs, hydroelectric and irrigation dams, and transportation infrastructure (in America it'd be sports stadiums) to leaders of poor nations, from 1971 to 1981 Perkins had the job of projecting return on investment. His projections – 15-20% of GNP – were fanciful, but his counterparts in countries such as Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Panama, and Iran lacked the expertise to judge them. When returns fell short, these nations fell in debt to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and others, while the US contractors – Bechtel, Brown and Root, and Halliburton among others – always got paid hundreds of millions. The general population remained impoverished, not the elite, who received loans and who owned land made more valuable by the new infrastructure. When the hard sale failed, assassinations of non-pliant leaders could follow. After they refused to accede to US demands, Omar Torrijos of Panama and Jaime Roldos of Ecuador died in untimely plane crashes. And when this proves unfeasible, the US has resorted to the near-obsolete practices of staged uprisings patterned after the overthrow of Iran's elected ruler Mossadegh or invasions such as the deposition of Iraq's Saddam Hussein. Perkins called this new way to rule “corporatocracy” after the biggest beneficiaries who drive it. For his role he was compensated well in money, travel, sex, and leisure. To atone for his complicity, he penned his confession.

Michael Kinsley, The Washington Post, Sunday Feb 27, via Mark Monson): “All the housing in the United States is worth about $14 trillion. If the value of existing housing (not counting new construction) goes up 7% this year, which is the recent national average, homeowners will seem to be about a trillion dollars richer. But will the nation be a trillion dollars richer? No. These are the same houses, in the same place. That trillion dollars comes partly from non-homeowners, who must pay more to buy in. And it is partly illusory. If many current homeowners tried to cash in, the drop in prices would quickly wipe out that trillion. The 19th-century American Henry George explained how rising real estate values harm the economy by operating as a tax on both labor and capital. Money for labor makes people work harder. Money for capital makes people save more. Both make the country richer. Money for land just makes the owner richer. And who really gains from soaring house prices? First-time buyers don't. Nor does anyone who plans ever to trade up. The only beneficiaries are those who are selling their last house, after a lifetime of appreciation. The bigger the house, the bigger the windfall.”

With housing, the other main asset is stocks. Tho' categorized separately, when companies own pricey locations their stock reflects the fact. Despite flat toys sales, the value of Toys R Us is buoyed by their prime sites; Las Vegas casino stocks in December hit new highs when land on The Strip was appraised between $15 - $20 million an acre. Back in April, well before the Christmas season run-up, Donald Trump sold his stake, missing out on $11 million; afterwards his casino company filed for bankruptcy (Monterey County Herald, Dec 29).

Bill Gross, manager of Pimco, the world's largest bond fund, criticized President Bush's plan to privatize part of Social Security. Gross called the argument about the solvency of Social Security "silly" and said Bush was avoiding more important issues, such as the budget deficit that grew to $164.7 billion in the third quarter of 2004, a new record. The president's argument for individual retirement accounts is meant "to promote an agenda that has little to do with seniors and more to do with Bush. Without a blockbuster of a program in his second term, it is unlikely that Bush can go very far in the history books on the back of a paltry 3% or 4% point tax cut for the rich." Gross argued that it will take more than individual Social Security accounts to correct a projected shortfall and suggested the government should focus on cutting the budget deficit instead. By spending within its budget, government reduces its debt – other's claims on public revenue – making more, in theory, available to senior citizens. (CNN/Money, Feb 4)

What's the down side? Making savings tax-free can't help people living hand-to-mouth. To pay dividends, savings depend on business booming, which over 40 years should work out, but not all investments will make it. Rooting for their own makes participants dependent on and less critical of the current system. And it depends on growth, which may not be sustainable. Rather than accept inflation as natural and inevitable, we could unmask the constantly falling cost of living, so that ordinary savings can go much further, so the workweek can shrink, so younger people will have any easier time of fulfilling their responsibilities to their elders.

The bubble's best indicator

John Mauldin for The Daily Reckoning, Dec 22: “In 1996, the New York Federal Reserve did a study on what indicators were the most reliable predictors of a recession. The only one of six indicators that was significantly reliable was an inverted yield curve, when short-term bond yields rise above long-term bond yields. Normally, bond sellers must peg up their long-term rates, since investors want to be compensated for waiting longer to cash in; short-term bonds, involving less risk, they can sell at a lower yield. The New York Fed later did a private study with over 20 factors and still the only dependable indicator was the inverted yield curve. In America, every time the yield curve was inverted or negative for 90 days, we got a recession in about 12 months. In August of 2000, the yield curve went negative and in 2001 our growth rate did, too. In a recession the stock market loses an average of 43%. While in America the yield curve is not now signaling a recession, across the pond in England it may be, which may be a precursor to problems in the US. The UK economy seems sound: unemployment is 2.7%; inflation, tho' rising, is still under 2%. Wages rose by 4.4% in the three months through October, the highest rise in several years. Housing rose 12.5% year over year in November, altho' only 0.2% in the last month, and household debt is 140%, which is above US levels. As recently as six months ago, the yield curve was not inverted in England.” Given our rising debt and leveling off housing, in six, twelve, or eighteen months maybe the bond yields will flip-flop here.

In 2001, America's economy was not ready to implode. (It was only two thirds of the way thru its land-price cycle.) To make sure the collapse did not arrive early, the US Federal Reserve and US Federal Government pitched in with cuts in interest rates and massive deficit spending. Both moves infused investors with surplus cash. Thus housing starts only ticked down briefly then went on to beat past peaks. So did home sales. So did housing prices (actually, prices for land). Real Estate Investment Trusts last year went up over 30%. Their five-year average, 21.6%, beats all other stock market sectors. Last year mutual funds in natural resources like oil nearly nicked 30%.

However, so far this year REITs have slipped more than 3%; in coming years, they should keep sliding. Easy money pushes up all prices so the once provident central bank raises its rates and lenders keep pace with higher mortgage rates, which whittles down the yield from real estate. Fewer people jump in; at last, housing (land) prices will tumble (starting around, I expect, 2007. Since jobs are scarce and income low, the correction will be in the 20%-25% range.) In the early 1990s in California, home (site) prices fell 10% in nominal terms, a 24% decline in real terms. In Japan from 1995 to the end of 2004, the general price level has fallen a cumulative 10%. Many people will find the value of their house falling below the outstanding on their mortgage.

Since investment in new homes accounts for about 5% of GDP, a drop in housing starts could cut GDP by 1-2%. Prices will fall until sites become affordable again. They won't return to their peak levels for 15 years or more (“more” keeps the 18-year historical average of Homer Hoyt). (John Calverley's “The Spectre of Deflation”, Dec 22 via Ben Sevack)

Stephen Porter, Washington insurance agent (Feb 3): “Toni McKinley is Legislative Director for the Washington State Grange. Can you respond to her query about Measure 37: 'how would geonomics fit into Oregon's Measure 37 issue? There has been a lot of discussion here in Washington about that.'”

Editor: Oregon voters last election passed Measure 37 which expands the constitutional safeguard of compensation for "takings". Now, if a landowner loses not even actual value but prospective value from a government ruling like zoning or no dumping, the effected landowner can demand and expect compensation. The first big case is now being heard. To avoid going bankrupt, state and local governments will simply quit issuing rulings to protect nature if they conflict with any landowner's economic interest.

The majority of voters had decided that a few landowners should not be singled out to bear the cost of preserving nature. Yet not only are there "takings", but there's also "givings". When government performs its functions well, it raises land value; good schools, police, fire protection, a freeway off-ramp give nearby landowners a windfall. Land value is generated not by anything any owner has done, but by what society has done – even just be there. Indeed, population density (which individual can claim to cause that?) is the strongest factor behind land value and correlates most closely – high density, high land value.

Since land value is a social phenomenon (location, location, location), society should recover it and not tax those values that individuals do generate, like the values of buildings and businesses. If states and localities were to recover "rents" (what economists call land value), they could afford to forgo other taxes and still have enough money leftover to compensate any landowner unfairly affected by environmental rulings. Further, collecting land value increases land value. That is, when owners have to pay a land tax (and not other taxes), they put their land to its optimal use, which means more well-sited development, in-fill of cities, less sprawl, shorter travel times, more jobs, more investment, etc, all of which leads to higher regional land values. At least that's been the experience of every jurisdiction that has shifted its property tax from buildings to land.

Aimee Dunn, Michigan Green (Feb 2): “People should not have to pay taxes for their home site as this is a basic right and not something that they are depriving others of.”

Editor: it is a basic right – of all of us. And the site we have a right to can change thru time. When any of us occupies a space, we preclude others from occupying it, too. So, when more than one person claim the same site, how to settle the matter? Let it go to the highest bidder, and to compensate those excluded from that site, let that bid go to all residents. Receiving your share of all the recovered bids, probably way out in the sticks you could always outbid anyone. And in the rare cases when you can't and move on, at least you'll have your dividend and can move to where few others are and dues are low, even zero if the area is desolate enough. Plus, you'll have done your duty. Rights and responsibilities are two sides of the same coin. We have a right to some nature and the obligation to compensate those whom we exclude.

AD: “The most major obstacle to owning land sufficient enough to make a homestead are unreasonably high property values.”

Editor: The value is not in the property but in the location, usually due to being close to a city, and it's not unreasonable; the reason is quite clear. Demand up, from population growth, and supply down, from speculation and, as Will Rogers noted, nobody making any more of the stuff. Because we don't levy land dues, we let land prices go ballistic. If we did recover and share land rents, not only would the land dues drive down land price but you'd have a dividend with which to pay your lowered dues.

John A. Sorrentino, Temple U (Dec 21): “Please explain why taking the taxes off of buildings, tractors, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides would induce farmers to use LESS of them? This makes them CHEAPER, suggesting increased use, ceteris paribus. Conversely, in the urban context, I often read that taxing land and not improvements causes greater improvements. Is this not true in the farm context?”

Editor: Removing taxes might make those things cheaper, were they're not already tax-exempt; most farm states already exempt farming chemicals. Zero taxes – and so zero tax-exemptions – would put the old way of chemical spray on a more even footing with organic. To further reduce the tilt in the playing field, not only should the county collect rent on an ongoing basis (as by taxing land) but also get and keep some rent up front; that is, require farmers to set aside Ecology Security Deposits and purchase Restoration Insurance, whose costs would be higher for those harming the soil and lower for organic farmers. Land taxes/dues deflate land price, so newcomers – who might be more open to the new/old organic ways – can afford fields. Last but far from least, subsidies favor mechanical agri-business. So lose them in favor of the general Citizens Dividend.

Linda Cree, Michigan Green (Feb 3): “Don't the 'land dues' build in an incentive for over-development and a disincentive for open space?"

Editor: They build in an incentive for both, that is, for optimal use of land. Once owners of downtown lots build high-rises, they absorb enough demand so one can't build a high-rise away from the center and make any money, leaving suburban green space open. Plus, land dues drive down land price, making it affordable for nature lovers to buy and set aside pristine sites as parks.

Philippe de Rougemont, Quebecois essayist (Jan 5): “Can an intelligent fiscal policy avoid the drive to over-consumption that the citizens allocation provides?”

Editor: First, the Citizens Dividend might not increase buying power. People might just work less, so they wouldn't increase their discretionary income.

Second, as long as we keep people mired in the identity of worker, it's only fair that we let them reward themselves as consumer. Since getting a CD weakens the identity of worker, it lets people develop a new identity, one of player, of nurturer, of roles not defined by material possessions.

PhdR: “How should geonomics evolve to face the sustainability challenge?”

Editor: First, by helping people prosper, geonomics lowers the human birth rate. Second, by making cars (drivers) pay for the land they take – roads, parking spaces – geonomics eases people from driving to riding and walking, which shrinks the human footprint (which is really a tire track) on the global ecosystem.

Anonymous (Jan 10): “There is a real problem with an underclass, supported by government, with little interest in education or personal responsibility. Lots of people who are dependent on welfare are drug addicts uninterested in upward mobility. They tend to have children outside of stable relationships. And they often don't care for them or make wise decisions. Above all, these are people who don't know how to live or manage money. While there are many wealthy people who are similarly disinterested in work and drug addicted, they tend to be educated, willing to support their children, and manage their money better.”

Radu Seserman, NJ restauranteur (Feb 23): “I consider the Citizens' Dividend a very poor idea especially because the recipients lose motivation.”

Editor: Motivation to do what? Most creative people can't stop themselves, whether they ever make any money or not. As for the chronically un-motivated, at least they would be able to keep out of crime and welfare offices and everybody else's way. Rather than confront these problems directly, address the context. Morality is a function of community (of relationships, reputations, etc). So, how do we strengthen community? In large part, by strengthening the economy; spreading prosperity resolves much of what addles people. How best to spread prosperity? By replacing taxes with land dues and subsidies with a Citizens Dividend. Ethically, the rent does not belong to moralists. It's public property. People have more right to misspend it than do present recipients.

Anonymous (Jan 10): “What you mean by 'no one can labor enough to get that rich'.”

Editor: One can't amass billions by the sweat of their brow but by investing ahead of the curve, or by inventing and being lucky, or, usually, by winning privileges from the state and corralling extra large helpings of our common wealth. Were we all to recover and share this flow of trillions, that'd keep fortunes earned and human-scale.

In December, Aussie Green Party leader, law professor, and trade treaty negotiator Anne O'Rourke and myself toured California. A program producer for an LA radio station, KPFK, and a program producer for a Carmel community TV station taped our talks for future broadcast. Copies, anyone? Philippe de Rougemont, free lance journalist in Quebec (Jan 2): “I have spent the last hour reading about geonomics on the web. I'd like to get news editors interested in an article on the subject and I'm preparing the ground.”

One California host of us itinerant geonomists, Joan Moylan, director of the Henry George School of Sacramento, not only sent a nice thank you note but another donation. The donations and hospitality extended our way by Greens in San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Riverside, San Diego, Los Angeles, and Carmel was amazingly thoughtful and generous. My one wish is they all return the favor by being our guest in Oregon.

On February 14, EcoTrust, with offices in San Francisco and Portland, hosted a brown bag talk in their efficiently renovated building near Portland's Pearl District by Matt Harris, in town to do research for a West Coast bank on modeling land values, and yours truly. Thanks to EcoTrust's Howard Silverman for putting out hundreds of announcements and putting up with us. He writes wonderfully, and about the commons, too.

Dr. Ralph H. Lutts, Coordinator, IMA Concentration in Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies, Goddard College, Feb 20): “Goddard College has created a link to your web site. We request that you link back to us, if this seems appropriate. We have created an environmental and sustainability studies resources site named 'George' (after George Perkins Marsh). It contains a wealth of web links and bibliographies that span the diverse approaches to environmental studies. While 'George" was created as a resource for students in our Individualized MA program's concentration in Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies, we think this page will also be a valuable resource to the larger community.”

John Watkins, editor of Simple Solutions (johnw@simsoc.org, Jan 5): “The following was stimulated by an item in your newsletter: 'Iraq and Simpler Solutions' – Pennsylvania governor, Ed Rendell, is one among many who have suggested that one of the solutions to the Iraq insurgency is to give every citizen a monthly royalty based on the extraction of oil from their country. (Simple Solutions, Jan 8)”

Miles Michael (Feb 18): “Since Dr. Smith's statement arrived a day early, you may have missed it. It's well worth reading in detail because it's an idea that can go a long way toward giving everyone the resources they need to take advantage of opportunities that might otherwise be unavailable. I particularly like the way it simplifies the whole life pattern for everyone and makes life less expensive.”

Editor: Kind words. Except, I've made many mistakes in life but becoming a doctor of economics was not one of them. Always a geonomist. Yet as Kuhn said, paradigms shift from the outside. Look out, economists!

Leslie Parrish, Asset Building Program, New America Foundation, ex-urban planner, Alexandria VA (Feb 20): "Another posting mentioned the Citizens Dividend. I think this is very compelling and reminds me of a similar proposal that would increase the wealth of citizens while curbing greenhouse gas emissions, called the Sky Trust. Sen. McCain and Sen. Lieberman have introduced a similar idea in Congress.” And:

Stephen Bezruchka MD, MPH, Department of Health Services, and School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of Washington, in his evaluation of the forum (Feb 26) echoed

Paul Wildman, Aussie caring for kids and adults in the 21st century (Feb 27): “Geonomy is a top outcome for me of the panel. That we must redouble our efforts to highlight society's surplus and our obligation to share it is in my view a defensible position and one that the Forum shifted my views on. Thanks.”

Gary Flo, VP, Forum on Geonomics (Dec 2): “The class I taught finished the recommendations for Green tax shift for Vermont, at uvm.edu/~gflomenh/GRN-TAX-VT-PA395/ There are two pie charts showing different land value tax rates and a spreadsheet. It includes a recommendation for 100% LVT at 9.6% within urban growth boundaries (not on spreadsheet) and overall switch from 2/3 tax on buildings to 2/3 tax on land (pages 2004PR-revg). Our basic plan is about 3% LVT, but in different zones, and other green taxes. A $300/ton carbon tax and few others offset fed payroll tax. These taxes would raise the entire instate revenue of $2.1B raised in Vermont. There is a PPT on the Vermont common assets fund. Numbers are very preliminary, not well researched, just to give the idea.”

Steven Cord, emeritus Penn State at Indiana (Feb 21): “At the Eastern Economics Association annual conference, I intend to argue strenuously for the Citizens' Dividend and show how it is possible now. I think the Single Tax on land obviates any need for socialism.”

Guy McLendon, Democratic Party activist in the Freedom Caucus (Feb 21): “The LVT discussions on DFC group have convinced me that taxation of land is one of the most legitimate basis for taxation ... basically ... land value property tax. So, please give me a brownie point for having moved in your direction.”

Big thanks to all for re/joining, donating, and granting: the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, the Henry George School of New York, double stalwarts Everett Gross, Mel Leasure, stalwarts Lowell Harriss, Gerry & Gaye Shaw, sustainers Hanno Beck, Richard Biddle, supporters Ed Clarke, retired of the OMB (“keep up the great work”), Paul Justus, Chuck Metcalf, John Morales, Jr, Mary Rawson, Greg Young, and subscriber Joan Moylen. If you don't see your name above and know it belongs there, just send a check. We'll know what to do with it.

The Fourth Congress of the USBIG Network, March in New York City, has 78 confirmed participants, making it 50% larger than last year and the largest one to date. Stanley Aronowitz, author of The Jobless Future, and Frances Fox Piven, author of Regulating the Poor and Poor Peoples' Movements, agreed to speak. Friday night at the Sheraton Hotel and Towers is a public event. Saturday night is reception and a dinner outing. Sunday is a tour of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum to examine poverty in the 1870s and the 1930s and lunch at Katz's Deli, a landmark restaurant.

In Portland in April near Tax Day and Earth Day, buddy David Burdick wants his students at Mt Hood CC to hear how geonomics can be the software for sustaining civilization (the good parts). In May at Village Building Convergence 5, which draws hundreds of young idealists from all over America to paint suns on intersections and build cob public saunas, founded by Mark Lakeman: “We are very excited to work with you on this idea and see it happen. I'm going to give your RFP to the workshop coordinator for them to put it into the schedule. I think that this is a wonderful idea and it can teach many people a few things.”

Mike Feinstein, recent mayor of Santa Monica (Jan 3): “Good to see you. I would like you to meet Kelly Hayes Raitt, Santa Monican running for state assembly in 2006. We talked about Georgian land taxes, etc. I don't know when you will be down here next, but you should get together with her and talk more about how it might be part of a California state tax reform approach or you might email or call her sometime. I am copying her contact info her.”

Isabel de la Torre, Coordinator, 3rd Biennial Conference, US Society for Ecological Economics, July 20-23, Tacoma Convention Center (Jan 27): “Hi Jeff. Thanks for submitting your abstract, 'Who Gets Rent Determines How Green Your Economy'. Do you want to organize a session on a topic of your choice? I presume you might have colleagues who'll be interested in participating in the conference, especially when you organize it along common areas of interest.”

Another huge project is compiling and editing the college textbook on geonomics for the publisher, Elgar, Inc, of the UK. They sell thousands there, here, and in India and China, the next two super economies. If their policy makers coming into power were to remember ours as their favorite college text, how fundamentally differently will those giant economies develop.

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.

Art Goodtimes, Green Party County Commissioner, San Miguel County, Colorado, poet, and potato farmer, who studied to be a Roman Catholic priest for 7 years (Jan 3): “the word geonomics makes a lot of sense right from the get go. I hope I can learn more about it in the coming years.” (Dec 27): “the more you write, the better I like it. I don't quite understand geonomics, but I found your website, and will try and learn more. Do you give workshops?” JS: Sure do.

Frank de Jong, leader, Green Party of Ontario, candidate for Canada's parliament (Dec 1): “Jeff, you are a huge inspiration to me. Thanx so much!!! Do you have an electronic version of 'The Citizen's Dividend' that was printed in the most recent GroundSwell? Could you e-mail it to me?” JS: On its way. Anyone else?

Tom Bolema, Green Party California (Dec 1): “Jeff, can you instruct what exact steps need to be taken by the party to affect these changes? What happens first – change the tax code? How is it done? By initiative, through the legislature?” JS: That's it!

Jenson Hagen, Young Democrats of Oregon Chair (Dec 30): “I like your ideas, but we need to turn the volume up in this state. I'm starting to bring people together that have educated voices, but only minor opportunities to speak. We are going to fight the good fight together and we are going to fight with a plan. I worked in public accounting for three years before getting my masters in business. Now, I'm ready to strike back at a system that I had to deal with and that is going to get worse if we don't do something. Let me know if you want on board. I'd be happy to invite you in.”

Chuck Metcalf, San Franciscan jazz bassist, occasional architect (Dec 11): “I enjoy the Geonomist newsletter; I read it cover to cover. And hereby renew.”

Mary Rawson, retired Canadian transportation planner (Jan 14): “Your energy, creativity, and persuasiveness shine thru these pages. To keep it going, here's help; it's a fine smorgasbord of fact and opinion.”

Paul Justus, Arkansas planner (Feb 10): “We need a long range plan. I appreciate your article on Peak Oil. I just established another link to the Forum on Geonomics on my front page. I would like to redo (but not plagiarize!) the Canadian Green Economics Primer to fit a new Blue, Red, Green Alliance. It would have your Citizen's Dividend (which I believe is crucial to making progress on the Tax Shift). Thanks for all your work and for the Geonomist. I wish I could donate more.”

Gerry Shaw, retired Canadian oilman (Jan 30): “As usual much enjoyed your latest Geonomist. Yes, Lakoff's book could help many see why the frame of George's remedy is counter-productive today. Without using the T word we can discuss recovering rents. And rather than 'landowner', titleholder might be best. About your textbook, I might be able to make some helpful suggestions. Hang in there; we all need your inspiration! Here's a bit to help.”

Editor: Welcome to the textbook editorial team and thanks for your very generous bit. Any other wanna-be editors and other contributors out there? Where society jumped the track is at economics. Win geonomics, so sharing society's surplus is the norm, and make the world work right for everyone. Join us. Merry Equinox.

THE GEONOMIST

Vol. 13, No. 4
Editor: Jeffery Johnson Smith

THE GEONOMIST

Vol. 13, No. 4 Editor: Jeffery Johnson Smith

Vol. 13, No. 4
Editor: Jeffery Johnson Smith