The Geonomist Volume Fourteen Issue Four

Geonomics is …
according to Dr. John A. Sorrentino, econ prof at Temple U (Mar 7), the study of the value of the earth's locations, its non-living resources (e.g., oil), and its life forms (e.g., food) as we pass them thru the cycles of production, consumption, and disposal while they drive the accumulation of wealth over time. It differs from conventional economics in that it recognizes that not just labor and capital but also social synergy generates an enormous amount of economic value, such as the progress in computer technology pumping up the value of land in Silicon Valley. As people compete to lap up this spill over effect, by lobbying for subsidies and tax breaks, that's the political economy in action.

Scott Roots, Oregon electrical engineer (Feb 12): “Have you ever studied the TAO? The prospect of stepping beyond the knowledge of good and evil and focus the attention squarely on the rights of Life? Geonomics is precisely that - it focuses on the rights of humanity within Life.”

In Connecticut, House Bill 5038 would empower the state's decaying cities to shift their property tax off buildings, where the levy breeds slums, onto land, which would spur speculators into rational developers. The Joint Planning and Development Com't favored the bill 16-0-2, better than last year, sending it out on both floors of the Legislature. Legislative Services staff led by John Rappa, articulated the fiscal notes and bill analysis. Against paying site rent are the Connecticut Business and Industrial Association, perhaps the Realtors, and the state's Planners, who elsewhere support public recovery of site values, since it motivates owners to use land more efficiently. Supporting the bill are the state's Municipalities and their Home Builders Assoc. (April 4)

Maryland, too, for the third year in a row, has a bill to levy land value. This year's version would empower the City of Baltimore to shift its property tax. The lead sponsor is Delegate Clarence Davis, taking over for Delegate Mike Gordon, who remains an advocate yet has a pressing priority. Delegate Davis learned about the benefits of sharing land value while exempting real enterprise from taxation over 40 years ago and had been waiting ever since to put the reform into practice. Putting the vacant lots and abandoned buildings in their neighborhood to good use will generate jobs and circulate wages. Mayor Martin O'Malley renewed his interest in this tax shift. The Chair of the Baltimore Delegation, Salima Siler Marriott, requested a presentation to her entire delegation. If both the mayor and the delegation endorse the bill, it could sail thru the rest of the legislature. (via Joshua Vincent)

People, being human after all, think of labor and capital but forget about nonhuman land, consider manufacturing and employing but dismiss resources in their natural state, regard rich and poor but overlook how locations absorb wealth. For example, one of the world's biggest companies, GE, makes useful things like appliances and bombs, right? Yes, but one of their fastest-growing businesses is its real estate group, with $48 billion in assets and more than $1 billion in profits last year. They raked in most of that rent in Europe and Asia but last December bought Arden Realty for $3.2 billion. Arden (coincidentally the name of one of the three Georgist colonies in America, the one in Delaware) is the largest publicly traded office landlord in Southern California. (The Oregonian, Dec 23) There's more to money than who's got it and who needs it. There's also the phenomenon, nearly invisible to the naked eye, that money is as easy prey to land as spawning salmon are to bears in shallow rivers. But once you see the role of “rent” in human affairs, you can never again fog your vision. Whenever somebody defends property – not noticing the difference between human-made buildings and God-given land – you cringe. When the more powerful trample on many minions too busy to notice how the world really works – you cry. So with every step forward – in legislatures, in the media – you give thanks and feel hope for your species and its planet.

This spring issue, due to a move (see new address below), is a month late and a couple pages extra long. So it has a broader picture on the business cycle, confirming what we've been expecting all along.

Back on November 23, the French Sénate adopted a mechanism for sharing land value between landowners and the communes in which they own land. When local government classifies a site buildable, naturally the parcel appreciates. This appreciation can go from 1 to 100; site value itself results largely from the public infrastructure financed by the communal (local) budget. The new amendment provides mayors, if they choose to use it, with a levy of 6% on the selling price at the first transfer of the land after being classified. (via Dave Wetzel, last Dec 21) Of course, recovering the value of land all along would be better than doing just when the land sells. Coupled with eliminating other taxes, it'd be easily affordable. Plus, it'd stimulate such efficient use of land that zoning – and the appreciation from re-zoning – might not even be needed or wanted.

Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba met representatives of the Basic Income Grant (BIG) Coalition at State House. The Coalition lobbies for an unconditional N$100 minimum grant to every Namibian not yet eligible for a Government pension. The President met the head of the delegation, Bishop Zephania Kameeta, BIG coordinator Reverend Philip Strydom, Legal Assistance Centre (LAC) Director Norman Tjombe, and academic researcher Reverend Dirk Haarman. After asking very frank questions, President Pohamba did not commit himself to introducing BIG but did promise to take the matter up with Cabinet and to stay in communication. The idea for a Namibian basic income started in 2002, when Government's Namibian Tax Consortium (Namtax) stated that it found the best method of addressing poverty and inequality to be a universal income grant. The grant would retrieve the money from those not in need, through progressive income taxation. Last year, BIG Coalition representatives met the then Speaker of the National Assembly, Theo-Ben Gurirab, and the Parliamentary Committee on Human Resources, Social and Community Development. Both entities were supportive of the idea. (US BIG Newsletter, Jan/Feb)

While China takes a few huge steps backward, it also inches forward. First, the bad news: Corrupt local officials seize land without giving adequate compensation to villagers. They and their cronies grow rich while the rest of the vast populace watches the country's economic boom pass them by. Last year saw 87,000 public disturbances, a rise of more than 6% on 2004. The disturbances include mass protests, public disorder, mob gatherings, obstruction of justice, fighting, and troublemaking. In the Guangdong province, police beat demonstrators. In Dongzhou village, paramilitary forces working for the new landed elite opened fire on protesters, killing three people according to official accounts, and as many as 30 according to villagers. (BBC News, Jan 19) Now the goodish news. The phenomenal growth of China's private-car economy is straining fuel resources and increasing air pollution. And their disposable chopsticks claim 25 million full-grown trees per year. So China announced an array of new taxes on diverse goods – from throwaway chopsticks to golf balls to SUVs – to take effect on April 1. (The Independent, Mar 23, via Kris Nelson) May those downstream charges also pave the way for some upstream, such as charges on sites and resources, so producers would reduce thru-put and developers would use land, including forests, efficiently. And as reader Jon Dame notes, “the citizen's dividend, coupled with land dues, would automatically capture and evenly distribute the increased land values from environmental improvements, dulling any possible regressive tendency of environmental protection.”

The American mining company Freeport-McMoRan from 1998 through 2004 paid nearly $20 million directly into the personal bank accounts of a number of individual Indonesian Army officers. Not only is the Indonesian military corrupt, it also violates the human rights of Indonesian citizens. Some bribes amounted to over $100,000 in a year in a country where a general's annual salary is less than $10,000. Freeport's bribery undermines the efforts of the Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who is trying to clean up the army. In Indonesia's remote Papua Province, Freeport runs the world's largest gold mine. Its mining operations will generate some six billion tons of waste in Papua before they are through, much of it dumped directly into what was once a pristine river system. Its waste disposal method, the company says, has been approved by provincial authorities. With gold prices recently surging to a 25-year high of more nearly $600 an ounce, Freeport's profits had more than doubled 2005 Q4. Freeport says the payments were "ordinary business activities as reimbursement for security services; critics ignored the practicalities of conducting business in a remote area.”

(NYTimes, January 28 via Heather Remoff) Elsewhere, it's just the opposite; the US Army pays the private corporation, Halliburton, billions, plus an extra quarter billion for which auditors could find no justification (Oregonian, Feb 27). War might be risky for soldiers but it sure is safe for investors.

Ocean coral is under threats both global and local. Globally, as humans burn fossil fuels, putting more carbon in the air, then more carbon dioxide dissolves in the water; that makes more carbonic acid, and the seas too acidic for coral. (Scienceagogo, Feb 26). Locally, people's pollution and overfishing harm coral reefs and mangroves. Yet both are worth protecting for, if no other reason, economics; they contribute as much as $1m per sq km to tropical economies: to their fishing, tourism, and coastal protection. Coral and mangrove ecosystems act as fish nurseries and prevent waves from washing sand off beaches. Yet reefs are quarried for building material, resulting in the need for ugly concrete breakwaters to protect the remaining beach. Hence climate change, pollution, and insensitive development are not only damaging ecosystems but undermining the economic basis for coastal communities worldwide. Beyond economies, intact mangroves also protected areas of coastline during the 2004 Asian tsunami, reducing the death toll. (BBC News, Jan 25) The conflict is not between economy and ecology but between the mindset of exploiting the planet vs. the worldview of stewarding Earth. We'd do a better job of stewardship if we were to be as generous with each other, sharing natural values, as Mother Nature has been with us.

Virtually all indicators of the likely future for the diversity of life on Earth are heading in the wrong direction. The rates of species extinctions have surged to their highest levels since the demise of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Bird variety is on the decline in every ecosystem type from the oceans to the forests. Forests continue to be lost, mainly to the expansion of agriculture, at a rate of six million hectares a year; that's about four times the size of the English county of Yorkshire. Similarly withering away are marine and coastal ecosystems such as coral reefs, kelp beds, and mangrove forests, due in part to the build-up of nutrients through chemical fertilizers, sewage, and air pollution. We both spew and chew; with our pollution is our depletion. Humans harvest fish faster than their natural replacement rate and withdraw water faster than aquifers are replenished. The biosphere takes one year and nearly three months to renew what humanity exploits in one year. These trends are worsening, so the effort to reverse them must become much more popular and effective. (BBC News, Mar 20) Wanna-be defenders might rally more support by making clear that sparing Earth does not require sacrifice of material welfare but takes midwifing into practice basic economic justice.

Goldman Sachs, a lender worth $60 billion, deeded land in Tierra del Fuego, Chile – a wild, 680,000 acre island on the far tip of South America that's home to old-growth beech forests and a unique network of peat bogs, an area about a third the size of Yellowstone – to the Wildlife Conservation Society in trust to the people of Chile. The grant exemplifies the lender's new environmental policy. More than just vow to use more recycled paper in their offices, Goldman Sachs also promises to reject projects in World Heritage sites or projects that violate the environmental laws of the host country, and to, among other promises, make $1 billion available for investments in renewable energy. (EnviroHealth, AlterNet, Jan 3) May the ever-more popular concern for sparing nature soon translate into a compelling concern for sharing nature by sharing her economic value, all the money we spend on the nature – all sites, resources, ecosystem services, and EM spectrum – that we use.

The reason people sign a lease is to get the agreed amount to pay in writing. Yet for two years, the US left out that crucial part of over 1100 of their leases of natural resources. For 1998 and 1999, the corporations who extracted oil and gas from public lands did so without paying the public one penny, thanks to Department of Interior leases. Many such leases are likely to remain in effect until 2091, so the government will be unable to collect royalties from those oil and gas leaseholders for nearly a century. The error has already cost the government hundreds of millions of dollars; the likely future losses are in the billions. (via the Progress Report)

The federal government collected little more money last year than it did five years ago from the companies that extracted more than $60 billion in oil and gas from publicly owned lands and coastal waters. About one-quarter of all oil and gas produced in the United States comes from federal lands and federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico. Royalties are usually 12% to 16% of the value of what companies sell. Federal regulations, shaped and defended by the energy industry itself, allowed companies to provide the government with lower sale prices than they reported to their shareholders. Under W, the Interior Department has scaled back on full audits, pushed out a couple of its more aggressive auditors, and been criticized by its own inspector general for the audits that it did pursue. (New York Times, January 23 via Heather Remoff)

The government does not disclose how much individual companies benefit from its incentives, and most companies refuse to disclose either how much they pay in royalties or how much they are allowed to avoid. But based on figures buried in the budget of the Department of Interior, the government will let companies pump about $65 billion worth of oil and natural gas from federal territory over the next five years without paying any royalties to the government. If the price of oil hovers around $50 per barrel between now and 2011, the government will give up more than $7 billion in payments; at $70 per barrel, it'll give about $10 billion. Such soft bargaining became law ten years ago when oil was half its current price and Congress granted oil companies, even then quite rich, royalty relief. That same relief remains in effect when oil is nearly $70 a barrel and one company, Exxon, exceeded $10 billion dollar in earnings in one quarter, 2005 Q4. Still not satisfied, on behalf of the entire industry Kerr-McGee launched a test case in court that could, if it succeeds, cost the government another $28 billion in royalties over the next five years. (Oregonian, Mar 2)

Buried in the federal budget bill is not an expenditure, so it does not belong there; it's a tax break, so it belongs nowhere. It's a tax credit for synfuel. Since only rich oil and coal companies dicker around with pretending to turn coal into oil, they get the billion dollar break, whether they ever succeed or not. From 2003 thru 205, they steered $9 billion thru the tax loophole. (The Oregonian, Mar 28)

And they'll keep trying to take the value of all the nature we use as long as Americans know more about The Simpsons than they do about their Constitutional rights (USA Today, Mar 1). A critical mass must realize that the value of nature belongs to all of us. Then insist that everyone receive a fair share.

Unsafe conditions have killed 19 miners this year. The Sago Mine disaster Jan 2 in West Virginia accounted for 12 deaths. Yet coal companies pay some of the smallest fines of any industry for federal violations. The federal government levied a larger fine — $550,000 — for the 2004 Super Bowl showing of Janet Jackson's breast than it did for the 2001 deaths of 13 Alabama miners in one of the deadliest mine disasters in a quarter-century. And the $435,000 fine against mine operator Jim Walter Resources was cut by a judge to $3,000. Federal rules require mining fines to be cut by 30% if corporations correct conditions that should not have existed in the first place. Mining fines are particularly small compared with recent record profits in the coal industry. The 10 largest publicly held coal companies reported combined profits of $2.4 billion last year on $24 billion in sales. Federal law limits fines to $60,000 for each violation of a mine health and safety standard. The Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Securities and Exchange Commission can all levy fines of $1 million or more for a single violation. (USA Today, Feb 10)

In 1950, driving a car 10,000 miles annually cost 9 cents a mile, and gas sold for 27 cents per gallon. In 2005, driving a medium-size sedan 15,000 miles cost 52.2 cents a mile or $7,830 a year. The biggest costs are depreciation at $3,392/yr, insurance at $926/yr, finance charges at $716/yr, maintenance at $552/yr, license, registration, and taxes at $535/yr, and tires at $105. Driving a Toyota Corolla at 41.7¢ saves $1,575 a year; a Ford Explorer at 65.4¢ costs $2000 extra per year. Since the December survey, gas has increased 30¢ per gallon, so alternatives to driving are cheaper still. (The Oregonian, Apr 9) Left out was the cost of time lost, stuck in traffic. With fuel, another cost that should keep going up are taxes and fees, making drivers pay all the costs of streets, highway patrols, and collision response. And drivers still get away with smogging up the air for free, which the American Lung Association says is tens of billions of dollars a year in medical bills. Add those costs to the fill-up at the pump – not to mention the heavy price tag for defending “our oil” in Muslim lands – and tooling around suburbia won't seem like such a free ride. Bikes and car libraries will look much better.

To settle state and federal fraud probes, insurance giant American International Group agreed to pay $1.64 billion in fines and restitution, twice the highest penalty previously imposed on a US company. Plus, the company revealed a $1.7 billion deficiency in its underwriting loss reserves, half related to its previously underestimated exposure to environmental and asbestos claims. That comes atop a $1.3 billion reduction to its previously reported 2004 earnings, amid government investigations and the forced resignation of former chairman and CEO Maurice Greenberg. The three losses total nearly $5 billion, a large amount even for a large company. AIG was already profitable but some senior managers tried to take more (USA Today, Feb 9) Now, if the government can actually collect the fines for the victims, government will actually be fulfilling its modern mandate. In the first 10 months of last year, 971 public companies restated their earnings vs 619 for all of 2004. The total number of restatements for 2005 could hit 1,200; however high, it will be an all-time record by a long shot. (USA Today, Dec 29)

The Senate raised the amount of money the federal government may borrow to almost $9 trillion. $9 trillion is $30,000 for every man, woman, and child in the USA. It's more than the gross domestic product of China, the world's second-richest nation. It's more than the combined GDP of Japan and India, the next richest nations. It roughly equals the money invested in American mutual funds. It's four times larger than the net worth of the nation's 691 billionaires. During World War II, when borrowing soared to pay for war, federal debt was bigger than all private spending. It declined to about one-third of GDP in 1981 but rose to two-thirds in the mid-1990s, where it remains today. Under President Bush, it has increased four times, for a total of about $3 trillion. That's the fastest rise ever. The last $3 trillion jump took eight years, from $3 trillion in 1989 to $6 trillion in 1997. It took the entire history of the United States through 1989 to amass the first $3 trillion debt. In 2005, interest on the debt was $184 billion, which made it the fifth biggest item in the federal budget, behind the war machine, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. As recently as 1970, foreign elites owned 5% of the debt; by 2005, the rich based elsewhere had increased their share to 45%. Thereby we pay them $85 billion directly each year for enabling US politicians to wage war and dispense corporate welfare. Without more borrowing, the government would run short of money. If it would default on its interest payments, that would terrify financial markets – i.e., wealthy investors. (USA Today, Mar 17) But is forcing some restraint on the rich and our so-called representatives a bad thing?

All those debt payments and the corporate welfare and hands-off the value of our own resources must account for something; and it does. America is now the third most unequal industrialized society after Russia and Mexico. In 1980, the Forbes 400 had an average of $400 million; now they average $2.8 billion; of the Forbes 400, 374 are billionaires. Worldwide, the humans that rich number 793, up 102 from last year. Many newcomers are from places like Russia and China, countries that did not allow much private property until the 1990s; they got rich by capturing public property, such as oil or monopolies on telecommunications. For the 12th straight year, the richest is still Bill Gates, up from $46 billion to $50. (The Oregonian, Mar 10)

In the US, 8.9 million households have at least a million dollars, excluding their first home, up from 8.2 in 2004 (The Oregonian, Mar 28). Between 1972 and 2001, the wage and salary income of Americans at the 90th percentile of the income distribution rose only 34%, about 1% per year. But income at the 99th percentile rose 87%; income at the 99.9th percentile rose 181%; and income at the 99.99th percentile rose 497%. This year the 99th percentile will correspond to an income of $402,306, and the 99.9th percentile to an income of $1,672,726; for the 99.99th percentile, it's probably well over $6 million a year. Highly unequal societies also tend to be highly corrupt. Growing inequality poses a threat to democratic society. (Paul Krugman, Feb 27)

According to the IRS, incomes rose fastest among the top one percent, and within that group, the biggest gain went to the richest one-tenth of one percent. These are the 129,000 taxpayers with reported incomes over $1.3 million who saw a 10% jump in their incomes from 2002 to 2003. Between 1979 and 2003, income for the richest 1% skyrocketed over 200%. The top 5% saw their income go up 75%. Meanwhile, income for the middle 20% rose only 17% and income for the bottom 20% actually fell 2% (after inflation) in those two dozen years. Average hourly earnings dropped 5%, adjusting for inflation, between 1979 and 2004. The only reason household incomes rose is that more family members worked more hours to make up for falling wages. (United for a Fair Economy via Alanna Hartzok, Mar 6)

George Will, syndicated columnist (Jan 10): “The way to reduce rent-seeking is to reduce the government's role in the allocation of wealth and opportunity. People serious about reducing the role of money in politics should be serious about reducing the role of politics in distributing money.” Yes! To minimize the discretionary spending by politicians, instead return public revenue to citizens as a dividend. Draw its funds from the flow of money paid to those who hold land, loans, and privileges. Spreading around those monies to everyone keeps them from collecting each month in the bank accounts of a few, gets it out to those who could use a breather. The 20 and 30 somethings, more so than previous middle class young adults, face student loans, depressed wages, rising healthcare costs, and soaring housing prices. Americans tend to view this as an individual problem, and look to the individual for the solution. However, this is a structural challenge, requiring a structural solution.

In the fourth quarter of 2005, sales of existing homes fell three months in a row. Yet the typical home's value increased 2.9% from the third quarter, an annualized rate of 11.4%. In the third quarter, prices had increased 12.6%, and in the second quarter peaked at a record 14.1%. Once again, Phoenix had the biggest gain, rising 39.7% on a year-over-year basis. On the coasts and in growing areas of the West and South, prices soar. But in the middle and northern tiers, prices were nearly flat. For the first time since 2003, home prices in one metro area – Burlington, NC – fell on a year-over-year basis. (CBS MarketWatch, Mar 1) For the entire year, the median home price (excluding new homes) rose 13.6% to $213,000. Situated between California and Seattle, Portland topped a quarter million for the first time ($256k), ranking 28th of 145 metro areas (The Oregonian, Feb 16), before retreating in January to $245,800 (The Oregonian, Feb 17). Q4, late mortgage payments hit a 2 1/2 year high, as home buyers hurt by hurricanes fell behind; the percentage tardy were 4.7, up from 4.4% Q3 (The Oregonian, Mar 17).

In February, while sales of existing homes ended a five-month losing streak and rose 5.2% to 5.91 million annual pace, sales of new homes fell 10.5%, the biggest drop in nearly nine years. Seasonally adjusted to an annual rate, it'd be 1.080 million homes, the lowest since 2003 May. New homes account for about 15% of the residential real estate market. And the bean-counters revised their sales figure for January from 1.233 million down to a 1.207 million annual unit pace. (CBS MarketWatch, Mar 24)

Pending home sales fell 0.8%, to a level of 117.7. Year-over-year, pending home sales are down 5.2%. (CBS MarketWatch, April 3) The number of new homes on the market increased 4.4% to a record 548,000, representing a 6.3 months supply. The months' supply is the largest in a decade. The supply of unsold homes also rose 5.2% in February to 3.03 million, close to the all-time record of 3.04 million set in 1986. The inventory represents 5.3 months supply, unchanged from January. (CBS MarketWatch, Mar 23)

While the average sales price rose 2.6% to $296,700, the median sales price of new homes fell for the fourth month in a row, by 2.9% year-over-year to $230,400. (CBS MarketWatch, Mar 24) Nationwide, the median price — half cost more, half less — of existing homes was $209,000, up nearly 11% from February 2005. (USA Today, Mar 24)

Baby boomers entering their peak earning years, snapping up second homes, accounted for 40% of the market, a record. Last year, nearly 28% of homes bought were for investment purposes, and 12% were vacation homes. Their added demand drove up prices of other people's first homes. (USA Today, Apr 5) In 2005, 43% of first-time homebuyers purchased their homes with no-money-down. On a $150,000 home, the first-time buyer scraped together a down payment of only 2%. As rates on their loans creep up with inflation, and the resale value of their houses slide down with flat wages, some will owe more than their homes are worth. People who bought with the hope of flipping or building equity will lose. If enough of them lose enough and go broke, they could drag down others who depend upon doing business with them. The name for an economy in that state is depression. (USA Today, Jan 18) Economists at Goldman Sachs concluded that home prices are 20% overvalued at present, although the regional variation is enormous. (MarketWatch, Mar 8) Realtors claimed that the housing market has already cooled and is finished cooling; going forward the market will be as strong as ever. (MarketWatch, April 3)

In the business cycle triangle, people with enough wealth to care (which sadly is not everyone) can watch the peak of value shift from real production (stocks and bonds) to the never produced (land and resources) then to the perennial havens (currencies and precious metals). Last year, the overall stock market ended 2005 lower than when it began. For land (whose proxy is real estate), the Equity REIT Index posted a return of 12.2% while the S&P's 500 rose only 4.5%. While 12% is not bad, for 2004 REIT's climbed 31% and for 2003 surged 37%. REIT's have outperformed the S&P 500 over the past 10-, 15-, and 30-year periods, altho' by a less dramatic margin, about 2% points per year. (The Sunday Oregonian, Jan 15). If the 18-year land price cycle holds again, for this year and maybe next, REIT's should drop to where stocks are now, and stocks should drop out of positive growth altogether.

The current investment sink returning the most is precious metals and stable currencies. Gold futures for May delivery climbed as high as $601.90 overnight in New York, and peaked at $600 in the regular session (CBS MarketWatch, Apr 6). As the dollar loses more value against the euro and yen (as US debts, both public and private, pile up), nervous investors will push up gold even higher.

The little sister metal, silver, for May delivery rose as high as $11.745 an ounce, up 22.5 cents, after touching a 22-year high of $11.78. July platinum, which investors treat as part precious metal, part commodity, rose $12.10 to $1,100 an ounce. The contract's high of $1,104.80 was a new record for a front month contract. It was also nearing the price record for any contract month, which was set at $1,189.50 in 1980 on March 5. June palladium traded up $10.70 at $347.50 an ounce. May copper rose to a record $2.5605 an ounce and traded more recently at $2.557, up 9.4 cents, or 3.8%. (CBS MarketWatch, Apr 3) Commodities differ from precious metals; the former depend on better economic conditions ahead, the latter on worse.

The bond market “inverted” for the first time in nearly six years. That is, Treasury notes with safer, sooner pay-off dates offered higher yields than riskier longer-dated notes. The 2-year note was yielding 4.40% vs. the 10-year note yielding 4.39%. Such inversion usually signals a pending recession. The day of the inversion, the bond market was closed one hour early. (CBS MarketWatch, Dec 30) Ten weeks later, the bond yields inverted again. The Treasury 2-year yield was above the yields of both the 10-year and 30-year instruments. The benchmark 10-year yield of 4.568% was above the 4.527% yield of the 30-year bond. The yield on the 6-month Treasury bill, standing at 4.695%, was higher than the 2-year note's 4.673% yield. Long-term yields are being pushed lower by intense demand that has led to higher prices for longer-maturity bonds. Prices and yields move in opposite directions in the fixed-income market. (CBS MarketWatch, Feb 10) Banks pay their depositors the same rates that short-term bonds fetch and charge their borrowers the same rates that long-term bonds fetch. When the curve inverts, banks can't profit. When banks lose, the rest of the economy is not far behind. In the past, whenever the curve has inverted, for whatever the reason and at whatever level of interest rates, a recession has followed about nine months later. (CBS MarketWatch, Mar 7) Friend and specialist Phil Anderson notes that since 1945, almost every inversion did precede a recession – the exception was in mid 1960s – and the coming downturn can be as long as 18 months away.

The US Department of Defense has more than 1,400 military properties nationwide polluted with TCE (trichloroethylene), a known carcinogen and the most widespread water contaminant in the nation. Developed by chemists in the late 19th century, TCE was widely used to degrease metal parts and then dumped into nearby disposal pits at industrial plants and military bases, where it seeped into aquifers. People expose themselves to TCE by drinking or showering in contaminated water and breathing air in homes where TCE vapors have intruded from the soil. Rather than assess the risk of cancer and birth defects to millions of Americans, the Pentagon orchestrated a prolonged challenge to the EPA. The Bush administration bosses at the EPA sided with the military. By 2003, the warlords and the weapons contractors won, delaying any assessment indefinitely. Possibly thousands of the nation's birth defects and cancers every year are due in part to TCE exposure. In the last four years, the Pentagon, with help from the Energy Department and NASA, derailed EPA action on such water contaminants as the rocket fuel ingredient perchlorate. In response, state regulators in California and elsewhere moved to impose their own rules. (LA Times, Mar 29)

January 1: “Make Hartford More Like Harrisburg – City leaders should consider changing the tax system to one that taxes land at a higher rate than buildings, as in Harrisburg, Pa. Now buildings are taxed at about three times the rate of land, which partly explains the proliferation of parking lots.” (via Joshua Vincent)

Writer Chuck Banas is a member of the New Millennium Group which was joined by influential Council Members Joseph Golombek and David Franczyk in a study that provided clear solutions (Jan 20): “If city leaders were actually interested in solving the problems of blight, decay, and disinvestment, they would do what certain other progressive cities have done: Scrap the current property tax code and introduce a land value tax system that assesses mainly the value of the land, not what is built on top of it. “ (via Josh Vincent)

Feb 26: “Ohio could get rid of its slums, gain new buildings on vacant lots, and stop suburban sprawl. It could even save the average homeowner a little money. That's where land-value tax comes in. The value of buildings, if taxed at all, would be radically reduced. So says retired Case Western Reserve economics professor Bill Peirce, the Ohio Libertarian Party candidate for governor.” (via Josh Vincent)

The National Housing Federation said that landowners that hold back the supply of vacant land in order to make more profit in the future could be making the whole system socially and economically unsustainable and called on the government to introduce a land value tax to force developers to release land for affordable housing. (Inside Housing, Apr 7, via Josh Vincent) The Edinburgh-based Policy Institute and Chris Green, a former head of Virgin Trains and ScotRail who launched a rail-industry campaign for the bullet train, said land value capture should be used. With a high-speed link between Edinburgh and Glasgow, properties near the line are likely to soar in value. Owners, landlords, and businesses should use the extra cash to help pay for the multi-billion-pound budget. (The Scotsman Evening News, Jan 2, via Eric Britton)

Taxpayers for Common Sense: The federal flood insurance program should be revised to: remove subsidies for properties that pre-existed the current program; collect premiums to finance expected annual payments as well as fund a catastrophic reserve; and flood-proof, elevate, and relocate repetitively damaged properties. (via The Progress Report)

The US subsidized its 25,000 cotton growers in 2005 with about $3.5 billion. That's more than four times the entire value of the cotton produced by more than 10 million farmers in Africa. At WTO talks, trade officials blamed funding given to American farmers for holding down global prices and depressing economies. Cotton-growing countries in Africa, which are among some of the poorest on Earth, pressed the US to swiftly do away with cotton subsidies for American farmers. US officials stuck to doing away with all farm export subsidies by the end of 2010 and to make significant cuts in agricultural tariffs and domestic price supports. The African cotton growers want all export subsidies to be eliminated by next year and ask that all other domestic supports for cotton, such as minimum price guarantees, be cut 80% next year and completely two years later. (LA Times, Dec 17)

On the TV show Charlie Rose, Republican George Schultz (Dec 22): “some portion of the oil revenues along the Alaskan model, be put into a trust and then distributed to the people of Iraq.” (via Wyn Achenbaum). Also Ariel Cohen at the conservative Heritage Foundation as well as Nancy Birdsall in Foreign Affairs 83 (4) advance something along these lines. (via Jon Mendel, Apr 5)

Gary Flomenhoft, our VP and teacher at the U of Vermont (Jan 6): “There is $700 million in common assets in Vermont (without counting pharmaceuticals or the Internet). That's more than $1,000 a year each.”

The German newsmagazine Der Spiegel published an interview with wealthy businessman Götz Werner on his campaign promoting a Universal Basic Income in Germany (2005 November 30). Werner is the founder and owner of the German drugstore chain dm, which has 1700 outlets around Germany. Werner proposes a plan akin to geonomics. One, replace all other welfare benefits with a UBI (somewhat like a Citizens Dividend). Two, abolish all taxes on incomes and profits, replacing them with a high VAT. (US BIG Newsletter, Jan/Feb, via Karl Widerquist) So close, yet, taxing value added burdens consumers, while redirecting our spending on land and privilege from owners to everyone is painless; even the owners who'd pay more get zero taxes on efforts and the experience of living in a just society.

After Katrina, about half of those who applied for Expedited Assistance won a total of more than $1.6 billion. One of every ten of those tax dollars may have gone to fraud. The number of households that received FEMA disaster aid in four Louisiana parishes exceeds the number there before the hurricane; overpayments could be as much as $166 million. (USA Today, Feb 13) To fix government spending, quit trying to fine tune it, targeting only the needy or deserving; instead, fund everyone equitably with a Citizens Dividend. To fix government taxing, quit trying to levy everything that moves and instead target only the values that everyone generates en masse, the values that attach to nature and privilege. Doing so would resurrect New Orleans at no cost to taxpayers.

In Dollars & Sense, “Repopulating New Orleans” by Mason Gaffney (April 3): “Mayor Nagin of New Orleans tells the world that Katrina wiped out most of his tax base, so he is impotent. Consider born-again San Francisco, 1907 to 1930. What can it teach New Orleans? It had no state or federal aid to speak of. The state of California had oil, but didn't even tax it, as Louisiana (rightly) does. Its rail and shipping connections were inferior to the major rail, port, and shipbuilding complex in rival Oakland. It was known for vice, vigilantism, and civic scandals. How did a city with so few assets raise funds to repair its broken infrastructure and rise from its ashes? It had only the local property tax, and much of this tax base was burned to the ground. In 1907 San Francisco elected a reform mayor, Edward Robeson Taylor, who had helped Henry George write Progress and Poverty. His city taxed the ground itself, raising money while also kindling a new kind of fire under landowners to get on with it or get out of the way. San Francisco bounced back so fast its population grew by 22% from 1900 to 1910, in the very wake of its destruction; it grew another 22% from 1910 to 1920 and another 25% from 1920 to 1930, becoming the tenth largest American city. It did this without expanding its land base, as rival Los Angeles did, and without stinting its parks.”

The architect of Reagan's social policy, Charles Murray, in his new book, In Our Hands, calls for a $10K/yr basic income guarantee and a requirement to buy a catastrophic health insurance policy. He notes the American government spends more than a trillion dollars on retirement, health care, and conventional welfare. We could substitute an annual $10,000 cash grant to everyone age twenty-one or older. Numbers are crunched to show the feasibility of the Plan. He describes the basic income's effects on retirement, health care, poverty, marriage and family, work, neighborhoods, and civil society. Why not reclaim resources and responsibility from bureaucracies and give them to the disadvantaged and everyone? Then everyone, including the unluckiest among us, can construct a satisfying life. (via Bill Grennon) More is at the laissez faire website.

Boom Bust: House Prices, Banking and the Depression of 2010 by GB's investigative journalist Fred Harrison is reviewed by Yank Marvin Morris. At a dinner meeting held earlier this year for its clients, Merrill Lynch of London provided this book to its guests at no charge. The book explains how speculating in land plays a major role in cyclical depressions. Two decades ago, a successful Washington-based property speculator alerted Fred Harrison to the 18-year property cycle. In his first book, The Power in the Land, Harrison followed the cycle to predict a recession in 1991/1992, which come true. His latest book contains charts that show the ongoing increase in land value in relation to the cost of a residence. The private retention of ground rents rewards those who speculate. Their speculation inflates the cost of land, consuming too much of an economy's spending. Eventually, other sectors are starved for income, and the price of land climbs beyond what enough businesses and workers can afford. Then both output topples – ouch! – and the price for land – aahh! – which makes possible the start of the next cycle. (in Groundswell, via Dave Wetzel, Jan 28)

“Vacant Properties: The True Costs to Communities” is a booklet from the National Vacant Properties Campaign last August. It summarizes research on the costs that vacant and abandoned properties impose upon communities. It also highlights local programs successfully recapturing the value in these properties. Vacant properties can include abandoned, boarded-up buildings; unused lots that attract trash and debris; vacant or under-performing commercial properties known as greyfields (such as under-leased shopping malls and strip commercial properties); and neglected industrial properties with environmental contamination known as brownfields. Evidence shows that vacant properties are an expense that local governments simply cannot afford – and that the expense grows with every year a property remains vacant or abandoned. Such properties produce no or little property tax income, but they require plenty of time, attention, and money. Vacant Properties compiles research from across the country, quantifying a wide variety of costs – including city services (nuisance abatement, crime and fire prevention), decreased property values and tax revenues, and the costs born by homeowners, and the issue of the spiral of blight. The National Vacant Properties Campaign is a project of Smart Growth America (SGA), Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), and the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech. (via Dave Wetzel, Jan) Let's hope they're smart enough to suggest what works: public recovery of the value of all lots, vacant and otherwise.

Owners rub their hands with glee when selling a home rising in price but not when paying the property tax on it. After a half-decade of rising site values, rising assessments, and rising taxes, on the agenda in at least 20 states are legislative proposals, citizen initiatives, and lawsuits to dodge the higher property tax. Owners distrust how politicians spend tax dollars, chafe at paying a hefty tax before getting the profit from their newly pricey home, and working-class people fear being taxed out of popular towns and cities. (The Wall St Journal, Feb 1, via Howard Kronish)

So South Carolina passed a law that caps the increase in property assessments at 3% per year. New tax bills for both rich and poor homeowners will be about 50% less. Yet, noted both Black Enterprise and The State, Columbia, SC (Jan 29), long-term working class residents actually lose, only homeowners in fast-growing, high-value areas win. First, half of a big tax bill – tens of thousands of dollars – is a much bigger savings than half of a small tax bill – less than a couple thousand dollars. Second, to offset about $1.2 billion in lost property tax revenues, lawmakers aim to raise the sales tax by 40%, to 7 cents on the dollar. The sales tax falls more on poorer residents who spend all or most of their income, saving little or none. Also, it reduces sales somewhat; as others spend less, the poor have less economic opportunity to dip into the flow of circulating money by selling their goods and services.

To make the property tax fair, do what several jurisdictions around the world have done: shift it off buildings, onto land. Then use a sizeable portion of the raised revenue to fund a dividend to residents. The refunded dividend would enable all owners to stay in their homes, better than would any exemptions, limits, caps, or other loopholes. The land tax with land dividend would circulate land values, rather than keep them locked up in sites kept off the market. Owners would not have to sell out or borrow against their property. And as the site values get paid out, they get spent by recipients; their extra spending generates more job opportunity, especially for those at the bottom of the economic ladder. Plus, levy the land dues and pay out the “rent” dividends each month, just like a lease or mortgage, smoothing them both out.

Even after the dot-com bust, executive pay grew while profits dropped. In California, computer giant HP was sued by a shareholder group headed by the Service Employees International Union, which sponsors several pension funds. The group says HP shareholders should have gotten to vote on a $42 million severance package given to former chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina when she was ousted by the board last year. In 2004, after the New York Stock Exchange paid their former chairman Richard Grasso $193 million for nine years, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer filed suit, saying Grasso's deal violated New York's non-profit law. When Grasso headed it and until this year, the NYSE was a non-profit. (USA Today, Mar 7) Warren Buffett, Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, used his latest annual letter to shareholders to blast excessive executive pay, a ballooning US trade deficit, and rising fees for professional money managers. The multi-billionaire investor said money manager fees may cause equity investors to earn "only 80% or so of what they would earn if they just sat still and listened to no one." Known as the Oracle of Omaha, he shouldered the blame as Berkshire's stock failed to outperform the S&P 500 index. (CBS MarketWatch, Mar 4) When revenue gets concentrated, one must expect people at the switch to siphon it off in as many ways as they can imagine. Rather than let revenue concentrate, spread it out with more competition due to zero taxes and zero corporate welfare and with broader distribution, thanks to a Citizens Dividend.

Inflation fast: blame who?

In 2005, inflation hit its fastest pace since 2000; the consumer price index rose 3.4%, up from a 3.3% rise in 2004. Energy rose 17.1%, its biggest jump since 1990. As wages lag behind, as they have for the last three decades, forcing consumers to spend more for fewer goods – and since consumer spending accounts for 70% of the GDP – expect output to dwindle. (USA Today, Jan 19) Over the past 12 months, hourly wages rose a bit less than inflation and within productivity gains – more output without more workers (Oregonian, Apr 8). When productivity rises, companies can pay more; but they don't have to. Last year productivity rose 2.7%, the smallest gain since 2001, while wages rose 3.1%; for 2004, with productivity over 4%, wages were up only 2.6%; in 2003, when productivity was up, wages rose only 1.7%. (USA Today, Feb 2) To explain the contradictory data, one might toss in another variable, such as the immigration of low-paid workers. Yet whatever productivity does, the media label a rise in the return to labor – not the huge surge upward in the return to capital – as inflationary (e.g., The Oregonian, Mar 11). Yes, over the last 12 months, wages and inflation rose in tandem. However, during the 1990s, wages did much better and inflation was in retreat. Even scarce oil can not by itself inflate other prices; as people spend more money on gas and fuel oil, they'd spend less on other goods, unless somebody's pumping more money into the system. That somebody is the bankers; they create excess new money when lending to borrowers. Even the Federal Reserve admits surplus cash is a key factor. Halt it, and you stop inflation.

America's approach to fighting terrorists has been to demonize them. We elevate their political status in the eyes of those disaffected souls in the developing world who dislike the United States. Are we taking terrorists too seriously? Psychology suggests “yes”. America could employ a powerful weapon against the terrorists: ridicule. For example, underscore that their leaders, self-professed warriors, hide while they pay others to become human bombs. Ridicule strips the enemy of his mystique and prestige. Ridicule erodes the enemy's claim to justice. Ridicule eliminates the enemy's image of invincibility. Directed properly, ridicule can be a fate worse than death. (USA Today, Mar 22)

The New America Foundation's Sr. Fellow Joel Kotkin in the Wall St Jrnl defended suburbia. I remarked that, cars hardly pay their way, getting free land and to pollute for free. And if people don't want to live downtown, why do they pay more to do so?

Joel Kotkin emailed us (Apr 6): "I prefer a level playing field and would like to see drivers pay for roads, etc. However, what about the subsidies that go into transit and redevelopment. Transit would die in five minutes without subsidy."

Editor: Public transit would, but if laws against jitneys were relaxed, perhaps private transit could take up the slack. Plus, public transit could collect some of the land value around its stops. That'd suffice, show studies in our bibliography posted at the Victoria Transport Policy Institute website.

Joel Kotkin: "And most US cities downtowns would be ghostly without redevelopment."

Editor: But some redeveloped without subsidy. Pittsburgh did in the 1970s, by shifting its property tax off buildings, onto land. Harrisburg had similar success.

Editor: Yeah, that's what happens when you quit doing what works. In 2000, they went back to the bass ackwards property tax – high on buildings, low on locations. The more current example is Allentown, from Billy Joel woes to an award-winner listed in Richard Florida's book on most livable cities.

Sam Eliasen (Jan 17): “Thanks for your web-site. It appears to me Georgists have a single-minded zeal for taxing land value. Not to denigrate the concept, it seems to need a more comprehensive approach. Do Georgists couple LVT with the need for monetary reform?”

Editor: Most of us do. While there is a downside to focusing, there's an upside, too, since it's so hard to be all things to all people's sacred cows.

Mike F, Oregon Green Party (Mar 2): “The national economy has gone to complete doo-doo, civil disorder is rising, you have just been elected president of the USA with a popular mandate for sweeping reforms – revolutionary change. What is your plan?”

Editor: To share society's surplus, institute a Four-Year Plan. First, cut out corporate welfare altogether. Next, each year, cut subsidized services by 25% and pay a Citizens Dividend to another quarter of income earners, starting from the bottom up. Meanwhile, raise all taxes on sites, resources, EM spectrum, and ecosystem services, plus raise fees for privileges like corporate charters and bankers' sovereignty, by another 25% of their annual value, while reducing all other taxes – those on salaries, sales, and structures – by 25% per annum. By year five, we'll have replaced taxes with land dues and subsidies with rent dividends. Ready to party? Yet a workable program, we need inspiring parables.

Mike F, to the Green Party Rural list (Mar 23): “Before joining this group I had never heard of geonomics and I'm still studying what it means. It is a far reaching concept, highly relevant for rural greens.”

January, in the neighborhood library, hosted our class close to MLK day, offering the connection between overcoming the race-based income gap and economic justice based on George's insights. Hosted a breakfast that featured Dr Nic Tideman of VPI and drew about a half dozen, mainly members of the Sierra Club. If you're passing thru, we'll sponsor you, too. February, Philadelphia, the annual of the Eastern Economics Association: in the track of US Basic Income Group, moderated once and presented once, paved the way for other Georgists to participate, disseminated scores of our newsletter, renewed old contacts, such as John Tepper Marlin, Chief Economist, New York City Comptroller, and made new ones who gave my project of compiling and editing a textbook on geonomics for the publisher, Elgar, Inc, of the UK a boost. Progress, the bimonthly of the Australian egoists, their last year's Nov/Dec issue quoted my proposal for tax reform to the US Green Party, who tried to incorporate it, but mangled it instead. The Simple Society newsletter (Feb 2) by John Watkins, under “A Few Action Ideas” asked readers to support geonomic reform of taxes and subsidies. Lindy Davies, editor asked to use my USBIG paper in the Georgist Journal.

Mike O'Mara, Pennsylvania researcher (Dec 12): “The original Monopoly rules had a sort of citizen dividend, since each time a player passes Go he receives a share of the land rent, and the more land rent that has been collected, the bigger the amount received when passing Go.”

ErnaB to the Mensa discussion list (Mar 28): “It's good news that there is a move toward direct benefits for individuals from 'rent' monies. You bring good news from a clear brain. Thanks.”

Simeon Stern, MA Economics, tax preparer (Jan 7): “After six years in an economics PhD program, I found the emphasis on math disturbing. Using fancy math and statistical analysis, you can prove almost anything. Concentrating on math left out the intuitive and logical assessments. I found the winter Geonomist quite interesting. Especially the article on how homeowners are subsidized. Subsidizing homeowners, the wealthiest two-thirds of society, penalizes renters who are less well off. About 90% of our income tax revenues go to funding past, present, and future wars. The government obscures this fact by merging the Social Security trust fund and other dedicated funds into the general account. They also do not consider the public debt as a war expenditure; all of it was acquired to fight wars. Per capita debt in this country fell by about 50% between 1945 and 1980. Since then, the high militarism and supply side programs of Reagan and Bush have caused the debt to skyrocket. Little that government does is positive. Public schools have so brainwashed most Americans that they think we live in a democracy, yet in our main legislative body, the Senate, two represent 36 million Californians. My current project is a book called 'The Inaccurate Conception'. Let me know what I can do to help you with your endeavors.”

The Robert Schalkenbach Foundation contracted for a paper on funding a basic income from rents, enabling me to present the paper at the annual conference of the US BIG within the Eastern Economic Assoc. Our winter Geonomist elicited enough renewals and newals to cover the costs of copying and postage: from patron John Morales (Missourian retired from the Panama Canal), stalwart and a half Everett Gross (ret. Nebraskan); stalwarts Richard Biddle (PA, movement historian), Bill Boyer (ex-prof, now Oregon enviro leader), Mel Leasure (VA communitarian), Artie Yeatman (Pennsylvania Quaker); sustainers Brian Beinlich (OR programmer), Mario Cordero (VA businessman), Howard Kronish (ret. businessman), Kathleen Walsh (OR therapist); supporters Robert Bernstein (California leisure expander), Greg Young (MO caregiver); and subscribers Ed Clarke (ret. OMB economist), Harry Nash (gift subscription from Mel Leasure), Joan Moylan (CA Henry George School Director), Mark Nedleman (CA efficiency expert), Rich Nymoen (MN organizer), and Mary Rawson (ret. Canadian), among others. Big thanks to all for re/joining, donating, and granting. 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.

In Portland this year, Earth Day comes to our neighborhood park, Sellwood Park, where we'll have a table, thanks to the generosity of Brian Beinlich, Mark Nedleman, and Kathleen Walsh. If you're in the neighborhood, please stop by. We plan to have info, T-shirts, and an interactive game, as the booths of the dozens of other groups should, too. Also, kids will finds lots to do; each year, they have a blast. If you'd like to staff the table with us for a while, please get in touch. It's April 22, all day Saturday, overlooking River Williamette, near Bridge Sellwood; let that syntax prep you for the itinerant troupe of players both comical and musical.

Richard Reids, Oregon activist Mar 24): “I re-discovered, 'Geonomics: The Citizens Dividend Liberates Everyone'. The CD is an appropriate bill for next session. Could you email sample language to me?”

Editor: Here's the most recent variant. Let me know how to make it better. Anyone else want a copy or help introducing a bill in your state?

Micheal Strong, (Mar 26): “The mortgage interest deduction is an enormous subsidy to the construction and banking industries that primarily benefits people with homes over $300,000. Geonomics is a fascinating alternative that ought to receive a lot more attention than it gets. I have browsed your site and am now interested in a good book that goes into contemporary applications in some depth, including Hong Kong as an exemplar of geonomics. I'm also interested in the environmental applications. I already have one of your links on my site for the FLOW Project.”

Editor: Anyone else with a web site to link to ours? There you'll find a summary of the Hong Kong experience and other real-world success stories.

Mary Rawson, retired Canadian (BC, Dec 21): “The Canadian Search & Rescue Team which went to Baton Rouge after hurricane Katrina managed to rescue about 200 people; the people there broke down and cried at the team's arrival – nobody else had come. Yet a US talk show host referred to us as 'retarded cousins getting too big for their britches'. Our britches fit OK though. I wish you all a better president. Keep up your good work. The enclosed may equal 15 or 20 US $; hope that's acceptable.”

Everett W Gross, retired Iowan (January 5): “Me? Generous? I haven't given the merest fraction of myself to the cause that you have. I suppose that one reason is that I really don't know how. “

Jeff Strang (Mar 24): “Been busy with foster daughter Shannon, full-time Housing Inspector job, and new role as president of the Humanists of Greater Portland. I suggested you as a Sunday morning program presenter; I plan to prod again soon. It's time I renewed; sign me up for another $50.”

Editor: Will do, with pleasure. Other readers, help highlight for everyone a path to a better world. We'll do even more to deserve it. Happy New Spring!

THE GEONOMIST

Vol. 14, No. 4
Editor: Jeffery Johnson Smith

THE GEONOMIST

Vol. 14, No. 4 Editor: Jeffery Johnson Smith

Vol. 14, No. 4
Editor: Jeffery Johnson Smith