THE GEONOMIST


Vol. 8, No. 1
Editor: Jeffery J. Smith

(back to Geonomy Society page)

2000 Jan 15: Taiwan trip talk

After the devastating earthquake, Taiwan's Greens try to rebuild their nation according to geonomic principles in defiance of Taiwan's mafia. Dons and Y2K bugs willing, speaker Jeff Smith returns from this once and future Asian Tiger after talks both public and private with activists, academics, and officials on a tax shift for seismic safety. Come join us at a hearthside potluck in Portland near Reed College, at the intersection of SE 28th & Steele. Year 2000, first ides of the new millennium, Janua ry 15 Saturday at 6 PM. To reserve a seat and coordinate potluck contributions, RSVP to 235-6679 or matteo@teleport.com. Matteo Luccio, editor of the magazine Oregon's Future, also hosts the Second Saturday Potluck Dinner & Discussion Series.

Geonomics is ...

… in part the Great Green Tax Shift maxed out.
Economically, taxing pollution and depletion does reduce pollutants and extracts - and thus the tax base; plus such taxes are regressive, requiring a safety net. On the other hand, collecting site rent is progressive and generates a revenue surplus payable as a dividend to residents, which can serve as the safety net. Environmentally, taxes on waste and extraction do not drive efficient use of land, as does getting site rent.

Mexico, Sweden lead US

Thanks to Green Parties, the list of European nations who have begun to shift taxes off wages and onto pollution keeps getting longer. It now has ten but won't for long. England and others are gearing up to climb on board. (Germany's Wupperthal Inst' s website)

The Swedish Greens have carried the logic of the new dictum - tax bads, not goods - one step further. Thanks to their efforts, apartments are less spendy; they're not taxed while the ground beneath them is. This shift in the property tax is their first st ep toward de-taxing buildings in general while tapping site values instead, which spurs owners to use land more efficiently (gleaned at Mexico's Green Millennium gathering, p 9).

Even before the Swedes merely unburdened apart-ments, the mayor of Mexicali, Baja California jettisoned the entire conventional property tax and replaced it with a land tax. Not only did he rapidly raise revenue to improve infrastructure, he also received no complaints from landowners. (Lincoln Inst's Land Lines, Sep) Better to own serviced land that is taxed than unserved land that is free.

FROM THIS PEN'S PERCH

Remembering Jack

There's a void in my life, our work, and the world's metamorphosis. Jack Yost (1945-1999), altho' neither old nor ill, died in his sleep during the wee hours of October 19, Tuesday. Sunday we had lunch in the sun, a triple treat in the Northwest, pla nning publicity for his latest book. Planet Champions is described by Senator Mark Hatfield as "Inspiring and hard-hitting." Congresswoman Elizabeth Furse noted it showed "the power of one person to make a significant difference." Jack was the guy at the 1998 Conference of the Ccl of Georgist Orgs in Portland taking copious notes, which he turned into his chapter on Henry George in this recent work. While doing time in New York working at the UN, this native Portlander not only took a course at the H.G. School, he also launched The Decade of International Law, which culminated in creating the International Criminal Court. An artist who painted and sculpted, he would leave large works of driftwood on park beaches to the delight of strollers and swim mers who never knew their creator. His memorial on Portland State campus was attended by an overflow crowd from all walks of life, including a man conveying an invitation to teach winter courses at the University of Peace in Costa Rica. For photos of his statuary or copies of his book, get in touch.

Geonomics is … Better settlement patterns do reduce extraction upstream and pollution downstream.

Politically, green fees have less impact if applied locally; local is where grassroots movements have more impact. Yet getting rent usually entails shifting the property tax (or charging user fees), the province of local jurisdictions; both mayors and city voters have been known to adopt a site-value tax.

Ethically, putting into practice "tax bads, not goods" skirts the issue of sharing Mother Earth which collecting rent confronts head on. Since nothing is fixed until it's fixed right, ultimately, greens must lead humanity into geotopia where we all share the worth of Mother Earth.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Zero debt for how long?

Why are some individuals and nations so rich and some people and countries so poor? David Landes in his The Wealth and Poverty of Nations answers easily: "privatize the gains, socialize the costs." While this egoist strategy remains in force, the poo r nations continue their downward spiral. Kidnapping and murder are epidemics in Columbia and worsening elsewhere. The Amazon shrinks ever faster.

The rich G7 nations make more noise about canceling the debt of poor nations (to sign a petition to urge them to follow thru, contact us). But what's to prevent the problem from reappearing over and over? How could we reverse this trickle up?

That answer is known, too: charge people for the values they take, not for the values they make. It's a modernization of the advice found in a classic of a similar title, Progress and Poverty, written over a century ago by Henry George.

NATIONAL NEWS

Rep. Blumenauer sued

If you'd left millions to teach the virtues of herbal medicine, you might bust out of your tomb upon learning that your fortune is being spent to extol pharmaceuticals. The law is supposed to protect educational trusts, regardless how quaint the taug ht topic may be, not stand by when opponents raid them. But good luck getting local lawmaker Earl Blumenauer to agree. As a director on the board of the Lincoln Foundation, he helps steer their cushy endowment away from their mission - teaching Geo rgist economics - to teaching other frivolities beyond said mission. Hence the honorable representative and foundation are being sued (Wall St Journal, May 28) Might a court side with a dead idealist, against a legislating pragmatist? Stay tuned.

Commissnr. Sten stands tall

Some laws are made to be broken. Eventho' the Oregon State Legislature, cutting mortgage lenders a break, outlawed the real estate transfer tax, Portland City Commissioner Erik Sten nevertheless floated the levy as a way for the Portland Regio nal Government to fund public housing. The Metro boss, still smarting from the public howl after a recent raise in the fees for garbage collection, threw up the barricades upon hearing about the land sale tax proposal. Yet affordable housing is a Metro re sponsibility, and nicking the rapidly escalating local land prices would both raise revenue and slow down land's price rise. At least one Metro councilor, David Brangdon (who came to a recent geonomics presentation), is willing to listen (Oregonian, Nov 8 ). Were Metro to eventually stand as tall as Sten (who earlier this year had his staff entertain us) and tax real estate sales, would the legislature try to have them all arrested, or declare war, or sue, or what? Stay tuned.

'No tax' depletes resources

After more than a century of leniency, the US may be getting around to enforcing one of its laws. Ever since the 1872 Mining Act, anyone has been allowed to exploit our natural heritage while providing little in return. Now, an Oregon ore claimant mu st prove the ore he envies is really in the ground, as the law requires, before he can dig it out. National Forest Supervisor Mike Linn issued the ruling to avoid needlessly wasting endangered plants and fish. (Oregonian, Aug 14)

Yet to delay a project does not forever protect a habitat. More than merely postpone, government needs to play a whole new role. For starters, this agent for all of us should quit subsidizing extractors. Over the last 15 years in Western Europe, cu tting subsidies to coal mines in half has cut the use of coal in half (Seth Dunn, Worldwatch, Sep/Oct). Ending subsidies is only half the battle. Government must also charge the full market value for (enforcing claims to) sites and resources. Now Americans throw away as much metal as they mine. By leaving natural rent in claimants' pockets, government undul y enriches the extractors, making it hard for recycling to compete, notes the GrassRoots Recycling Network (PO Box 49283, Athens, GA 30604). On a level playing field, recycling would roll over virgin extraction.

Yet some, such as timber companies logging the Northwest, say they already pay government too much for property in nature. Some say claimants should not have to pay their society at all. They'd be right, if trespassing were not a crime. But as long as they intend to exclude everyone else from what none of us made and all of us need, then they do owe rent to those excluded. That is, each of us owes all of us.

Killing weeds costs others

We, the people, began to support polluters with the Industrial Revolution and continue with the Chemical. Take one herbicide. First, farmers charge consumers more for putting a weed killer like atrazine on corn. When this crop runoff, which can cause cancer in infants, appears in Midwest tap water, then utilities charge their thirsty customers more to take the chemical out, notes the Environmental Working Group. Next, doctors and pharmacists charge those patients afflicted by however much toxi n they drink. Finally, bosses don't pay people to be out sick. Were these downstream costs sent instead to the corn growers responsible, might that edge them toward sustainable agriculture? Rodale, Acres USA, and others routinely point out cheaper and mor e effective organic ways to control unwanted plants and bugs. And billing polluters would be fairer than charging the parents of endangered infants.

Funding oblivion

Could you live with a little less government? How badly did you need that last attack submarine? Cold as it may sound, were you a little less lavish toward weaponeers, you could save tens of billions of tax dollars. The libertarian Cato Inst. found $35 bi llion wasted on useless R&D, $8 billion on exports, and more billions on merger assistance each year. Unless you're Boeing, Lockheed, or Raytheon, this report by William D. Hartung may persuade you that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of ar ms race to oblivion. (Oregon Peace-Worker, Sept)

Income growth fertilizer

Still, the rich get richer and the poor poorer (Ore-gonian, Sept 5). While this relentless yawning of the income extremes faces no mathematical limit, might there be a breaking point in a society that prizes equality? A lucky few have a spending powe r hundreds of times greater than that of billions of people. The privileged enjoy luxuries that til now were utter fantasies.

Yet many of these goodies - cell phones, tasty exotic treats, world travel - are within reach of even more billions of people. Visiting Oaxaca, Mexico shortly before the downpours unleashed massive mudslides, way up in the mountains in the humblest village that stretched along the spine of a narrow hillock with a steep stairway zigzagging from top to bottom, I saw scattered on flat, wooden roof tops huge parabolic satellite dishes. Invited inside on Sunday, I watched an American football game on a big screen TV. (Had I been a fan, I would've felt right at home.) Such are the rewards for working a season or two in El Norte.

Here in The North, to catch up to the rich, the poor play the lottery, thereby funding government programs and easing the tax burden on everyone else (Oregonian, May 23).

This rarefied wealth must be expected, given Techno Progress. But why is this wealth concentrated, given that its basis is dispersed? Government research and government purchases incubate new technology. Then lax enforcement of anti-trust law and exceedin gly cheap patents let a few entrepreneurs latch on to the lion's share of the returns.

The fee for patents could be scaled to the value of the protected invention. Similarly, insurance companies could charge a flat fee for insuring property, but don't. Banks could charge a flat fee for lending money, but don't. Were we to run government lik e a business, we'd do to Bill Gates (worth - to someone - 90,000 millions of US dollars) what he does to his customers - charge as much as the traffic will bear. Charging full value for patents, licenses, franchises, leases, and titles to sites and resour ces would whittle billionaires down to millionaires and millionaires down to modestly rich. Would the remaining rich still be as generous as now when their incomes balloon? (Oregonian, May 26) Would it matter? If we divide the revenue from granting titles, patents, and the other permits among ourselves, we'll be a whole nation of the well-off.

Helping people out of poverty, especially female people, slows the birth rate. Already, teen pregnancy is falling. Thanks to new injections, which one need not remember to put on or take each day, teen moms are having fewer second kids (Oregonian, '98 Dec 18). Good news, but the target is zero children by children.

Children need families. Teens need friends. Parents need neighbors. The togetherness and identity now lacking, community can provide, when adults can both make ends meet and have enough time off from work for enjoying the others around them. Receiving a s hare of public revenue lets people shrink the workweek for their humanity's sake.

Homeowners recycle rent

The spin given to the boom year for home building (USA Today, Jun 21) is that buyers, thanks to the strong economy, can keep up with rising home costs (Oregonian, Jun 19). Au contraire, it's rising incomes that are pushing up the price of land beneat h homes. Then these land values, mischristened "home equity", owners re-mortgage into consumer spending, fueling the economy (Oregonian, May 11). Some, of course, who fail to meet their payments, lose their homes (Oregonian, Feb 7). Rising defaults could be a barometer for rougher economic weather ahead.

What would happen were the price of land removed from this cycle? Land need not add to the cost of housing, were it held in trust (Oregonian, Aug 14) or taxed. A land tax or deed fee or land dues could collect land value, precluding sellers from capitaliz ing it into price. Were land values taxed and the values of labor and capital not taxed at all, that would provide the oomph for any economy (The Losses of Nations, chapter by Nic Tideman). Were the collected land rents recycled back to residents as a div idend (a la Alaska's oil dividend), then consumers would have as much cash to spend as now yet minus the interest-laden debt.

How would we get residents to spend their share of their region's land value on shrinking their workweek rather than on a gas-guzzling, road hogging, urban supremacy vehicle? Easy. Enjoy life more. Make them green (as in environmental) with envy.

Dazed, confused, at the helm

"Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back." Keynes, The General Theory in "Concluding Notes" (thanks to Fred Foldvary), echoing Bertrand Russell who noted that common sense is shot thru with the faded hues of past philosophies. Case in point:

More businesses need helpers, so wages rise. Believing that a bigger slice of the pie for labor (not for capital) fuels inflation, the Federal Reserve is then likely to hike up interest rates. Anticipating such a move (which makes funds more costly for bu siness), many investors divest, which depreciates stocks. So it's all labor's fault. Thus works the world according to economists (Oregonian, Aug 7), leaving one to wonder whose side those guys are on.

Whose side do you want them on? An earlier headline (Oregonian, Apr 9) noted, "Lack of inflation belies old economic laws". Then they're not "laws" but conventions, wrongheaded and useless. Getting inflation from better wages is as logical as getting Beat lemania from ladier bugs. Milton Friedman and the Monetarists (not a rock group) will tell you that relentlessly rising prices comes from excess currency which in turn comes from excess debt, since entering into debt is now the only legal way to issue new notes.

So why aren't our swollen debts, public and private, inflating prices? One saving grace is that many people in countries more corrupt than ours want to use our currency instead of theirs; US tourists to places like Russia are often approached with offers to buy dollars at rates better than the official one. But one day, all those Federal Reserve Notes must come home to roost. That's when, not before, our prices will go ballistic.

FROM THE OP-ED PAGES

Farming the Congress

Like the Energizer Bunny, geonomic ideas keep spreading and spreading. In the Wall Street Journal, James Bovard cited a USDA study which explained how farm subsidies hurt real farmers. Congress subsidizes farmers, then landowners - often pensions or insurance companies - collect the handout by raising the rent. Inflating the price of land boosts the cost of crop production which undermines US competitiveness abroad and raises the bar at home for those wanting to buy their own farm. Plus, when the ag market turns down, land values have further to fall. With the bad economics, Bovard also scorched ag-politics. The pork doled out to agribusiness, which coincided with last fall's election, could double the 1995 billions forked out to "farmers". The so-ca lled Freedom to Farm Act put off deciding the fate of farm subsidies until the next millennium. (WSJ '98 Oct 21; thanks to Chris Toto)

Nader ahead of the curve

A Ralph Nader group studied land use in California. They reported that:

The report cited UC economist Mason Gaffney and a former county assessor, Irene Hickman, two supporters of the Geonomy Society. They published in 1973.

Catching up to Nader

A quarter of a century after Ralph, here comes America's flagship group, the Sierra Club. Our last issue noted the endorsement from the Maryland Chapter of the Club. Now, the Pennsylvania Chapter has endorsed a Green Party candidate running on a plat form that includes the Property Tax Shift (thanks to Nadine Stoner). Not to be outdone, National, too, plugs the Property Tax Shift (from buildings to locations) at the web site of their Sprawl Committee (thanks to Adam Monroe).

Also in Washington, DC, the Sprawl Watch Clearinghouse calls for an end to subsidies to wasteful development and notes how the Property Tax Shift conserves land. Still in DC, there's an old Jimmy Carter EPA man and his groups. William Drayton, who gets wr itten up by Barron's and many others, founded Get America Working. They state at their website, "By eliminating payroll tax entirely, and replacing it with a tax on our natural resource wealth, the economy will grow by leaps and bounds."

Still in DC but at the other end of the political spectrum, the Cato Institute's Stephen Moore, Director of Fiscal Policy Studies, wrote in "Lower Taxes To The Ground And The Sky's The Limit For Productivity" (www.cato.org/dailys/08-12-99.html), "one of t he greatest economists and social philosophers of the past two centuries was Henry George. The world would be a vastly better place if those in Congress and the media called a 'time out' and … became familiar with George's writings." (The Washington Times, Aug 12; thanks, Chris Toto)

While libertarians do put ego above alter, it's also true that masses are better off where individuals enjoy more rights. Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen declares never has famine occurred in a democracy. Might the key factor be not elections, nor open markets , but minimal corruption? All three are related but democracy can be on the surface while honest dealings exist only as substance.

In the Pacific Northwest, Andy Kerr, chair of Alternatives to Growth Oregon and president of the Larch Company, replied to us (Aug 22): "I generally like taxing land more than buildings." Alas, he'd also tax consumption (rather than de-subsidize it and sh rink the workweek, page 8). Anyway, at this rate, citing land-tax endorsements will soon become commonplace.

FROM THE ARCHIVES

China's Kiaochow' did it

The German Imperial Commissioner for Kiaochow (by the Yellow Sea, also Chiaochou and now Jiaoxian) was Ludwig Wilhelm Schrameier, also a member of the German Land Reformers. Having read the works of Henry George, at the founding of the colony (about 200 square miles in Shangdong, formerly Shantung) in 1898, Schrameier established a land-value tax. At 6%, this levy prevented land speculation, collected about half the land rent, and funded government services until the Germans lost their colony at the outbreak of World War I. Sun Yat-sen, who toppled the Chinese emperor, had also studied Henry George and was impressed by the results in Kiaochow whose main city, Qingdao (also Tsingtao) had modernized. Sun Yat-sen consulted with Schrameier and until his death tried to shift taxes to land in all of China. (Adapted from www.progress.org by Fred Foldvary, after Michael Silagi in the American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 1984 April)

BOOKS REVIEWED

Landkind evolved, too

Jefferson's ideal of widespread owner occupancy is both so new and peculiar to the developed world, compared to the panorama of history and to contemporary cultures, that one must wonder if this aberration will spread or disappear. In The Story of La nd, John Powelson (1988), tells of the evolution of property rights from the earliest beginnings, from each and every cradle of civilization. Land went from non-ownable, to held in common, to the fief of an elite king or elite class.

Centuries of struggle and negotiating finally won peasants some property rights in Northwest Europe and to a lesser degree in Japan. Ironically, negotiation was a last resort, turned to only where land was crowded. Where land was plentiful, people employe d their first choices of raids, wars, and slavery.

Generalized property rights generated a respect for law and contract which provided a basis for higher productivity. Where peasants have not gone thru that process of bargaining, a sense of fair dealing in business has not evolved and corruption reigns s till. When outsiders have tried to impose reform, the grafted-on land rights have not stuck, and development has not succeeded. Instead, reform has tended to benefit only the "reformers".

Let history offer us some guidance. The requirements for indigenous reform (the only kind) are three: a popular movement, an enlightened elite, and respect for negotiated settlement. Thus the likeliest candidates to adopt geonomics are … your community?

Judges, midwives to capital

Rights evolve - in our minds, in business, and finally in courts of law as much if not more as in legislatures, documents Morton Horwitz in The Transformation of American Law, 1780 - 1860 (1977, Harvard Press). When the Industrial Revolution made a n ew class rich and numerous (merchants and entrepreneurs), judges, whose prerogatives included setting policy, accommodated them. Their pro-growth ideology of the late 1700s and early 1800s swept away rights that landowners had enjoyed for centuries if not millennia but that upped the cost of economic development.

It used to be that you could do nothing on your own property that interfered with a neighbor's land. Your fire could not touch his grass; your dammed up pond could not flood his land; your mill could not diminish his water; your building could not block h is sunlight. You could not even erect a new mill, bridge, toll road, or market if it drew away the "custom" (today, "customers") of an existing one. Until America.

From the Euro POV, America was empty and needed developing. Yet states then did much less than today - the annual budget of Massachusetts averaged $133,000 from 1795 to 1820. To promote development, legislatures did not use taxes. After the Revolution, ta xes were still unpopular, plus they would have burdened the wealthy, too, besides the rest of the public. Nor did assemblies sell bonds; their credit rating was still iffy. So instead, legislatures granted license - corporate charters - to builders of mil ls, canals, and railroads.

When these builders trampled on the land and rights of farmers and were hauled into court, judges sided with the new captains of industry and against the former lords of the land, requiring little or no compensation. Judges justified their break with trad ition on the grounds that the law should not stop progress, plus the public benefited from both the new development and the new competition (Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations was 1776). Yet such progress was underwritten by the losses suffered by many small landowners. Had they been compensated, would development have been stymied or would the new entrepreneurial elite not have been pushed up so high? Since losers were not indemnified, one can only speculate (no pun intended).

The corporation, too, evolved. Initially, a corporation was a municipality. Next, corporate charters were given to persons or companies to erect a public benefit, such as a mill. As an arm of the locality, the chartered business could use the power of emi nent domain. Competition was limited and prices regulated.

Then legislatures granted charters to enterprises that were not members of the community, such as railroads, and yielded control over profit. All connection to being an arm of the municipality was lost, and corporations became what they are today - privat e entities enjoying limited liability, a legal shelter for a business not always doing the general public the greatest good.

Even before the railroad era, some of the greatest change was ushered in by maritime disputes. Initially, traders and merchants pooled resources to insure a voyage collectively. When a dispute arose over settlement, it was settled by private arbitration, an action then more common than turning to the court. Quakers, the local chamber of commerce, and others provided impartial and acceptable judgments. Even when the dispute went to court, it was settled by juries (who could judge law as well as fact) of pe ers (businessmen) who were selected by the disputants.

But when trade grew beyond human scale, insuring it broke off as a separate, chartered enterprise. Insurers were no longer experts in maritime matters. They wanted suits settled in court by judges, who favored the over dog. Judges wanted the power to "reg ularize" law and to disempower arbitrators and juries, both of whom favored the under dog. Lawyers, who back then were poorly paid and even worse respected, wanted the new lucrative business. So judges took to overturning arbitrated settlements and the ne wly wealthy insurers and land-locked merchants got legislation passed that vitiated juries.

Perhaps the first big settlement under the new regime - $120,000 which today would be tens of millions - was won by a New York lawyer, Alexander Hamilton. Readers of The Geonomist may recall this victim of dueling with Aaron Burr who had also led the effo rt to buy up the near worthless scrip paid to Revolutionary War soldiers and get the government to later redeem it at full face value - the new, post-Constitution US's first act of business.

During the cash-starved early years of development, states began to prohibit the circulation of private notes and bonds and judges began to let issuers of promissory notes default when payment was demanded by a third party or one even further removed. By these means, government consolidated its control over the issuance of currency. An argument given was to preclude usury. Yet once money issuance was monopolized, laws curbing usury were repealed on the grounds that the Biblical injunction was not Christia n but Jewish, that money was a commodity (eventho' its acceptance, soundness and circulation are a social phenomenon), and that people are competent enough to strike deals without the aid of the state (eventho' the playing field was tilted by the limits o n liability, the tariffs on trade, and the privatization of rent).

Once privilege firmly replaced common law, the apologists for redefined rights no longer defended them as either efficient or fair but as logical and apolitical. Judges were no longer asked to make policy but to merely interpret law, recast as objective a nd scientific. Once safely dethroned, tradition and "natural rights" (former buttresses of the small landowner) were occasionally co-opted to buttress the new corporation as newly time-honored ways and natural imperatives (e.g., "natural selection") . The power of eminent domain once terrified the new elite, fearing that it could be used for true public betterment - redistribution of land and thus wealth. Whereas the recent beneficiaries of the new rulings argued against compensation before, they arg ued for it just as strenuously after, a demand that continues to the present as the "takings" argument.

And thus the courts hallowed the system that we live by today.

DIALOG

Q & A

Michael Kinsley, Rocky Mountain Institute, Jun 22: "I'm unclear how you regard property tax as a leak from the community economy." Here's a four ways neighbors lose: (1) To avoid the conventional property tax on buildings, owners make fewer improvements. (2) Not having to pay much tax for holding land idle, some owners speculate, awaiting a higher price before putting their parcel to better use. (3) If the community won't collect the rent, then owners surely will via higher selling prices for land; so buy ers must borrow more, pouring out mortgage money to often distant lenders. (4) When local government exempts job-promising corporations, the firms ship their savings out to investors while locals must make up the difference. Four leaks is four too many fo r one property tax. Replace it with land dues that'd keep local values circulating locally.

Geoff Claussen, Carleton College, July 5: "I very much enjoyed your article in Terrain (see p 10). I've got two queries: (1) Wouldn't landlords simply pass a higher site tax on to the people renting their property? (2) Obviously, the tax works well in cit ies; instead of vacant lots, landlords are impelled to develop their land. What would be the effect on rural, privately-owned natural habitats? Would the tax force owners to fill their land with profitable development, squeezing out any room for nature? K eep up the great writing."

Wow, thanks. I hope my replies at least keep up our dialog. First, if owners could pass on the tax, then it would not spur them - urban or rural - to build anything, right? Why bother? Yet owners do pass on the tax, they just can't raise what they charge to cover it. If they did up the ante, they'd lose their tenant or buyer to other owners who have just built up their land to pay their higher tax. Rather than raise the "rent" for buildings, owners may even have to lower it.

Second, rural owners in a geonomy should owe less land tax than the current property tax. Rural values will drop as urban sites absorb the new development. Also, charging rural land owners for extending the infrastructure - which site-value taxation does automatically - may bump them off the growth bandwagon. Plus, rebating surplus collected rent back to owners makes it affordable to not build but just sit back in that rocking chair and enjoy the view.

Andy Kerr, The Larch Company (the Western Larch has a contrary nature as a deciduous conifer), Aug 22: "(1) That taxes are deadweight losses assumes the economy doesn't benefit from roads (gas taxes), courts which enforce property rights (income taxes, pr operty taxes, etc.), education, the banking system, et al. (2) The consumption tax I favor would exempt the poor, be graduated, and always have a base since we all have to consume to some degree." (1) The item, "deadweight loss", ignores the real gains from public expenditures and refers only to the fact that some taxes cost more than others to be levied and collected (bookkeeping, enforcement, foregone investment, foregone employment, etc). Why no t use efficient taxes before resorting to inefficient ones? (2) Penalizing excess consumption while ignoring how excess purchasing power was first amassed seems less efficient than collecting all the socially generated economic values for social bettermen t, before individuals have a chance to retain them and misspend them. If people could spend only what they earn (not take), and still over-consume, then tax the gluttons. Fair enough? Callie Jordan, activist and teacher: "The more we toss this stuff back and forth, the more I begin to understand it --- so THANKS. Take care." You, too. Anyone else got a question? Send it in. Try out our answer.

COMMENTARY

Global Trade, Inc.

Nearly everyone I know plans to be in Seattle in November to protest the World Trade Organization. Because protest against the ruling elite is essential for a healthy democracy (and because I enjoy my friends' company), I intend to be there with them . But most of them mistakenly vilify trade.

Actually, global trade lets us tread more lightly on Mother Earth. If you want to solarize your home and your region lacks high-grade copper for pipes, you must trade with Chile or somewhere. If you're stopped from trading, you must use low-grade local or e, which damages more land.

Hobbling trade also hampers the development of Chile and others. Unable to progress, poorer nations suffer brain-drain and assorted ills. As Bismarck noted, when goods can't cross borders, armies will. And today we must append, "immigrants will".

The trade that is wrong is not trade at all but transfer, getting something for nothing. It's empowered by subsidy and legalized by treaty. Free trade does not need 2000-page documents, only forced transfer does. The real culprit is not trade - I trade gl obally when I wear a poncho home from Mexico - but privilege.

My friends slam corporations (choosing powerful enemies makes one feel more important than opposing a noisy neighbor, tho' decibels can be damned disturbing) but not the privileges that keep spawning corporate behemoths. It's our tacit approval of privati zing the worth of Mother Earth that creates and sustains noxious corporate neighbors. Ignoring this radical analysis, my friends instead critique freedom, trade, and globalization - which backfires. Faulting freedom reinforces oppressive regimes, trashing trade strengthens us-vs-them-ism, and bashing globalization precludes any possibility of a planetary identity, so crucial for peace on and with Earth.

Let's distinguish between license and liberty, between transfer and trade, and between the hardening of the economic hierarchy worldwide and the growing of a global community. As our basic rights are enshrined in the UN's Universal Declaration, let us tak e a global exploiter to the World Court. Meanwhile, overlook my friends' economics, appreciate their politics, and help swell the ranks in Seattle.

SOCIETY AFFAIRS

Message Delivered in Person

Other organizers curious or knowledgeable about geonomics gave us numerous occasion to bathe and shave. The Welcome to Washington Warming for newlywed George Collins in the home of Tom Gihring, Ph.D. (winner of a 1999 American Planner's Assoc. award), Seattle, had us m.c. and featured speaker Yoram Bauman, co-author of Tax Shift by Northwest Environm ent Watch. Local leaders including city council people attended this event back in March. The Reed College Environmental Club sponsored our illustrated talk, March, which led to Reed inviting Nic Tideman (alum) to speak on Earth Day. While here, Nic also spoke at Franklin High School, Willamette University and in the state capitol with key legislators and staff (set up by Kris Nelson). Back in the Rose City, Nic dined with Generation X policy wonks at their monthly potluck.

The Global Governance Conference sponsored by Ryerson Polytechnic Institute in Toronto in June accepted my paper, which had to do the presentation for me, due to lack of funds for travel. Yet geonomic reforms became three of the conference's 21 rec ommendations, plus the geo-philosophy was cited in a closing poem by the organizer, Julia Morton (perhaps I should stay away more often).

The Orion Society offered me a scholarship to attend their "Fire & Grit" Conference in West Virginia in July, yet in my stead, I had to send my thoughts due to an unforeseen conflict of commitments.

At the annual conference of the Council of Georgist Organizations, Gaithersburg, MD, July, presented with illustrations the citizens dividend vs. subsidized services. Moderated panel of Worldwatch's David Roodman, who presented the complete green t ax & subsidy shift as a $2,000 gain to the average American family, and Friends of the Earth's Courtney Cuff, who outlined how to win it. At lunch, Taxpayers for Common Sense Executive Director Ralph deGennaro bashed subsidies as well as I've ever heard. Kudos to organizers Hanno Beck and Josh Vincent.

At the subsequent educational conference of the Henry George Institute, Arden, DE, told one way to proselytize greens. Held in beautiful, verdant, century-old Georgist colony, suburb of Wilmington - both soothing and uplifting. Congratulations to o rganizers Lindy Davies and Mike Curtis.

At the Green Millennium Conference of hundreds, including elected officials from Green Parties worldwide, in Oaxaca, Mexico, September, gave illustrated talk to the plenary. Consequently, Green officials have invited us to help them shift their pro perty tax.

1000 Friends of Oregon's 7th Annual Citizens' Land Use Conference, October 23, keynoted by Timothy Egan, award-winning reporter for The New York

"Never doubt that a small group of dedicated individuals can change the world; indeed, that it is the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Meade
(Provided the agitator remains sufficiently agile. - JJS)

Times, had our workshop. Was attended by two dozen, including a local elected official, and spurred plans to meet to discuss geonomizing via a Housing Voucher. The organizer wrote that the evaluations he got back rated the presenters as "knowledgeable, go od at delivery, and patient in answering questions, making the event 'the best ever' in one long-time activist's words".

Hood River Community Education Saturday Series hired me to present my illustrated workshop October 30. Fifteen came, including a park administrator, the local head of recycling, and a political candidate. Was invited back and created a buzz that ha s reverberated back to me from people who missed that one but won't miss the next.

Want to see the show? Invite us to present to your group or event. Copies of both the text and illustrations of the above talks, plus fuller reports on the event, are available for $2.50 per set. Same for copies of the below:

Message Delivered in Print

Edited the section on taxing land speculation in Sustainable America's booklet, Environment-Friendly Tax Kit, distributed to groups nationwide, August.

Edited the section on taxing land in Jack Yost's book, Planet Champions, distributed via Bridge City Books and online at amazon.com, August.

"Balkan Disintegration", 700 word article in WOMEN: Women's Online, Media and Educational Network, March.

"Kelso vs George", 900 word essay for e-list discussing Jeff Gates' latest book on democratizing capitalism with the author (who did send a nice reply), May.

"Is the CD (Citizens Dividend) Inflationary?", 1000 word article posted at our site within Hanno Beck's , in reply to a reader's question, May.

"Test Your GQ (Geonomic Quotient)", five quizzes of 20 questions each whose answers are startling statistics, at the Banneker Center, www.progress.org, July. So far, 2000+ have completed the quizzes. A sample: people living on quiet streets have how many more friends as those living on busy streets? A testee told us: "I knew it was BAD, but come on. It's a shame we're so compliant. Every time I pick up my cup of tea in the future, I'll remember how brave those non-compliants (colonial tax re bels) were. Oh, BTW, I scored a 122."

As a regular attendee to the Tax Shift meetings of the Oregon Environmental Council, authored the text of a letter used to collect signatures of 20 experts endorsing the environmental tax shift, including the property tax shift, for presentation to Oregon leaders, July.

"Suburbonomics", 1500 word article in Terrain: Journal of Nature and Architecture, summer issue, .

"I've been looking for something this persuasive for quite some time," noted Joe Bast, President of the Heartland Inst, in seeking reprint permission "to post it on PolicyFax, our free fax-on-demand information service for elected officials and journalist s."

"Plugging the Leaks in Local Economies", 800 word article in Sustainability Review, issue 3 Oct 4. SR has 2200 subscribers in 47 countries. "I loved your article," wrote Nancy Newell of Oregon Green Energy.

"Why Tax Land", 800 word op-ed selected for discussion by the Simple Society e-list, simsoc.org, Sep.

"PTS, the Property Tax Shift: Why Untax Buildings & Up-tax Locations?" 750 word article posted at Progress' Citizens Dividend , Nov.

"Portland '98: Why It Worked", 800 word article in The Georgist Journal, No. 90-Winter. And "Greening the Property Tax" and "Letting the Market Snuff Sprawl" both by Kris Nelson in GroundSwell, March/April. For conference table tops and meeting handouts, the above plus: "Why the Property Tax Shift is Special among the Environmental Tax Shifts" and "Business Benefits from the PTS" .

Filled literature orders for items such as "Greens on George: 97 Notables view taxing land alone", "101 Famous Thinkers on Owning Earth", "Where Tax Reform Has Worked: 20 Case Summaries", "America's Most Famous Forgotten Man", "Bye, Bye, Burning", and "War No More", etc.

Copies of above items, both text and illustrations, and a list of other items are available for $2.50 per set. Uncounted replies to queries from: Alain Bertaud of the World Bank, Steve Bernow of Tellus Institute, Michael Shuman (author of Going Local, fellow at Inst. For Policy Studies who agreed to do a blurb for my eventual book on geonomics ), Jeff Judson (Exec. Dir. of the Texas Public Policy Foundation), Michael Christopher, Ph.D. (Exec. Dir. of Hawaii Trends Research Institute), Hardy Myers (Oregon Attorney General), John Emrick (CEO of Norm Thompson), Ed McNamara (attorney, Prendergast & Associates), etc.

Commissioned

Joe Bast, President of Chicago's Heartland Institute, following the Terrain article (p 10) appointed me to his Council of Advisors to Project "Where We Live" for input on growth, sprawl, and environmental issues.

Scott Jones, President of the Ecotopia Project (which networks with Portland neighborhood associations to help them implement the green part of their official development plan), put me on his board to show neighborhood associations how to collect r ent.

Media Attention

Data from The Geonomist appeared in TRIP Wire, newsletter of Transit Riders In Pursuit, New York City, summer.

Listed as the Property Tax Shift resource in Sustainable America's booklet, Environment-Friendly Tax Kit, distributed to groups nationwide, August.

Quoted in Planet Champions by Jack Yost distributed via Bridge City Books and online at amazon.com, August. Thanks to Nancy Newell of Oregon Green Energy, met with Len Reed, Environment Editor of the state's major daily, The Oregonian, and his chief writer, Brent Hunsberger, October 6, for an hour in their office to brainstorm a newsy way to cover green money issues.

Notes: donors & others

Shirley-Anne Hardy has just come out (May) with Earthright and Land, nearly 700 pages, colorfully illustrated, on everything about land reform in Scotland, then and now, a place that may just geonomize as they loosen their tie to England. The tome is 11.95 sterling from The Rocks, Pitlochry, Perthshire, Scotland.

Meta Heller, candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor of Washington, Oct 26, noted the sad passing of Marvin Saillard, stalwart letter-writer.

Kyle Larsen, Jun 4: "I play a game called the Senate Simulation. At your website, I found your Geoist Constitutional Amendment, and I naturally wanted to introduce it (co-sponsor Sean McDermott) and give you full credit as author." Be my guest.

Mark Monson, Mar 12: "Your letter is the first thing about this whole money/interest/banking thing that's made any sense to me." Thanks. Me, too. There's so much nonsense even from "reputable" sources, it does take a while to wade thru it all.

LeRoy C. Hansen, Oregon, Apr 22: "You badly need a reorganization of The Geonomist that separates news from other input. And, please, CONTEXT! Not just place, person, and time but meaning, source, background. Fit your proposal into the overall stra tegy of society. Attendance at the U of Colorado, Chicago, Washington, Stanford, and Oregon has not prepared me for some of your arguments, how you put into one tasty dish all the interesting tidbits of your pages. I will persist and hope." Wait a minute. Society has an overall strategy? No one told me. I found the world not to my liking and decided to change it, a la Bernard Shaw. If anything, college courses may make it harder to see how geonomics can transform civilization. But I, too, will persist and hope to put news in a more relevant context.

Bryan Kavanagh, Australian, Apr 27: "Hey, your Geonomist is some mag!" It looks that way read upside down Down Under.

John Fisher, Canadian Green Party candidate, Apr: "Great production! Please send a copy to Ontario party leader Frank de Jong. Enclosed is $20 to help the cause. Keep up the good work!" You make it possible. Thanks. Anyone else want extra copies fo rwarded?

SOCIETY FINANCES

Newals, Renewals, & Orders

For ordering literature, thanks to Michael J. Cykana of metro Dallas, Lynora Saunders of metro Portland, Callie Jordan of Oregon, and LeRoy C. Hansen of Oregon (above). For a list of 50 items, just ask. Plus Kris Nelson and Jeff Smith split a $3,000 prize from Redefining Progress of San Francisco to author an in-depth essay on ways to improve land value taxation above the lo-cal level.

For joining and rejoining, thanks to Michael J. Cykana (above) and Jake Himmelstein of metro Philadelphia (as, wow, two stalwarts!), Mel Leasure of Virginia (as a sustainer!), LeRoy C. Hansen of Oregon (above), Ed Clarke of the US OM&B, the Better Cities Com't of Illinois, Melissa Srodes of metro Chicago, Michael Neil of South California, Virginia Neidig of Oregon, Richard Gimmi of metro Portland, Vernon Cook of metro Portland, and Felice Gruskin of New York. We're 26 over a hundred and, with your help, still growing!

For hiring our services, thanks to Hanno Beck of the Banneker Center for Economic Justice, metro Baltimore, Michael Mascall of the BC Geonomics Society, and Dr. Nic Tideman of Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Need an answer, slide show, new data, or projection, employee us!

For funding our work big time, major thanks to the brave Share-It-Now Fdn of Oregon, saintly Artie Yeatman of the School of Living near metro Philly, the encouraging board of Common Ground USA, dear Marion Sapiro of Common Ground, Los Angeles, the kind folks at the Henry George School of New York, and our angelic friends at the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation in New York. May others well endowed mimic your wisdom and generosity.

What you can do

Chris Thacker, Truman St U bus. major, Oct 15: "Several months ago I learned of Henry George. I have been reading and gathering information on urban sprawl and the income gap. Now I know why they exist and I am mad! I want to do something abou t it! Every place in the world, including America, still blindly embraces the false notion that 'making a killing' in real estate is a good thing. In reality it is a bad thing. If there is anything I can do to help, please let me know."

Join! Sign up others! Persuade foundations to support us. Come to a meeting. Organize meetings, lobbying, letter-writing campaigns to editors and elected officials. Invite us out to present our show. Then in your spare time, learn to wrestle and get elect ed governor.

What else you can do

You could use the coupon below to join the Geonomy Society. All contributions are fully tax-deductible. Remember. It is on the wings of donations that awareness spreads. And the sooner the word gets out, the sooner the world gets well. Thanks.

Dear Geonomy Society (an educational IRS 501(c)(3));
Here's my tax-deductible yearly dues:
___ $15.00 to subscribe to THE GEONOMIST.
___ $25.00 to be a supporter receiving THE GEONOMIST plus free slogan button, discounts, and the right to vote.
___ $50.00 to be a sustainer receiving above plus free bumper-sticker and T-shirt.
___ $100.00 to be a stalwart receiving above plus free two books.
___ $500.00 to be a patron receiving above plus free signed original editions of art and posters.
___ $1000.00 to be a benefactor receiving above plus free passes to all events and programs (except global tours).

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