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Saturday 27 January 2018

TWO GOOD ARTICLES IN TODAY’S PAPERS (SAT 27 JAN, 2018)


TWO GOOD ARTICLES IN TODAY’S PAPERS (SAT 27 JAN, 2018)

  Anne Pettifor, always a good read, explains as I have done, that
“Building more homes won’t solve the housing crisis”

And over in Ireland comes the explanation that too many people actually like rising house prices. There is a coalition of the greedy and the desperate who would be horrified if prices were to crash.

Sadly, such wisdom and common-sense did not lead either writer to advocate the only workable and morally acceptable way to fix the housing market—LVT.

Instead, Pettifor says:
First for consideration should be a property speculation tax (PST), as in Germany”

“Second, the government must manage speculative capital flows in and out of Britain by taxing them through a Tobin tax on global financial transactions. “

Who are the speculators to be taxed? She’s a bit vague here (and it is surely wide open to evasion!). As for her second idea, she flogs the dead horse of the Tobin Tax.
And all the time failing to recognise the bleeding obvious on Land Values!

Irish economist McWilliams thinks that “a realistic alternative [to the collusion by home-owners to keep prices up] is providing secure tenure in the rental sector”

Well yes, a vibrant rented sector works very well in Germany and Switzerland, and in the long term we should aim for that.

But how do we engineer the house price crash? How to wean the profiteers off their unearned investment wealth? The soon to be rented properties have to come in the main from the existing stock/

No. Only LVT will do it, and directly reclaim the specific, society-generated wealth from the property speculators.

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