Warren Mosler

[carlan]

I thought Adam and Ryan brought up a very interesting 2 part discussion with Warren Mosler recently on their Applied MMT podcast.  https://www.appliedmmt.com/ 

I usually understand what Mosler is saying despite feeling very inadequate with most MMT discussions.  I had a hard time following Mosler this time. Adam and Ryan seemed to navigate the discussion beautifully.

Would this group be interested in listening to the two Mosler podcasts and discussing them? It might help me catch on to what Mosler was talking about, especially how interest rates affect the economy.  Seems to me that Mosler generally gravitates to a zero % interest rate but this time I thought he was saying there were benefits of a rising interest rate. 

[Bill White]

There's a lot I don't understand about Federal Reserve bond interest rates. There's something about replacing the entire federal tax system, and maybe the state tax system, with a real estate tax. I understand how that is easier to compute, and how it reduces the compliance costs. But I didn't completely understand how that is a progressive and not a regressive tax system.  Also, the state just wants its dollars back in taxes. But does it really matter how the money returns or where it comes from? That is to say, if only property owners pay taxes, will they somehow claim they have more say in policy matters? I don't know, of course, but I suspect they will.

So I'd be interested in talking about this.

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[Wendy Rockwell]

Taxing production always has a regressive effect on the economy.  Taxes on labor, taxes on the construction of your home, taxes on exchange of goods and services, is expensive to collect, increases the cost to the final consumer and discourages all of these activities.

Land is different.  Land has no cost of production, it is only held out of use in anticipation of extracting the highest ransom.  Land has value because we all have to have it to live and we cannot make it.  Because the supply is limited the price of land increases as the demand increases.  Therefore with increase population the price to pay for access to land increases.  If this increase is collected back into the community and invested into the community a healthy cycle develops.

At present taxes are collected on production, with the already stated results, to construct a hospital, a school, a road, a bridge.  All this infrastructure increases land value, by increasing its desirability.  At present this increase in value accrues to the present 'owner' increasing his ability to extract a higher and higher ransom. 

I want to state that a property tax is actually two taxes in one.  It includes the house and improvements on the land as well as the land.  The tax on land that I advocate excludes all private improvements. 

When land taxes are collected by the community more community members are able to work, own a home or a farm, the environment they live in is safer because everyone has work.  This has been demonstrated whenever, wherever a land tax is implemented.

I added some a links below.

Dave Wetzel Story_CGO_Conference_2011.wmv

The International Union for Land Value Taxation

Common Ground USA

Mason Gaffney's website

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Wendy Rockwell Brouillette

2645-5551, 8888-0472

Monteverde, Costa Rica

www.Helechosvivos.com

La pobreza no es un accidente.  Igual que la esclavitud y la apartheid, es producido por el hombre y puede ser eliminada por las actuaciones de los seres humanos.

      --Nelson Mandela

Poverty is not an accident.  Like slavery and apartheid it is man made and can be removed by the actions of human beings.
--Nelson Mandela

[carlan]

Thanks, Wendy. Well written and good information.

I hope Mosler doesn't sue me for misrepresenting him. I think Mosler suggests only one tax: a federal property tax which would eliminate all taxes and fees including state and local taxes. I guess the idea is that the federal govt would redistribute some of this national property income to the states and states to local govts. It might be a 20% + tax but not as much as all the taxes we pay right now. If you own property, you would pay a property tax and couldn't escape it. I would assume that if you don't own property you'd not pay any taxes.

I think this was Mosler's answer to eliminating real estate housing bubbles.  Goodness knows, we need some national discussion on how to keep housing affordable. Furthermore, it really disturbs me that wealthy people who probably pay close to nothing in taxes are buying up millions of acres of land like John Malone and Ted Turner and now Gates seems to be buying up farmland. Today I was reading that JP Morgan is buying up single family housing despite other institutional investors getting out of the business. Maybe a substantial property tax would leave some land to the rest of us to live on and during the time people didn't own property, lack of taxes might help them save for a house. 

[Wendy Rockwell]

A land tax is the most efficient land distribution tool.  If holding onto land hits your pocket book the result is a natural reversal of speculation in land.  It no longer becomes profitable.  This has been shown to be true wherever a land tax is applied.