LAND BANKS

[spectre]

http://spectrevision.net/2012/02/09/land-banks/

COUNTIES use 'LAND BANKS' and EMINENT DOMAIN to FIGHT FORECLOSURE
FRAUD
http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/north_dakota.php
http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/occupy.php
by Ellen Brown / January 12, 2012

An electronic database called MERS has created defects in the chain of
title to over half the homes in America. Counties have been cheated
out of millions of dollars in recording fees, and their title records
are in hopeless disarray. Meanwhile, foreclosed and abandoned homes
are blighting neighborhoods. Straightening out the records and
restoring the homes to occupancy is clearly in the public interest,
and the burden is on local government to do it. But how? New legal
developments are presenting some innovative alternatives.

John O’Brien is Register of Deeds for Southern Essex County,
Massachusetts. He calls his land registry a “crime scene.” A formal
forensic audit of the properties for which he is responsible found
that:

• Only 16% of the mortgage assignments were valid.
• 27% of the invalid assignments were fraudulent, 35% were “robo-
signed,” and 10% violated the Massachusetts Mortgage Fraud Statute.
• The identity of financial institutions that are current owners of
the mortgages could be determined for only 287 out of 473 (60%).
• There were 683 missing assignments for the 287 traced mortgages,
representing approximately $180,000 in lost recording fees per 1,000
mortgages whose current ownership could be traced.

At the root of the problem is that title has been recorded in the name
of a private entity called Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems
(MERS). MERS is a mere place holder for the true owners, a faceless,
changing pool of investors owning indeterminate portions of sliced and
diced, securitized properties. Their identities have been so well
hidden that their claims to title are now in doubt. According to the
auditor: "What this means is that . . . the institutions, including
many pension funds, that purchased these mortgages don’t actually own
them".

The March of the AGs
When Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley went to court in
December against MERS and five major banks—Bank of America Corp.,
JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and GMAC—John O’Brien said he
was thrilled. Coakley says the banks have “undermined our public land
record system through the use of MERS.” Other attorneys general are
also bringing lawsuits. Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden is going
after MERS in a suit seeking $10,000 per violation. “Since at least
the 1600s,” he says, “real property rights have been a cornerstone of
our society. MERS has raised serious questions about who owns what in
America.”

Biden’s lawsuit alleges that MERS violated Delaware’s Deceptive Trade
Practices Act by:
· Hiding the true mortgage owner and removing that information
from the public land records.
· Creating a systemically important, yet inherently
unreliable, mortgage database that created confusion and inappropriate
assignments and foreclosures of mortgages.
· Operating MERS through its members’ employees, whom MERS
confusingly appoints as its corporate officers so that they may act on
MERS’ behalf.
· Failing to ensure the proper transfer of mortgage loan
documentation to the securitization trusts, which may have resulted in
the failure of securitizations to own the loans upon which they
claimed to foreclose.

Legally, this last defect may be even more fatal than filing in the
name of MERS in establishing a break in the chain of title to
securitized properties. Mortgage-backed securities are sold to
investors in packages representing interests in trusts called REMICs
(Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduits). REMICs are designed as tax
shelters; but to qualify for that status, they must be “static.”
Mortgages can’t be transferred in and out once the closing date has
occurred. The REMIC Pooling and Servicing Agreement typically states
that any transfer after the closing date is invalid. Yet few, if any,
properties in foreclosure seem to have been assigned to these REMICs
before the closing date, in blatant disregard of legal requirements.
The whole business is quite complicated, but the bottom line is that
title has been clouded not only by MERS but because the trusts
purporting to foreclose do not own the properties by the terms of
their own documents.

Courts Are Taking Notice
The title issues are so complicated that judges themselves have been
slow to catch on, but they are increasingly waking up and taking
notice. In some cases, the judge is not even waiting for the borrowers
to raise lack of standing as a defense. In two cases decided in New
York in December, the banks lost although their motions were either
unopposed or the homeowner did not show up, and in one there was
actually a default. No matter, said the court; the bank simply did not
have standing to foreclose. Failure to comply with the terms of the
loan documents can make an even stronger case for dismissal. InHorace
vs. LaSalle, Circuit Court of Russell County, Alabama, 57-
CV-2008-000362.00 (March 30, 2011), the court permanently enjoined the
bank (now part of Bank of America) from foreclosing on the plaintiff’s
home, stating:

[T]he court is surprised to the point of astonishment that the
defendant trust (LaSalle Bank National Association) did not comply
with New York Law in attempting to obtain assignment of plaintiff
Horace’s note and mortgage. . . .

[P]laintiff’s motion for summary judgment is granted to the extent
that defendant trust . . . is permanently enjoined from foreclosing on
the property . . . .

Relief for Counties: Land Banks and Eminent Domain
The legal tide is turning against MERS and the banks, giving rise to
some interesting possibilities for relief at the county level. Local
governments have the power of eminent domain: they can seize real or
personal property if (a) they can show that doing so is in the public
interest, and (b) the owner is compensated at fair market value.

The public interest part is obvious enough. In a 20-page booklet
titled “Revitalizing Foreclosed Properties with Land Banks,” the U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) observes: "The
volume of foreclosures has become a significant problem, not only to
local economies, but also to the aesthetics of neighborhoods and
property values therein. At the same time, middle- to low income
families continue to be priced out of the housing market while
suitable housing units remain vacant." The booklet goes on to describe
an alternative being pursued by some communities: "To ameliorate the
negative effects of foreclosures, some communities are creating public
entities — known as land banks — to return these properties to
productive reuse while simultaneously addressing the need for
affordable housing."

States named as adopting land bank legislation include Michigan, Ohio,
Missouri, Georgia, Indiana, Texas, Kentucky, and Maryland. HUD notes
that the federal government encourages and supports these efforts. But
states can still face obstacles to acquiring and restoring the
properties, including a lack of funds and difficulties clearing title.
Both of these obstacles might be overcome by focusing on abandoned and
foreclosed properties for which the chain of title has been broken,
either by MERS or by failure to transfer the promissory note according
to the terms of the trust indenture. These homes could be acquired by
eminent domain both free of cost and free of adverse claims to title.
The county would simply need to give notice in the local newspaper of
an intent to exercise its right of eminent domain. The burden of proof
would then transfer to the bank or trust claiming title. If the
claimant could not prove title, the county would take the property,
clear title, and either work out a fair settlement with the occupants
or restore the home for rent or sale.

Even if the properties are acquired without charge, however, counties
might lack the funds to restore them. Additional funds could be had by
establishing a public bank that serves more functions than just those
of a land bank. In a series titled “A Solution to the Foreclosure
Crisis,” Michael Sauvante of the National Commonwealth Group suggests
that properties obtained by eminent domain can be used as part of the
capital base for a chartered, publicly-owned bank, on the model of the
state-owned Bank of North Dakota. The county could deposit its
revenues into this bank and use its capital and deposits to generate
credit, as all chartered banks are empowered to do. This credit could
then be used not just to finance property redevelopment but for other
county needs, again on the model of the Bank of North Dakota. For a
fuller discussion of publicly-owned banks, see http://PublicBankingInstitute.org.

Sauvante adds that the use of eminent domain is often viewed
negatively by homeowners. To overcome this prejudice, the county could
exercise eminent domain on the mortgage contract rather than on title
to the property. (The power of eminent domain applies both to real and
to personal property rights.) Title would then remain with the
homeowner. The county would just have a secured interest in the
property, putting it in the shoes of the bank. It could then
renegotiate reasonable terms with the homeowner, something banks have
been either unwilling or unable to do. They have to get all the
investor-owners to agree, a difficult task; and they have little
incentive to negotiate when they can make more money on fees and
credit default swaps on contracts that go into default.

Settling with the Investors
What about the rights of the investors who bought the securities
allegedly backed by the foreclosed homes? The banks selling these
collateralized debt obligations represented that they were protected
with credit default swaps. The investors’ remedy is against the
counterparties to those bets—or against the banks that sold them a
bill of goods. Foreclosure defense attorney Neil Garfield says the
investors are unlikely to recover on abandoned and foreclosed
properties in any case. Banks and servicers can earn more when the
homes are bulldozed—something that is happening in some counties—than
from a sale or workout at a loss. Not only is more earned on credit
default swaps and fees, but bulldozed homes tell no tales. Garfield
maintains that fully a third of the investors’ money has gone into
middleman profits rather than into real estate purchases. “With a
complete loss no one asks for an accounting.”

Not only homes and neighborhoods but 400 years of property law are
being destroyed by banker and investor greed. As Barry Ritholtz
observes, the ability of a property owner to confidently convey his
property is a bedrock of our society. Bailing out reckless financiers
and refusing to hold them accountable has led to a fundamental
breakdown in the role of government and the court system. This can be
righted only by holding the 1% to the same set of laws as are applied
to the 99%. Those laws include that a contract for the sale of real
estate must be in writing signed by seller and buyer; that an
assignment must bear the signatures required by local law; and that
forging signatures gives rise to an actionable claim for fraud.

The neoliberal model that says banks can govern themselves has failed.
It is up to county governments to restore the rule of law and repair
the economic distress wrought behind the smokescreen of MERS. New
tools at the county’s disposal—including eminent domain, land banks,
and publicly-owned banks—can facilitate this local rebirth.

Ellen Brown is an attorney and president of the Public Banking
Institute, http://PublicBankingInstitute.org. In Web of Debt, her
latest of eleven books, she shows how a private cartel has usurped the
power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the
people can get it back. Her websites arehttp://WebofDebt.com and
http://EllenBrown.com.

STATE PUBLIC BANKS
http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/how-wisconsin-could-turn-austerity-into-prosperity-own-a-bank
http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/a-choice-for-states-banks-not-budget-crises
http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/the-growing-movement-for-publicly-owned-banks

NY STATE ENACTS 'LAND BANK' LAW
http://www.housingwire.com/2011/07/29/new-york-state-enacts-land-bank-law
New York state enacts land bank law
by Kerry Curry / July 29, 2011

New York became the latest state Friday to enact land bank legislation
to deal with the burgeoning problem of vacant and blighted properties
— one of the aftereffects from the nation's foreclosure crisis. New
York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the law Friday in what was described as
a bipartisan effort. Land banks are entities that take control of
problem properties and either rehabilitate the property or bulldoze it
to redevelop the land. The strategy has met with success in some of
the nation's inner cities that have been ravaged by the foreclosure
crisis, such as Detroit and Cleveland. Land banks have assembled
parcels for green space, urban farming, side lots, community
amenities, commercial development and affordable housing, among other
uses.

New York's law will allow cities and counties across the state the
ability to develop land banks, which would be tasked with converting
vacant, abandoned or tax-delinquent properties into productive use.
The issue is of particular importance in Western New York, where the
volume of abandoned housing stock is overwhelming. Center for
Community Progress President Dan Kildee, who wrote a piece on land
banks for HousingWire's August magazine, worked closely with the
lawmakers who crafted the bills, which are modeled on the example of
Flint, Mich., a city ravaged by the downturn in the American auto
industry. The Genesee County Land Bank, created there in 1999, has
been the primary vehicle for redeveloping the city’s vacant housing.

Kildee, the creator of that land bank, says he believes land banking
can yield similar results for New York. He told HousingWire that the
Flint land bank has acquired nearly 10,000 vacant homes since its
inception, demolishing more than 1,300 of those. Its projects have
included redevelopment or repurposing of 2,500 properties. Kildee said
the land bank has attracted more than $60 million in new investment to
Flint. “Around the country, as communities face the fallout of a
changing economy and the foreclosure crisis, land banking is giving
local governments the chance to help re-set the real estate market and
promote sound development plans for the future," he said. Similar
legislation is up for consideration in Pennsylvania and Tennessee,
while Georgia legislators are debating an update of a land banking law
already on the books there, according to the Center for Community
Progress.

LOCAL SOLUTIONS
http://www.mainstreetmatters.us/publicbanking
http://www.mainstreetmatters.us/solvingforeclosures
A Solution to the Foreclosure Crisis / by Michael Sauvante

Summary
Not since the Great Depression have so many homes been seized in
foreclosure proceedings. With no end in sight, our country and local
communities are faced with the realization that neither Washington nor
Wall Street is willing or able to solve the problem. National
Commonwealth Group has developed a set of solutions that can be
initiated at the local level independent of outside help. They begin
with actions that just take some political will on the part of local
county officials, which "political backbone" they might conveniently
find with the help of local citizens action groups, the small business
community and local newspapers, TV & radio.

We have defined a 6 step program that communities can put in motion.
The first 4 steps represent largely mitigation efforts that can
dramatically reduce the negative impact that foreclosures have on
homeowners, their neighbors, the banks and the community as a whole.
In some cases those steps will translate into stopping certain
foreclosures outright. However, if a community wants to step them
entirely, then steps 5 and 6 provide them with the means to do that.
We have detailed those 6 steps in the following downloadable document
entitled "Stopping Foreclosures: A Local Action Plan". It is our
understanding that not all states and counties in the country, due to
local and state laws, would be able to apply these recommendations as
is. Nonetheless, a sufficiently large enough segment of the states and
their counties could follow these guidelines that they should start to
have impact on a large number of communities impacted by the
foreclosure problem. We are working with some experts in those states
that have a different foundation for how foreclosures are administered
to develop an alternate plan for them as well.

In the meantime, we recommend you read the "Stopping Foreclosures: A
Local Action Plan" document first and then proceed to read the balance
of this section, as it drills deeper into our recommendations
contained in Steps 5 & 6. Steps 5 & 6 entail local governments, in
particular counties and larger cities, using two sets of laws that
will allow them to seize control of their local foreclosure problem
and bring about a halt to the devastation they cause to the community
and all participants. The first set of laws related to the eminent
domain powers of government bodies and the second set of laws relate
to banking. Here is a brief synopsis of those two solutions. It is
followed by a more in-depth exploration of the whole topic, including
a downloadable .pdf document that can be read offline.

Let us begin with the eminent domain powers of these entities. We
recommend this solution be pursued primarily at the county level.
Here's why: Counties are the government entity most concerned with
foreclosures in their jurisdiction, in that legal proceedings occur at
the county court level and county sheriffs are the law enforcement
agency tasked with carrying out evictions. The first step we recommend
is that a county issues a moratorium on foreclosures within the
county, along with ordering the sheriffs to discontinue any evictions
(of homeowners facing foreclosure or those who move back in post
foreclosure as currently promoted by Occupy Our Homes et al.).
Counties can take such actions under their mandate to promote the
public good.

Next, they can address the problem of MERS, the principal perpetrators
of foreclosure actions against homeowners. MERS was established to
bypass the normal title transfer process and costs, resulting in
purported title holders unable to prove clear title. Few homeowners
have the financial resources to fight foreclosures on this basis, but
counties clearly have the financial muscle, ability and motivation to
challenge MERS on title questions. If MERS (or any other purported
title holder) cannot prove clear title, then it is in the interests of
the county and the homeowner for the county to step in and seize the
mortgage contract for the property under its eminent domain authority.
(Note - as explained here, eminent domain can be used to not only
seize real property, but personal property like contract rights and
other intangible property, including mortgage contracts.) Post seizure
(which costs the county virtually nothing), the county is in a
position to work out new terms with the homeowner, allowing them to
remain in the home and make mutually agreed upon payments. In the
process, the county and all other local constituents avoid the
negative impact a foreclosure has on the community and the homeowner
gets to stay in the home.

The above solution could address about 50% of the pending foreclosures
in the community, corresponding to the percentage of all mortgages
held by MERS. If that happens in enough counties, the magnitude of the
losses to MERS may well force a national solution to the title issue,
but in the meantime, counties could use the process to begin to
address their local foreclosure problem. That begs the question of
what can be done about the mortgages held by legitimate titleholders,
such as community banks, that did not resell their mortgages? A county
could still exercise its eminent domain rights and seize those
mortgage contracts to those properties as well. In those
circumstances, eminent domain rules dictate that the county need only
pay a “fair market” value for the mortgage, just as it does with any
other normal eminent domain purchase. This would actually currently
yield more income to the selling bank than it would see through a
foreclosure auction, a plus for the bank.

{Download the full article that explores the eminent domain and county
bank solution here: http://www.mainstreetmatters.us/docs/No-more-foreclosures.pdf}

Ending Foreclosures With Local Solutions
Wall Street abuses! Inaction in Washington! Regardless of where one
points the finger, the foreclosure crisis continues to devastate the
American economy. Community banks are particularly hard hit, through
no fault of their own, and many have failed, seized by regulators or
snatched up by larger banks seemingly immune to regulatory heavy
handedness. Collapsing real estate markets have a domino effect on
institutions that are dependent on healthy real estate values, in
particular local governments that rely on property taxes. The problem
is that the players who might have a solution to the crisis are
pressured in ways that exacerbate it. For example, community banks
would be penalized by the FDIC and other regulators if they tried to
help homeowners by renegotiating their loan payment amounts, providing
them payment holidays or simply writing down the value of the loans.
The federal government would have to initiate a massive new program to
cover the costs to the banks that would produce, or require regulators
to radically alter their rules to allow banks to take such actions
without a negative impact on their own status. Neither is politically
feasible. And Wall Street banks have no motivation to step in and
solve the crisis that they helped to create. But there is a way out.
Local governments, primarily at the county level, can exercise certain
of their legal rights, including the right of eminent domain. And they
can go much further if they also make creative use of existing banking
laws.

Counties and Foreclosure
Most of the legal procedures associated with foreclosures occur at the
county level, including legal filings, court hearings and the too
familiar process of sheriffs evicting homeowners after foreclosure.
This allows counties to begin implementing a solution in three simple
steps:

Step 1: Counties can declare a moratorium on foreclosures on the
grounds that they are economically harmful to all residents of the
county, not just individual homeowners and mortgage holders. The
decline in overall property values following foreclosures impacts the
revenue of the county and other government entities that depend on
property tax revenues. Reducing or stopping foreclosures is clearly in
the public interest and is the first step in solving the problem
locally.

Step 2: The county can order its sheriffs not to evict any property
owner as a result of already instituted foreclosure proceedings or
other parties that have moved into foreclosed homes as part of the
Occupy Our Homes movement and other similar activities. That would
prevent homeowners being thrown out on the street and provide homes
for those already evicted.

Step 3: The county can begin working with homeowners who are under
threat of foreclosure to distinguish which homeowners have mortgages
primarily with local institutions versus those that have been re-sold
and currently held by MERS (Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems,
Inc.) or other non-local institutions. MERS is a private mortgage
registry that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac formed along with major banks
to bypass public registration of deeds and facilitate the creation of
mortgage-backed securities. MERS holds about half of the mortgages in
the country.

The Problem with MERS
MERS was created to simplify the bundling of large numbers of
individual mortgages into other financial instruments, which resulted
in the breakdown of the normal process of title transfer. One reason
for that was a desire by the owners of MERS to avoid title transfer
costs and thus increase their profits on securitizing those mortgages.
The result is that many homeowners are paying on mortgages for which
no clearly defined mortgage holder can be identified.

The majority of state attorneys general are in battles with Fannie and
Freddie over their unresponsiveness to homeowners’ need to reduce
their debt and the imposition of foreclosures even when proper title
cannot be presented. (See “Kamala Harris, California Attorney General,
To Fannie And Freddie Head: 'Step Aside' Over Mortgage Crisis” and
“Beau Biden, Delaware Attorney General, Sues Big Banks' Mortgage
Registry”) Yet in order to perfect a foreclosure claim, a mortgage
holder is supposed to have clear title to the property, giving them
the right to seize the property for non-performance on the part of the
mortgagee (homeowner). Where clear title cannot be evidenced, the law
should be on the side of the homeowner. But courts, banks and law
enforcement have often run roughshod over homeowners who, without the
financial resources to fight foreclosure proceedings, are often
powerless to stop the juggernaut. If the purported mortgage holder
cannot prove clear title, then the law is clear that the homeowner
should be able to retain possession and control of their property. Yet
many homeowners have been foreclosed improperly and forced out of
their homes. Some homeowners have successfully prevailed in court by
demanding that the foreclosing entity prove title, which in many cases
they could not. Of course, such a legal battle requires financial
resources that are usually missing because the homeowner is already in
financial difficulties, causing the foreclosure proceedings in the
first place.

Counties, MERS & Eminent Domain
This is where counties can come to the rescue. If the financial
institution (typically downstream from the originating bank and rarely
a community bank) cannot demonstrate clear title, the county can
invoke its power of eminent domain to resolve the issue. Eminent
domain allows a government entity to seize not just physical property
but intangible property such as contract rights, patents, trade
secrets and copyrights, provided that doing so is in the public
interest and the owner is compensated at fair market value. Counties
simply need to provide adequate public notice that the property is
subject to eminent domain seizure. If the lender cannot provide proof
of title by the end of the notice period, the county can proceed with
the seizure uncontested. Since there is no identifiable party to
compensate, this procedure costs the county next to nothing.
Regardless of the cloud over the title prior to the seizure, clear
title is once again established afterward. We have a long history of
counties re-establishing clear title, as in cases where property is
seized (e.g., for failure to pay taxes) and sold in what are often
called “sheriff’s sales.” The title industry considers such sales to
wipe out all previous title history, and any future title searches
only go back to that date. As the title cost the county essentially
nothing, it can negotiate terms with the homeowner that will redefine
what portion of the property the homeowner is allowed to retain and
also allow the homeowner to remain in the home. That could include a
temporary moratorium on any payments pending improvement on the
homeowner’s financial condition. At a very minimum the county can then
rent the home to the (former) homeowner. (See “"Right-to-Rent": A
Simple, Sensible Idea That Dysfunctional Washington Is More Than Happy
to Let Die”)

The net result of this process is:
Foreclosures and their negative ripple effect on the local economy are
reduced.
More homeowners remain in their homes, helping to preserve
neighborhoods.
The county receives new revenues.
The Moral Argument
In addition to the economic benefits of stopping foreclosures, this
process addresses the fact that the MERS system was designed to skirt
legal procedures in pursuit of profit. The foreclosure crisis stands
at the very center of our economic woes, and since the federal
government appears incapable or unwilling to address this problem,
this solution lies with local communities. The nature of free market
capitalism is that you risk losing your investment. If, like the
owners of MERS, you do so because you played fast and loose with the
rules, then taxpayers especially should not be required to bail you
out, as MERS owners might demand if their system starts to
significantly unravel.

What About Legitimate Mortgages?
What can the county do when the titleholder is a financial
institution, like a community bank, that normally does not re-sell its
mortgages? The county can still exercise eminent domain and seize the
property, paying fair market price. Actually, were the bank to be paid
the current appraised value for the property, it would in most cases
come out financially ahead of what it could realize from a foreclosure
sale. How does the county finance the eminent domain purchase of a
property at fair market value? Currently, that means borrowing the
funds from other institutions and repaying them out of tax revenues
and/or the revenues realized from payments by the homeowners. One
could argue that the revenue from all of the properties seized (both
the MERS properties and those bought for full market value) should be
adequate to service the debt. But the county has another tool that
allows it to go far beyond financing seized properties and into
facilitating the larger credit needs of the county and its residents.
That solution is called Public Banking. See the section entitled
Public Banking to see what it is and how we can use the concept to get
credit flowing in our communities again and to free us up from the
tyranny of the Wall Street banks.

Start Now
At the very least county administrators should be petitioned to place
a moratorium on local foreclosures and exercise the eminent domain
seizure of those foreclosure candidate properties for which no clear
titleholder can be established. That will require no new systems at
the county level and will go a long ways to ending the devastation of
foreclosure.

LAND BANKS
http://planphilly.com/rda-farming
http://www.thelandbank.org/aboutus.asp
http://www.mslandbank.com/aboutus.html
http://www.communityprogress.net/around-the-states-pages-5.php

WHAT is a LAND BANK?
http://www.umich.edu/~econdev/landbank/
Revitalizing Blighted Communities with Land Banks / by Jessica de Wit

A land bank is a public authority created to efficiently hold, manage
and develop tax-foreclosed property.(1) Land banks act as a legal and
financial mechanism to transform vacant, abandoned and tax-foreclosed
property back to productive use. Generally, land banks are funded by
local governments' budgets or the management and disposition of tax-
foreclosed property.(2) In addition, a land bank is a powerful
locational incentive, which encourages redevelopment in older
communities that generally have little available land and
neighborhoods that have been blighted by an out-migration of residents
and businesses.(3) While a land bank provides short-term fiscal
benefits, it can also act as a tool for planning long-term community
development. Successful land bank programs revitalize blighted
neighborhoods and direct reinvestment back into these neighborhoods to
support their long-term community vision.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Elg6i3NxvdE

Why have a land bank?
Land is one of the most important factors in local economic
development today and must be managed well to improve existing land
use practices, enhance livability of communities, and support local
community development.(4) In recent surveys, the Brookings Institute
found that on average 15% of the land in major American cities is
vacant.(5) Vacant and abandoned land does not produce sufficient
property tax revenue for cities, which generally is their main revenue
source. This lack of funds impedes a city's ability to sustain its
operations, programs, and services. In addition, vacant and abandoned
land discourages property ownership, depresses property values,
attracts crime and creates health hazards.

To understand why it is important to have a land bank, it is necessary
to assess the costly impact of vacant and abandoned land in
communities. When there are vacant and abandoned properties in
communities, neighboring property owners and the municipalities incur
significant costs. The U.S. Fire Administration reports that over
12,000 vacant structure fires are reported each year in the U.S.,
which results in $73 million in property damage annually.(6) In
addition, abandoned properties tend to attract crime. A 1993 study of
59 abandoned properties in Austin, Texas, found that 34 percent were
used for illegal activities and of the 41 percent that were unsecured,
83 percent were used for illegal activities.(7) This crime drains
police department resources and leaves residents feeling unsafe in
their own neighborhoods.

When property owners neglect and abandon their properties, the local
municipality must use its own resources to clean and maintain the
properties as part of their nuisance abatement responsibilities to
protect the public health, safety and welfare of its community. For
example, from 1999 to 2004, St. Louis spent $15.5 million, which
equates to nearly $100 per household, to demolish vacant buildings.(8)
Detroit spends roughly $800,000 per year to clean vacant lots.(9)
Abandoned and vacant properties drive down the surrounding property
values, which lowers the property taxes that most municipalities rely
on as a primary source of revenue.

Property abandonment can destabilize a neighborhood by causing an out-
migration of property owners, who are worried about losing value on
their properties due to surrounding vacant and abandoned land. A
Temple University study suggests that, all things being equal, the
presence of an abandoned house on a block reduces the value of all the
other property by an average of $6,720.(10) According to Emory
University Professor Frank Alexander's research, "failure of cities to
collect even 2 to 4 percent of property taxes because of delinquencies
and abandonment translates into $3 billion to $6 billion in lost
revenues to local governments and school districts annually."(11)
While it is difficult to quantify all of the costs associated with
vacant and abandoned properties, it is clear that they place a
tremendous cost burden on communities.

Land Bank Benefits
While abandoned and vacant properties depress property values,
discourage property ownership, and attract criminal activities in the
surrounding area, a land bank provides tools to quickly turn these tax-
reverted properties back into usable parcels that reinvest in the
community's long-term vision for its neighborhoods. Land bank programs
act as an economic and community development tool to revitalize
blighted neighborhoods and business districts. Land banks can benefit
urban schools, improve tax revenues, expand housing opportunities,
remove public nuisances, assist in crime prevention and promote
economic development.(12)

By transferring vacant and abandoned properties to responsible land
owners through a land bank program, local governments benefit because
they avoid the significant cost burden of property maintenance, like
mowing and snow removal, as part of their nuisance abatement
responsibilities. In addition, local governments benefit from
increased revenue because the new property owners pay taxes on the
property. Also, the local schools benefit because they receive more
funding when there is an increase in property owners in their school
districts. Land bank programs can increase the variety of mixed-income
housing offered and provide more opportunities for affordable housing.
Also, land bank properties, which become owner-occupied, discourage
criminal activity thereby benefiting public safety and decreasing the
cost burden on the local police and fire departments. Finally, the
more residents and businesses that occupy property in a neighborhood,
the more services and amenities will be needed, which boosts local
economic activity. Many cities, like Atlanta, GA; St. Louis, MO;
Genesee County, MI; and Cleveland, OH; have established land bank
programs to redevelop vacant and abandoned land as a productive use
for their communities. These communities are using land banks as a
tool to reuse their urban land and stimulate economic development and
neighborhood revitalization.

Land Bank Challenges
While there are many benefits to establishing land banks in
communities, there are also many challenges in operating and
maintaining them. Several U.S. municipalities have had challenges with
running their land banks. Atlanta's land bank has a lack of sufficient
acquisition funds for both Community Development Corporations (CDC)
and the land bank authority (LBA).(13) In addition, they have a need
for ongoing improvement coordination among community development
departments of local governments, the LBA and the Tax Commissioner.
(14)

Cleveland's land bank challenges are the capitalization of projects,
the CDC's limited capacity to take and rehab land acquired from the
land bank and the time consuming administrative procedures, including
the legislative process and aldermanic approvals.(15) CDCs want the
City to go beyond supporting primarily tax-delinquent vacant
properties and take the lead on tax-delinquent properties that have
existing structures and the possibility of environmental contamination.
(16)

Genesee County's land bank challenges are whether urban tax-reverted
properties have enough value to be purchased, even with the latest
Land Bank Fast Track legislation.(17) In addition, there are concerns
whether there will be enough revenue generated by the sale of these
properties to pay the costs associated with administering a
Redevelopment Fast Track Authority.(18)

Case Study: Michigan's Land Banking Enabling Legislation
To better understand how land bank programs work, it is helpful to
review a case study. Following is a case study of Michigan's Land Bank
Enabling Legislation and Michigan's Genesee County land bank program.
It is important to first review a State's particular Land Bank
Enabling Legislation because these laws provide land bank programs
with the legal and financial tools needed to operate and maintain a
land bank. Prior to January 2004, Michigan's tax foreclosure laws on
abandoned properties were ineffective because local governments did
not have the authority to effectively manage tax-reverted land and
prevent blight. Now, Michigan has one of the most progressive land
banking laws in the nation.(19)

In January 2004, Governor Granholm signed into law the Land Bank Fast
Track Legislation, Public Act (PA) 258, to provide communities with
better legal and financial tools to put vacant and abandoned
properties back into productive use.(20) This law establishes a state
land bank authority while also enabling the establishment of city and
county land bank authorities.(21) In addition, the law permits these
authorities to expedite quiet title on properties, which it possesses,
and make them available at nominal prices for productive reuse in the
community.(22) The quiet title process is a legal action that
eliminates all liens and past claims on a property and clears the
title so a new owner may purchase the property without worrying about
any unresolved claims.

In conjunction with PA 258, the Governor also signed into law four
other related Public Acts:

PA 259 amends the Michigan Brownfield Redevelopment Act to allow any
land bank authority owned property to be defined as "blighted
property", which enables a tax increment financing board to provide
assistance to a land bank authority with clearing or quieting a title,
and disposing of property owned or held by a land bank authority.(23)

PA 261 creates the Property Tax Exemption Act, which exempts property,
with titles held by land bank authority, from taxes and exempts
property sold by a land bank authority from general property taxes for
five years.(24)

PA 260 creates the Tax Reverted Clean Title Act to impose a specific
tax, which would have the same rate of general property taxes for five
years, on property sold by a land bank fast track authority. While one
half of the revenue from this specific tax funds an authority's title
clearance and land disposition costs, the remaining half is earmarked
for local and state collecting units on a pro-rata basis.(25)

PA 263 amends the General Property Tax Act to permit a foreclosing
governmental unit to request a title product other than an unreliable
title search to identify the owners of tax delinquent properties at
the time of foreclosure and describe a reasonable process for
identifying these owners and providing public notice to them.(26)

Michigan's Genesee County Land Bank
In Michigan, Genesee County has been a leader in creating a successful
land banking program. Under the Genesee County Land Bank Authority,
tax foreclosed properties are held for a period of time before being
returned to the market. This allows for the grouping of parcels
together to provide a more attractive resale opportunity and the
assessment of potential property owners to ensure that they will
contribute to the long-term vision of the community.

The Genesee County Land Bank Authority has acquired title to more than
3400 land parcels, including nearly 6% in the City of Flint in the
first three years of the program.(27) They have successfully
transferred 130 foreclosed tenant occupied properties to non-profit
housing agencies, whose goal is to stabilize neighborhoods and
encourage home ownership.(28) In addition, the LBA has redeveloped a
30,000 sq. ft. mixed use building in downtown Flint, which has been
empty since 1980, and they have assembled hundreds of empty lots for
city development projects and local non-profit and community
organization projects.(29)

Land Banks as a Smart Growth Planning Tool
While other cities' land bank programs, like St. Louis, have been used
primarily as a fiscal tool to stimulate growth in their communities,
Genesee County's land bank program has been used as a planning tool to
align with their communities' long-term redevelopment plans that
provide the greatest benefit. When Michigan's Governor Granholm signed
the latest land bank legislation in 2004, she said, "Together these
new laws will help local planning officials to look at an entire area
or region when developing land use plans."(30) In addition, the
Governor said, "To make headway against urban sprawl, we must think
regionally and use new tools."(31) Land bank programs are one of these
smart growth tools that counter sprawl and revitalize the inner core
of Michigan's cities. Based on Governor Granholm's state-wide smart
growth goals, it is imperative that Michigan communities focus on city
and region-wide planning instead of just fiscal objectives when
implementing land bank programs.

References and related links
1) 2005. Smart Growth Tactics. Michigan Society of Planning, January.
2) Brooks, Amy; Collins, Demetria; Eichmuller, Barbara; Tintocalis,
Melissa; van Leeuwen, Simon. 2004. Harnessing Community Assets: A
Detroit Land Bank Authority. Taubman College of Architecture & Urban
Planning, University of Michigan, April.
3) Blakely, Edward and Bradshaw, Ted. 2002. Planning Local Economic
Development. California: Sage Publications.
4) Ibid.
5) Pagano, M. & Bowman, A. 2000. Vacant Land in Cities: An Urban
Resource, Survey Series. The Brookings Institute.
6) 2004. Vacant Properties and Smart Growth: Creating Opportunity from
Abandonment. Funder's Network For Smart Growth and Livable
Communities, September.
7) Ibid.
8) Ibid.
9) Ibid.
10) Ibid.
11) Ibid.
12) 2004. The Multiple Benefits of Land Banking and Comprehensive Land
Bank Planning for Detroit. Kirwin Institute for the Study of Race &
Ethnicity, Ohio State University, April.
13) Local Initiatives Support Corporation. 2005. Atlanta Case Study:
Model Practices in Tax Foreclosure and Property Disposition. Retrieved
from http://www.lisc.org/resources/vacant_abandoned.shtml?Affordable+Housing.
14) Ibid.
15) Local Initiatives Support Corporation. 2005. Cleveland Case Study:
Model Practices in Tax Foreclosure and Property Disposition. Retrieved
from http://www.lisc.org/resources/vacant_abandoned.shtml?Affordable+Housing
16) Ibid.
17) Wyckoff, Mark. 2003. All Communities to Benefit from New Land Use
Legislation. Planning & Zoning News, December.
18) Ibid.
19) 2005. Smart Growth Tactics. Michigan Society of Planning, January.
20) Brooks, Amy; Collins, Demetria; Eichmuller, Barbara; Tintocalis,
Melissa; van Leeuwen, Simon. 2004. Harnessing Community Assets: A
Detroit Land Bank Authority. Taubman College of Architecture & Urban
Planning, University of Michigan, April.
21) Ibid.
22) Ibid.
23) 2005. Smart Growth Tactics. Michigan Society of Planning, January.
24) Brooks, Amy; Collins, Demetria; Eichmuller, Barbara; Tintocalis,
Melissa; van Leeuwen, Simon. 2004. Harnessing Community Assets: A
Detroit Land Bank Authority. Taubman College of Architecture & Urban
Planning, University of Michigan, April.
25) Wyckoff, Mark. 2003. All Communities to Benefit from New Land Use
Legislation. Planning & Zoning News, December.
26) Ibid.
27) 2005. Smart Growth Tactics. Michigan Society of Planning, January.
28) Ibid.
29) Ibid.
30) Crowell, Charlene. 2004. In Lansing, A Legislative Breakthrough.
Michigan Land Use Institute. Retrieved from
http://www.mlui.org/growthmanagement/fullarticle.asp?fileid=16609.
31) Ibid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igo_QoB6OvE

'LAND VALUE TAX'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax#References
http://www.newstatesman.com/200409200008
A revolutionary who won over Victorian liberals
by Tristram Hunt / 20 September 2004

While land reform has been alive in British radical thinking since
1066, it was an American who managed to craft the first credible
programme for change. Medieval critics of the "Norman Yoke", the
Diggers and Levellers of the English civil war, and the 18th-century
opponents of land enclosure had all longed without success for the
return of a golden age in which land would be equitably distributed
according to need. But the campaigning California journalist Henry
George transformed nostalgia into public policy with a tour through
1880s Britain, energising public opinion and making land reform the
foundation stone of progressive politics.

Late 19th-century Britain enjoyed a wealth of radical debate. New
ideas, new movements and new leaders were systematically unpicking the
intellectual hegemony of mid-Victorian laissez-faire. In the town
halls of Birmingham, Glasgow and London, the coming creed of municipal
socialism was displaying the practical benefits of an activist
council; the works of Marx and Engels were being translated and
distributed; even John Stuart Mill, the high priest of negative
liberty, was turning his attention in "Chapters on Socialism" towards
a future ideal of communal harmony. Mill showed that forms of property
ownership, rather than being the sacrosanct foundations of modern
society, simply reflected the cultural ethos of each civilisation.
Private property had no unimpeachable status.

At the same time, there was a growing awareness that the wealth
wrought by the industrial revolution and empire was not being evenly
spread. The 1880s downturn witnessed the rediscovery of poverty as the
dark continents of outcast London, Manchester and Liverpool were
traversed by growing numbers of journalists and social investigators.
While W T Stead exposed in the Pall Mall Gazette the immoral
underbelly of the capital, Charles Booth walked the streets of the
East End to discover rates of poverty far higher than even the
socialists had predicted. As Beatrice Webb put it, there was "a
growing uneasiness . . . that the industrial organisation, which had
yielded rent, interest, and profits on a stupendous scale, had failed
to provide a decent livelihood and tolerable conditions for a majority
of the inhabitants of Great Britain".

Into this fertile intellectual terrain stepped Henry George to deliver
a series of lectures on his book, Progress and Poverty (1879).
Initially employed in Ireland as an American correspondent for Irish
World, he soon immersed himself in Irish politics and caught the
nationalists' attention with his case for land reform. He was arrested
for speaking out against the British - a political coup which made his
eventual entry into British public life all the more anticipated.
Thousands turned up to hear his lectures; tens of thousands read his
book.

After 80 years of economic growth, George considered that "the
association of poverty with progress [is] the great enigma of the
day". Moreover, it was in the most highly developed capitalist
economies such as the United States and Great Britain that were found
"the deepest poverty, the sharpest struggle for existence, the most
enforced idleness". An Atlanticist radical in the vein of Paine and
Cobbett, George identified the problem as one of monopoly. (Lizzie
Magie, the future inventor of the board game Monopoly, was a keen
follower of George.) Where the "natural" means of production had been
privately appropriated, rent absorbed all increases in the nation's
wealth. The monopoly of land caused fundamental inequality and
poverty, because whenever there was an increase in efficiency the
profits would go not to the workers - or even to the capitalists - but
to the landlords. Such a grotesque monopoly of wealth was clearly in
opposition to natural law. No man made the land, and by ancient right
and custom it should not be permanently alienated from the nation at
large. As a monopoly, held in trust for the people, land must be made
to bear its fair obligations to the public weal.

George's solution was a land-value tax, a "single tax" that would both
confiscate the rent from land and remove all other forms of taxation.
This would enable progress to alleviate poverty, as economic growth
would be distributed more widely and a land tax would also allow for
the subsidy of a vast network of public services, from utilities and
housing to culture. The clarity of George's proposals and the power of
his rhetoric pushed land reform to the top of political debate. J A
Hobson declared that George "exercised a more directly powerful,
formative and educative influence over English radicalism of the last
15 years than any other man". Both liberals and socialists were drawn
to his ideas. In the Fabian pamphlet Capital and Land, Sydney Olivier
proposed that the landlords' "unearned increment" ought to be
confiscated through taxation. Reform movements such as the Land
Nationalisation Society and the English Land Restoration League sprang
up around George's public meetings, while the Marxists of the Social
Democratic Federation were clearly attracted to the nationalisation
argument.

Yet George was ambivalent about full-blooded socialism. The management
of land through market mechanisms such as taxation, rather than
government control, was his favoured option for reform. This explains
why so many liberals were equally drawn to Progress and Poverty.
Joseph Chamberlain declared himself "electrified" by the book and the
ensuing Radical Programme reflected this pressing concern with the
land question. The liberal Winston Churchill argued that the land
monopoly was detrimental to the public interest, while Herbert Asquith
supported Lloyd George's proposal "to free the land that from this
very hour is shackled with the chains of feudalism".

GEORGISTS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism#Influence
http://econjwatch.org/articles/geo-rent-a-plea-to-public-economists
http://renegadeecologist.blogspot.com/2012/01/if-you-want-vision-of-future-imagine.html
Views from a Georgist Ecologist

Land Value Tax, which is in my opinion the Holy Grail of legislative
changes to protect wildlife, is the simplest expression of the
Economic theories of Henry George. This theory goes that if we abolish
all harmful taxes on our hard work and trade and instead charge a rent
for the use of natural resources such as Land we will not waste them
or allow private interests to exploit the rest of humanities access to
them.
Such a tax would not only stimulate jobs and enterprise but put a
value on all of our natural resources and force us to look after them.
If it was implemented for agricultural land, where the lower value of
perpetually designated wilderness or natural grazing land is reflected
in its land value taxation, it would be the surest way to save the
wildlife of the UK and for the least cost to the taxpayer”.

This would mean hard to farm areas, steep banks, riverbanks, rocky
outcrops and areas landowners want to designate a nature reserves,
which must be legally binding, could be set aside for wildlife and as
such attract no taxation. The result of this would be that
unproductive and marginal land would become wildlife havens and
receive long term protection for future generation to enjoy.

the SINGLE TAX
http://www.henrygeorgefoundation.org/links/
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/opinion/sunday/heres-the-guy-who-invented-populism.html
by Jill Lepore / October 15, 2011

Henry George, the most popular American economic thinker of the 19th
century, was a populist before populism had a name. His economic plan
was known as the Single Tax. George was born in Philadelphia in 1839.
He left school at 14 to sail to India and Australia on board a ship
called the Hindoo. At the time, a lot of people were writing about
India as a place of jewels and romance; George was struck by its
poverty. Returning to Philadelphia, he became a printer’s apprentice.
He went to New York where he saw, for the first time, “the shocking
contrast between monstrous wealth and debasing want.” In 1858, he
joined the crew of a ship sailing around the Cape Horn because it was
the only way he could afford to get to California. In San Francisco,
he edited a newspaper; it soon failed. He spent most of his life
editing newspapers, and, as with every other industry in the 19th
century, many of them failed. In 1865, George was reduced to begging
in the streets.

The 19th century was the Age of Progress: the steam engine, the power
loom, the railroad. (Awestruck wonder at progress animated that era
the way the obsession with innovation animates American politics
today.) George believed that the other side of progress was poverty.
The railroad crossed the continent in 1869. From the West, George
wrote an essay called “What the Railroad Will Bring Us.” His answer:
the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. In a Fourth of
July oration in 1877, George declared, “no nation can be freer than
its most oppressed, richer than its poorest, wiser than its most
ignorant.” In 1879, George finished a draft of his most important
book. “Discovery upon discovery, and invention after invention, have
neither lessened the toil of those who most need respite, nor brought
plenty to the poor,” George wrote. He thought the solution was to
abolish all taxes on labor and instead impose a single tax, on land.
He sent the manuscript to New York. When no one would publish it, he
set the type himself and begged publishers simply to ink his plates.
The book, “Progress and Poverty,” sold three million copies.

George was neither a socialist nor a communist; he influenced Tolstoy
but he disagreed with Marx. He saw himself as defending “the
Republicanism of Jefferson and the Democracy of Jackson.” He had a bit
of Melville in him (the sailor) and some of Thoreau (“We do not ride
on the railroad,” Thoreau wrote from Walden. “It rides upon us.”) But,
really, he was a Tocquevillian. Tocqueville believed that democracy in
America was made possible by economic equality: people with equal
estates will eventually fight for, and win, equal political rights.
George agreed. But he thought that speculative, industrial capitalism
was destroying democracy by making economic equality impossible. A
land tax would solve all.

In 1886, George decided to run for mayor of New York. Democrats urged
him not to, telling him he had no chance and would only raise hell.
“You have relieved me of embarrassment,” George answered. “I do not
want the responsibility and the work of the office of the Mayor of New
York, but I do want to raise hell.” The Democrat, Abram Hewitt, won,
but George got more votes than the Republican, Theodore Roosevelt.

In the 1880s, George campaigned for the single tax, free trade and
ballot reform. The last succeeded. George is why, on Election Day,
your polling place supplies you with a ballot that you mark in secret.
This is known as an Australian ballot, and George brought it back from
his voyage halfway around the world. George ran for mayor of New York
again in 1897 but died in his bed four days before the election. His
body lay in state at Grand Central. More than 100,000 mourners came to
pay their respects. The New York Times said, “Not even Lincoln had a
more glorious death.” And then: he was left behind. Even Clarence
Darrow, who admired him, recanted. “The error I found in the
philosophy of Henry George,” Darrow wrote, “was its cocksureness, its
simplicity, and the small value that it placed on the selfish motives
of men.”

This image (from a Henry George Cigar box) reflects George's fame at
the time of his run for the Mayoralty of New York in 1886 (and later
in 1897). George outpolled a young Theodore Roosevelt, but lost to
machine Democrat Abraham Hewitt. The rooster was George's campaign
icon, and his slogan was "The democracy of Thomas Jefferson. And
although the cigars were advertised "for men", George was in fact an
outspoken advocate for women's suffrage.

HENRY GEORGE
http://renegadeecologist.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2011-05-23T12:37:00%2B01:00&max-results=7
by Agnes George de Mille / January, 1979

A hundred years ago a young unknown printer in San Francisco wrote a
book he calledProgress and Poverty. He wrote after his daily working
hours, in the only leisure open to him for writing. He had no real
training in political economy. Indeed he had stopped schooling in the
seventh grade in his native Philadelphia, and shipped before the mast
as a cabin boy, making a complete voyage around the world. Three years
later, he was halfway through a second voyage as able seaman when he
left the ship in San Francisco and went to work as a journeyman
printer. After that he took whatever honest job came to hand. All he
knew of economics were the basic rules of Adam Smith, David Ricardo,
and other economists, and the new philosophies of Herbert Spencer and
John Stuart Mill, much of which he gleaned from reading in public
libraries and from his own painstakingly amassed library. Marx was yet
to be translated into English.

George was endowed for his job. He was curious and he was alertly
attentive to all that went on around him. He had that rarest of all
attributes in the scholar and historian that gift without which all
education is useless. He had mother wit. He read what he needed to
read, and he understood what he read. And he was fortunate; he lived
and worked in a rapidly developing society. George had the unique
opportunity of studying the formation of a civilization -- the change
of an encampment into a thriving metropolis. He saw a city of tents
and mud change into a fine town of paved streets and decent housing,
with tramways and buses. And as he saw the beginning of wealth, he
noted the first appearance of pauperism. He saw degradation forming as
he saw the advent of leisure and affluence, and he felt compelled to
discover why they arose concurrently. The result of his
inquiry,Progress and Poverty, is written simply, but so beautifully
that it has been compared to the very greatest works of the English
language. But George was totally unknown, and so no one would print
his book. He and his friends, also printers, set the type themselves
and ran off an author's edition which eventually found its way into
the hands of a New York publisher, D. Appleton & Co. An English
edition soon followed which aroused enormous interest. Alfred Russel
Wallace, the English scientist and writer, pronounced it "the most
remarkable and important book of the present century." It was not long
before George was known internationally.

During his lifetime, he became the third most famous man in the United
States, only surpassed in public acclaim by Thomas Edison and Mark
Twain. George was translated into almost every language that knew
print, and some of the greatest, most influential thinkers of his time
paid tribute. Leo Tolstoy's appreciation stressed the logic of
George's exposition: "The chief weapon against the teaching of Henry
George was that which is always used against irrefutable and self-
evident truths. This method, which is still being applied in relation
to George, was that of hushing up .... People do not argue with the
teaching of George, they simply do not know it." John Dewey fervently
stressed the originality of George's work, stating that, "Henry George
is one of a small number of definitely original social philosophers
that the world has produced," and "It would require less than the
fingers of the two hands to enumerate those who, from Plato down, rank
with Henry George among the world's social philosophers." And Bernard
Shaw, in a letter to my mother, Anna George, years later wrote, "Your
father found me a literary dilettante and militant rationalist in
religion, and a barren rascal at that. By turning my mind to economics
he made a man of me...."Inevitably he was reviled as well as idolized.
The men who believed in what he advocated called themselves disciples,
and they were in fact nothing less: working to the death, proclaiming,
advocating, haranguing, and proselytizing the idea. But it was not
implemented by blood, as was communism, and so was not forced on
people's attention. Shortly after George's death, it dropped out of
the political field. Once a badge of honor, the title, "Single Taxer,"
came into general disuse. Except in Australia and New Zealand, Taiwan
and Hong Kong and scattered cities around the world, his plan of
social action has been neglected while those of Marx, Keynes,
Galbraith and Friedman have won great attention, and Marx's has been
given partial implementation, for a time, at least, in large areas of
the globe. But nothing that has been tried satisfies. We, the people,
are locked in a death grapple and nothing our leaders offer, or are
willing to offer, mitigates our troubles. George said, "The people
must think because the people alone can act." We have reached the
deplorable circumstance where in large measure a very powerful few are
in possession of the earth's resources, the land and its riches and
all the franchises and other privileges that yield a return. These
positions are maintained virtually without taxation; they are immune
to the demands made on others. The very poor, who have nothing, are
the object of compulsory charity. And the rest -- the workers, the
middle-class, the backbone of the country -- are made to support the
lot by their labor.

We are taxed at every point of our lives, on everything we earn, on
everything we save, on much that we inherit, on much that we buy at
every stage of the manufacture and on the final purchase. The taxes
are punishing, crippling, demoralizing. Also they are, to a great
extent, unnecessary. But our system, in which state and federal taxes
are interlocked, is deeply entrenched and hard to correct. Moreover,
it survives because it is based on bewilderment; it is maintained in a
manner so bizarre and intricate that it is impossible for the ordinary
citizen to know what he owes his government except with highly paid
help. We support a large section of our government (the Internal
Revenue Service) to prove that we are breaking our own laws. And we
support a large profession (tax lawyers) to protect us from our own
employees. College courses are given to explain the tax forms which
would otherwise be quite unintelligible. All this is galling and
destructive, but it is still, in a measure, superficial. The great
sinister fact, the one that we must live with, is that we are yielding
up sovereignty. The nation is no longer comprised of the thirteen
original states, nor of the thirty-seven younger sister states, but of
the real powers: the cartels, the corporations. Owning the bulk of our
productive resources, they are the issue of that concentration of
ownership that George saw evolving, and warned against. These
multinationals are not American any more. Transcending nations, they
serve not their country's interests, but their own. They manipulate
our tax policies to help themselves. They determine our statecraft.
They are autonomous. They do not need to coin money or raise armies.
They use ours. And in opposition rise up the great labor unions. In
the meantime, the bureaucracy, both federal and local, supported by
the deadly opposing factions, legislate themselves mounting power
never originally intended for our government and exert a ubiquitous
influence which can be, and often is, corrupt.

I do not wish to be misunderstood as falling into the trap of the
socialists and communists who condemn all privately owned business,
all factories, all machinery and organizations for producing wealth.
There is nothing wrong with private corporations owning the means of
producing wealth. Georgists believe in private enterprise, and in its
virtues and incentives to produce at maximum efficiency. It is the
insidious linking together of special privilege, the unjust outright
private ownership of natural or public resources, monopolies,
franchises, that produce unfair domination and autocracy. The means of
producing wealth differ at the root: some is thieved from the people
and some is honestly earned. George differentiated; Marx did not. The
consequences of our failure to discern lie at the heart of our
trouble. This clown civilization is ours. We chose this of our own
free will, in our own free democracy, with all the means to legislate
intelligently readily at hand. We chose this because it suited a few
people to have us do so. They counted on our mental indolence and we
freely and obediently conformed. We chose not to think.

Henry George was a lucid voice, direct and bold, that pointed out
basic truths, that cut through the confusion which developed like rot.
Each age has known such diseases and each age has gone down for lack
of understanding. It is not valid to say that our times are more
complex than ages past and therefore the solution must be more
complex. The problems are, on the whole, the same. The fact that we
now have electricity and computers does not in any way controvert the
fact that we can succumb to the injustices that toppled Rome.To avert
such a calamity, to eliminate involuntary poverty and unemployment,
and to enable each individual to attain his maximum potential, George
wrote his extraordinary treatise a hundred years ago. His ideas stand:
he who makes should have; he who saves should enjoy; what the
community produces belongs to the community for communal uses; and
God's earth, all of it, is the right of the people who inhabit the
earth. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, "The earth belongs in
usufruct to the living." This is simple and this is unanswerable. The
ramifications may not be simple but they do not alter the fundamental
logic. There never has been a time in our history when we have needed
so sorely to hear good sense, to learn to define terms exactly, to
draw reasonable conclusions. As George said, "The truth that I have
tried to make clear will not find easy acceptance. If that could be,
it would have been accepted long ago. If that could be, it would never
have been obscured." We are on the brink. It is possible to have
another Dark Ages. But in George there is a voice of hope.