Land speculation is a parasite on society. It needs to be removed!

A few good videos that show some disastrous results of land speculation:

Ghost town Ireland: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgTt4wqwbPw

Ghost town Spain: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0rjAfzoHeI

Ghost town USA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTSKiyDWXys

What is the unimproved value of land? As the name implies, it's the value land would have without improvements. Imagine a plot of land in the desert in the middle of nowhere. Does it have much value? Nope. Now imagine a plot of land in the middle of New York. Does it have much value? Oh, yes! Where does this value come from? Demand for access to infrastructure and services like the police department, fire department, streets, sewer system, transport, schools, etc. Hell, I bet even charities for the poor raise the unimproved value land they're paying rent for!

So the whole point of land speculation seems to be to wait for society to raise the unimproved value of your land so that you can demand money from society in return for access to such infrastructure, services, etc as mentioned above. Talk about a one sided transaction! Land speculation does not reward those who engage in it in return for wealth production for society, they are rewarded for being in the way of society! Just like a parasite who feeds of a body and doesn't do anything to make it work. So let's remove the land speculation parasite!

We can't just remove land and its unimproved value. It's impossible. So how is the land speculation parasite removed from society? Higher taxes on the unimproved value of land (which would allow us to lower taxes on actual wealth production). If land speculators had to pay for the value that they normally intend to take from society, there would be nothing for them to take, and land speculation would be gone. I'm not an expert on economics, but it seems like a very simple and obvious to solution to me. Special interests would fight it tooth and nail of course.

 

"Home"? Desperate to avoid the issue? The main issue here is the unimproved value of LAND and how speculators are trying to get their greedy hands on it.

If this is your concession, Blackrook, I hereby accept it.

 

Go buy unimproved land if you think its such a great deal.

Have you ever paid property taxes on land that produces zero income?

No, you haven't.

A lot of people buy land, not realizing how much it costs in taxes, with no return on their money.

If you do make money, its because you took a risk.

That's what speculation is: taking a risk. If you win, you can win big. If you lose, you can lose big.

Our economy could not function without people who put their money at risk.

 

Am I supposed to fell sorry for someone who wants to get such free handouts and fails at it? Poor them, depriving others of opportunities and it didn't even pay off!

Oh, and 'unimproved value of land' doesn't imply that land is not improved upon. It's just the value of the property without improvement value (land only). You can have your land developed and extort the unimproved value of land from society.

 

When I first began working (in the 1970s) bought a good sized building block well out of the city and away from development, virtually in a cow paddock. I paid a deposit to my bank and took a loan out. Many of my friends thought I was crazy.

As the urban sprawl spread, the land increased five fold, then ten fold within five years. I sold the block to a project home building company six or seven years later and made an absolute packet. This set me up for property ownership for the future.

 

My paternal grandfather in Germany was offered some pieces of farm land around Munich after WW2, near Feldmoching my father said. He had no foresight and declined. As Munich was rebuilt and expanded over that farm land, the people who owned it got rich. Seems like a rather unproductive way to make money.

 

Increasing the tax rate on unimproved land would just drive down the value of such land and put a lot of it in government hands. People would still speculate, they would just pay a smaller initial price for the land to offset the increased carrying cost of the investment. People who aren't speculating, but are just holding property they inherited or plan to build a retirement home on would loose their land to the government because they couldn't keep up with their taxes.

Overall I don't predict much benefit from your plan.

 

That is EXACTLY what real estate billionaire Tim Blixeth advised people to do. The point, surely, is that it is such a great deal only because the productive are being robbed to subsidize it. Taking advantage of that subsidy doesn't alter the fact that the productive are being robbed to provide it. Hello?

Because THAT'S WHAT PARASITE LAND SPECULATORS DO: hold valuable land out of production, forcibly depriving others of economic opportunity they would otherwise be at liberty to use.

Absurd garbage. The appreciation of land almost always far exceeds property taxes on it.

Like any other thieving parasite. Right. Not because you made any sort of contribution. It's called, "rent seeking behavior." You could look it up.

So, sorta like playing poker, but also violating the rights of people who aren't even playing, depriving them of economic opportunity they would otherwise be at liberty to use, and making society poorer. Right.

So now you claim gambling casinos are necessary for the economy to function, because they give people occasion to put their money at risk?

Care to rethink that little gem of wisdom?

 

The unimproved VALUE of land, not unimproved land. Try to keep your eye on the ball.

It would have many other beneficial effects, too.

Nope. The higher the tax on it, the more revenue government is foregoing by not getting it into a productive private user's hands.

Nope. Once the carrying cost of the land exceeds the appreciation, the speculators leave, and they don't come back.

Garbage. They'd only find it advantageous to sell if they were depriving others of more opportunity than they could afford.

The benefits would be enormous, overwhelming, revolutionary, epochal. Even a partial implementation of land rent recovery turned Japan from a poor and stagnant feudal backwater to a global industrial, economic and military power in a single generation.

 

I.e., government and the community shoveled money into your pockets for doing nothing, setting you up to get even more money shoveled into your pockets for doing nothing.

Don't you understand that this sort of parasitism is harmful to society? It has destroyed many great civilizations. But history shows that the privileged parasites who profit by it prefer to perish in blood and flame, and to watch their children slaughtered before their eyes, rather than relinquish even the smallest part of their unjust advantages.

 

How is land specuation unproductive? When the speculator goes broke because he bought the wrong piece of land. He bought on the West side of town, but all the expansion occurred on the east side.

 

If the carrying costs of land are too high for speculators, no one else will want the land either. This will mean the government will have to confiscate the property for failure to pay taxes. Thus the government will be stuck with a surplus of land that no one is interested in.

The same will be true of the person holding inherited or retirement land, if the cost of the tax is too high, they will just let it go. The government will be stuck with the land and collect no tax revenue from it at all.

 

Isn't this the definition of capitalism ?

 

And this is the reason why Australia has some of the highest private property ownership on the planet, and the average Australia one of the wealthiest.

Australia isn't going to "perish in blood and flame" in the foreseeable future.

 

This statement needs its own reply.

No,,, I took a risk, even if it was a calculated risk, just as any invest is a risk.

Why shouldn't I live of the fruits of my investment (and risk)?

 

It's unproductive because no wealth is produced for society. The land speculator just tries to get a bigger piece of the already existing pie, or coming into existence regardless of him, instead of helping to make the pie bigger.

I think counter productive would be an even more accurate description, IMO, as the land speculator takes capital from the productive, which could reduce their ability to produce more wealth for the economy.

 

The land speculator pays taxes on the land, providing money to help society function. The land speculator maintains the land, ensuring that it it doesn't get too degraded or overgrown. The really good speculators will even add infrastructure to the land - power, roads, etc. to improve the value of the land further or more quickly.

The land speculator keeps tax money coming in on property that would otherwise be sitting in government hands and costing taxpayers maintenance costs.

 

You evil capitalist bastard!!!! You should be sent to jail for such crimes against humanity!

 

One can see great examples of the counter productiveness in the video. It's not only land that's idle and cannot be used to produce more wealth, or for a family to live on, even improvements which may be on it are empty and wasted because of the land speculation. What a complete waste for society.

 

Just ignore him. The dude is a broken record with his endless ala land rent seeking bs.
Most of the time, his rants do not make any sense.

 

The taxes he pays on it are far lower than the increase in the unimproved value of land he's speculating on taking from society, otherwise he wouldn't be speculating on it. And as long as he leaves it completely undeveloped, he can avoid the improvement part of the property tax (In the USA at least), until he considers it profitable enough to cash in on it and develop it, or just sell it to a developer. Land speculators are rewarded by the tax system by keeping land completely out of use. I'll even go as far as claim that other people's taxes are subsidizing the land speculator!

The fact that land has unimproved value shows that there is a demand for it. What makes you think the productive wouldn't make good use of it and provide revenue if he simply got out of the way?

 

I don't often agree with Blackrook, but Blackrook is right. You're off your knocker on this one. What you propose would amount to nothing more than a vast kickback to those who own property in the city. Here's your proposal

the actual effect of this, if we were to retain government receipts as they are, is to drastically reduce taxes in cities and drastically increase taxes in the country. You want to tax land as if there were no improvements on it or near it, unless you've poorly conveyed your message. Look at figures below

NYC: GDP = 1.4trillion, & 302.6 square miles
Wyoming: GDP = 38.2billion, 97, 814 square miles

There is 323.25x as much land in Wyoming as in NYC. There is 36.65x as much money in NYC as there is in Wyoming. The effective tax burden on people in Wyoming would be 11,929.575x greater than in NYC, per acre

So. Not practical.

 

I didn't say taxes on land area, I said taxes on the unimproved value, and obviously the unimproved value of land is affected by what's around it. Land in NYC is more valuable and would be taxed more than land in the country. So you need to redo your math.

 

That's kind of a catch 22. Cause see, an acre in NYC wouldn't be too valuable if there weren't improvements around it, would it? So you mean to say that you want to stop taxing land improvements... and start taxing land for what other people build near it? roflol:

 

That was kind of my point. It wouldn't be valuable without infrastructure, services, etc. around it.

Yup. A tax based on the benefits you get from society. What's so funny?