David Chester

Recent Activity

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  David commented on the petition | about 1 year ago

  Replace Property Tax with Ground Rent

  The usefullness of introducing this method of paying for land appropriation (know as Land Value taxation) instead of property tax has at least 14 aspects which need to be made public. They are:

  14 ASPECTS of LAND-VALUE TAXATION affecting Government, Land Owners, Community and Ethics
  
  3 aspects for GOVERNMENT

  1. LVT, adds to the national income.
  2. The cost of collecting the LVT is much smaller than for income tax and other production-related taxes.
  3. With LVT, the national economy stabilizes and no longer experiences the 18 year housing boom and bust cycle.

  6 aspects affecting LAND OWNERS
  
  4. LVT is progressive, the owners of the most potentially productive sites pay the most tax.
  5. The land owner pays his LVT regardless of how the land is used. When the land is leased to tenants most or all of the resulting ground-rent is the tax.
  6. LVT stops the speculation in land prices because any withholding of land from proper use is too costly.
  7. The introduction of LVT reduces the sales price of sites even though their value (or potential usefullness) may continue to grow.
  8. With LVT, land owners are unable to pass the tax on to their tenant renters, due to the competition for land use.
  9. With the introduction of LVT, land prices will drop. Speculators in land values will tend to foreclose on their mortgages and to withdraw their money for reinvestment. LVT should be introduced gradually. It allows investors sufficient time to transfer money to company-shares where their greater use will meet the increased demand for produce (see below).

  3 aspects regarding our COMMUNITY

  10. With LVT, there is an incentive to use land for production, rather than it laying idle or being partly used.
  11. With LVT, greater working opportunities exist due to cheaper land and a greater number of available sites. Consumer goods become cheaper because entrepreneurs have less difficulty in starting-up and running their businesses. Demand grows, unemployment decreases
  12. As LVT is introduced, investment money is withdrawn from land and placed in durable capital goods.

  2 aspects about ETHICS

  13. The collection of taxes directly from productive effort and commerce is socially unjust. LVT replaces this form of extortion by gathering the surplus rental income which comes without exertion. Consequently LVT is a natural system of money-gathering.
  14. Bribery and corruption cease with LVT. Before, this was due to the leaking of news of municipal plans for housing development.

  These matters need urgent publicity and are the cure to many of our common national ills.

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  David signed the petition | about 1 year ago

  Replace Property Tax with Ground Rent
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  David signed the petition | almost 2 years ago

  Stop Auto Dealers from Blocking More Fuel Efficient Cars
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  David signed the petition | almost 2 years ago

  Tell the U.S. Senate: Pass Comprehensive Climate and Energy Legislation Now
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  David signed the petition | almost 2 years ago

  Tell President Obama: Keep Your Promises on Global Hunger
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  David commented on the article | almost 2 years ago

  How Schools Set Kids Up to Fail Financially

  Is it about micro or macro economics that is going to lead our children out of poverty?

  
  

  What is shown above is micro and all that this teaches is how to do your personal finances. This does not create jobs nor can it explain why there is so little work which is the REAL cause of poverty.

  
  

  Macroeconomics on the other hand can explain this growing problem, but the trouble with it is that today only part of the true situation is being taught. Not all of macroeconomics is to be found in the current text books. In particular the aspects of it concerning land monopolization and speculation in its value are missing.

  
  

  How are our children to know what the truth really is and what is the cause of not having a reasonale job? How are teachers to know where knowledge about this subject has been held out of the public eye? Even were macroeconomics knowledge fully available and being taught to children, it will take a while as grown ups before they can vote and develop a political action that will eliminate poverty.

  
  

   

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  David signed the petition | almost 2 years ago

  Tell Congress: Support the Global Food Security Act
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  David commented on the article | almost 2 years ago

  18 Reasons Why the Homeless Stay Homeless

  The reason for the persistance of poverty is unemployment which is caused by the comparatively high prices and low demand for consumer and other goods. These costs are high due to the high cost of access to land and other natural resources. These resources are partly held out of use by landlords and banks who speculate in the value by allowing the competition to raise the price of what resources are in use, whilst waiting for the prices to continue to sky-rocket.

  
  

  No matter how much charity and tax payers money is used to help the poor the only proper way to help them is for them to help themselves. This can be achieved if and when the cost of using land is lowered. A simple calculation shows that if land was cheaper and unemployment non-existant, the bankrupcy losses due to the end of the speculation in land values would be a tenth of the amount being earned by those who would now be arrning. In other words the land value speculators are causing people to stay poor.

  
  

  TAX LAND NOT PEOPLE: TAX TAKINGS NOT MAKINGS!

  
  

   

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  David commented on the article | about 2 years ago

  Support the Troops: Hire Them!

  Unemployment, homelessness and poverty are all part of the same situation which is affecting more people than the veteran soldiers described above. The reason for poverty has been explained as lack of opportunity to work and there is this opportunity scarcity due to low demand for consumer goods.  To raise demand one must reduce production costs and it is this aspect to which the government should give special attention and not simply reward a comparatively few and priviledged ex-warriors.
  

  The costs of production come from labor, land use and durable capital goods use. Only the middle one can be reduced without hurting the whole of the economy, because less earnings help nobody except employers who will soon find even less demand for their goods. Less return on capital goods will drive unused capital to waste-no advantage here. So land lords and high rents must fall!

  
  

  
  

  The way to achieve this is by taxing land values. When you do this there are big gains all round except for the speculators in land values, who should put their investments elsewhere. This problem and its solution has been explained on http://www.progress.com

  
  

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  David signed the petition | about 2 years ago

  Tell Congress: We Need Comprehensive Immigration Reform This Year