Thomas Sowell seems to have read the TOP manifesto

 

“It would be hard to think of a more ridiculous way to make decisions than to transfer those decisions to third parties who pay no price for being wrong. Yet that is what at least half of the bright ideas of the political left amount to.” 

~ Thomas Sowell, from his 2011 'Random Thoughts' [collected in the Thomas Sowell Reader]

You cannot, yet, be serious

"For three decades the Odysseus of New Zealand politics has navigated the turbulent seas of electoral fortune. ...

"The party has [lately] been on a recruitment drive. Is this time different; are we seeing a party in transition or the beginning of another operatic calamity? ...

"Movements like the New Zealand Party, Opportunities Party and United Future struggle once their leaders depart the stage. Building something enduring requires placing the interests of the organisation ahead of the self, and, well, people who start their own political entities are not team players. ...

"... [T]his is not a party with an ambition to form a government, merely to remain the party to decide who does. New Zealand First is important, but it is not, yet, serious."

~ Damien Grant from his column 'New Zealand First is important, but it is not, yet, serious'

Adam Smith v "The Future of Housing"

I spent a day yesterday at a trade show and "Future of Housing Summit," replete with politicians and panellists full of observations about "The Future of Housing." And my mind went back to Adam Smith's famous observation:

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.

It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary.

If I had taken a bingo card with me that included the words "government," "sustainability," "climate," and "social housing," I would have won not just a meat pack but the whole cow.

Suffice to say that almost every panellist but one were calling for government to not just "put a finger on the scale" to correct some perceived "market failure," but even a whole hand, if they could. The politicians themselves by contrast simply threw word salad at the assembled throng -- obscuring Chris Penk's one actual announcement.  TOP's Daniel Eb was the exception, who casually informed us all that the job of government is to determine how society should be made up.

The one difference to the panoply of paternalistic panellists was one Vincent Holloway of the boutique Brooksfield Homes, in answer to the question "What needs to be done to fix productivity and waste in construction?" His quick answer: "Remove Regulations!"

If I told you that my clapping was the only applause in the room, you will get some idea of those there assembled. You won't be surprised to hear that there was much more applause from the floor for the idea that we should all "join Institutions" so we can lobby governments and assemble together more often.

At least they knew enough to gasp when Mr Eb spewed forth.

Taxing land taxes people

"[The Land Tax] suffers from a much more fundamental flaw. Namely: A tax on the unimproved value of land distorts the incentive to search for new land and better uses of existing land. …
    “Take a real estate developer. One of his main functions is to find valuable new ways to use existing land. ‘This would be a great place for a new housing development.’ ‘This would be a perfect location for a Chinese restaurant. And so on… ‘Information about the land can be considered an improvement in its own right. Some of the land's qualities have very low search costs to discover: is it arable, will it support any type of building, is it in the middle of a city or rural area, etc. Discovery of other potential uses may require significant search and/or investment in other technologies. An entrepreneur brings these qualities to market - they do not bring themselves. Until he does so, the value of the land is undefined.’”

~ Bryan Caplan from his post 'A Search-Theoretic Critique of [Land Tax' 

“[Land] taxers claim that the tax could not possibly have any ill effects; that it could not hamper production because the site is already God-given, and man does not have to produce it; that, therefore, taxing the earnings from a site could not restrict production, as do all other taxes. This claim rests on a fundamental assumption — the hard core of [land]-tax doctrine: Since the site-owner performs no productive service he is, therefore, a parasite and an exploiter, and so taxing 100 percent of his income could not hamper production.
    “But this assumption is totally false. The owner of land does perform a very valuable productive service, a service completely separate from that of the man who builds on, and improves, the land. The site owner brings sites into use and allocates them to the most productive user. He can only earn the highest ground rents from his land by allocating the site to those users and uses that will satisfy the consumers in the best possible way. We have seen already that the site owner must decide whether or not to work a plot of land or keep it idle. He must also decide which use the land will best satisfy. In doing so, he also ensures that each use is situated on its most productive location. A single tax would utterly destroy the market's important job of supplying efficient locations for all man's productive activities, and the efficient use of available land.”

~  Murray Rothbard from his post 'The [Land] Tax: Economic and Moral Implications' 

"[Land] values are created, not intrinsic. Why else would land in Tokyo be worth so much more than land in Mississippi? A tax on the value of a site is really a tax on productive potential, which is a result of improvements to land in the area. [A] proposed tax on one piece of land is, in effect, based on the improvements made to the neighbouring land.
    "And what if you are your 'neighbour'? What if you buy a large expanse of land and raise the value of one portion of it by improving the surrounding land. Then you are taxed based on your improvements. This is not far-fetched. It is precisely what the Disney Corporation did in Florida. Disney bought up large amounts of land around the area where it planned to build Disney World, and then made this surrounding land more valuable by building Disney World. Had [the] single tax on land been in existence, Disney might never have made the investment. So, contrary to [the land-taxer]'s reasoning, even a tax on unimproved land reduces incentives. 

~ Charles Hooper, from his bio of Henry George in The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics 

"[Economic historian Marc] Blaug reviews five major contemporary objections to [a land tax set to acquire major revenue]:

1. The Anti-Landlord Thesis: Since [profits] are ubiquitous in a capitalist economy, why single out land and landowners?
2. The Inseparability Thesis: It is impossible to [accurately] separate the value of land from the value of improvements to it.
3. The Adverse Incidence Thesis: Land taxes would simply be shifted forward in terms of higher prices and higher rents.
4. The Inelasticity Thesis: An exclusive tax on land would be unresponsive to the changing requirements of public revenue.
5. The Moral Hazard Thesis: A land tax would nullify the individual ownership of land and have negative incentive effects."

~ Mary Cleveland summarising Blaug's case in 'Henry George: Rebel With a Cause'

"'What gives value to land?' asks [the land-taxer]. And she answers: 'The presence of population—the community. Then rent, or the value of land, morally belongs to the community.' What gives value to [the land-taxer]’s preaching? The presence of population—the community. Then [the land-taxer]’s salary, or the value of her preaching, morally belongs to the community."

~ Benjamin Tucker in 'Liberty' magazine, August 18, 1888.

"Spare a thought for Queensland property owners, who were hit with a retrospective land tax ... along with a redefinition of 'unimproved' to include 'the hard work of property owners, including (among other things) the buildings they have erected, the leases they have in place, business goodwill and infrastructure charges.' Would you rule out any of that happening here?"

~ from the post `Retrospective land tax to hit Queensland property investors at PROPERTY TALK

"[C]onfiscation [by by government by means of a land tax] on the whole rent [on unimproved land]  means the same as the nationalisation of land. [Because] once the government has this whole field of taxation open to it, will it not stealthily nationalise all land by charging land taxes higher than the rent and high enough to make the private possession of land uneconomical?"

~ Pierre Lemieux from his post 'Land Taxes: The Return of Henry George'

"I am most emphatically opposed [to the theory of a tax on land]. A theory which advocates state ownership of land is pure collectivism, and it doesn't matter whether its advocates consider themselves individualists or not. Without private property in land there can be no private property right at all, and without property rights no other kind of rights are possible."

~ Ayn Rand in her letter to David Goodman, May 24 1946, collected in The Letters of Ayn Rand 

Tax Old People (TOP) Party surfing on a media-manufactured wave

"Journalists would be negligent if they ignored smaller parties ..., but the media have a peculiar enthusiasm for the possibility of an Opportunity Party breakthrough.

"The extensive media coverage that has preceded Opportunity’s recent surge in the polls appeared to arrive out of nowhere. ... [And] The type of coverage it is receiving is stellar. Uncritical. Top notch. The kind of stuff you can’t even pay for. ...

"The lack of critical analysis is particularly obvious when one looks at how the party’s ideological positioning is discussed.

"The Opportunity Party is routinely described as 'centrist' ... [yet j]ournalists apparently haven’t felt any obligation to explain why the label applies or whether it accurately reflects the party’s policy platform. ... [which] is calling for socialised public transport, proposing universal pocket money for all, sneering at women’s rights, and running a roster full of Green-esque candidates. Its General Manager is former Labour minister ... Iain Lees-Galloway. And one of the authors of 'He Puapua' is a key candidate for the party ... Opportunity’s flagship proposals involve new taxes, substantial redistribution, and a much more activist role for government in directing economic outcomes. ...

"Take the land tax, for example. ... [A] tax of that scale would represent one of the most significant changes to New Zealand’s tax system in decades. ... [Yet instead of analysis] we get another profile of Qiulae Wong with about as much useful information as a 'Woman’s Day' puff piece. ...

"They are a more palatable and polished Green Party with better business acumen, and an honest media would reflect that so that voters who are inclined toward that kind of politics are informed they have options. Instead I suspect we will be served more of the promotional slop that desperately tries to create an alternative kingmaker because the media loathe the influence of New Zealand First."

~ Ani O'Brien from her post 'The media isn't reporting on TOP's rise, they are creating it'