Monday, July 31, 2006

Streaming Music (cont)

Halou - Wholeness and Seperation

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Friday, July 28, 2006

At home, almost

My HS reunion is today. Four more hours to drive. A dinner in NYC tommorow. Then, finally, some peace.

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Thursday, July 27, 2006

Live from NYC

I'm at the Rockefeller center leaching some free wi-fi and waiting on a friend to show up. I have to say, I am pretty darn tired and this trip isn't even over yet. I still need to get home and go to my high school reunion here shortly. But, it was all very much worth it. Abi was beautiful, as you might expect for a 6 month old. I learned a good deal in Chicago and it was productive for me. Hopefully tommorow I can get around to tying up some of those loose ends from the CGO.

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Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Updates

I'm in S Carolina at the moment. Updates are much more difficult to do here then I thought they would be. If anyone is interested in guest blogging for a few days until I get back to New York, that would be wonderful, otherwise you'll just have to wait a few days for updates and to wrap up some of the CGO stuff ;)

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Saturday, July 22, 2006

Saturday Wrap up

No Friday wine blogging yesterday, as I am here at this conference. My friend, who lives here in Chicago, came and picked me up and before going dowtown I did have one glass of Ravenswood Zin (which I've had before) at a Cheesecake Factory (which is depresing). We then went down to Division street in Chicago and had a few beers.

Later tonight I will be going to the banquet, which I will not be bringing my computer to.

So far the conference has been fun and informative.

I'm still thinking about some of the topics which I've already posted about, such as the PTV and the monetary reform I posted earlier today. There is another section coming soon about what the Bible has to say in regards to land reform - I missed that talk actually, because I was out with my friend.

Tommorow is the last day at the conference then I head on over to South Carolina for some fun with my brother and my niece.

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Myth of corporate efficiency

I'm at a talk right now with Dan Sullivan who is giving a talk on corporate efficiency. I've actually blogged about this in the past under my "saving the family farm" post and other similar ones.

One of the major things to take away, which I didn't blog about already, is these huge firms like Wal-Mart aren't evil. They are simply rational actors in our system. The important thing to note here, in my opinion, is not to demonize the wal-marts of this world, but rather to concentrate efforts on land tax reforms.

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Myth of corporate efficiency

I'm at a talk right now with Dan Sullivan who is giving a talk on corporate efficiency. I've actually blogged about this in the past under my "saving the family farm" post and other similar ones.

One of the major things to take away, which I didn't blog about already, is these huge firms like Wal-Mart aren't evil. They are simply rational actors in our system. The important thing to note here, in my opinion, is not to demonize the wal-marts of this world, but rather to concentrate efforts on land tax reforms.

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Monetary reform

This was a talk given on one of the monetary Georgist reform proposals by Steve Zarlenga

Henry George and Monetary Reform

The American Monetary Institute was formed in 1996

Some certain themes
The fight to control the money power is a 3000 year old battle
The dividing line is always private vs. public control
The definition of money determines who wins
Public control of money has been far better than bank control.

We are living on "borrowed time"
Robert McNamara: 1962Cuban Missile Crisis: "Only one thing saved us - dumb luck".
1983 Russian Colonel Stanislav Petrov, disobeys orders. refuses to launch nuclear retaliatory strike on the united States.

What's the essential difference between:
Copper coin money
Federal Reserve money
Checkbook money
They are all fiat moneys.
Why is only one of them moral?
and the other two immoral; even evil?

How fractional reserve banking allows private creation of money.
The private creation of fiat money is the problem.
The promotion of Market as God
The economists (market priests) warn us:
Don't try to legislate on the market; it is stronger than our puny laws. It's omnipotent
Don't try to regulate outcomes, the market with input from all of its participants always knows best. It's omniscient.
Do the right things and the market will reward you. Do the wrong things and the market will punish you. It is benefiicient.

Economics has never adequately defined money. It is still argued whether it's a concrete power in a commonodity like gold or an abstract legal power that gains it's value because of its sponsorship by govenment. This is not a new development; it's a centeries old problem. Why?

Alexander Del Mar: "As a rule political economists... do not take the trouble to study the history of money; it is much easier to imagine it and to deduce the principles of this imaginary knowledge."

Aristotle: "money exists not by nature but by law."

Adam Smith holded erect a mythology of money ignoring its legal basis (1776)
Never forget that if the monetary ideas of Adam Smith, or in now the Austrian school, had been followed in our early years, there would never have been a USA.

Marx echoed Adam Smith's materialistic definition of Money as Gold

But, on the other hand Henry George made excellent monetary distinctions.

Over decades his monetary views were consistently accurate.

So the essence of money is not a comodity but an abstract social power to obtain wealth.

George distinguised between money and credit. "There is a quality attaching to money... which clearly distinguishes it from all forms of credit."

Third, George strongly distinguished privatly created credit used in place of money for private profit, and Government or publicly created money for the common good: writing on money and government, at age 44, in social problems (1884) he had an advanced concept of how a money system should operate.

Because the private money creation process is so clearly immoral. It is not rocket science. It requires mainly An Honest of purpose to evaluate the facts within a structure of fairness.

George never allowed economists to substitute a questionable utilitarianism in place of morality.

A powerful class whose incomes could not fail to be edangered by a recognition... that what makes them... wealthy is... only robbery....

We find that the modern 250 year attack on government originated largley in Adam Smith's efforts to keep the monetary pwer within the Bank of England. Smith glorified the Bank and obscured its private ownership calling it as a great engine of state. He attacked government issued money.

"A revenue of this kind has even by some people been thought not below the attention of so great an Empire as that of Great Britain... But whether such a government as that of England - which, whatever may be its virtues, has never been famous for good economy; which, in time of peace, has generally conducted itself with the slothful and negligent profusion that is perhapes natural to monarchies; and in time of war has constantly acted...."

The force of forces:
It is not selfishness thta enrihes the annals of every people with heroes and saints.. that on every page of the wrolds history bursts out in splendor.... that turned Buddhas back to his royal home or bade (Joan of Arc) lift the sword from the altar; that held the three hundred (spartans) in the pass of thermoplylae, or gathered into Winkelreid's bosom

Lets look at the four major groupings advocating reform:
The gold standard faction
They have been unable to comprehend the abstract nature of money
Anything which makes something a good investment makes it a bad source of money (IE gold)

The local currency groups

Reforms indicated by the science of money, by Henry George
1.) Nationalize the Federal Reserve System into the US treasury. Save teh knowledge. All US money to be government. A nine member monetary control board follow a stable money policy.
2.) Banks no longer allowed to create money. Eliminate fractional reserves.Full reserves are reached not by calling in loans but by lending money to the banks at interest, bringing them to full reserves. A very gentle and elegant move that converts all the previously issued bank credit money into real American money.
3.) Automatic infrastructure programs have new money spent into the circulation interest free by the government on a per capita basis throughout the nation. Health Care and Education are the most important part of the infrastructure making the rest possible.

See the draft and join the discussions of the American Monetary Act soon to be posted at THIS.

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On Forecasting

Phil Anderson is Managing Director of Economic Indicator Services

What Phil does is he offers courses to people in Australia to forcast the economy using Georgist techniques.

Basically, a downturn happens every 18 years, which isn't really news to anyone. However, what is important is that they can predicted with a high degree of accuracy by simply following the speculative signs in the land markets.

Some of this is something I've blogged about in the past in my Boom/Bust and the NeoClassical Myth, however his talk is in much more detail.

Alanna Hartzok asked a good question, why 18 years and not some other time cycle like 16 or 21 years.

The answer to that isn't clear and frankly I'm not sure if it's important. However, an interesting theory is it could go back all the way to Henry VIII.

Now, a lot of what Phil uses is something in the commodities markets they call technical analysis. I've personally never been much of a tech analysis type of guy, although some of the methods are hard to deny. Using fundementals the the future can still be forecasted, however dates and accuracy can never be given. I imagine it is more of a personal preference then it has to do with the "correct way" to do things. Which is the fun thing about conferences like this.

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On Forecasting

Phil Anderson is Managing Director of Economic Indicator Services

What Phil does is he offers courses to people in Australia to forcast the economy using Georgist techniques.

Basically, a downturn happens every 18 years, which isn't really news to anyone. However, what is important is that they can predicted with a high degree of accuracy by simply following the speculative signs in the land markets.

Some of this is something I've blogged about in the past in my Boom/Bust and the NeoClassical Myth, however his talk is in much more detail.

Alanna Hartzok asked a good question, why 18 years and not some other time cycle like 16 or 21 years.

The answer to that isn't clear and frankly I'm not sure if it's important. However, an interesting theory is it could go back all the way to Henry VIII.

Now, a lot of what Phil uses is something in the commodities markets they call technical analysis. I've personally never been much of a tech analysis type of guy, although some of the methods are hard to deny. Using fundementals the the future can still be forecasted, however dates and accuracy can never be given. I imagine it is more of a personal preference then it has to do with the "correct way" to do things. Which is the fun thing about conferences like this.

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Friday, July 21, 2006

Cay Hehner

Marx the admirer of capitalism.

Capitlism was saved only because the capitalists read Marx and they changed it only so much so it couldnt' collapse.

What is the truth about marxism and what can we learn from that?

Cognitive disonance as a people toward their own reality. Liberalism is championing the entrepreneur against the land lords. In Marxism the landlords are in collusion with the entrepreneur.

In the last 150 years marxim managed to monoplized progesive thought.

One of the people who came to the New School, Irving Fletcher.

Air rights are discused by Henry George. Tobaco pollution is discussed.

Two principle areas where Marxism is weak:
1.) Marxism did not have a sufficient understanding of Ecology.
2.) Marxism did not have a sufficient awarness that no political system can survive in the long term without an acknowelding human rights.

Marxism was a genuine lack of a grasp on basic economic principles.

Merit of Marx was that he raised the social justice question.

We have reached a point of congnitive disonance in regards to our system of capitalism, which is very great.

an unprecedented increase in natural resource wars.

How can we not become a totalitarian state? George is the answer.

Some commentary:

How do you propose to capture the attention of the populace.

why do you think there will be time?
-If we're all dead we're all dead. In the meantime we take the gamble.

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Debate: Free Trade

Lindy Davies vs Dan Sullivan and the moderator is Bob Drake.

This was mostly about free trade issues, which actually isn't an issue I'm very well versed in since I haven't read Protection of Free Trade. So, I wasn't able to get all the details of the debate and put them into the computer because most of my attention was spent on understanding the debate.

As I get a chance to talk with them later, I'll go back and edit as best I can.


Dan Sullivan says:

Superfically Free Trade is goods = power = privilege

True Free Trade is Goods equal Goods

His claim is that Henry George talked about free trade assuming we had a fair monetary system.

Lindy Davies says:

Do we need to protect our industry?

He said to Dan that he doesn't believe that the coversation is divided between the right and the left, but rather where the logic takes you... and then added (too much laughter) that is because he is a Georgist and "not saying Dan isn't a Georgist".

Protectionism vs free trade debate is seperate from the privilege debate

Dan Sullivan Rebuttal:

Free trade and the land question need to be answered at the same time.

Lindy Davies:

Free trade is still a big issue today.

We have other ways to earn money then by borrowing this money (money which is lent into existence), for example we can earn through wages.

Questions: Gib:

Lets look at reality of the situation. We had the largest free trade group, the contigious states for example.

question Joan:

What about wages comperable to our wages.

response: Issues of distribution of wealth, when those factories are set up the productivity of those areas increases. It isn't going to stop those workers from being exploited.

Dan also responds: For example, when a factory goes over the border to mexico, wages go up and rents follow.

question

what happens when companies like walmart are really the profiters.

question

What about full cost pricing

If we're doing all this outsourcing, why all this record employment.

Mark Sullivan:

Are you in favour of using the military to open up free trade.

Answer Dan: There is no such thing as a free trade treaty.

Our job is to say our people are free to trade. If your buying stolen goods, it's not free trade.

Question Paul: group of priviledged people controlling these third world discusion, who run the world, how can the this system be changed without violant revolution.

Answer:

Question: If you were king for a day, what policy directives would you impliment.

full and value
abolish all free trade agreements
direct issue of currency
open immigration


Lindie not so much on the issue of direct issue of currency

What constituted free trade. Where one side is under duress.

Question Wayne: immigration

Answer: As more mexicans leave mexico, the meixican elite will alter the system to retain mexicans.

Lindie says: Free trade agreements are erroding national sovereignty.

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Yesterdays sessions

Yesterday was a full day for me and wifi was a problem, so getting posts up, was also a problem. Today may or may not be better.

I'll get some more details sessions up later today, but very generally here is who spoke:

Ed Lawrence of the Fairhope single tax corporation spoke on what makes a downtown special.

Paul Justus of common-ground-USA spoke on smarter taxes and smarter growth

Adam Kerman, the executive director of the Transit Riders Athority, spoke on Collecting Transit's Earnings, and What To Do When There Aren't Any.

Art Lyons, director of the Center for Economic Policy Analysis spoke on Who Calls the Tune? Funding for Useful Transit Service. This was a very interesting topic for me. Modeling government failure is always a fun excericse.

Finally, Ed Anderson, Professor of Engineering, University of Minnesota, spoke on Personal Rapid Transit systems. I'll be going into this later, because I see it as being very problematic in two ways.

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Wifi extortion

The conference center which we are in has Wifi. I can see it when my computer is looking for it. There are two services in fact. However, in order to use the service it costs 100 dollars...

That's the Fountain Blue Conference center in Des Planes just outside Chicago in case you keeping score.

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Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Greg says hello

I've met a bunch of the other Georgists tonight. My roommate is one Greg and he wants to say hello to his daughters Hannah and Gracie.

More in the morning.

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Chicago

Well, I arrived. The conference actually started 25 minutes ago. 13 hours of straight travel. I'm a little exhausted to say the least.

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Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Options

I’ve been thinking about this Wall Street 9/11 options scandal which has been coming out as of late. Frankly, it doesn’t really surprise me.

Writing from the perspective of someone who was on a US Navy vessel out to sea and was part of the plane guard for Washington DC on 9/11 I can say that my position is probably skewed.

To me, the sad thing is not so much that there are a few corrupt executives out there. This isn’t much of a surprise to me. What is surprising are the people who have lined up defending the actions of what should be scorned by everyone. Now, just for a moment, think if George Soros had done this, or a Warren Buffet? The Professor Bainbridge’s of this world would line up and be shocked; shocked I say, how these liberal investors hate America and they are seeking its destruction by any means possible.

Frankly, the good professor and his friends should be ashamed of themselves. It should never be the case where, speaking as the position of an economist, where anyone would want to profit under the guise of added incentive to perform in the face of a disaster. I understand his arguments; however, if these firms were performing well prior to 9/11, then they should perform well after 9/11. If the executives were not being compensated adequately prior to 9/11 then they should have been compensated prior to 9/11.

By the good professor’s logic, these firms should have offered these same options to every employee of said firm to give them an incentive to recover after the disaster.

Frankly, I am disgusted by this whole ordeal.

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Natacha Atlas - Live at Montreal Jazz fest

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Monday, July 17, 2006

Another interesting blog

One of these days I will add another section of blog rolls for blogs that I read that I simply enjoy reading.

Anyway, if you are at all like me then you enjoy good food. I like to fancy myself as an amateur gourmet with much more stress on the amateur then the gourmet portion of that statement.

So, I’ve been reading the blog sum.ptuo.us. It’s interesting for me to read about someone going through a culinary program in such a frank manner. I live only 20 minutes away from the CIA; over in Rhinebeck much of the wait staff in that little town is CIA students and I get to hear them talking about it occasionally.

I think most people have an entrepreneurial streak in them. For some people it takes a little longer to find this streak then it does in others, because our society “teaches” us to go out and get “good jobs” and not actually follow what we really want to do with their lives.

One day, I’d like to go back farming and either start my own vineyard or run an organic sheep/goat cheese farm.

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Sunday, July 16, 2006

New Widget

Left hand sidebar. I'm fairly excited about this one.

I leave the day after tomorrow to go to Chicago for the CGO and after that I will be going to South Carolina to see this darling:


After that I come back home and go to my High School reunion. Fun with schedules.

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Streaming Music (cont) - Opera

The Queen of the Night aria from the Magic Flute - Luciana Serra


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Saturday, July 15, 2006

But Sprawl is Good!

Robert Bruegmann: What a wanker

Practically every paragraph is more ridiculous then the one that preceded it. I think this is the highlight though:

A good example is the din of complaints about traffic in Los Angeles. From one perspective, this reaction is bizarre. Even when speeds on the freeway decline to 20 mph, drivers move more quickly than they do at the center of almost any large, older city in Europe or the United States.


I can not even believe this guy’s column is getting published in respectable newspapers.

And I have to point out something is totally false at least as far as NY goes.

When it comes to automobile travel, Los Angeles, perhaps more than almost any other large city in the world, suffers from deflation of raised expectations. The residents of Paris, New York or Tokyo never entertained the possibility that they could drive through the center of the city at 60 mph.


Ok. If we area only talking about Manhattan here and not the outer boroughs, he would still be wrong. Moses tried to have a highway built going straight across the island connecting long island with NJ. So, yes, it was considered.

Secondly, he is still wrong. The Island on Manhattan is only a few miles wide and there are in fact two highways on the island of Manhattan that run lengthwise on its edges: JFK on the east side and the West Side Highway. Now, if we are talking about the entire city of New York then we have the BQE, cross Bronx, so many parkways I can’t even count them, route 87, The Taconic – Spran – Bronx river artery… and I could go on and on.

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Streaming Music (cont)

Bitter : Sweat - The Mating Game


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Friday, July 14, 2006

Streaming Music (cont)

Lily Allen - Smile


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Thursday, July 13, 2006

Scary

"Major escalation"

The conservative domestic rags are claiming that Hezbollah may have sent the soldiers in question to Iran.

All of this is both interesting and very scary.

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Streaming Music (cont)

Carla Bruni



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Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Posting

My posting has been slow since I came back from NYC for personal and physiological reasons. It's been really hot in my apartment lately, since I live in the 2nd floor with no AC.

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Streaming Music (cont)

Brazilian Girls - Bonnaroo 2005

I actually couldn't find a high quality vid. This one is just as crapy as the rest of them but you can hear the bands energy here. I hate it when the camera men try and add some psycodelic feel. Just film that band, man. If it annoys you, just minimize the window will it is playing.


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Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Heat

The heat here is nuts this summer.

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Monday, July 10, 2006

Streaming Music (cont)

The Editors - Fingers in the Factories


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Sunday, July 09, 2006

Connecticut Sprawl

Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey Governorship and Bush Admin fame and Parris Glendening from the Maryland Republican political scene weigh in on the sprawl problems in CT.

I think this article is illustrative to how obvious a problem can be and how most people in society simply can not “see it”. They nearly nailed it their opening thought:

Connecticut today looks a lot like Maryland and New Jersey did when we took office in our respective states: a state with a modest endowment of land that is being depleted quickly by rapid, often poorly conceived development.


And then this

Without pretending to be experts on Connecticut, we are willing to bet that much of the misplaced development is aided and abetted, and even subsidized, by state policies and practices, much as they were in our home states.


And then this

It was certainly true in Maryland, where we were funding infrastructure and school construction in areas where neither the locality nor the state had planned for development.

In 1997, Maryland passed a Smart Growth Act. The state began to remove subsidies for sprawl and instead steer funds toward communities that had planned to absorb growth in a smaller, better-planned footprint. Implementing it was hard work, but it is amazing what money can do to focus the mind.


Then it simply went downhill from there. Without being an expert myself on Maryland I am willing to bet the following:

Then we took steps to make it easier to redevelop in existing areas, reclaim industrial brownfields and adapt older buildings for re-use.


Actually means laxing environmental regulations. Which is true in that clean up cost is a problem. However, the authors miss the point. They harp on the government subsidizing and yet the reason why these “browfields” were so toxic to begin with was because the state was subsidizing these firms by failing to tax the rent on these firms.

Even if I am wrong, I am still curious what is meant by “make it easier to redevelop…”. I am fairly certain those buildings and the land they are sitting on is owned by someone. More then likely owned by someone waiting for the government bail them out or “make it easier for redevelopment…” and so we get right back into this subsidizing problem.

There are some other decent items in the article though and it is generally worth reading. However, when reading it try keeping in mind the many things they are missing when they fail to talk about the LVT.

You can send a letter to the editor of the Hartford Courant here:

The Courant
285 Broad St.
Hartford, CT. 06115
fax, 860-520-6941

or go here

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Streaming Music (cont) - Opera

La Traviata - Libiam ne Lieti


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Saturday, July 08, 2006

Streaming Music (cont)

If you read Eschaton or sadly, no then you will have watched a battle of the most annoying music videos ever created. They ulitmatly failed, of course, to include the most annoying video of all time ever, of course, which can be found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTKL8MNH95Q

But, for today's streaming music addition I am playing The Arctic Monkey's - I Bet You Look Good on the Dance Floor.


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Friday, July 07, 2006

Friday Wine Blogging (cont)

Salmon Run - Pinot Noir

Do not recomend under any circumstance or price.

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Streaming Music (cont)

Corinne Bailey Rae - Put Your Records On


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Sprawl In Kansas

Same story as before. People leaving inner ring. Building a new outring which is more costly then the inner ring per person. The Inner ring becomes the new ghetto.


Meanwhile, vacant houses are increasing in Kansas City, streets are crumbling in Kansas City, Kan., stores are closing in Independence, and Raytown’s aging neighborhoods are losing residents.

The upshot: Taxpayers are building a lot more public infrastructure in the outer-ring suburbs, which will require much more money to maintain in the future. Meanwhile, people are abandoning inner-ring neighborhoods with plenty of useful life left in them.
Statistics clearly show that residents old and new to this region want to “escape” the older housing, crime, poor minorities and all the real and perceived problems of living, say, anywhere within 10 miles or so of downtown.

You can write a letter to the editor here:

The Kansas City Star
1729 Grand Blvd
Kansas City, MO 64108

or email here letters@kcstar.com

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Thursday, July 06, 2006

Streaming Music (cont)

Alexi Muroch - Orange Sky


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late night

Just got back from the city. Lots of fun. Ran into the ex. Took the train home at 1am. Very tired. I'll post up on the shows in the morning / afternoon.

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Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Booker in Newark

I like the story of Booker. I haven’t seen the documentary, but I am familiar with the story. I think there is an important lesson for Georgists here. Georgists too often get mired down in the all-or-nothing complex or debating the finer points of Georgism in some abstract academic fashion and I think that is great for academia, but I also think the only real way to turn heads and raise real awareness is “Street Evangelism”.

I was reading an article this morning about some of the early socialist movements and how they were mostly composed of former Georgists. I think this had a lot more to do with no real central leader post-George. The Marxists understood this from the very beginning. One thing they were always good at was organizing and acting. Even if they do not get their glorious revolution, they still succeed every day with their Marxist ideologies.

The socialists taking the labor movement has created, at least in my view, a fear within the Georgist movement about ideological purity. The reason the labor movement left the Georgist camp in favor of the socialist camp was not that they didn’t understand George (this may also be the case, but is not the point) it was that the leaders of the socialist agenda were better leaders.

Ask any liberal today about post-Keynesian thought or any conservative about the neo-classical realm and 99% of the time they do not understand it and very often believe in the exact opposite of what the theory claims and yet “still believe”.

This is one of the things this blog is about: “Street Evangelism”. Part of that is user interactivity, for example, posting comments when you have comments, or sending me material to blog about, or sending me guest blogging articles, etc. Some of those happen more frequently then others.

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NYC nights

I'll be down in the Village tonight to see a friends band play. This is from her email:

"Doors open at 8 p.m. when The Bullitts take the stage, followed by Under Pup @ 9 p.m. and then the main event THE STREET BOHEMIANS at 10 p.m., concluding with The Mona Passage at 11 p.m. "

It is at the Pussycat Lounge on 96 Greenwich St. at Rector.

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Streaming Music (cont)

Persephone's Bees - Nice Day (acoustic)


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Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Happy Fourth!

Please don't get hit by any wayward fireworks and don't drive drunk.

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Happy Fourth!

Please don't get hit by any wayward fireworks and don't drive drunk.

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Sprawl and Farmers at odds in CA

Interesting article here Some choice quotes:

The flower plot, along with 255 nearby acres of strawberry fields and two parcels of open land, are vestiges of this San Diego suburb's agricultural past. They're also at the core of a growing dispute about the fate of the area's few remaining farms.
A citizens group has qualified a measure for Carlsbad's November ballot that would ban development of the properties.
"We're losing 20 acres for every acre we're protecting," said Ed Thompson, California director of the American Farmland Trust, a nonprofit group that advocates farmland preservation.
Mayor Claude "Bud" Lewis, who opposes the measure, said he understands the desire to slow development but fears the ban will bring costly lawsuits from landowners claiming it devalues their property.
San Diego Gas & Electric Co., which owns the strawberry fields, is not considering a lawsuit, spokeswoman Anne Silva said.

Carlsbad's long-range development plan once called for the accommodation of about 225,000 people, Holzmiller said. But that target was reduced to about 125,000 in 1986, with up to 40 percent of the city's land devoted to open space.

Still, "You're going to have an urbanized city, that's always been part of the plan," Holzmiller said.


I am fairly certain it is a matter of how Carlsbad is using the space already available to them. This has been in the news before.

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Streaming Music (cont)

U2 Sunday Bloody Sunday - Live at Red Rocks


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Monday, July 03, 2006

Problems Identified, No Solutions Given.

For many of our problems in society we are able to identify them, sometimes easily sometimes not so much so. Sprawl is one of these which we have identified as a problem area for society.

Today, I was looking around in Google News for things to put up on the site and found this article on sprawl in Wisconsin. I’ve actually lived in one of the areas they talk about (between Chicago and Milwaukee) and they are right, sprawl is worse there then perhaps anywhere else I’ve been, except possibly the DC area.

Part of what the article says is the same things you have heard me say before:

But my point isn't to pick on Madison's multifamily housing: Let's look to some big tracts of open land between Dane and Milwaukee counties where sprawl is simply exploding and the developers' wording is sugarcoating the facts.


It is not only the land, but the water under the ground, which is rarely talked about but is more important to land capacity in many areas

Waukesha's underground water supply has dropped by 500 feet due to overdevelopment, and some of the remaining deep well water is naturally contaminated with radium. Developers play fast and loose with language when they pitch projects and name them.


However, the problem I have with the article is the only solution it gives is to “stop sprawl”.

Development marketing that spins inaccurately or insincerely often foretells that farm acreage and parkland vistas are about to be converted to malls and McMansions. Insults to the language and the landscape go hand-in-hand: Both need to end.


I won’t get into their local naming conventions of naming things after mythical castles, but, as far as the sprawl issue goes, simply saying “no!” is not good enough.

To really put an end to the sprawl, to save the family farm lifestyle, to save the pristine nature of the land, we need to change how we think about the land and how we tax the land. What is needed is the Land Value Tax. Today, I will look up the Wisconsin constitution to see what the state position is on the Land Value Tax (LVT) and add it to the list.

The LVT is a tax on land and not on buildings or improvements on the land. For more information on the LVT, if this is your first time hearing about it, simply go to my blog and click on any of the links in the “links” section or read some of my past entries.

You can write a letter to the editor in response to the above article HERE

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Streaming Music (cont)

Bruce Springsteen - Old Dan Tucker fromt he Seeger Sessions tour.


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Sunday, July 02, 2006

Another New Service

So I was playing around with feedburner, trying to find out how to make an html sig for my emails, and I found out that most (>50%) of my posts were bugged and were not getting through. This is unfortunate. I have foxed most or all of these bugs, however.

The email sig is now in. If you get an email from me you will see it in my sigs section. It's kind of nifty actually.

The other new service I have added is also from feedburner. If you look on the left sidebar you will see a new option to add your email address. This will let you subscribe. All of my future updates will simply be sent to you via email. I tend to edit typos a lot, so I have no idea if this means you will get posts in the email everytime I edit. But, it is worth a go anyway.

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Reading, PA

As I've talked about before, the first suburbs become the next slums and the suburbs push themselves out some more.

I was reading in an editorial about Reading’s problems today and here is part of what it said:

For more than a decade the problems of urban decay and crime have been creeping into the first ring of sub-urbs surrounding Reading, and they won’t stop there. As populations increase in Maidencreek, Robeson, Union, South Heidelberg, Ontelaunee and other townships, the troubles will follow.

Secondly, the article highlights two areas (rightly) which would help “revitalize” the community, business development and tourism. For both of these things a well structured downtown urban district is absolutely essential and only thing can do that, The Land Value Tax.

Without getting into the local democracy problems, the editors are advocating a county wide .25% increase in the property tax. However, this will do nothing to solve the problems of the downtown area. True, it will employ more police officers. However, the objective should be to eliminate the route causes of crime rather then breading those causes.

If Reading was to implement the LVT or SRT (split rate tax) and the county imposed a .25% or better tax on land and not on buildings they could achieve three goals at once. They could pay for the cost of the police officers in the short term, they could achieve revitalization of the downtown in the medium term and they could dramatically lower the crime at the same time.

Harrisburg did it and it worked out well for them. In 25 years registered businesses increased from 1900 to 5700 and the empty lots in Harrisburg went from 4,200 to 400. Clearly, a dramatic improvement. Reading could do the same with its city if it chose to do so.

Write a letter to the editor of Reading Eagle here:

We welcome letters from readers. Letters should be brief (about 200 words) and address a specific topic of general interest. For verification purposes include your full name, address, and telephone number (day & evening) also please include your e-mail. Concise letters will get preferential treatment and are less likely to be condensed. E-mail your letter to letters@readingeagle.com or if you prefer to mail your letters, please address to:

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
READING EAGLE
P.O. BOX 582
READING, PA. 19603-0582
or Fax: 610-371-5098


Online Editor here:

Al Walentis
ReadingEagle.com Online Editor
610-371-5085
awalentis@readingeagle.com

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Nuggets on Sprawl

This was in my in box this morning:

Here's an interesting fact I got from some material sent to me by
Grow Smart RI, an anti-sprawl group. They really don't seem to talk much
about unused urban land on their web site, it's more about the ill effects
of sprawl, disappearing farms, etc. But since I asked about vacant urban
land, they sent me a paper written by a student at Brown U. that had some
interesting facts, including:

A 1999 study of 83 US cities found that the average city has 12,000 acres
or 15% of its area in usable, vacant land. This average of 15% means that
the 100 largest cities in the nation have the equivalent of the total
combined land areas of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston,
Philadelphia, and San Diego sitting idle. ( Source: Michael Pagano and Ann
O. M. Bowman: "Vacant Land in Cities: An Urban Resource," Washington, DC,
Brookings Institution Center, 2000).
Hat Tip - C Orloff VIA Y Pensack

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Streaming Music (cont)

The Highwaymen - title song

The quartet of W Nelson, K Kristofferson, W Jennings, and J Cash


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Saturday, July 01, 2006

Interesting

This opinion is appearing in some southern papers.

For more reading (hard news) on this subject go here

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Saturday Morning

Good morning;

Tomorrow is Sunday so if you want to post something please send it to me.

If you have any other random bits of news post them here.

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Streaming Music (cont)

Arcade Fire - wake up


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