The Henry George Blog

Answering the Water Question in the Middle East

2007-04-28T18:31:00.000-07:00

I finally finished my senior project earlier today. I still have some work to do tomorrow, like add the appendix and table of contents, but as of right now, I am finished. I am going to read it through one more time and just make sure everything is a-ok, but I think this is it. Projects are Wednesday. I am going to print on Sunday night and bind on Monday. My board is a week from this Monday. The full title is below:

Answering the Water Question in the Middle East: An Equitable and Efficient Solution to the Water Allocation Crisis Between Israel and Palestine

On the internets

2007-04-06T08:49:00.000-07:00

On a typical day I'll read about 10 blogs. I have a list of approximately 4 or 5 that I cycle through every day based mostly on political affiliations and hobbies. One of these blogs is A VC. Generally, I think everyone should have at least one tech oriented blog that is updated every day. I used to read Feld Thoughts, but he is a bit too wonky for even my self admitted nerdness. I like to be kept up to date about the cutting edge. Can this new product or service help me? Can I think up some new idea to build on this? About a year or two ago, innovators were in the heyday of web 2.0 stuff. I am fairly certain that we are well into the diminishing returns of web 2.0

Of of the things that made web 2.0 stuff interesting was its simplicity and how robust these tools were. Take del.ico.us, blogger, dig, or feedburner for example. These tools have a lot functionality for very little time invested and are incredibly simply to use. This trend seems to either be slowing down or working in reverse.

One of Fred's newer posts is about this service called Twitter. I honestly don't get it. I like Fred's tenacity and how he will revisit something he originally didn't like... but I still don't understand Twitter. What is it supposed to that I can't do with 100 other services? Why is it important that I send a blog update in 150 characters or less what I am eating, who I am eating with, my daily schedule. I don't see why it is important to anyone other then the person updating and there is a ton of personal organizer type software / hardware stuff already out there. Based on his post he doesn't seem to fully understand it either, and he is just trying it out until he can find a use for it.

This is the point where I diverge and why a lot of these new services are useless. If you seek long enough and hard enough you can find a nitch and use for anything. But these nitches are just that, nitches. They are not all encompassing, easy to use, something that anyone can understand, and usable in nearly every application. Aggregating information doesn't matter if it is not efficient. I can come up with a million different ways of putting information together and if it is not efficient, who cares about my new collection? Take social networks. Since the Youtube and Myspace deals everyone and their brother wants to make a new company with a social network. They are coming every which way and it is annoying. Having a new network defeats the purpose of networking to begin with. The more fragmented these networks become the less purpose they have.

I haven't seen anything that is really interesting in a long time. Every time I see a new service, such as Twitter, I think to myself: Underwear gnomes

1.) Build a new webservice based on a widget
2.) ???????
3.) Profit.

I am certain there are new ideas floating out there. It's all about risk. Now that the risk of web 2.0 has been lessened, the really good, although risky, ideas are getting ignored. I personally don't think we will see an entire wave of new innovations for a while. Not until we have a market correction and the strongest and best ideas will survive.

Taking this idea to the next step in a Georgist direction, technological innovation comes in waves, just like real estate booms and busts come in waves. What we want is for capital to find its way to those who are the most efficient idea generators. It seems that capital finds its way towards the most efficient generators of ideas just after the trough. Markets can't efficiently allocate this funding efficiently at all times because of asymmetric information. VCs don't know who has the best idea. All innovators want capital. Innovators who have the best idea might not be able to make the best sale, or because of the inherent high risk are at a disadvantage; moreover, innovators will not reveal if they are a poor generator of ideas. VCs and investors try to mitigate this gap of information by performing "due dilligence", but this process can only take the venture capitalist so far.

How can VCs direct capital more efficiently? In land markets, taxing land will cause a more efficient use of the land. Land is the scarce, common resource. In venture capital, the VCs time is the scarce, common resource. Not all ideas / firms / businesses (just call them firms for short) require an equal amount of time. Furthermore, firm that only require a short time investment may require a large capital investment and vice versa.

What the VCs want is for the idea generators to reveal how valuable they feel their ideas really are. What the firms want is capital and consulting. I wonder if a different investing strategy could work like this, given thata a VC firm has a fixed number of hours to dedicate to portfolio companies every day and a fixed amount of capital to distribute. Call this fixed number of hours, time slots.

Firms bid on a time slot or many time slots. Because VC firms are made up of people, different timeslots assigned to VCs will have varying quality. The method of bidding is a multiplier on the amount of capital loaned now. So, one firm desires a 2x multiplier, the next 2.1 and so on, the bidding will continue depending on how valuable the firms feel their ideas are. Firms have an incentive to perform at their very best and most efficiently. VCs have an incentive to spend their time as effectively as possible.

There is still a moral hazard problem and there is still the wingnut problem. I don't see the above model as being as simple as laid out here. I actually see a system of screening similar to the one already used. This auction system would only be used as a last round of screening. There are other issues as well. But, as this blog post is getting wicked long (and I doubt anyone would actually try this anyway) I'm going to cut this short as simply food for thought.

Georgist Sentiments

2007-02-17T12:49:00.000-08:00

I was looking around the internet today and found an interesting discussion found here. The author who replied to the anti-georgist did a good job, but I’ve seen that sort of stuff before. When it comes to land, for some reason, people simply abandon all of their economic principles or they will simply make up things about Georgism and usually the opposite of what George asserted (in this case both), such as the entire idea of private property. I hear this one more often then any other: that George wanted to confiscate all lands, make them public and it would be one giant common park. Of course, George asserted the exact opposite and talked about this at great length. Tideman talks about this, that George should have chosen some better words. He was a pioneer of the Tragedy of the Commons long before Hardin wrote his now famous article. The other is this entire notion of Free Trade. Of course, George was remembered for lots of things, after his main contribution of Georgism he is also well remembered for his ideas of free trade, whom libertarian authors still cite to this day. Keep in mind, he was writing during a period of time when free trade was extremely unpopular.

This entire idea notion of a community hiring out explorers to “find” new land is new to me though... probably because the argument is a little (ok a lot) silly. The replier was right not only historically, but even in the modern sense. Citizens do not leave the urban area because fellow urbanites are paying them go forth and suburbanize, the suburbanites are instead rent seeking. Indeed, as Gaffney pointed out these suburbs tend to be leaches on the urban community. The urban community pays for the majority cost of waste and sanitation, roads tunnels and bridges, but the suburban areas only need to pay for marginal roads, pipes and dump trucks.

Anyway, that site is a serious forum warrior site. Tread at your own peril.

Grass farming

2007-02-12T14:42:00.000-08:00

So, I’ve been thinking about what I’ve been wanting to do with my life and I thought to myself, hey, why not be a dairy farmer?

Now, most of you probably just thought to yourself – yes, sure, let’s just suddenly go out and milk cows. But, I am also a former tie stall dairy farmer from NY.

I’ve been thinking more and more about it and I’ve pretty much decided if I can get a loan, this is what I am going to do. I’ll lay out the very general idea here, though I am working on a more depth (and professional) business plan on my hard drive.

I do not want to do conventional dairy farming. I’ve done that. Honestly, it isn’t all that much fun. In many ways it reminds of the Navy, where 95% of my job wasn’t my job. I liked working with the animals. I liked milking. I liked calves. I liked watching the fields grow in the spring. I hated manure handling in below 0 weather. I hated silage in below 0 weather. I hated water pipes bursting on Christmas. I really disliked doing mechanical repairs on machinery. It seemed like I was spending way more time doing things that 100 years ago no one would have even considered. Who on earth would have climbed up a 50 foot harder silo to sledge out frozen corn silage?

A couple years ago I had to do some research about subsidies and I used New Zealand as an example of an area that eliminated subsidies. New Zealand today is one of the largest dairy exporters in the world. I didn’t really put much thought into it at the time.

I was doing some research about cheese, for my own enjoyment, and I happened to stumble across an article of this guy in New Jersey who runs his herd on grass only milk. He milks one time per day, outwinters, and does nothing but grass. This got the old grease machine that is my brain working.

I thought to myself, gee… if cows can produce milk on grass you wouldn’t need a big tractor to pull the plow. You wouldn’t need a bunker. You wouldn’t need a harrow. You wouldn’t need a corn chopper, corn planter, or corn seed. I thought about this and I thought about it some more and then I remembered back about milk fever and bloat and I thought all the cows would be dead in a matter of days fed on a high quality grass ration. Everyone knows that cows can’t eat grass (what they ate before the 50’s must have been magical essence).

So, I did some googling. I then found this guy by the Fred Owen who runs a grass only dairy in Ohio. Now Fred, it seems, did the whole 300+ dairy cow thing with freestalls and all that jazz. He says he now makes more money on 30 cows grazing. I figured he was an extreme case, or possibly a superb manager of grass and not representative of all dairies. The production hit you take from grass it seems is negligible and the total milk / acre it seems, actually goes up since you need fewer acres / cow to feed each when on grass only.

I thought about this some more. I’ve always wanted to have a cheese farm at some point in the future. I did some more research about cheese farmers and only some are on grass. Most are still doing conventional dairying and some buy their milk off the open market. It occurred to me then there was a serious opportunity for me.

At the same time, and by total coincidence, I was reading the book called “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” by Michael Pollen. In that book he interviews Joe Salatin and I ended up in a conversation with some people in Brattleboro about this very subject. The more I read about it, the more intrigued I was. Not only is something I could do, but this was something I could do an enjoy doing at the same time.

It then occurred to me that if I wanted to make cheese all the animals should be in a similar state of lactation so the cheese components are all the same. This way I could make a higher quality cheese from specific seasonal milk. Cows milk for 305 days and are dry for 60. Usually. Why can’t they all freshen in the same time period and dry them off in the winter months? This would avoid the costly electric and fuel bills of the winter months. I looked up seasonal dairying and lots of graziers are doing it to synchronize their herd with the spring grass, an added bonus as far as I’m concerned.

I decided everything on the farm should maximize profits. What if I outwintered? I want to dairy in the far North East, in Vermont. This is a question I haven’t had answered yet. I think it is possible. I wouldn’t want to experiment on my own animals though. Calves. It occurred to me that seasonal calving would mean a serious amount of time feeding calves, maybe too much to make it worth while. I found an article HERE that explains how to do it. Boy, do I wish I knew about that back in the day.

I have been trying to find people who have negative things to say about grazing and I can’t find any, other then the nutritionalists. I would really like to hear about failed enterprises to see what happened there.

One of the first problems I’ve thought up is milk times. I did some research about that and it seems some graziers go for the swing over parlor due to it’s low cost and fast throughput. If I had to build a new parlor, this is what I would build: The Waikato swing over system. For a grazier, cows don’t eat big meals, lay down, and loaf. They are always doing one of three things, when not being milked. Ruminating, grazing, resting. Cows don’t rest that often. You want your cows off the cement and in the field in as little a time as possible. I thought this might ruin my idea, since I know how expensive a nice double herringbone Delaval will cost. In order to milk 50 cows in an hour or so, you would need a much larger parlor then one for a standard 50 cow. The swing over solves this problem. I could build a swing 7 at a very reasonable price and milk with one person in about an hour and 15 minutes on the high end.

I don’t think this is plug and play. Conventional dairying is mostly plug and play. You just mix the TMR milk and away you go.

For right now, I want to start a dairy running about 50 cows. I want to build a cheese house and storage facility to store the cheese to market. I’ve been trying to read more about direct marketing cheese and how much I focus on fluid / cheese in the beginning and how to shift away from fluid.

Another thing I've been thinking about is what sort of breed? I've been leaning towards Ayrshire, but I really like the Normende, they are just hard to get in my neck of the woods.

Even if nothing ever comes from it, it is an interesting exercise none the less. Not to mention the Georgist implications of more milk / acre. There is still a ton more to think about and research before I can even think about it.

Zork Corks

2007-02-08T17:06:00.000-08:00

I'm not much of a traditionalist in the way of corking bottles of wine. Frankly, I've never really understand the apprehension around screw off corks. It's more wine snobbery then an actual desire to see perfection in wine. Anyway, I was in my local wine shop today trying to decide what to buy and I was asking the owner what was new. Nothing in particular interested me and I realized I hadn't tried anything from Australia/NZ in some time. He pointed me towards three or four different Shiraz that I might like and he asked if I had tried Woop Woop. I hadn't. This is a 2005 vintage. What sold me was the cork. It is a new cork called a "zork".

My only real concerns with the Zork are 1.) Long term storage. 2.) Plastic breakdown due to the the chemical composition of the wine. Mostly, I would worry about the plastic becoming more brittle with time.

I own a rabbit so decorking for me is a simple process consisting of at most 20 seconds, including removing the 1/4" foil ring. I don't have any problems with the cork normally, but occasionally I'll get a corky wine. For those who don't own a rabbit, a cork is simply a nuisance and yet another obstruction between the consumer and good wine.

I've never taken a side on the cork debate and I'm not going to now, simply because the cork is age tested and the screwcaps and now Zorks aren't. Call me back in 25 years and tell me how the 2007 vintages faired with those corks.

Update from the comments:

Dave Pahl, VP Sales & Marketing of ZORK answers both of my concerns above.

1. Australian Wine Research Institute tests confirm ZORK is as good a wine closure for storage as any readily available wine bottle closure.
Results are posted on our website.

2. Polyethelyne is one of the most common food grade materials avialble world wide. It will last in perfect condition certainly for the life of the wine!

Thanks for the feedback Dave.

Had they only asked me

2007-02-07T07:24:00.000-08:00

Exurbs hit hardest in housing slump

"I think it was easy for builders to think that there were real users in these fringe areas far from jobs and entertainment," he said. "In fact, we found that purchases in those areas over the last three years or so ... were speculators and not users."

Fascinating. But, do you think they will learn any lessons from this? Probably not.

Upton Sinclair

2007-02-06T17:43:00.000-08:00

Interesting post at the Southern California Real Estate Bubble Blog. Catchy title.

Most of his rhetorical points can be found in the archives of this blog, if you were looking for answers.

The author hits on a number of points that I agree with. Namely, how this (and other laws like it) are mere instruments used by the landowning class to consolidate their power. That the landowning classes convince, with relative ease, the poorer classes that it is in their best interests to go along with such a scheme. That any tax on land will cause land to be used more efficiently and cause land to be distributed more equitably.

There are a few minor points that I disagree with Sinclare on, but the major premise of his witting I agree with.

Little Mosque on the Prairie

2007-02-01T19:19:00.000-08:00

I've watched the first three of these out there. I must say, this is possibly the most over-hyped thing to happen since the debacle that was Phantom Menace. I am not a big TV watcher, in fact I need to download anything I want to watch. But, after having listened to an interview on Fresh Air, I decided to give it a go. I watched the original - not so hot, a few laughs, all predictable, but might be cute for middle America. Ok, second show. More cliche. More flat jokes. One scene did make me laugh towards the end. Third show... definitely the worst yet. All the jokes fell flat. All of it was predictable. It wasn't even remotely funny at any point.

This is too bad because the actors all seem to be fairly good for a sit-com, the chemistry of the show works, the setting has the potential to be one of the funniest shows since Seinfeld... and yet, not so much.

For one, the show is too egger to introduce all of the characters in 22 minutes. This is a big cast. It just isn't possible. They should take a less ambitious approach. They should concentrate on slower, more in depth character development and explore some of the issues that arise from that. Keep the subplots down to 1 or 2 per show and a few overlapping ones in the tradition of "Great Expectations."

Classes

2007-01-30T16:12:00.000-08:00

Classes started for me today. Hebrew II, a couple writing classes and of course senior project II.

Friday Wine Blogging (cont)

2007-01-27T17:56:00.000-08:00

Been a while since I made one of these

Marietta Cellars. Lot Number Forty One.

I normally tend to steer clear of table wines. However, this one is particularly refreshing in ways I wouldn't have expected. For one, it's bouquet of blackberries is pleasing and the taste launches into an immediate garden fresh fruity berry taste. When people say they like "sweet" wine, but not "sugary" wine, they usually mean wine that taste fruity. This is their wine. The

It cost me around 12 dollars. For similar wine, I would expect to pay up to 15 dollars.

It does have some tannins and other acidic overtones and as such, you might want to consider eating cheese just before, or while drinking this wine. It may help balance the tannins out a little and bring out even more flavor. Alas, I have no crackers and don't feel like opening my St. Albray without crackers.

On Approaching Wine

2007-01-27T17:50:00.000-08:00

Often, when I go out to dinner with my friends, they will ask me to pick out a bottle of wine for us. I actually enjoy picking out wine, so I don’t mind doing this. However, it is not that my friends don’t enjoy picking out wine, but that usually, the lists and the language are simply too cumbersome and often times the ratings are far too subjective to be of any use.

I had a similar conversation today with my local wine retailer. I’ve tried most of the 15 and under bottles of wine and I’ve had a few in the 15-20 range of the domestics, as well as most of the South Americans, Australasia, and a couple Italians. Today, I simply walked in and asked for a recommendation – something I rarely do. By now he, Michael Lovice of the White Horse in Red Hook, NY, should be somewhat familiar with my tastes. He asked me if there was anything I’m in the mood for and I told him I wasn’t. He asked if I had this new Marietta Cellars blend and before he finished I told him I usually didn’t drink from display case wine. I’ve found at most stores display case wine tends to be overpriced and at times the quality is lacking. He explained that his display case wines were simply new wines or wine he ordered a lot of, furthermore he said he uses the display case wine barrels to break up some empty floor space.

I told him how I came to the conclusion that all display case wine is to be avoided, and I went off on some tangent about Robert Parker. This lead to another tangent about rating systems in general and why he doesn’t use them. I agree with him, personally. Stores that use a rating system are selling their customers short; even if the customers don’t realize it, they tend to gravitate towards a very subjective rating system.

Most people don’t drink as much variety of wine as I do. They either find a couple they like and stick to them, or they drink other things in between bottles of wine, which is fine. Personally, I like the adventure of it all. It’s like a small mystery. Even if I find a wine that simply blows me away for twelve dollars, I might only buy it once or twice more and then only to entertain. The ratings systems hurts this sense of adventure and it does not mean you will never buy a bad bottle of wine. More then once have I bought a Wine Spectator 88 or 90 and it had aromas reminiscent of turpentine, texture that of sandpaper and a flavor which can only be described as a subtle mixture of cow urine, stale beer and slight overtones of motor oil.

When I first started to drink wine it was more of an academic exercise. I wanted to know how I should appreciate wine and not the why. It took me several years to realize that the why is far more important the how. I can summarize how to appreciate good wine in these few points:

-Drink wine – make a rule to only buy wine over twenty dollars a bottle once a month.
-Drink one bottle per week
-Eat a large variety of good food. Not expensive food. Just good food. To appreciate good wine you need a large variety of what I call “palate flavors”, that is, how many flavors your tongue (and nose) can tell the difference of.
-If you are in a bad mood do not open the cork. Seriously. This will highly affect how you experience the wine and probably for the worse. Save it for another day. Besides, you should never be drinking to make yourself feel better.

By the bye, I bought that display case wine and I am not regretting my decision.

Handicapping The Oscars

2007-01-23T06:45:00.000-08:00

Always a fun office pool exercise. Here is what I have seen so far, of the nominated films:

Blood Diamond
The Pursuit of Happyness
The Departed
The Queen
The Devil Wears Prada
The Good Shepherd
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
Children of Men
Marie Antoinette
An Inconvenient Truth
Apocalypto
Flags of Our Fathers
Borat

Edit:

Pan's Labyrinth
Babel
The Last King of Scotland - Forest is awesome. He'll win best actor. Adjust accordingly.

I’ll probably go to the theatre today to see Babel, I also want to see Volver and Pan’s Labyrinth, and a few of the other ones nominated. The key to good handicapping is remembering what the academy is. It is an invitation only club type membership. From my understanding, they are people who work in the film or have influence in the film industry. They aren’t academics (though some may be) and they aren’t studio executives (though some may be). Since the membership list is private, it is more likely that people will vote with their feel good side of their brain rather then their analytical side of their brain. This has an affect on certain nominations who otherwise wouldn’t have won (Judi Dench, for example). This year we have Peter O’Toole and Martin Scorsese, both have never won, both are extremely good at what they do. Both have been nominated many times and have lost out (Scorsese lost to Costner, for God’s sake).

Another thing to keep in mind is the “token” aspect of the awards as well as "splitting". We’ve seen this before in 1998 when Shakespeare in Love won the award. In that year The Thin Red Line, Saving Private Brian, and Elizabeth were all nominated (also Life is Beautiful). I personally think The Thin Red Line split with Saving. If the academy used a different voting mechanism, we would have to think about this differently, of course, but I believe they use “first past the post” type voting. Keep this in mind every time you see Blood Diamond and the Last King of Scotland up against each other (I would also have said To Catch a fire, however, it wasn’t nominated for anything, I don’t believe).

By token, I mean sometimes the awards like to make a token award. In a year that sees a lot of films from one background or genre this becomes important, in this case one becomes a token for the rest of them.

Another thing to keep in mind is the ongoing politics of the world. The academy likes to send a message, but it doesn’t want to send an overt message. Many important films have lost out due to this, in my opinion. They usually reserve this for the nominations and not the actual award, however. The Killing fields (lost to Amadeus) , for example, did not win, neither did All the President’s Men (lost to Rocky, was also up against Taxi driver in that year).

The Academy tends not to like violence, especially blood violence. The made-for-tee-vee type violence that Lukas and Spielberg do is OK. The type of violence that Scorsese does, generally is not. This isn’t always true, however. For example, Braveheart won and is both violent and bloody. Keep in mind, there is a difference between someone getting shot and dieing with no blood and seeing someone getting shot, dieing, and watching their blood pulse out as they watch themselves slowly bleed to death. Films like Blood Diamond and The Departed, which show people getting shot and maimed, both extremely violent movies, are competing against The Queen and Little Miss Sunshine. However, this is a violent year for movies. Babel, as I understand, is also violent, as well as “Letters”.

The “only one musical every twenty years” rule. Well, I made that up, but it’s the truth. The Academy is not Broadway. To the academy, Broadway is for those NYU type actors who majored in dance to “find their craft”, until they move away from soho to California. The Academy can only stomach a musical every twenty years. We’ve had two recently, Moulin Rouge and Chicago (and Chicago won). The last big Oscar musical before that was “All that Jazz”, a Fosse film. There were a few in the early 60’s as well (West Side Story won).

Another way movies can split is if there are two “NYU type” art films done in the same and both were nominated. The NYU types have a loyalty to their film makers (Scorsese, De Niro, and Lee {both Spike and Ang are of NYU fame and made movies together} for example). Where someone went to school is less important then the “school of thought” they belong to. Someone may have graduated from UCLA and be seen as part of the NYU school (De Caprio, for example, is certainly moving in this direction). This probably the least important of the criteria.

Another thing to keep in mind is the hierarchy of the awards. Best Picture, director, Actor, Actress, supporting actor, supporting actress, screenplays, and cinematography is the general hierarchy of awards. This is not my opinion, but rather how important “the industry” thinks each award is. I could be wrong of course.

Last but not least, occasionally, the academy will pick the best film / actor / actress of the year. This may or may not be coincidence. Soderbergh won in 2000 for Traffic. He was also nominated for Erin Brockovich. That was the year of Crouching Tiger, Gladiator and Billy Elliot.

I write the above so people in office pools can make good guesses without having seen every film.

So here are my thoughts. I reserve the right to change these as I catch up on the last of the films.

Edit: interesting, I lost everything past this point. I'll try this again

Best motion picture of the year
“Babel” #2
“The Departed” #3
“Letters from Iwo Jima” #5
“Little Miss Sunshine” #4
“The Queen” #1

All Clint Eastwood stuff goes to the bottom of my handicapping. Why? There is an unofficial cooling off period after winning a bunch of awards. He very recently won for Million Dollar Baby. Both picture and director went to him. It is common for these two awards to be shared.

The Queen is a British production and this goes against it. The Departed is too violent. I would hedge my bets with the guys in the IT department against Babel, personally.

Performance by an actor in a leading role
Leonardo DiCaprio in “Blood Diamond” #2
Ryan Gosling in “Half Nelson” #5
Peter O’Toole in “Venus” #1
Will Smith in “The Pursuit of Happyness” #4
Forest Whitaker in “The Last King of Scotland” #3

Tough year for male leads. Sucks for Will Smith. The legacy award will go to O’Toole. He may deserve it, he may not. It doesn’t matter. The hedge is DiCaprio.

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Alan Arkin in “Little Miss Sunshine” #4
Jackie Earle Haley in “Little Children” #5
Djimon Hounsou in “Blood Diamond” #1
Eddie Murphy in “Dreamgirls” #2
Mark Wahlberg in “The Departed” #3

When the voters are going down their voting card and they vote for legacy in acting, they are going to vote for Hounsou in Diamond as a conciliation prize. In any other year, I would say he wouldn’t have a prayers chance in hell. The snub factor goes to Eddie Murphy. I liked Wahlberg this year, personally. Your millage may vary. If you feel O’Toole will not get the legacy award and a real award, or if you feel he won’t get an award at all, you should move Hounsou towards the bottom.

Performance by an actress in a leading role
Penélope Cruz in “Volver” #3
Judi Dench in “Notes on a Scandal” #2
Helen Mirren in “The Queen” #1
Meryl Streep in “The Devil Wears Prada” #5
Kate Winslet in “Little Children” #4

Judi got her prize in 1998, as you will remember. She was also nominated in 2005, however and there could be a residual vote for her. This makes her a good hedge bet for that reason. Cruz is both foreign and a comedy. The Devil Wears Prada is simply not possible. Remember the Academy is a “very serious” organization with “very serious” people. Even if she was good, it doesn’t matter. Mirren was actually good and deserves the award.

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Adriana Barraza in “Babel” #3
Cate Blanchett in “Notes on a Scandal” #5
Abigail Breslin in “Little Miss Sunshine” #2
Jennifer Hudson in “Dreamgirls” #1
Rinko Kikuchi in “Babel” #4

I haven’t seen any of these. Sorry Cate but it’s too soon. Babel nom’s will split. This leaves smooth sailing for Hudson to win. This could end up being the only major award for, what is possibly, the best movie of the year (and I haven’t seen in yet!).

Achievement in directing
“Babel” - Alejandro González Iñárritu #2
“The Departed” - Martin Scorsese #1
“Letters from Iwo Jima” - Clint Eastwood #4
“The Queen” - Stephen Frears #3
“United 93” - Paul Greengrass #5

Scorsese will get the lifetime achievement award here. If he does, Babel will get best picture. If voters vote for his actual directing, and they should, The Departed may win both. I doubt it though.

The Guardian Nails It

2007-01-09T13:19:00.000-08:00

A land tax is 200 years overdue.

One Giant Leap Backwards for Plattsburgh

2007-01-05T16:09:00.000-08:00

The area I was born in and the city I was raised in has seen many changes in the past few years. Old roads have been repaved. Buildings have been revitalized. When the Governor and political pundits talk of the problems and deep depression in the “upstate community”, citizens of Plattsburgh have always been able to say: not in our town. Plattsburgh, an isolated pocket of industry, commerce, education, culture and fine dining surrounded by an area of long term economic depression, is in danger of losing part of what makes it unique and becoming yet another mill town north of Albany that time forgot.

The city should ask itself, not only what are the short benefits of these proposed budget cuts, but as well as some of the short and long term costs associated with these cuts. Of the many line items listed in the Plattsburgh Press-Republican, most are a step backwards for the city and will have serious long term consequences for the city, for children who are growing up in the city, for the elderly who call Plattsburgh home and for the people commuting in to the city from surrounding communities. The goal of the city should be efficiency, not absence of service; a return to slalom like driving conditions on the roads, a return to a deserted downtown and the general run down nature of Plattsburgh pre-Stewart.

The Mayors Cup festival, which in recent years has devolved into more of a carnival then a festival, is still a major tourist attraction and something that, quit literally, puts Plattsburgh on the map for racing enthusiasts all over the North Eastern area. The city should seek to improve The Mayors Cup festival, not eliminate it. If the carnival atmosphere was not what people intended, the efficient thing to do would be take the established brand for The Mayors Cup and develop it. At one time there were games for children and during the day times the festival was populated with families going from restaurant to restaurant and staying for the music at night. According to the latest census, there are 18,800 people in Plattsburgh. The city seeks to gain 75,000 dollars by eliminating the festival. Or put in another way the cost savings equate to 4 dollars for every man, woman, and child in the city per year. How much does it cost to go to the fair for a day? How much does it cost to go to the movies for a day? How many part time laborers will no longer be hired by private firms? How many fewer dollars will flow to this city from the outer regions, other states, and other countries? Is all of that worth 4 dollars a day? The city will also loose something far more important. For one week every year, people get out of their little hovels and come together as one community. I remember the Fred Phelps tribe of hatred and how Plattsburgh came together in unity and with one loud, clear, succinct voice the community said: not in our town.

Some of the items listed for cuts are equally as short sighted. The JCEO is a program that keeps young adults out of trouble. Instead of spending their summer months wandering the streets, these young adults are instead working, learning what it means to save and being a productive member of society. I challenge any of the councilors to go to the High School and ask the teachers how they feel the JCEO has affected some of those students. This program frees parents from investing time at home, to investing time in the work place. It frees the police from picking up young adults. When these young people graduate and go on to college or get a job they are in the position to be leaders in their field and they are already here in this community.

Everything from new fire equipment, police cell phones, Fire Hose 5, and Police retirement, et al, are not bloated city expenditures. They are important services to the health and vitality of every citizen as well as to the long term growth of the city. If the police are slow to respond or the fire trucks are broken down peoples are in danger, capital investment is threatened, and time is wasted. If other competing communities are taking these steps to lower their risk of disaster, firms and industry will move to those communities before they move to Plattsburgh. If a young person looking at becoming a police officer sees that part of their retirement is threatened, they will chose another line of work, or more likely, move to another community which does provide these benefits. The mayor, mayor pro tem and the common council must not forget that Plattsburgh is competing for citizens with all of the other communities as well as industry, commerce, and culture.

Not all of the cuts are bad cuts; however, I question the wisdom and foresight of the leadership who seem more interested in saving a few dollars then on bringing the city forward into the competitive twenty first century. I ask all of you to write your local councilor and the mayor and tell them to vote no on this budget. Tell them you want a better Plattsburgh, not a barren Plattsburgh. Tell them not in our town.

Me in Philly a few days ago

2006-08-19T12:32:00.000-07:00

and another

Streaming Music (cont)

2006-08-14T08:57:00.000-07:00

Psapp - Tricycle

Home and heat

2006-08-01T18:38:00.000-07:00

If you've been reading my posts for the past few weeks you know I can't stand the heat. Well, after all the complaining I did, it turns out the heat wave from a few weeks ago was a mere primer for what we are in store for this week. Hooray for 100 degree temps!

I finished up the last of my trip this morning returning from an NYC visit. I suspect I will need to go back soon for... personal reasons.

So, right now I'm leaching some free wi-fi at a bar called the Black Swan in Tivoli, NY. There is a band playing, I have a Guiness, so life is good. Sort of.

Streaming Music (cont)

2006-07-31T06:03:00.000-07:00

Halou - Wholeness and Seperation

At home, almost

2006-07-28T09:31:00.000-07:00

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

Live from NYC

2006-07-27T14:50:00.000-07:00

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.

Updates

2006-07-25T09:36:00.000-07:00

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 ;)

Saturday Wrap up

2006-07-22T15:57:00.000-07:00

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.

Myth of corporate efficiency

2006-07-22T12:18:00.001-07:00

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.

Myth of corporate efficiency

2006-07-22T12:18:00.000-07:00

Monetary reform

2006-07-22T11:58:00.000-07:00

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.

On Forecasting

2006-07-22T07:20:00.001-07:00

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.

On Forecasting

2006-07-22T07:20:00.000-07:00

Cay Hehner

2006-07-21T13:35:00.000-07:00

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.

Debate: Free Trade

2006-07-21T11:47:00.000-07:00

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.

Yesterdays sessions

2006-07-21T06:25:00.000-07:00

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.

Wifi extortion

2006-07-21T06:23:00.000-07:00

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.

Greg says hello

2006-07-19T21:19:00.000-07:00

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.

Chicago

2006-07-19T16:29:00.000-07:00

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

Options

2006-07-18T10:16:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-18T06:40:00.000-07:00

Natacha Atlas - Live at Montreal Jazz fest

Another interesting blog

2006-07-17T14:37:00.000-07:00

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.

New Widget

2006-07-16T21:13:00.000-07:00

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.

Streaming Music (cont) - Opera

2006-07-16T20:20:00.000-07:00

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

But Sprawl is Good!

2006-07-15T12:10:00.000-07:00

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.

Streaming Music (cont)

2006-07-15T12:07:00.000-07:00

Bitter : Sweat - The Mating Game

Streaming Music (cont)

2006-07-14T07:09:00.000-07:00

Lily Allen - Smile

Scary

2006-07-13T12:18:00.000-07:00

"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.

Streaming Music (cont)

2006-07-13T09:23:00.000-07:00

Carla Bruni

Posting

2006-07-12T14:02:00.000-07:00

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.

Streaming Music (cont)

2006-07-12T13:59:00.000-07:00

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.

Heat

2006-07-11T07:37:00.000-07:00

The heat here is nuts this summer.

Streaming Music (cont)

2006-07-10T08:02:00.000-07:00

The Editors - Fingers in the Factories

Connecticut Sprawl

2006-07-09T08:48:00.000-07:00

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

Streaming Music (cont) - Opera

2006-07-09T08:40:00.000-07:00

La Traviata - Libiam ne Lieti

Streaming Music (cont)

2006-07-08T09:18:00.000-07:00

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.

Friday Wine Blogging (cont)

2006-07-07T19:06:00.000-07:00

Salmon Run - Pinot Noir

Do not recomend under any circumstance or price.

Streaming Music (cont)

2006-07-07T08:12:00.000-07:00

Corinne Bailey Rae - Put Your Records On

Sprawl In Kansas

2006-07-07T07:56:00.000-07:00

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

Streaming Music (cont)

2006-07-06T09:38:00.000-07:00

Alexi Muroch - Orange Sky

late night

2006-07-06T00:54:00.000-07:00

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.

Booker in Newark

2006-07-05T09:28:00.000-07:00

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.

NYC nights

2006-07-05T08:47:00.000-07:00

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.

Streaming Music (cont)

2006-07-05T08:35:00.000-07:00

Persephone's Bees - Nice Day (acoustic)

Happy Fourth!

2006-07-04T13:06:00.001-07:00

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

Happy Fourth!

2006-07-04T13:06:00.000-07:00

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

Sprawl and Farmers at odds in CA

2006-07-04T07:18:00.000-07:00

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.

Streaming Music (cont)

2006-07-04T07:09:00.000-07:00

U2 Sunday Bloody Sunday - Live at Red Rocks

Problems Identified, No Solutions Given.

2006-07-03T07:06:00.000-07:00

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

Streaming Music (cont)

2006-07-03T06:28:00.000-07:00

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

Another New Service

2006-07-02T15:54:00.000-07:00

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.

Reading, PA

2006-07-02T06:56:00.000-07:00

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

Nuggets on Sprawl

2006-07-02T05:43:00.000-07:00

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

Streaming Music (cont)

2006-07-02T05:32:00.000-07:00

The Highwaymen - title song

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

Interesting

2006-07-01T05:38:00.000-07:00

This opinion is appearing in some southern papers.

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

Saturday Morning

2006-07-01T05:23:00.000-07:00

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.

Streaming Music (cont)

2006-07-01T05:19:00.000-07:00

Arcade Fire - wake up

Being priced out of your home

2006-06-30T07:53:00.000-07:00

These are interesting times. As home prices go up and long with them, the property taxes associated with those home prices, some consumers are being priced out of the housing market or, in some cases, need to sell their homes.

It's partly a supply-and-demand issue. Years of soaring house prices (and recent increases in mortgage rates) have simply priced many people out of the home-buying market. Indeed, the portion of U.S. households owning their own home slipped to 68.5 percent in the first quarter from 69.1 percent a year earlier, according to the Census Bureau.

Wherever I travel in Vermont, I hear stories of the pain being inflicted by rapidly rising property taxes. Property taxes now threaten many of the qualities we cherish in our state.

Legislation lowering the cap on local property-tax increases met resistance right up to the end. Supporters of the property-tax cap told lawmakers that Rhode Islanders are being priced out of their homes by taxes that average $4,000 a year.

In each of these cases one can find the same problems, which are not discussed. Speculators / flippers / developers speculating on land prices, urban sprawl, and rising costs associated with government.

These are the mains reasons why home prices have risen so sharply, which for most people wouldn’t be a problem except their property taxes are also going up. But why? If the costs of government remained the exact same or at least kept pace with inflation, the property tax rate should decrease as values increase. However, in many communities, in addition to the escalating rise in values the tax rate is going up as well. This from my own town of Red Hook, NY.

But why do costs with government go up? Sure, wages for teachers should go up, garbage collection fees should go up, and everything else should also go more or less with inflation. But, it doesn’t. Why?

Because of urban sprawl, the cost for the government to support one more additional child is greater then it would be in a more condensed city. Those subdivisions with those huge yards each need long roads to connect them. They need power lines. They need cable lines. Buses need to travel further for each additional child. Cars need to travel further and spend more time in traffic.

Drive by your local strip of suburbia big-box stores and what do you see? Parking lots. Lots and lots of parking lots. Think about how many stores in the urban center of any city could be on just one of those massive parking lots, which are rarely used to maximum capacity. Here is the kicker. Those huge stores pay almost nothing in taxes on those parking lots.

For example:

The subsidies Wal-Mart lobbies for run the whole gamut: free or reduced-price land, infrastructure assistance, tax increment financing (TIF), property tax abatements or discounts, state corporate income tax credits, sales tax rebates, enterprise zone tax breaks, job training funds and low-interest tax-exempt loans. The most deals and dollars were found in Texas (30 deals worth $108 million) and Illinois (29 deals worth $102 million).

On top of that, the property tax is a hybrid tax which taxes both capital and land and usually at the same rate. Hence, the majority of the tax falls on the building and improvements. This gives incentive for these firms to take valuable out of production for massive parking lots, which you the consumer need to drive around. Often times this land is some of the most valuable and productive land around. Transforming it into a parking lot is a major cost to all of society. Speculators, who are waiting for “the rise” and will sell when the conditions are right ten or twenty years down the road.

The solution to all of these problems is to tax land. Shift our taxes away from capital improvements and labor, and towards land.

Our cities, towns, and villages need to grow. But they need to grow smartly. Property tax caps, rate caps, subsidies, and portioning were implemented in many cases with the idea of reducing the tax burden or slowing down sprawl. In all cases the opposite has happened.

Land Value Tax would eliminate the sprawl. It would eliminate the speculation associated with the boom / bust cycle in the markets. It would help eliminate much of the poverty associated with the speculation in land markets.

I encourage you to support Land Value Taxation reform. Write your lawmaker and ask if they support LVT reform. Or, you can help me in any of my ongoing projects.

Frank J. Gonzalez FL-21 endorses LVT reform

2006-06-30T06:00:00.000-07:00

Frank says;

“I prefer Henry George's Land Value Tax (LVT) just like you, instead of the outrageous taxes on labor or capital. LVT is the most economically sensible and ethical form of taxation that simultaneously benefits the environment with what I have personally been describing as a sort of "Tetris" effect toward "ground zero" that minimizes sprawl.”

Donate Here : Volunteer Here

Streaming Music (cont)

2006-06-30T05:57:00.000-07:00

Grateful Dead - Europe 72 - Jack Straw

Actblue

2006-06-29T16:22:00.000-07:00

Added an Actblue page for candidates who support LVT and Georgist causes.

Because ignorance is strength?

2006-06-29T14:12:00.000-07:00

Seriously that is the only explanation of this article from California.

The local planning commission favors sprawl over non-sprawl because:

The sprawling plan accommodates deals being negotiated between the city and two developer teams.

These deals would see 500 of 600 new homes in Tracy built in two outer-Tracy subdivisions by The Surland Cos. and Souza Realty and AKT Development from the year 2013.

The developers would buy these home-building rights from the city for $40 million and 35 acres of land.

However

Other developers have argued that the deal sells the city short by more than $100 million.

Shocker I say. Shocker.

Oh, but that is not my favorite. Yes, we get another newspeak term for this, but first, the quote:

“In this case, commissioners agreed with city staff that the sprawling plan was preferable because it would leave the most amount of land empty for unplanned commercial developments.”

Doublethink.

You can contact the city council of Tracy, CA here:

City Hall

325 East 10th Street
Tracy, CA 95376
Phone: (209) 831-4103
Email: council@ci.tracy.ca.us

I then went digging around and found this from the same paper dating from April 17th.

Hobbs said Thursday that he learned the U.S. Department of Interior has approved transfer of the site to the city. Pombo, R-Tracy, previously had sponsored legislation that would transfer the 200-acre site if the city pays for 50 acres. Most of it would be used for baseball, softball and soccer fields, but the city also has to commit 50 acres for businesses or some type of economic development.

That leaves only completion of environmental reviews before the city can take ownership of the site.

Are these the same environmental impact studies?

Digging a little bit more and what do we find? Well, well, well This from May 06th. So, who is mentioned?

None of the cities or the county contracted with AKF Development in the last three years. The company deals primarily with the private sector. AKF recently built Spreckels Park in Manteca and a 293-unit apartment complex south of Highway 120.

Oh, sure, but so long as the city is giving them free land they don’t have to, now do they?

Simply amazing. I am sure there is more digging to do yet

Florida says Split rate and LVT on the table

2006-06-29T09:47:00.001-07:00

Hopefully a reader can help me out with some addresses and emails so we can better coordinate with the effort in Florida to switch to an LVT based tax structure. This includes not only politicians, but coordinators for the LVT in that state. In the mean time, I'll see what I can dig up.

Property-tax reform committee created

There is an email if you wish to be considered for this panel.

wankers

2006-06-29T08:05:00.000-07:00

Not to take away Atrios' patented term, but seriously, there is no other title more fitting.

Over at a crooksandliars they have a video up of a Mr. John Stossell spewing forth the disinformation, which frankly, is the only defense that the global warming opponents have.

Now, I wouldn't normally bother to link something like that here, but when Scarsdale gave him "the last word" he took that opportunity to effectively say that anyone who is a global warming opponent must hate capitalism and are proponents of socialism. However, if Mr. Stossell had done is homework, he would know allowing firms and people to pollute without paying for the privilege to pollute, is in fact, subsidizing this behavior and further, it is not compensating the cost the I have for the benefit you are getting.

I am not certain what economic system Mr Stossell is operating under, but it is certainly not the free-market. Maybe some twisted hybrid of mercantilism or protectionism, but certainly not the free-market.

Lastly, if he was familiar with the proposal then he would know that Gore is a proponent of shifting taxes away from income taxes (a socialist misunderstanding) and towards pollution rents. I can only assume that Mr. Stossell is intellectually lazy or has some other “agenda” which I have yet to learn about.

Mr. Stossell could go and read my Skytrust initiative.

Streaming Music (cont)

2006-06-29T07:46:00.000-07:00

Ladysmith Black Mambazo

Interesting

2006-06-28T15:39:00.000-07:00

SInce I blogged about this yesterday.

Go here and read this article. Then go down and re-read what I blogged about in yesterdays inventories segment.

Water

2006-06-28T11:37:00.000-07:00

Lots of it

So far this has been a wicked hot summer and spring and very wet. I have never seen so much rain. I feel bad for the farmers. I have no idea how they are going to get their corn in. First cut for many sat there and sat there.

Bloggity blog

2006-06-28T09:25:00.000-07:00

Feedburner or blogger is doing something wierd. I used to have an option at the bottom of every post called "burn this feed". The &script& tags are all where they should be so this tells me something is wrong with the &bloggeritempage& tags. The feed burned just that post and not the entire blog. I have no idea how many people were using that instead of the normal one.

I've now added another "burn it" on the bottom, which will burn the entire feed. If the old decides to come back, I'll take away the second "burn it".

The Power of Discussion (cont)

2006-06-28T09:01:00.000-07:00

This comment below is in response to the diary I put up at DKos yesterday: Saving the Family Farm.

I don't mean that we don't ever talk about eminent domain or sprawl or transportation or development or organic vs. factory farms or protecting the environment, just that there isn't a cohesive, easily-communicable vision linking it all together. These issues ARE all tied up together - once you start trying to address any one aspect of land use, you bump up against the others.

This is why the opposition has such an advantage. They have a clear, concise message surrounded by a theory that is comprehensive. This is also why I will keep relentlessly pushing the Georgist message to the net-roots. I think it is clear that many people are aware of the problems, are also aware that the opposition’s theory is not the remedy, they are aware that the current plans are “push down push up” wack-a-mole solutions, and are seeking some sort of comprehensive plan. The “party” is not going to come around until the people come around.

Streaming Music (cont) - indie

2006-06-28T08:56:00.000-07:00

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

I have yet to pick up their newest album and I think it is getting good reviews. Maps, the song below, is on par with Rolling Stones, The Ramones, and other garage rock. The rest of the music that is on that album is less then steller, which is always infuriating.

The guitar picker is Nik Zinner who went to my college, Bard.

Climbing Inventories

2006-06-27T18:49:00.000-07:00

Stuck! Homes sit longer on the market

I wouldn't consider this “the sign” but it is certainly one of the many signs of the coming real estate collapse. How does this happen, one might wonder. Developers, seeking that escalating rent, get all excited and go into a building spree. When people start to try and sell their homes, or businesses try and move across town, or those ARMs go up and people can’t afford them anymore, they find they can’t sell their houses at those escalated prices.

Here is when things get fun, when the rent starts to decrease, which will happen once inventory starts going up, all that wealth will drain itself out of the housing market and into other things. Remember, most peoples wealth is tied up in their houses, if they lose part or all of that, then things start not-so-merry.

We’re playing for all the marbles this time around.

Running

2006-06-27T14:00:00.000-07:00

I went for my first run this year. I used to be a frequent runner, but I became lazy. I was running half marathons at one point.

I just came back and I needed to stop at the one mile point. Good lord, do I need to get back in to the swing of things.

Saving the Family Farm

2006-06-27T11:05:00.000-07:00

I grew up on a dairy farm in rural upstate New York, north of the mountains on the Canadian border. I would go to school in the middle of the week and on the weekends I would help my father run the farm and his 50 or so milking cows. This was a good experience for me, although hard word and one which has rewarded me with more then just a good work ethic.

It was back then that I noticed something was going in farmland, but I could never put my fingers on it. I noticed how some small farmers very near the city seemed to stay put for a long time while small and medium farms out in “Farm country” would become absorbed into one of three or four farms in the area. It always seemed counter intuitive to me and it wasn’t until I read Henry George’s Progress and Poverty that I realized what was going on. The farmers very near the city were renting out or selling land near the city every so often, the farmers out in the country never had this opportunity and simply went out of business only to become absorbed by the larger agri-corps in my region.

Even today, if you go to Plattsburgh, New York and drive on Salley Avenue, not 500 yards north of the city line there is a small farmer raising beef, with a Wal-Mart in his backyard. I kid you not. I could probably count the number of beef farmers in Clinton County on one hand, let alone one right beside the city. Occasionally he will sell off a part of his land close to the city or Wal-Mart, raising a small fortune in the process.

Now, lets go for a drive around in the country in anywhere, USA. As I drive around my local here in Dutchess, or in Hampton Roads Virginia, or Northern, IL, I always would see the same thing. Lots of stagnant land, which used to be farm land (according to people in the dinners – I’m a big dinner person) in between “the city” and where all the strip malls are at. After asking around about it, I would usually get one of two responses, either the local farmer sold off a lot of his development to the big-box stores, holding onto the more valuable land in between, because he knows that once that site gets developed and there is traffic going past it, it will sell for much more then just a tidy sum. Or, the farmer sold all of it to a developer who is doing the exact same thing.

Part of this is all fine and good. Cities grow, people build, people move. That’s just life. But, is it to this degree?

When I was living in Hampton Roads, I would always wonder why there were so many strip malls and big box stores in the outskirts when there was plenty of store space in the inner city, except it was empty or in run down buildings. Parts of the city used to be known for their shopping and now they are known for potholes. Most people I knew in Norfolk who actually lived in the city would drive out 20 miles just to go shopping. Something is wrong here, I would think. I used to think how much space was wasted in all those vast parking lots, just sitting there and hardly ever more then 50% full, all of the paved roads to interconnect all of those bigbox stores, all of those cul-de-sacs sweeping around in those cookie cutter subdivisions.

I was amazed how, near Rosendale and Witchduck, the area which was a primo suburban community was now a high poverty area and the new primo suburban community was now 10 miles past that.

In the mean time, if we drive out into the country, we see plenty of farming going on, huge gigantic agri-corps. Anyone who has drive then I-90 in Ohio and smelled the factory pig farms, or the chicken houses in Maryland on the 13 and route 1 up into Delaware, or the dairy barns so big you can barely see the end of them, or the ADMs and Monsanto’s of this world, whose chemists are bringing you some of the finest genetically altered food that government subsidies can buy.

So what is going on and how is all this inter-related? We do not tax land, instead we tax the labor and capital improvements on the land. Small farmers have a higher capital / land ratio, thus to seek a lower tax burden, they expand out or become absorbed into other farms, or they sell all their capital and own only the land, at an extremely low tax rate. If land was taxed and not capital, farmers would have an incentive to build up their capital infrastructure, invest in more labor and invest in less land, hence this would encourage more people to engage in small farming or at least, encourage them not to leave it.

Also, this would be a major boon for the organic farming industry, which uses an extremely high labor investment as well as capital in relation to the amount of land they use.

If the land was taxed and not the capital, developers would not be able to hold on to prime land in the middle of developing areas, something called checkerboard development. This sort of development, as you can imagine, is incredibly wasteful. A tax on land would ensure that only the marginal land (that land closest to the cit) would be the next land to get developed. It is no wonder our property taxes skyrocket because the costs of supporting these subdivisions is enormous compared to the city housing on the margin, roads, law enforcement, power lines, gasoline, car pollutants.

Streaming Music (cont)

2006-06-27T07:16:00.000-07:00

Beethoven's String Quartet No. 16 in F major (Opus 135) -

Must it Be?

It must be!

What is Land (cont) – Taxi

2006-06-26T16:55:00.000-07:00

Want a free beer?

The taxi medallion is another form of “Land”. It is a good example of what Land is and it is easy to demonstrate some of the market failures.

I am not sure as to why they started issuing such medallions, little monopolies, but I believe there are two reasons. The first is it had something to do with altruism. Generally speaking, regulations come from a good heart but a soft brain. The second is, people in power actually understand how the power of rent works, realizing it would be an easy sell to the people, and moved forward it in an effort to enrich their friends. I don’t know which the truth is. All I know is it gives me a great example to work with.

In New York City, the number of cabs is limited to 11,787. Each cab needs to have a medallion attached to its hood. Occasionally the TLC auctions off new ones, but this has not happened in around 50 years. These medallions are, however, freely tradable.

Further, the TLC sets the price of the cab and what it can charge for each situation. I’m not going to go into if this price fixing is a good thing or a bad thing, because anyone who has traveled in Egypt or Saudi Arabia knows, having a predetermined and set price for a cab can be a very good thing.

Let’s model this simply first.

Consider any other “unskilled” job and how much I could earn. In this simple world lets say it is 100 dollars per year.

Now, I have been given this medallion by Warren Buffet and Bill Gates because they are into that kind of thing. It so turns out that I can drive a cab and after all my expenses are made (car, gas, repair, etc) I earn 200 dollars per year. Sounds good, right?

Joe down the street hates his job. He earns 100 dollars a year. They are both “unskilled” labor and he says to you he might be willing to buy this medallion from you, or maybe you could rent it to him?

So, how much should you rent it for is the first question. That is easy. Rent is your opportunity cost and in this case, that is 100 dollars. I can sit on my but and do nothing and earn 100 dollars a year for doing nothing, or I can drive myself and earn 200, or I can rent for 100 dollars and get some other job for 100 dollars. Which one you choose depends on which scenario is worth more then 100 to you.

Ok, but Joe is really interested in buying so how much should you sell this medallion for?

All you need to do is teach yourself a little bit of present value, which is nothing but fractions added up. For you math geeks, here ya go:

(sorry, i couldn't copy over the equation editor formula, just trust me in the next few lines where it goes in "the limit".)

It so turns out the limiting equation for that is simply R/I or in other words, Rent divided by interest, which is all you need to know.

Ok, so lets say I can loan out that money to anyone I want to at the prevailing interest rate of .10 or ten percent and like we said earlier the rent is 100 per period. So, the present value of this medallion is 1000 dollars. Let’s say the interest rate is 5% or .05, it would then be worth 2000 dollars. Why? Because, I have a guaranteed 100 dollar rental income from this land / medallion and I will not be willing to give it up for anything less then a 100 dollar stream of payments. In this case, that is 2000 dollars. The interest paid on this 2000 dollars is 100 dollars, so you are happy.

Ok, so that is all good. You decide to sell your medallion for 2000 dollars and invest your money wisely in other medallions (lets say you take out a loan to get ten more).

Ok, so a new product comes along, let’s say a new hybrid that will suddenly make driving the cab less costly. Now, if you own a medallion and drive yourself rather then rent you take home 250 a year after all expanses are made, all other jobs are still 100 dollars a year.

So, I have a bunch of medallions and I have a bunch of cabs needing drivers. What do I do? The old rental rate was 100 dollars for driving a cab. Lots of people want to drive a cab and they are willing to do it at 100 dollars. I decide to raise the rents for the medallion and I will now charge them 110. They make a little more and I make a little more. But, I am getting job offers from Sam for a rent of 120, and Todd for 130, and Pete for 140 and Joe wants his old driving position back at 150. Do I pass those cost savings on? Well, I did, briefly, and then the free-market labor market sort of competed them away, woops, nothing I can do about that I’m just the rent taking land lord.

Let’s say the city in all of its benevolence wants to give the “cabbies a break” and raises the rates which they can charge… would you like to guess what happens to the rental rate of that medallion? You guessed it; it goes up until it meets the prevailing wage, enriching the land lord. Just kind of makes you feel al warm and fuzzy every time you get in a cab it is going to end up right back at Carnegie Hill.

Would you like to take a guess what happens if a group of people are willing to work less then the prevailing wage? You get one beer in NYC the next time we both are there at the same if you can answer correctly.

Streaming Music (cont)

2006-06-26T08:00:00.000-07:00

Calexico

This video showcases the large arrangement and the talent. We are starting to see more of this sort of thing in other bands like Arcade Fire also. If you aren't familiar with this band, well, give it 3 minutes of your life and you will not regret it, no matter what your musical preference.

What is up with California?

2006-06-26T07:45:00.000-07:00

I am putting together a rough study of the farm land in US compared with the productivity of said farmland. I’d like to have at least 20 of the states complete before I finish my writings that will give me a good sample set. But, one thing I can say right now is all states, with one exception, are losing productivity in our farm land. How so?

I took all produce sold by farmers and divided that by the acres declared to be farm land that year by the Dept of Ag in corresponding years going back to 1974. I then deflated that price by the inflation for each period with respect to 1974 (in other words, making 1974 my base year). In all states and in all periods (so far) the productivity is trending downwards. I’ll talk about what this stat means in my next addition.

But, the exception is California and I was a little shocked to see the initial data. Granted, it only went up 15% since 1974, but the amazing thing is all of that is reflected in the latest three time periods. 1987-1992 saw a 4.5% increase and 1992-1997 saw a 20.1% increase. The next period is the most current data period, the 1997 – 2002 period and it saw a 2.6% increase.

Here is where things start looking interesting: I looked at the raw data and it seems the number of acres is decreases each period by around 4.5% with one exception. The 1992-1997 period is decreasing also, but only by .6% (that is 6/10ths of one percent) decrease in total farm land. Tricksy, very tricksy!

Now, the actual productivity, not accounting for efficiency, oscillates between -10% and 10%; except the 1992-1997 period. Which saw an inflation adjusted 27% increase in productivity.

Ok, so something happened in 1992 -1997 and probably more likely in the 1992-1987 period. But, it is important to know what California’s cash crop is: wine. That’s right, the ol’ vino. 90% of all wine made in this country comes from California and 63% of all wine trickled down our throats can be traced back to California. This amounts to a 45.4B dollar economic impact.

In 1990 a piece of legislation came down the pike which said that all wine made in the US needs to list its appellation. For example, if the wine comes from Napa Valley, it needs to say that. There are lots of wineries out there and they can be anywhere. This gave the non-wine buff an easy to go by tool in which to buy what they perceive as high quality wine.

Wine appellation rents. How so very intriguing, no?

Ok, so lets take a look at the wine industry to the best of my ability. Between 2002 and 1974 the physical amount of wine production has gone up 85%. If my theory is right, for that period of 1997 and 2002, I should see more land going towards vineyards and in fact this is exactly what happened, a 7.5% increase in fact. But, this is not good enough because this is actually only 75K of acres and we still need to account for 1M other acres. I think what happened is the USDA changed their methodology in 1997 and they provide both sets of data for that year. If you compare the old 1997 data to the 1992 year you will get a loss of 4.5% also, so it appears everything is normal here.

So, what I need to drive this theory of Wine Appelation Rents home, I need to find total sales of wine in each going back to 1974. I can find wine drank, wine produced, wine exported… in gallons which tells me we are a boozing country for sure, but it tells me nothing about how much people are spending. This much I can say right now, between 1992 and 1997 5B more wine was sold, which is around a 50% increase. However, this is ALL wine not just Californian. True, 60 some odd percent is from CA but, this is science people and we need to be thorough, so I am not prepared to make any declarations yet.

If I make any headway in this problem, I’ll keep you updated.

Liveblogging Events

2006-06-25T17:09:00.000-07:00

Next month will be the Council of Georgist Organizations meeting in Chicago in July, which I will be attending.

Many of you here are familiar with liveblogging, how it is done, what to be prepared for and what to expect. Now, to me, this seems fairly straight forward. Just bring a laptop and have at it. But, I also spent 6 years in the military and if there is one thing my experience in the Navy taught me was - the straight forward is always kinked.

So, I’d like to tap this resource of knowledgeable livebloggers out there in the blogging community well ahead of time so I can have time to acquire what I need, schedule and plan ahead so I can get out as much information as possible to this community.

Just post your comments here or email me if it is very lengthy and I’ll post it up on the main board. I’d like everyone to be able to read this information.

The Power of Discussion

2006-06-25T08:26:00.000-07:00

Very recently there was an energetic and very lengthy discussion over at Dkos about Land Value Taxation. I think there are a lot of things to learn from that discussion, the details of which I won’t go into.

However, I want to share with you one of the comments when the discussions were being drawn to a close:

"I'm mulling it all over...and over...trying, as you no doubt are...to fit what's possible to change and what's not with both the status quo in my state together with the political realities re all taxes, that reality 'created' by propaganda created by the wealthy to protect themselves and gain advantage. The complexities drive the average citizen (me) to distraction...literally..."What the HELL! Let's go shopping! (or to the beach or the ballgame or 'what's on tv?' Jeez, I might even read a novel for a change!) Like Vivian Leigh, confronted by the complex and seemingly insurmountable problems at Tara...I'll think about that tomorrow."

Now, I don’t know if that person is suddenly going to become a Georgist or not and frankly, it doesn’t really matter. What is important that most people, in my opinion, are genuinely trying to seek new and alternative solutions to some very old problems. Henry George is a different paradigm and like all paradigm shifts can be a hard pill to swallow at first and as such, trying to think critically about what George said can be a challenge.

The interesting thing about the internet, in most cases, is that most are willing to confront these problems and ask the tough questions. While, it may not seem that people are receptive to new ideas, because the most stalwart defenders of the current paradigm are also the most vocal.

I think the poster pretty much nailed it though, which is why the internet is so powerful because it is a self-selecting pool of people who are willing to actively engage in such topics of debate.

As Henry George said:

If the conclusions that we reach run counter to our prejudices, let us not flinch; if they challenge institutions that have long been deemed wise and natural, let us not turn back

Streaming Music (cont) – duets

2006-06-25T06:38:00.000-07:00

I am a big fan of the duet and vocalized harmony in general. So, I’m a big bluegrass fan. I think the duet is a lost American art form. Country music used to be the place for the duet and even that has largely gone away. Merle Haggard and Dolly Pardon, Kenny Rogers and Dolly Pardon, Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynne, but we don’t hear it anymore. Country music has become all about the “Rock star” persona, flag waiving, beer and pigskin and has lost a lot of the magic along the way.

But, where country is leaving off, bluegrass or what some people are calling the “newgrass” movement is really taking off and it really shows in their on stage performance. Some of these new bands coming out like Yonder Mountain, and some of the older bands like Ralph Stanley are starting to get a lot of traction in the contemporary music crowd and radio play where you would not have expected it.

Today’s Streaming Music is Gillian Welch & David Rawlings performing "I Wanna to Sing that Rock & Roll."

Allergies

2006-06-25T06:24:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went to Blithewood Gardens on my Campus at Bard and they were beautiful. Except, I now have allergies, which I never used to have. It’s not at all times of the year, so it must not be all types of pollen, but my eyes water later on in the day and I get real tired. Today is better but my eyes are still burning, though I’m not as tired as was.

Haloscan

2006-06-24T12:00:00.000-07:00

No idea what happened but it looks like haloscan died on me. I'll work on that now.

Update: they are back. Not sure why they went away and I'm not sure why they are back.

Streaming Music (cont)

2006-06-24T11:53:00.000-07:00

Gomez, I love this band.

Slow day today

2006-06-24T11:48:00.000-07:00

And I’m a little tired. Hopefully I can get some stuff up when if I feel a little better later on today.

Tomorrow is Sunday, if you want to guest blog send me something to post

Friday Wine Blogging (cont)

2006-06-23T16:17:00.000-07:00

I have three wines to blog about this week.

First and the only one with a real cork, Toasted Head – Chardoney – 2004. I paid about 15 bucks I would pay around 14 for it again. It is very oaky, aroma heavy of pears and maybe granny smithy apples. The oak overwhelms everything, though it does give it a downhome flavor. At the same time it could stand up to (probably) nearly anything you could throw at it, for food paring that is.

For a Chard, it is a nice break from the run of the mill chard. This is unlike nearly everything out there and is a quality wine. I think for 15 bucks it is ok for something a little different. It is also OK for a first go, I would think

The second is the Villa Maria - Sauvignon Blanc – New Zealand – 2005. This is on the grapefruit spectrum of Sauvignons. My wine store owner described it as “refreshing”. I am not so sure I would use that adjective. On the finnish it has an excited lime that seems to linger. Lime is not something I associate with refreshed, personally. I paid 12 bucks for this and would pay 12 bucks again.

The third is what I am sampling atm and it is not remarkable in any way. I can not recommend buying it at any price and, frankly, I am surprised the wine dude allowed my through checkout.

Brampton – Sauvignon Blanc – 2004 – South Africa. On the grass spectrum. Not much else to say.

Soaring Property Taxes

2006-06-23T06:17:00.000-07:00

Not a day goes by when I don’t read some news article about our soaring property taxes and very quickly a politician declaring that “something must be done” and let’s be clear before I say anything else, indeed something must be done.

Generally speaking, some of the current proposals revolve around shifting the property to either income taxes or sales taxes. Sometimes they do this through rebate programs like Star here in New York and sometimes it is a direct shift like that in Michigan and California. But, in both cases the money must come from one of those two sources. This includes cooperate income tax. Corporations pass any tax on to the consumers in the form of higher prices and/or lower wages.

However, what is really needed is to improve and expand the tax base. If I told you that you would be pay less in tax yearly and had more job opportunities from a simple shift in the property tax, would you be interested in learning more?

I am speaking of the Land Value Tax. This is a shift away from the buildings and improvements on the land and towards the land itself. Consider if you own a house. You decide you wish to paint your house, build a garage, or any other improvement, what is the immediate effect? Your property taxes go up because you have increased the value of the improvements on the land. This is backwards. Under the LVT you are free to improve your house, fields, whatever it is as much as you want and your taxes will not go up. This is the way things should be.

Walk around in your neighborhood, in the city, or even our in the country. Have you ever said to yourself, “wow, that would be a beautiful home if they only took care of it”. Under the current property tax regime, the people owning that home have an incentive to let I run down because their taxes go down as a result.

When the land is not taxed, this creates problems in society and our neighborhoods. Think about that same neighborhood from before, have you ever seen a parking lot or fenced off empty lot and think to yourself it doesn’t quite belong? Or a single family home in a dense urban area that probably shouldn’t be there anymore? Or an empty factory with weeds and trees springing up?

All of those are examples of when the tax on the land is either non-existent or very small. Speculators are free to sit on the land, benefiting from your hard work in making the neighborhood better, while contributing nothing themselves. In the mean time, your rents are higher and there are fewer jobs because this valuable piece of property is being withheld from production.

The answer to all of these problems, is a shift to the LVT and away from the capital on the land and eventually away from income and sales taxes also.

Is this fair? Yes! Ask yourself which you would rather own, a piece of land of equal size in downtown Manhattan or in the middle of Nebraska if it was given to you at no cost? Wealth is always concentrated in land more at greater rates then even income is distributed. Thus, a tax on land is even ore progressive then the graduated income tax.

Is it efficient? Yes! A tax on land can not check production and more importantly, it can not be passed on to the consumer, the wage earner, or to the business owner.

If you are interested in the LVT and would like to learn more click on any of the links on the right sidebar. You can also help me in any of my projects that I currently have going to raise awareness about the LVT.