The Property Council of Australia’s shameless threat to both sides of politics to look the other way on negative gearing reform is a slap in the face to the democratic process. Is this the stick accompanying the $2.4m in carrots donated to both sides of politics? For the PCA to issue this threat in the […]
Cross-posted from The Saker The Saker: We hear that the Ukraine will have to declare a default, but that it will probably be a “technical” default as opposed to an official one. Some say that the decision of the Rada to allow Iatseniuk to chose whom to pay is already such a “technical default”. Is […]
A frenchman with no commentary on the Physiocrats? Mason Gaffney, author of the groundbreaking The Corruption of Economics and the recent Gaffney Reader, analyses Tomas Piketty’s bestseller ‘Capital’. Capital in Any Century: A Response to Thomas Piketty by Mason Gaffney (adapted by Lindy Davies) Through some magic or mystique, Thomas Piketty, in his Capital in […]
“A citizen can hardly distinguish between a tax and a fine,” wrote G.K. Chesterton, “except that the fine is generally much lighter.” In Victoria, for example, the stamp duty payable on the purchase of a $600,000 house-land package (below the median price for Melbourne) is more than $30,000 — or about 150 times the fine for […]
With the recent Piketty inspired discussions of inheritance tax, this is a timely piece by Carrie Stoddart-Smith. She curates the neat Ellipsister blog in Christchurch, NZ. Follow her on twitter. I was reading Martyn Bradbury’s post Generation X have been betrayed by neoliberalism and baby boomers. I agree with many of the points he makes including some of […]
The new Liberal Federal government has boldly declared themselves the ‘infrastructure government’. This infers they have a method to finance the backlog of infrastructure demanded. Tapping superannuation as the source of cheap finance has been the proposed path forward. We doubt superannuation managers be willing to take over from the badly burnt investors in unsuccessful […]
Regarding the recent ACT Liberal Party scare campaign against rates, Dr Terry Dwyer writes: Being fundamentally disinterested in political games but keenly interested in policy and good government (which, judging from Mr Slipper’s emails, sadly does not always seem to be uppermost in the minds of all politicians), I have sent the attached letter to […]
photo credit: Domiriel Influential SMH Journalist Jessica Irvine today writes about the urgent need for Land Tax to be prioritised in Land is the Best Hope for Fixing the Tax System. Make sure you see the film Real Estate 4 Ransom to investigate these issues further. Land is the best hope for fixing tax system […]
At this market climax, let me remind all of the risks of compulsive, over-optimistic ambition. In Leo Tolstoys’ tale, ‘How Much Land Does A Man Need?’ written in 1886, a wealthy peasant named Pahlom is told of the rich earth in the land of the Bashkirs beyond the Volga. They are simple folk and he […]
photo credit: Urban~Spaceman Miners finally agree to tax reform. What are the changes? The attempt to harness economic rents for the public good has been renamed from the Resource Super Profits tax to the Mineral Resource Rent Tax. The MRRT kicks in at the corporate bond rate plus 7%. That is 12%, rather than the […]
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