Re: more anti-Georgist drivel

On 10 May 2007 13:03:28 -0700, w_b_ryan@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

More anti-Georgist commentary from USENET.
Again, my thanks to its author.

It was S. Doo, whom I have of course already comprehensively
demolished.

Even the Georgist-in-Chief (G-i-C) around these
parts admits technology *does* substitute for land!!

Thus, the previous claim "other factors cannot
substitute for it" is admitted false and refuted.

Thus the *unending claim* that land produces a
higher risk-adjusted return than investments in other
factors obviously is equally false and refuted.

Non sequitur.

For given the choice of investing among
technologies A, B, C ... Z91, Z92 ... etc., or
investing raw land, investors will choose to invest
in the one producing the highest return,

Or rather they might, if they knew in advance which one it was going
to be, they perceived the associated risks accurately, and they were
indifferent as to when the return was going to occur.

constantly
adjusting their choices accordingly, and thus
through the bidding process driving their risk
adjusted returns together, to the same level.

But "risk-adjusted" returns are not the same as actual returns,
especially when the perceived risk is wildly divergent from the actual
risk.

The rent
return to land being *competing* with the return to
other factors of production.

Flat wrong. The problem with this "reasoning" is that the supply of
land is fixed. The only way to even out the returns to land and
capital is by bidding up the price of land. But the more landowners
are paid for their land, the higher the return they make by owning
land!

Thus the *entire scheme* of the 1810s-type
"Ricardian Rent" analysis that Georgists totally rely
on to deduce alleged unique extraordinary returns to
land owners

An absurd strawmam.

(and also the entire "Iron Law of
Wages" analysis that George himself totally relied
on to deduce his "land owners as slave owners"
claims) is *totally refuted*!

<sigh> That is of course a lie. George did not rely on the Iron Law
of Wages. He refuted it. S. Doo is merely another in the unending
procession of stupid, ignorant, anti-LVT liars.

Not that this would have surprised Ricardo.

Ricardo HIMSELF said, circa 1812, that capital
investment and technology had just this effect in
breaking the model of Ricardian rent, when he
explained why the workers in his own time were
getting richer and richer instead of being held back
by the Iron Law of Wages.

Right. Like George, Ricardo was aware that Malthus's Iron Law of
Wages was bunk.

But it's even more embarrassing for Henry George
than that.

The only ones getting embarrassed here are S. Doo and Lyin' Ryan -- or
at least, they would be, if they were capable of feeling
embarrassment.

With technology and capital as substitute
inputs competing with land for investment funds,
and with technology constantly improving due to
innovation and so becoming *cheaper*, and capital
constantly accumulating and so becoming
*cheaper* too, there are now **ever-cheaper
substitutes for land** that work directly in
opposition to the antiquated 1810s Georgist model,
to press *down* the price for land.

I have already demolished that hilarious, anti-factual rant. Real,
inflation-adjusted land prices have risen by _TWO_ORDERS_OF_MAGNITUDE_
since "Progress and Poverty" was published. That's showin' 'em how
technology and capital investment press *down* the price of land, all
right!

ROTFL!!!

(Need one add that the Georgist model also
completely relies on "diminishing returns" to land,
which in turn requires only a single use for it,

Lie. Diminishing returns apply to any use.

while
technology creates a multitude of competing uses --
so the model is wrecked there too? Nah, why flay a
rotting mule?)

Doo means a composted strawman.

The entire Georgist analysis is refuted -- indeed
UTTERLY DESTROYED -- right there.

ROTFL!!

And that's why economists haven't taken it seriously
since the 1840s, when it was apparent that the
growth of capital investment and advances in
technology weren't going to stop.

<yawn>

"In my view the least bad tax is the property tax on the unimproved
value of land, the Henry George argument of many, many years ago."
-- Milton Friedman, Nobel laureate in Economics

ROTFL!!

S. Doo is "refuted -- indeed UTTERLY DESTROYED -- right there."

You see, although Georgists constantly complain
that economists don't take them seriously, their real
problem is they don't take the last 160 years of
economics seriously.

Lie.

They still build their religion on this absurd
"Ricardian rent" dogma that's been obsolete for
least that long

<yawn> Ricardo's Law of Rent remains one of the most important and
firmly established results in all of economics.

-- and which even Ricardo HIMSELF
said didn't apply in his own time, the 1810s

Lie.

-- so what are economists who do take economics
seriously going to do with them?

Not address any of their actual arguments, anyway....

-- Roy L
.

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