Re: From the rich. To the rich?


"Dan in Philly" <djr8@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:EhZgi.221878$AX2.27425@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Dan in Philly" wrote in message ...
<snip>

Well, 24 hours later, I've read all the posts, and...
Boy, am I disappointed.

Simple concept really: the people who create value should be justly
compensated.

As the other posters have pointed out, the problem is that you're completely
confused: you seem to think that compensating those who create value has
something to do with compensating those who own land. It doesn't.

Furthermore, you seem to think that an attempt should be made to take LVT
revenues and return them to private producers who create the rental value of
land. But as Andy F. pointed out, this is going about it the wrong way:
the right thing to do is to take the revenue and use it to cut taxes on
production, particularly income taxes and sales taxes.

Finally, you seem not to realize that government is a primary generator of
rents. For example, I live and work in the DC metro area. It can safely be
said that in the case of DC, government is generating essentially all of the
rent. Yes, there are productive firms here, in the sense that there are
software and military firms in the area. But those firms would be entirely
out of business were it not for their main buyer, Uncle Sam.

Things might not always be as skewed as in the case of DC, but getting to
the ultimate, true cause of the source of land rents is generally not
possible. As Roy L. has pointed out, some of those involved are people long
dead.

The best way to award producers is not to give them some land- or
profit-weighted share of land rents, but rather to take LVT revenues and use
it to eliminate taxes that are inefficient and unjust. While under that
regime, someone who has contributed something still might not reap monetary
rewards equal to his economic contribution---think here of the example of
Tim Berners-Lee, or the guy who discovered that statins could be used to
combat heart disease, or...---but producers would fair far, far better than
they do now, and compensating everyone perfectly is simply not possible,
period.


Dan in Philly



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