Ignorance, Gillard PM, Holidays Approach, Gaming Reviews

[tcpip]

Most regular readers will know I'm an advocate of land tax as a replace for inefficient and unproductive taxes on labour and capital. On a whim, I entered this discussion on a property investment website. Enjoy the results. What I find particularly remarkable is their ignorance of basic economics (like the Law of Rent or the distinction between land and capital) on matters they claim expertise in. Actually I must confess I find this a lot; often people with a strong opinion on a topic like to think they're an expert on a topic. Personally, I prefer to form a strong opinion by reaching "deeply considered convictions", based on reason and evidence, rather than having "deeply ingrained prejudices" from emotions and assumptions.

Julia Gillard became the first ever female Prime Minister of Australia yesterday (that's only taken over one hundred years, *grumble*). It's an acting position whilst Rudd is in Bali (finally a PM who's acting on climate change!) , and one which seems to attract a share of odd events. I've sent her a congratulatory email (the last email conversation we had was a little terse; I was writing on behalf of Labor for Refugees and she was shadow minister for immigration).

Speaking of which, for the second year in a row, I'm desparately trying to organise tickets to Bali again over the break. I've contacted Flight Centre, and they've sent an email confirmation saying their processing the request, but no confirmation yet. Meh. It's been years since I've been to the archipelago, and I really want to see it again. New Zealand is not an option this summer (I think I'll go south for winter). If this doesn't work out for whatever reason maybe a visit to Tasmania is in order; it's been a while since I've seen Murdoch's former Vice-Chancellor, Professor Peter Boyce and we remain in irregular correspondence.

This week I finally managed to finish my review of Earthdawn: Gamemaster's Compendium; it's a huge, stunning book and quite good on the substance level as well. Not so good is the old AD&D module D1: Descent into the Depths of the Earth, which is seriously lacking in style, substance and a purpose for existence. Played another session of Legend of the Five Rings last Sunday with a refitted AD&D Oriental Adventures module. It's going very well, if only I can hack out some overall narrative to the various instances of character development and plot leads.

Comments

[evil-genius.livejournal.com]

I'm going through that land tax thread now. I'm up to post 43 and wow. It really seems like these people don't understand what you are saying at all.

If I'm understanding it. You are talking about building long term wealth for both the land owner and society as a whole. While these folks clearly could give a toss about anyone else but themselves and anything else but the next 5 years or so.
Which was illustrated beautifully here:

I'm paddling my canoe and care about my canoe.

The myopic selfishness is really breath taking.

Reading post 43 brings up a question I never get a satisfactory answer too. Where is it these people think taxes go?

"To even kid yourself that a tax helps anybody but the prevailing govt raise revenue is a joke."

It seems to me that he is suggesting citizens receive no benefit from the existence of government. Which is clearly just hog wash.

Our number 43 guy goes on to bitch that:

"I say lopsided as it targets a group that is an easy target due to its minority representation. For all the rates and land tax I pay I only get one state vote and one local council vote.

In fact if you look at most state taxes they are none represented taxes, payroll tax, stamp duty and obviously land tax. And why is it that the state only levies none represented taxes? Its because they don't have the balls to actually levy a tax where it needs to answer to the people who elected it. "

It seems he thinks the amount of tax you pay should be in some way tied to how much influence receive. IE if you pay twice as much as the next guy in taxes you should have twice as many votes. Or the flip side of that insane line of argument. That we should all pay the same exact tax(not % but actually $ value) regardless of income or personal wealth. Both situations are only realistically possible in either an aristocracy or a communist state.
Last time I checked economic equality has always existed. Why turn back the clock on political progress 700 years just to make representation in government just as inequitable?

What an asshole.



more later....

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

The myopic selfishness is really breath taking.

And even when it was explained to him he still didn't get it.. :(

For all the rates and land tax I pay I only get one state vote and one local council vote.

Yeah, and governments don't spend more of their time protecting the assets of those with largesse...

I wonder what the poster would have thought about the multiple votes that used to exist in Britian up to the 1940s (e.g., graduates of Oxford University and Cambridge University sent representatives to Parliament).

[ruth-lawrence.livejournal.com]

We had the multiple voter *here* in municipal elections, according to the value detc of property owned.

Non-owners didn't get to vote.

Some folks (like me @ 52) will remember this, and others will have heard of it.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, I do remember that...

Also, up until the 1950s in Victoria you had to own land in order to vote in the Legislative Council elections.

[ruth-lawrence.livejournal.com]

:-/

A disgrace.