National Debt. — "A national debt, like any other, may be honestly incurred in case of need, and honestly paid in due time. But if a man should be ashamed to borrow, much more should a people; and if a father holds it his honour to provide for his children, and would be ashamed to borrow from them, and leave, with his blessing, his note of hand, for his grandchildren to pay, much more should a nation be ashamed to borrow, in any case, or in any manner; and if it borrow at all, it is at least in honour bound to borrow from living men, and not indebt itself to its own unborn brats. If it can't provide for them, at least let it not send their cradles to the pawnbroker, and pick the pockets of their first breeches. A national debt, then, is a foul disgrace at the best. But it is, as now constituted, also a foul crime. National debts paying interest are simply the purchase, by the rich, of power to tax the poor." — John Ruskin, quoted in The Christian Socialist (London), December, 1883.
Recent Posts
- Dr. McGlynn's Lesson from the 1886 New York City Election
- Marmontel: The land is a solemn gift
- Nicholas Murray Butler: Prophetic Words from 1877
- Henry George's 1877 Oration, Fourth of July, San Francisco
- 1877-07-05 San Francisco Examiner: Mr. George's Oration
- 1877-07-06 The San Francisco Examiner, on Henry George's July 4th Speech
- A 1976 Declaration of Independence
- The Question Before the People, Henry George's election-year speech, San Francisco, 1876-08-15
- Congressman Maguire's speech on Chinese Exclusion - October 13 & 14, 1893 --- and the remedy
- Monkeys and Men
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Pages I refer to often
- Income Distribution in the US
How is our income distributed? Well, it is pretty concentrated. How concentrated? Take a look. - Progress and Poverty, by Henry George
Here are links to online editions of George's landmark book, Progress & Poverty, including audio and a number of abridgments -- the shortest is 30 words! I commend this book to your attention, if you are concerned about economic justice, poverty, sprawl, energy use, pollution, wages, housing affordability. Its observations will change how you approach all these problems. A mind-opening experience! - Wealth Concentration Tables from 2004 SCF: Bottom 90%, Next 9% and Top 1%
Aggregated data by net worth quantile, for various kinds of wealth. With calculations you won't find anywhere else! - Wealth Concentration Tables from 2004 SCF: 50-40-5-4-1
These tables show how concentrated the ownership of various kinds of assets are. With calculations you won't find anywhere else! This version is less aggregated: Bottom 50%, Next 40%, Next 5%, Next 4% and Top 1%.
Pages
- America's Wealth Distribution -- 2007 -- Wealth Concentration, Part 1 of 3
- America's Wealth Distribution -- 2007 -- Wealth Concentration, Part 2 of 3: Trends by Income Quantile, with emphasis on the "Middle Class"
- America's Wealth Distribution 2007 -- Wealth Concentration -- part 3 of 3
- Cumulative List of Posts, through January 24
- How Can We House a Population of 400 Million People?
- Some Observations from the 2006 IRS Statistics of Income Data
- The Cost of Food, January 2008
- Who is this fellow, Henry George?
Categories
- a Manhattan acre
- a wedge driven through society
- absentee ownership
- Alaska Permanent Fund
- all benefits go to landholder
- America in the world
- as much and as good
- assessment
- better cities
- boom-bust cycles
- broadcast spectrum
- bubble
- buildings depreciate
- capital gains are land gains
- capitalization
- charity and justice
- Christian ethics
- civilization
- classical economists
- common good
- commons
- commonwealth
- congestion
- connect the dots
- conservatism
- corporations
- corruption in government
- corruption of economics
- cost of living
- cui bono?
- democracy
- direct taxation
- Earth for All
- economic justice
- economic rent
- ecosystem services
- election 2008
- employment
- enclosure
- ending poverty
- environment
- equal freedom
- equal opportunity
- equality
- estate taxes
- externalities
- facilitating commerce
- financing education
- financing health care
- financing infrastructure
- financing services
- FIRE sector
- fixing the economy
- franchises
- free land
- free lunch
- free trade
- fruits of one's labors
- government's role
- greenhouse gases
- Henry George
- highest salaries
- home equity
- housing affordability
- human nature
- immigration
- incentive taxation
- incentives
- income concentration
- income tax
- indirect taxation
- individualism
- infrastructure
- inherited wealth
- inter-generational equity
- is this socialism?
- Jefferson
- jobs
- justice of the single tax
- land appreciates buildings depreciate
- land different from capital
- land includes
- land monopoly capitalism
- land rent
- land share of real estate value
- land speculation
- land value created by community
- land value taxation
- land, labor and capital
- landed gentry
- Landlord's Prayer
- landlordism
- leased land
- liberty
- Little Neck Feoffees of Ipswich
- little people pay taxes
- location, location, location
- make land common property
- middle class
- money in elections
- monopoly -- not the game
- Monopoly and The Landlord's Game
- Monopoly and The Landlord's Game
- municipal ownership of utilities
- natural monopolies
- Natural Public Revenue
- natural resource revenues
- natural resources
- neoclassical economists
- no victims
- NYS Property Tax Reform
- Occupy Wall Street's values
- oil
- one solution for many problems
- opportunity
- pay for what you take
- paycheck to paycheck
- paying twice
- payroll tax
- playing by the rules
- political economy
- pollution
- popular ignorance of land economics
- population
- population growth
- pork spending
- poverty
- poverty machine
- poverty's cause
- private property in land
- privatization
- privilege
- Progress and Poverty
- property rights
- property tax
- property tax is two taxes
- property tax reform
- Proposition 13
- prosperity
- protection or free trade
- public ownership of utilities
- public spending
- real estate bubble
- reaping what others sow
- rent, defined
- rent-seeking
- rich people's useful idiots
- sales taxes are wrong
- savings rate
- SCF data
- sharecropping
- single tax
- slavery
- small government
- socialize
- socializing risk and privatizing profit
- special interests
- sprawl
- Stiglitz
- stock ownership
- subsidies
- sufficiency of land rent
- Survey of Consumer Finances data
- tariffs
- tax caps
- tax reform
- taxation
- teach your children well
- teardowns
- technological advances
- The End of Poverty?
- the land question
- the land questions
- the right to life
- The Standard
- theft
- Thomas G. Shearman
- time making wrongs into rights
- toll-takers
- Tolstoy
- transportation
- trickle-down economics
- unburdening the economy
- underused land
- unearned income
- unearned increment
- unemployment and underemployment
- untaxing buildings
- untaxing production
- urban land value
- user fees
- usufruct
- wage taxes
- wages
- wages driven down
- war
- wealth distribution or concentration
- wealthandwant
- widow's skirts
- windfalls
Books I Value
- Henry George: Progress and Poverty: An inquiry into the cause of industrial depressions and of increase of want with increase of wealth ... The Remedy
This is perhaps the most important book ever written on the subjects of poverty, political economy, how we might live together in a society dedicated to the ideals Americans claim to believe are self-evident. It will provide you new lenses through which to view many of our most serious problems and how we might go about solving them: poverty, sprawl, long commutes, despoilation of the environment, housing affordability, wealth concentration, income concentration, concentration of power, low wages, etc. Read it online, or in hardcopy. - Bob Drake's abridgement of Henry George's original: Progress and Poverty: Why There Are Recessions and Poverty Amid Plenty -- And What To Do About It!
This is a very readable thought-by-thought updating of Henry George's longer book, written in the language of a newsweekly. A fine way to get to know Henry George's ideas. Available online at progressandpoverty.org and http://www.henrygeorge.org/pcontents.htm
Where Else Might You Look?
- Wealth and Want
The URL comes from the subtitle to Progress & Poverty -- and the goal is widely shared prosperity in the 21st century. How do we get there from here? A roadmap and a reference source. - Reforming the Property Tax for the Common Good
I'm a tax reform activist who seeks to promote fairness and reduce poverty. Let's start with the enabling legislation and state requirements for the property tax. There are opportunities for great good! - A blog about Stamford, Connecticut, and its opportunities for progress and prosperity for all
Bringing it home to one medium-sized city's day to day issues and opportunities - LVTFan's blog: Connecting the dots between our most serious problems and what I've come to believe is the solution we need to embrace.
I'm a tax reform activist who seeks to promote fairness and reduce poverty in America. Land Value Taxation seems to me to be our very best hope for these goals, and for reducing urban sprawl and its concomitants.
Sites I enjoy
- CityEconomist: City Economic and Financial News and Analysis
- Dr. Gavin R. Putland
- Land Rent will save the world
- Land Value Tax | Jock's Place
- Mark Wadsworth's blog
- Mason Gaffney's website
- Progress and Poverty: why there are recessions and poverty amid plenty -- and what to do about it! by Henry George
This is Bob Drake's excellent 2006 abridgment of Henry George's landmark book, Progress and Poverty. Its language and tone are very accessible. You can read it online or order hardcopy. And Bob's reading of it is available at http://www.hgchicago.org/audio - Saving Communities
- Taxpayer: a more or less Henry George view of things
- The Distributist Review
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Notes
« Shiller: Too Many Graduating Seniors Go Into Finance | Main | Working, Begging or Stealing; Workers, Beggars or Thieves -- and putting one's family first »
September 29, 2013
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