Why we should allow immigration

[dcfirefighter]

1) It's the morally right thing to do. It's impossible to find a moral stance for limited immigration when your ancesters came here with no limits to immigration.

2) If they are truly competing for American jobs, wouldn't it make sense to pick the last 50M arrivals and deport them? Wouldnt that decrease the competition and raise wages? How about if we just don't let (women, minorities, old people, young people) work - wouldn't that reduce competition and increase wages?

OF COURSE NOT

People CREATE wealth, People CREATE jobs. Are wages higher in NYC or in Wyoming?

People can only create wealth when they have access to the means of producing wealth. They need access to Land and Capital. Our failing isn't a shortage of Land (we still have more than 12 acres per person in the US, the EU only has a little more than 2), it's a failure to adequately use it. This country already knows how to create Capital - by not taxing it. Unfortunately this country treats Land just like Capital, which allows individual owners to recoup a major portion of every social or technological advance. Change this, by shifting taxation from work to occupying / consuming resources, and open immigration makes sense for EVERYBODY.

3) If we need to limit immigration, we should ALL benefit from the scarcity of entry visas. Currently, would-be immigrants must pay a coyote to sneak them into the county (I've heard ~$10,000 and ~50% success). This money leaves the US and goes to a criminal's hands. Conversely, we could just charge would be immigrants $20,000 for a visa. 1,000,000 (now legal) immigrants a year would raise $20 Billion.

[ShortnFiery]

1. Absolutely!

We should also encourage the unfettered formation of Labor Unions once again.

Does any one of us, including the recent immigrants, believe for ONE SECOND that Bush-Co. and his Republican ghouls actually care about anything other than CHEAP LABOR?

I look at all those videos of people scaling fences and my first reaction is, "No!" But when I pause and think about it, if we ORGANIZE, vice *compete* - one and all in THE UNION. Hey, we can demand a living wage for all.

"The Man" who is representative of both the Political and Ruling Class, wants us to fight each other over the scraps that are left after all manufacturing jobs go to China.

How about we work together and FORCE big business to first treat their work force with fairness and compassion? IMO, the Unions are once again the answer.

[xchrom]

2. i definitely want to see making organizing easier.

it's a one the best tools that people can have in a world that too easily puts too much power in the hands of a few.

[Cobalt Violet]

3. We need to increase illegal immigration of PROFFESSIONALS

We need to drive down the wages of DOCTORS, LAWYERS, DENTIST, and Universtiy Proffessors.
So many have been price out of healthcare and education that this would help.

[JHB]

8. Can't say for lawyers, but my dentist father actively discouraged me...

...from "following in his footsteps" -- he was being increasingly squeezed by the insurance companies and HMOs, and he couldn't just raise his rates to match (If people have trouble paying, raising the rate won't make it any easier). Specialists might live on easy street, but it's not the family dentists and general practicioner doctors who are making out like bandits.

On the other hand, I know how to save companies millions of dollars right off the bat: Hire me as CEO. I'm willing to work cheap. If those snobby MBA guys won't "lower" themselves to work for less than tens if not hundreds of millions, just "downsource" to me. I will!

[Bridget Burke]

10. Those people can immigrate legally.

They can afford to pay immigration lawyers. And, once they get here, they do NOT accept lower wages than their American colleagues.

Oh--were you being sarcastic? Mad at "Universtiy Proffessors"?

[Cobalt Violet]

14. That why we need ILLEGAL ones. And lots of them.

[Bridget Burke]

18. Aren't you clever!

Is it now compulsory to use upper case for ILLEGAL?

[Cobalt Violet]

22. Ya, You got an issue with that?

[ShortnFiery]

26. The money pit for health care is the HMOs! Not the doctors. n/t

[Webmusher]

4. Legal and Illegal immigration

If the mexicans can prove that they are being maltreated under a repressive and cruel authority I'd be all for allowing them in the US. But they are not, and there is a big difference between the "wetbacks" and legal Mexican immigrants.

I have worked with Illegal Mexican laborers in the apple orchards of Washington and while they are for the most part wonderful and hard working people they are damaging to the economy of the US. They earn millions of dollars that are not taxed, no part of their pay goes into Social Security and most of it is sent back to mexico to support their families. I have worked with some that had quite nice large homes in mexico and just came to America to earn larger wages than they can at home.

I do not believe that there are not US citizens that would fill the jobs they are now doing, but I do believe there are farmers and businesses that would prefer to pay slave wages to illegals than fair wages to citizens.

[Bridget Burke]

11. How can one own a "nice large home in mexico (sic)" on slave wages?

By the way--your use of "wetback" gives ammunition to those of us who see xenophobia.

[sendero]

5. This debate is so tedious..

... because this is a very complex issue and everyone wants to break it down as either/or.

Of course we need some immigrants. We just don't need as many as we are getting now. And the ones we do need should have legal status, so if you want to run a business in which immigrant labor is key, you don't have to break the damn law to compete.

Folks who are saying "let them all in, they just want to better themselves" or "kick them all out, they are illegal", are not adding anything of value to the debate, and that is putting it a lot nicer than I'd like to put it.

[Strelnikov_]

23. Hear, Hear! The Issue Is The Labor Black Market

of which the undocumented workers are only one part, the commodity.

The 'Iron Law Of Labor' is just that, an iron law.

[kurth]

6. Legal, YES. Illegal, NO!

No thinking person should advocate unlimited ILLEGAL immigration.

[PsN2Wind]

7. "We should allow immigration"

because you obviously have no problem with people coming here, illegally, to compete for someone else's job.

[adriennui]

9. we do allow immigration

it's the illegal kind that is problemmatic. do you really think anyone who wants to saunter into the US should be able to? that is chaos.

[mondo joe]

12. We do allow immigration.

Are you suggesting something different?

Like completely unlimited open immigration?

[pat_k]

13. Enacting and Enforcing Laws that Reflect Our Values

http://january6th.org/borders.html

[Inland]

15. Neither point backs the EXTREME position of NO limits on immigration.

1) If my family came here when there were NO limits on immigration, it was because the Americans had decided that NO limits was in the BEST interests of the country. The touchstone then, as now, was what was in the best interests of the current crop of Americans, not what was best for those that wanted to immigrate.

Fact is, for the last hundred years or so, the best interests of the country have been determined to require SOME limit on immigration.

Because it never was about what was nice or humane or sweet or charitable for immigrants, and always about what was best for the country, nobody can say that "morally" some american can't have a position on immigration.

Every American has the same status as Americans to decide what's best for America. Remember? America? Americans? Good of the country? These concepts used to mean something until the day came to fish for pro immigration reasons. Frankly, I think it's a pile of BS, because it's clear enough that nobody on DU is applying "no limits" philosophy in its entirety, and indeed, the most extreme "no limits" people get very quiet and evasive if you start talking about letting in Asians or Guatemalans or Russians after Mexicans or the current illegals are made legal.

2) Sure, there's TONS of land in the US. Just not land anyone can make a living off of. Immigrants don't want to be moved to Wyoming for subsistence farming: they are leaving their countries to get away from subsistance farming, and leave the farms with internal migration, as developing nations have people moving off the land to urban slums generally. Adding tens of millions of people to US dirt to create a new peon class will work until the pattern is repeated of leaving their 12 acre farms after destroying the environment to try out their luck in the urban slums.

3) Charging money is a limit. How do you think Canada keeps me out?

[pat_k]

17. Exploitation of workers within our borders is intolerable &

. . .failure to enforce immigration laws is hypocritical.

We can effectively control immigration passing legislation that includes two basic elements:

* Going after predatory employers.

* Creating a whistleblower protection program that (1) rewards those who report predatory employers; (2) protects their anonymity; (3) provides an expedited path to citizenship for whistleblowers who are undocumented (reward to be applied to fine).

More here:
http://january6th.org/borders.html

[OzarkDem]

16. How to pay for it (illegal immigration, amnesty,guest-worker)?

The cost to the US of having "open borders" or a massive amnesty plan is incredibly expensive. Where do we get the billions it will cost to track down criminals, terrorists and others among the millions we're letting in illegally? The cost of law enforcement for such a program is staggering, let alone the cost of providing services to illegals.

The US can't afford to offer health care or a decent education to its own citizens, how do you expect to pay the massive cost that comes with open borders and amensty for millions of illegal immigrants?

[pat_k]

19. Target predatory employers + whistleblower reward . . .

We can effectively control immigration passing legislation that includes two basic elements:

* Going after predatory employers.

* Creating a whistleblower protection program that (1) rewards those who report predatory employers; (2) protects their anonymity; (3) provides an expedited path to citizenship for whistleblowers who are undocumented (reward to be applied to fine).

Detail here: http://january6th.org/borders.html

Bottom Line -- Radical Change to Incentives Reduces Costs

If predatory employers faced serious penalties (mandatory prison), and the undocumented workers they are exploiting (or co-workers who are aware of the exploitation) benefited from blowing the whistle, we would significantly increase the risk of exploiting workers.

The threat of exposure and prosecution alone will be sufficient for many to revamp their operations. In some sectors, the predators may simply move operations offshore. In others, predators may be forced out of business. As noted above, it may serve the public interest to provide transition assistance or start up assistance for replacement businesses.

Undoubtedly, a significant percent of undocumented workers would continue to evade detection, but employers would be far less likely to exploit them. If the workers are making a fair wage, the "race to the bottom" has a lower limit and the negative effect on wages is reduced.

See http://january6th.org/borders.html

Our underground economy makes the United States very attractive to people who are struggling to survive in their own countries. We can change the dynamics right now and virtually eliminate the underground economy, and in the process, minimize the incentive to enter this country unlawfully.

Saying no to the exploitation of workers is central to controlling our borders. Radically changing the rules of the game makes other aspects of controlling immigration more manageable, but it does not eliminate the need for them. We still need to do a better job of tracking the foreign nationals who come here to work, study, or visit. We still need to make our border with Mexico as impenetrable as possible, while weighing the costs against the benefits.

We cannot continue to hypocritically turn a blind eye to violations of our immigration laws or tolerate the exploitation of workers within our borders. As is often the case, committing to enacting and enforcing laws that that reflect our values is not just the right thing to do, it ultimately serves the common good.

[Bridget Burke]

27. Who is proposing amnesty or completely open borders?

Republiccan policies have more to do with what we can "afford" than any immigrants. Remember, we're paying for 2 wars--at the moment.

[brokensymmetry]

20. I question a premise.

You said "People CREATE wealth, People CREATE jobs".

What if wealth requires a certain level of natural resources? What if scarcity is about to assert itself?

I think we're going to see a transition from abundance to scarcity; and that will make for some wrenching changes.

If you haven't noticed, Mexico's big Cantarell field is in decline, which means less revenue to Mexico. Also, as energy, commodity, and food prices go up, I suspect the existing debate on immigration will become both more desperate and more rancorous.

[Inland]

21. Clearly people don't create wealth or their home countries would be rich.

If merely adding people added jobs, then there wouldn't be a desire to immigrate. Just saying.

[Strelnikov_]

24. Oh, Don't You Know. We Are A Country Of Unlimited Resources

Anyone who wants to should be able to come here and have the rights of full citizenship, with full benefits. It makes my heart glad and my eyes sparkle and, gosh, it's just wonderful. They should also have the right to compete for jobs at whatever wages the market will bear (how much is the average worker paid in China, anyway? Oh, gosh!).

Limits to water, energy, arable land, these are just concepts thrown out there by those racist environmentalists and scientists. They have no idea about what is important.

[kurth]

28. Yep, we need more shantytowns all the way to Yosemite

and Alaska before it melts.

[dcfirefighter]

25. What wealth creation requires

Land + Labor ==> Capital
Land + Labor + Capital ==> Wealth

More labor for a given amount of land = more capital. Think orchards vs. wheatfields.
More capital for a given amount of land = more wealth. Think cities vs. orchards.

Jobs, Employment, Immigration, etc. all make the owner of Land rich.
The Capitalist must still set his rates competitively: you can buy a machine press or a business network from anyone.
Socialize the returns to Land ownership, and everything else works out.

The Capital is already here, leading to Migration pressure
The macroeconomic monetary policies are what crushes populous developing countries, and leads to migration pressure.

[Inland]

29. Land plus labor. Welcome to peasant, subsistance agriculture in the US.

How does one make the arid American high plains arable? Same way China and Mexico make their land productive. Lots and lots of low paid, no skills, no chance to escape labor.

And the peasants in those countries can't wait to get the FUCK off the land, and get to the slum of the nearest city or America. They don't come to America to dig in dirt for pennies. They got that back at home. Put them in that situation and they'll hightail it to the cities ASAP. There's a reason why China restricted internal migration.

I guess that you aren't so much sayhing that third worlders should come to America, as America become the third world from about Omaha to the Sierra Nevada. Why?

[dcfirefighter]

32. Not even close

because if we shared the financial returns to Land ownership land would be put to highest and best use, according to other available resources, available capital, and available labor.

In short, we'd stop sprawling over our productive farmlands, and not NEED to make the desert bloom.

Currently, of the three factors of production (LAND, LABOR, and CAPITAL), Land is the most scarce (witness booming Real Estate and Oil Prices, as well as water scarcity), followed by Capital, with Labor being the least scarce. This is not the 'natural' way of things, but rather due to the specific taxes we choose to levy on ourselves: We tax Labor the heaviest (Payroll, Personal Income, and Sales Taxes), Capital lightly (Parts of the Income Tax, some property taxes), and Land barely at all (part of property taxes).

If there is an option, things that are taxed decrease in both supply and demand. If Labor is taxed, employers minimize labor inputs. If sales are taxed, some consumers buy elsewhere, if at all. The supply of Land is absolutely fixed. Taxing it does not reduce it's supply, only it's demand. As such, it's price DECREASES. Meaning that land is more available for productive users.

Conversely, if taxes are reduced on something, like Labor, both it's supply and demand increase. People choose to work instead of stay at home. People immigrate. Employers hire more people. Employment drops and wages rise.

If we shifted our taxes such that they bore heavily on Land instead of Labor, then Labor would become the most scarce input: which means that workers would enjoy the best returns for labor rather than Owners enjoying the best returns for owning land. We make Employers compete for Labor, rather than workers compete for jobs.

If this were the case, additional people would increase the flow of rents, benefitting everyone.

And, for what it's worth, if all we had was people and the Great Basin, we could make it work.

[Inland]

33. Ridiculous.

Immigrants and the poor aren't going to have valuable labor without capital inputs.

Suggesting that one can lower taxes on labor and increase the demand for labor is true. Lowering wages has the same effect. You can take an illegal immigrant, or a nanny, or someone with a EITA, who pays no income taxes and look at their wages. They are LOW. The prices demanded for their labor is low because there's a huge supply of labor of that sort. The difference between skilled and unskilled labor is the ability to use capital inputs.

You can also give them a plot of arable land, but they aren't going to be able to farm with their bare hands. I'm guessing that your tax scheme is meant to drive the value of land down to make it cheap for agricultural purposes, but even if the land costs zero for agricultural purposes, just plopping somebody on land is subsistence agriculture. They need to plant, plow, transport a cash crop to market, or they are just going to be feeding themselves and having children to provide more labor for a family unit.

So once they are supplied with capital, and land, they are going to be able to produce more than they need to eat themselves. But ruh roh. Thanks to the fact that we've supplied free land and free capital to a huge and limitless population, the price for agricultural goods is driven down to nothing. Time to export to other countries, destroy their home agriculture economies, get their immigrants, which drives down prices.

The entire scheme requires that there be an endless demand for labor. There is no such thing.

[dcfirefighter]

34. "endless demand for labor"

Maybe not endless, but consider that labor in this country is taxed at roughly 30%. If demand for labor is relatively inelastic, removing labor taxes should increase demand for labor by 15%, or 22,500,000 jobs.

Current Official Unemployment is 7,000,000. Even if real unemployment is 14,000,000, we'd still need 8,500,000 more workers. Such a demand for workers would raise wages. Raised wages mean that some people currently working two jobs would only work one, opening still further jobs. Raised wages mean that people currently NOT spending money would begin spending money, opening still further jobs. It may not be endless, but it's big. And it should increase the standard of living for people such that their birth-rate drops.

Normally, such an increase in employment would cause the price of scarce resources to skyrocket, Demand-driven inflation. The price of things for which production can be increased (Capital and Wealth) would stabilize: More food can be grown for human consumption, more clothing can be made, more homes can be built, etc. The price of things for which production cannot be increased will increase indefinitely as more demands are placed on it (Lots on which to build a home, water, fossil fuels, etc.). Collecting price of these things as a tax, that is, socializing their value, means that there is no incentive to speculate in their value, or to hold them for future gain. The only reason then to 'own' land or water rights is to use them. As such, sprawl is minimized, lawns must be paid for, and farms remain farms. One could thing of it as having to pay for your environmental footprint, or having to pay for more than your fair share of limited natural resources.

[Inland]

36. You're pushing a string.

Getting rid of taxes ON WAGES doesn't INCREASE the demand for labor. It makes it more profitable to work, that's all, which may increase the supply. Sure, some will find their current work so profitable that they quit their second job. But more will find reason to seek more work, the marginal wage on each hour worked having increased, and those that have dropped out of the labor force will enter, and more people will immigrate. Higher wages means that more will immigrate until wages drop back again.

There's no surprise that eliminating taxes on any one thing means that somebody makes more money. It's just that in a world where the supply of labor is inelastic, with only the cost of immigration as a barrier to entry, it's going to be the employers.

Maybe what you meant was, getting rid of taxes on business hiring labor, in which case the 30% figure is completely bogus.

No, the only way to increase the return to labor and the demand for labor in a world of six billion potential labor market entrants is for there to be additional inputs of land and capital. You've think you've solved that problem: the government is going to socialize land and just charge rent to the rest of us and GIVE the use of it away. Not buy the land, of course, because the government needs the money to provide land and capital to immigrants. It's going to take it, and then rent it based on the scarcity of land, unless it's a farm with immigrants.

We are going to have a society in which all needs are met by taxing lawns and giving away land and capital to farms.

Yes, the government is going to be able to provide rent free farming, farm implements, and, probably, farm price supports by taxing lawns. Sure, it's true, there's going to be absolutely no reason to have a lawn. Or a house. Or own an apartment building. Or a factory. Or for the government to build a park, either, it needing the revenue. The only thing that's worth having is a farm operation, because the land for those is rent free, at least, until the real prices for agricultural goods drop to a point that government subsidies can't make it profitable. Can we at least check with the Chinese first? Could we note that the government has a perverse incentive to create scarcity by bringing in more immigrants and thereby charging higher rents?

The reason: lawns have big environmental footprints. That, after putting an unlimited amount of land under the plow, we are going to take on grass and golf courses. Well, makes as much sense as the rest of it.

[dcfirefighter]

38. I missed something, apparently

If I did I apologize. A very important distinction is that Land (Including not just land parcels, but all natural resources) wouldn't be given away, but rather it would face a tax (dues?) approaching 100% of it's annual rental value. Because of the nature of land (not being produced) such a tax would cause it's sale price to approach zero. Land is priced by what the market will bear, publicly collecting rental value causes the market to be able to bear less.

Removing a tax on wages moves the price enjoyed by labor (wages) up as well as the units consumed (employment). You are correct, it does not directly change the demand curve, but rather moves the price point further up the consumption axis. Indirectly, more employment and higher wages should lead to higher consumption and more jobs.

Please explain why labor is inelastic and why removing taxes on labor will benefit employers and not employees. Some employers will benefit as well, but the majority of benefit will accrue to Labor.

I don't see where I've even hinted at the government giving away land to immigrants. What I've suggested is to untax productivity and to tax consumption of resources. This improves the efficiency of resource use, resource that are ultimately the limit to productivity, wealth creation, and therefore employment and wages.

I don't see where i've even hinted at farms being rent-free. What I have said is that collecting the annual value of land would inhibit sprawl. Land use that requires access to customers, etc., would be available in cities. Cities would grow denser rather than wideer. Development pressure on exurban farmland would be reduced.

There would be a wonderful reason to own a house. You could live in it or rent it out. You wouldn't pay taxes on owning it or improving it, only on the value of the land it sat on. If a lawn was important to you, you could pay for it, or move someplace cheaper. In every municipality that collects a significant portion of land-rents sees an increase in buildings (Hong Kong, Harrisonburg, PA). There would also be good reasons for municipalities to build parks (or transit, or schools, etc.): it would increase the value of land, and they would recover the costs, and more.

I'd prefer to eliminate agricultural subsidies, but that's beyond the scope of this post.

If all of the rental value of Land was collected, and all taxes against income, profit, and productivity were removed, the government(s) would collect more money than needed for operating the government. In this case, the surplus should be returned in equal shares to all citizens. The Alaska Permanent Fund uses the rental income from Oil leases to give each of it's citizen's a dividend. Were such a Citizen's Dividend in place, in all likelihood, the prospect of additional immigration would be welcomed by most citizens.

The reason: the earth is our common heritage, and people should be as free as reasonably possible. Such a scheme of economics would likely result in land in the hinterlands being abandoned, as better land becomes available in better locations, and the speculative value of such land evaporates.

[Inland]

39. Let's sum up.

1) All land would be expropriated. To the extent that there's a difference between simple declaring all fee ownership in the government and either expropriating all rents or charging rents to bring the land value to zero, it's not worth talking about. Of course the government would have tons of money, at first. Most taxes meant to be so onerous to remove all value from property do, at first. That's why we call them "confiscatory". It's taxing the productivity of the land by confiscating all the profit from the production of the land forever.

Sure, then land will be close to zero, because everything made worthless is cheap. Title doesn't bring any rights, even a right to occupy. I could probably "buy" title to most of Manhattan, since all it gets me is a tax bill: there's never a huge problem in buying liabilities. The US has confiscated the future income stream, and indeed, even if there IS no income, is going to impute an income stream from my very fact of living on it.

For simplicities sake, I'm just going to say the US is the owner of the land. It's the same difference.


2) Now up the distinction you keep making between land and capital. As we all know, there's no market distinction between the land and it's fixtures. To say that one can improve the land and enjoy the fruits of the improvement would require that the government freeze all rents where they are. But if they freeze all rents where they are, then there's value in the land, disguised as "selling" the house and the factory and a permanent right to stay and enjoy them.

So your plan either has an "out" by letting people improve the land and sell the improvements, or the government is just going to confiscate the value of the improvements, too. It's taxing productivity, in every sense of the word, because the "value" of an improvement is a future income stream. You had the gumption to build a house? Thanks for that. Your rents just went up. You built a factory? Your rents go up, and if you don't like it, move....but leave the factory, thanks.

So who is going to build a house or a factory, if the rents just go up based on the "value" of the land with improvements? Why, the same people who would be interested in buying title to land that has no value. In fact, I'm sure you've got some plan to just have the government build the buildings and factories, too, and then charging what they think is fair in rents. Sure, why not. Governments are always the best decisionmakers in those sorts of things, and that's why the Soviet Union has the highest standard of living in the world and absolutely no environmental damage. I don't understand the concept of a monopolist landlord acting for the benefit of the renters even without the explicit mission of milking us for as much as it can.

If the point of it all is to get people to abandon land and businesses, then great, confiscating the profit from land and business will make us all into a nation of poor renters, unwilling to do so much as nail two boards together.

Your plan, in sum, makes government rich, but that's pretty much always the result when the government takes, and not much of a trick. I'm looking for the part where the citizens get something out of it besides a rich government that owns and controls everything, and I'm seeing poverty and mismanagement if not a brutal dictatorship. It's already been done.

3) Because this started as a thread on how immigration helps, then lowering the cost of labor is either going to accrue to the employer or the employee, depending on the shape of the supply curves. The supply of labor is, practically, infinite to the US market if you lower all barriers to entry. There's no reason for an employer to pass the savings to the employee. But as there's probably not going to BE any employees under your system, it's probably a moot point.

[dcfirefighter]

41. Halfway there

We socialize returns to land ownership, yet continue to offer exclusionary titles. But yes, you get it, sale prices are near zero, and ownership implys the liability to compensate those you exclude.

There is a huge difference between land and capital. Very nearly every property assessment done in the US includes one part for land (unimproved property) and another part for improved property. If I own one lot, and you own an identical lot next to it, we pay the same tax, regardless of what we build on it.

You do have the opportunity to sell improvements, it's very important NOT to tax this (as we do now), as it is the very act of improving things that employs people. Rents are set through assessment such that a bare lot would sell for nothing. Any positive value of the total property is retained by the seller.

People would build houses or factories because such capital enjoys a financial return (or fills a personal need). The government would not control land use (ideally) and certainly not more than it does now. Your Soviet comment leads me to believe that you believe, at least partially, in free markets. Socializing Land rents allow land markets to work WITHOUT government intervention or central planning.

"Unwilling to nail two boards together". Exactly the opposite. Currently, property taxes penalize owners for improving property, by increasing their tax burden. Because the benefits of nailing two boards together accrue completely to the invester, he is induced to build, improve, and maintain any capital he has. Furthermore, because the returns to specualtive (and completely passive) ownership of land are minimized, investment money has only one outlet: productive investment. If you've saved money and want to get a return on your money, you'd have to invest in employment.

"Makes government rich". First, it is, putatively, a government of by and for the people. Second, such taxes are easily (and best) collected at the local level. Third, I never implied that the government would control anything, only that the financial returns to ownership of land would be socialized. If no such apparatus existed to socialize these returns, one would be created, it would be a government. Fourth, wages are higher where land is used well.

"lowering the cost of labor..." would benefit to the land & privilege owner more than the employer, if they happen to be different people. If the employer could pay more in rent, the landlord would raise the rent.

Typically, conservatives argue to maintain the status quo, because they have an advantage. They are the "HAVES" and they'd like to keep the "HAVE NOTS" from gaining what the "HAVES" possess. I find it an immoral propisition.

Converse to my argument would be a world with perfect barriers to entry for labor. How would this work out for us? Domestic (US) Labor would immediately become scarce and wages would increase. However, this would not affect the price of Labor in the rest of the world. Companies would still seek to benefit from cheaper overseas labor. So we tack on a tarriff against products made by cheap overseas labor. So prices rise in the US. So we buy less. No one outside the US wants to buy our stuff, because it's more expensive than the alternatives. So pretty soon, nobody is buying ourstuff here, and we're not exporting much. So production ceases, and people are laid off. This process iterates until prices are cheap enough that we buy the stuff domestically or it's cheap enough to export. The end state is some significant level of unemployment. Oh, and a large portion of wages goes to pay rent (or purchase price) to landowners.

[Inland]

42. Too close for comfort.

1) In your system, it doesn't matter if I have land title; my continued possession is contingent on my paying rent, and I can't sell it for anything. Title is a bundle of rights meaning nothing. You could call it "ownership" only if you drain it of all the meaning of the word. The only real owner would be the government. I would be suffered to live there, or keep my factory there, only as long as I paid the rent that would be set by some formula. If people squealed about the powers of eminent domain, certainly the ability to tax something to the point of making it literally worthless makes it all the easier to reapportion between the haves and have nots, just like it happens now.

2) All property taxes make a tax based on improvements. But then again, they aren't meant to make the property valueless to the owner, either, so there's no absolute disincentive to make the improvements. Rather, the taxing authorities are quite aware that placing taxes too high kills the making of improvements. Your point that property taxes can, if worked wrong, discourage investments is a call for low property taxes, not confiscation of the value of property.

3) The distinction between land value and improvements for property tax purposes (and income taxes in some purposes) is largely fictional. Indeed, simply mentioning the property tax system calls to mind the tax people hate the most, simply because it is unfair to the extent it is understood. Valuation for property tax purposes, as a matter of fact and a matter of law, has nothing to do with market value. Next time you get a chance, go to your local board of tax appeals and see how many appeals are granted on the ground that "there's no way I could sell my land for that much." It's zero, by the way. I'd like to see the looks on people's faces when you tell them that you've got this idea for a property tax that will fund everything; well, LIKE property taxes, except much larger and run by an even larger, nationwide bureaucracy. We can't convince people to fund education in the next district over with property taxes.

4) You are correct in saying that including improvements in the confiscation would keep anyone from making an improvement, but there's absolutely nothing from you on a method by which it gets excluded. In a market based economy, the price of land is based, not just what's on it, but can put on it. That's why a bare lot in the middle of the business district brings more than a bare lot in the Wyoming Mountains, and that’s why its price increases at a rate greater than the other ever would.

You see, the reason why land appreciates isn’t because they aren’t making any more and it’s getting scarce. Land, as a whole, is widely available. What’s valued, and relatively scarce, is land that will carry a factory or apartment building.

For example, take my quarter acre that my townhome sits on. Compare the price of the land in 1830 to 1985. The price went up and up and up. Why, because land is scarce? Hardly. It’s because in 1830, it was good only for wildgrass. In 1985, it was still wildgrass, unbuilt, plain land……but because it was next to streets and work and a population area, had sewer access and water, it is good for something more and the price went up solely due to the potential for development. It wasn’t scarcity that leads to a windfall, and in fact, population in Illinois's rural counties has dropped since the civil war. It was an actual increase in the productivity of the land through streets and schools, already paid for by taxes on the owners, that made it desirable for residential and therefore valuable. The last of the increases was the actual building going up. “Scarcity” of land has zero to do with it. Scarcity of land that’s five minutes from the tollway, maybe, but why pretend that’s a windfall to be taxed away? We’ve already paid taxes to build the tollway.

You’ve clearly got an 18th century view of land, undifferentiated and suitable only for small farms. This theory of yours dates from when, again?

Therefore, IF the government taxes based on price, it is in fact taxing the present value of the improvements that can be made, not increases based on “scarcity”. If the government excludes the value of all possible improvements, you have mere aesthetic value and it gets no tax.

5 ) Since you seem to think that there will be huge profits coming out of the confiscation, it's clear that you are thinking that the government tax will be based on market price and therefore actually charge people for improving property. When we spoke of labor, I said that taking taxes off something will make for more of it, and the same is true for improvements. Incredibly, I see that the tax system based on market price will actually cause people to develop greenfields, the property that HAS minimal market value now. If I wanted to build a factory, on a greenfield I don't have to worry about the government making a strange valuation on a piece of nothing in nowhereville. I just have the price and everything I add is mine. On the other hand, I would abandon urban property that the government has decided to tax at a high rate. After ten years, it’ll be decayed enough to claim a reassessment.


6) I think the fact that the government is the landlord and is working to control prices of land is clear enough. There’s no liberal, free government that works to keep the value of an asset at zero, adjusting individual taxes for each parcel to get to the perfect point. Any theory that requires that government be run by angels and braniacs isn’t one that’s going to work; it certainly isn’t going to be “for and by the people”, not in a country where over half own their own home.

[dcfirefighter]

43. You've got a pretty good appreciation of it

enough that I have to be more specific with my responses. I apologize for not doing so earlier, but getting bogged down in the details doesn't make selling someone the idea that their much of their nest egg should be valueless any easier.

1) title gives you the right to keep your factory there, or your house. Your property would be assessed at a similer rate to similar properties. If the assessment isn't EXACTLY correct, there will be non-zero sale price. Of course the assessment is never going to be perfectly accurate, and with this knowledge, the assessment goal wouldn't even be 100% of the annual rental value, but rather only 90% or 95% of the annual rental value, leaving some positive residual value. On a lot with no improvements, it wouldn't be much. On a lot with improvements, it wouldn't add much to the sale price of the improvements. However, the small positive value means that the government doesn't have to allocate land, a market mechanism still exists. Should this small price get large, it would be an indication of poor assessments.

2) Currently property taxes take a rate, and assess that rate against both improvements and and unimproved property. A tax against improvements is one of the most harmful and unfair taxes there is. This is why a property tax should have two rates, one for land, and one for improvements: the rate for land should be higher than the one for improvements (if improvements are taxed at all). This is a change that can be made at the local level, and, if revenue neutral, benefits 70-75% of homeowners (people who keep nice houses).

3) The disparity between assessed value and appraised value is largely due to politics. Incremental changes would allow us to fix the politics as such a tax becomes more and more important. Removing improvements from the tax equation means that people could check the fairness of their assessments with a map - until 90%+ of rental value is taxed, the a absolute accuracy of the assessment process is not important, only the precision of it. In other words, as long as I'm paying about the same as my neighbor, I don't have much of a complaint.
I have no intention of the federal goverment collecting property taxes, not only is it unconstitutional it's illogical. However, the Federal government could collect 'rents' on broadcast spectrum, fishing rights, timber rights, mining rights, etc.
Being a local tax means that revenue is spent local to it's collection, in many cases capturing it's own investment.

4) The mechanics of separating land and improvements isn't known by me, but it is known by assessors, appraisers, insurance agents, and real estate agents. If it is important enough, a property could be bought, the lot cleared, and the lot auctioned. The majority of Commmercial land isn't owned by the same owner as the building. The builders of the Empire State building didn't own the lot, they leased it.
Your tax argument is EXACTLY why land values should be taxed: it's valuable because all of the public and social investment nearby. To claim that owners have paid for it is disingenuous, it's been paid for by income, sales, federal, and other taxes as well, as well as private investment. What a better way to close the loop on social spending than by recapturing the very value created by public goods?

My view of land is that most people should live in cities. My theories date back to pre-revolutionary times, but then again they were recommended to Gorbachev by several nobel laureate economists. The heyday of such a theory was at the peak of the industrial revolution. When do the theories of isolationalism and mercantilism date from? When does the theory of tribute date from? Who cares?

5) you are completely confusing improvements and land values. Your rural greenfield would cost very little to keep, because you couldn't do much with it. If you built an office building, it'd remain vacant. If you built an apartment building, no one would want to live their. OTOH, if you got a downtown lot, it'd be expensive to keep. To pay the rent you'd have to build an apartment building, or office building, or whatever the market was demanding. If you abandoned the downtown lot, how could IT decay for a reassessment: it's taxes aren't based on what's on it, but rather what's near it. If YOU abandoned it, someone else would take it -else the assessment was too high (and would be lowered if no one was willing to pay it).

6) The government isn't landlord, private owners are landlords. It's just that the government takes most of what the landlord makes for mere ownership of the parcel. If the landlord makes an attractive building, he can rent that to his heart's content. If you continue to view land as an asset, an investment, you'll view such a tax as confiscatory. If you view land as a gift, as part of the natural commons, you'll see such a tax as a libertarian means of sharing the commonwealth. This theory doesn't require angelic intentions nor particular brain power. Land assessments are much harder to finagle than, say, corporarate income taxes. It's impossible to offshore land. It's impossible to hide land 'assets'. It's hard to issue special favors via a land value tax (it shows up on the map).

"Of and by the people".
A land tax would lower the value of your lot, AND convert it's capitalized value into annualized value, AND eliminate the payment for interest.
The median home price in the US today is somewhere around $200,000. Of this price, usually 30% or so is 'land value', or $60,000. Reduced and converted, this represents far less than $5,000 a year in annualized costs.
The median household income in the US is about $44,000. Payroll, Income, and State and Local taxes will take almost $18,000 from this.
$18,000 vs. $5,000. You pick.

Where's the rest made up?
How about the L-curve of wealth? The top 1% of owners own 80% of the wealth, and they giggle when the masses clamor for their property protection.

You can have absolute ownership of land, as you wish, but you can't have both absolute ownership of land and absolute (self) ownership of labor. If you allow absolute ownership of land, then labor must pay a tribute to use the land, occupy it, or even pass across it. If you allow absolute self-ownership of labor, not only do you improve the returns to labor, you must limit the ownership of land. It seems far more moral and far more free, to support absolute self ownership rather than absolute property ownership.

[brokensymmetry]

30. Capital? But notice the underlying assumption.

First, suppose we have a large desert island with no resources, lots of labor, and a billion dollars in U.S. currency. Our population will starve rather quickly.

Capital is another word for resources. We're used to having abundant resources such that our symbol for them - in this case, money - is used interchangeably. But they aren't the same.

We live in a world of limited resources, and in my opinion, those limits are going to assert themselves harshly. Even brutally.

The capital your argument supposes is lacking. Thus the equation fails.

[dcfirefighter]

31. A misunderstanding of Capital

due to deliberate misrepresentation by 'modern' economists.

Capital is that stuff people make to create wealth, consider it vice
LAND, which is that stuff that people don't make (natural resources) but use to create wealth.

You are right, a scarcity of LAND is goind to rear it's ugly head. Insuring that it is used efficiently is how we as a species are going to survive and prosper. Such is the need to socialize all financial returns to Land. Therefore, no one person or entity has a greater benefit than another due to the scarcity of resources. Therefore, monopoly privilege is eliminated, and wealth-creators compete on a level playing field.

Neither money nor currency is capital. Changes are needed in our money system, but they are beyond the scope of this post.

[Connie_Corleone]

35. We already allow immigration.

It's illegal immigration that's the problem.

[Igel]

37. There's one point that's been lost.

It's a fairly subtle one, and there's little subtlety or nuance allowed on this issue--it complicates the moral crystal clarity necessary for defaming the other side--but bear with me.

When I was a kid, lots of us worked part time jobs. It was the traditional first job: grocery stores, food service, and the like, where I grew up. Some worked for the state transportation system when they were in college. Others, in the state I moved to after college, worked in agriculture; they'd get up and move irrigation lines, they'd go on weekends, after school, and during the summer to harvest.

Even in college the student-run store/food service 'business' on campus hired as many students as possible.

Everybody found it a bit inefficient, since they had to train a steady supply of kids and they'd have frequent scheduling battles; frequently they'd have to raise their wages to attract workers. But the kids got money, work experience, and had their afternoons and weekends were employed in some constructive activity. Kids frequently didn't much like their jobs, but they were handy sources of income. Now kids expect hefty allowances, and the idea of working in a 'wetback' job (as I once heard berry-picking called) is repugnant to many. The harvest is almost entirely migrant workers; food service is frequently immigrant workers. The employers find it easier to contract out in many cases, avoiding the entire I-9 form business entirely; in any event, full-timers, even if at best marginally literate, are preferred. Part-time work is solely for the employer's bebefit. Parents then have to schedule their kids' every waking moment to keep them busy & out of trouble. Companies faced with a lot of students looking for work experience and trying to be as competitive as possible can offer unpaid or nearly unpaid internships.

Even the student organization I was in moved from having as many students fill jobs as possible to having contract labor take over. For each 'immigrant employee' two students lost their jobs.

What allows this is a glut presence of cheap labor that can work full-time at nearly unskilled jobs.

[Inland]

40. Similarly, the temp job.

Maybe no American wants to make a career out of picking vegetables, but there may be people who will spend a year doing it for the right price.