Property is theft

[Dave Bloke 1,762]

France Strategie, a think tank attached to the French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has proposed that the European Union seize the freehold on all land and charge property owners an annual rent. The freeholds would be used to improve the debt position and the rents would bring in an income.

I suppose this is similar to a LVT?

Utter nonsense, you may think, well both President Macron and his wife Brigitte, have recently sold their houses.

French civil servants have long been keen on introducing an LVT.

[TheBlueCat 1,401]

5 minutes ago, davidg said:

France Strategie, a think tank attached to the French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has proposed that the European Union seize the freehold on all land and charge property owners an annual rent. The freeholds would be used to improve the debt position and the rents would bring in an income.

I suppose this is similar to a LVT?

Utter nonsense, you may think, well both President Macron and his wife Brigitte, have recently sold their houses.

French civil servants have long been keen on introducing an LVT.

I can't imagine the French peasant farmers standing for that - they'll be sure to go and burn some British lamb in protest, or maybe cut down any parking meters that are left in Paris or something.

[Frank Hovis 9,105]

Isn't this just council tax / LVT?

Whilst freehold gives you certain rights you can still have it taken off you by CPO albeit with compensation.  It's not inalienably your land for eternity.

Their selling their houses could well be simple STR; they'll get free accommodation for ?four years and it looks likely that there will be some falls coming even if modest.

[billfunk 1,120]

5 minutes ago, TheBlueCat said:

I can't imagine the French peasant farmers standing for that - they'll be sure to go and burn some British lamb in protest, or maybe cut down any parking meters that are left in Paris or something.

Peasants don't own land so they should have no problems with an LVT. In fact, they should positively welcome an LVT as it would bring them closer to actually owning the land they work on. Of course, any sensible LVT proposal would discount land used by the owner for a productive purpose. Rentiers would be gouged mercilessly, productive people would thrive.

[TheBlueCat 1,401]

20 minutes ago, billfunk said:

Peasants don't own land so they should have no problems with an LVT. In fact, they should positively welcome an LVT as it would bring them closer to actually owning the land they work on. Of course, any sensible LVT proposal would discount land used by the owner for a productive purpose. Rentiers would be gouged mercilessly, productive people would thrive.

I was being ironic in the use of the word peasant... most French farmers to my understanding do own their own land. Interesting how a simple LVT suddenly turns out to have different rules for special interest groups though.

[billfunk 1,120]

24 minutes ago, TheBlueCat said:

I was being ironic in the use of the word peasant... most French farmers to my understanding do own their own land. Interesting how a simple LVT suddenly turns out to have different rules for special interest groups though.

It's just a means to an end. Tools not rules. Productive activity is not a special interest group it is the lifeblood of the economy! 

[TheBlueCat 1,401]

2 minutes ago, billfunk said:

It's just a means to an end. Tools not rules. Productive activity is not a special interest group it is the lifeblood of the economy! 

And you and your fine chums are the perfect ones to decided what or what isn't productive eh? What if someone disagrees with your decision, what then?

[billfunk 1,120]

2 minutes ago, TheBlueCat said:

And you and your fine chums are the perfect ones to decided what or what isn't productive eh? What if someone disagrees with your decision, what then?

Would it be possible to have an informed democratic debate about what constitutes productive activity as opposed to rentier activity?

[TheBlueCat 1,401]

1 hour ago, billfunk said:

Would it be possible to have an informed democratic debate about what constitutes productive activity as opposed to rentier activity?

Actually, no. Every time anyone has tried to draw a distinction at any general level it had ended with less economic output and less individual liberty. The correct place for debates about what is and what isn't productive is at the point of purchase by individual consumers. Adam Smith wrote a very convincing book on the subject if you're interested.

[billfunk 1,120]

9 hours ago, TheBlueCat said:

Actually, no. Every time anyone has tried to draw a distinction at any general level it had ended with less economic output and less individual liberty. The correct place for debates about what is and what isn't productive is at the point of purchase by individual consumers. Adam Smith wrote a very convincing book on the subject if you're interested.

So you think individual consumers are going to solve the intergenerational hoarding of land? Bizarre.

The Duke of Westminster is shaking in his boots. As soon as all the farmers in Yorkshire strike and there is a mass exodus from posh London he is going to be screwed.

 

 

Edited October 12, 2017 by billfunk

[Dave Bloke 1,762]

11 hours ago, TheBlueCat said:

I was being ironic in the use of the word peasant... most French farmers to my understanding do own their own land. Interesting how a simple LVT suddenly turns out to have different rules for special interest groups though.

Talking of peasant farmers the French government wants to fix the prices they are paid for produce to a cost + basis rather than one based on what the market wants to pay.

[Chewing Grass 3,033]

Financialisation has blurred the distinction between production and rent seeking, car manufacture is a prime example.

[TheBlueCat 1,401]

4 hours ago, billfunk said:

So you think individual consumers are going to solve the intergenerational hoarding of land? Bizarre.

The Duke of Westminster is shaking in his boots. As soon as all the farmers in Yorkshire strike and there is a mass exodus from posh London he is going to be screwed.

 

 

First off I don't agree that it's a problem and, secondly, if it was then free choice of consumers has a vastly better chance of fixing it without fucking everything up than some committee of comrades deciding what's best for everyone else.

4 hours ago, davidg said:

Talking of peasant farmers the French government wants to fix the prices they are paid for produce to a cost + basis rather than one based on what the market wants to pay.

How do plan to do that and stay in the EU? 

[billfunk 1,120]

You're barking mad. "Free choice of consumers" - what dream world do you live in?

[Dave Bloke 1,762]

10 minutes ago, TheBlueCat said:

How do plan to do that and stay in the EU? 

It does sound a bit against free trade... but that has never stopped the French in the past.

[TheBlueCat 1,401]

12 minutes ago, billfunk said:

You're barking mad. "Free choice of consumers" - what dream world do you live in?

That didn't take long - why do collectivist always fall back on personal insults so quickly? I see exactly the same thing in the hoons that support Corbyn.

[TheBlueCat 1,401]

5 minutes ago, davidg said:

It does sound a bit against free trade... but that has never stopped the French in the past.

True, but at the times that food produced elsewhere in the EU was undercutting the French stuff they would have to tax or subsidize differentially. I can't believe even the French would try to get away with something that egregiously at odds with EU law.

[billfunk 1,120]

8 minutes ago, TheBlueCat said:

That didn't take long - why do collectivist always fall back on personal insults so quickly? I see exactly the same thing in the hoons that support Corbyn.

You think land is a consumer good. You think being against monopoly makes someone a collectivist. You are deluded.

[TheBlueCat 1,401]

1 hour ago, billfunk said:

You think land is a consumer good. You think being against monopoly makes someone a collectivist. You are deluded.

There you go again, slinging insults. You lefties just can't have a civilised discussion can you?

[billfunk 1,120]

6 minutes ago, TheBlueCat said:

There you go again, slinging insults. You lefties just can't have a civilised discussion can you?

I am not insulting you, I am describing you.

[TheBlueCat 1,401]

2 hours ago, billfunk said:

I am not insulting you, I am describing you.

Looks very much like an insult to me. If that's the extent of your debating skills good luck in converting the proletariat with the brilliance of your rhetoric. Oh, sorry, I forgot, power comes down the barrel of a gun for you sorts, scrap the reasoned debate and any concept of liberty.

[billfunk 1,120]

What is wrong with you, seriously?

You seem to have got it into your head that I am a collectivist, communist, Corbyn supporter in favour of violent uprising. Where on earth have you got this from? 

[TheBlueCat 1,401]

25 minutes ago, billfunk said:

What is wrong with you, seriously?

You seem to have got it into your head that I am a collectivist, communist, Corbyn supporter in favour of violent uprising. Where on earth have you got this from? 

Nothing is wrong with, you were the one who outed yourself as all of those things when you wrote, and I quote: "Of course, any sensible LVT proposal would discount land used by the owner for a productive purpose".

So let me ask again, who is going to be the one to judge what is and what isn't productive use? 

[billfunk 1,120]

I have already told you. This is a democracy. You have an informed democratic debate about LVT. This is supposed to be the point of Parliament. How have you managed to jump from this to communism?

[TheBlueCat 1,401]

2 minutes ago, billfunk said:

I have already told you. This is a democracy. You have an informed democratic debate about LVT. This is supposed to be the point of Parliament. How have you managed to jump from this to communism?

Because there is no possible way to have a democratic debate about the minutiae of what is or isn't productive use in the almost limitless number of scenarios that exist in the real world. The only way to do it is to delegate it to a bureaucracy of some description that will, inevitably, fuck it up and, in the process, reduce productivity and make everyone worse off. It's been tried over and over again and it never works. Let me give you a couple of examples:

You see a field full of wheat -

1. Yay, productive use, growing food for the workers, give them a tax cut!

2. Boo, over production, no-one needs wheat in the latest five year plan, tax the running dog lackeys!

3. Oh, the farmer is going to leave the wheat in the field to rot because no-one wants to buy it....now what?!

4. Er, the wheat grew accidentally from seed spill over from someone else's farm next door....who do we tax for what now?

You see a field with grass and stuff in it but so sign of use:

1. Boo, unproductive land, tax the fuckers!

2. Yay, set-aside, give them a grant!

3. Oh, it's fallow as part of a crop rotation, how do we tax that?

4. Ah, it's actually a nature reserve with wild flowers and stuff....