| Subject: | Re: [socialcredit] Forwarded from Kevin Cahill | | Date: | Wednesday, June 7, 2006 23:08:51 (+1200) | | From: | W. McGunnigle <wmcgunn @.........nz>
|
Replying to Chris Cook, Kevin, et al.
My figures are taken from the New Zealand Census. I
do take issue about being "stuck in the trenches". I will quote from on of
our earlier Prime Ministers William Massey he made the following definitive
statement in the early 1920's when all the western politicians were
paranoically frightened of "Bolshevism" (early communism). "if we make every
New Zealander a home owner that will take care of this damned bolshevism".
He then instituted a system of home loans via a newly formed Housing
Authority of low interest loans < 2% for people wishing to buy their own
first homes. By 1926 when Massey died 67% of New Zealanders owned their own
homes. This continued until the Housing Corporation was privatised during
the 1990's since then mortgages have been reliant on the "private sector"
and there has been a sharp decline in home ownership.
Personally I believe Massey to have been far sighted in his approach.
New Zealanders in particular value their own quarter acre section, many own
5-10 acre blocks, this reflects our national character, but that does not
alter the present economic climate where high interest rates and soaring
real estate prices are making it progressively more difficult for young New
Zealanders to own their own property.
The New Zealand figures are only bizzare when compared to one or two
western economies. As a primary produce it's economy should be compared to
the Third world countries when you do that you see a startling similarity.
The reasons are identical to those creating the maldistribution of resources
and wealth within those third world countries.
I trust this explains some of the comments made by myself on this
forum.
Bill McG
----- Original Message -----
From: "William B. Ryan" <w_b_ryan@yahoo.com>
To: <socialcredit@elistas.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 7:56 AM
Subject: [socialcredit] Forwarded from Kevin Cahill
> From: "Globalnet mail uk" <ros@globalnet.co.uk>
> To: "William B. Ryan" <w_b_ryan@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: Neo-Georgism--Replying to Chris Cook
> Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006
>
> Bill,
>
> Good to see this because home ownership is not falling
> in the UK, or anywhere else that I know of. The NZ
> figure is bizzare. I shall check that.
>
> What your correspondent 'Bill McGunnigle' asks you to
> do is get out of your entrenched positions. The person
> in the trenches is him, and his position is like
> finding an old WW1 trench with a rifle man still in
> it. He needs to read De Soto about home 'ownership' in
> the third world too. The Mystery of Capital.
>
> But the key thing is this. In all the major western
> economies, the USA, UK, Japan and so on, home
> ownership is at roughly 70% and growing. In short,
> this is the choice made by the majority of the
> population.
>
> In practice, the desire to own one's own home is
> universal, and is most prevelant amongst those who
> have not got a home. The argument put to you, by
> implication, that people prefer to rent, is
> contradicted by every factual trend, and every
> preference statement, everywhere.
>
> But there is a more pernicious underpinning to the
> attack on home ownership. The argument is that because
> 30% of the population don't have a home, the 70% who
> do have one should have their rights, liberties and
> assets confsicated or curbed, and replaced by
> bureacracies acting as social landlords.
>
> The problem for many of the parties arguing thus, is
> that people who own their own homes are much more
> independent than those subject to the tyranny of
> landlords and much less likley to put up with
> bureaucratic control systems, invented to put power in
> the hands of those who talk but never do anything
> practical or productive.
>
> I personally find this antipathy to private home/land
> ownership bizzare, given the evidence of the
> catastrophic failure of all socialist systems during
> the 20th century, China included. China now of
> course, is the economy with the largest trend towards
> home ownership on the planet.
>
> The Georgist argument has another terrible flaw. It is
> based on an unstated assumption that land is scarce.
> It isn't. There are 6,500 million persons on the
> planet right now. There are 36,000 million acres of
> land on the planet. At a strict notional distribution,
> everyone has about 5.5 acres apiece. In practice only
> about 16,000 million acres are arable/fertile etc.
> That reduces the notional distribution to about 2.5
> acres each.
>
> But in reality, 50% of the planetary population live
> in urban areas, an absolute maximum of 2% of the land
> surface, about 720 million acres out of 36,000 million
> acres (or 16,000 million arable). This leaves a total
> of 3,250 million people with about 4.7 acres each. And
> that's being generous with the babies! (In the UK
> there are 60 million people and 60 million acres, an
> acre apiece).
>
> In the USA there are 295 million people and about
> 2,200 million acres. That is 7.4 acres per person. The
> USA has a long way to go to get to the UK level of
> 'crowding.'
>
> The issue isn't scarcity, its distriution. But that is
> too hard for those still in the trenches. Arguing from
> alleged land scarcity, allows them to pretend to be on
> the side of Franz Fanon's wretched of the earth, when
> in fact they are on the side of landowners who want us
> all back as tenants so they can restart the rentier
> system, or, as an alternative, paying too much for our
> housing lot, on the grounds that land is scarce.
>
> Yours
>
> Kevin Cahill
>
> Anyone interested I will be presenting the main
> elements of Who Owns the World at the RSA 'House' off
> the Strand in London on 28th June at 1800pm. Look up
> the website and book, as 75% of the 200 seats are gone
> already.
>
>
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