The Corruption of Economics

The Corruption of Economics Why Most Are Blind to What They Need to See

By Catherine Cashmore (Contributing editor – Cycles Trends & Forecasts)

In the 1880’s Judge James G. Maguire of the Superior Court of the city and county of San Francisco gave a speech to the New York Anti-Poverty Society in the 1880s. He said…

‘I was one day walking along Kearney Street in San Francisco when I noticed a crowd in front of a show window… I took a glance myself, but I saw only a poor picture of an uninteresting landscape.

Source: henrygeorge.org  

As I was turning away my eye caught these words underneath the picture: ‘Do you see the cat?’ …I spoke to the crowd, “Gentlemen, I do not see a cat in the picture; is there a cat there?” Someone in the crowd replied, “Naw, there ain’t no cat there! Here’s a crank who says he sees a cat in it, but none of the rest of us can…. Then the crank spoke up. “I tell you,” he said, “there IS a cat there. The picture is all cat! …

…. and then, there it was! Sure enough, just as the crank had said; But now that I saw the cat, I could see nothing else in the picture!…and I was never afterwards able, upon looking at that picture, to see anything in it *but* the cat.”[i]

Maguire’s story was intended as a parable for land’s role in the economy. Like the cat in the picture, it is blindingly obvious once it becomes clear – so obvious in fact, it is hard to see anything *but* the land.

The Man Who Electrified the World

Maguire had been inspired by a passage in the 19^th century political treatise ‘Progress and Poverty’ the American journalist Henry George wrote. One of his famous passages was…  ‘That as land is necessary to the exertion of labour in the production of wealth, to command the land which is necessary to labour, is to command all the fruits of labour save enough to enable labour to exist.’[ii]

George had no formal education to speak of. He had left school at the age of 14, drifting in an out of poverty until securing steady employment as a typographer for the newly created San Francisco Times – later going on to edit his own newspapers.

However, George was an avid reader. He had studied the great classical economists such as David Ricardo and Adam Smith. He understood the relationship between the three factors of production – land, labour, and capital – and he used these tools to dissect the system.

He wrote:

Take now… some hard-headed businessman, who has no theories, but knows how to make money. Say to him:

“Here is a little village; in ten years it will be a great city—in ten years the railroad will have taken the place of the stage coach, the electric light of the candle; it will abound with all the machinery and improvements that so enormously multiply the effective power of labour.” “Will in ten years, interest be any higher?”

He will tell you, “No!”

“Will the wages of the common labourer be any higher…?”

He will tell you, “No the wages of common labour will not be any higher…”

“What, then, will be higher?”

“Rent, the value of land!” Go, get yourself a piece of ground, and hold possession!”  And if, under such circumstances, you take his advice, you need do nothing more…’[iii]

The book started as a potential magazine article written to address the paradox of why ‘poverty’ rises in tandem with ‘progress.’ When it was published 17 months later in 1879 during an industrial depression, George’s ideas electrified the world. He had not only identified the underlying cause of the boom and bust cycle, George also provided a practical remedy…

The book was an international bestseller. It was translated into Chinese, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish.

At its epoch, it was rumoured to have outsold even the Bible.

Seven years later, Henry George beat Theodor Roosevelt to almost get elected as Mayor of New York City – the financial capital of the nation. Henry George gravesite, Greenwood cemetery, New York.

Source: PJA 

Chrystia Freeland, a current Canadian Liberal member of parliament, wrote this recently…(iv)

‘George ran for mayor of New York again in 1897, but died four days before election day. He was given a statesman’s send-off — his coffin lay in state at Grand Central Station, where more than 100,000 people came to pay their respects. It was the largest crowd of mourners since Abraham Lincoln’s funeral in 1865.’

The Corruption of Economics

Henry George didn’t have the modern tools of today’s economists. So why after 135 years don’t economists once again ‘see the cat’?..

(To read more of this post – sign up to Cycles, Trends and Forecasts – Australian economist and market cycle expert Phillip J Anderson) [

i] The Prophet of San Francisco, Chicago, 1904 – Louis F. Post

[ii] Progress and Poverty, 1879 p210 Henry George

[iii] ibid – ch.19 “The Basic Cause of Poverty

[iv] “The Problem Of Plutocrats: What a 19th Century Economist Can Teach Us About Today’s Capitalism

“

“By hoarding housing, the rich pay less, while the poor pay more”

By: Catherine Cashmore

(Short article written for Property Observer – covering items made in detail else where on this blog.)

I was contacted twice last week to comment on news stories that featured young Australians building their way to retirement, through debt, leverage and speculation, on the back of rising property prices.

Described as ‘an entrepreneur,’ another a ‘wonder kid,’ both stories told a similar tale.

A gift from mum and dad had helped with the deposit – living in the family home had enabled investment into areas that may not have suited their ‘home’ buying requirements.

Rising property prices had enabled equity to leverage into the second acquisition – it was not reinventing the wheel, rather a repeat of an all too familiar theme.

One had managed to reach his sixth investment by the age of 26 (having started at only 19) – both were on their way to becoming property investment advisors – wanting to help others achieve real estate riches too.

“Young buyers are entering the property market as investors” prompted one reporter – which is no more obvious than saying “circles are round”.

Everyone who enters the property market is an investor, I responded.

There would be few in the industry working on the buying side of the equation who had not been involved in what I often term ‘the capital gain game’ – where every option suggested is followed by the question “but which will get the best growth?”

Australia has a lopsided neoliberal economy founded on the back of a 5.1 trillion dollar housing market, over 4.1 trillion dollars of which is irreplaceable land.

We’re slaves to a system where the retirement wealth egg is the family home – our personal economic leverage for all lifestyle and business needs – something that is only achievable if policies are manufactured to ensure values remain high (and climbing), whilst debt levels remain ever affordable.

click image to open in a new window

Source: Philip Soos

It used to be called ‘Monopoly’. Today its termed: ‘getting onto the property ladder’.

Retire as a renter or find a way to ‘work the system,’ playing a dangerous game of debt and leverage, and hoping when the wind finally blows, you’re not left holding the house of cards.

For those unable to afford current high prices, they will see no tax benefit – unless their income is low enough to require welfare assistance.

Rather they will be at the mercy of rising rents with an uncanny tendency to outpace inflation, tight vacancy rates and few low budget options.

If, as above, they are the ‘lucky’ beneficiaries of family assistance to enable their step onto the first rung of the ladder, they’ll enter a tax system skewed toward ownership, the benefits of which are capitalised into the price, pushing values higher.

Source: Bubble Economics by Paul D. Egan and Philip Soos

Under such a system, the final consequences are set in stone.

On a global scale, the land bubble induced financial crisis of 2008 left millions suffering fatal burns.

Tough austerity measures that followed destroyed the hopes and dreams of thousands of Europe’s youth.

For those just entering retirement, savings were wiped away, along with any chance of employment in later years.

Australia escaped relatively unscathed, but this isn’t because we’ve solved the boom/bust cycle.

Our policies differ little from the affected countries that promote ownership with similar inflationary measures.

First time buyers have no memory of a recession and understandably want their share of the pie.

However our history is littered with recurrent patterns of boom-bust credit and asset bubbles, commonly triggered by high land prices.

They all heralded financial instability and dreadful social consequences – a study of which should perhaps feature higher on the school curriculum.

We’ve just entered into another cycle and already prices have exceeded previous peaks.

Housing cycles are long-term affairs, however unless we begin to studiously take measures to change our tax and supply policies, when the clock ticks round again – as it inevitably will – our house of cards will blow over like the rest.

Many applauded Malcolm Turnbull as he made the most of his share of publicity during the CEO sleep out last week, to raise money for the homeless.

However, Turnbull is part and parcel of a budget and government that exacerbates housing affordability, and by consequence, the very problems he endured a cold night to help ‘solve’.

This is because the government has structured the tax burden to fall predominantly on wages and productivity – which advantages those at the top, who see their landholdings increase way in excess of any taxation or earned income through no individual effort of their own, rather the collective efforts of community investment (items of which I’ve detailed previously) – whilst the productive earners at the bottom of the pile, struggle to make ends meet.

In other words, by hoarding housing, the rich pay less – the poor pay more.

Unless we restructure our tax and supply policies to address this and reduce land prices, encouraging instead, individual investment into productivity rather than speculation on rising land values. Welfare measures to help the homeless are merely a Band-Aid to capture the increasing number falling foul of the system and never a cure.

Which brings me back to the one question both reporters failed to asked,

“Who are rising property prices good for?”