Workers are overtaxed and 'double-billed': they pay tax on income, which funds public goods that raise their rent. The late economist Fred Foldvary said this is a major cause of income inequality and why we should tax land instead of wages.

The key to shorter workweeks is better sharing common wealth from nature and technology: - shifting income taxes to land value (by far the biggest sink of disposable incomes) - AI dividends that let everyone share in the productivity gains

1 in 2 Canadians say they're spending ALL income on basic expenses and will never get ahead. It's hard not to feel paralyzed when most of your paycheque goes to housing and taxes. To fix this, tax land instead of work to bring down prices and let working people get ahead.

"We should have a shift from taxing earned incomes to taxing wealth and ecological invasions of our commons, and thereby build up a Commons Fund from which we could pay a basic income." - Guy Standing

The greatest conflict of interest: 95% of Canadian MPs own property, 40%+ are landlords. "They definitely don't want the price to go down because they need the money." Nobody in office is saying it: homes can't both be good investments and affordable.

Huge housing price growth despite weak economy, or driving a weak economy? Every dollar sunk into land rents is a dollar not producing anything of value for humanity. We need to tax land, not productivity.

Jeff Bezos: "The bottom half workers pay 3% of all taxes – it should be zero" There is a much better option than taxing working people. If the goal is fairness, start with land. It benefits from society's productivity without contributing back.

Toronto landlord who owns 30,000 houses explains why young people don't want homes. Remember, your income is taxed way more than their land profits.

Vinod Khosla on UBI

BNN Bloomberg acknowledged that no study of basic income has found a meaningful reduction in work. What it does do is let people take risks leading to better careers.

"It really seems like UBI is going to be absolutely necessary at the very least as a stopgap measure" — Dave Shapiro, post-labor economics pioneer and author of Labor/Zero

Income and property taxes punish workers and builders. Why do we keep doing it? Tax land instead - to fix housing and reward productivity.

Alaska's oil dividend paid yearly to every resident creates the missing link between citizens and their rights & duties to their natural resources. It's an exemplary model of paying common dividends from common wealth, which Canada and the provinces would do well to follow.

Rising land prices are the biggest contributor to growing net worths, not incomes from work or other investments. To reduce inequality and build a stronger economy, tax land.

Victoria's land tax freed up supply and lowered prices for families. That's what we want. "From an affordability perspective, home values being flat or falling is actually good news" "the loss of property investors has been offset by first home buyers returning"

One of the greatest thinkers of all time believed taxing the increase of land wealth is consistent with the principles of individual liberty and private property. Land value is created by the community, but enriches the owner.

Toronto's biggest housing advocate says tax land, not work

Paying everyone dividends from wealth we all have a moral claim to - whether that's natural resources, social wealth funds, or AIs trained on our data - is how we achieve Keynes' vision of 20-hour workweeks. It's how we achieve a Star Trek economy.

There are 2 markets for homes: 1) for living 2) for wealth creation These 2 are fundamentally at odds. Homes can't both be affordable and great investments.

Let's reward workers, not punish them. Quillette founder makes a powerful, common-sense case for why we should we should replace income tax with LVT.

We could virtually eliminate income tax for Canadians if we better taxed land and resource rents instead. Instead, working families are getting the snot taxed out of them while rents rise.

"There has been a plunder of the commons... and they've been turned into sources of huge rental income. That is illegitimate, that is unjust, that has no moral principle justifying what's been happening and we should be very angry." — Guy Standing

"My paycheck goes straight to rent -- there's nothing left." How many Canadians see 50-100% of their income get sucked up by land rents and income taxes? We should untax work, and shift taxes to the rental value of land.

Excited to be working on a new approach to a land value tax that would be legal in WA state. Tax buildings less and land more and you'll get more new buildings and less vacant land. It's a non-zoning solution for mitigating the housing shortage, and it's value capture done right.

Stamp duty and council tax are terrible taxes. Land value tax could replace both - and Andy Burnham has backed it for 16 years. Who wins? Who loses? What happens to house prices? LVT could drive growth. But it isn’t easy. Our model shows its promise - and its problems.

Excellent thread and blog this.

"We have enough flippin' tax" Yes, on things that make society better and more productive, like work and building homes. We should shift those taxes to land value instead.

Work creates value—sitting on land shouldn't make you rich. New York wants to fix that by taxing land instead of buildings. That goes to the very heart of what's driving our housing crisis.

Our housing crisis in a nutshell

The public has funded many technologies that today fuel massive private sector rents (excess profit). Economist Mariana Mazzucato believes we should better share this co-created wealth, through policies like citizen's dividends.

This realtor identified the right problem: land as a long-term investment. He circles around the solution, but never quite lands on it though. Land value tax solves this (replace taxes on income and building.)

UBC's Patrick Condon has 3 solutions to the housing crisis, and it's all about land. 1. Stop using tax dollars to boost demand even more. 2. Capture land value to benefit the public, not speculators. 3. Use that value to build affordable housing.

"To fight inequality, tax land." — Peter Orszag, CEO of Lazard

Also, for my fellow Seattleites, note this, from @mayorofseattle.bsky.social: "Finally, under my leadership Seattle will join Spokane in advocating for a Land Value Tax as an alternative option to the property tax, that would also create an incentive to put rundown properties to better use."

Also check out this piece from @danbertolet.bsky.social at @sightline.org, which has done a ton of great work on land value taxes.

Read/listen all about how a "land value tax" can discourage land speculation & encourage dense building on the highest value land, ie, land near urban cores. www.volts.wtf/p/want-less-...

1/ Sen. Sanders recently introduced legislation that would tax the largest AI companies’ stock to fund a sovereign wealth fund that pays the American people a 5% annual dividend. 🧵⬇️

Dividends from AI ensure that accelerating automation will continue to benefit humanity, even if humans get displaced en masse.

You've heard of universal basic income. What about universal basic capital? Billionaire Nicolas Berggruen says it's how we tackle inequality and give citizens a stake in a nation's success. "As opposed to taxing the robots, why not own the robots?"

Canada should have a sovereign wealth fund that pays dividends to all and invests for future generations. It's how we leverage our nation's advantages in natural resources, technology, and finance to build common wealth for all Canadians.

BC land value "increased by over $1 trillion over a decade. It tripled." — Paul Finch, President of BC General Employees' Union This is the largest transfer of public to private wealth happening before our eyes.

Tax lazy lands, not hard-working humans.

When you hear housing crisis, think land crisis.

"I have long been a supporter of taxing land value. Such a tax would be economically efficient and morally just." — Martin Wolf, Chief Economics Commentator of the Financial Times

The future of work is going to be weird To prepare ourselves, everyone should have equity in the economy. Building common wealth for all through universal capital, sovereign wealth funds, and AI dividends.

Adam Smith, the godfather of capitalism, strongly believed that we should tax land, not workers. Why tax what people have earned? We should tax what people have not earned. That would encourage more housing and make our economy work better.

Albert Einstein likely supported 19th-century economist Henry George's idea of taxing land value instead of income, to build a fairer and more productive society.

Canada has several provincial/territorial wealth funds that invest resource rents on behalf of citizens. Fraser Institute suggests that NL's Future Fund distribute Alaska-style dividends to residents. CCPA estimates NL fund could grow to $165B by 2050 under optimistic scenario.

Our biggest challenges in housing, poverty, and productivity stem from our relationship to land. No policy will make homes affordable or end poverty without making land a worse long-term investment.

Our deepest challenges — inequality, poverty, housing — stem from the fact that we're still rivalling over common resources like land and the value of nature. Today, Alaska's oil dividend is a model of sharing common wealth that Canada and the provinces should follow.