Republished with kind permission from www.macrobusiness.com.au By Leith van Onselen The Victorian Government has released its 2013-14 Annual Financial Report, which revealed a $2 billion surplus in 2013-14 – the largest Budget surplus recorded for the state in 15 years.…
Prosper Australia shocked the Senate Economics Committee inquiry into Housing affordability with the view we have no supply constraints – because rents haven’t budged. They have been hearing from every vested interest that Supply! Supply!! Supply! is the key…
The lack of intervention by the RBA over recent years has left the Australian banking system facing an inevitable confrontation. A confrontation that will suck the very life out of the Australian economy; and our way of life. Lets face it, incomes, and GDP are simply not keeping up with the banks toxic spending binge.
If the RBA and our economic mandarins observe a national strategic advantage they have an obligation to foster it and deploy it to the advantage of all. One of ours is space. We have chosen to welcome migration, dig up minerals, grow crops and animals – but also to strictly ration by price the access to land for young adults.
There is a better revenue base available to Victoria today: State Land Tax. Just remove its exemptions, thresholds and wheezes and consign Stamp Duty to the scrapheap. That SLT has deadweight losses of nil, so no wasted lives or people trapped in and out of housing.
If the Grattan thimkers wanted to reignite prosperity and national competitiveness, they would look at the cost of land – for Rural, Manufacturing and Services, for business and for workers alike. Inexpensive land de-risks all economic activity. We have been bloody fools to abandon this vital natural advantage to the ticket –clippers.
By Catherine Cashmore, a market analyst, journalist, and policy thinker, with extensive industry experience in all aspects relating to property. Follow Catherine on Twitter or via her Blog. I had the good fortune to meet two investors from Dallas Texas last week – visiting…
The weighted net annual rate of return on land investment in Melbourne 1880-92 was a remarkably high 34.6 per cent, peaking at 78.3 per cent in 1887, according to a fascinating paper researcher Philip Soos has unearthed Rates…
By Catherine Cashmore Reposted from Macrobusiness In the final hours of Federal Parliament for 2013, Labor Senator Jan McLucas succeeded in establishing an inquiry by the Economics References Committee, in addressing Australia’s growing housing affordability crisis, stating; “…pressures on affordability…
Alan Kohler is out this morning on Business Spectator with a big swipe at Conservative state governments. Yes, that is conservative with a capital ‘C’. He sees at last the destruction the cost of land is wreaking from Port Hedland…