Do not pass go. Inside Housing piece

Good title. Inside Housing journalist Alex Wellman asked me for 350 words this week. They cut out the first paragraph.

I'm co-founder of economics think tank, The SFR Group. We integrate the nature of property ownership, privately created tax payer backed finance and taxation. We point out the cause of all repeating economic cycles is rooted in these interlocking structural faults. Current economic thought cannot see this because it treats each individually. “We did not see it coming!” The SFR Group also points to a practicable and just remedy in Location Value Covenants.

What I write here is my personal view as an Occupier. There are many views, all treated with respect. This is an inherent principle of the movement.

I spent 7 weeks camped at the Occupy London protest speaking to a thousand people who had come to ask why we are there and what on earth is going on economically. My approach was not to give them my solution, but to ask what exactly is the problem. Giving people space to move into and the confidence to make up their own minds.

But root cause is still hard to grasp even for Occupiers let alone banks who effectively own most of the land through mortgage assets. The founding social organisations today are privatisation of the commons: virtually tax free private property in land. And socialisation of private property: taxation of wages, salaries and investment. Is this the right way around.

We’ve been taught this is economically sustainable so never question it. Yet everyone wants property because it always rises in value for free. So through each business cycle, property prices are bid upwards by expected future selling price, fuelled by limitless credit and a speculative bubble develops. The ability of people to pay the rising price for a home to live in diminishes. So too an enterprise for a location to produce on, and for higher wages to cover taxation. Eventually both are overwhelmed. Production stops and we have another recession.

But is it just banks that are parasitical. There are 23 million home owners all wanting to keep the income from the rising value of their property. Homeowners are speculating as much as they want property to live in. Try getting a politician to stand up and propose ending this. They would be unelectable for 20 years.

So we do not need any more homes. There are a million empty homes, mostly ready to move into, largely unoccupied for more than 6 months. People cannot afford homes because they are priced speculatively high in this giant pyramid selling scheme we call an economy. A giant game of Monopoly where nearly everyone loses in the end. The system compels everyone to reap where they have not sown. Is it sustainable. Is this sanity.

We mean to fix this by restoring the land to the commons by collecting its community created value for public revenue instead of paying it to banks. And to abolish tax on your work and enterprise.

Yes this is political dynamite too. But what of the alternatives. Are they not worse.