photo credit: notsogoodphotography

Can land tenure reforms eliminate the neo-Malthusian poverty-environment trap?

High birth rates predominantly occur where health and education is low. This in turn results from a negligent revenue raising system. Check the United Nations World Population Prospects report list of population growth rates by country and you will see a dominance in the higher echelons of poorer countries.

Ethiopian farmers have 8 kids because they know only a few will survive. When resource rents are recycled amongst the people rather than into the deepest pockets of the wealthiest, respectable health and education funding is possible.

This critique of Malthusianism by no means discounts the immense challenges we face with desertification, water scarcity or wilting crop yields. We are interested in opening up the discussion to the wider market imperfections that lead to higher populations, the ignorance of eco-systems AND the speculative lure of commodity markets.

Whilst cultural and religious aspects may impact on population growth rates, the effect of the wealth gap dominates. The health olympics is a worthy study which re-iterates that regardless of the health spending, unless the over-riding economic policy encourages opportunity and equality, health efforts will be undermined. We need to be able to put food on the table to remain healthy.

photo credit: robertpaulyoung

There is little doubt that Zimbabwean-like land grabs will occur on our doorstep if current economic policy continues. The policy alternative we spell out below could pop the fuse to the frustration that led to Zimbabwean land grabs and the simmering tensions in Fiji.

With the Pacific Islands rapidly privatising from kastomeray land title in the last decade or so, the growing pains of adjusting to the outright ownership of natural resources is continually rearing it’s head. We have written about Vanuatu before and hold great fears for countries such as Papau New Guinea, West Papau and small island nations like Maluku. Why? Because there is something intrinsically wrong with the current notion of ‘private property rights’.

Read this story on death and destruction in PNG over a gold producing piece of land in Morobe Province near the controversial Hidden Valley goldmine:

The newspaper, The National, reports that fighting erupted when a land dispute over ownership of the McAdam National Park between Wau and Bulolo came to a head as Watut tribesmen gathered in Wau in their hundreds and staged an early morning attack on the villages of Biangai tribe.

The violence left three people dead, several injured, houses and property destroyed, and forced the temporary shutdown of the Hidden Valley gold mine and the evacuation of employees.

A Watut man was allegedly killed recently by Biangais over a gold-bearing piece of land on the national park, which is said to have sparked the tension.

How can one man be said to ‘own’ a piece of land, especially one that has gold underneath it? Did he create this gold? Did he do anything to produce it? No. Now how does this sit with indigenous culture that sees the creator spirit as having gifted the gold to all living beings past, present and future? If the creator gave gold and all other natural resources as a gift, why should white man come along with a black and white ruling to determine that private property is a god given right?

photo credit: Nicholas Gray

Renegade Economist Show 80

as broadcast on www.3cr.org.au on Wed March 11th

Black Screens: Brenda Wallace from the Wellington activist community discusses kiwi government tactics to reduce internet freedoms. Karl is back from NZ and whips through the growing media storm we are building with co-host Alice Bleby. Dont forget Speed Renting next Tues 17th and Phil Anderson’s talk on the Secret Life of Real Estate on the 19th

Show Notes

Thomas Friedman – New York Times:

Let’s today step out of the normal boundaries of analysis of our economic crisis and ask a radical question: What if the crisis of 2008 represents something much more fundamental than a deep recession? What if it’s telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall — when Mother Nature and the market both said: “No more.”

Glenn Prickett, senior vice president at Conservation International. But, he cautioned, as environmentalists have pointed out: “Mother Nature doesn’t do bailouts.”

Tax Miners More
The Australian Financial Review’s John Kehoe reports that:

“To create a tax on our natural resources would not only protect them but also shift the tax burden onto products with a low elasticity of demand and provide more consistent revenue streams.” said the Qantas chief financial office Colin Storrie and Virgin Blue CFO Keith Neate.

Breaking in on the Rent Seekers – Bryan Kavanagh (LVRG)
As published in the Age today (Business Opinion page)

So, Australian Bureau of Statistics Catalogue No. 5506.0 now tells us that we collected less than $40 billion from taxes on ‘property’ in 2007. Although publicly-generated land rent was $325 billion, we chose to fine labour and capital to the extent of some $285 billion for daring to work, allowing eighty-six percent of Australia’s land rent to be privately capitalised into the bubble – and thereby establishing the conditions necessary for an extraordinary financial collapse.

photo credit: derekkeats

Mark Braund
Guardian UK

The South African government’s recent decision to abandon its Expropriation Bill, aimed at addressing the painfully slow pace of …

photo credit: laurenatclemson

Michael Hudson

July 14, 2008

I am writing this article about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while sitting in the Queens Botanical Garden. This was not my plan today. The central air conditioning in my apartment broke down six weeks ago, and still has not been fixed. (It’s a nice condominium building, but accidents happen.) It is over 90 degrees outside, and nearly 100 as a result of the greenhouse effect in my apartment. Yesterday I took refuge in the Forest Hills Public Library, but it is closed on Sunday. One of the few libraries near public transport that normally is open on Sunday is in Flushing. So I went there to write the final draft describing the past week’s financial turmoil.

Unfortunately, when I got to the Flushing Public Library, a lady explained that because of the city’s budget cuts, the library no longer would be open on Sundays. Already before noon, when it was supposed to open, a large number of Chinese were waiting to get in, expecting to use the books and computer terminals. There was no sign explaining the situation in Chinese, and they continued to wait as I went down Main Street to the Botanical Garden.

At first glance this might not seem to have much to do with the turmoil of the last few days over the fate of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac or the real estate markets they have helped inflate over the past decade. But actually, my experience today has everything to do with this topic. These two semi-public mortgage-packaging companies dominate the nation’s mortgage market and have supported real estate prices by steering over $5 trillion to enable homebuyers to bid higher and higher prices for homes, earning billions of dollars of bonuses, profits and interest for the bankers, mortgage brokers and Wall Street debt packagers who are the financial beneficiaries of the real estate bubble.