Georgist Conference on Zoom, Part One

On Tuesday, July 7, 2020, we held a Zoom session, to which I had posted a link, in which Ted Gwartney spoke about Progress and Poverty, reviewing Henry George’s early life, travel to British Columbia and California, and finding work as a printer, typesetter, and journalist. He and his family experienced hardship themselves, and as an intellectual, he read books and thought hard about the causes of chronic poverty and periodic depressions. In Henry George’s time, as is true today, there were homeless people living on the streets of San Francisco.

Gwartney provided some data from Australia, since Australia has good records on this kind of thing: From 1911 to 2007, wages fell from 85% of GNP to 48%; during that time period, land rents rose from 9% to 28%. 26% of GNP is land and resource rent to private owners, 2% is captured, and taxes, other than on land, are 24% of GNP. If Australia captured all lend rents for the government, it could afford its current level of government spending without any taxes on incomes, sales, or productive businesses. Mr. Gwartney credited Terry Dwyer and Bryan Kavanaugh for these figures.

He said that the coronavirus is leading to evictions, which will tend to put property in the hands of speculators. This happened in California, where Ted Gwartney now lives, in 2009-2011, after the last financial crisis.

To be continued.

Aid with LinkedIn, Please?

Several people are being laid off by a contractor for my employer, and I want to recommend them on LinkedIn, to help them find jobs elsewhere. A friend tried to help me do this, but what’s on her interface is apparently not on my mobile interface. There should be a Recommend icon beneath the More button on someone’s profile, but I don’t have that (there are four icons that don’t help). Does anyone know what to do?

If you can help me with this, one or more of eight people may be able to find jobs.