Englobo, Speculative Vacancies, the Wealth Illusion‏

Thursday, October 30th, 6.30 – 8pm
Level 2, 22 Punch Lane, Melbourne
Presenter: David Collyer
RSVP, donations appreciated

We hope you will join us tomorrow evening as David Collyer launches Englobo 2014 – Land Banking Profits during a Housing Supply Crisis. The investigation into just how much land Australia’s biggest property developers are holding and the effect on the housing market  is set to be as explosive as ever.

For an introduction to the concept of Englobo and why it matters check out this article from David’s first Englobo investigations in 2012.

Wednesday, November 12th, 6.30pm
Level 2, 22 Punch Lane, Melbourne
Presenter: Catherine Cashmore
RSVP, donations appareciated

The 7th Speculative Vacancies report will again raise awareness of the need for property held for capital gains to be included in Australia’s housing vacancy measures. Only looking at ‘housing for rent’ is not accurate as a vacancy measure in this investor-dominated market. Our vacancy rate typically doubles the vacancy findings the mainstream media quotes. With the capital gains in the land game regularly tripling the yearly rental incomes available, there is less and less motivation for investors to risk their kitchen cupboards on a ‘reckless renter’. Catherine Cashmore, the winner of the EJ Craigie writing award, will inject her unique investigative manner to this year’s report.

The final vacancy numbers are again shaping up to reveal a jaw-dropping number of under-utilised properties in this era of the Housing Supply Crisis.

Please save the date and invite your friends feeling the housing stress!

Earlier this month Credit Suisse released their latest Global Wealth Report which found that based on our extremely high house prices Australians are the richest people in the world. In contrast to most of the media Warwick Smith cuts through the illusion in this article reposted to the Prosper website:

“The true beneficiaries of ever increasing real estate prices are the banks and other lenders. Most Australians spend a very significant proportion of their incomes paying interest to the banks, either directly on their own mortgages or indirectly via their landlords. The higher house prices go, the more income is captured by the banks. Saddling our young people with a lifetime of debt is not a cause for celebration, it’s a problem to tackle.”

Also at Prosper Leith van Onselen discusses how to get the states on board with federal tax reform and cites Prof. John Freebairn’s address from this year’s Henry George Dinner.

The “sharing economy” is in the spotlight again with Salon writer Richard Eskow warning that we’rebuying into a digital myth about wealth creation that we can only ignore at our own peril:

“These corporations are monopolists – and much more. They’ve quickly assumed extraordinary influence over our lives. They control what we know, what we see and how we spend our time. They decide who knows our most intimate secrets. They are acquiring the kind of power totalitarian governments of the past could only dream about.”

As Facebook, Amazon and Uber exert every increasing influence on the market – and our lives, it’s time to make sure we are truly paying attention.

Much has been written on the many achievements of great reforming Prime Minister Gough Whitlam since the news of his death and we would like to recommend adding this article by John Pilger to your reading list. Pilger explores Whitlam’s radical attitude towards foreign policy and our colonial ties as a forgotten but critical factor in his political demise.

“Australia briefly became an independent state during the Whitlam years, 1972-75. An American commentator wrote that no country had “reversed its posture in international affairs so totally without going through a domestic revolution”. Whitlam ended his nation’s colonial servility.”

If you missed the last few editions of Renegade Economists make sure you head to our Mixcloud pageand check them out. Matt Ellis from Rational Radical joins Karl for a lively discussion about his petition calling out Senator Nick Xenophon for pushing superannuation access as a vehicle for housing affordability. Last week Karl was joined by Jacob Wills (radicalhousingnetwork.org) to discuss the commodification of housing and the protest movement against the international property convention that was just held in London.

On a lighter note, the G20 summit is fast approaching and we highly recommend giving this latest addition of the Rap News a listen.

As always thanks for your support. You can get involved via our website, or head to our twitter feeds where there’s always plenty of lively discussion – @earthsharing & @don’tbuynow.

See you tomorrow evening for Englobo,
Jess Wright
Office Manager.