The Henry George Institute

Maybe some of my blogger friends would like to have a look at thie page about the Henry George Institute. Personally I agree very much with the Henry George philosophy that the earth should be shared and that people should be allowed to keep the fruit of their labour.

121 East 30th Street, New York, NY 10016
Email: teacher@henrygeorge.org

is incorporated as a non-profit organization in New York State. Founded in 1971, it is a membership organization supported by dues and contributions. In the belief that the philosophy of Henry George has important answers to today’s urgent problems, the Institute is established to promote this philosophy by educational means. Here is our current list of members.

You can join the HGI, renew dues, or make a contribution right here!

The Institute offers

distance-learning courses via the Internet and regular mail. Our three-course series in Principles of Political Economy includes Understanding Economics, Applied Economics: Globalization and Trade and Economic Science. These courses may be taken separately, but together they provide a comprehensive overview of basic economic theory and issues. The Principles of Political Economy series is recommended for college credit. For more information, Click here.

An additional advanced course explores Human Rights (by regular mail only). A certificate is given at the end of each course.

For the study of political economy you need no special knowledge, no extensive library, no costly laboratory. You do not even need text-books nor teachers, if you will but think for yourselves. All that you need is care in reducing complex phenomena to their elements, in distinguishing the essential from the accidental, and in applying the simple laws of human action with which you are familiar. — Henry George
Statement of purpose

In accordance with the philosophy of Henry George, the Henry George Institute holds that all persons have a right to the use of the earth and that all have a right to the fruits of their labor. To implement these rights it is proposed that the rent of land be taken by the community as public revenue, and that all taxes on labor and the fruits of labor be abolished. The Institute believes with George that “liberty means justice and justice is the natural law,” and that the social and economic ills besetting the world today are the result of non-conformance to natural law. The Institute pledges itself to bring this philosophy to the attention of the public by all suitable means.

We invite

interested persons who are in accord with the Georgist philosophy to join. Annual dues are $20; contributions above this amount are welcome, and all contributions are tax deductible.

Members receive

a membership card, a copy of the By-laws, notices of meetings and other communications, and The Georgist Journal, an international quarterly of news and exchange of views. Members are eligible to vote in the annual election for the Board of Directors and Nominating Committee.

For a sample copy of the Georgist Journal, click here.

Understanding Economics

Board of Directors, 2014

Gordon Dickson Abiama
Wyn Achenbaum
Hanno T. Beck
George L. Collins
Marcial A. Cordon
Mike Curtis
Mason Gaffney
Gilbert Herman
Nicholas David Rosen
Jacob Shwartz-Lucas
Mark A. Sullivan
Sue Walton

This map bears a stamp from every country in which the HGI has had students.
You can join online

Just complete the form below. NOTE: Please use this form if you want to become a member of the Henry George Institute. When you click the button below, you’ll have an opportunity to remit your dues, either online or by mail. If you want information on our correspondence courses, please click here.

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Obama’s Privatization Agenda

Who wants privatization? What can people do to prevent it?

The Most Revolutionary Act

Guest post by Steven Miller

(This is the 3^rd of 6 guest posts in which Miller describes how Obama is re-engineering society on behalf of the ruling elite.)

Part III – Obama’s Privatization Agenda

From Obama’s State of the Union Address:

“So, tonight, I propose a “Fix-It-First” program to put people to work as soon as possible on our most urgent repairs, like the nearly 70,000 structurally deficient bridges across the country. And to make sure taxpayers don’t shoulder the whole burden, I’m also proposing a Partnership to Rebuild America that attracts private capital to upgrade what our businesses need most: modern ports to move our goods; modern pipelines to withstand a storm; modern schools worthy of our children.” (9)

This statement is a call for privatization that follows the speculative agenda described previously. Supposedly “to save taxpayer’s money”, the President offers corporations ownership of the public infrastructure…

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My Beliefs

“Thanks for telling us about your history. I found it fascinating. I have always admired your positive outlook on life and also not being afraid to speak out and make comments on political events and standing up for your beliefs. thank you.”

It is great to get a comment like this one that Elizabeth made in response to my previous post. I hope I am telling the truth when I say I probably always had a rather positive outlook on life. Even during times when I felt very down there was always hope at the back of my mind that things would turn out all right. Something comes to mind what I did when I felt depressed: I looked for people I could talk to about my problems.

My problems resulted mainly from a feeling of self doubt. I doubted that I was any good to anyone. One day a friend of mine told me: “You know, God does not make rubbish!” This simple statement somehow brought about a change in my thinking. I started to believe that I must have some kind of value. I started to accept myself the way I was. I think Peter did not like me to have friends that were not his friends. But I told him that I needed people to talk to. I said that I just could not talk solely to him all the time.

In my last post I said that some things I could not change as for instance the war- and post-war conditions. In the meantime I talked with Peter again about our dear first born daughter who passed away on the 15th of July 2012. She was a very strong willed, loving and courageous woman. Yes, I say woman for she was close to 55 when she died. Even though, in a lot of ways she seemed to us a bit like a teenager right until the day she died. But these days women stay younger for longer, right?

The daughter’s name was Gabriele. We called her Gaby. Some Australians called her “Gabby” which I think was fitting for she liked to talk a lot. So she was a good organiser, a good talker and had an outgoing personality. However she was a quadriplegic with breathing difficulties. Some of my blogger friends may remember that I mentioned this before. Gaby was not the intellectual type. She never got around to doing university studies. But I believe she made of her life as much as was possible under the circumstances.

When Gaby ended up in hospital as a four year old, she soon started bossing every one around. The very motherly head sister called her “the boss” of the ward. Who knows what career Gaby could have had had she been able growing up without these extremely severe disabilities! A vaccination against poliomyelitis could have prevented Gaby falling sick during the 1961 polio epidemic. Peter and I assured us again and again that we were not neglectful since the vaccine was not available at the right time. It was a disastrous set of circumstances. Still, the regret is there of course. Peter would say it was fate, I say it was the will of God. Gaby understood the position we were in. We did whatever we could do for her throughout her life. And she always showed us that she loved us! She was a “pain in the neck” as the saying goes, but she also had a very big and generous heart. Gaby was loved and admired by a great many people. She had a marvellous memory for faces and names. And she liked to keep in touch with every one in our family.

I wish that some things could have been different. But I have to accept that some circumstances could not be changed. The decisions I made during my life always felt right at the time, even though later on I sometimes doubted whether I had made the right decision. I think with most important decisions like marrying and having children I overcame any doubts. There is one decision I certainly never regretted: Our coming to Australia. I regard it as a blessing that we were accepted as migrants in 1959. Coming to Australia for me was the best decision we ever made. I never had any doubts about this.

We always wish

I thank Ajaytao for these words of wisdom and want to reblog them and write some thoughts about my own life.

Turning 80 this year I can say that I have had a good life. Even now at this advanced stage in my life I can still enjoy life and do not find it too hard to cope with age related aches and pains. Do I wish I could have changed something in my life? Oh yes, I wished I could have changed not having had to grow up in Germany during wartime and the difficult postwar years. Of course these are things we cannot change. But WW II for sure turned me in an antiwar person for the rest of my life.

False advertising, propaganda, and outright lies, these are the things I am very sensitive to. Blame my childhood experiences. I learned early on that you cannot believe everything a leader might tell you. We lived like paupers after the war. I went to school till I was eighteen, but I did not apply myself. I never learned to study hard. Probably I could not see any sense in it. At eighteen I started secretarial work. A few years later came marriage and children and migration to Australia.

Ever since I left school (and during my school years as well!) I had very little money to live on. However I was never desperate for more money. Throughout my life my motto was I have to make do with the little money I have. It turned out that somehow it was always enough. My husband and I are very good savers. We paid off our house with a building society loan. The first few second hand cars we bought on hire purchase. Apart from that we never went into debt. When we travelled overseas we used our own saved up money.

Do I wish I could have changed my past? Sure I would have liked to grow up without the deprivations of war. I would have liked my father to be home all the time. I would have liked my parents to live together after the war. These are things I definitely could not have changed. What could I have changed? Study hard, go to university, end up in a profession I would have loved to work in? Well, it was not to be. I did not have the guts to study hard.

Even though we were rather poor the first few years in Australia, I did not feel poor. I was happy having a family and I enjoyed the easy going Australian lifestyle. How much did I change over the years? Maybe not all that much. I am probably basically still the person I was when I came to Australia aged 25. Some major changes in my education would probably have been possible before I even entered high-school. I was just easy going at school, always got good marks without much effort; except towards the end of my school career at commercial school, which I hated!

I remember as a teenager I spent hours dreaming about a wonderful person who would come along and give me some guidance. I never did get to know such a person, except in my dreams! But I was very happy later on with romance and married life and children. Well, I must say, I am quite happy with the way things turned out to be in my personal life. Still, one thinks sometimes how things could have been somewhat different.

Federal court case opens on Muckaty Station nuclear waste dump Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/federal-court-case-opens-on-muckaty-station-nuclear-waste-dump

I am upset that nuclear waste dumps are needed at all. But to want to have one on traditional Aboriginal land I find outrageous!

Aussie Justice

Aboriginal leader Diane Stokes. The Northern Land Council did not obtain traditional Aboriginal owners’ consent or consult with them before nominating sacred land in the Northern Territory for a nuclear waste dump, a court has heard.

The council – set up to help Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory manage their traditional lands – nominated a section of Muckaty Station as the location of the waste dump in 2007.

Traditional landowners have opposed the move for almost a decade, many of whom say Muckaty Station is a sacred site for various traditional ceremonies, including male initiation ceremonies, on a site called Karakara.

Plans to acquire the land for the dump have been halted ever since, pending the outcome of a long-awaited legal challenge. The case, expected to go for five weeks, began in the Federal Court in Melbourne on Monday.

Ron Merkel, QC, for the indigenous applicants, told the court there had been no…

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The End of Men?

The End of Men? Gee, I hope not. Recently a documentary called “The End of Men” was shown at around 3 am. I asked Peter to record it. I wanted to see what it was about. So we watched it now. A number of American PH D people made comments on this subject. They talked about unemployed men in the USA, what difficulties they face and that many of the traditional male jobs are gone.

They showed how it affects families. The male breadwinner may have lost his job, whereas the wife could keep her job. She is out of the house all day. He is home looking after the children, if they have small children. If he stays at home all day by himself, he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He tries to do a bit of house keeping, often not to the satisfaction of the wife. They have arguments and in a lot of cases the women then ask for a divorce. They do not need the man any more!

Some men try to adjust. Looking for a totally different job from the one they did before. Some try to improve their education. One of the commentators pointed out that more and more men try to get into jobs that were traditionally more female jobs. A lot of the traditionally male jobs are gone forever.

The so called “macho” man is not very much in demand any more in our society, just being made redundant. It is obvious that under these circumstances macho men have a hard time to adjust. I think maybe we could say it is the end of macho men in our society. The women who in the past did like macho men, well, I think they have to adjust too!

Personally I would not like a woman as a sex partner. However, I prefer to live with a man who does not insist on being a macho man. It seems to me it is a good thing for our society if men in general become less macho. If the world became less macho, maybe it would become a more peaceful world?

The End of Men? No way. A society consisting only of women does not look very promising to me. I reckon it is important to have both sexes in our lives. But let’s acknowledge that in every man there are and should be some feminine traits and in women there can be feminine and male traits side by side.

How Jackson, Lawler and Abbott tangled Thomson with the HSU

Histoire Through Histoires

ONCE A POLE, ALWAYS A POLE – 25 YEARS OF POLAND´S DEMOCRACY

I think it is a very good experience to look at the 25 things to love about Poland.

KREUZBERGED - BERLIN COMPANION

It´s been 25 years since that Poland I was born in disappeared for ever. Do I miss it? Of course – who doesn´t miss Home. Would I like to go back there? Why do you think did I marry a German?:-)

Here´s a short summary of those 25 years between today and 1989 shown through the things that are considered to make the country special in 2014.

Whatever was before that, however, was my life, too.

(Please click the image below)

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The Budget, Housing and the State of Economics

I received the following as an email already on the 26th of May. I am a bit late in thinking about publishing it. But it might still interest some bloggers in Australia who are interested in Earthsharing & Prosper’s insights on budget, housing and the state of economics

I ask myself, why are capital gains ignored in the budget?

THE ENEWS OF PROSPER & EARTHSHARING AUSTRALIA
MAY 2014

The state of economics

Welcome to the second Evolving Economics enews, combining the Earthsharing and Prosper Australia news lists. This knowledge is important in an age of entitlements, where welfare is demonised and unearned incomes (a.k.a. capital gains) are ignored. Take a quick look at these budget costs:

Jobseekers – $10bn p.a
Family Tax Benefits – $19bn
National Disability Insurance – $17bn
Medicare – $20bn
Imputed rents (unrealised capital gains) – $484bn in residential real estate alone.

So why tax students, the poor and the productive when so much revenue potential exists in economic rents?

With much talk about the ‘1996 Howard Costello tough budget’, we are reminded of the change since. In 1996, First Home Owners borrowed just $95,000 on average. Today that has more than tripled to $303,000. Wages have only increased by $214%, compared to 319% in housing (read land) costs.

This federal budget will cost the poorest 20% of the population, the lowest quintile, $2.9 billion over four years. However the wealthiest 20%, those earning $88,000 or more, will pay just $1.78 billion – 40% less.

It is time the public spoke up on the record capital gains occurring in housing, mining and other natural monopolies. That is our specialty here on the Evolving Economics enews. We hope you find this information of use and can join us to maintain this knowledge base, continuing to push governments towards a refined economic system that encourages productive activity over speculative largess. See our recent press releases.