Currency

@andrewmcpherson If I recall right, you have mentioned that you have read the Land Dollar proposal of the New Economics Party. Yet you refer to the name Land Dollar and state things that I cannot relate to their policy.

The land distributed through the Land Dollar system is given to the people who utilise the land for long terms. E.g. land used for housing would be given to the people living there for either until it is returned (because of leaving the residence) or because of death. Whatever comes later. For that time a fee is charged not higher than the perpetual costs for a mortgage on the land value. The formal ownership remains within the almende. So the council is not managing the resources at all.

@hubatmcjuhes so you would be indebted to the council for life as compared to a twenty year mortgage ?
That is why I say it is economic servitude, as the typical mortgage will be paid off before retirement, and in the cases like my in-laws where the mortgage is not paid by retirement... The children have left home and the house can be downsized, leaving a significant amount of spare money to enjoy in retirement.

In short I have severe problems with a system which is less fair than capitalism.
I will outline why later today.

@hubatmcjuhes the reason I said that company tax is only payable in NZD is because I am assuming that all but my rates will still be taxed by the national government. Thus they will not accept local currency to settle tax debit.

The other point that you raise about land dollars being stable, and having no room for speculation would only hold if there was no trade between land dollars. If trade is allowed, one land dollar is going to be worth more then other land dollars. As soon as there is a difference in value, someone is going to try to exploit this difference, as soon as that happens then you get a demand difference.

My other point about massive debit held by councils, currently land is owned by someone. Lets say a town/city wants to expand into new areas. The land they want to use is owned by a farmer, for the council to be able to give away the use of this land they will need to compensate the farmer, they could either borrow the money (in NZD) from a bank and buy it that way or print some value of land dollars. Assume the land dollar purchase, the farmer now has a very large sum of capital in a time sensitive currency, what he is most likely to do with it is purchase a smaller property in town, leaving him with some large but diminished sum of capital. The most continent way to get his time sensitive currency into non-time sensitive currency is to exchange it for NZD, thus increasing the volatility of the local currency market.

Further to the post above, assume the farmer tries to exchange his large portion of land dollars, thus increasing liquidity of the market. This increase in available land dollars will push the price down, thus decreasing the value of every ones land dollars.

The only way to control this is for the council (controlling body) to remove some of the land dollars from circulation. People are not just going to give up something of value for no reward, so the council will have to buy them back. The only way to do this is to borrow NZD to buy the excess land dollars in circulation.

I lost my original reply while picking up my partner from hospital.
In every case that I look at the Land Dollar scheme, it is manifestly more unfair than capitalism and thereby I can not in all honesty support it as an idea worth entertaining.
It seems designed to increase council holdings at the sole expense of the poor ratepayers who will do worse depending on how unpopular their local area is to live in.
This basically centralises the demand for housing in the main centres and stuffs up the rural economy.
Considering that Jamie Whyte's "Aotearoa Legalise Bestiality party" (ACT) & National will mobilise every one of their potential voters on this issue, if we got this into a coalition policy it would be a serious vote loser.

So, I'm going to say that given that it will enrage the sheep sheering / sheep shagging sector, it shouldn't be adopted as a policy that will muck up the economy.

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http://themoneyfix.org/