My site for today is Renegade Economist. Please check it out at renegadeeconomist.com, or click on the link in my list of site links in this blog.
This site came to my attention when I was watching Max Keiser's brilliant half-hour show on RTV last night (see my previous post with Max as my Man of the Day). He was interviewing an economist by the name of Fred Harrison (the 'Renegade Economist') who was offering his views on why the current global economic system, especially in the USA and UK, is so geared towards constant 'boom and bust' cycles that average 18 years.
What I especially liked about what Mr. Harrison had to say was his insistence that the system is so bad and so prone to busts because of the way taxation revenue is generated by governments. I'm no economist, but I believe what he said is that the current tax regimes of taxing people's incomes never allows true growth to occur. It suppresses wages, obviously eats into net earnings and allows for less money in the economy. Rather, he argues, taxation should be based solely on the one asset that always values the most over the longer-term, namely land. By taxing land ownership, and not people's incomes, government will, in fact, according to him, generate more income and allow people to fully bear the fruits of their production, i.e. their wages, non-land generated income, etc.
He is convinced that this taxation model (which I'm sure is alot more complex than what I have stated above, and which I need to further understand myself) will be more equitable, be far less onerous on the lower- and middle-classes, and more fairly tax where the money really is, i.e. in land ownership.
He does acknowledge that there is currently no political will whatsoever to overhaul a system that is over a hundred years old but is convinced his system is worth trying out. Let's face it, in my opinion this economic system of constant booms and busts simply cannot be 'the best' solution that there is to the world's economy or even to economies in individual countries.
What I also liked is how he spoke of a 'sustainable' economic system that is not prone to the ridiculous highs and terrible lows of the current system. Sustainability is what I'm about, and a more sustainable, far less erratic (not to mention often grossly skewered) economic system is part of that sustainability for the future.
A free market at all costs is NOT the answer.
In a world commandeered by economists, bankers and politicians who genuflect quasi-religiously and without question to the rightwing, elitist and absolutist tenets of the 'Chicago School' of economics (and its guru, the despicable Milton Friedman), we need to hear the voices and opinions of economists like Fred Harrison.
Below I have taken the liberty of directly quoting from one of the pages on this website. If you like what you read, explore further, okay.
"Fred Harrison is one of a band of renegade thinkers who challenge the misinformation being purveyed by once trusted political and financial institutions.
Governments and central bankers are scrambling to understand how they allowed the global financial crisis to occur. They rationalise these events (to avoid blame being pinned on them) while searching for ways to mitigate the damage inflicted on the global economy.
In 1997 Harrison warned Tony Blair and Gordon Brown that the British economy was heading for disaster. They didn’t listen. He then spent a decade telling politicians and central bankers how to avoid the looming crisis. They didn’t listen.
In 2005 his book Boom Bust: House Prices, Banking and the Depression of 2010 enjoyed substantial public response, which inspired this website. The Renegade Economist exists to challenge the increasingly desperate measures adopted in response to the deepening global depression."
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