A Land Value Tax (LVT) is a tax on the unimproved value of land. In this video, I explore its benefits, why it hasn't been implemented more broadly, and why I believe it will be. Special thanks to @Strong Towns for informing much of my thinking on this topic. They have fantastic videos! ## LVT is favored by a wide array of economists: libertarian Milton Friedman who called it “the least bad tax,” Adam Smith (“The Father of Capitalism”), Thomas Paine, David Ricardo, Paul Samuelson, and socialist J. Stitt Wilson. “The tax upon land values is the most just and equal of all taxes.” — Henry George, political economist Since WW2, 80% of the developed world’s rising house prices are due to rising land values. Economists prefer the Land Value Tax because land is just about the only commodity that’s essentially fixed, which means the tax cannot be passed onto tenets because a landlord would’ve already been charging the maximum profit they think they could get. In other words, a Land Value Tax doesn’t suffer from the same problem of other taxes where if you increase a tax on a good/service it means fewer companies can afford to start or stay open which means less supply and therefore higher prices. Since the amount of land is fixed, a Land Value Tax is a genuinely progressive tax, in that the owners of valuable land pay more, which therefore reduces inequality. LVT also reduces land speculation. Speculators are parasites on a community. They buy up land so after a neighborhood works to increase its value they can sell it for a profit. A Land Value Tax reduces their profit, which leads to fewer speculators, and therefore lower land prices. Buyers would therefore be people who want to live there and/or develop the property into something that would actually add value. LVT therefore undeniably leads to more economic development, jobs, sustainability, and affordable housing. LVT exists in Denmark, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Pennsylvania, but if it’s so great then why hasn’t it been implemented in more places? Two words: power and money. Homeowners are a powerful voting bloc and speculators are a powerful lobbying group. They have a self-interest in making land/housing EXTREMELY expensive. A lot of pensions and hedge funds also are built upon housing prices going up and up and up. How can they create an artificial bubble? For one, make lending easy (increases demand) so that anyone who wants a home can “buy” one! It’s normal in America for a 20-something to be hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. Two, discourage housing construction (decreases supply) with high property taxes on improvements and strict zoning laws. This may come as a shock to you, but the media and academia ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5I2Ii6ltGI

We all know that education in America is broken, but how to fix it? The mainstream tells us it's because of a lack of funding or too much testing, but in reality, it comes down to power and who has it (hint: not students, parents, taxpayers, non-tenured teachers). In this video, I attempt to go beyond traditional right-wing policies by exploring Degree-by-Examination + Education Savings Accounts (DEESA). ## Democrats are usually the first to blame America’s problems on education. But then that means they’re primarily blaming themselves because they have a virtual monopoly over education. According to FEC data, 87% of high school teachers and 90% of professors are Democrats. Since 1980, the teachers' unions have contributed 30% more to federal campaigns than any other corporation or union, of which 95% has gone to Democrats. It’s therefore unsurprising that Democrats tell us the problem with education is that we don’t give them enough money when in reality America already spends more money per student than virtually any other country on Earth and at any other point in our history! In my home state of New York, which has the second-lowest literacy rate in the country we spend $25K per student. But this isn’t to say our education system is ineffective. It’s just to say that it’s effective at getting money and power. It’s in our oligarchy’s self-interest to get you to support free pre-K and college because rather than tell you what to think for at least 12 years they’d like to do so for at least 18 years because hopefully by then you’ll be a good little conformist. Do you have the critical thinking skills and the intellectual courage to see the truth? Do you understand that the problem with education isn’t a lack of funding, but a lack of freedom? The ultimate question, therefore, is how can students take back control over their education? Well, virtually every Republican politician has been arguing for school vouchers and charter schools for decades, which I support, but yet even in the reddest of red states they’re virtually non-existent. Clearly, Republicans need to return to the whiteboard. On the federal level, we already know we need to abolish the Department of Education and student loans because education is a state responsibility and federal student loans drive up tuition prices on degrees that often don’t reflect market demand. And then on the state level, a state should accredit degrees-by-examination. Any state resident should be able to get a high school diploma, associate’s degree, vocational degree, and bachelor's degree for free purely through examination. If passing an exam without any college is good enough to become an EMT, commercial airline pilot, railroad conductor, electrician, plum ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMYauF3VyaU