I hold a B.S. in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology with a focus on software engineering, information systems, and engineering psychology. I worked for 10 years in the industry on state, federal, military, and commercial applications.
While I reference scripture and the Creator as a means to express natural law, I am agnostic in my religious beliefs. Scripture just happens to agree with me in terms of political economy, which leaves me with a great respect for the scripture, and not so much for those who have faith in the Bible as the truth but who do not believe what the Bible teaches when it comes to political economy.
I come from a Republican and Libertarian background. I was a card-carrying member of the Libertarian Party and contributed significant time and money to the Libertarian Party, their candidates, and other Libertarian projects. I abandoned the Libertarian Party in 2001, because I had intuitive disagreement with a good portion of the Austrian School of Economics and felt consuming too much of the propaganda from the Libertarian Party and Austrian School of Economics had a brainwashing effect, which leads one to deny reality, history, reason, logic, human decency, and science to defend it.
I have since done my own critical thinking and independent research and consider myself to be a classical liberal and a classical progressive, as I try to identify and strike the roots of tyranny. The writings of Dan Sullivan and the documentaries of Bill Still helped me embrace my own economic beliefs. I am a Georgist/Geoist. I am a Geolibertarian. I am a Real Libertarian, not a Royal Libertarian. I do not believe in slavery. I believe your toil is your own. Therefore, I support agrarian and monetary justice.
I do not support theft through policies of economic rent enforced by the government granting title to land. I believe the land is a shared wealth of all. I believe the land owner owes rent to all and should not be allowed to use government-provided title to land to be able to steal economic rent from others who give the land value and who have shared rights to the land.
I do not support theft through policies of usury enforced by the government selecting a legal tender. I believe that legal tender is a means of exchange and a legal creation of the government itself, not a store of wealth or source of stealing wealth, and that the issuance of such should benefit the tax payer, the productive, the job creator, the worker, and the government, who all give legal tender value, not the usurer chartered by the government, the miner favored by the government , and the miser trying to steal a free lunch with the force of the government, as government selects rather than provides a legal tender. The government should not corrupt free markets by selecting a legal tender. The government should provide a legal tender so that it does not corrupt free markets. I believe in the separation of commodity markets and State.
I am a student of history and science. I do not drink anyone’s Kool Aid. I do my own deep research and critical thinking. Understanding and telling the truth is my duty to humanity and my nation. I’m a street economist, one of many renegade and blacklisted economists, in the pursuit of truth and understanding.
Hello Keith,
Thanks for steering me towards Henry George, he is more relevant today than ever before as he explains feudalism and financial slavery better than anyone I’ve read. He predicted and waned us about our current plight as is well explained by Michael Hudson and Jeffrey Sommers in this great article:
“Wisconsin Death Trip.” Mass Privatizetion as the “Final Stage” of Neoliberal Doctrine
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23664
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“Throughout history the world’s most successful economies have been those that have kept this kind of primitive accumulation in check. The US economy today is faltering largely because its past barriers against rent-seeking are being breached. Nowhere is this more disturbingly on display than in Wisconsin. Today, Milwaukee – Wisconsin’s largest city, and once the richest in America – is ranked among the four poorest large cities in the United States. Wisconsin is just the most recent case in this great heist. The US government itself and its regulatory agencies effectively are being privatized as the “final stage” of neoliberal economic doctrine.
His policy threatens to pauperize the state and deal a coup de grace to Progressive Era institutions and impoverish the state’s middle class. Contra John Maynard Keynes’s gentle suggestion of “euthanasia of the rentier”, it is the middle class that is being euthanized – throughout North America and Europe.”
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Unfortunately, it takes a little more time to understand George as his ideas are so contrary to the neoliberals – Marx, Mises, Keynes, et al. His philosophy on property tax takes a little time to understand but if you’re willing, he explains it with clarity and suddenly the light bulb goes on.
Anyways, thanks for helping educate me through this blog.
Larry
2 thumbs up
hi Keith i tried to email you but link did not work. pleased to find your site after googling “keynes death of rentier class” and actually it is “euthanasia” of same.
Anyhow, I am in the same ballpark with Georgist econ/monetary reform, yet seems we have not met. My book is titled The Earth Belongs to Everyone.
Our Earth Rights Institute online course now has nearly 600 enrolled from 88 countries. I would like to talk to you about it some time, my phone: 717-264-0957 or skype alanna.earthrights. I am in Pennsylvania
Keith,
Great work, thank you!
What would you think of combining Georgism ( with the greenback paridigm )
with Silvio Gesells monetary remedy, especially in the current environment?
The experiment at Worgl, Austria.
http://alt-money.tribe.net/thread/70e5eb29-853d-44ca-9faa-b789d1757037
Gesell’s Natural Economic Order
http://www.utopie.it/pubblicazioni/gesell.htm
BIO
http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/gesell_bio.html
Thanks
Steve
i’m aware of the worgl scrip. don’t know much about gesell. i will say that henry george was a fan of the greenback. the greenback paradigm is part of the georgist paradigm. it is wonderful that henry george recognized truths about both land and monetary issues.
Hi Keith -
I too am a Greenbacker Georgist, and as president of Common Ground-NYC, and NY coordinator for the Public Banking Institute, blogger at Huffington Post and Op Ed News, I have been promoting views like yours for some time. See also, these petitions:
http://www.change.org/petitions/end-the-debt-crisis-with-debt-free-united-states-notes to reissue debt-free U.S. Notes.
http://www.change.org/petitions/replace-all-california-taxes-with-ground-rent
http://www.change.org/petitions/a-new-form-of-capitalism-geonomics
http://www.change.org/petitions/tax-vacant-unused-land-to-return-its-value-to-the-community
We could use the publicity!
My articles can be found here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-baker and here: http://www.opednews.com/author/author24983.html
If you’re ever in NYC, we would love to have you attend a meeting of Common Ground-NYC, or present your views to our group.
Thank you for your comments and invite. Thank you for writing on these topics at Op Ed New and the Huffington Post. I’ll see what I can do for putting up a link.
Thanks Keith! I came from completely opposite roots in the fact that I originally identified with the ‘progressive’ wing of the Democratic party because of my concerns regarding social equality, economic fairness and environmental concerns… but I have also become increasingly aware of the fact that that party is just the flipside of an ineffective and unjust coin regardless of their perceived benevolent intent. I have recently been introduced to Henry George and his economic philosophy which I think is absolutely brilliant! Your blog has been a wellspring for me and I appreciate what you are doing. Do you have any suggestions regarding readings on Henry George for those of us who are just catching up?
i just read Progress and Poverty and the Science of Political Economy. I also read some writings by Mason Gaffney and some of the articles on Georgist Web sites. Some of them have good introductory information.
Hi,
May I suggest adding FullReserveBanking.com to the list of links on your site – its ideals are along the lines of the American Monetary Institute which I see you already have.
Cheers,
Michael.
I have two problems with the Monetary Authority, as proposed by the virtually identical American Monetary Act/N.E.E.D. Act.
1. It may work too well.
2. It may not work due to corruption.
With #1, I’m afraid the economy would be cash-starved when it needs cash, by a central authority out of touch with the real needs of the economy, or over-supplied when funds should be choked back.
With #2, I’m afraid the big banks will exert corrupting influence (again) and cause too much money to be created, then loaned to the banks by government, or, in lean times, cause the money supply to be dried up by banks reluctant to borrow from the government. True, under N.E.E.D. the government can produce U.S. Notes on its own, forcing money into the economy, but they can do that now, and have from 1862-1971. I think that is the place to start, which Congress could do any time.
technically, the fed reserve does that now… it is called unsold national debt.
the ability of banks to exert too much influence would be much less than it is now. also, if we got into an economic crisis, the solution would be to run the printing presses. considering the printing presses wouldn’t mean interest-bearing debt, that is an easier demand to make.
i do agree with your points though the point of possible corruption is also a check and balance. you’d want to give the market some ability to adjust supply and demand of money as a check and balance. you just want that ability to be scaled back to where it is limited as a fine rather than coarse adjustment. the banks will always try to find a way to corrupt anything. we just got to make it easier for us to be vigilant in oversight. there is probably a better solution, perhaps the historical greenback solution of a scaled back 1:3 reserve ratio.
just getting rid of wasteful spending and associated interest-bearing treasury bonds would be nice. there is a natural check on inflation if it means someone with influence won’t be collecting interest because of it. they’ll have to lobby against the printing press and buy corporate bonds. the same people who lobby for national debt would lobby against excessive use of the government printing press.
Well, as you know, the solution to the major booms and busts is some sort of Land Value Tax at the national level, or at least nationwide.
Also good would be conservatively run State Banks like the BND, and of course, Greenback options at the Federal Level. We have a lot to do…
i believe land value taxation would meet the least resistance on the state and local level since that is where landed property is already taxed. the difficult road would be convincing the land owner that he owes rent to the community due to the number of land owners, even though taxation on undeveloped land value is better than taxation on developed land value for many land owners.
monetary justice would be best done on the national level where monetary concerns are addressed. it would perhaps be the easiest to reach majority agreement if the majority were educated on the topic.
i do believe the use of state banks, community banks, and credit unions are something we can do now.
the major booms and busts are usually associated with credit expansion and credit contraction. however, real estate (the bush senior crisis and the bush junior derivatives crisis) and speculation in commodity markets (dutch tulip bubble, dot com bubble) are also common themes associated with boom/bust cycles. oil prices also seem to have a major influence, and thus, we do need to be concerned about natural resources and not just pure land rents. there is also of course the concern of monopoly men owning the media.
I do not want to sound like I’m dismissing the importance of land value taxation because I am not. It is equally important and not collecting land rents on behalf of the public is a major cause of housing bubbles, slums, sweat shops, poverty, and tyranny. It creates tyranny among the older and more successful land owners and poverty for the youth and those who have struggled in their careers.
To a lesser degree, the other institution of usury, insurance, is also of concern. We saw the corrupting influence of insurance with ObamaCare.
I believe the Fair Tax on a national level would be good immediate step to get rid of the notion of income taxation since it is trade tariff on domestic labor and largely to blame for outsourcing and offshoring, outside of the agrarian injustice in developing nations. The taxation of consumption and the rebate of the Fair Tax works like a citizen dividend, providing agrarian justice. I believe it would be a good step in the right direction. It would indirectly provide uniform taxation of domestic and foreign production and would indirectly provide uniform taxation taxation on land rents and consumption of natural resources in a progressive way with the citizen dividend.
I’ve been sharply criticized for my support of the Fair Tax by Georgists. Sales taxes are generally a bad idea since they are regressive. I make an exception for the Fair Tax because it is a progressive sales tax with a very good idea, the citizen dividend, as an intermediate step in providing economic justice in an economically unjust world. It is also less destructive in terms of a flat and universal trade tariff, unlike the income tax which is a destructive trade tariff on domestic labor.
The sheeple don’t like you. They would prefer you lie to them. They would prefer you tell them that Ron Paul is not the controlled opposition that he is.
lol, don’t we know it. the whole point of alex jones the gate keeper and his peta wife is to steer the sheeple to ron paul.
In your column of quotations:
“God gave the world in common to all mankind. Whenever, in any country, the proprietor ceases to be the improver, political economy has nothing to say in defense of landed property. When the “sacredness” of property is talked of, it should be remembered that any such sacredness does not belong in the same degree to landed property.” — John Locke
The first sentence is by John Locke. The second sentence I am not sure about. The third sentence is by John Stuart Mill.
thank you. it seems henrygeorge.org, earthrights.net, endgame.org, geolib.pair.com (dan sullivan), and another new georgist blogger were all using this same quote. the first sentence is by locke. the other two sentences are both by j.s. mill, just from two different places. i did validate the thomas jefferson quotes because i was suspect of those. there is another good thomas jefferson quote i want to add. it is always wise to do your own research and not make assumptions. i alerted everybody else about the bad quote.
robert andelson, in his essay, “the reconstruction of capitalism,” also used the bad quote. i noticed you were the program director for the schalkenback foundation. i’m guessing you’re fully aware of andelson’s error? dan sullivan just informed me that harold kyriaz found the error while writing libertarians at sea on land and that it has been plaguing georgist circles since the 1960s when it appeared in a home magazine.
locke was just an apologist for landed property like rothbard where the first sentence was found, though i think he did recognize that one should not take more than they can use, “the spoiling of the commons,” where the first sentence was found. it would be nice to get a quote from locke that places a justification on the taxation of landed property rather than where he just talked about primitive scenarios and natural law, where he was mostly just trying to say that mixing labor with land is what made land ownership justified.
Finally someone has an intelligent suggestion for ending the debt crisis. Keith proposes public sovereign currency and something called a citizen dividend. For the first time we have a fresh alternative that makes sense. Keith Gardner has rediscovered Gessell and Henry George at a time when we need them most.
The big question now is can we spread the word in time to save the country.
Thank you. I’m trying when I’m still an amateur and still learning. It is probably to the determinate of my own well being since I’m not even acquiring a doctorate while I learn.
I take it this is your work…
http://www.citizensamericaparty.org/socialcredit.htm
I’m bookmarking it here so I can review your work in more detail later and share it.
Hello Keith,
I write re. your “… as I try to identify and strike the roots of tyranny.”
I write of indefensible, massive deception by omission, done to the people (USA) by ‘the establishment’. I thought you might care to expose/undo this status quo, and its doers.
Please see my short Letter “Ongoing extremes” at
http://www.durangotelegraph.com/index.cfm/archives/2008/june-26-2008/soapbox/
And please see my Post
“Condemn venal journalism for severely fooling the people” at
http://occupywallst.org/forum/condemn-venal-journalism-for-severely-fooling-the-/
FYI, at my website, all Real Homes price data now updated thru 2011 Q4.
Hi Keith
You have some very intresting views here, caught your post on Rodger Mitchells site and clicked on it as I hadnt heard of you before. Probably as im English not views we see to often in these parts (at least nowadays, history will probably tell me something else I suspect).
Firstly I will hold my hands up and tell you that Im MMT so at least you know where im coming from and that really wont change. But im certainly open minded to other Ideas if it can make the world a better place and i do find the land rent material very intresting and worth looking at.
A note thought you mention fractional reserve banking, you do realise thats not really true anymore? banks really dont work like that now, at most reserves are an afterthought (try some Warren Mosler on that subject who you will note has a book titled soft currency economics which seems that you would like) the lending is done before reserve requirements are considered.
The differences I expect would be that I dont find that a free market could be trusted like you couldnt trust governments so is the problem not markets or government as such but people themselves?
Anyone who doesnt like the neo liberal garbage thats been shoved down our throats for the last 40 years is worth some time reading even if I dont agree all that often.
Best wishes from the UK
reserve requirements aren’t considered. it is just open-ended chaos.
good question that we really can’t trust people either but that is all we have. machines are made and controlled by people. the laws of the republic are made and controlled by people. this has always been the challenge. getting it right or near right for once would be helpful.
Indeed it is chaos so why use the term FRB? its a complete misnomer now Banks havent worked like that for generations. Call it like it is not as the textbooks misleadingly tell you.
Agreed as it happens, which is why im curious you think a free market would be any better than a government for an MMTer im a bit ambivelent on size of government I dont actually care that much, its the same people in the end with exactly the same issues they dont care if they are working for a corporation or a government. Would be nice if someone could get the right balance, alas thats bloody difficult.