The Henry George Program

A roundtable discussion on how the issue of critical goods (water, food, fuel) is treated after a natural disaster. Is raising prices necessarily immoral? When is rationing necessary? And how can this be tied into theories of value?

Alan Joyce (co-host of Earful of Convoy and Earful of Cocktail) comes on the program to explain the ins and outs of some of the weirder and wilder economic laboratories out there: videogames. How does scarcity in Eve Online resemble real estate bubbles? What does Second Life tell us about marginal land?

We have Matt Krisiloff of YC Research to talk about the Basic Income project, Y Combinator's United Slate (which featured LVT as a plank). Should these be viewed as separate, or two ideas that are fundamentally linked? Also a conversation with Kedar about the technical and moral merits of a UBI versus a Jobs Guarantee.

2012 Nobelist and Stanford professor Alvin Roth has saved lives by designing better markets: clearinghouses to trade kidneys, as well as improved matches in public schools and medical residencies. He joins the show to talk about his life's work and the many lessons we can learn about fixing broken markets.

Steve Omohundro shares plans for creating provably correct protections against AI superintelligence, and thoughts on how human values can be embued into AI. Resource allocation, decentralized cooperation, and discussions on how Blockchain Proofs of Work/Stake can possibly be compatible with basic needs.

Let's head back to the early nineties―Prop 13 was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in an 8-1 decision, and Jack Miller wrote a 66-page barnburner about the injustice in the decision . We have Jack Miller on to talk about the jurisprudence of fair taxes, the importance of Horizontal Equity, and how this all came together in Nordlinger v Hahn.

Victoria Fierce works for (pro-housing) East Bay Forward. Victoria Fierce is a member of (pro-economic-justice) DSA. This has led to an undue amount of drama. Does this have to be so? Why can't socialists and YIMBYs get along?

Katy Tang represents the Sunset on the SF Board of Supervisors, and has led Home-SF, which works to end displacement while still building more units, by tying affordability to upzoning incentives. We talk about ending zero-sum thinking.

James K. Galbraith has produced a deep catalogue of books; in his recent "Inequality: What Everyone Needs to Know", he touches on the land value tax. We talk about that and much more.

Jeff Andrade-Fong works with Tech for Housing to bring attention to tech workers about how housing policy affects them, and what they can do. Josh Vincent advises land policy on a city-by-city basis using open data and more. Changing policy is hard, but we talk about what people can do about it.

We talk to James Howard Kunstler, who has long been a voice railing against the ugliness of modern sprawl and its attendant psychic torment. How does a land tax offer a possible answer to this tragedy?

Last November, Berkeley passed Measure U1, nicknamed the "Landlord Tax." It increased the tax rate for landlords of five or more rental units. Behind the bill was Stephen Barton, who's been working for affordable housing for decades. On the side, he's been writing about the Georgist history of Berkeley's leadership.

Tomas Piketty showed that accumulation of capital was driving modern inequality. But then a young economics student showed how scarcity of housing explains Piketty's phenomenon, not accumulation. We're joined by Professor Nic Tideman of Virginia Tech, to discuss Matthew Rognlie's influential paper.

Kedar is back to talk about mobility. We have depressed economies and cities with excess demand. Why?

Corey Smith of the San Francisco Housing Action Coalition talks about the policies and the politics to get the housing supply up to 5,000 units a year. All your favorites are here: CEQA and Prop 13. Some talk about the limits of empathy: are our land-use policies making us meaner?

We featured the libertarian transhumanist perspective of Zoltan Istvan a few weeks ago. Today, James Hughes, who couples a concern for transhumanism with a progressive attitude and a focus on economic justice.

Kedar and Mark have a conversation about Georgism, Prop 13, and why this all matters.

Zoltan Istvan ran for President on the Transhumanist party, and is now running for California Governor as a Libertarian. He proposes a Universal Basic Income, funded by the leasing of federal lands. How does this compare to the Georgist ideal of a citizen's dividend funded by land rents?

Mark Mollineaux, Jacob Schwartz-Lucas, and Edward Miller discuss the land-use policies of Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and more. How responsible is municipal ownership to land to the world-class infrastructure and vibrant economies of these cities?