What would Henry George say about BlackRock buying Global Infrastructure Partners?

What would Henry George say about BlackRock buying Global Infrastructure Partners?

Dr. Marty Rowland's response to the New York Times article "BlackRock’s Giant Bet on Infrastructure"

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On Friday, January 12, 2024, the New York Times published an article titled BlackRock’s Giant Bet on Infrastructure. The article announced that the financial firm BlackRock had acquired Global Infrastructure Partners for about $12.5 billion in cash and stock. It would take over and run assets like tunnels, highways, and oil and gas networks. What would Henry George say?

The issue lies in the fact that financial firms (like BlackRock), when engaging in such practices, act as leeches on society. They extract wealth that should be allocated for essential infrastructure, which has already been relinquished due to property tax breaks granted to billionaire developers in cities with crucial infrastructure elements such as tunnels, highways, energy and power infrastructure, fiber broadband, data centers, green energy projects, and airports. New York City loses $4 billion annually due to past tax breaks, and there is the possibility that the state of New York may approve even more tax breaks.

Henry George would have offered a better alternative to this flawed policy. He advocated for assessing land values, then periodically collecting those values to fund our modern society, rather than privatizing essential infrastructure to our detriment.

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