A punchy film using animation, music and humour to make economics interesting hits the screen at Dendy cinemas tomorrow.
“Real Estate 4 Ransom” is a new documentary about global property speculation and how it impacts upon the economy. The film challenges the idea that the Global Financial Crisis was caused by bank-lending alone, looking as well at changing motivations behind property investment.
Shot over five years, the 40-minute documentary, funded by the non-profit organisation Prosper Australia, takes an economics-focused look at issues that current world politics are grappling with.
“Real Estate 4 Ransom” argues the case that with a simpler tax system, entrepreneurs have a better chance to succeed and ordinary Australians have a better chance of owning their own homes.
The co-directors, Karl Fitzgerald and Gavin Emmanuel interviewed leading profile economists, international guests, local homebuyers and renters, about the state of Australia’s economy.
Experts featured in the doco include Wall Street financial analyst Michael Hudson, who says the logical thing for Australia to do would be “to tax this mineral wealth which actually should be looked at as the wealth of the entire nation.”
Alanna Hartzok, co-director of the Earth Rights Institute, says the current tax system should be scrapped, while David Collyer, of Prosper Australia, attacks the way speculators can dodge paying tax while workers’ taxes fund the infrastructure that makes the speculators land more valuable.
Other interviewees are Terry Dwyer, from the Crawford School of Economics and Management at the ANU, Bryan Kavanagh from the Land Values Research Group and Canadian environmentalist Frank De Jong.
“Real Estate 4 Ransom” at Dendy Cinemas, 6.30pm, Tuesday, October 4. More information at realestate4ransom.com/film/
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