The Quiz
I’ve long (and vociferously) been an advocate of the legalisation of drugs. Not just because it’s your or my right to ingest as we wish to but because there’s a large market out there currently untaxed: one which if taxed would mean we could reduce taxes on things like incomes.
However, I might have to change my mind on that latter:
Gangsters, drug dealers and money launderers appear to be playing their part in helping shore up the financial stability of the euro zone.
That’s thanks to their demand, according to European authorities, for high-denomination euro bank notes, in particular the €200 and €500 bills. The European Central Bank issues these notes for a hefty profit that is welcome at a time when its response to the financial crisis has called its financial strength into question.
The point here is seignorage: the ECB takes a few pennies worth of paper and ink and people will pay 500 euros for it. This is, as the phrase itself says, rather profitable, as profitable as simply printing money. The amounts being made are quite large, between 50 and 80 billion a year.
Those profits themselves thus boost the capital of the ECB itself and so underwrite the loans that have been made to stricken banks. The financial system is thus being saved by cocaine dealers looking for ways to hide and transport their profits. So perhaps the taxation reasons to legalise drugs are no longer valid?
Or perhaps, more importantly, now that we’ve worked out how to make gazillions legally from the drug trade we should work out how to make further such gazillions? The real advantage of the 200 and 500 euro notes is that you can get a lot more value into a smaller, lighter, load than by using US dollars, the largest general issue of which is the $100 bill. $1 million in USD weighs 22 lbs while in euros about 4 lbs. Much, much easier for money smugglers that is.
So, why don’t we create the 1,000 euro bill? This would make serious inroads into the US illict market and thus undermine the US Treasury’s seignorage while boosting the ECB’s. We get a slice of the US drug trade and just think of the CO2 savings by reducing the weight of bank notes that need to be transported back to Latin America!
Winners all round really….and aren’t we supposed to be harnessing Mammon and markets in order to save Gaia anyway?
The Coalition government should be lauded for Friday’s announcement of a plan to permit people to exercise control over inordinate council tax hikes that have increasingly squeezed the budgets of English households across the country. Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles announced his intention to allow people to decide through a referendum process whether to accept or reject council tax increases that exceed the rate of inflation. This is expected to be in place by March of 2012. Under the current system, Whitehall decides when an increase is “excessive” and must be capped. The move is positive for two reasons: it will likely arrest the dramatic increase in such taxes, and will allow people to better control their local governments.
First, the growth of council taxes, which has been unacceptably high, will at long last be controlled by the measure. Council taxes in England have nearly doubled over the last decade; the average council tax per dwelling in the country has increased from £656 in 2000 to nearly £1,200 today. Last year, the Telegraph reported that the increase in council taxes over the preceding decade outpaced inflation by a factor of four. That the referenda, which can be costly to administer, will be funded by the councils themselves will provide significant incentive for councils to make difficult budgetary decisions instead of irresponsibly raising taxes and further burdening families.
Second, the measure puts people back in control of their local governments. The central government is ill suited to make determinations about tax rates in local communities. Whitehall does not have sufficient knowledge of local concerns and cannot make appropriate determinations about which tax increases are “excessive” and which are acceptable. Such control belongs to the people, who know their communities much more intimately than bureaucrats in Westminster. Local government needs to be checked in some fashion, and it is only logical that such a check should come from the people most affected by its decisions.
The recent announcement is a heartening indication that the Coalition government has faith in the ability of communities to manage their own affairs. The referendum plan is a step in the right direction that further empowers the people, and simultaneously forces governments to make the crucial tradeoffs that English families must make everyday.
Earlier this year, the “horrific” idea that professorships should not be granted for a lifetime raised more than a few eyebrows in Denmark. The proposal, raised a few months ago by a Danish politician, suggests that after an initial ten-year contract, individual professors should successfully complete an evaluation process every five years in order to maintain their position as a professor. The proposition was designed to ensure that only the most qualified professors would assume the leadership of an academic institute. Unfortunately, I have not heard much of the proposal since it was first introduced, but the idea is nevertheless appealing in many ways.
Making a professor subject to such an evaluation would empower students as well as taxpayers, who are the primary source of funding of a professor’s salary, and would ensure that professors who once excelled at their work when first hired but no longer contribute to their subject do not prevent brighter and more energetic candidates from rising through the ranks of the academy. Such evaluations would allow professors who neglect their duties to be kindly removed from public budget.
I find the idea of an evaluation to be an excellent one, though I would argue that there exists an even more transparent and efficient way of handling the issue than an administrative appraisal. Though the proposal did not specify how such an evaluation process would proceed, I believe that taking both the professor’s research and student evaluations into account would be the fairest way of appraising a professor’s performance. Instead of proceeding with a conventional regulatory structure to supervise professors, which inevitably leads to more people in the public sector, student evaluations could be published on university websites. As most academics are quite keen on advertising their academic performance, the publication of student evaluations would not only fill a missing gap in this information, but would also provide prospective students with better information on where they can obtain an education best suited for their needs and goals. Instead of further regulation, the dissemination of information about “customer satisfaction” would aid prospective students and educational institutions, and would decrease professors’ insulation from market forces.
Watch Importation, Copyright, and the First-Sale Doctrine In Cutting edges, blogger Peter Gordon relates a fascinating case where Swiss watchmaker Omega found a brilliantly evil trick using IP law to crack down on innocent market activity. Omega sells its watches for far less money in some countries than in others, a common enough practice known to [...]
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This is a syndicated post, which originally appeared at Mimi and Eunice » IP. View original post. Related PostsMimi & Eunice: Do the Math Mimi & Eunice: Incentive Mimi & Eunice: Proprietary
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Great news! We’re launching a new series on The Libertarian Standard. We will be syndicating the IP-related installments of a funny (and free!) new comic strip, Mimi and Eunice, created by Nina Paley. Nina is a creative artist and anti-copyright innovator, creator of Sita Sings the Blues (see The Creator-Endorsed Mark as an Alternative to [...]
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Reuel Marc Gerecht’s screed justifying an Israeli bombing attack on Iran coincides with the opening of the new Israel lobby campaign marked by the introduction of House Resolution 1553 expressing full support for such an Israeli attack. What is important to understand about this campaign is that the aim of Gerecht and of the right-wing [...]
National Service Rears its Ugly Head Again :: Best Cancer in the World :: Military Interventionism :: What should the government do? :: Secession :: Newbie Confusion :: Fearmongering :: The So-Called Justice System :: Gun Confiscation
About a month and a half ago, in Atlas Shrugged movie finally filming?!, my co-blogger Jacob Huebert updated us on the Atlas Shrugged movie. Now, thanks to Reason Magazine and Reason.tv, we are privileged to see behind-the-scenes footage and interviews. I’ll admit I was leery of the current iteration of the project, but I am [...]
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Here is a sobering chart from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Mercatus Center Senior Research Fellow and Reason magazine contributor Veronique de Rugy (see an archive of her Reason articles here) used Congressional Budget Office data to calculate the hike in federal income tax rates that will be required to maintain the increasingly costly Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid entitlement programs at current benefit levels.
Even for the lowest tax bracket, annual federal income taxes will have to more than double to pay for current levels of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security spending. These massive tax increases will be necessary in spite of the recently legislated changes to the healthcare system, which CBO has determined will increase costs over the next 20 years and will have indeterminate budget effects into the future.
In 2010, Medicare and Medicaid will cost a projected 5.0 percent of GDP and Social Security will cost a projected 4.8 percent of GDP. Combined, that is just under 10 percent of GDP. By 2020, the combined cost of these three programs is already projected to grow to 11.4 percent of GDP; extrapolating forward at constant growth rates, their cost will be at about 14.4 percent of GDP by 2030. To put this in context, total federal spending has averaged 18.5% of GDP over the last 40 years.
While things like “bridge to nowhere” earmarks grab a lot of the headlines—and, indeed, these are maddening abuses of taxpayer dollars—they represent only a minuscule portion of the federal budget. To truly make any headway in cutting the size and scope of the federal government down to a more reasonable, fiscally manageable, and individual freedom-friendly level, there must be serious reform of the entitlement programs, which make up the bulk of the budget (especially if you take out defense spending). Clearly, we are on an unsustainable trajectory and it is time to start asking fundamental questions like why government intrusions into the health care industry have led to higher costs, fewer choices for consumers, and oftentimes poorer quality of care; whether retirement planning should really be under government purview; or why individuals cannot at least opt out of the Social Security system and handle their own retirement investments and plans.
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The Daily Bell is pleased to present an exclusive interview with Walter E. Williams. Dr. Williams is the author of over 150 publications which have appeared in scholarly journals such as Economic Inquiry, American Economic Review, Georgia Law Review, Journal of Labor Economics, Social Science Quarterly, and Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy and popular publications such as Newsweek, Ideas on Liberty, National Review, Reader's Digest, Cato Journal, and Policy
An Open Opportunity IRA, however, can be used to control the potential tax bill on your estate, since it easily accommodates what has become a conventional estate planning strategy. With the Open Opportunity structure, your IRA holds just one asset – a limited liability company (LLC) that you manage.
Well, who woulda thunk it?! George W. Bush’s Justice Department is now considered a citadel of wisdom by the legal eagles at the liberal Media Matters for America.
On Thursday, I outlined in National Review how Elena Kagan’s position as solicitor general that…
One great aspect about tabling at the community farmer’s market is that it’s a wonderful opportunity to make alliances with those in the community. This wonderful couple came to visit our table for the second week in a row, and even in a liberal dominated town they’re just about as libertarian as one could be. They told me horrendous stories of how the government had violated their rights, to the point of the government wrongly stealing money from their bank account without permission. They are truly dedicated to the cause of liberty and now through the avenues of Young Americans For Liberty and Campaign For Liberty can take action to restore the government to the people so that we can be left alone to pursue our own personal business.
Bridging the Divide Between Two States
Comments on the proposed “Columbia Crossing” Portland-Vancouver bridge and the role of infrastructure by Gene de Nardo.