Did you ever hear the story of some kid who traveled to Singapore, sprayed some graffiti, and was then arrested and caned for it? That’s right. Graffiti can get you a caneing in Singapore. And littering can get you a $1,000 fine. But you know what? Their streets are clean, and their buildings don’t have graffiti all over them. They also don’t have drug problems. Why? Because importing drugs into the country can land the offender on death row. Drug dealers get the death penalty.
At the complete other end of the spectrum (at least on the drug issue) is the Netherlands. Unlike almost all other countries in Europe, and even the world, the Netherlands has legalized drug use. As a result, drug use has decreased, as has related crime. Roughly 10% of Americans have used marijuana in the last year, while only 5% of Dutch have. Heroine use is about 1/3 as prevalent in the Netherlands as it is in America. There are also 1/7 as many prisoners (per 100,000), and 1/5 as many homicides (per 100,000).
How can both nations have low drug use rates, both less than America, but have such wildly different policies? It is because of the risk/reward ratio. Whatever the action, to reduce it, the risk must be great OR the reward must be little. In Singapore, the risk of importing drugs is as high as it can be. No one would be stupid enough to try to import drugs; the risk is too great.
The Netherlands, by legalizing drugs, have made it far less profitable. Competition has brought prices down, and drug-gang monopolies don’t exist. By legalizing drugs, the reward has been diminished. The result is not only that there is less crime, but also that there is less drug use.
In America, on the other hand, our risk/reward ratio is completely reversed. Drugs are illegal, so dealers can make a lot of money selling them. Its a profitable business because drug cartels have a monopoly on the supply of drugs. Our criminal justice system is also pretty lax. Many drug dealers get multiple slaps on the wrist before they are ever sent to prison. And once they get to prison, chances are that they won’t serve their full time and will get out early on probation.
The way to fix this is obvious. To get rid of drug crime we either have to lower the reward by legalizing drugs, or increase the risk by having a stricter justice system. America has done neither, and the results are painfully clear. Considering the fact that we can’t manage to close our borders, and can’t even keep drugs out of our prisons, the only option is the pro-liberty option of legalizing the use and sale of drugs. This would end the cartel monopoly on drugs, increase competition, decrease profitability, and decrease the reward.
Far from evening the playing field, this bill places an enormous burden on small online retailers. The bill is aimed at internet giants like Amazon, but the majority of retailers are NOT Amazon, and can not easily absorb the costs associated with collecting taxes for 10,000 different taxing jurisdictions. The law is simply unworkable, and the costs are unimaginable for small online sellers. A woman who sells arts and crafts online should not be put out of business so that “brick and mortar” stores can compete with Amazon.
It seems once again that some business owners are really just angry that they are being put out of business by their competitors, but this has been happening since the dawn of time. If one manufacturer manages to build the same product at a lower cost, there is no reason to be angry at customers for buying that product over a more expensive alternative. More so, there is no reason to alienate and demonize the manufacturer who makes good products at a lower price. In the end, it is the customers who benefit, because their own money is able to buy more products, thereby increasing their standard of living.
Economist Thomas Sowell once said, “No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems – of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind.” It is time to recognize this and throw crummy politicians our of office, and especially out of powerful positions – Speaker of the House, for instance.
But Sowell isn’t alone. There are countless great conservative, libertarian, and classical liberal minds that have gone from one end of the spectrum to the other – John Locke, Friedrich Hayek, and (if I’m not mistaken) even Adam Smith, just to name a few. The transformation these men went through can be inspirational. A man who once thought the only way to achieve prosperity was through authoritarian rule (Locke) is now considered the father of classical liberalism.
At the same time, Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, is set to keep up with QE3 (Quantitative Easing 3) until unemployment recedes to 6.5%. This means he’ll be printing $85 billion each month, used to buy up government bonds, and flood the market with cheap money. The problem, of course, is that printing money actually does make the rest of money cheaper – when you have more of something it is worth less. If someone said that Bernanke was printing a trillion dollars a year, there would be a scare, but because we divided it up by 12 months – to a measly $85 billion – it doesn’t sound so bad. Continue on, Benny.
This will be an interesting week in the realm of “same sex marriage” and “marriage equality” as the Supreme Court takes up two major cases. First – California’s Proposition 8, which defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and then the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which restricts federal benefits for same-sex couples legally married in their respective states. I haven’t written much on this issue, and with good reason – its a complicated one, and the more I think about it, the more I feel like saying, “Why is the federal government even involved in this issue?”
