What about a corporate tax cut?
There is much talk of melt downs in global financial markets. The US government is busy handing out money to some of the key failures. And Malcolm Turnbull says he would like to work with Kevin Rudd on a bipartisan solution to the turmoil. So long as governments are going to take decisive measures to deal with these problems may I suggest they take a look at the option of corporate tax cuts. This would reduce the financial burden on businesses to help them offset difficulties perhaps created by counter parties going broke. It would also reward success rather than failure and unlike other measures it would create no moral hazard. What have all those budget surpluses been for if not to provide some flexibility in “difficult times” such as these?
Blog round-up
Some suggested reading for the weekend.
* Republican presidential candidate John McCain lets slip that he favours the military draft. “Hardly a surprise, of course,” notes Lew Rockwell.
* Have you ever wondered why smoking pot is like having sex with a 10-year old girl? Well, Jacob Sullum has the answer for you here.
* What’re the odds that Israel will attack Iran? Pretty high, apparently.
* British officials looking to bust into a home or business have over 1,000 legal justifications to choose from. You can thank the “war on drugs” and the “war on terror” for this state of affairs.
* Did you ever think that your government (and the military contractors that finance it) could provoke wars just to increase its power? David Gordon explains how it happens.
* America is headed towards a new fascism, argues Anthony Gregory. “[T]hose who think Bush has swung America to the right are in ways imprecise and in ways understating it,” observes Gregory. “He has on balance moved us toward a degree of American fascism we probably have not seen in half a century”.
* Antiwar.com’s Tim Swanson wrote a brilliant post outlining the ways in which the CIA has abused its power over the past few decades.
* New polls show that large numbers of people think America was really behind the 9/11 attacks. Well, that’s understandable, but naive. The government can’t even deliver the mail on time. I seriously doubt it could carry out the 9/11 attacks.
Who correctly predicted the financial crisis?
Why, the Austrian economists of course. Such as Ron Paul.
But who will policymakers listen to now? The people who got it wrong, of course.
Guns & crime
Guns are bad, ok? If you see a gun, shoot it quickly!
Perhaps, perhaps. Back in 1997 an identity-challenged and yet statistically-smart chap in America worked out that more guns had lead to less crime. Specifically, he looked at states that had introduced “shall-issue” laws for concealed carry (CC) handguns and found that the laws had lead to less crime.
This started a big academic debate, which is well summerised at the beginning of the latest contribution by Moody & Marvell (The Debate on Shall-issue Laws, Econ Journal Watch, Vol 5, No 3, Sept 2008, pp269-293). This is a quick summary of the story so far…
Heard tries to defend conservatives
It’s rare to hear somebody try to defend conservative ideas. That’s mostly because conservativism is generally defined as a lack of ideas. While classical liberals, social democrats, socialists, fascists and anarchists have something they strive towards… conservatives only knows what they are against: change.
But in the latest edition of “Policy magazine”, John Heard has tried to defend conservatives and justify the continuation of the old conservative-libertarian union. He fails.
Hatred is bad
Steve Edwards has an article in the latest “Policy Magazine” on anti-hatred laws. He cites various examples of recent anti-hate cases where people are being charged with “not being a Muslim” or “not liking Muslims” or “saying that Muslims are wrong” or something like that.
But the enjoyable part of Steve’s article is when he extends the anti-hate law thinking to it’s logical conclusion. If it’s bad to hate races or religions then surely it’s also bad to hate people for belonging to any other group? If saying mean things about XYZ leads to violence… then surely saying mean things about ABC also leads to violence? So let’s be consistent with our anti-hate laws and ban negative speach about any group of people!
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Catallaxy Files- Open Forum: February 11, 2012 February 10, 2012 Sinclair Davidson
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