Matt Nolan

Legalise drugs?

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That appears to be the suggestion of David Grimmond from Infometrics according to this article (also found here).

How do I feel about this suggestion, well I agree.  Legalise it, that way we can apply standard quality controls, pump out education and information, and place externality taxes on it.

Worst case scenario:  The externality tax makes the drug so expensive that the current gang based supply of drugs (with an associated motive to avoid tax) remains the cheapest option for people – in this case the legalisation makes no real difference.  However, I would still only support bans above taxation here if it turned out that bans were arbitrarily cheaper – as other social outcomes would be the same.

There is nothing wrong with someone making a choice to take drugs when they understand the issues surrounding them.  Legalisation helps us create a situation where people can make well informed decisions regarding drug use.

Furthermore, there is nothing wrong with an individual taking the drug persee – although we may be concerned about how their actions following any use impact on other people.  In this case legalisation, education, and a bunch of taxation will do the trick – the current situation does not target these external activities very well at all.

Matt Nolan

It’s National’s turn for awful policy

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So I see that pseudoephedrine based medication is being made prescription only, and possibly even banned in the “war against P”.  This policy has broad-based support in parliament, with both National and Labour supporting it.  And like all policies with broad based support it is bad policy.

Read more

jamesz

Can free markets punish racists?

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The Standard mentions the writings of Richard Epstein on racial discrimination and says:

A charitable reading of Epstein’s work is that he believes employment law stopping employers from putting “No Blacks or Jews” on their situations vacant ads is ineffective and counter-productive. Instead, we should allow employers to openly discriminate against people on the basis of race, age and sex because the free market will punish them for their irrational choices.

It’s a very interesting topic on which I’m no expert, so I shan’t wade into the debate on affirmative action. However, the latter sentence quoted just makes no sense from an economic perspective. Read more

goonix

The carbon emission circus is coming to town

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Late last week the Government announced that they were running a public consultation on the emissions target for 2020.

The Government already have a long term goal of reducing carbon emissions to 50% of 1990 levels by 2050. Long term goals tend to work quite well for Governments as it gives the public the idea that they are proactively doing something but realistically they will never be held to account if and when they don’t meet the target, as they don’t align all that well with the three year election cycle. But I digress.

This consultation process is part of setting the ‘interim’ goal for the year 2020. Environment Minister Nick Smith has quite correctly identified that setting this target requires a trade-off between our economy, our international reputation and, obviously, the environment.

Ultimately this 2020 goal will be presented in international climate change conferences at the end of the year, including the post-Kyoto Copenhagen Conference. I’m sure we will all be waiting with bated breath to see what the outcome of this Conference will be.

Of far more interest are recent ‘cap and trade’ developments around the world. Obama *just* got his bill passed by the House of Representatives while in Australia the proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) is very much struggling to gain legs.

New Zealand’s version of cap and trade, which will aim to reduce emissions to the 2020 (and subsequently 2050) goal looks set to be determined sometime later this year, although early indications are that it will be somewhat like the Aussie model. To blatantly oversimplify things, the Aussie model is a more politically palatable version of cap and trade, with lots of pressure-group exemptions and handouts to favoured sectors, as compared with the version NZ originally had planned for under the previous Government, which was more of an economically pure ‘you pollute, you pay’ model.

The final design of New Zealand’s scheme will be very interesting indeed…

goonix

It’s that time of the year again…

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Public servants are always frantic at this time of the year. I hear you collectively asking why? It’s nearing 30 June, the end of the government’s financial year. As such the various departments/ministries/commissions are very *busy*, throwing money around like they were the leader of the free world.

The perverse incentives on government officials to make sure they spend all of their allocated budget in the financial year, while nothing new, always amuses me. They are strongly incentivised to make sure that the kitty is empty come June 30, otherwise they risk having money taken away from them in the following year. You have to ask about the importance of the projects that are only taking place in order to empty the coffers.

As a result of these incentives it’s a very lucrative time to be consulting, even if the gravy train is about as efficient as KiwiRail.

jamesz

Nobody is above the law

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A police officer was recently found guilty in a private prosecution of assaulting a man that she arrested. She arrested him on his driveway and, since she didn’t have the power to arrest him on private property, it counted as an assault on him. The judge found her guilty but discharged her without conviction. The Police Association is concerned:

…fear of private prosecution could make officers more tentative in carrying out their duty. … “This was a constable who was carrying out her duties in good faith and made a mistake rather than acting maliciously. I think the lack of a conviction reflects that.”

I see this as a situation in which we, as a society, need to trust the police to do the right thing… but should probably keep a stick behind our backs just in case.

Police officers have a very important duty in our society and hold a lot of power. As with anyone who is in a position of power, there need to be checks on that power to ensure it is not abused. Surely private prosecutions are such a check: they allow private citizens to ask the judiciary to examine the actions of the police. Every bit of protection from these checks that is afforded to the police introduces more moral hazard. Read more