Here's another one I prepared earlier...

From my post of September 2007 (two months after the English smoking ban came into force):

I looked up alcohol licences, and they appear to be only a few hundred pounds a year, depending on size of pub.

So if the council charges £10,000 a year to allow [a pub to have] a smoking licence, only a few pubs would go for it and the council rakes in a shed-load of money for no effort whatsoever, a form of Land Value Tax, if you will.

Everybody wins. The landlord only pays the £10,000 if he thinks he can increase his net profits by at least that much. The smokers win. The local council wins.

And most pubs would remain non-smoking - if all the pubs in any area paid the £10,000 for a smoking licence, then the advantage would be competed away, and some would give up the smoking licence again.

That's that fixed.

Now spotted by Gawain Towler:

[Following widespread flouting of the smoking ban and in view of its dire fiscal situation] The Greek government is planning to introduce smoking licences for wet-led venues* so that customers can smoke.

The cost will be decided based on the size of the establishments and any venue that allows smoking without the licence will be closed.

There is of course the fiscal incentive... The government believes it could bring in “at least” €50m (around £42m) from issuing the smoking licences.

* This appears to mean 'drinking establishments'.

Goin' Dutch

Vince Cable, interviewed in today's ES Magazine:

What would you do as Mayor for the day?
I would try the Dutch experiment of switching off the traffic lights.

What can possibly go wrong?

A Triumph Of Free Markets

From a surprisingly detailed article in this morning's Metro:

Mephedrone replaced by NRG-1, Sparkle and MDAI after reclassification

A host of new legal highs are already competing to replace mephedrone as the next big party drug – with some being sold for a pittance. At least three new options are being rushed to market by online pushers who have little awareness of their dangers.

It follows the classification of mephed­rone, also called meow meow, as a Class B drug at the weekend after being linked to 26 deaths. Since it was made illegal, mephedrone has gone from £15 to £35 a gramme.

Drug MDAI costs £25 a gramme and is thought to be the most likely replacement. It was developed as an anti-dep­ressant in the 1990s and replicates many of the effects of MDMA, or ecstasy...

Well worth reading in full.

Smoking ban, fox hunting ban etc.

The Great Simpleton said:

Just for the record, foxes are a pest and I have seen the damage they do and they need to be controlled. However I don’t like fox hunting and I don’t see what pleasure people get in chasing the damned things round on horses and then watching them get ripped to pieces by a pack of dogs. I wouldn’t spend any time getting it banned and if repealing it takes more than 30secs of Parliamentary time then the police should just be told to ignore it, there is far too much work to be done.

To expand on the comment I left, I'd concur on fox-hunting - if there were a local referendum on repealing the ban, I'm not sure I'd bother voting, because it's not that important to me either way. But what if there were a separate referendum a month later on repealing the smoking ban - most smokers would vote to repeal but probably the rabidly anti-smoking faction (a third of non-smokers) would vote to retain it. And if there were then a referendum on legalising & taxing cannabis (putting it on par with alcohol or tobacco), the ten per cent of adults who enjoy cannabis would vote to repeal, but it would only require more then ten per cent of adults who don't smoke cannabis to keep it illegal, and so on and so forth.

Single issue referenda would amost certainly not achieve anything - I reckon that the only way to make this stick is to have an all-or-nothing yes-or-no referendum, i.e. to repeal the fox hunting ban, turn off the traffic lights, legalise cannabis and brothels, allow smoking in pubs again, allow shops to use pounds and ounces, allow people to drink alcohol on public transport, bring back patio heaters [plus add your own particular gripes to the list] etc.

That way there'd be something in it for everybody - including the misery guts who don't like other people enjoying themselves, who might be tempted by the idea of turning off the traffic lights and being allowed to use patio heaters again. The cannabis smokers (traditionally left wing) would align themselves with the pro-fox hunters (traditionall right-wing). Motorists and bus-users would form an alliance against the Greenies. Proper feminists and misogynists alike would support the legalisation of brothels, with faux-feminists and religious types in opposition.

Hopefully.

Why there's no often no point in banning things

From the BBC:

Restricting the availability of legal abortion does not appear to reduce the number of women trying to end unwanted pregnancies, a major report suggests.

The Guttmacher Institute's survey found abortion occurs at roughly equal rates in regions where it is legal and regions where it is highly restricted. It did note that improved access to contraception had cut the overall abortion rate over the last decade...

Admittedly, that Institute is a "pro-choice reproductive think tank" so they would say that, wouldn't they? I suppose the Catholics will put out a report next week saying exactly the opposite and we'll be none the wiser.

Obnoxio missed a very important bit

Obo did a fine summary on Global Cooling, which is pretty much what I've always said, i.e.

1. There's no particularly compelling evidence that temperatures (or sea levels, for that matter) are rising.

2. Even if they are, there's no particular compelling evidence to say that CO2 emissions are causing this (water vapour is far more relevant because there is a lot more of it, for example, and clouds can either trap heat at the surface or reflect sunlight into space). And even if rising CO2 levels are the cause (rather than the effect) of rising temperatures (to the extent they are rising at all) there's nothing to say that this is "man made" (seeing as industry only accounts for a very small percentage of total CO2 emitted).

3. Neither is there any compelling evidence to suggest that if the earth is warming, the consequences will be bad for us. Sure, there'll be winners and losers, but seeing as most of the world's population inhabits a fairly narrow strip in the temperate regions, we'd all just have to migrate a bit further away from the equator. Think about it, people live in Alaska and in Jakarta, what sort of temperature difference is there between those two places? Like him, "I'm personally much more frightened of Global Cooling than I am of Global Warming."

4. The Bullshit detector point.

So what did he miss?

5. Even if there were proof of items 1, 2 and 3 and counter-proof of item 4, there is no proof to assume that we can do anything about it. Sure, we could go back to a peasant economy and forsake cars, central heating, cooking with gas, but who's to say that:

a) this would have a significant reduction in total emissions (you emit more CO2 walking than driving the same distance; wood and peat fires emit CO2 as well etc.), notwithstanding the collapse in living standards, or

b) that other countries would be daft enough to do the same?

Land Value Taxation - The True Libertarian Choice

Cut and paste in its entirety from www.obamaers.com on a take-it-or-leave-it basis:

Land value taxation is free market taxation. Under a land value taxation system, individuals choose how much government they want, and correspondingly, how much they wish to pay in taxes. How do they choose? Simply by moving closer or further away from areas where governments provide services.

Do you want government in your life? Do you want asphalt roads, do you want your ditches mowed, do you want snow plows to clear the road in the winter? If you do, move to a location where government provides those services; beware that others also want to be near these services, you will have to compete with them, which will result in a tax liability.

Do you want to be left alone? Are you content to live without government services? Move to a location where government provides little or no services, your taxes will be little or nothing; if you settle on land which nobody else wants, you need pay nothing in taxes, regardless of your level of production or consumption.

Do you want the government to educate your child? Do you want access to health care? Do you want the government to provide health care? Move to locations where those services are provided, just understand that those services are likely to increase the demand for land in the areas where they are available, competition for that land will result in an increased tax liability.

Under a land value taxation system, you pay for what you get in a competitive market. Competition between governments leaves little room for corruption, and government has no incentive to grow beyond its role as a service and infrastructure provider.

Now, there's a surprise!

From The Metro:

Heroin trial cuts crime and drug use

A heroin supply scheme for addicts has substantially cut crime and the use of street drugs, according to analysis. The pilot scheme consists of supervised clinics in London, Brighton and Darlington where addicts were given heroin or substitute methadone. Around 100 people are involved. Those given heroin did best with 75 per cent "substantially" reducing their use of drugs.

The Randomised Injecting Opioid Treatment Trial programme began three years ago. Addicts were given psychological support. Addicts were split into three different groups: those injecting methodone, those taking methodone orally and those injecting heroin. More than half of the heroin injectors were "largely abstinent" from street drugs and their average spend dropped from £300 to £50 a week. There was also a big drop in crimes committed. The 60-odd heroin injectors had been committing 1,731 crimes a month in total, which dropped to 547 when on the scheme.

Fun Online Poll Results: Agglomeration

Thanks to everybody who voted. The response to the question "Who is best placed to decide what to build on any particular plot of land?" was as follows:

The owner of that plot - 65%
The owners of neighbouring plots - 18%
The local council - 10%
Central government - 7%

Which must be the 'correct' answer. I agree there is superficially a tension between the relative interests of the owners of neighbouring plots if we just look at one particular development, which might deprive the property next door of some sunlight or a view*; but it's more interesting to look at the bigger picture, and ask"Where are land values higher - in the middle of town centres (e.g. Manhattan) or out in the countryside?"; then to ask "How high would land values be on Manhattan if the original settlors had not made use of its natural harbours and defences, and instead zoned it as agricultural land, or restricted planning to one family home per acre?"; and finally to ask "Is Manhattan so densely developed because land values are so high, or are land values so high because it is so densely developed?".

This is what we call agglomeration - even in the absence of any planning restrictions or zoning laws whatsoever, 'birds of a feather flock together'. You'd be daft to build a factory on expensive residential land and you'd be daft to build a family home in the middle of an industrial area; an out-of-town retail park will fare much better if there are several different stores, all selling bulkier things like white goods or furniture but sharing a massive car park rather than just one store with its own car park.

You will also notice that in smaller towns, you get a variety of shops and businesses in the middle of town (you wouldn't go there if you could only buy fruit and veg; you are more likely to go there if you can also pop into the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker), but in larger towns, you find whole streets or areas where nearly all the shops sell the same thing. In central London, you find clothes shops and department stores on Oxford Street; electronics shops on Tottenham Court Road; theatres on and near Shaftsbury Avenue etc. Interestingly, even though each of these uses must have some 'external costs', it must also have 'external benefits', and the rental value of each shop reflects the profit value to the owner/occupier, plus the external benefits and minus the external costs of the neighbouring businesses.

As the rental value appears to increase if you are in the same street as your competitors (or complementary businesses, in the case of smaller towns) rather than decrease; and as the rental values of premises in the same street are going to be broadly the same, the external benefits generated by each occupant must exceed the external costs (or else rental values would tend to nil rather than skywards).

So the 'location value' of any site, being a positive figure, consists to a large extent (I can't quantify this as a fraction of the total rental value, but it it very significant) of the external benefits created by neighbouring occupants

* So all things being equal, the best thing that can happen is that neighbouring land is developed to its optimum use. I know that a couple of regular commenters (Dearieme and Lola) aren't too happy with the thought of new housing blocking the view over somebody else's land that they currently enjoy, but taking society as a whole, their loss is somebody else's gain; if new housing were built (but not 'social' housing, obviously), then instead of one house with a nice view, there's a new house with a nice view and an old house with not such a nice view. Overall, society or the economy is better off. And if they don't want neighbouring land to be developed, the free market solution is not planning restrictions but the farmer offering to sell them the land for the same price that a property developer would offer.
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For a bit of light relief, this week's Poll will establish how many visitors are 'down with the kids'.

Nazis versus Libertarians: The Pragmatarian view

Letter From A Tory weighed up the pro's and con's and came down on the side of the German government in 'banning' the HDJ. With my natural aversion to any sort of policy based on "should..." or "it would be nice if ...", I commented as follows:

Before we ask whether there is ‘a problem’ we have to ask whether there is anything ‘the state’ can do to help. Yes, I find such brainwashing of children just as awful as Muslims brainwashing their own children, but you just cannot stop it. If you somehow prevent these people meeting up in semi-public, then they’ll just brainwash their children at home. So in the absence of a solution, there’s no point looking for a problem.

Which as far as I am concerned, is the end of the matter.

"Selling sex legally in New Zealand"

There's a fine BBC article on how things have changed in NZ since prostitution was legalised six years ago.

It's fairly short and well worth a read, so I won't highlight bits of it. Suffice to say, this is a golden opportunity for pragmatarians and libertarians to say "We told you so."

Eurobarometer: People aren't that bothered about Global Warming

Richard North at EUReferendum has a pop at the EU's pathetic attempts to overstate people's concerns about MMGW. I think that even he has missed the point. The results as shown on page 6 of the final report are as follows:

As you will notice, the first column adds up to 313%, because people were allowed to give multiple answers. So I have added an extra column showing the true percentage, which knocks 'Global warming/climate change' (a bit vague there!) down to 20%.

The whole thing is a farce anyway, take worries about 'overpopulation' and 'starvation', for example. Either you think there is plenty of food and water, but you'd like to restrict the number of people, or you think that there isn't enough food and water in which case you can't be worried about overpopulation as the world's population has reached its natural upper limit. Or in my case you're not worried about either. Starvation is for the most part caused by bad government - because they have bad agricultural or trade policies or because they engage in endless warfare. And I really don't mind how many or few children people want to have, as long as they can look after them properly without handouts.

The original questionnaire allowed respondents to suggest something that was not on the list.

My number one concern (not on the list, obviously) would have been Big Government, which probably causes most of the other things on the list. The bigger a government is, the more taxes it collects, the more it interferes in the economy and agriculture, the more authoritarian it gets (and an authoritarian government spends half its time busily whipping up a Climate Of Fear, be that of terrorism, bad weather, overpopulation, you name it), all of this to the overall detriment of 99% of the world's population.

Two party rotating dictatorship (2)

Continuing the theme of my an earlier post, the answer to the question Are we destined to be stuck in a two party rotating dictatorship for good? is, rather depressingly, "Yes". Bluntly speaking, this is not just because of the dishonesty of politicians, it is because of the dishonesty (or stupidity, or petty-mindedness, or lack of vision) of voters.

The two (or three) large parties have policies that are virtually indistiguishable; because it is easier for them to "fight over the centre ground". This is not really centre-ground at all, it is Large Government.

If a small-government, free market liberal sticks his head above the parapet, sure, most people will agree with him on one or two narrow issues, but most will also be more worried about losing some trifling advantage that the tax, welfare or planning system gives him; or by the thought that others might benefit more; or, Heaven forbid, that the State might stop interfering in people's lives so much. This forces the large parties to stick to the pre-agreed script; any perceived differences are purely presentational and not of substance.

I can't be bothered rehearsing the arguments in favour of low, simple taxes and Universal Benefits, it's easier to consider this in terms of relatively trivial matters, for example my manifesto for a Coalition Of The Willing. The accompanying Fun On-Line Poll ended up 60% in favour of scrapping all these silly bans, but I doubt whether any political party, short of LPUK, would have the nerve to recommend such a list. And to be honest, I doubt whether this sort of thing is a vote-winner, because voters are basically a spiteful lot, who quite happily give up one or two freedoms of their own if it means that they can outlaw all the little things of which they don't approve.

Crudely, Tory voters don't like the fox-hunting ban but wouldn't dream of legalising cannabis; Lib Dem or Green voters are relaxed about legalising cannabis but disapprove of fox-hunting. The Labour Party just enjoy banning everything, I am not sure if Labour voters have even noticed this, so it might not be fair to generalise on "What the stereotypical Labour-voter would or would not ban".

And there we have it, a classic impasse, that can only get worse as time goes on.

"Accident-free zone...

... The German town which scrapped all traffic lights and road signs"

Wot? An outbreak of libertarianism at The Daily Mail?

Via Martin Cassini.

Coalition of the willing (3)

After a hard day out and about, I return to Ye Olde Interwebbe and am pleased to see that the fun online poll now shows 62 people voting in favour of scrapping of all these silly bans and only 43 voting to retain, and indeed probably extend them.

Coalition of the willing

Let's look at a list* of some of the main things have been made illegal (or might be made illegal) for no good reason (whether such a ban is actually enforced or not in practice is by-the-by) and the two most stupid traffic regulations:

Smoking in pubs and clubs
Drinking alcohol on public transport
Smoking cannabis
Fox-hunting
Patio heaters
Plastic carrier bags
Taking ecstasy tablets
Brothels
Traffic lights
National speed limit on the motorways and major roads
-----------------
Update:
Allow handguns for sporting purposes
Scrap ID card scheme, national ID database and interviews for passports
Allow local councils to subsidise post offices via a precept on Council Tax, subject to local referenda
Allow trading and collecting ceremonial swords
Allow shops to use pounds and ounces
-----------------
The reason why 'they' get away with it is because the majority of people don't smoke (either tobacco or cannabis); the majority of people don't work in or admit to visiting brothels; didn't used to go fox hunting and so on. But surely, a majority of people would like to at least some of these bans lifted (those particular bans that affect them personally) or to see more humane traffic regulations? OK, there may well be a minority who don't do any of these things, who don't mind being stuck at traffic lights and who are basically total kill-joys, but let's ignore them for now.

To sum up, would there not be any mileage in a political party saying that they'd lift all these stupid bans and regulations, in one fell swoop - lock, stock and barrel?

For sure, there may be hippy dope smokers who support the fox-hunting ban; there may be women who hate traffic lights and quite like plastic carrier bags but have a moralistic aversion to brothels; there may be those who used to enjoy lighting up in the pub who believe (erroneously) that ecstasy is a dangerous drug - but have we not reached the tipping point where all these narrow groups could declare an armistice and all do their own thing and let others get on with doing their own thing?

* Please leave a comment if I've missed anything important off the list!

UPDATE 24/05/08 - the online poll over here is currently standing at 24 'ayes' and 23 'noes', most heartening indeed! Why not drop in and have your say?

"MPs to vote on abortion limit cut"

In my 'Libertarianism & pragmatism' series, my reply to David Bergland's question "What should government policy be toward abortion?" was "Provided a woman can look a doctor straight in the eye and tell him that she really doesn't want the child, then she should be allowed to have an abortion, as easily and early as possible to minimise distress and to enable her to get on with her life."

There are two sides to this, as ever. If it is broadly agreed that 'late' terminations are A Bad Thing, then by all means, reduce the upper limit, but, as a quid pro quo make it much, much easier for women to have an early termination, the easier and earlier the better AFAIAC.

Update: Video of Mad Nad was here but it's disappeared again, ah well.

"Hints of methane's renewed rise"

Again, whoopee-do!

Average methane concentration in the atmosphere has increased over the last ten years by ... 30 parts per billion.

A billion is one thousand million! Thirty as a fraction of that is 0.000003% (five zeroes after the decimal point). Methane is, allegedly, 25 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than CO₂. So that's equivalent to a rise in CO₂ of 0.75 ppm (parts per million), and as CO₂ has risen by about 100 ppm over the last three centuries, with no apparent ill effects (apart from The Thames not freezing over any more) what is there to be worried about?

Have I missed something?

"MPs call for BAA to be broken up"

Excellent, excellent.

Firstly because it's exactly what I recommended last week, and secondly it illustrates who's got whom over a barrel when domestic companies and assets are foreign-owned. If BAA were still owned by a UK-domiciled group, it would be able to exercise far more - in this case malign - influence over MPs to resist such a move.

Understanding the causes of poverty

By Dr Madsen Pirie over at the Adam Smith Institute.

Absolutely essential reading - straight out of AVBD's 'Problems that don't need solving' school of thought.