A few of these Top 10 Reasons to Not Shop Online ring true. However, I’ve bought a lot of stuff online with happy results. The price is often right, it is generally much faster, and when I’m going to buy something besides clothes and food at a bricks and mortar place I find I still do most of the research online.
Via Ken MacLeod.
Gary Becker argues that the war on drugs has failed and that alternate approaches involving legalization, regulation and high taxes might achieve current results along with other benefits without the large social and individual costs associated with the current prohibition.
Richard Posner generally agrees with Becker arguments:
If the resources used to wage the war were reallocated to other social projects, such as reducing violent crime, there would probably be a net social gain. For one thing, it is particularly costly to enforce the law against a �victimless� crime, more precisely a crime that consists of a transaction between a willing seller and a willing buyer.
In addition, he points out that:
The political source of the war on drugs is mysterious if, as I am inclined to believe, there is a legal substitute for every one of the illegal drugs:…
…it is apparent that our society has no general policy against the consumption of mind-altering substances, and there seems to be a certain arbitrariness in the choice of the subset to prohibit.
To get a sense of just how large the failure has been on a global scale check out the maps that Michael Stastny has posted from the World Drug Report 20041. Note what country is either number 1 or 2 in usage for each category. Stastny has an interesting supposition about his government:
Maybe Austrian authorities know that watching TV does more harm to your brain and health than taking drugs once in a while and that stigmatizing long-term users doesn’t help either.
So, a war on TV instead of drugs? Well, no. We do not need any increased government intervention in media. But I would accept regulation and taxation of now illegal drugs as a first step out of the current quagmire. The proper long term goal is, though, to completely remove the government from any involvement in “transactions between a willing buyer and a willing seller.”
Via Marginal Revolution where you can find more here.
1The report and the above referenced maps appear to overlook certain other popular drugs, e.g., alcohol!?
Well, duh, they make money:
“With the near-zero cost of sending out huge volumes of spam, the fact that more than one in ten users are purchasing products is clearly continuing to drive the economics of spam,” said Radicati.
Another way of looking at this is that a lot of folks consider the unsolicited email proffering painkillers, stiffeners, low interest mortgages, etc., to be as useful as other forms of advertising.
The Washington legislature is considering legislation that will give consumers the authority:
….to put a security freeze on their credit-reporting file. A security freeze lets the consumer prevent anyone from looking at his or her own credit reporting file for purposes of granting credit unless the consumer chooses to let that particular business look at the information.
This is a partial step in the right direction. It is not enough and will not as article suggests give consumers the ability to prevent identity thieves from getting credit in their names.
As I commented last month individuals must own their personal information and:
No institution, government or private, can be allowed to collect or distribute, for free or for fee, any information about an individual without that individuals specific consent on a per incident basis and if the distribution is for a fee then that individual must be compensated at a rate agreeable to the individual.
Anything less is a recipe for theft underwritten by the very governmental institutions alleged to be our protectors.
I often agree with Larry Lessig but he is off base here:
But the government also should not act as the cat’s paw for one of the most powerful industries in the nation by making competition against that industry illegal, whether from government or not. This is true, at least, when it is unclear just what kind of “good” such competition might produce.
Broadband is the perfect example. The private market has failed the US so far.
First, he is absolutely correct when we rails against government enforced monopolies which reflects the state of the telecom industry for, well, seemingly forever.
Second, though, what private market has failed us? The heavily regulated, monopolistic telecom industry? No, this is better described as a government failure.
Lessig goes on to suggest:
The solution is not to fire private enterprise; it is instead to encourage more competition.
But it is not market competition he is suggesting. It is governments entering the market.
Lynn Kiesling has a great suggestion:
A better approach would be for governments to strive to be technology neutral, focus on defining the objectives, and work (interjurisdictionally, if necessary) to reduce the transaction costs and other features of the institutional landscape that prevent robust, private competition from occurring.
This is, I think, a very polite way of saying quit mucking with the market and start clearing out the sludge that has been put in the way of effective market functioning.