Small Business Hawaii | Volume 23 Number 4 | April 1998
Small Business Hawaii | Volume 23 Number 4 | April 1998
INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION FOR SBH member Ken Schoolland has been invited to give speeches at two international conventions to discuss the global publishing phenomenon of the Small Business Hawaii educational project, "The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible: A Free Market Odyssey." Schoolland will be giving a presentation at the 23rd International Convention of the Association of Private Enterprise Education (APEE) in Dallas, Texas, April 5-7. The title of his paper is, "The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible: A Publishing Odyssey of Free Market Ideas." They are particlarly interested in experimental ways of enlivening economic education in the classroom. The book has had considerable success both inside and outside of the classroom and is now published in 13 languages: Croatian, Dutch, English (2nd edition), Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Norwegian, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovenian, and Spanish. The latest is the Chinese edition which is currently being serialized in The Hong Kong Economic Journal. Translations of thirteen additional editions are currently in progress: Japanese, Portuguese, Thai, Micronesian, Hebrew, Polish, German, Swedish, Hungarian, Mongolian, and revised editions of the second edition of the book in Romanian, Russian, and Norwegian. Three of these are scheduled for publication this year. Three publishers expressed an interest in this book at the World Book Fair in New Delhi, India this year. And the German edition, with a companion CD-ROM, is expected to be "unveiled" this summer in Berlin. Concurrent with the association convention, the APEE and Florida State University's Policy Sciences Center are presenting the International Conference on Economic Freedom of the World with an overall theme addressing property rights, markets, and the quality of life. The Liberale Akademie Berlin (LAB) invited Schoolland to deliver a speech this coming August 23-27 on "The Global Publication of Free Market Literature." The event is being organized in Berlin, Germany by the LAB as the 17th World Convention of the International Society for Individual Liberty (ISIL). ISIL has been so impressed with the progress of this book that they are now initiating a fundraising effort to expand the list of completed publications. Schoolland was also invited to help prepare ISIL conference participants from Eastern Europe by joining a teaching program in Vilnius, Lithuania during the week prior to the LAB conference. Many of those coming from Eastern Europe have weak language skills and an unfamiliarity with the English terms and vocabulary of economic discussion. I have been asked by the Lithuanian Free Market Institute to participate in their language instruction, drawing on my years of experience teaching at Hakodate University in Japan and using my book as the economics text for the program. This educational project of Small Business Hawaii, begun in 1989, is gaining considerable notice around the world; but still is not part of the public school curiculuum in Hawaii, even though SBH made it available at no cost.
TO TAX IS TO PUNISH
If you earn $50,000 per year and your friend earns $30,000 and you are taxed at 10% and he is taxed at 8%, you are being punished for earning $20,000 more. Let's say you risk $100,000 of your savings and work 69 1/2 hours per week while your friend works 39 1/2 hours per week punching a time clock and risks no capital at all. You are being punished for risking capital and working 30 extra hours per week. If your teenager breaks a rule, you might lower his allowance for 3 weeks. That's punishment, isn't it? Do you by chance call it a revenue enhancer? Your personal spending money is increased you know, why don't you call it a revenue enhancer? Is it because your purpose is to encourage good behavior of someone you love?
So, you extract punishment to achieve positive goals with your teenager. The government punishes you for doing positive acts like buying food for you children. What's the government's purpose? So it can do "positive" things for the "people." And then government employees and elected officials wonder why you are upset over the punishment they extract for you doing good and helpful acts like providing for you family's wants and needs. To make matters worse, all too often the "needy" that the government is helping is actually hurting them and society over the long run. Examples abound but here is one: Get hooked on drugs (a voluntary act) with the full realization that the government will view your plight as a "disease" and support your rehabilitation and living expenses. For some, that's an incentive to experiment because the consequences are muted. That is destructive, not helpful, for society as well as the unfortunate individual. Let's review: Government punishes you for doing helpful things so that they can spend money on encouraging destructive activities. What's wrong with this picture? Is this perversion or what? The GET tax is a perverted tax. It needs to be decreased, not increased. And that goes for the "graduated" income tax as well. Taxation, thou art perversion. No one likes to be punished for doing good. I do not want to increase any perversion...do you?
LIFE AND DEATH TABOO Nationwide more than 3000 people die each year because there are not enough organs donated for kidney, liver, heart, pancreas, and eye transplants that are necessary to save and improve lives. The shortage is especially acute in Hawaii. Surveying a few hundred college students, I found that only about 10% are currently registered so that their organs can be used for transplant patients in the event of an accidental death. Then I asked the students if they would be willing to sign up for organ donation if hospitals and medical insurance companies were to offer them a contract giving, say, $50,000 right now plus $50,000 to their families when they die. Suddenly, 60% were willing to volunteer. If national participation rates increased that much, then surely there would be more than enough organs to save the lives of those 3000 people who now die every year for lack of donations. An abundance of body organs not only ends shortages, but reduces prices and eliminates black markets. The idea of rewarding donor registration now for future donation has been promoted by Lloyd Cohen, a law professor at George Mason University. According to Cohen, the law allows everyone to make money from organ transplants except the person who donates the organs. Doctors make money, lawyers make money, hospitals and nurses make money, but currently it is illegal for people to receive any compensation for their own body organs. Well, whose body is it anyway? Do we have a right to make our own decisions or must we wait for officials to decide for us based on broad cultural taboos? Each person must be allowed to decide for himself. And if such a system of rewards can inspire thousands of additional donors, then we may all benefit when we, or beloved family members, need a life saving organ.
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The controversy over the proposed increase in the General Excise Tax has brought clearly to my mind the concept that tax is a punishment.
Back to the GET. To tax a transaction (purchase of milk, car, computer, bread) is to punish you for buying such. The government people call it a "revenue enhancer." Why? Because the people running the government want more money to redistribute for the benefit of the "people." What people? Never mind, they say, it just depends on who they want to give it to.