I’ve written several times about the foolish War on Drugs, which has been about as misguided and ineffective as the government’s War on Poverty.
So when I saw a news report about a couple of Swedes getting busted for smuggling 200-plus kilos of contraband into Norway, and then another story about a Russian getting caught trying to sneak 90 kilos of an illicit substance into the country, I wondered whether these were reports about cocaine or marijuana. Or perhaps heroin or crystal meth.
Hardly. Norway’s law enforcement community was protecting people from the horrible scourge of illegal butter.
Sounds absurd, but there’s been an increase in the demand for butter and high import taxes have created a huge incentive for black market butter sales. Here’s a video on this latest example of government stupidity.
I guess the moral of the story is that if you outlaw butter, only outlaws will have butter. Or perhaps butter is the gateway drug leading to whole milk consumption, red meat, salt, and other dietary sins. Surely Mayor Bloomberg will want to investigate.
By the way, the United States is not immune from foolish policies that line the pockets of criminals. Here’s a video from the Mackinac Center revealing how punitive tobacco taxes facilitate organized crime.
Speaking of crime...
One hopes that the dictator of North Korea suffered greatly before he died. After all, his totalitarian and communist (pardon the redundancy) policies caused untold death and misery.
But let’s try to learn an economics lesson. In a previous post, I compared long-term growth in Hong Kong and Argentina to show the difference between capitalism and cronyism.
But for a much more dramatic comparison, look at the difference between North Korea and South Korea. Hmmm…, I wonder if we can conclude that markets are better than statism?
And if you like these types of comparisons, here’s a post showing how Singapore has caught up with the United States. And here’s another comparing what’s happened in the past 30 years in Chile, Argentina, and Venezuela.