I apologize for the long hiatus since my last post. I've had this story on my desk for weeks, but the sheer brilliance of it finally brought me back to this blog.

New York City's first completely non-smoking apartment building will soon open at 1510 Lexington Avenue. Residents will be prohibited from smoking both inside and within the immediate outside perimeter of the building.

This story might upset a lot of people - after all, the building is banning a legal activity. However, allow me to explain my positive excitement over this news.

The government did not have a finger in this decision. This is not a public housing project. Rather, this is a private, family-owned apartment building that saw unmet market demand for smoke-free housing. CBS New York reported:

And even with a surplus of apartments on the market, Kenbar [Management] feels theirs will be in demand. Backing that up was a Zogby poll in July, which found that 58 percent of New Yorkers would be willing to pay more for a smoke-free home.

If you want to be free to smoke in your apartment - fine, live someplace else.

All levels of government can learn a valuable lesson from this story. There is no need to force private businesses to ban smoking in their establishments. If a market for smoke-free establishments exist, the private sector will respond to it. The government will cause more harm than good by intervening in these matters that lie outside its proper scope.

For example, Ireland's smoking ban in pubs has been highly lauded around the world. However, it is not as widely known that in the first year of the smoking ban, over 100 pubs went out of business. According to Stephen Kelly, chief executive of the Federation of Retail Licensed Trade:

The much-promoted view that non-smokers would be rushing to premises has not materialised. We expect another 100 to close next year.

If non-smokers want to spend their money only at smoke-free establishments, the private market will react far more appropriately than the government in taking actions to accept their money. Government intervention is tailored to only meet the needs of the majority (or, more specifically, the majority of the electorate). The private market, on the other hand, meets the needs of every individual - an incomprehensible concept to supporters of big government.

The Local, an English-language Swedish news site, reported that the Swedish Film Institute gave 500,000 kronor ($69,000) in taxpayer money to fund a feminist pornographic movie:

Engberg has also tried to make feminist porn before, which has resulted in a lesbian porn film and a film of women's' [sic] facial expressions at the point of orgasm. Her vision is to get make [sic] the porn industry more appealing to women, all in the name of feminism. She also claims that women's sexuality is more multi-faceted than men's.

But to argue that girls having sex with girls and women masturbating is somehow a good alternative to mainstream porn feels like a completely alien concept to me, and to many other women. Furthermore, most people would agree that the state should not fund pornography. And when it does, should it really only benefit women, all in the name of equality? If a man had sought and received similar funding for ‘regular’ porn, it wouldn’t have taken long before there was an outcry from supporters of equality between the sexes.

I am glad the author of this article acknowledges that the government should not fund pornography and should not fund initiatives that only benefit certain groups in the name of equality. These are positive developments that demonstrate why Sweden is shifting away from its socialist tendencies at a time when other countries (e.g. the United States) are regressing.

However, the author passed on the opportunity to take this line of thought a step further by stating that the government should not be in the business of funding movies in general (pornographic or not). After all, the classic Swedish Film The Seventh Seal didn't receive public funds.

Greg Mankiw's blog pointed me to this development - France is preparing to enact a carbon tax. Now, I've previously written on the merits of a carbon tax over a cap-and-trade system (carbon quota), but France presents an interesting case - they have both.

Also interesting is the title of the BBC News article on the story: France Set to Impose Carbon Tax [emphasis added]. When BBC reported on the EU cap-and-trade (carbon quota) program, they did not describe it as an imposition upon the people. Of course, they may have just chose the word because two-thirds of French voters are against the tax.

Mankiw was quick to point out that the French carbon tax will be revenue neutral either by offsetting current taxes or through a tax rebate. Additionally, the carbon tax will not overlap with any industries covered under the EU carbon quota program.

I'm still upset that UBS caved to the U.S. government's demands to break Switzerland's secrecy laws by providing the names of 4,450 UBS clients. However, I'm not nearly as upset as the Swiss. RealClearWorld reports, "The Swiss public is critical of UBS but resentful of outside meddling with its secrecy laws." Great, more people that are upset with the United States over invading privacy.

The author, Alvaro Vargas Llosa, makes a solid point:

Blaming bank secrecy for the illegal origin of funds that find their way to Swiss banks is like advocating press censorship because deceitful politicians give TV interviews to win votes. Governments that blame foreign banks for tax evasion and money laundering are whitewashing their own incompetence. Incidentally, not a few dictators -- Robert Mugabe comes to mind -- with Swiss bank accounts obtained their cash from foreign aid provided by the very governments that accuse those banks of harboring illegal funds.

The United States needs to stop looking to other countries to solve U.S. problems. Most problems involving money held overseas are a result of the cumbersome U.S. tax code. More on this in a future post.

Beginning September 13, homeless residents of Utrecht, Netherlands (a beautiful city, in my humble, world-traveling opinion) will become official tour guides of the city. While the homeless residents are licensed by the city (and therefore, not completely a private market solution), I still love this innovative idea.

The nonprofit organization, Altrecht, developed the program with the city of Utrecht. Simone Lensink, a spokeswoman for the organization, described the program:

The idea is for people to rediscover the town and in particular those areas where their guides used to sleep or do drugs. This is a small part of the history of Utrecht.

These are people with a unique background. They had to learn to be social and to be able to tell their story in an interesting and coherent manner

Altrecht recognized that a market existed for "underground" tours of Utrecht. I am sure demand exists in other cities around the world, too. Customers can learn a new side of the cities they visit (or where they already live), and the city's homeless men and women can earn money for performing a real service - not a government handout or fake make-work job.

The British government has declared that they will begin to cut-off Internet access to people who illegally download movies and music. Despite claims by groups such as Open Rights Group that this decision limits free expression, the British Phonographic Industry openly supports it as a new tool to fight piracy. The movie and music industries would trample every personal liberty to fight piracy.

In the United States, state government can revoke a citizen's driver's license because driving is a privilege, offered by the state. The Internet is not a privilege. If the government does not provide Internet access, then it cannot revoke your access to it.

The militarization of police forces around the world is a growing problem. While studying at a Chinese university, I never grew comfortable riding elevators with police officers armed with automatic rifles.

Police militarization is not limited to authoritarian countries but may be a sign that a country is moving in that direction. Many U.S. cities, including Washington, DC, have begun to arm their officers with automatic weapons.

In the UK, police forces have special powers to stop "raves," defined as:

A gathering on land in the open air of 100 or more persons (whether or not trespassers) at which amplified music is played during the night (with or without intermissions) and is such as, by reason of its loudness and duration and the time at which it is played, is likely to cause serious distress to the inhabitants of the locality.

To show their force, the police used (or abused) this law in breaking up a "rave" that was posted as an all-night event on Facebook. Actually, the "rave" was a 30th birthday party barbecue on private property. The event had 17 confirmed guests on Facebook.

The police arrived at 4pm (before the hosts turned on any music) with riot vans, body armor, and a helicopter! Naturally, the police defend their actions against claims of excessive force.

Government attempts to legislate morality has been an all-too-common theme around the world. No country seems immune to the unwarranted desire to dictate the morality of its citizens, including the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Russia, and now Ukraine.

The Ukrainian ministry of culture (read: censors) voted 9-5 to completely block the release of 'Bruno' in the country. They stated, "The film contains unjustified showing of genital organs and sexual relations and shows homosexual acts and homosexual perversions in an explicitly realist manner." They fear the movie's themes "could damage the morality of citizens [emphasis added]."

Ignoring the fact that bootleg copies of the film are likely already available throughout the country, after reading Ukraine's constitution, I see no statute that gives the government authority to legislate morality in the country (same as in the United States, et. al.). In fact, Article 4 states:

Human rights and freedoms and their guarantees determine the essence and orientation of the activity of the State. The State is answerable to the individual for its activity. To affirm and ensure human rights and freedoms is the main duty of the State.

Additionally, Article 15 declares, "Social life in Ukraine is based on the principles of political, economic and ideological diversity," and, "Censorship is prohibited [emphasis added]."

In the U.S., 'Bruno' topped the box office in its opening weekend, grossing over $30 million (while being shown in approximately half as many theatres as the Transformers and Ice Age sequels, but this is a result of private sector censorship - NOT public sector censorship - Fahrenheit 451, anyone?).

In China, films cannot promote sex, crime, violence, or gambling in order to pass government censorship requirements. However, they have shown a willingness to ease these restrictions, as China was the only country to show the 2007 film 'Casino Royale' completely uncut (no sex, crime, violence, or gambling there!).

Blasphemers beware! Ireland's House of Representatives (Dáil Éireann) has joined most Middle Eastern countries in passing legislation criminalizing blasphemy. The UK's Guardian asks the appropriate question, "Who asked for Ireland's blasphemy law?"

The short answer: no one. As far as I can tell, the politicians have taken it upon themselves to pass legislation no one wanted in an effort to prevent the kind of outcry seen in other European countries over religion. However, like efforts to legislate morality, it is not the proper role of government to prevent members of any religion from taking offense or becoming outraged.

Micheal Nugent with Atheist Ireland explains that the legislation updates the 1961 Defamation Act, which was stricken down by the country's Supreme Court in 1999. The Dáil has argued this new legislation is necessary to fill a "void". Free expression is not a void. Liberty is not a void. Liberty is a boundary, marking the grounds where government must not extend its reach.

Nugent details some of the problems with the new legislation:

The proposed law does not protect religious belief; it incentivises outrage and it criminalises free speech. Under this proposed law, if a person expresses one belief about gods, and other people think that this insults a different belief about gods, then these people can become outraged, and this outrage can make it illegal for the first person to express his or her beliefs.

Furthermore, if convicted under the new blasphemy law, the 'victim' (because anyone convicted under this law is certainly a victim) will be fined €25,000 and his/her home and office will be searched for blasphemous material which will subsequently disposed of by the government.

HT: Paliban Daily (full text of the legislation available here)

I reported earlier on the continuing encroachment on freedom in Europe. I now have the pleasure to write that the UK has, at the least, postponed its march towards a more authoritarian form of government. (I will have more on the ideological spectrum in a later post).

The UK's new home secretary, Alan Johnson, will not make ID cards mandatory for UK citizens. However, the long-term contract to produce the ID cards has only been delayed, not canceled, with production now scheduled to begin in 2011 or 2012.

Fortunately, the resurgent Conservative Party has publicly promised to abolish the program altogether if they win the next general election. The Liberal Democrats (completely different meaning in the UK) also reject the mandatory ID cards but lack the popular support to win the next general election.

While this is a positive step, everything may not be fine if the Labour Party remains in power. The Party will be unlikely to completely scrap a program for which they publicly lobbied and supported. Additionally, the Financial Times reports:

Mr Johnson said on Tuesday he was an “instinctive” supporter of ID cards and announced plans to extend a voluntary scheme in Manchester to the rest of the north-west. The cards would be useful for young people to provide proof of age and for tackling antisocial behaviour [emphasis added].

The British spelling of "behavior" aside, it is not the proper role of government to legislate morality.

Admittedly, while I have never been a fan of the EU's antitrust policies, I was further disheartened by their reaction to the latest case against Microsoft. First, I'd like to reiterate a key difference between EU and U.S. antitrust policies pointed out by George L. Priest, professor of antitrust law at Yale Law School:

U.S. antitrust laws condemn practices that are "in restraint of trade," which has been interpreted to mean harm to competition. The European Union, in contrast, condemns practices that constitute "abuse of a dominant position."

Essentially, the EU will punish companies for producing a product desired by a majority of consumers (or as I will demonstrate, what they simply perceive to be a majority), and they do this in the name of "competition," regardless of merit.

In response to the EU's latest antitrust claim against Microsoft's bundled software, the company announced it will not include Internet Explorer as pre-installed software with its upcoming Windows 7 release in Europe. End of story, right? Wrong.

According to EU regulators, "Rather than more choice, Microsoft seems to have chosen to provide less." The regulators want Microsoft to provide an option to choose between an included offering of several browsers, particularly browsers built by competing software companies.

One of the companies leading the EU's antitrust push is Norwegian-based Opera. The company's CTO Wium Lie has stated, "We are very disappointed. I don't think what Microsoft announced is going to restore competition. I don't think it's going to be enough, I don't think it will get them off the hook."

According to which source you use, Opera currently controls .72% to 2.2% of the global browser market. By comparison, Internet Explorer holds 41% to 65.5% and Firefox has continued its climb, ranking between 22.51% and 47.7%. With some sources ranking Internet Explorer's market share at less than 50%, you would think the EU wouldn't have much of an antitrust case even under their own anticompetitive laws.

Several years ago, I downloaded several browsers, including Opera, to decide which browser I like the best, and I chose Firefox based on its merits. While not including IE with Windows 7 will not imporve Opera's standings, offering the chioce between IE and Opera will also not improve its market share. The browser simply cannot compete on its own merits so it wants to force Microsoft's hand. You cannot encourage competition in a free market by force (except in the extenuating circumstances such as monopoly - which Microsoft is not).

The fact of the matter is any computer user with Internet access around the world can choose for themselves to download any web browser, including Opera, for free. The EU should not interfere in this matter because competition already exists.

---

In a similar European matter, Ofcom, the independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries, wants to mandate BSkyB to offer its premium sports channels at "regulated prices" to other television broadcasters as the "most appropriate way of ensuring fair and effective competition." Sound familiar?

Apparently, Europe no longer believes in companies holding a competive advantage over other companies - a sombering development.