Tim Worstall

Free Traders

Russia is to crack down on the low level traders, those who shuttle across the borders with huge suitcases of goods for resale. Bit of a nonsense really as those with the connections and moving trainloads pay even less in duty and bribes. Still, one customer poses a good question:

Marina Anshakova, a 57-year-old pensioner shopping in the
Dorogomilovsky market, was outraged by that prospect. “Where do they
expect me to shop?” she said. “The market is the only place where I can
find cheap things. Why should the Government make me pay more?”

Quite. Why should there ever be import duties on anything?

In

2 responses

  1. Tim Newman Avatar
    Tim Newman

    That’ll put a stop to the Russians coming to Dubai to stock up on shubas, which they then take home and flog.
    Or maybe, on the other hand, it won’t.

    Reply
  2. The Remittance Man Avatar
    The Remittance Man

    “Why should there ever be import duties on anything?”
    Politicians operate on a kind of instinctive search-find-tax reflex. There’s absolutely no thought process involved, simply a pre-programmed imperative to increase government revenue. In fact they remarkably like amaeobas in this.
    Sadly, there the similarity ends; billions of single cell organisms can happily swim around eating each other without ever affecting civilised people.
    RM

    Reply

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