Is the Free Newspaper Act a Good Idea?

French President Nicolas Sarkozy will give 18 year old people a year-long free subscription to a newspaper.

A French domestic matter is not my business. Let me change the subject a little bit. What if this occurred in Japan? It's a bad policy for three reasons:

First, I have the right to choose whether to read a newspaper or not. Someone might think everyone should read a newspaper, but I don't think so. Don't push reading newspapers onto others. Good fences make good neighbors. Read "On Liberty" by J.S. Mill.

Secondly, young people already have an alternative way of reading news without charge. It's the web. What's the problem with young people leaving printed media? Oh, technophobia? If you have technophobia, I want to ask you: why do you hate information technology even though you love printing technology? It's not technology that technophobians hate, it's change or learning.

Finally, the third reason is that the "free newspaper act" is apparently a bailout for the newspaper industry. It's not fair. Does the goverment give my company their money? If everyone made an effort to take government money, the taxes would increase. Every bit of spending must be redeemed in the future. There's no free lunch.

This is a paternalistic intervention into the free market. It will break the market mechanism. I'm against rationing policies.

Well, I don't know whether French people like it or not. It's not my business. I'm not bothered at all.

Highway Mileage Tax

Wow! I found this interesting:

Greg Mankiw's Blog: A Strange Pigovian Idea in Oregon

Democratic Gov. Theodore R. Kulongoski's upcoming budget calls for a highway tax based on mileage, not gasoline purchases.A state task force will look at equipping every new vehicle in Oregon with a Global Positioning System to record every mile driven and where. Motorists would pay at the gas pump based on how much they drove, no matter how fuel-frugal their vehicle.

Prof Mankiw says: "(On the other hand,) as long as politicians and the public are concerned about fuel efficiency and carbon emissions, as they seem to be, it makes more sense to stick to the more standard gasoline tax."

I have to admit that this highway-milage-based tax idea doesn't suit their purpose, which I suppose to be a solution for fuel efficiency and carbon emissions. Even so, it reminds me of Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt. Combining technology and microeconomics is a new frontier in effective lawmaking.

Microeconomics is fun!