How to save the economy

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/busines...titution-revenue/story-fni0d54w-1227094386825

Colorado has also benefited with increased tax revenue and decreased crime rates - http://mic.com/articles/92449/here-...o-has-become-six-months-after-legalizing-weed


Does any free market advocate disagree that prohibition is a waste of money and results in lost potential revenue?

 

I agree that prohibition of victimless crimes is a waste of money (and is immoral). I don't give a fig about the lost potential revenue as it'd be wasted anyway.

 

Your title almost had it right

Save the economy... by ending government interference in it.

Prohibition of drugs just being one of the more damaging effects on many levels. But of course you could easily move on to money, banking, law, security, etc...

 

It's just moving the profits to a different gang.

 

Pablo Escobar looked after his people, and the government is not above using violence to achieve it's aims. Really can't decide which gang would be better.

Assuming inevitable wastage, isn't potential revenue favourable to not having potential revenue? At the very least it would reduce the dependence on credit.

 

^ They'd just find something else to spend it on and get into credit anyway.

 

No doubt. A lesser negative is not a plus, but it's still the better option.

 

Drugs and hookers are a centuries old source of renewable revenue. I'm sure that in any government free region, whoever controls these trades, controls the people.
Are we only printing money because it's more "ethical"?

 

IMO "ethical" has nothing to do it with it. It allows taxation without legislation and hence, allows spending with less restraint.

http://forums.silverstackers.com/message-416876.html#p416876

 

But empirical evidence says that's not how it works. Governments are taking in more revenue than ever in history and yet they are more in debt than ever, and in most cases, the amounts are staggering.

The facts invalidate your theory, don't you think?

EDIT: as for the drug war, yes , any time you have an embargo in place and you are seperating buyers from sellers with force and the threat of physical force, you are by definition damaging the market. Apply economic reasoning to it and it's easy to see how you get the results that you do. But the fundamental part about the drug war is not that it is uneconomic (which it clearly is), but that it is unethical and immoral and trampling upon basic human rights. People may claim they have good intentions but the means they are using are not well-intentioned and you can apply the same reasoning to pretty much any forceful intervention in people's lives.