CNE Monatsmagazin Digest
February 2008

English Summary

How much is it? Health expenditure in Germany is experiencing dramatic growth. Is Health Technology Assessment (HTA), the systematic appraisal of the costs and benefits of a medical treatment, an objective and scientific way to address this dilemma or is it just another political construct aimed at the systematic rationing of medicines? "Cost Pressures on the German Health System - Is Health Technology Assessment the Solution?" a joint conference of Stockholm Network and IUF, Berlin, addresses these and other pressing questions.

Fire smoke: Tobacco bans rest partly on the belief that smoking is addictive. But searching for taxes seems to be much more addictive. "In many countries around the world governments collect more in tax revenue from the tobacco industry than the companies themselves make in profits. Governments are not stupid: there must be a good reason why for centuries in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Sweden and other countries, the government owned the tobacco industry. Perhaps there is another candidate for the title, "Most addicted": governments", writes Michael McKay, a consultant with 23 years experience in the international tobacco industry.

Waterland: "Proponents of a right to water act as if the rich nations would sit on their ample resources of water and refuse thirsty nations to take some or would sell it to them at horrendous prices", says Hardy Bouillon. "You may be displeased by unequal water-resources among peoples, and you may wish it would be otherwise. However, rights don't result from imbalance or from wishful thinking, rather from contracts", he argues.

Family policy: Hayek Essay Competition 2008. Every year, the Berlin-based Friedrich August von Hayek-Society, together with the Hayek Foundation, invites students and junior scholars to send in their ideas on a topical theme. In 2007 the topic is: According to Hayek, private property and the family build the foundation of a free society. How do you judge the family policies in Germany? Essays must be written in German. Participants from all disciplines are welcome. Prizes: First Prize: €1,000; Second Prize: €750; Third prize: €500. Winners will be invited to the Hayek-Days in Freiburg.

Just air: You would like to be a mechanic?, aks Stephen Pollard. "You'll need training. No worries; I can tell you how to get what you need, courtesy of the taxpayer. Just slash my car tyres. … Following a pilot scheme that has started in Derbyshire, called Skills Builder, young offenders are sentenced not to prison, not to labouring for community service but to ... being taught skills." "What a genius idea: break the law and get free job training. That's not punishment; it's a reward. But then much of the criminal justice system long ago stopped being about justice and started being about the criminal", concludes Pollard.

Ticket to ride: Speeding tickets are most welcome by municipalities to earn extra money, says Gunnar Sohn. Some communes seem to ration parking lots in order to get money from illegal parking. This and arbitrarily installed speed cameras provoke offensive behaviour among drivers, he quotes Horst Mirbach, Chairman of the "freedom of trade" campaign. And he wonders why one meets speed cameras more often shortly before one leaves a town than in front of a kindergarden where they would be more useful.

The last word: If you want a lesson in how not to help a country's poor, and how not to take advantage of a country's natural resources, take a leaf out of Hugo Chavez's book, recommends Stephen Pollard. One might suspect that Chavez is using the country's oil wealth for securing services of value to him but that are not transparent. And he follows Joe Carroll, that Chavez uses oil as a means of coercive diplomacy, hurts other nations that are not in a position to sell below market price, and subsidises rich-world consumers at the expense of poor Venezuelans.

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Dr. Hardy Bouillon is Head of Academic Affairs at the Centre for the New Europe.