Tag: Leon Louw

Every Budget is preceded and followed by the mantra that the Finance Minister faced serious challenges. No, that is never true. All Budgets are easy and straight forward. If they promote prosperity, then countries, including governments and the poor, get rich. All that’s needed is for Budgets to raise rather than lower economic freedom scores – more freedom, more prosperity; less freedom, more poverty. It is that simple.

The best was left for last. If what is promised in the end really happens, we will have a real prospect of desperately needed prosperity and jobs. If we really get reductions in spending and debt, market barriers down by 50%, a seriously reprioritised Budget, release of superfluous air waves spectrum, unbundling of Eskom, private power generation and the like, we will be a freer economy. Freer economies – as measured by the Economic Freedom of the World Index – always and everywhere prosper.

South Africa ranks 90th out of 162 countries and territories included in the Economic Freedom of the World: 2020 Annual Report, released today by the Free Market Foundation in conjunction with Canada’s Fraser Institute.

The Upgrading or Land Tenure Rights Act (ULTRA) is arguably democratic South Africa’s most important law. Yet virtually no one knows about it. A proposed amendment is currently before Parliament but only one aspect has enjoyed attention: the removal of gender discrimination.

Advocates of the lockdown ignore the most basic law of life, that benefits have costs, and that costs easily exceed benefits. People's most 'essential' need is income; the country's most 'essential' need is production. The government's decision to extend the lockdown might cause more premature deaths than far less extreme measures, or even lifting existing measures completely. The economic and human rights impact is more extreme than all but a few realise.

Nationalisation of property, inefficient State-owned enterprises, raising the legal drinking age from 18 to 21, and higher taxes in a low-growth environment. These ideas have all been tried elsewhere. And they have failed consistently, with few exceptions.

Leon Louw | Executive Director | Free Market Foundation | gailday@fmfsa.org | http://www.freemarketfoundation.com | A contentious new Bill that heralds higher data prices and reduced...