What Is Syria's Iranian Credit Line Worth?
Steve H. Hanke
Last week, the press was filled with reportage about Tehran throwing a lifeline – actually a credit line of $3.6 billion – to the Syrian regime.
The announcement of this Iranian lifeline should have changed the economic expectations of Syrians in the throes of what has morphed into a bloody civil war. Indeed, if it materializes, the $3.6 billion credit line should allow Damascus to conserve its dwindling supply of foreign exchange. This development should have thrown a positive expectation shock into the market for the Syrian pound.
So, did economic expectations receive a positive boost from the a...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - August 5, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Steve H. Hanke Source Type: blogs
America's Corporate Tax System Ranks a Miserable 94 out of 100 Nations in "Tax Attractiveness"
Daniel J. Mitchell
I’ve relentlessly complained that the United States has the highest corporate tax rate among all developed nations.
And if you look at all the world’s countries, our status is still very dismal. According to the Economist, we have the second highest corporate tax rate, exceeded only by the United Arab Emirates.
But some people argue that the statutory tax rate can be very misleading because of all the other policies that impact the actual tax burden on companies.
That’s a very fair point, so I was very interested to see that a couple of economists at a German think tank put togeth...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 11, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Daniel J. Mitchell Source Type: blogs
Value of the Syrian Pound Hits an All-Time Low
Steve H. Hanke
As I have documented previously, the economic devastation and international sanctions that have accompanied Syria’s civil war have wreaked havoc on the country’s currency, the Syrian pound (SYP). In a desperate, wrong-headed attempt to save its troubled currency, the Assad regime has imposed harsh penalties for currency trading on the black-market. This strategy proved wildly unsuccessful when it was utilized by the Iran in October of 2012.
Indeed, as was the case in Iran, attempts to suppress currency exchange have sparked a panic – a run on the Syrian pound. As of 10 July 2013, the value of the Syri...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 10, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Steve H. Hanke Source Type: blogs
Toxoplasmosis in Brazil
Brazil’s obsession with toxoplasmosis is difficult to explain. The term, “Toxoplasma” appears in 0.363% of all Brazilian publications indexed on PubMed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed – as compared to 0.086% of publications from the United States. Abstracts from Gideon www.GideonOnline.com summarize 120 relevant surveys / serosurveys from Brazil, but only 19 from the combined literature of neighboring Bolivia, Argentina and Venezuela (only 38 from the United States). Strikingly, there have been only 37 Brazilian surveys of HIV infection, and only 9 of dengue as of 2013.
The following list of Brazi...
Source: GIDEON blog - June 30, 2013 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Dr. Stephen Berger Tags: Ebooks Epidemiology ProMED Brazil Toxoplasmosis Source Type: blogs
Why is There a Shortage of Toilet Paper in Venezuela?
Juan Carlos Hidalgo
Forget about price controls. The Venezuelan government finally figured it out. The country is facing an acute shortage of toilet paper because people are eating too much. The head of the National Institute of Statistics released a survey yesterday that shows that Venezuelans “are eating three times a day or even more.” Thus the shortage.
However, Venezuelans don’t have to worry any more about eating in excess. Their National Assembly just approved the importation of 39 million rolls of toilet paper.
The beauties of Socialism. (Source: Cato-at-liberty)
Source: Cato-at-liberty - May 23, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Juan Carlos Hidalgo Source Type: blogs
Price Controls: A Troubling Trend in Latin America
Steve H. Hanke
Argentina, Venezuela, and now even Ecuador have all embraced an unfortunate, if familiar, economic craze currently sweeping the region – price controls. In a wrong-headed attempt to “suppress” inflation, the respective governments have attempted to fix prices at artificially low levels. As any economist worth his salt knows, this will ultimately lead to scarcity.
Consider Venezuela, where the government sets the price of a number of goods, including premium gasoline, which is fixed at only 5.8 U.S. cents per gallon. As the accompanying chart shows, 20.4% of goods are simply not available in stores.
W...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 17, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Steve H. Hanke Source Type: blogs
A Dubious Government Victory in Venezuela
Juan Carlos Hidalgo
According to Venezuela’s National Election Council (CNE), Nicolás Maduro, the chavista candidate in yesterday’s presidential election, beat the opposition’s Henrique Capriles by less than 265,000 votes—the narrowest margin in a Venezuelan election since 1968.
However, there are good reasons to believe there was foul play. After polling stations closed yesterday, there were numerous reports of irregularities where security forces or armed gangs prevented the opposition from participating in the vote count. Also, even after 98 percent of the votes had been reported, it took the government-contro...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 15, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Juan Carlos Hidalgo Source Type: blogs
Hemorrhagic fever virus missing from BSL-4 laboratory
One of five vials of Guanarito virus is missing from the Galveston National Laboratory, which houses a BSL-4 laboratory designed to safely study the most dangerous pathogens.
Guanarito virus is a member of the family Arenaviridae, which includes enveloped viruses with a segmented, negative-strand RNA genome. It is found in Venezuela where it is transmitted to humans from rats. The natural host is believed to be the short-tailed cane mouse. In humans the virus causes hemorrhagic fever with a case fatality rate of 23%. The virus does not transmit among humans and is not known to replicate in US rodents. Other viruses that ...
Source: virology blog - March 26, 2013 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: Information BSL-4 deadly virus galveston national laboratory guanarito virus texas biolab viral virology Source Type: blogs
The Hagel Hearings: Congressional Politics at Its Worst
Doug Bandow
The confirmation hearings on Chuck Hagel’s nomination to head the Pentagon are mercifully over. His wobbly performance earned derision among neoconservatives, but he responded as they intended to an interrogation that was all about politics, not policy.
As I have noted before, Hagel is under fire because he disputed neoconservative nostrums to speak unpleasant truths to the Republican Party. He was an orthodox conservative, including on foreign policy. However, he was an Eisenhower, not a Dubya, Republican: Hagel criticized the debacle in Iraq, urged negotiation to forestall Iran from developing nuclea...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - February 4, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Doug Bandow Source Type: blogs
Big Tobacco Makes a Move Into E-Cigarettes
“A battery-operated, addiction-based market.”
While the FDA dithered, and health advocates argued, Big Tobacco began placing its bets on the e-cigarette market last year. Tobacco firm Lorillard Inc., the third largest tobacco company in America, bought privately held Blue Ecigs of Charlotte, N.C., for $135 million, driven by what the company says is a market that’s been doubling ever year since e-cigs first arrived from China in 2008.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Blue Ecigs had $30 million in revenues last year, selling through retail outlets like Walgreens, where it competes with e-brands such as NJOY and...
Source: Addiction Inbox - January 22, 2013 Category: Addiction Authors: Dirk Hanson Source Type: blogs
Climate Impact of the Keystone XL Pipeline: Some Further Thoughts
Paul C. "Chip" Knappenberger
On Tuesday, I posted an analysis of the climate impacts from the burning the oil that would be transported through the Keystone XL pipeline (if the pipeline were to be approved).
I concluded that on an annual basis, the burning of the ~800,000 barrels of oil that would flow through the pipeline each day would produce about 0.0001°C of global warming per year (one ten-thousandths of a degree Celsius)—a value of little climatological significance.
But on further reflection, I think this number is too high.
Data on U.S. oil consumption from the Energy Information Administration (EIA)...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - January 9, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Paul C. "Chip" Knappenberger Source Type: blogs
Hugo Chávez’s Last Days
Juan Carlos Hidalgo
Venezuela’s Vice President Nicolás Maduro announced last night from Havana that Hugo Chávez suffered new complications from his fourth cancer surgery. Rumors abound on the true condition of the president, but it now looks certain that Chávez won’t be able to return to Venezuela by January 10th to be sworn in for a new six-year term.
Unfortunately, Hugo Chávez has been the defining figure of Latin American politics in the last decade. His authoritarian populism doesn’t differ much from other Latin American leaders, but his influence on regional politics, buoyed by almost one trilli...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 31, 2012 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Juan Carlos Hidalgo Source Type: blogs
