The Incentive Killers
There are damned few incentives left in modern-day Europe to pull it out of its economic doldrums and the recent bashing the EU has taken on referenda on the proposed constitution are emblematic of continental malaise. Here in the Czech Republic, the government recently opted to tax small businesses 6,000 crowns a year minimum tax, regardless of whether they actually made a profit or made anything---thereby closing down 18,000 little people, the grandmothers who crochet little odds and ends or paint decorative eggs for the annual Christmas festivals, as one example.
On top of embarrassment over disintegrating constitutional support, budget meetings in Brussels blew up last week over entitlements, the French calling Brits greedy and Tony Blair referring to Jacques Chirac as merely one of twenty-five rather than the voice of the EU. Chirac doesn’t like to be called merely anything. The French are touchy. Elegant, but very touchy.
World orders are in disorder everywhere. Perhaps it’s t…