Have a gander at this rather surprising story:
Small government and free-market capitalism are about to get put to the test in Honduras, where the government has agreed to let an investment group build an experimental city with no taxes on income, capital gains or sales.Proponents say the tiny, as-yet unnamed town will become a Central American beacon of job creation and investment, by combining secure property rights with minimal government interference.
“Once we provide a sound legal system within which to do business, the whole job creation machine – the miracle of capitalism – will get going,” Michael Strong, CEO of the MKG Group, which will build the city and set its laws, told FoxNews.com.
Strong said that the agreement with the Honduran government states that the only tax will be on property.
“Our goal is to be the most economically free entity on Earth,” Strong said.
Talk about a big development occurring entirely “under the radar,” eh? Who knew the Hondurans were the most politically adventurous people in the Western Hemisphere? Then again, they did eject that scoundrel Zelaya, didn’t they? And against the resistance and disapproval of Barack Hussein Obama, The Won himself!
Of course, not all Hondurans approve:
The bill to allow the creation of such cities passed the Honduran Legislature nearly unanimously, by a vote of 126 to 1. But not everyone is on board with the project. Left-wing Hondurans have filed a complaint before the Honduran Supreme Court, arguing that the free cities project violates their constitution and treats “national territory as a commodity.”...”I can't help but suspect that the promise of plenty of jobs is nothing but a Trojan horse,” Teofilo Colon Jr., who runs the Garifuna cultural group Being Garifuna, told FoxNews.com.
“The prospect of setting up a charter city, with its own laws, [that] is sovereign to itself and doesn't have to pay taxes, is a dubious one at best. It'd be tantamount to inviting pirates to come in and have free reign to essentially raid the country's resources/riches.”
The model city is to be built on entirely unoccupied, unexploited land. No one in Honduras has a claim on it; it appears to have no “resources” other than beach access. But that wouldn’t daunt the foes of freedom. A demonstration project such as this, which could become a Central American Hong Kong, would endanger the entire Leftist project. It cannot be allowed to begin – and if it begins, it cannot be allowed to succeed.
I predict that there will be assaults on this project from start to finish. Some will be destructive. Some might even be murderous. And doubt not for a moment that the international Left will be involved in all of them.
This is a development to watch closely. Let’s hope the reporting stays close to the project as it proceeds.
Wow.
ReplyDeleteSounded like a good idea or experiment, but it's all falling apart now. One lawyer critic was just murdered, the professor who created the project is washing his hands of it, and thus companies that were more likely to participate will probably not given the instability of the scheme.
ReplyDeleteQuestion: Will the right to keep and bear arms be recognized there?
ReplyDelete