Porn Tax

Mike sent me this story.

LOS ANGELES - California state lawmakers are considering an unusual idea to solve the state's huge budget shortfall: Tax pornography.

Makes sense to me since politicians are always finding new ways to fuck up. Look at what they're doing about the energy crisis. we could have started drilling in ANWR 14 years ago if BJ hadn't vetoed it. Schmuky Schumer recently stated that if OPEC would increase oil production by one million barrels a day it would drop the price of oil by 25%. Funny, he said last week that if we had ANWR open for drilling the one million barrels a day we would get for that would only drop the price of gasoline by a penny a gallon. And you wonder why I call him Schmucky?

The idea was proposed by a state assemblyman, and would impose a 25 percent tax on the production and sales of pornographic videos -- the vast majority of which are made in southern California.

What an idiot! They would just move their operations to Las Vegas.

It is unknown, however, how seriously lawmakers will take the idea or how the porn business would deal with the new tax. It is likely, though, that porm-makers would simply pass the cost along to consumers by making pornographic materials more expensive.

Well, that too.

However, many economists believe that pornography is an industry with inelastic demand -- meaning market conditions typically don't affect consumers' desire for the product. In other words, it is believed that most porn consumers would continue to buy regardless of how much it cost.

I'm really trying to think of a joke that goes along with "inelastic demand", like an inelastic condom.

A potential economic downside to the tax proposal is that porn producers could leave California to manufacture and distribute videos in other states that don't impose the tax.

In other words, the porn industry will not allow politicians to screw it.

Posted by denny at May 23, 2008 09:32 PM