LFMI

Lithuanians seem to have gotten used to governmental promises just as to the changing seasons. The only difference is that spring is bound to come eventually, while the government fails to deliver.

Forced solidarity creates a contradiction – the working class taking care of themselves seems to oppose the interests of the pensioners, while helping the pensioners more would result in a greater burden on the workers. The pursuit of solidarity leads to a conflict of interests.

Public tenders are beneficial to the taxpayers who actually pay for them. According to the Public Procurement Office of Lithuania, in 2015, over 300 million euro were spent without a competitive procurement procedure. This means that taxpayers have most likely overpaid in the majority of cases.

Possibility to set statutory VAT rate below 15% for a wider set of different goods and services may lead to lower effective VAT rates in various Member States. Therefore, countries, which have fewer exemptions and/or reduced rates, may maintain the same principles of taxation but lower their standard VAT rate.

London, March 14, 2017. Lithuanian Free Market Institute’s economics textbook for upper secondary schools Economics in 31 Hours receives the Educational Learning Resources Award at the London Book Fair’s International Excellence Awards, becoming first Lithuanian publication to ever receive this award from the world’s leading publishers.

The colloquium will consist of four topic-specific sessions, on monetary policy, entitlement policy, labour market policy, and the nanny state. Each session will start with an introductory presentation by the Lithuanian Free Market Institute and will be followed by a moderated discussion.

The Lithuanian Free Market Institute was shortlisted among three finalists for this year’s award for its textbook for upper secondary school students Economics in 31 Hours. The Educational Learning Resources Award recognizes excellence in innovation, pedagogical value and practicality of educational resources.

Ranked 16th in the annual Worldwide Index of Economic Freedom by Heritage Foundation, Lithuania surpasses Latvia, but falls behind Estonia. In fact, economic freedom in Lithuania is in a much better shape than it is in the neighboring Latvia (20th) and Poland (45th), but much weaker compared to Estonia (6th).

If a person works, strives and believes in being primarily responsible for his/her own destiny and not someone else, if that individual plans own finances, saves up and at least tries to escape from the “from pay to pay” circle - such a person is considered as the middle class or has all the potential to become it.

It would seem that freedom unites people, gives them a sense of community and a common denominator. However, freedom may embrace many incompatible things. If we truly wish to be free, we must be able to differentiate between the concepts of liberating freedom and binding freedom.