On June 20, 2017, the Lithuanian Free Market Institute organizes an international conference titled “Paternalist Policies and Food Regulation: Objectives and Consequences”, aimed at initiating a series of public debates on the growing trends of state paternalism.
This year the Tax Freedom Day comes five days later; regrettably, government spending surpasses economic growth and Lithuanian taxpayers should work more and more just to pay taxes. To compare, Estonia celebrated on May 7, the United States on April 23, and Australia on April 13.
Lithuania’s new Labor Code that was supposed to be flexible in balancing employee-employer interests is to take effect as of 1 July 2017. It was already approved by the previous government, but vetoed by the President. Therefore, its entry into force was postponed and so began the process of its improvement.
According to the results of a representative population survey carried out by “Spinter Research” on behalf of the Lithuanian Free Market Institute, 48% of Lithuanians wish their children pursued a career in entrepreneurship. Yet, the same group associates entrepreneurship with risk, innovation, and hard work.
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.
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.
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.
The Lithuanian Free Market Institute has released the sixth edition of the Lithuanian Municipal Performance Index (MPI). This year the capital city of Vilnius has firmly maintained the top ranking, followed by Klaipėda, Šiauliai and Kaunas city municipalities. The Kaunas District Municipality has outperformed other 53 regional administrations.
