Arbitrage is taking advantage of simultaneously different prices for the same thing, then buying and selling both at the same time, keeping the the price difference as profit.
Done on a large enough scale, it can make one wealthy, beyond comprehension in some cases.
This, though, is about an entirely different form of arbitrage, which I've arbitrarily named.
Often, we read about practices in other countries and can't imagine why they exist.
I'm sure that in Japan, for example, where it is all but impossible for a civilian to possess a firearm legally, they cannot for the life of them understand how it is that almost anyone can own a gun in the U.S.
And we have difficulty with seeming oppressive Danish laws on permissible names for children.
Thus, Sarah Lyall's New York Times story from this past Tuesday, about the annual BBC license fee of $233 for each television owned in Britain, seemed to illuminate a somewhat Draconian approach to use of the media.
Reading on, when I found that anyone found illegally harboring a television can be fined $1,923 or wind up in jail, I really sat up and took notice.
Turns out even if you own a TV and don't watch it you still have to pay the fee.
Fee-evasion cases make up 12% of the caseloads in magistrates' courts.
Last year, 20 people were imprisoned for nonpayment.
Article comments
1 - Harry Forbes
The BBC's draconian method of fundraising makes our PBS appear benevolent by comparison. Just occasisional Federal funding and obnoxious auctions, etc.
This aspect of the BBC is worthy of the Soviet-era Pravda.