Like Sweden and Denmark, Germany is a semi-rational welfare state. It generally relies on a market-oriented approach in areas other than fiscal policy, and it avoided the Keynesian excesses that caused additional misery and red ink in America (though it is far from fiscally conservative, notwithstanding the sophomoric analysis of the Washington Post). Nonetheless, it’s […]
read more...It’s not often that I read something by Paul Krugman and think, “Good point, I hope he’s correct.” After all, I had to correct Krugman’s inaccurate analysis of Estonia, and also point out the errors in what he wrote about the United Kingdom. And I also noted mistakes he made when writing about Canada and […]
read more...Back in 2010, I posted some fascinating (at least to me) data on the underlying differences between conservatives, liberals, and libertarians. That same year, I also wrote about whether evolutionary history helps explain why some people are leftists. Let’s now reexamine the difference between those on the right and those on the left, based on […]
read more...Now that new numbers have been released by the Congressional Budget Office, it’s time once again for me to show how easy it is to balance the budget with modest spending restraint (though please remember our goal should be smaller government, not fiscal balance). I first did this back in September 2010, and showed that […]
read more...Here’s a riddle for policy wonks. What do you get if you take my videos on the economics of government spending and mix them in a blender with my videos on America’s entitlement crisis? You get this concise but compelling video from the Blaise Ingoglia at Government Gone Wild. Blaise has several other videos I […]
read more...I agree with George Will that it’s okay to reduce Pentagon spending. After all, the United States accounts for almost one-half of the world’s military outlays, about twice as much as the combined total of possible enemies. But I also agree that national defense is one of the few legitimate functions of the federal government, […]
read more...Back in 2010, I posted a fascinating map from the Economist website, showing debt burdens (as a share of GDP) for nations around the world. This data showed lots of red ink, with Western Europe generally being more indebted than the United States. In 2011, I posted some charts from a study by the Bank […]
read more...I’ve certainly complained about Obamacare from a fiscal perspective, warning that it means higher taxes and more spending. And I’ve also warned that it will make our health care system less efficient and could lead to some of the horrifying examples of rationing and poor care that you find in the United Kingdom (scroll to […]
read more...Every so often, you read something so ridiculously stupid and absurd that you assume that you’re being pranked. So you look to the date of the article to see if it says April 1. Or you look at the Internet address to see if it’s a parody of a real website. So when I read […]
read more...Even though I’ve already made clear that I am less-than-overwhelmed by the thought of Mitt Romney in the White House, I worry that people will become to think I’m a GOP toady. That’s because I’ve been spending a lot of time providing favorable analysis and commentary on the relative merits of the Ryan budget (particularly proposed […]
read more...