by Dan Mitchell | Sep 1, 2024 | Blogs, Economics, Socialism
I sometimes make the theoretical case against socialism. Usually, this means exposing the flaws of the core components of the socialist ideology. Government ownership of the means of production is a recipe for resource misallocation. Central planning has a...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 31, 2024 | Blogs
As an economist, I’m very tempted to say that Ronald Reagan‘s greatest achievement was America’s economic rejuvenation. He had a very impressive list of accomplishments, including lower tax rates, spending restraint, and getting inflation...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 30, 2024 | Blogs, Economics, Trade
Frederic Bastiat, the great French economist from the 1800s, explained that a good economist looks at both direct effects and indirect effects of government policies. Here are a few examples. If tax rates are increased, a good economist will look at the...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 29, 2024 | Blogs, Economics
I’ve written many times about how Americans are much richer than Europeans. And I’ve also written many times that the U.S. economy has been growing faster (which shouldn’t happen according to convergence theory). There’s a...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 28, 2024 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
When debating my left-leaning friends about economic policy, I often hit them with my “never-answered question” by asking them to name any country, at any point in history, that became rich with big government. They usually evade the question, though some of them...
