by Dan Mitchell | May 1, 2024 | Blogs, Economics
Genuine material deprivation is almost nonexistent in rich nations such as the United States. This is a huge improvement compared to how people lived just 100 or 20o years ago. Yet public policy fights about poverty will probably never end for the...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 30, 2024 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
I wrote a two-part series (here and here) in 2022 predicting that Italy was at risk of suffering a fiscal crisis. If and when it occurs, it will be because investors decide that Italy’s government might default (i.e., be unable to make payments on its debt)....
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 29, 2024 | Blogs, Capital Gains, Taxation
The tax bias against saving and investment is a major problem in the United States and many other nations. According to the latest-available data from the Tax Foundation, the worst of the worst is Canada. So how does Canada’s...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 28, 2024 | Big Government, Blogs, Taxation, Welfare and Entitlements
I already shared my thoughts about the value-added tax when discussing fiscal policy with an economist at the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise. Here’s some of what I said about tax progressivity and the welfare state. The bottom line is that the American tax...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 27, 2024 | Blogs, Capital Gains, Tax Competition, Taxation
Class-warfare tax policy is bad news. Last year, I warned that, “rich people are not sheep, patiently waiting to be sheared. If their fiscal torture is too extreme, they will leave.” Norway is a powerful example. Here’s a chart showing the rate at which...
