by Dan Mitchell | Mar 28, 2020 | Big Government, Blogs, Europe
Motivated in part by a sensible desire for free trade, six nations from Western Europe signed the Treaty of Rome in 1957, thus creating the European Economic Community (EEC). Sort of a European version of the North American Free Trade Agreement (now known as USMCA)....
by Dan Mitchell | Mar 27, 2020 | Big Government, Blogs, Free Market
Five days ago, I wrote “Coronavirus and Big Government” to highlight how sloth-like bureaucracy and stifling red tape deserve much of the blame for America’s slow response to the crisis. And I started that column by sharing four points from a previous column on...
by Dan Mitchell | Mar 26, 2020 | Bailouts, Big Government, Blogs, Europe
I’m not an optimist about Europe’s economic future. Most nations have excessive welfare states and punitive taxes, which is hardly good news. You then have to consider demographic trends such as aging populations (i.e., more people relying on government) and falling...
by Dan Mitchell | Mar 25, 2020 | Big Government, Blogs, Taxation
Back in 2013, I joked that “you get bipartisanship when the Stupid Party and the Evil Party both agree on something.” That generally means bad outcomes, with the TARP bailout being a prime illustration. We now have another example since many Republicans and Democrats...
by Dan Mitchell | Mar 24, 2020 | Blogs, Economics, Health Care
In the past couple of weeks, we’ve discussed a bunch of coronavirus-related issues, ranging from big-picture topics such as the proper role of government and the catastrophic downsides of excessive bureaucracy to more-focused topics such as how gun control puts...
