by Dan Mitchell | Nov 30, 2019 | Big Government, Blogs, Taxation, VAT
I wrote yesterday about Japan’s experience with the value-added tax, mostly to criticize the International Monetary Fund. The statist bureaucrats at the IMF are urging a big increase in Japan’s VAT even though the last increase was only imposed two months ago (in a...
by Dan Mitchell | Nov 29, 2019 | Blogs
It seems that the International Monetary Fund and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development have an ongoing contest to see which bureaucracy can be the biggest cheerleader for bad fiscal policy. They compete (OECD vs IMF) to promote more spending. They...
by Dan Mitchell | Nov 28, 2019 | Blogs, Economics, Free Market, Socialism
By global standards, the United States is a bulwark of capitalism. Yes, government is too big and there’s far too much intervention, but we have enough private property and free enterprise to be ranked #5 for economic liberty. Which helps to explain why...
by Dan Mitchell | Nov 27, 2019 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Socialism
In pure socialist systems, governments own and operate companies (the “means of production“). Such an approach also requires central planning and price controls. But you don’t need socialism to have government-controlled companies. There are plenty of “state-owned...
by Dan Mitchell | Nov 26, 2019 | Blogs, Economics, Free Market
I’m a big fan of Marco Rubio. The Florida Senator has been very good on some big issues and on some small issues. And he’s willing to fight important philosophical battles. No politician is perfect (for instance, Rubio defends sugar subsidies), so I’ve always judged...
