by Dan Mitchell | Mar 8, 2019 | Blogs, Society
When talking with people who dislike free enterprise, it’s quite common that they will admit (at least once I share some of the evidence) that markets produce more prosperity than statism. But that generally doesn’t convince them. In part, this is because they believe...
by Dan Mitchell | Mar 7, 2019 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
The long-run fiscal outlook for most developed nations is very grim thanks to demographic change and poorly designed entitlement programs. For all intents and purposes, we’re all destined to become Greece according to long-run projections from the International...
by Dan Mitchell | Mar 5, 2019 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics
What’s the worst thing the government does? That’s a difficult question to answer. I’ve argued that giving U.S. tax dollars to the OECD is the worst item in the budget, on a per-dollar-spent basis. And I’ve expressed scathing disdain for the horrid practice of civil...
by Dan Mitchell | Mar 4, 2019 | Big Government, Blogs, Privacy
I’ve written repeatedly about how anti-money laundering (AML) laws are pointless, expensive, intrusive, discriminatory, and ineffective. And they especially hurt poor people according to the World Bank. That’s a miserable track record, even by government standards....
by Dan Mitchell | Mar 3, 2019 | Blogs, Taxation
Germany is like the Nordic nations. It gets a decent ranking (#20) for overall economic freedom, but mostly because a bad score for fiscal policy is offset by reasonably good scores in other policy areas. Taking a closer look at fiscal policy, there’s a heavy burden...