by Dan Mitchell | Sep 1, 2018 | Blogs, Economics
In a recent interview, I got a chance to pontificate about the recipe for growth and prosperity. Free market capitalism revolutionized the western world, creating prosperitywhere there used to be deprivation. But that observation is the easy part. Later in the...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 31, 2018 | Big Government, Blogs
I don’t like it when poor people receive handouts from government, though not because I think they’re being grifters. I mostly view them as victims who are vulnerable to getting trapped in the quicksand of government dependency. The people I despise are the rich...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 30, 2018 | Blogs, Economics, Free Market
Whether I’m writing about a rich country or a poor country, my research starts with a visit to Economic Freedom of the World. Published by the Fraser Institute in Canada, EFW uses five major factors (fiscal, regulatory, monetary, trade, and quality of governance) to...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 29, 2018 | Blogs, Trade
Remember the big debate about whether Trump was a closet free trader or a crude protectionist? Some people claimed he was imposing tariffs and threatening other nations in order to get them to reduce trade barriers. From the beginning, I was skeptical of this...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 28, 2018 | Blogs, Trade
During America’s early history, trade taxes were the major source of government revenue, but they were “revenue tariffs” rather than “protectionist tariffs.” Lawmakers didn’t necessarily want to block imports. This was before America was plagued by an income tax and...
