by Dan Mitchell | May 8, 2017 | Blogs, Economics, Taxation
The tax system is bad news for professional sports, with plenty of anecdotal evidence showing that athletes (and even fans) get pillaged by government. Now we have some comprehensive academic research to augment the anecdotes. The Wall Street Journal opined today on a...
by Dan Mitchell | May 7, 2017 | Big Government, Blogs
What word best describes the actions of government? Would it be greed? How about thuggery? Or cronyism? Writing for Reason, Eric Boehm has a story showing that “all of the above” may be the right answer. At first it seems like a story about government greed. When Mats...
by Dan Mitchell | May 6, 2017 | Blogs, Economics, Free Market
When contemplating the importance of good public policy, we can learn a lot from bad examples. Why did the Soviet Empire collapse? Why are Cuba and North Korea so poor? Why is Venezuela falling apart? The answer, in no small part, is that economies suffer immensely...
by Dan Mitchell | May 5, 2017 | Big Government, Blogs, Europe, Government Spending
A couple of weeks ago, I reviewed the four major candidates running in the French presidential election and expressed general pessimism. This Sunday, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen will face each other in the runoff election. That’s a rather depressing choice....
by Dan Mitchell | May 4, 2017 | Big Government, Blogs
One of the points I repeatedly make is that big government breeds corruption for the simple reason that politicians have more power to reward friends and punish enemies. It’s especially nauseating when big companies learn that they can get in bed with big government...
