You don’t enjoy many victories when you fight for liberty, so I’m not averse to spiking the football on those rare occasions when we win. That’s why I shared this very funny cartoon last week to celebrate Obama’s belly flop on gun control. Now we have another cartoon,…
Daily Analysis
Are there any Lessons to Be Learned from the Rogoff-Reinhart Kerfuffle?
For those who haven’t followed this issue, Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart wrote an influential paper in 2010 arguing that government debt above 90 percent of GDP was associated with weaker economic performance. It turns out that the Rogoff and Reinhart made a…
How the Welfare State Erodes Social Capital, as Illustrated by a Chuck Asay Cartoon
I’m a big fan of Chuck Asay’s political cartoons. My favorite is his nothing-left-to-steal masterpiece. And his tractor cartoon and his regime-uncertainty cartoon are brilliant indictments of Obamanomics. Here’s another classic. It shows the impact of the welfare…
Explaining to the Kleptocrats on Capitol Hill that Tax Havens Should Be Emulated, not Persecuted
Since I just left Monaco and am now in Geneva, this is an appropriate time to extol the virtues of so-called tax havens. But I don’t merely say nice things about low-tax jurisdictions when I’m in friendly environments. I believe in swinging my sword in the…
New European Central Bank Study Finds that Government Spending Undermines Growth
The fiscal policy debate often drives me crazy because far too many people focus on deficits. The Keynesians argue that deficits are good for growth and this leads them to support more government spending. The “austerity” crowd at places such as the International…
FATCA: Exposing the IGA Bait-and-Switch
There are many problems with the FATCA intergovernmental agreement (IGA) process. From a US perspective, they agreements represent a subversion of the proper treaty process, an unconstitutional expansion of executive powers, and an unwise commitment to saddle US banks…
Federalism Is Good Policy and Good Politics
It’s a challenge to be a libertarian in Washington because you have to swim against the tide. The vast majority of people in town are looking for excuses to spend money and amass power, and a small band of us are trying to convince them that the federal government…
Powerful Evidence for School Choice
I expressed pessimism a few days ago about the possibility of replacing the corrupt internal revenue code with a flat tax. Either now or in the future. But that’s an exception to my general feeling that we’re moving in the right direction on public policy. I’ve shared…
Unexpected Praise for Australia’s Private Social Security System
One reason I’m so bullish on Australia is that the nation has a privatized Social Security system called “Superannuation,” with workers setting aside 9 percent of their income in personal retirement accounts (rising to 12 percent by 2020). Established almost 30 years…
Barack Obama’s $8 Trillion Output Gap
I’m not a very exciting guy. It’s Saturday afternoon and I’m perusing the Budget and Economic Outlook from the Congressional Budget Office. But sometimes it pays to be a nerd because I just found an interesting tidbit of information. Here’s what CBO says about the…