If people are criticizing the Federal Reserve, it’s overwhelmingly likely that they are focused on the central bank’s poor conduct of monetary policy. And there’s plenty to criticize, as documented in this video featuring Professor George Selgin. I also have a video,…
Daily Analysis
Almost All Nations Are Heading for Collapse, but Greece Is Special (in a Bad Way)
I wrote yesterday that the United Kingdom is doomed because there isn’t a political party with the vision or courage to restrain the welfare state. At various points, I’ve also expressed pessimism about the future of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Ireland, and even…
Spending Cuts and Tax Cuts Should Be an All-of-the-Above Option, Not an Either-Or Choice
I’m in Slovenia where I just finished indoctrinating educating a bunch of students on the importance of Mitchell’s Golden Rule as a means of restraining the burden of government spending. And I emphasized that the fiscal problem in Europe is the size of government,…
A Miserable and Hopeless Fiscal Outlook for the United Kingdom
If you live in America and believe in free markets and small government, it’s easy to get depressed. We suffered through eight years of wasteful spending and misguided intervention under Bush, and now we’re enduring four years of additional spending and red tape under…
America’s Corporate Tax Rate is So Punitive that Companies Are Even Moving to Welfare States Like the U.K. to Be More Competitive
I was a bit surprised couple of years ago to read that an American company re-located to Canada to benefit from better tax policy. But I wasn’t totally shocked by the news because Canada has been lowering tax rates, reducing the burden of government spending, and…
Romney is Right that You Can Lower Tax Rates and Reduce Tax Preferences without Hurting the Middle Class
Even though I’m not a Romney fan, I sometimes feel compelled to defend him against leftist demagoguery. But instead of writing about tax havens, as I’ve done in the past, today we’re going to look at incremental tax reform. The left has been loudly asserting that the…
Our Government’s Shameful Priorities: Heavier Punishment for Bank Account Reporting Miscue than for Child Porn
If you can read the following and not get upset, you are not a good person. Please move to France (where higher taxes are “patriotic”) and don’t come back. I’m engaging in a bit of hyperbole, but you’ll hopefully understand after reading this excerpt from a very…
The White House Is Crazy to Invite a Comparison of Job Creation under Reagan and Obama
I’ve done a few comparisons of economic performance under Reagan and Obama, sometimes using the interactive data from the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank. And I’ve done a few TV interviews on the same subject. But something was very different in this interview…
Maybe It Is Possible to Reform Health Entitlements
I’m never guilty of being an optimist, but two items caught my attention today that suggest the tide may be turning on entitlement reform. We’ll start with something from the New York Times. Regular readers know that I’ve criticized that paper on a few occasions….
Germany’s Dark Vision for Europe
Like Sweden and Denmark, Germany is a semi-rational welfare state. It generally relies on a market-oriented approach in areas other than fiscal policy, and it avoided the Keynesian excesses that caused additional misery and red ink in America (though it is far from…