I hope the title to this blog post is completely wrong, but the news out of Europe is very grim. Politicians have been over-spending and going deeper and deeper into debt. This negatively affects the private sector in the usual ways (higher taxes, unproductive allocation of resources, etc), but also creates instability in the financial […]

The Freeman has an article by an expert from Bermuda about the importance of giving taxpayers an escape option to curtail the greed of the political elite: The Declaration of Independence had it exactly right: “He [King George III] has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our […]

It is probably safe to assume that government bureaucrats are overpaid in every city and state, but it won’t come as a big surprise to learn that San Francisco is especially profligate. Here are some disturbing details compiled by Investor’s Business Daily: We have seen the future and it works — for certain people. Take […]

CNBC is reporting that 51 German millionaires and billionaires have endorsed the idea of that rich people should have to give an extra 10 percent of their income to the government. I’m tempted to dismiss this story since (according to my rudimentary math skills) these clowns represent only 6/1000th of 1 percent of all wealthy […]

The U.S. Postal Service has been hemorrhaging money for decades, and it’s not hard to understand why.  As a government protected monopoly, the Postal Service cannot adjust to changing market conditions like an ordinary business.  In addition, they are often subject to political pressure and must make decisions on factors other than economics.  The obvious […]

The United States has a very anti-competitive corporate tax regime. The federal tax rates is 35 percent and the average of state corporate tax systems brings the rate to nearly 40 percent. In Europe, by contrast, the average corporate tax rate is about 25 percent. Depending on which measure is used, the United States and […]

Here’s a cheerful story I saw linked on Drudge, which shows that sometimes rich people are not guilt-ridden statists and instead stand shoulder to shoulder with ordinary people to fight bad government policy. In Australia, the leftist government wants to impose a class-warfare tax on the mining industry, but the scheme is backfiring as opponents […]

When you’re a government bureaucrat, it’s never a bad time to interrupt people with real jobs, doing real work, in order to apply pointless rules.  Rather than deploying all resources to address the oil spill in the Gulf, the Coast Guard has been holding hostage the clean-up boats in order to do “inspections.” Governor Jindal […]

Our latest Econ 101 video is a must watch.  If you haven’t seen it yet, Orphe Divounguy succinctly explains the role of minimum wage laws in creating unemployment in this video titled, “The Job-Killing Impact of Minimum Wage Laws:” Minimum wage laws seem like a good idea, but arbitrarily mandating a certain wage can have […]

In an amusing coincidence, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and I were both in Latin America this week offering fiscal policy advice. But it won’t surprise you to know that Mrs. Clinton’s suggestions are radically different than the advice I provided. She spoke in Ecaudor and, according to an AFP report, said it was time […]