I’m not a fan of international bureaucracies. I’ve criticized the United Nations for wanting global taxes. I’ve condemned the International Monetary Fund for promoting bigger government. I’ve even excoriated the largely unknown Basel Committee on Banking Supervision…
Daily Analysis
Forget the Moochers on Wall Street, Shareholders Should Occupy Washington
Most of us are aware that America has a punitive corporate tax system, but here’s a sobering bit of analysis. Corporations pay more money to governments than they do to their shareholders. Here’s a chart from a recent Tax Foundation analysis. Now here’s something even…
CF&P Warnings on OECD Confirmed by New Study
Dr. Andrew P. Morriss of the University of Alabama and Lotta Moberg of George Mason University have produced a new paper titled, ““Cartelizing Taxes: Understanding the OECD’s Campaign Against ‘Harmful Tax Competition’,” which thoroughly documents the…
Another Sign of American Decline: USA Drops from 1st to 5th in Index of Financial Centers
I’ve previously blogged about the declining status of the United States, as measured by objective sources such as the Economic Freedom of the World Index and the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report. My attitude about these developments is to…
Bringing Science to Government
Accusing a political opponent of being anti-science has become a standard tactic of both parties in recent years. These accusations are usually dishonest, as what the accuser typically means is that the accused is not properly weighing the costs and benefits of…
Super Committee Must Focus on Spending
The so-called Super Committee has been tasked with finding $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction over the next ten years. Though with the President’s recent call for another half-trillion in stimulus that he claims would be payed for, they would need to find $2…
Are Tax Havens Moral or Immoral?
Being the world’s self-appointed defender of so-called tax havens has led to some rather bizarre episodes. The bureaucrats at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development threatened to have me thrown in a Mexican jail for the horrible crime of standing in…
When an American Company Redomiciles to the Cayman Islands, What Lesson Should We Learn?
Another American company has decided to expatriate for tax reasons. This process has been going on for decades, with companies giving up their U.S. charters (a form of business citizenship) and redomiciling in low-tax jurisdictions such as Bermuda, Ireland,…
Creating Galt’s Gulch from Scratch?
Advocates of limited government love to fantasize. But because we’re strange people, we don’t have ordinary fantasies about supermodels or playing pro baseball. We daydream about a libertarian nirvana, where the rights of individuals are protected, guided by a moral…
When Germany and France Both Agree on Something, You Can Safely Assume It Is a Terrible Idea
I’ve joked on many occasions that bipartisanship occurs in Washington when the evil party and the stupid party come up with an idea that is simultaneously malicious and misguided. The international version of two-wrongs-don’t-make-a-right occurs whenever the French…