by Dan Mitchell | May 8, 2010 | Bailouts, Big Government, Blogs, Uncategorized
Total government debt is about 115 percent of GDP in Greece, which clearly is one of the factors that spooked investors and led to the bailout. But Japan – at least on paper – is in much worse shape with government debt approaching 200 percent of GDP. And...
by Dan Mitchell | May 7, 2010 | Big Government, Blogs, Uncategorized
I always appreciate a column that sounds like I could have been the author, and this editorial from the WSJ hits the mark. The IMF/EU bailout is just masking the problems of a bloated welfare state and giving politicians some breathing room to avoid making the real...
by Dan Mitchell | May 5, 2010 | Big Government, Blogs, Europe, Uncategorized
There’s an old joke that if you owe a bank $10,000, you have a problem, but if you owe a bank $10,000,000, the bank has a problem. The Greek government certainly seems to have that attitude. Short-sighted and corrupt politicians in Athens have spent their nation...
by Dan Mitchell | May 5, 2010 | Big Government, Blogs, Europe, Uncategorized
My blood pressure spiked after reading this story from the UK-based Times. The Greeks are rioting in the streets because they want our money (i.e., an IMF bailout) and they want to keep all the inefficient and wasteful government policies that caused the crisis. In...
by Dan Mitchell | May 4, 2010 | Big Government, Blogs, Uncategorized
GreeI arrived in Madrid last week for a speech to the annual Convention of Independent Financial Advisors, and it is somehow fitting that Spain was downgraded by Standard and Poor’s as I entered the country. I’m not a fan of the bond-rating agencies, and...
