Politicians in Europe have spent decades creating a fiscal crisis by violating Mitchell’s Golden Rule and letting the government grow faster than the private sector. As a result, government is far too big today, and nations such as Greece are in the process of fiscal collapse. But that’s the good news – at least relatively […]

The Europeans have just agreed to another bailout for Greece. That’s the bad news. The good news is…well, there is no good news. Sarkozy, Merkel, and the other statists have once again failed to do the right thing and instead have decided to throw good money after bad and dig the debt hole even deeper. […]

I would have structured this flowchart differently, for reasons I discuss in this post, but this is pretty good picture of why Europe is in trouble. They say all roads lead to Rome, and this flowchart shows all roads lead to a banking crisis (see this post to understand why). But not all banking crises […]

After any news appearance, I torment myself by watching the clip and telling myself I should have said something differently or raised a different point. But I’m actually happy with this appearance on Fox Business News because I (hopefully) explained the difference between wealth that is honestly accumulated and loot that is obtained through government […]

The welfare states of Europe are in deep trouble. Decades of over-taxing and over-spending have sapped economic vitality and produced high levels of debt. The high debt levels, by themselves, might not be a problem if European governments implemented good policy. After all, debt was even higher in many nations after World War II than […]

I’m routinely critical of politicians, even the “good” ones that say they want to limit government and promote freedom. But I think I’ve found a lawmaker who is worthy of strong praise. Unfortunately, he’s not in America. He is Richard Sulik, the head of the Slovakian parliament and leader of the libertarian-leaning Freedom and Solidarity […]

One almost feels sorry for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. He’s a punchline in his own country because he oversees the IRS even though he conveniently forgot to declare $80,000 of income (and managed to get away with punishment that wouldn’t even qualify as a slap on the wrist). Now he’s becoming a a bit of […]

This is getting surreal. We now have layers of bailouts around the world. Different nations are doing their own bailouts. On top of that, the Europeans have set up something called the European Financial Stability Facility, which does bailouts across the continent. And then there’s the International Monetary Fund, doing bailouts on a global basis. […]

As a general rule, the bureaucrats at the International Monetary Fund are not awful people or fire-breathing leftists. But they are voices for the establishment. And, at the upper levels, IMF staff seem overly solicitous of the views of the big nations, which means that they are indirectly attentive to interest groups (such as big […]

Here’s some completely depressing news. CNBC is reporting that President Obama is putting American taxpayers on the chopping block to bail out Greece’s corrupt politicians. But, to show he doesn’t discriminate, he also encouraged the German Chancellor to rape her nation’s taxpayers for the same purpose. President Barack Obama on Tuesday…pledged U.S. support to help […]