by Dan Mitchell | Aug 10, 2020 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
Compared to most of the world, Japan is a rich country. But it’s important to understand that Japan became rich when the burden of government was very small and there was no welfare state. Indeed, as recently as 1970, Japan’s fiscal policy was rated by Economic...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 3, 2020 | Big Government, Blogs, Taxation
There’s a reason that Greece is almost synonymous with bad economic policy. The country has endured some terrible prime ministers, most recently Alexis Tsipras of the far-left Syriza Party. Andreas Papandreou, however, wins the prize for doing the most damage. He...
by Dan Mitchell | Jul 31, 2020 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
I wrote last month about “anarcho-capitalists” who think we don’t need any government because markets can provide everything. Most people, though, think that there are certain things (such as national defense and the rule of law) that are “public goods” because they...
by Dan Mitchell | Jul 27, 2020 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending
Way back in January of 2017, I predicted for a French TV audience that Donald Trump would be a big spender like George Bush instead of a small-government conservative like Ronald Reagan. Sadly, I was right. I crunched the numbers earlier this year and showed that...
by Dan Mitchell | Jul 23, 2020 | Big Government, Blogs, Welfare and Entitlements
There are many reasons to be depressed about Italy. Bad policy is part of the problem, of course, but this chart shows that the country also is facing a demographic crisis. The blue lines show that there are now more deaths than births. The chart comes from...
