by Dan Mitchell | Feb 22, 2016 | Blogs, Economics
Folks on the left tell us that they want to help the less fortunate. I sometimes wonder if their real motive is to penalize success and punish the “rich,” but let’s be charitable and assume that many of them truly wish to help the poor. That’s a noble sentiment, to be...
by Dan Mitchell | Feb 20, 2016 | Blogs, Economics, Laffer Curve, Tax Competition, Taxation
Greece is special, though not in a good way. The nation has such a pro-welfare mentality that pedophiles get disability benefits. And the regulatory mindset is so nutty that you need to submit a stool sample if you want to create an online company. While those are...
by Dan Mitchell | Feb 19, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending
I don’t know whether Keynesian economics is best described as a perpetual motion machine or a Freddy Krueger movie (or perhaps even the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz), but it’s safe to say I’ll be fighting this pernicious theory until my last breath....
by Dan Mitchell | Feb 18, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics
According to a “Happy Planet” index put together by some leftists a few years ago, Venezuela is supposed to be one of the world’s best nations. But I strongly suspect that the vast majority of these people would be horrified if they actually had to live there. That’s...
by Dan Mitchell | Feb 17, 2016 | Blogs, Economics, Flat Tax, Taxation
I’m in Hong Kong for series of meeting and briefings on various economic and policy issues. As you can imagine, I’m a huge fan of the jurisdiction’s simple 15 percent flat tax. It’s basically about as close to a pure flat tax as anyplace in the world. There is...