by Dan Mitchell | Apr 24, 2011 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending
I periodically get emails and phone calls from people wanting me to respond to particular statements from politicians, columnists, and other high-profile figures. Not surprisingly, Paul Krugman occasionally is the subject of these communications, particularly with...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 22, 2011 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Welfare and Entitlements
Under current law, Social Security is supposed to be an “earned benefit,” where taxes are akin to insurance premiums that finance retirement benefits for workers. And because there is a cap on retirement benefits, this means there also is a “wage-base cap” on the...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 19, 2011 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics
After reading below about Argentina’s decline, several people have emailed to ask how Chile compares. Ask and ye shall receive. This post from last month shows shows Chile, Argentina, and Venezuela. Very powerful, which is why I gave the post such a grandiose title....
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 18, 2011 | Blogs, Economics, Welfare and Entitlements
Economists often do a crummy job of teaching people about the impact of fiscal policy on the labor force, largely because we put people to sleep with boring discussions about “labor supply” decisions (my blog post from last year perhaps being an example of this...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 17, 2011 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Flat Tax, Taxation
Since it is tax-filing season and we all want to honor our wonderful tax system, let’s go into the archives and show this video from last year about the onerous compliance costs of the internal revenue code. Narrated by Hiwa Alaghebandian of the American Enterprise...
