by Dan Mitchell | Jan 8, 2021 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics
For supporters of sensible policy, 2008 was not a good year. The economy suffered a big drop thanks to bad government policies (easy-money from the Federal Reserve and corrupt housing subsidies from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). So what did politicians do? Sadly, they...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 7, 2021 | Blogs, Capital Gains, Economics, Taxation
A “capital gain” occurs when you buy something and later sell it for a higher price. A capital gains tax is when politicians decide they get to grab a slice of that additional wealth. I’ve repeatedly explained that it is economically foolish to have such a tax because...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 4, 2021 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics
Trump was a big spender before coronavirus and he became an even-bigger spender once the pandemic began. But the White House generally didn’t add insult to injury by citing Keynesian economic theory to justify the president’s profligacy . Prior to the pandemic, the...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 3, 2021 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending, Taxation
In an interview with Fox Business last week, I touched on three policies (easy money from the Fed, Biden’s class-warfare tax agenda, and the ever-increasing burden of federal spending) that create risks for the economy in 2021. I didn’t have a chance to elaborate in...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 2, 2021 | Blogs, Economics, Free Market
Back on December 28, I shared four charts for the explicit reason that I wanted everyone to understand that average living standards in the western world have skyrocketed over the past few centuries. I could have used that data to clear up myths about “robber barons”...