by Dan Mitchell | Apr 14, 2017 | Blogs, Economics
One of the more surreal aspects of the 2016 campaign was watching Bernie Sanders argue that the United States should become more like a European welfare state. Was he not aware that Europe had major problems such as high unemployment and a fiscal crisis? Didn’t he...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 6, 2017 | Blogs, Economics, Free Market
It appears that Venezuela is on the brink of collapse as it enters the fourth circle of statist hell. And the death of Cuba’s long-time dictator gives hope that the people of that island nation may soon escape communist tyranny. Moreover, one certainly hopes that the...
by Dan Mitchell | Feb 7, 2017 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, Taxation
I’ve put forth lots of arguments against tax increases, mostly focusing on why higher tax rates will depress growth and encourage more government spending. Today, let’s look at a practical, real-world example. I wrote a column for The Hill looking at why Greece...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 29, 2017 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics
The famous French diplomat Charles Maurice de Talleyrand supposedly said that a weakness of the Bourbon monarchs was that they learned nothing and forgot nothing. If so, the genetic descendants of the Bourbons are now in charge of Europe. But before explaining why,...
by Dan Mitchell | Nov 10, 2016 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending
A couple of days ago, I wrote about Clemens Schneider’s hypothesis, presented at the European Students for Liberty regional conference in Maastricht, that 1356 was a very important year in European history because of two events that promoted decentralization and...
