by Dan Mitchell | Aug 27, 2013 | Blogs, Europe, Taxation
I’m not a big fan of the European Commission. For those not familiar with this entity, it’s sort of the European version of the executive-branch bureaucracy we have in Washington. And like their counterparts in Washington, the Brussels-based bureaucracy enjoys a very...
by Dan Mitchell | Jun 11, 2013 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Europe, Government Spending, Keynesian, Taxation
It is reported that Henry Kissinger, commenting on the Iran-Iraq war, said something to the effect that, “Too bad both sides can’t lose.” I imagine lots of people felt the same way when two of the world’s worst murderers, Hitler and Stalin, went to war in 1941. I have...
by Dan Mitchell | Sep 21, 2012 | Blogs, Economics, Europe, Tax Competition, Tax Harmonization, Taxation
Very few people are willing to admit that they favor protectionism. After all, who wants to embrace a policy associated with the Great Depression? But people sometimes say “I want free trade so long as it’s fair trade.” In most cases, they’re simply protectionists who...
by Dan Mitchell | May 21, 2012 | Blogs, Economics, Financial Privacy, Tax Competition, Taxation
It seems that there’s nothing but bad news coming from Europe. Whether we’re talking about fake austerity in the United Kingdom, confiscatory tax schemes in France, or bailouts in Greece, the continent seems to be a case study of failed statism. But that’s not...
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 10, 2011 | Bailouts, Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending
There’s always been a simple and desirable solution to Europe’s fiscal crisis, but nobody in Europe wants to do the right thing because it means admitting the failure of big government and it would result in less power for the political elite. So we get the spectacle...
