Switzerland’s left-wing party has instigated a referendum for November 24 that asks voters to limit pay ranges so that a company wouldn’t be able to pay top employees more than 12 times what they’re paying their lowest-level employees. I talked with Neil Cavuto about this proposal and made several (hopefully) cogent points. Since Swiss voters […]

Sometimes you find support for capitalism and small government in some rather unexpected places. I was surprised, for instance, when I found out that Gene Simmons, the lead singer for Kiss, stated that, “Capitalism is the best thing that ever happened to human beings. The welfare state sounds wonderful but it doesn’t work.” That’s pretty […]

In prior posts, I’ve shared some remarkable numbers on the cost of regulation. Americans spend 8.8 billion hours every year filling out government forms. The economy-wide cost of regulation is now $1.75 trillion. For every bureaucrat at a regulatory agency, 100 jobs are destroyed in the economy’s productive sector. But the long-run damage may be even worse than […]

I’ve narrated a video that cites Economic Freedom of the World data to explain the five major factors that determine economic performance. But that video is only six minutes long, so I only skim the surface. For those of you who feel that you’re missing out, you can listen to me pontificate on public policy […]

I’ve written before about the remarkable vitality of Hong Kong and Singapore, two jurisdictions that deserve praise for small government and free markets. I have also praised Switzerland because of policies such as genuine federalism and financial privacy, and it goes without saying that I admire tax havens such as Bermuda, Monaco, and the Cayman […]

Folks, the pendulum is swinging in the right direction. In recent weeks, I’ve shared a bunch of examples to support my hypothesis that libertarians, small-government conservatives, and classical liberals are finally making some progress. This trend actually started with the fiscal cliff, though that was simply a smaller-than-expected defeat. Since then, we’ve enjoyed victories on […]

I’ve spent a lot of time debunking class-warfare tax policy, and I’ve certainly explained ’til I’m blue in the face that big government facilitates a pernicious form of corruption that enriches powerful and well-connected insiders. But I haven’t spent much time addressing the topic of income inequality, which is connected to those two other issues. […]

When I travel, particularly overseas, I run into a lot of people who are totally confused about the American healthcare system. For all intents and purposes, they think the United States relies on the free market and that government (at least in the pre-Obamacare era) was largely absent. So they are baffled when I tell […]

Wow. I wasn’t surprised to learn that the United States dropped in the new rankings unveiled today in Economic Freedom of the World. But I’m somewhat shocked to learn that we fell from 10th last year all the way down to 18th this year, as can be seen on the chart (click to enlarge). Last […]

I’m not a big fan of international bureaucracies, particularly the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The OECD, funded by American tax dollars, has become infamous for its support of statist pro-Obama policies. The OECD has allied itself with the nutjobs from the so-called Occupy movement to push for bigger government and higher taxes. […]