by Dan Mitchell | Feb 15, 2017 | Blogs, Economics, Free Market
The Index of Economic Freedom is my favorite annual publication from the Heritage Foundation. It’s a rich source of information, using dozens of data sources, about economic liberty around the world. I first wrote about the Index back in 2010 and shared the bad news...
by Dan Mitchell | Jun 6, 2016 | Blogs, Economics
At the risk of oversimplifying, libertarians want to minimize the level of government coercion is society. That’s why we favor both economic liberty and personal liberty.Simply stated, you should have the right to control your own life and make your own decisions so...
by Dan Mitchell | Mar 11, 2016 | Blogs, Economics, Free Market
Hong Kong is a truly remarkable jurisdiction. Can you name, after all, another government in the world that brags about how little it spends on redistribution programs andhow few people are dependent on government? And how many jurisdictions adopt private Social...
by Dan Mitchell | Feb 17, 2016 | Blogs, Economics, Flat Tax, Taxation
I’m in Hong Kong for series of meeting and briefings on various economic and policy issues. As you can imagine, I’m a huge fan of the jurisdiction’s simple 15 percent flat tax. It’s basically about as close to a pure flat tax as anyplace in the world. There is...
by Dan Mitchell | Sep 24, 2015 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics
Two days ago, I contrasted the views of Pope Francis and Walter Williams about capitalism and morality. I explained that Walter had the upper hand because free markets are a positive-sum game based on voluntary exchange while redistribution (at best) is a zero-sum...