Every day brings more and more evidence that Obamanomics is failing in Europe. I wrote some “Observations on the European Farce” last week, but the news this morning is even more surreal. Let’s start with France, where I endorsed the explicit socialist over the implicit socialist precisely because of a morbid desire to see a […]
read more...I’m not a big fan of international bureaucracies, mostly because they always seem to promote bad policy such as higher tax rates. The International Monetary Fund is urging higher tax rates and pushing for nations to replace flat tax systems with so-called progressive taxation. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has embraced Obama’s class-warfare […]
read more...I don’t like the international bureaucrats at the IMF, and I don’t like the corrupt politicians of Greece, so for whom do I cheer if there’s a fight between those two groups? Ideally, both sides will lose (which is also my view of the European fight between Keynesians and tax increasers). You’ll understand when you […]
read more...In a grand Washington tradition, I periodically make imperious demands. In the past year or two, I’ve issued the following ultimatums to the GOP. o No tax increases, since more money for Washington will encourage a bigger burden of government and undermine prosperity. o Reform the biased number-crunching methodology at the Congressional Budget Office and […]
read more...I speculated last year that the political elite finally might be realizing that higher tax rates are not the solution to Greece’s fiscal situation. Simply stated, you can only squeeze so much blood out of a stone, and pushing tax rates higher cripples growth and drives more people into the underground economy. Well, it turns […]
read more...Perhaps the title of this post is a bit unfair since the International Monetary Fund is good on some issues, such as reducing subsidies. And some of the economists at the IMF even produce good research. But I can’t help but get agitated that this behemoth global bureaucracy wants more money when it has a […]
read more...In a recent column for the Wall Street Journal, I explained why Mitt Romney’s interest in a value-added tax is deeply troubling. One of my key points was that the VAT is a money machine for big government. But don’t believe me. Look at Japan, where the politicians see increases in the VAT as a […]
read more...There’s a rather simple solution to Europe’s fiscal crisis, but politicians will never do the right thing unless every other option is exhausted. That’s why American taxpayers should not be involved in any sort of European bailout, either directly or indirectly. This cartoon captures my sentiment. At the risk of being picky, however, I would […]
read more...The Europeans have just agreed to another bailout for Greece. That’s the bad news. The good news is…well, there is no good news. Sarkozy, Merkel, and the other statists have once again failed to do the right thing and instead have decided to throw good money after bad and dig the debt hole even deeper. […]
read more...Almost two years ago, I wrote that bailing out Greece was misguided because it would dig the debt hole deeper. More recently, I wrote an I-told-you-so post that looked at my four original predictions and patted myself on the back for being accurate (not that it took any special insight to conclude that bailouts would […]
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