I’ve already poked fun at Herman Van Rompuy, the nondescript über-bureaucrat who has risen to the non-elected post of European Council President. I’ve mocked Rompuy’s attempts to compete with other European politicians, and I encourage everyone to have a good laugh at this video of Van Rompuy getting eviscerated by a British MEP. We now […]

Why hasn’t Europe fought World War III? Could it be because the Soviet Union eventually collapsed? Could it be that the NATO, the western military alliance, was effective? Could it be the mutually assured destruction kept the peace? Could it be that America’s commitment to defend Europe was a deterrent? But all those reasons focus […]

The International Monetary Fund is a great place to work – at least for those who don’t feel guilty about getting extravagant salaries from taxpayers. And what do IMF bureaucrats do for the money we pay them (American taxpayers finance the biggest share of the bureaucracy’s expenses)? Many of them jet around the world in […]

Some ideas are so horrible that I’m almost at a loss for words. The United Nations is a grotesquely wasteful and corrupt international bureaucracy with a long track record of failure and incompetence. Yet some people think this collection of looters, moochers, and kleptocrats should have authority over the Internet. I’m not kidding. Here are […]

The old saying that “two wrongs don’t make a right” is especially true in the field of public policy. A good example is the crazy new proposal from the United Nations to collect billions of dollars by imposing global taxes on financial transactions and energy. That’s bad enough, but the international bureaucracy wants to impose […]

The bureaucrats at the International Labor Organization (which shouldn’t even exist) are correct to note that high levels of unemployment threaten social unrest. But like most left-wing international bureaucracies, they think the solution is more government – including so-called stimulus and government intervention in labor markets. The extended loss of employment and growing perceptions of […]

There’s a wise old saying about “don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” But perhaps we need a new saying along the lines of “don’t subsidize the foot that kicks you.” Here’s a good example: American taxpayers finance the biggest share of the budget for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which is an […]

I wish the title of this blog post referred to the President of the United States, but instead our praise is directed across the Atlantic, to the President of the Czech Republic, who wisely has warned against giving “global governance” powers to the international bureaucrats at the United Nations. President Vaclav Klaus is a great […]

I’m working on a serious blog post about European fiscal developments, but my research on that issue has alerted me to a couple of stories about President Jose Manuel Barroso that cry out for immediate mockery and abuse. Mr. Barroso, for those that don’t follow the exciting world of international bureaucracy, is the President of […]

Here’s a Reuters story about the Australian Tax Office harassing Paul Hogan, better known to Americans as Crocodile Dundee, because of a tax dispute. The grinches at the tax office took advantage of Hogan’s return for his mother’s funeral to hold him hostage, refusing to let him leave the country until he coughs up some cash. […]