Does Your Family Have an Extra $5,500 to Pay the Higher Energy Taxes Proposed by the Bureaucrats at the IMF (Who Get Tax-Free Salaries)?

by Dan Mitchell | Mar 29, 2013 | Blogs, Taxation

If asked to name my least-favorite international bureaucracy, the easy answer would be the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. After all, it was only a few days ago that I outlined different ways that the Paris-based bureaucracy is seeking to expand...

Let’s Enjoy a Victory – even if Temporary – in the Fight against More Bloat at the International Monetary Fund

by Dan Mitchell | Mar 26, 2013 | Blogs, Economics

I remember reading someplace that cockroaches were the only animals that would survive a nuclear war. I have no idea if that’s true, but it appears that international bureaucracies have similar survival skills. But I’m digressing. Here’s the situation. The IMF has...

The IMF, Higher Taxes, and Mitchell’s Law

by Dan Mitchell | Mar 8, 2013 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, Taxation

Here are three common-sense principles. Higher taxes are misguided. They undermine prosperity and finance bigger government. Bailouts also are misguided. They facilitate corruption and encourage moral hazard. And international bureaucracies are misguided. They promote...

New International Monetary Fund Study Inadvertently Provides Very Strong Evidence against the Value-Added Tax

by Dan Mitchell | Nov 1, 2012 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Government Spending, Laffer Curve, Taxation, VAT

I’m not a big fan of the International Monetary Fund, largely because the folks in charge oftentimes advocate toxic policies such as bailouts, higher taxes, and currency devaluation. But there are some top-rate economists working at the IMF, and the bureaucracy has...

Europe’s Self-Inflicted Decline: French Taxing, Italian Regulating, Greek Mooching, and IMF Economic Illiteracy

by Dan Mitchell | Jun 22, 2012 | Blogs, Economics, Europe, Laffer Curve

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...