by Dan Mitchell | Oct 26, 2018 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics
I’ve warned many times that Italy is the next Greece. Simply stated, there’s a perfect storm of bad news. Government is far too big, debt is too high, and the economy is too sclerotic. I’ve always assumed that the country would suffer a full-blown fiscal crisis when...
by Dan Mitchell | May 20, 2018 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics
As a general rule, we worry too much about deficits and debt. Yes, red ink matters, but we should pay more attention to variables such as the overall burden of government spending and the structure of the tax system. That being said, Greece shows that a nation can...
by Dan Mitchell | Jan 16, 2018 | Blogs, Economics, Taxation
To put it mildly, Italy’s economy is moribund. There’s been almost no growth for the entire 21st century. Bad government policy deserves much of the blame. According to Economic Freedom of the World, Italy is ranked only 54th, the worst score in Western Europe other...
by Dan Mitchell | Jul 23, 2017 | Big Government, Blogs
I’m rather pessimistic about Italy. Simply stated, its economy is moribund. If you peruse the OECD’s economic database, you’ll see that both inflation-adjusted GDP and inflation-adjusted private consumption expenditure (in some ways a more accurate measure of actual...
by Dan Mitchell | Mar 16, 2017 | Blogs, Tax Competition, Taxation
The multi-faceted controversy over Donald Trump’s taxes has been rejuvenated by a partial leak of his 2005 tax return. Interestingly, it appears that Trump pays a lot of tax. At least for that one year. Which is contrary to what a lot of people have suspected –...
