by Dan Mitchell | Apr 13, 2015 | Blogs, Economics, Laffer Curve, Taxation
What’s the Laffer Curve? It’s the simple, common-sense observation that there’s not a linear relationship between tax rates and tax revenue. Folks in the private sector understand this principle. No restaurant owner, for instance, would double meal prices and assume...
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 6, 2014 | Blogs, Economics, Taxation
When people figure out ways to keep the money they earn in their own pockets, rather than having it confiscated by government, I’m almost always happy. That’s because governments tend to waste money (should any of us pay for corrupt pork-barrel spending?). And it’s...
by Dan Mitchell | Nov 8, 2014 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Taxation
Every so often, I see a cartoon or image that provides a teachable moment about economics. This Wizard-of-Id parody, for instance, contains a lot of insight about labor economics. As does this Chuck Asay cartoon and this Robert Gorrell cartoon. And if you want to...
by Dan Mitchell | Oct 13, 2014 | Big Government, Blogs, Tax Harmonization, Taxation
The United Nations is not nearly as bad as other international bureaucracies such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development or the International Monetary Fund. But that’s because the U.N. tends to be completely ineffective. So even when the...
by Dan Mitchell | Aug 19, 2014 | Blogs, Economics, Taxation
What do cigarettes and capital gains have in common? Well, they both start with the same letter, so maybe the Cookie Monster could incorporate them into his favorite song, but I’m thinking about something else. Specifically, both cigarettes and capital gains tell us...
