by Dan Mitchell | May 18, 2017 | Big Government, Blogs
Nations usually don’t suffer overnight economic collapse. Indeed, Adam Smith was right about the ability of a country to survive and withstand lots of bad public policy. But at some point, as a nation gravitates in the wrong direction on the statism spectrum, it goes...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 22, 2017 | Big Government, Blogs, Economics, Socialism
I wrote last year that Venezuela was entering the “fourth circle of statist hell.” How else, after all, can you describe a government that is so venal and incompetent that it resorts to confiscating toys in an effort to strengthen its hold on power? I also wrote last...
by Dan Mitchell | Dec 12, 2016 | Blogs, Economics
Earlier this year, I borrowed from Dante’s Inferno and created the Five Circles of Statist Hell. At the time, I suggested that Venezuela was on the cusp of moving from the third circle (“widespread poverty and economic misery”) to the fourth circle (“systematic and...
by Dan Mitchell | Oct 5, 2016 | Blogs, Economics, Free Market
I live-tweeted last night’s debate between the Governor Mike Pence and Senator Tim Kaine. As the debate closed, I summed up my reaction with two tweets, one of which sadly observed that Donald Trump does not share Ronald Reagan’s belief in smaller government and more...
by Andrew F. Quinlan | Aug 29, 2016 | Opinion and Commentary
This article appeared in the Washington Examiner on August 29, 2016. Every day seems to bring new tales of human suffering and economic woe from defiantly socialist Venezuela. The once thriving nation put its faith in a backward economic system that relies on central...
