taxes

Can Russia get the best of both worlds by freeing its economy from technologically unnecessary charges and rentier tolls paid to special interests? Such expenditures prevent the economy from developing. That is the basic cause of poverty –…

Unfortunately for President Obama, the economy is not doing well. And the cuts envisaged in this deal make that problem worse. From an electoral standpoint this is already becoming a problem in key swing states like Pennsylvania.

Despite the widespread view in the US that taxes are high, taxes in the US are relatively low both in the global and historical context. These two charts from the Globe & Mail make that plain.

The normal case—let us say, in the US or the UK or Japan—is that anything for sale is for sale in the domestic currency. These sovereign governments never find that they cannot buy something by issuing their own currency. However, the…

If you recall, it was George W. Bush’s father, GWH Bush, who, when campaigning against Reagan, called supply side economics’ claims that tax cuts pay for themselves Voodoo Economics. And Bush was proved right when deficits spiralled out of…

When the government issues a currency used as the money of account and accepts that currency in tax payment, it is not necessary to “back” the currency with precious metal or enforce legal tender laws. Taxes drive money.

Last week the NY Times covered the division within the economic community over the way out of the USA's overspending / balance budgeting. “Reasonable people can sit down and, apart from any political or policy motivations, come up…

The research presented below from the IMF from October 2010 "finds that fiscal consolidation typically reduces output and raises unemployment in the short term. At the same time, interest rate cuts, a fall in the value of the currency, and…

It is not clear that there is a political consensus for a stand-alone tax holiday. There may be support for the stand-alone tax holiday as part of a larger corporate tax reform effort. If it is enacted, job growth and capital investment is…

Evangelos Venizelos is dispatched to consider how to prevent the government from sacking tens of thousands of workers in order to prevent the Greek from defaulting on its debt. He suggests that California’s previous IOU issuance is a model…