There's an interesting story developing in the UK where many left-wing groups, supported by over-the-top media stories, have been building up pressure against businesses that 'evade' taxes. I put evade in inverted commas there because none of the businesses being...
Taxation
Cigarette-smuggling: The urge to smurf
THE busy interstate highway that zips through Richmond, Virginia, and up to the crowded cities of the north-east has long been a conduit for handguns bought wholesale in Virginia and sold to drug-dealers in New York. Now I-95 is siphoning northwards another form of contraband: black-market cigarettes.
Denmark Scraps Much-Maligned ‘Fat Tax’ After a Year
Danish lawmakers have killed a controversial “fat tax” one year after its implementation, after finding its negative effect on the economy and the strain it has put on small businesses far outweigh the health benefits.
Treasury Yields Forecast a US Future: Similar to Japan’s present, but Spain’s is more likely
This backgrounder offers an analysis of recent conditions in interest rates and bond markets among industrial states. Notwithstanding the United States’ current economic woes, the paper concludes that while it is positively the best major market in comparison to almost all others, it risks of drifting into Spain-like conditions without an active set of policies to redress its debt burden.
Featured News
Time to Stop Lockdowns, Vaccine Mandates and Crushing Our Charter of Rights
If one was to discuss the state of the world’s democracies in September of 2019, it would look entirely different than it does today in 2022. Three years ago, Canadians generally thought that: our democracy was relatively strong and citizens would defend their...
Propaganda Rules the World
One of the greatest books that explain how the world works is Propaganda by Edward Bernays. The man dubbed “the father of public relations” applied the psychological ideas of his uncle Sigmund Freud upon the masses, triggering their basic motivations to the benefit of...
Australian Boomerang: Another big spending center-left party loses its majority
Australia now faces a period of uncertainty as Ms. Gillard and Mr. Abbott scramble to assemble what in either case would be a narrow majority. This may mean a period of more cautious policy, at least in the short term, which Australians may prefer after the tumult of the last three years. The bigger picture is that, in Australia as in the U.K., voters have stopped the revival of big government dead in its tracks.
Robert Byrd’s Highways to Nowhere: Government pork hasn’t made West Virginia prosperous.
“When Byrd became senator in 1959, West Virginia ranked No. 39 in median family income, and No. 42 in per capita income. Today, it’s No. 48 in both categories.”
Keynes Is Still Dead: Stimulus efforts have been a failure
Keynes died in 1946; his ideas are long overdue for a burial as well.
Public Policy: An Introduction
Policy makes all the difference in creating wealth.
Why Friedrich Hayek Is Making a Comeback: With the failure of Keynesian stimulus, the late Austrian economist’s ideas on state power and crony capitalism are getting a new hearing.
“Now that the stimulus has barely dented the unemployment rate, and with government spending and deficits soaring, it’s natural to turn to Hayek. He championed four important ideas worth thinking about in these troubled times.”
The Bad Economics Behind Stimulus Spending
“Economist John Taylor (Stanford University) says government intervention caused the market meltdown of 2008 and that “short-run government spending” has only made matters worse. He dismisses the theory that stimulus spending can jump-start an economy as an “old-fashioned” Keynesian illusion.”
A People’s Tax Cut: Abolish the corporate tax – only real people pay taxes
Corporate tax cuts are in fact a pro-people policy, because the world is not divided between people and businesses. Businesses are made of people. Businesses are people. The choice is rather between pro-growth and anti-growth policies.
Maxime Bernier, Former Industry and Foreign Affairs Minister and MP for Beauce
You have to be out there. You have to explain what you believe in and I think people are intelligent. If you have a good idea and it is based on facts and you can explain it, I think people will understand and they will vote for you.
We Should Embrace the Real Risk-Takers
“What kind of entrepreneur should we embrace and who should be shooed away? I would choose to give a bear hug to those business folks who try to meet consumer needs without fleecing taxpayers and dismiss “entrepreneurs” who use the power of the state to get a slice of the pie and pig out on taxpayer subsidies.”