A “stimulus” is money spent by the government in order to kick start the economy. The basic premise is simple: The government spends money on purchasing goods and services, which lands in the hands of businesses and workers, who in turn have more money to spend, they buy things, and presto, the economy is booming again.
If it only were that simple. What’s wrong with it? Oh, just the usual. Negative side effects and unintended consequences of government action.
When the government... Read More→
The following is a comment originally posted in response to this article about Denmark, a country often cited as a paragon of socialist success. It makes excellent points, and therefore deserves a blog post all it’s own. Many thanks to the author.
I’d like to weigh in on a few points… First of all, I am an immigrant ACTUALLY living in Denmark and there is quite a bit those on the other side of the world will actually never know until they live here.
- The “happiness” argument…if... Read More→
On October 9, 2010, Harvard economics professor N. Gregory Mankiw wrote an article in the NY Times entitled “I Can Afford Higher Taxes. But They’ll Make Me Work Less.” In it, Mankiw describes how taxation is a considerable disincentive for him to take extra work upon himself (on top of his job as a professor) such as writing and speaking. And as you may know, tax revenues form work that’s not being done, amount to exactly zero dollars.
That article carries a prime example... Read More→
Following the oil spill in the Gulf last month, President Obama proclaimed a six-month moratorium on all deep-water drilling, undoubtedly in the name of safety and for the public good. However, it appears that the moratorium is nothing more but a tactic to make Obama look good as a tough action taker, and that it would not increase safety and further the economic damage following the spill.
The Obama Administration represented the moratorium as a safety recommendation suggested in a report drafted... Read More→
Modern socialists would like to distance themselves from communism because of its bad reputation and often claim that communism is unrelated to socialism or at best tenuously related, but this is not the case.
Numerous people have come to this site and complained about its logo because it contains a communist symbol, which according to them, has barely anything to do with socialism, or perhaps nothing at all.
Let’s see indeed what are the differences between socialism and communism…
From... Read More→
It’s no secret that the State of New Jersey is in deep financial trouble with a $2 billion budget deficit on a $29.8 billion budget for 2010, and a total debt amounting to over $33 billion as of 2009. In addition some project deficits as high as $11 billion for next year if the budget is not substantially cut.
New Jersey cannot solve this problem by raising taxes. “[W]e have revenue going down, not up even though we’ve raised taxes every year,” says NJ Gov. Chris Christie.
A... Read More→
In the following video, Steven Crowder goes to Detroit and shows how liberal policies and labor unions (sanctioned by the government) led to decay and bankruptcy. The situation in Detroit is very typical of what happens when government takes over command and control of an economy in an intrusive way.
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The Laffer curve describes the relationship between tax rates and tax revenues collected. This relationship is key to understanding why taxing the rich as means of raising enough revenues to create a welfare state is extremely limited.
The core explanation for why this is so, is that a tax increase discourages people from engaging in the taxable activity, (earn income in the case of income tax,) and it encourages them to avoid the tax (by shifting money around, taking it out of the country,... Read More→
Many politicians attempt to convince us that big government spending leads to economic growth and prosperity. Among the most egregious recent examples of this is the rhetoric of Nancy Pelosi. To Nancy Pelosi, every government spending results in more jobs and prosperity. Cap and Trade is about “jobs jobs jobs” to her, and the fact that it would bring up the cost of doing business and everything else is of no consequence.
Some government spending for safety and order does facilitate... Read More→
The video on this page shows Barack Obama explicitly acknowledging that he is in favor of raising capital gains taxes for the purposes of “fairness” even though it is known that doing so reduces tax revenues. To Obama (and many other socialist I would imgine) it is more important to beat everyone into the same level than have overall prosperity. It’s a classic example of how society shoots itself in the foot with socialist policies of income redistribution.
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