By Marian L. Tupy
In 1972, the Club of Rome published an extremely popular and influential neo-Malthusian tract called The Limits to Growth. This apocalyptic warning about over-population, over-consumption, and environmental destruction sold some 12 million copies and was translated into 37 languages. According to the authors of The Limits to Growth, “Serious stresses involving population, resources, and environment [...]
Apocalypse 2.0 is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By Juan Carlos Hidalgo
Let’s continue with a look at austerity policies in Europe. Yesterday I wrote that in Britain, austerity so far has meant only tax hikes, since government spending, both in nominal and real terms, continues to grow despite the announcement of deep cuts from 10 Downing Sreet. What about France? The country chose a socialist president [...]
Looking at Austerity in France is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By Juan Carlos Hidalgo
I’m going to jump into the debate about austerity in Europe because it is being closely followed in Latin America, and many people are drawing the wrong conclusions about how austerity is strangling the European economies. But first, we have to be clear about what we mean by “austerity.” As the debate between Veronique de [...]
Looking at ‘Austerity’ in Britain is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By Daniel J. Mitchell
With both France and Greece deciding to jump out of the left-wing frying pan into the even-more-left-wing fire, European fiscal policy has become quite a controversial topic. But I find this debate and discussion rather tedious and unrewarding, largely because it pits advocates of Keynesian spending (the so-called “growth” camp) against supporters of higher taxes [...]
Paul Krugman and the European Austerity Myth is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By Juan Carlos Hidalgo
Paul Krugman once again praises Argentina as a “remarkable success story” in a recent blog post. He blames biased economics reporting for the bad news recently associated with the country (though he is careful not to mention nationalizations, massive capital flight, cooking of official statistics, bans on the importation of books, attacks on freedom of [...]
Krugman’s Love Affair with the Kirchner Model in Argentina is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By Daniel J. Mitchell
I’ve argued, ad nauseam, that the single most important goal of fiscal policy is (or should be) to make sure the private sector grows faster than the government. This “golden rule” is the best way of enabling growth and avoiding fiscal crises, and I’ve cited nations that have made progress by restraining government spending. But [...]
Switzerland’s ‘Debt Brake’ Is a Role Model for Spending Control and Fiscal Restraint is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By Andrew J. Coulson
In my home province of Quebec, an 11-year-old boy is building children’s picnic tables in his garage (using jigs his father built for him) and selling them at a very reasonable price at local home stores. You won’t need to speak French to get the gist of it. What he’s learning is surely invaluable, and [...]
11-Year-Old Entrepreneur Discovers Business Can Be a Picnic is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By Daniel J. Mitchell
President Obama imposed a big-spending faux stimulus program on the economy back in 2009, claiming that the government needed to squander about $800 billion to keep the unemployment rate from rising above 8 percent. How did that work out? One possible description is that the so-called stimulus became a festering pile of manure. About three [...]
Portuguese Finance Minister Admits Keynesian Stimulus Was a Flop is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By Daniel J. Mitchell
I’ve complained many times about the pointless nature of anti–money laundering laws. They impose very high costs and force banks to spy on their customers, but they are utterly ineffective as a weapon against criminal activity. Yet politicians and bureaucrats keep making a bad system worse, and the latest development is a silly scheme to [...]
World Bank: Anti–Money Laundering Rules Hurt the Poor is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By Marian L. Tupy
With the possible exception of the Scottish parliamentarian George Galloway (here he is saluting Saddam Hussein), no other politician in modern-day Britain has been as staunchly socialist as the former mayor of London, Ken Livingstone (a.k.a. “Red Ken”). The bane of Lady Thatcher in the 1980s and a fan of Hugo Chavez in the 2000s, [...]
A British Socialist Opts for Private Health Care is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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