Younger readers probably don’t remember this, but before 1980 much of the world was subjected to extraordinarily high marginal tax rates – 91% in the United States before 1964, 98% in Britain from 1974-79 (and 135% in 1968). The Laffer Curve, which states that tax revenues are zero at marginal tax rates of 0% and […]

42 months after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, negative banking stories continue appearing daily – not about the criminal prosecutions for events that happened five years ago, but on examples of greed and stupidity that are occurring today. On both sides of the Atlantic, massive regulatory efforts have been carried out that if anything have […]

Brazil’s 2011 growth was announced this week at 2.7%, or only 1.6% per capita, and prospects for 2012 don’t look too good either. Russia has just re-elected Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, whose apparent flat-tax supply-side economics of 2001 has degenerated into crony capitalism enforced by nuclear weaponry. Indian growth is also slowing; the good news is […]

With real interest rates having been negative for nearly four years, you would expect asset markets to be in a bubble. Debt markets, with long term bonds offering yields well below the expected level of inflation, and commodities where gold is currently trading at twice its famous 1980 peak, certainly seem to exhibit bubble valuation […]