Those Gruelling U.S. Tax Rates: A Global Perspective
The Tax Foundation released its inaugural “International Tax Competitiveness Index” (ITCI) on September 15th, 2014. The United States was ranked an abysmal 32nd out of the 34 OECD member countries for the year 2014. (See accompanying Table 1.) The European welfare states such as Norway, Sweden and Denmark, with their large social welfare systems, still managed to have less burdensome tax systems on local businesses than the U.S. The U.S. is even ranked below Italy, the country that has had such a pervasive problem with tax evasion that the head of its Agency of Revenue (roughly equivalent to the Internal Revenue Servic...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - May 2, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Steve H. Hanke Source Type: blogs
Stop Putin's Next Invasion Before It Starts
The U.S. needs to consider stationing forces in Eastern Europe to support its commitment to protect the independence of the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania against Russian aggression. If not, and Russia invades, the options available to this or a future U.S. president are stark. (Source: The RAND Blog)
Source: The RAND Blog - March 20, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: RAND Corporation Source Type: blogs
The Future of NATO (Event: March 4th)
Emma Ashford
Russian aggression in Eastern Europe during the last year has brought to the fore many of the issues surrounding the transatlantic security relationship, in particular, the role of NATO. Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has been floundering, seeking new missions and goals, with recent involvement in military campaigns in Afghanistan and Libya emblematic of this search. In some ways, Russia’s recent actions have brought back a sense of purpose to the alliance.
Unfortunately, NATO still has many problems. Common vision among members is lacking, a problem exacerbated by the expansion of NATO from sixteen me...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - February 19, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Emma Ashford Source Type: blogs
Washington Should Celebrate Valentine’s Day by Dumping Allies
Doug Bandow
It’s hard to get out of a bad relationship. People can’t admit that it’s time to say goodbye.
Countries have the same problem. The United States has spent decades collecting allies, like many people accumulate Facebook “Friends.”
After Valentine’s Day, Washington should send the equivalent of a “Dear John” letter to at least a half-dozen foreign capitals. Where to start:
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia and America have little in common other than commerce in oil. Essentially a totalitarian state, the monarchy plunders people, brutalizes political opposition, suppresses religious expression, an...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - February 13, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Doug Bandow Source Type: blogs
Another “Oops” Moment for Paul Krugman
Daniel J. Mitchell
I’m tempted to feel a certain degree of sympathy for Paul Krugman.
As a leading proponent of the notion that bigger government stimulates growth (a.k.a., Keynesian economics), he’s in the rather difficult position of rationalizing why the economy was stagnant when Obama first took office and the burden of government spending was rising.
And he also has to somehow explain why the economy is now doing better at a time when the fiscal burden of government is declining.
But you have to give him credit for creativity. Writing in the New York Times, he attempts to square the circle.
Let’s st...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 30, 2014 Category: American Health Authors: Daniel J. Mitchell Source Type: blogs
Are the Baltic Republics Serious about Defense?
Ted Galen Carpenter
News stories in the West contend that Russia’s increasingly aggressive behavior is causing the Baltic states and other NATO members in Eastern Europe to become far more serious about national defense. There is no doubt that tensions in the region are on the rise, including a surge of incidents involving NATO intercepts of Russian military aircraft operating over the Baltic Sea. The new congressional approval of military aid to Ukraine may well increase the already alarming level of animosity between NATO and Russia.
But the notion that the Baltic republics have embarked on ser...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 16, 2014 Category: American Health Authors: Ted Galen Carpenter Source Type: blogs
Long-Term Solutions to the Ukraine Crisis
Emma Ashford
As I argued in a piece over at Forbes yesterday, western sanctions to roll back Russian action in Ukraine have been largely ineffectual. These sanctions - including asset freezes and visa bans – are ‘targeted’ at those suspected of having influence on Putin. Yet the sanctions, designed to be minimally painful for European states, are toothless - the majority of individuals sanctioned have only a minimal role in policy – and they won’t fix the long-term problem.
Over 150 individuals have been sanctioned by the United States and European Union, including 65 Ukrainian rebels, whose inclusion is presuma...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - September 25, 2014 Category: American Health Authors: Emma Ashford Source Type: blogs
Krugman’s 'Gotcha' Moment Leaves Something to Be Desired
Daniel J. Mitchell
I’ve had some fun over the years by pointing out that Paul Krugman has butchered numbers when writing about fiscal policy in nations such as France, Estonia, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
So I shouldn’t be surprised that he wants to catch me making an error. But I’m not sure his “gotcha” moment is very persuasive. Here’s some of what he wrote for today’s New York Times.
Gov. Jerry Brown was able to push through a modestly liberal agenda of higher taxes, spending increases and a rise in the minimum wage. California also moved enthusiastically to impleme...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 25, 2014 Category: American Health Authors: Daniel J. Mitchell Source Type: blogs
Latvia, the Country Prof. Krugman Loves to Hate, Wins 1st Prize
Steve H. Hanke
I constructed a misery index and ranked 89 countries from most to least miserable based on the available data from the Economist Intelligence Unit. My methodology is a simple sum of inflation, bank lending and unemployment rates, minus year-on-year per capita GDP growth. The table below is a sub-ranking of all former Soviet Union (FSU) states contained in my misery index.
For these FSU states, the main contributing factors to misery are high levels of unemployment and high interest rates.
The low misery index scores in Estonia and Lithuania don’t surprise me as I helped both countries establish sound mon...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 17, 2014 Category: American Health Authors: Steve H. Hanke Source Type: blogs
Thinking about leadership – more vacation thoughts
We arrived back in the USA after 12 days in the Baltic. During our trip we visited Copenhagen, Berlin, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Tallinn and Stockholm. I highly recommend such a trip.
In all the cities, during tours, guides referred to leaders. While leadership was not an explicit theme, implicitly ideas of leadership crystallized as the tour finished.
Each city and country represented different attitudes towards their leaders.
Denmark and Sweden still have monarchies, with no legislative or administrative powers. In both countries we heard stories about how the royalty made a huge difference in the progress of the c...
Source: DB's Medical Rants - July 6, 2014 Category: Internal Medicine Authors: rcentor Tags: Medical Rants Source Type: blogs
International Physician Payments Sunshine: EFPIA Code on Transfers of Value and Inconsistencies Within European Member Associations
The recent National Disclosure Summit featured many practical seminars for compliance with the Physician Payments Sunshine Act. The presentation entitled "The Status of Implementation of EFPIA's Code by Member Associations and, to the Extent Countries have done so, where are there Consistencies/Inconsistencies among the Codes" expanded its sights beyond the United States and onto European disclosure laws.
D. Jeffrey Campbell, Managing Principal of Porzio, Bromberg & Newman, spoke first to the large European pharmaceutical market, which comprises 26 percent of the global market, employs 700,000 people in the European ...
Source: Policy and Medicine - March 20, 2014 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
A Fiscal Lesson from Germany
Daniel J. Mitchell
Germany isn’t exactly a fiscal role model.
Tax rates are too onerous and government spending consumes about 44 percent of economic output.
That’s even higher than it is in the United States, where politicians at the federal, state, and local levels divert about 39 percent of GDP into the public sector.
Germany also has too much red tape and government intervention, which helps to explain why it lags other European nations such as Denmark and Estonia in the Economic Freedom of the World rankings.
But I have (sort of) defended Germany a couple of times, at least on fiscal policy, explaining th...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 10, 2014 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Daniel J. Mitchell Source Type: blogs
Some Details about the Global Healthcare Spending Slowdown
We are in the midst of a global healthcare slowdown and many of the experts are flummoxed as to its exact cause (see: Everything You Need to Know About the Healthcare Slowdown). Does it lie with the financial crisis? Is it the the result of the co-pays incorporated into most health insurance policies these days? Below is an excerpt from an article on this topic:
Healthcare spending is growing slower than the economy for the first time since 1997. And nobody knows why. It might just be the shadow of the Great Recession. Or a move towards more high-deductible plans. Or maybe, just maybe, Obamacare's cost controls. ...
Source: Lab Soft News - February 4, 2014 Category: Pathologists Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Healthcare Business Healthcare Delivery Source Type: blogs
Journal Intelligence--Special Issue on the Flynn Effect
This study examined the Flynn effect (FE; i.e., the rise in IQ scoresover time) in Estonia using the Estonian version of the NationalIntelligence Tests (NIT; Haggerty, Terman, Thorndike, Whipple & Yerkes,1919; National Research Council, 1920). Using secondary data from twocohorts (1934, n = 890 and 2006, n = 913) of students, we analyzed theNIT's subtests using item response theory (IRT). For each subtest, wefirst examined invariance in all the items and then linked the latentvariable (theta) scores between the two cohorts using the invariantitems. The results showed that there was a FE in theta for all subtestsexcept ...
Source: Intelligent Insights on Intelligence Theories and Tests (aka IQ's Corner) - December 19, 2013 Category: Neurologists Source Type: blogs
Progress on the Laffer Curve*
Daniel J. Mitchell
The title of this piece has an asterisk because, unfortunately, we’re not talking about progress on the Laffer Curve in the United States.
Instead, we’re discussing today how lawmakers in other nations are beginning to recognize that it’s absurdly inaccurate to predict the revenue impact of changes in tax rates without also trying to measure what happens to taxable income (if you want a short tutorial on the Laffer Curve, click here).
But I’m a firm believer that policies in other nations (for better or worse) are a very persuasive form of real-world evidence. Simply stated, if y...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 10, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Daniel J. Mitchell Source Type: blogs
