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Russia Getting Rid of Capital Gains Tax
The former communists running Russia apparently understand tax policy better than the buffoons in charge of U.S. tax policy. Not only does Russia have a 13 percent flat tax, but the government has just...
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Canadian Boondoggles and Russia Is More Capitalist than the U.S. (Again)
The G-20 gab-fest is in Canada this weekend, but Canadian taxpayers are definitely not winners. In a display of waste that might even embarrass a French politician, the Canadian government somehow is...
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Russian Government Announces 20 Percent Reduction in Number of Bureaucrats
I’ve already commented on Cuba’s surprising announcement to slash the number of government workers. And I’ve complained about the federal workforce expanding in the United States. This is not what one...
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When Will Obama Have an Epiphany on the Road to Greece?
After reading a story about economic liberalization in Cuba, I wondered (somewhat tongue in cheek) whether we should trade Obama for Castro. I also blogged about the former socialist president of...
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Ex-Communist Spy Chief Says Europeans Have a “Dependency Mentality”
Although he implemented a flat tax in Russia, I don’t think of Vladimir Putin as a supporter of free markets. Heck, he was head of the a senior officer of the KGB during the communist era, and he...
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Ukraine, Ethnic Division, Decentralization, and Secession
Ukraine is in the news and that’s not a good thing. I’m not a foreign policy expert, to be sure, but it can’t be a positive sign when nations with nuclear weapons start squabbling with each other. And...
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Ukraine’s Biggest Problem Isn’t Putin, It’s Putinonomics
With Crimea potentially breaking away from Ukraine and the ongoing risk of conflict, it’s time to revisit the topic. I explained a few weeks ago that decentralization was one way of defusing the...
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Rand Paul: A Modern-Day Horatius in the Fight to Protect Private Financial...
Senator Rand Paul is being criticized and condemned by the Washington establishment. That’s almost certainly a sign that he’s doing the right thing. And given the recent events in Russia and Ukraine,...
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Encouraging Polling Data…Plus Disturbing Policy Developments from Russia and...
The polling data I shared last month about confused young people was a bit of a downer, so let’s look at three different polls that are a bit more encouraging. First, I’m glad to see that many...
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The Texas Grocery Store that Helped Push the Evil Empire on to the Ash Heap...
Whenever I need to explain the difference between socialism and capitalism, I start by noting that socialism technically is different from Obama-style big-government redistributionism and cronyism....
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Is Putin Being Honest and Accurate about the Benefits of Russia’s Flat Tax?
February 5 Addendum: For my left-wing friends and others who are bending over backwards to misread this column, saying nice things about Russia’s flat tax doesn’t mean (as noted below) that Russia’s...
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Putin, Trump, and False Moral Equivalence
Back in the 1980s, I would get very agitated when folks made excuses for brutal communist regimes by asserting that the United States also did bad things. This “moral equivalence” argument is now being...
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A Great Day in History: The End of the Soviet Union
Yesterday, most of us celebrated Christmas. Today, all of us should celebrate the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which officially happened on this date in 1991 (aided and abetted by a Texas grocery...
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The Economics of War, Part II: Trade Restrictions Make a Nation Weaker
Way back in 2010, I explained that Paul Krugman was wrong to think that wars were good for the economy. Indeed, he was more wrong than usual. The additional spending for the military isn’t “stimulus,”...
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Very Little Sympathy for Russian Oligarchs
I enjoy defending rich people. In part, that’s because I appreciate how rich entrepreneurs make life better for me and everybody else. But I also defend rich people because of my deep disdain for the...
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A Secret Weapon to Deploy Against Russia
One can be against war with Russia, against Ukrainian membership in NATO, and even be skeptical about NATO’s continued existence, but still cheer for Ukraine as it defends itself from Putin’s...
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Can Economic Aid Help Ukraine?
Regarding Russia’s reprehensible attack on Ukraine, I’ve written three columns. Russian oligarchs don’t deserve much sympathy because they got their riches through cronyism rather than capitalism....
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Russia’s Oppressive Economic Policy
Since I wrote yesterday about Ukraine’s terrible economic policy, fairness requires that I make the same points about Russia’s similarly dirigiste system. We’ll start with Russia’s scores from the...
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Gorbachev, Reagan, and the Much-Deserved End of the Soviet Union
The world is much freer today than when I was born, largely because the “Evil Empire” collapsed. The Soviet Union was awful. It killed at least 20 million of its own people (some say as many as 60...
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The Economic Cost of Russian Statism
Russia’s government has been appropriately criticized for invading Ukraine, but let’s focus today on Putin’s economic mismanagement. I’m motivated by this tweet from a professor at the University of...
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