The World’s Most Depressing Tweet

I periodically will make use of “most depressing” in the title of a column when sharing bad news. And new data from the Census Bureau definitely qualifies as bad news. It confirms what I’ve written about how the Washington region has become the richest part of America. But the D.C. area didn’t become wealthy by […]

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The Western World’s Second-Most Depressing Chart

Last week, I shared very grim data, going all the way back to 1880, on the growth of the welfare state. I even claimed that the accompanying graph was the “western world’s most depressing chart” because it showed the dramatic increase in the burden of government spending for redistribution programs. And I didn’t even mention […]

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The Western World’s Most Depressing Chart

Last week, I shared a graph showing that there are more guns than people in the United States, and I wrote that it was the “most enjoyable” chart of the year, mostly because it gets my leftist friends so agitated. But I’m more likely to share gloomy visuals. The “most depressing” chart about Denmark, which […]

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The Most Depressing Chart about Japan

I’m currently in Tokyo for an Innovation Summit. Perhaps because I once referred to Japan as a basket case, I’ve been asked to speak about policies that are needed to boost the nation’s competitiveness. That sounds like an easy topic since I can simply explain that free markets and small government are the universal recipe […]

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The World’s (or at least Denmark’s) Most Depressing PowerPoint Slide

Okay, I’ll admit right away that the title of this column is an exaggeration. But if you’re a public policy wonk and you worry about the rising level of government dependency and the erosion of self reliance, then you’ll understand why the chart below, which was presented earlier today at the Copenhagen conference of the […]

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A Very Depressing Chart about Japan

It’s not easy picking the most pessimistic chart about Japan. The country suffered several decades of economic stagnation following the collapse of a bubble about three decades ago. That means it’s a bit of a challenge to identify the worst economic numbers. Is it the data on ever-rising levels of government debt? Is it the […]

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World’s Best Tweet about Socialism and Capitalism

I wrote a column earlier this month about the “world’s most depressing tweet,” which came from the Census Bureau and noted that the suburbs of Washington, DC, are the richest parts of America. To be sure, I was engaging in a bit of hyperbole since a tweet about famine, war, or genocide surely would be […]

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The Non-Relationship Between Welfare Spending and Poverty Reduction in the Western World

Last September, I shared some very encouraging data showing how extreme poverty dramatically has declined in the developing world. And I noted that this progress happened during a time when the “Washington Consensus” was resulting in “neoliberal” policies (meaning “classical liberal“) in those nations (confirmed by data from Economic Freedom of the World). In other […]

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The Most Enjoyable Graph of 2018

I don’t think I’m a glass-half-empty kind of person, but I realized that I have a habit of sharing “depressing” charts. The “most depressing” chart about Denmark. A “very depressing” chart about the United States. The “most depressing” chart about Japan. Well, as the Monty Python folks advised, it’s time to look on the bright […]

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The Looming Fiscal Nightmare of Extravagant Unfunded Pensions for State and Local Bureaucrats

Back in 2013, I shared a poll to see who people would pick as their “favorite political cartoonist.” Michael Ramirez currently has the lead, which doesn’t surprise me when you look at options (here, here, here, and here) I provided. But if there was a prize for the most depressingly accurate political cartoon, he also […]

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To Fight Cronyism, Let’s Have Separation of Business and State

In my 30-plus years in Washington, I’ve lived through some very bad pieces of legislation. George H.W. Bush’s betrayal of his “read my lips” promise with the 1990s tax increase. Bill Clinton’s 1993 tax hike, which OMB admitted 18 months later was a failure. All sorts of bad policies under George W. Bush, starting with […]

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More Research and Evidence on the Need to Restrain Government Spending

Now that Donald Trump has been elected, one of my main goals will be to convince him and his team that it would be wrong to leave government spending on autopilot (and it would be even worse to spend more money and increase the burden of government!). Since Trump semi-endorsed the Penny Plan, I don’t […]

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Academic Research Shows Minorities Get Hurt When Government Tries to Help

I thought it was a remarkable development last year when a columnist from the New York Times reported that supposedly pro-feminist policies actually backfire against women. Maybe this would help readers recognize that there are adverse unintended consequences of government intervention. Bastiat would be very happy! Now we have a new example from the academic […]

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A Very Depressing Chart on Creeping Cronyism in the American Economy

Last year, I shared the most depressing PowerPoint slide in Danish history. Back in 2011, I wrote about a depressing picture of tax complexity in America. Let’s continue with the “depressing” theme today. James Bessen, from Boston University Law School, has an interesting article in the Harvard Business Review about the source of corporate profits […]

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Demographics + Entitlements = Europe’s Doom

The most depressing data about America’s economy is not the top tax rate, the regulatory burden, or the level of wasteful of government spending. Those numbers certainly are grim, but I think they’re not nearly as depressing as America’s demographic outlook. As you can see from this sobering image, America’s population pyramid is turning into […]

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By the Numbers: America’s Unfortunate Fiscal Evolution from Madisonian Constitutionalism to Wilsonian Statism

I’m a big fan of fiscal data. In part this is because I’m a policy wonk, but I also like budget numbers because they generally provide strong evidence for my philosophical belief in small government and spending restraint. For instance, I enjoy sharing my table showing nations that have experienced great success with multi-year limits […]

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Which Nation Has the Worst Dependency Ratio?

For both policy reasons and narcissism, I wish the most popular item ever posted on International Liberty was Mitchell’s Golden Rule. But that guide to sensible fiscal policy isn’t even in the top 70. Instead, my most-read post is a set of cartoons showing how the welfare state inevitably metastasizes as more and more people […]

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Helpful Advice for Jeb Bush and other Candidates: Shrinking Government Is the only Effective Way to Reduce Washington Corruption

A few days ago, I had some fun by writing a tongue-in-cheek column about the world’s most misleading headlines. Today, I want to share a strong contestant for the world’s most depressing headline. It’s from The Hill, and it’s the lead to a story about giddy times for Washington’s lobbying community. So why are lobbyists […]

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Will Denmark Become a Shining Example of Mitchell’s Golden Rule?

I suggested earlier this year that Denmark’s ratio of private sector workers compared with government dependents produced the world’s most depressing Powerpoint slide. It’s hard to be optimistic, after all, if a nation has an ever-growing number of people riding in the wagon (or the “party boat“) and a stagnant population of productive people. But […]

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The Wages of Cronyism, Big Government, and Corruption

The Bible says that “the wages of sin is death,” but the same can’t be said of Washington, DC. The bureaucrats, lobbyists, politicians, contractors, insiders, cronyists, and influence peddlers have rigged the system so that they get rich by diverting money from people in the productive sector of the economy. How bad is the disconnect […]

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Washington’s Over-Compensated Shadow Bureaucracy and the Real Income-Inequality Problem

One of my most widely read – but also most depressing – articles was from about two years ago and it exposed the fact that Washington, DC, is now the nation’s richest region. I explained that Washington is rich because of unearned wealth. Almost all of the loot that winds up in the pockets of […]

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Obamanomics and the Vanishing American Worker

The Department of Labor has issued its monthly employment report and the item that will attract the most attention is that the unemployment rate marginally increased to 7.3 percent. That number is worthy of some attention, but I think it distracts attention from a far more important set of data. What we should be more […]

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If We Want to Fix the Healthcare Mess, We Better Understand the Real Problem

This is the most depressing – but revealing – thing I have read in a long time: “the health-care sector has twice as many clerical workers as nurses and nine times as many as doctors.” That passage is from a very good column by Robert Samuelson, in which he covers a lot of ground. He […]

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Washington Prospers While America Suffers

Unemployment in the heartland may be high and incomes may be stagnating in most of the nation, but Washington, DC, continues to be an oasis of prosperity as more of the nation’s resources get consumed by government. The lastest evidence comes from the Washington Post, which reports on the federal government’s insatiable demand for more […]

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