The Italian government has created another massive turmoil in European markets with its 2019 budget proposal.
There is a long-standing debate over the goals of corporations. Should they focus mostly or exclusively on earning profits? Should they be willing to take on broader social missions? Should they be required to do so? What follows are some notes and snippets on this controversy, from various angles.
A Brexit deal is still no closer, but trade will not cease even if the March deadline passes. In the short-term, UK and EU economic growth will suffer. Medium-term new arrangements will hold back capital investment. Long-term, there are a host of opportunities, in time they will eclipse the threats.
Uncontrolled spending and ruinous results … Brazil has been a prime example of the policy of “more is less”. Under Lula and Rousseff the country felt invincible and believed that entering into massive trade and fiscal deficits while spending on ruinous government publicity projects and subsidies would work.
About 25-30% of all US workers are in a job that requires an occupational license; for comparison, 10.7% of US wage and salary workers are in a union. The usual justification given for occupational licenses is that they are needed to protect the health and safety of the public. But economists going all the way back to Adam Smith in 1776 (who focused on the issue of how overly long apprenticeships limit labor market competition in Book I, Chapter 10 of the Wealth of Nations) have harbored the suspicion that they also might serve to reduce competition in the labor market and thus help those who have the license achieve higher pay.
Any tax cut will always be attacked by the interventionist crowd. The main argument is deficits. Something I find amusing because those same interventionists are the ones that defend massive deficits when it comes from rising expenditure. Why? Because government spending empowers politicians and their crony sectors while tax cuts empower citizens.
While markets are becoming increasingly bullish, oil prices are close to a “warning zone” where the barrel could be one -if not the only- catalyst of a major slowdown.