Utopia, you are standing in it!

As I warned a few days ago, Biden’s so-called Build Back Better plan is not dead.

There’s still a significant risk that this economy-sapping plan will get enacted, resulting in big tax increases and a larger burden of government spending.

Proponents of a bigger welfare state say the President’s plan should be approved so that the United States can be more like Europe.

This argument is baffling because it doesn’t make sense to copy countries where living standards are significantly lower.

In some cases dramatically lower.

Let’s explore this issue in greater detail.

In a column for Bloomberg, Allison Schrager analyzes America’s supply-chain problems and the impact on consumption patterns.

But what caught my eye were the numbers comparing the United States and Europe.

Americans can’t spend like they used to. Store shelves are emptying, and it can take months to find a car…

The Conservative Party has opposed the HRA root and branch ever since its enactment.  Manifesto commitments to overhaul the HRA were made in 2010, 2015, 2017, and 2019.  In 2015 Prime Minister, David Cameron, said he was open to the “nuclear option” of withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights (the ECHR) to ensure the UK’s highest court remains the “ultimate arbiter of human rights”, although this was to be delayed until after the referendum on EU membership.  The Government has now, however, confirmed that the UK will not leave the ECHR.

In December 2020 the Government announced it was setting up an Independent Human Rights Act Review chaired by Sir Peter Gross, the former Lord Justice of Appeal.  On 16 December 2021 the Review published its final report.  On the same day the Deputy Prime Minister and new Justice Minister, Dominic Raab, announced a packet of proposals

While on one of my 5 1/2 mile walks the other day the music from the Broadway show “Hamilton” reverberated in my ear buds. After having taught a course trying to discern the historical accuracy of the musical with numerous references to the Marquis de Lafayette I decided to digest Mike Duncan’s latest work, HERO OF TWO WORLDS: THE MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE IN THE AGES OF REVOLUTION. Since 2013 Duncan has recorded about 150 hours for his podcast Revolutions, a chronological blow by blow account of ten historical revolutions between the 17^th and early 20^th centuries and in his new book he expands upon three seasons of his podcast. In terms of historical depth and important insights I found Duncan’s work satisfying and at times insightful. If one compares Lafayette’s character in the musical to his actual life, apart from artistic license there…

In my recent column listing the “Best and Worst News of 2021,” I included Joe Biden’s global tax cartel as one of the awful things that happened in the past 12 months.

It’s bad news for workers, consumers, and shareholders that politicians approved a system that will require all nations to have a corporate tax rate of at least 15 percent.

From the perspective of politicians, it’s easy to understand why they want a tax cartel. it’s a way for them to get their hands on more money. Just as gas stations would want a system that rigs gas prices at a high level. Or grocery stores would want a system to rig high food prices.

From the perspective of taxpayers, however, tax competition is much better. Politicians have a much harder time raising tax rates (and in many cases feel pressure to lower tax rates) when they know that…

Overcharged and overtaxed. UK energy customers are getting clobbered from all directions: the markets, the so-called climate levies, and taxes. The government is in disarray as its renewables-based policies force the pace of cost increases.
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Energy bills have soared as global wholesale prices have risen rapidly – but some Tory MPs and peers say they have increased more in the UK because of taxes the government has the power to remove.

Twenty Conservative politicians have urged Boris Johnson to scrap energy taxes as bills continue to rocket, reports Sky News.

The MPs and peers have written a letter in the Sunday Telegraph to ask the prime minister and Chancellor Rishi Sunak to help consumers facing “fuel poverty”.

Energy prices in the UK are being forced up faster than any other comparable country due to “taxation and environmental levies”, they wrote.

First, the bad news. UK consumer price inflation has already hit 5.1pc in the 12 months to November. And it is likely to rise further in the coming months as businesses pass on more of the price pressure that is already in the pipeline.

In particular, the energy regulator Ofgem is reviewing its cap on domestic gas and electricity bills. The surge in global energy prices means that this cap could be increased by as much as 50pc in April, taking headline inflation as high as 7pc.

With underlying pay growth probably averaging about 4pc, this implies that real wages (after allowing for inflation) could be squeezed by as much as 3pc.

April is shaping up to be the “cruellest month” for other reasons too. This is the month when the planned increase of 1.25 percentage points in National Insurance Contributions (NICs) kicks in, as well as other changes including…

When the “Great Recession” hit, many comparisons were made with the “Great Depression” (see Eichengreen and O´Rourke Vox columns which according to the editor shattered all Vox readership records with over 450,000 views). Eight years after the 2007 peak, now there are “reminders” of 1937, also eight years after the 1929 peak!

Robert Samuelson has a piece:

How fast should the Federal Reserve tighten monetary policy? Should it tighten at all? I recently wrote about these issues but didn’t have the space to explore a fascinating aspect of the debate: the mostly forgotten 1937-38 recession. To many, it’s a cautionary tale against adopting tighter policies too soon. The latest to sound the alarm is Ray Dalio, the respected founder of Bridgewater Associates, a huge hedge fund group. His recent memo to clients inspired a Page 1 story in the Financial Times, headlined “Dalio warns Fed of 1937-style rate risk.”

And…

The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X
by Les and Tamara Payne
612 pages
Liveright (W.W. Norton)
Published: October 2020

[On June 11 “The Dead Are Arising” was awarded the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in biography]

Published last fall, “The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X” is the result of nearly three decades of work by Les Payne. Following his death in 2018 – with the manuscript nearly finished – his daughter (and primary research assistant) completed the book. Les Payne was a former U.S. Army Ranger and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and editor at Newsday.

Payne’s background as an investigative journalist will not come as a surprise to readers of this exquisitely-researched biography. Payne interviewed hundreds of people including nearly everyone he could find who knew Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little): childhood friends, classmates, cellmates, colleagues, family members and neighbors. His…

The Hopkins Touch: Harry Hopkins and the Forging of the Alliance to Defeat Hitler
by David Roll
520 pages
Oxford University Press
Published: Jan 2013

“The Hopkins Touch: Harry Hopkins and the Forging of the Alliance to Defeat Hitler” by David Roll was published in 2013. Roll is a senior partner at Steptoe & Johnson (a DC-based law firm) and previously served as Assistant Director of the Federal Trade Commission. He is also the author of a biography of General George Marshall which I read earlier this year.

Readers acquainting themselves with Franklin Roosevelt invariably become enamored with two people central to FDR’s orbit: Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins. I read David Michaelis’s biography of Eleanor shortly after its release in 2020. And I’ve finally gotten around to this somewhat older – but marvelously compelling – biography of FDR’s closest political advisor.

Harry Hopkins (1890-1946) began his professional…

The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life and Times of James A. Baker III
by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser
688 pages
Doubleday
Published: September 2020

Published last month, “The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life and Times of James A. Baker III” is the product of seven years of work by husband-and-wife team Peter Baker and Susan Glasser. Peter Baker (no relation to James) is chief White House correspondent for The New York Times and the author of books on George W. Bush, Barack Obama’s presidency and the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Glasser is a writer for The New Yorker and CNN global affairs analyst.

This biography’s most basic strength is the extensive research underlying its preparation including more than two-hundred interviews of James Baker’s friends, family, colleagues, political enemies…and at least three former presidents. And while the authors interviewed Baker on at least two-dozen…