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Thomas Piketty’s book “Capital in the 21st century” was dubbed as “blockbuster”. But for a group of French intellectuals under the lead of IREF, a free market institute in Paris, it was important to demonstrate that the French economist’s “Capital” did not deserve its commercial success. “Anti-Piketty” is a collection of essays by renowned international economists and historians, critical of Thomas Piketty’s volume.

Greece failed to pay a 1.5 billion installment by the end of June. The rhetoric has long portrayed the lenders as fat cats living off Greece’s misery. Varoufakis had his sight on 1.9 billion which he called “ECB’s profiteering on poor Greeks” and should be “returned” to the Greeks to cover the IMF payment. In reality, the sum not only would not solve anything, its interpretation is plainly wrong. But it’s great propaganda for the referendum.

How do you make a credible list of countries whose tax policies you don’t agree with? Do you ask only half of your members, let them decide their own criteria, and have it approved by a few interest groups? If you are the EU, then yes.

Two decades after the last EU bananagate, it’s going bananas again. EU subsidy programme to bring “fruits, vegetables and bananas” [sic!] to schools is only partly trying to do a “good thing”. Partly it’s changing schools into dumpsters for excess output of oversubsidised agriculture. And the EU Parliament has just infused it with EU propaganda: “EU food good, other food bad”. Orwell’s Ministry of Truth would be proud.

So you thought you could have your cake and eat it. That you reduce tax on something which has benefitial implications for a disadvantaged social group, saves resources and is good for the environment. Think again, says the EU Court. Your young ones are, apparently, not a legitimate aim of social policy. (And you didn’t declare the goal in your law! Off with you!)

How do you know that any institution has too much money? When it does not manage, in spite of best intentions, to spend them all. Then there is room for scaling down the budget. The money will not disappear – it will be spent by the original “donors” instead. We show that the EU is, at least to some extent, such institution.

In all epochs, exports were almost always considered good for an economy. That’s why modern governments have generally stayed away from trying to tax exports. Not so the current Greek government, however. By increasing the tax rate on a vital component of Greek exports it is hoping to raise some “free revenue”. It won’t work.

An age-old phenomenon: Some unemployment exists and politicians want to fight it by creating conditions for new jobs. The usual recipe involves expanding government spending and investment programs. Figures for OECD countries show that places with low taxation of labour tend to exhibit low unemployment low and high levels of individual annual work hours. For politicians this serves as a much more promising recipe for politicians: the best way of “creating conditions for new jobs” and lowering unemployment is to reduce the tax burden on labour.

European Parliament has just voted to increase the budget each MEP can spend on their assistants. This can hardly be justified. Worse, it can increase the deluge of new regulations.

International institutions like IMF or World Bank do often give economic policy advice to poorer countries, but generally only after thorough analysis. EU does not specialise in such anaislys, and its diplomats should avoid dispensing such unfounded advice altogether.