Publications

New retail tax in Hungary discriminates big business, which just happens to coincide with the finance minister’s nationalistic interest. New retail tax in Czechia favours big business, which just happens to coincide with the finance minister’s business interest. Curious thing, Coincidence…

You’ve heard of Bitcoin. Is it primarily a currency or a service? Its users probably could not care less; for many it will be both. Yet a distinction is necessary.…

Two recent stories from Greece reveal very different treatments of Germans paying taxes in Greece – depending on whether they are people or corporations.

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.

Ultra Low Interest Rates have destabilized the global Economy whose capital markets now show signs of Illiquidity.

Stress testing of banks by central banking authorities has come to prominence as reliance on the traditional accounting standards has waned. Europe’s banking system was successfully stress tested last October, but we were not impressed.

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.

As the US vs European recovery story swings our way, what lessons can Europe learn from the strong swing to the centre right in Britain’s elections? Is there a possibility of Brexit?

Banks have been hit with more fines, but more importantly, also with Criminal Convictions. Is this banking out of control because it has been deregulated? Is it fair to call the regulatory changes “deregulation”?

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!)