The French Minister of Economy, Christine Lagarde, recently announced that the government will stimulate the housing market in an attempt to boost the economy. “Building and construction industry is a key sector, with important multiplier effect on the whole economy”, says Lagarde, “Our aim is to improve access to private property, knowing that only 58% of French citizens own their home, while the EU average is at 66%.”
Companies & Regulation
A few years ago, the so-called Tobin tax, designed to hit financial operations, was called-for by anti-globalization groups such as ATTAC. Today, in Europe, some parties claiming strangely to be liberalist, including heads of State, support the introduction of this new compulsory levy. Of course, politicians vie currently in the art of proposing new taxes and increasing those already existing. As though the ills which befall the European Union were not due precisely to the excessive taxes which feed obese and insatiable states.
A recent study by Duanjie Chen and Jack Mintz, School of Public Policy, University of Calgary is estimating the effective corporate tax rates in 80 countries. These effective rates are taking into account statutory rates plus tax base items that affect taxes paid on new investment, such as depreciation deductions, inventory allowances, and interest deductions.
The Commission’s proposal, which amends Regulation 1060/2009, will now pass to the EU Council of Ministers and the European Parliament for consideration. If adopted, the new rules would be expected to come into force during 2011. The Commission has already compelled CRAs that would like their credit ratings to be used in the EU to apply for registration.
As voices are heard everyday to “regulate” and “discipline” the finance industry, Lawrence H. White, Professor at George Mason University, Virginia and top scholar in money and banking, bring to our attention this very relevant quote from William Graham Sumner (1840-1910), Yale Professor, historian and sociologist.
The disaster everyone feared for several months finally occurred yesterday – Greece’s credit rating was reduced to junk status and financial markets slumped. Moreover, Portugal’s debt has also been downgraded, Spanish stocks plunged more than four percentage points and in Italy it was difficult to sell government bonds.
The last statistics from the OECD are unequivocal: the unemployment rate in France is and has always been well above the average for the OECD countries and also above the average of countries from the euro zone. This is a proof that the State is not the solution for unemployment.
This is the name of the paper from Bruce Yandle that you can read in the last issue of Cato’s Regulation. In the surrounding flood of new taxes, Bruce Yandle is addressing the question of whether the intention behind them is to correct “market failures” as pollution, obesity, financial speculations and so on, or to simply raise revenue for a deficit-plagued government.
69% is the annual growth estimated by Standard and Poor’s, one of the leading agencies for ratings. This is the sharpest rise of S&P 500 index (which is estimating the…