How economics – and the fiscal cycle – affect voter turnout is a richly studied question. But what about the other way? Can turnout – how many or few voters turn up to vote – affect the fiscal situation in the following period? IREF investigates and finds that people simply going and voting can be good for fiscal freedom. At least a little.
Public spending
Cypriot government has unilaterally “redefined” one of the conditions of its 10bn bailout package and lifted a ban on government officials traveling business class. Is this an exercise in customary opulent luxury or is it actually a hidden subsidy? And aren’t all governments guilty?
Voter turnout at the latest European Parliament election is much debated. Many countries saw further drops compared to last EP elections in 2009, fuelling concerns about widening democratic deficit. Beyond the general facade, IREF discovers an interesting geographic pattern in the turnout numbers.
Nobody likes poverty. But how do we end it? Suppose we give everyone some money. This will automatically include the poor, we don’t have to identify them, problem solved. Is it doable? Will anyone still work, create new ideas, write poetry, love?
The answer depends largely on how basic the basic income is, as we show.
Government’s mortgage interest subsidy, besides creating a lot of social costs, benefits almost solely the rich, yet it’s precisely the rich who boldly claim to want to scrap the programme. What’s going on?
Ultimately, how to resist the Obamamania that is ruining the United States?
The staff costs are higher at the Banque de France than in the Bundesbank! This is one of the conclusions of our comparative study “Banque de France vs Bundesbank”. On the one hand, 1.45 billion euros, in the other hand, 700 million euros! Regarding pension costs, the comparison also makes a significant difference: 440 million euros in France compare to the Bundesbank’s 100 million. With this precision: the Bank of France pensions are not funded …
It seems logical: economic growth resumed in the United States, and since the United States used an economic stimulus thanks to budget deficits, it could be believed that public spending lead to recovery. Indeed, but… it is in the sectors that did not benefited from the Federal money that new companies and new jobs were created. And in States that have reduced their public spending (as in some European countries).
It is the stunning figure revealed by Jean-Philippe’s Delsol in his book “Why I Am Going To Leave France”, an IREF bestseller.
Between the public sector (5.2 millions), the parapublic sector (2 millions), those who are granted the public allowance called “Active Solidarity Revenue” (1.3 millions) and those who are granted direct or indirect public allowances (6 millions), the total amount of the French people receiving public money is superior to those working in the private sector!
Attacks against wealthy people are still going on in spite of the fact the Welfare-State is plundering taxpayers. In a recently published book, sociologists – I should say ideologists – Michel and Monique Pionçon-Charlot are criticizing those they call “deliquents”. No, wealthy people are not offenders or delinquent. They are above all those who create jobs.