Conspiracy theory is the lazy way to explain political puzzles. And it lets the villains off the hook. That’s the case with the failure of politicians to reform the public’s finances. The explanation is simple: politicians won’t make the changes that would make everyone better off because they are cowards. How else can we explain what happened when an eminent economist wrote three reports for the British government? Two of them were published with official fanfare. His report on taxation was buried.

The manifestation of evil in Europe in the 20th century began and ended with events in Bosnia. An assassination in Sarajevo triggered World War 1. And after the fall of the Soviet empire, the people of Bosnia endured genocide. Today, Bosnia-Herzegovina (B-H) is a fractured territory whose peoples need policies that integrate them into a stable social system. This essay describes the financial principles that would deliver economic prosperity and social harmony. New policies must deliver on two needs:

-acceptance that the political system treats every citizen equally and fairly, and respects ethnic and cultural diversity; and

-economic growth that is not disrupted by the systemic failures which continue to create mass unemployment in market economies.

The cornerstone of the new financial model is technically called “economic rent”. Because of intense opposition to reform by the privileged elites, adoption of the necessary tax reforms is not the easy option. Could the People’s Plenums that have emerged in towns throughout B-H override the opposition of the political elites?

China is now in the unique position of being able to learn from the tragedies of Western nations, to create a post-capitalist society based on the freedom and equality of all citizens. This can be achieved if the financial system is constructed on respect for the division between what the individual citizen may retain as […]

THE financial ligaments of the statecraft of greed are most visibly displayed in Italy. The man who symbolises the culture of corruption is Silvio Berlusconi, a convicted tax fraudster and Italy’s longest-serving post-war prime minister. To reassert his power, he has now forced the government to abandon a tax on the flow of income that […]

The financial mechanism that damages people’s mental health and their culture is being laid bare by the policies ordained by the Beijing Politburo. The communists are telescoping into a few formative years the policies that took centuries to evolve in Western Europe. It’s all to do with the way government funds the public’s services. Instead […]