Mountains of Debt: Crisis and Change in Renaissance Florence, Victorian Britain, and Postwar AmericaLike the United States today, Renaissance Florence and Victorian Britain were the richest, most dynamic economic systems of their times. Yet each succumbed to a fiscal crisis brought on by public debt and taxation and eventually fell into long-term economic decline. Now, public debt and taxation dominate the America policy agenda. Must the United States follow the same dismal pattern of fiscal crisis and economic decline? Mountains of Debt argues that it is not too late for the United States to change directions and suggests a comprehensive program for reform of American fiscal institutions that would reduce the deficit problem and at the same time reverse the long-term structural trends that are both the cause and the effect of the fiscal crisis today. Offering proposals for reducing the deficit, this new analysis could alter the current course of the United States economy. |
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... consumption goods.2 Engel's Law implies that structural change is necessary if economic growth is to be selfsustaining. Without structural change in production, no longterm income growth is possible. To see this suppose, for example ...
... consumption goods.2 Engel's Law implies that structural change is necessary if economic growth is to be selfsustaining. Without structural change in production, no longterm income growth is possible. To see this suppose, for example ...
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... consumption; and also of that further problem of the relations between the two, which goes by the twofold name of Distribution and Exchange.2 The economy of Florence was both cause and effect of Renaissance Florence: Death, Birth, and ...
... consumption; and also of that further problem of the relations between the two, which goes by the twofold name of Distribution and Exchange.2 The economy of Florence was both cause and effect of Renaissance Florence: Death, Birth, and ...
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... consumption, distribution and exchange. Motivated by individual selfinterest, the people of Renaissance Florence were able to achieve prosperity that was well out of proportion to the physical resources at their command.3 This made ...
... consumption, distribution and exchange. Motivated by individual selfinterest, the people of Renaissance Florence were able to achieve prosperity that was well out of proportion to the physical resources at their command.3 This made ...
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... consumption also created employment for a variety of tradesmen, artisans, and merchants. During the Middle Ages these were the main and sometimes only occupations in many regions. Florence was different because it developed so far ...
... consumption also created employment for a variety of tradesmen, artisans, and merchants. During the Middle Ages these were the main and sometimes only occupations in many regions. Florence was different because it developed so far ...
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... consumption and those made for productive investment; interest was allowable on the latter but proscribed on the former. This change greatly simplified credit transactions, although it may not have affected their number in any ...
... consumption and those made for productive investment; interest was allowable on the latter but proscribed on the former. This change greatly simplified credit transactions, although it may not have affected their number in any ...
Contents
Mountains of Debt and the Heart of Florence | |
Britain and the Industrial Revolution | |
The Odious Tax and the Standing Miracle | |
The American Century and the American Crisis | |
The Changing Structure of American Government | |
The New Mountains of Debt | |
Saddle Points | |
Changing Directions | |
NOTES | |
BIBLIOGRAPHY | |
INDEX | |
Other editions - View all
Mountains of Debt: Crisis and Change in Renaissance Florence, Victorian ... Michael Veseth No preview available - 1990 |
Common terms and phrases
baby boom banks Black Death budget capital catasto change and fiscal Ciompi cloth commune’s consumption Corn Laws corporate Cosimo costs created deficit domestic dowry fund economic growth effect entrepreneurs example factors federal fifth element finance financial markets firms fiscal balance fiscal crisis fiscal imbalance flat tax Florence’s Florentine economy florin foreign government’s growing guilds important incentives income tax increase Industrial Revolution innovations institutions interest investment labor living standards longterm manufacturing Medici Medici bank Monte Commune Monte shares Napoleonic Wars national debt needed outlays pattern Peace of Lodi Peel’s percent perhaps period political population postwar private sector problem production profits programs public debt Renaissance Florence rigid rise role saddle point shift shortterm social insurance social security structural change tax burden tax expenditures tax rates tax reform tax system trade trend U.S. economy United Victorian Britain wealth workers world economy