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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... costs of adjustment greater for us in the future. I want to discuss, in general terms, the nature of structural change and the relationship between structural change and fiscal crisis. This chapter does not try to prove any theorem or ...
... costs of adjustment greater for us in the future. I want to discuss, in general terms, the nature of structural change and the relationship between structural change and fiscal crisis. This chapter does not try to prove any theorem or ...
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... cost. Both countries could consume more cloth and more wine, and together they could produce more of both items than they could separately in autarchy.1 The key to Ricardo's result — mutually advantageous exchange — was structural ...
... cost. Both countries could consume more cloth and more wine, and together they could produce more of both items than they could separately in autarchy.1 The key to Ricardo's result — mutually advantageous exchange — was structural ...
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... costs in the short run as workers and businesses are left behind in the declining sectors of the economy. The private cost is borne in the form of lost income and opportunities. The social cost is felt in many ways, including slower ...
... costs in the short run as workers and businesses are left behind in the declining sectors of the economy. The private cost is borne in the form of lost income and opportunities. The social cost is felt in many ways, including slower ...
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... and use government to make rules that institutionalize benefits for the few at a high cost to the many. As time passes, existing interest groups become more powerful and rigid; and new interest groups appear and grow until finally.
... and use government to make rules that institutionalize benefits for the few at a high cost to the many. As time passes, existing interest groups become more powerful and rigid; and new interest groups appear and grow until finally.
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... costs — the cost of risk and the opportunity cost of foregone present consumption or alternative investment.26 Still later, Florentines would find absolute merit in the concept of interest. Interest payments (through the commune's dowry ...
... costs — the cost of risk and the opportunity cost of foregone present consumption or alternative investment.26 Still later, Florentines would find absolute merit in the concept of interest. Interest payments (through the commune's dowry ...
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 | |
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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