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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... interest, and enthusiasm. Several of my colleagues at the University of Puget Sound reviewed pieces of this essay at one stage or another, including Wade Hands, Bruce Mann, and David F. Smith. Arpad Kadarkay, a political theorist and ...
... interest, and enthusiasm. Several of my colleagues at the University of Puget Sound reviewed pieces of this essay at one stage or another, including Wade Hands, Bruce Mann, and David F. Smith. Arpad Kadarkay, a political theorist and ...
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... interest in policy” and that comparative economic history “can test for generality, to set aside the theories that fit only the single case” (p. 1). This is my aim, too, and, like Kindleberger, I will try to avoid becoming ...
... interest in policy” and that comparative economic history “can test for generality, to set aside the theories that fit only the single case” (p. 1). This is my aim, too, and, like Kindleberger, I will try to avoid becoming ...
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... interest us today. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 examine the postwar economic events, trends, and problems of the United States. Here I trace in greater detail the pathways of change and the real and shadow movements that have led to our current ...
... interest us today. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 examine the postwar economic events, trends, and problems of the United States. Here I trace in greater detail the pathways of change and the real and shadow movements that have led to our current ...
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... interest groups gain power 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 ...
... interest groups gain power 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 ...
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... interest groups appear and grow until finally the economy loses its ability to grow, too set in the concrete of ... interest group behavior.) Government becomes better able to deal with existing problems and interests, but in the process ...
... interest groups appear and grow until finally the economy loses its ability to grow, too set in the concrete of ... interest group behavior.) Government becomes better able to deal with existing problems and interests, but in the process ...
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