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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... economy loses its ability to grow, too set in the concrete of rules, regulations, and restrictive practices to adopt the progressive innovations it needs to remain dynamic. If rigid social institutions can cause slower growth even in an ...
... economy loses its ability to grow, too set in the concrete of rules, regulations, and restrictive practices to adopt the progressive innovations it needs to remain dynamic. If rigid social institutions can cause slower growth even in an ...
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... economic system precisely if government is to be successful and fiscal balance achieved. This is perhaps most true ... growth and survival. In other words, there are generally some sectors of the economy that cannot be taxed heavily for ...
... economic system precisely if government is to be successful and fiscal balance achieved. This is perhaps most true ... growth and survival. In other words, there are generally some sectors of the economy that cannot be taxed heavily for ...
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... economic and social environment better or are replaced by a different set of more successful institutions. The mountains of public debt that grow out of structural economic and social change are a problem, to be sure; but they are ...
... economic and social environment better or are replaced by a different set of more successful institutions. The mountains of public debt that grow out of structural economic and social change are a problem, to be sure; but they are ...
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... economy of Florence was both cause and effect of the nature of the Florentine people. Nature supplied the four elements of the physical world; but the people of Florence provided the spark, the special fifth element, that caused the growth ...
... economy of Florence was both cause and effect of the nature of the Florentine people. Nature supplied the four elements of the physical world; but the people of Florence provided the spark, the special fifth element, that caused the growth ...
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... economic growth, all in order to preserve high incomes for the guild members. An English weavers guild might control ... economic freedom of members and nonmembers alike, erecting structural rigidities (to use Olson's terminology) that ...
... economic growth, all in order to preserve high incomes for the guild members. An English weavers guild might control ... economic freedom of members and nonmembers alike, erecting structural rigidities (to use Olson's terminology) that ...
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