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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... example of comparative advantage involved the opening of trade between Britain and Portugal. In autarchy (a state of closed selfsufficiency), Britain and Portugal would use their scarce resources as best they could to make wine and ...
... example of comparative advantage involved the opening of trade between Britain and Portugal. In autarchy (a state of closed selfsufficiency), Britain and Portugal would use their scarce resources as best they could to make wine and ...
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... example, that people initially spend 60 percent of their per capita income on food and that they derive, in the aggregate, 60 percent of their per capita income from the production of food. This is a stable macroeconomic equilibrium ...
... example, that people initially spend 60 percent of their per capita income on food and that they derive, in the aggregate, 60 percent of their per capita income from the production of food. This is a stable macroeconomic equilibrium ...
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... example, a generation of domestic servants moved to other “higher” service occupations (communications workers ... examples of structural change that I am interested in are the result of several roughly coincident revolutions in the ...
... example, a generation of domestic servants moved to other “higher” service occupations (communications workers ... examples of structural change that I am interested in are the result of several roughly coincident revolutions in the ...
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... example—changes the pattern of labor productivity among the sectors of the economy. When relative productivity changes, labor resources are drawn as if by a magnet from lowproductivity jobs to those where their work has higher social ...
... example—changes the pattern of labor productivity among the sectors of the economy. When relative productivity changes, labor resources are drawn as if by a magnet from lowproductivity jobs to those where their work has higher social ...
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... example, command over real resources is transferred from the bond's buyer (a family, for example) to the firm. This alters how resources are allocated, since the firm is unlikely to use these resources in the same way as the family. The ...
... example, command over real resources is transferred from the bond's buyer (a family, for example) to the firm. This alters how resources are allocated, since the firm is unlikely to use these resources in the same way as the family. The ...
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