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Showing posts from September, 2009

New Jersey Government is Bad for Business

New Jersey government has raced towards the goal of being the worst place in the country for business. The highest real estate tax, aggressive tax administration and ridiculous regulations combine to make New Jersey a poor choice for new business. The " nonprofit, nonpartisan Tax Foundation's...annual State Business Tax Climate Index found the state's tax structure was the least hospitable to economic growth, and its survey of census data on property taxes found New Jersey's were tops in the nation." the Atlantic City Press .

Big Taxes Leading us to another Great Depression?

Economist Arthur Laffer warned the Federal Reserve and the government may have avoided financial disaster last year current policies may be leading us into a second Great Depression. Laffer believes Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke desperately wanted to avoid the mistakes of the 1930s by not creating a “tight money” economy which prolonged the Great Depression. Laffer credits the Fed for keeping Fed Fund rates close to zero, but warns that is was not tight money and higher interest rates alone that caused the Great Depression to become so bad and last so long. Laffer said in a Wall Street Journal article this week that protectionist trade policies and big tax hikes are what ultimately turned a recession into the Great Depression. It began with the Smoot - Hawley trade legislation that slapped tariffs on foreign goods, which quickly triggered a huge response of trade retaliation by the United States global trading partners. This trade war paralyzed U.S. and global economies.