Britain's tax wedge, which estimates total taxes on labour paid by employees and employers, minus cash benefits received by working households, increased by 2.45 percentage points last year, the most in the OECD.
The idea has reportedly gained support from Defence Secretary John Healey and has been discussed in private ministerial meetings in recent weeks, as ministers search for ways to bridge a widening fiscal gap without breaking Labour's tax and borrowing pledges.
The U.S. Treasury bond market has finally responded to the Mideast war, giving its assessment of the energy shock's severity and the war's effect on U.S. fiscal imbalance and inflation.
If there was a medal to be awarded for the best contributor of the week, the Deputy would be most deserving of it because he is a lone voice among many voices whose only inclination and focus is on spending more money, calling on the Government to keep on spending more money and spend as much as we can.
The newly-named Federal Reserve chairman faces an historic challenge that no predecessor has encountered since the years immediately following World War II. In that period, the gigantic spending required to aid our allies and secure military victory saddled the U.S. with towering debt. President Truman-fearing that huge interest costs would swamp the budget-heavily pressured the Fed to hold down rates. Today, the U.S. is wrestling with its biggest budget crisis in 70 years, and we're confronting a similar conundrum.
