Articles by Constantin Gurdgiev
Txt Msg Tax = :-(
In May, a senior centre-right French MEP named Alain Lamassoure suggested that the EU should levy a tax on text messages (SMS) and email messages to shore up the future financing of EU programs. The suggestion came at the joint...
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A Sheep in Wolf's Clothes
The EU Presidency is by far the most honest expression of the European Union's real nature. First, given that it hardly matters who presides over the entity ruled by an unelected and largely unaccountable European Commission - the EU Presidency...
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Coulda Had a G8
This week, anticipating a tough G8 summit in St. Petersburg, the EU leadership finally issued a long-overdue statement of intention to move to a free-trade deal with Russia following Russia's accession to the WTO. The statement, issued by the European...
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Less Is More
When it comes to government spending, less is more. Less government spending and involvement in the economy - both in terms of regulatory interference and taxation burden - are associated with higher rates of economic growth, better productivity and more...
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Reality of the Leisure Class
Andrew Carnegie's century-old conjecture asserts that large inheritance will decrease a person's labor-force participation. The idle wealthy classes aside, a somewhat different proposition applies for the working classes: a decrease in after-tax real income through
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The Rights Stuff
A miniaturist in Turkish author Orhan Pamuk's My Name Is Red, a tale of murder, art and clashing civilizations, once remarked that "An artist should never succumb to hubris of any kind, he should simply paint the way he sees...
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Celtic Tiger, Endangered Species
Ireland is commonly regarded around the world as a shining example of private markets at work. Yet, unnoticed by many, over the last five years, the country has been sliding into the abyss of rising government spending, indirect tax increases...
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Central Bank Blues
It's an iron law of conflicted Third World countries that anything you do can get you shot at - including nothing. But whether it's tax harmonization or the Bolkestein-Frankenstein Services Directive the law seems, in its own way, to work...
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Europe's Chechen Blind Spot
In late October, while the European Parliament was debating new proposals for anti-terror cooperation and legislation within Europe, the UK website kavkazccenter.co.uk and its affiliates in Germany and Belgium posted a statement from the Chechen "Commander in Chie
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Web of Confusion
Just weeks before the UN-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis, the European Union is gaining international support for its proposal to internationalize control of the World Wide Web. Adopted by EU telecommunication ministers in July, the plan.
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