CityPoop Business Community

In 1959 the completion of the St. Lawrence Seaway provided a shortcut around the port at Buffalo, New York. The city’s economy began a gradual deterioration as fewer and fewer ships stopped there. The city’s population declined by over 50 percent as residents sought opportunities elsewhere. Buffalo became a shell of its former self.

On a worldwide basis, about one-third of annual world income goes unreported. As noted earlier, estimates for the United States center on about 10 percent, while it is believed that around 20 percent of income in Europe is underground and thus goes unreported.

Congress increased the length of eligibility for unemployment benefits to almost two years. In response, some of the people receiving those extended benefits began to seriously seek “offthe- books” jobs, just as their counterparts have long done in Europe. What is a way of life for the unemployed in France, Italy, and Spain has started [...]

In many European countries, particularly France, Germany, and Italy, firing a poorly performing worker is extremely difficult, and in some cases impossible. The amount of paperwork and legal proceedings that an employer has to undertake to get rid of a worker is sometimes beyond belief—at least for Americans.

A comparison of Europe and the United States suggests that our conclusion about the importance of taxes is correct. European nations, on average, have imposed higher marginal tax rates on their citizens than has the United States. Estimates of the size of the underground economy are that it is twice as large in Europe as [...]