Free Republic

The new international tax rankings are out for 2008, and congratulations to Washington, D.C., are again in order. Our political class has managed to maintain America's rank with the second highest corporate tax rate in the world at 39.3% (average combined federal and state). For the first time, the U.S. statutory rate is now 50% higher than the average of our international competitors, continuing a long-term trend as the rest of the world keeps reducing corporate tax rates. Last week Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota waved around a new politically generated study by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) finding...

France has found a new tale of good and evil about which to make clever conversation. As usual the villains are capitalism and America, and “globalization” is the bogeyman combining the two malign forces which have, in their paranoid vision, conspired to diminish la France. Ho hum. The New York Times informs us that Parisian wine and film circles are abuzz with discussion of the surprise hit documentary Mondevino, which reportedly decries the “globalization” and “homogenization” of the world wine industry. Those under attack include Robert Parker, the American wine critic whose tastes have become the single most influential factor...